Anyone with any intelligence has already moved south. Of the Channel.

eric campbell, harrogate, uk

" We wholeheartedly support the regeneration of northern cities.”

So when are you going to start Mr Grayling? The infrastructure is wonderful but where exactly are the jobs. In excess of 80,000 people on benefits in Liverpool alone. The same number or more than when Labour came to power.

judy, Liverpool, England

This is the same South East of the UK which is unable to cope with water demands in the summer months and the same south east that will have a housing crisis in the next 20 years.

pull the other one Dave.

I could think of no better place than Liverpool now to bring up kids or set up home as I did

Mat, LIVERPOOL,

Wait a couple of years and the phrase "poor cities" will include most southern ones too.

Jon Leigh, Southern, France

Why the favouritism towards Bolton, Sunderland and the Scousers? please feel free to abandon all of the North as a lost cause. We'll muddle through, honest. oh yeah, if we could just have our bits of the travel, power, water, health and political administration/funding infrastructure back.......

steve cook, Lancaster, The North

Thanks very much, Policy Exchange. As an entrepreneur trying to run a business in Sunderland, this is exactly the sort of publicity we need. Isn't a Think Tank supposed to er, think, before opening its mouth?

Idiots.

George, Sunderland,

Policy Exchange wants to know how to help Sunderland? How about taking those blinkers off and recognising that there are talented people north of Watford Gap who are worth investing in?
I wonder how many of these 'thinkers' have actually visited the places they are so quick to condemn?

George, Sunderland,

Throughout history prosperous towns and cities have been abandoned when their reason to exist was gone. The world is littered with them. Things change and people either move or they adjust to the lower standard of living available. What's different here?

Alan, Roxburgh, UK

Policy Exchange's proposal is crazy. Increasing the size of London will just increase everyone's commute times, add to congestion on commuting routes, and reduce the quality of life in the capital
And what about the pressure on water resources etc in the South East? You need less people not more!

Martin Lowdon, Lutterworth, Leics,

This is the most preposterous claim ive ever heard, especially from a thinktank that has a firm grip on the ear of a party that expects to form a government in a matter of months time. Are they blind to that fact that many cities have demonstrated drastic economic transformations? Look at Leeds...

David, Hull, UK

I wonder how many of the Policy Exchange researchers were from north of Birmingham?

Also I believe that a similar initiative heralded the begining of the end of a certain Nikolai Ceausescu.

Mick Staniforth, Manchester, UK

Bad move Dave.

Steve , Coleshill, U.K.

"Centralisation of the nation's wealth, employment and government resources in the South-East has not worked and we would urge industry to relocate to the regions where there is a skilled workforce, affordable land and housing, and better standard of living than in london"
would be my conclusion

Pete, Liverpool, UK

Oxford certainly couldn't cope with that kind of influx without being razed and rebuilt (would that really happen?); it's not the paradise the authors of the report remember from student days. Continuing the (so far successful) regeneration of the north would cost less and work better.

Tim, Oxford,

I have to agree that I believe the think tank is right. Labour heartlands like those mentioned will never change as the benefits culture is so ingrained by Labour policies over the decades its the only life they know. Why work when the state will provide for you and your many off spring.

Mike, Alicante, Spain

Foreign Controlled Central Government, Companies, Banks and Investment houses don't care about the regions, we used to have Northern banks well run ones who weren't driven by city greed. Time we went back to that. Then the Northern entrepreneurs will get sound support and be able create jobs.

Dave, Chorley,

It's very wrong to single out the North and especially Sunderland as parts of the country to abandon. There as fantastic workers there simply waiting for real jobs, jobs with prospects. Look at the Nissan car plant, a plant which has the best productivity of all the Nissan car plants!

RayB , Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

So concreting over the South is now promoted by this maverick branch of the Tory Party! This flies in the face of all arguments about infrastructure, sustainability etc. I also find the notion of Southern concentration camps for Northerners at odds with most ideas of freedom, nonsegregation &c.

Peter, Suffolk,

Just goes to show how southern focused the tories are, Britain means the whole of Britain, not just a few counties in the south of England! They want to create a nation of people working in service industries, and consuming cheap rubbish!

Shaun, London, UK

The industrialised areas of this country never really recovered since their decline between 1968 and 1974. What was left was large population and no work. London was lucky it managed to reform itself a financial centre.

steve tea, manchester, cheshire

Moving everything down south is a mistake - it will create a population bottleneck of elderly folk in the North today and in the South tommorow. The North needs large projects - a industrial tradition does not die except by wilful neglect. We need technocrats in power rather than fools.

kevin, Lincoln, UK

The Northern cities were doomed by 1982. While the French and Germans backed their inefficient industries with big subsidies - and now reap the benefit, the Conservatives pulled the plug.

But authors need to focus next on the switch of jobs and capital from London to Frankfurt - that happens next

Casey, Newcastle,

policy exchange what a surprise now how many journalists wouldn't predict this neo-con fascist think tank would slowly ruin the Tories this the first sign David Cameron still has time to brake free from their clutches but i doubt he would even consider that

Zac, London, UK

If all you do is give money to local councils to "regenerate" you forsake every tenet of a free market society and capitalism. The only way forward is a return to the investment of capital at the grass roots of society. The Industrial Revolution was not generated by councils, but entrepreneurs.....

Chris Coles, Medstead, Alton, United Kingdom

The simple solution would be a per capita rate of funding and double taxation on 2nd properties. In addition to that abolish unemployment benefit and replace it with paid state labour. So that anyone who wants to stay in their region and claim benefit can work on improving it.

Martin, Bristol, United Kingdom

Such cities should become tax & red-tape -free zones. Iceland, Israel & Ireland are similarly isolated/sea-bound, but have world-class economies because of free markets. Remove impediments and watch our northern cities become free-market powerhouses. But of course the EU would never permit it.

Bert Hardy, Stafford, UK