Tory MPs are right: the north needs a renaissance – but it's got to be green | Owen Jones

Places hollowed out by deindustrialisation could be at the forefront of an environmental revolution

Here are two news stories which may not seem linked, and yet they are. The first: a letter written this week to the prime minister by the newly formed Northern Research Group. Representing 50 Conservative MPs in northern seats - including those wrested from Labour control after generations - they rightly point to how the pandemic has exposed in sharp relief the deep structural and systemic disadvantage faced by our own communities", and express fear that the cost of the crisis could be paid by the downgrading of the levelling-up agenda, and northern constituencies like ours will be left behind".

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