Want more productivity, Rachel Reeves? It’s time to embrace Mancunian swagger | Richard Partington

Manchester is closing the gap on London, with public money having helped to crowd in' a lot of private investment

Over the summer Rachel Reeves has been on a road trip around Britain. From Cornwall and Kent, to Aberdeen, south Wales and Belfast, in search of the solutions for a national economy that is stuck in a rut.

Inspired by this tour, the chancellor used a Guardian article last week to set her autumn budget priority: boosting productivity. Tax and spending may dominate news headlines, but this is the real problem facing the country, and no politician of the past two decades has managed to fix it.