VISITING the North West to dispel the notion that regions like ours are poor relations in a Britain marked by a North-South prosperity divide, Tony Blair is, of course, right in pointing out that the concept is an over-simplification.

For even within well-off areas like the South East there are pockets of deep deprivation, just as, in our region, affluence can be found alongside poverty.

But there is no denying that, while it might not be clearly marked geographically, a divide does exist in that, proportionately, the South has far more areas of prosperity and fewer of poverty than the North and that the affluence that does exist there is generally greater than that found elsewhere.

If the government or anyone else wants an accurate map of the wealth disparities in Britain, they need only use house prices as a guide.

And while the result would show a much more complex situation than a crude North-South divide, overall it would reveal the summary painted by Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond - that of the lower half of England having small islands of poverty in a sea of prosperity whereas elsewhere would be found islands of prosperity in a sea of poverty. But the question for the government, surely, is not one of simply identifying the complexity of the situation.

Rather it should be to demonstrate that the influence of the richer and more populous South, in particular that of the Home Counties, does not disadvantage the less well-off regions.

But did we not have a classic example of this only recently when, in order to cool the over-heating economy of the South East, demonstrated by its rocketing house prices, the Bank of England put up interest rates hitting once again the manufacturing areas of the North and Midlands already suffering badly from the effect of the strong pound on exports?

Where was the fine tuning and careful targeting then?

It is not the need to better pinpoint where the second-class areas of Britain lie that should occupy the government, but the need to stop them continually getting second-class treatment of this nature.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.