Regional policy requires rethink as myth of London's productivity debunked | Larry Elliott

Does a doctor in England's capital really work three times harder than one in Merthyr Tydfil?

Britain's regional divide is well known and well documented. The richer bits of the country tend to be clustered below a line drawn from the Wash to the Severn estuary, while London is so different from everywhere else that it may as well be its own city-state.

There is also another divide: between the big cities and the smaller towns. The north-west may be less prosperous than the south-east but on average people are better off in Manchester than they are in Blackpool.

There is a demand for solicitors in Bodmin just as there is in Barking