Living in the United Kingdom, you live under greater regional inequality than any country in Europe. (University of Wolverhampton)

As a Northerner, you have a lower life expectancy and a higher chance of taking your own life. (Marmot et al., 2020)

When the government cut council budgets during austerity, in the North there were greater cuts for your council. (Gray & Barford, 2018)

In the North your child's school gets less funding per pupil, leaving a disproportionate number of schools failing. (Children’s Commissioner, 2018)

On average, you will die sooner in the North. Taking the average of the healthy life expectancy estimates for local authorities across the North of England, the average for both men and women is only 60.6 years. UK-wide, the estimate is 62.9 years for men and 63.3 years for women. (Office for National Statistics, Health state life expectancies, UK: 2017 to 2019)

If you live in the North West, while there's great variety in healthy life expectancy estimates on average, they're still below UK average, at 61.3 years for men and 61.4 years for women. Shockingly, if you live in Blackpool you have the lowest estimate in the entire UK, with 53.7 years for men and 55.3 years for women. (Office for National Statistics, Health state life expectancies, UK: 2017 to 2019)

And if you live in the North East? Every local authority healthy life expectancy estimate in the North East is below UK average for both men and women. If you're a man in Hartlepool you have the lowest estimate of 57 years, while if you're a woman in Stockton-on-Tees you have the lowest estimate of 56.8 years. (Office for National Statistics, Health state life expectancies, UK: 2017 to 2019)

If you're a man in the North East you have the highest likelihood to take your own life in the UK, contrasting with men in the South East, who have the lowest. If you're a woman in Yorkshire and Humberside, you have the highest likelihood to take your own life, while women in London have the lowest. (Marmot et al, 2020)

Individual government spending on you in the North is £663, whilst the average across the whole of the UK is £759. In London, spending can be as much as £1,174 per person. (HM Treasury)

Between 2009 and 2018, a total of £3.6 billion was cut from your public services in the North, while the South enjoyed a real-terms rise of £4.7 billion. (Raikes et al, 2019)

On average, in the North your income is £4,000 to £6,000 less than in London. (Corlett et al, 2019)

You have fewer opportunities for work in the North. Of new jobs created between 2007 and 2017, 35% were in London. Only 5% were in the North East of England. (McCall, 2018)

If you have a child in the North, they are over a third more likely to live in poverty than in the rest of England (Northern Health Science Alliance)

Compared to the rest of England, your child in the North is over three times more likely to live in a local authority with more low-income families than average. (Northern Health Science Alliance)

You have less support when raising a child in the North. Spending on SureStart children’s centres has been cut since 2010, with cuts of £412 per eligible child in the North compared to £283 in the rest of England. (Department for Education)

If you need help raising a child in the North East, you have even less support, as SureStart funding in the North East has been slashed by a half in less than a decade. (Department for Education)

Your child's friends in the North are much more likely to be in care. There are 26 local authorities with more than 100 children per 10,000 in care; 21 of these are in the North. (Northern Health Science Alliance)

If you live in the North East you're more likely to have an impoverished child than anywhere else in the UK, with 29% of pupils in the North East being eligible for free school meals compared to 17% in the South East. (Department for Education)

Things aren't much better for your child if you live in the North West, or in Yorkshire and the Humber, as 25% of pupils are eligible for free school meals in both compared to an average of 22% across the UK. (Department for Education)

Compared to London, less money is spent on your child's education. In 2016, spending on secondary schools was £1,300 per pupil per year lower in the North than in London. (Institute for Public Policy Research)

If you have a child in the North, they are 15% less likely to continue to higher education than their southern counterparts. (Department for Education)

If you live in a deprived area of the North, your child's education is more likely to be poor. More than half of the children in the most deprived areas of the North are attending secondary schools rated lower than "good." (Children's Commissioner)

Depending on where you live in the North, your child might be at an even greater disadvantage. Eight of the ten local authority areas with the fewest 16-year-olds staying on for sixth form are in the North. (The Northern Agenda/Manchester Evening News)

Even if your child is gifted, they might not get the chance to show it. Of the eight Parliamentary constituencies in England where there are no schools or sixth form colleges offering A-Levels, six of these are in the North. (The Northern Agenda/Manchester Evening News)

Your child's friends in the North who receive free school meals are 40% less likely to achieve a good Maths and English GSCEs compared to children receiving free school meals in London. (Children's Commissioner)

Those same friends who receive free school meals are also half as likely to go to university compared to similar pupils in London. (Burton, 2021)

If your child goes to school in Yorkshire and the Humber, their school will fail many of their classmates. In 2019 in Yorkshire and the Humber, 11,000 people left the education system without five GCSEs or equivalent after 14 years of full-time education. 30% of these had been eligible for free school meals. (Children's Commissioner)

Your likelihood of continuing your education is worse in the North, with around 6% of teenagers in Northern city regions not in sustained education, compared to a national average of 5%. (Children's Commissioner)

In Northern cities like Middlesbrough, Manchester and Blackpool, where the number of 16 to 18 year-olds out of education is twice the national average, your likelihood of continuing your education is even worse. (Children's Commissioner)

If you're living in the Yorkshire and Humber region you are among some of the most disadvantaged people in the UK, as 17% of disadvantaged people living there are not in education, employment or training. (Children's Commissioner)

Your job opportunities are among the worst in the UK if you are a young person living in the City of Bradford, where youth unemployment has reached 26%. (Children's Commissioner)

The centre of government power in the United Kingdom is London (and the surrounding Home Counties). Councils have very little power: it's all concentrated in the Westminster Houses of Parliament, which have the majority of power to decide on investments.

Big businesses depend on access to the government in order to get the state investments they need, so their headquarters tend to be in London. This centres big businesses in London, and smaller businesses spring up around them.

Concentrating businesses in London means that the most powerful people in the United Kingdom congregate around London. Because most powerful people are also rich, even more businesses spring up to serve them.

This means that businesses and money are drawn to London.

The Westminster political parties are also based in London, as they use access to the big businesses to raise money and get their message across to voters.

When deciding where to invest money, the government has a choice:

Invest in London, where the big businesses and money are, where the rich and powerful live, and where the Westminster political parties are based; or

Put money somewhere else.

Since the rich and powerful live in London alongside the Westminster politicians, they also demand investment in London because it makes their home city a nicer place to live.

When the government decides it needs to make cuts, the reverse also applies. The government has a choice:

Cut investment in London, where the big businesses and money are, where the rich and powerful live, and where the Westminster political parties are based; or

Cut money from somewhere else.

The rich and powerful are constantly lobbying the government to decide where investments and cuts are made. They attend social events with the Westminster politicians, eat and drink at the same restaurants, and have memberships in the same clubs. The opinions of the rich and powerful are very hard for Westminster politicians to ignore.

None of this requires corruption. These pressures still apply even if politicians refuse to accept benefits in exchange for favours. Changing one set of Westminster politicians for another cannot fix the problem: only taking back power can make a difference.

Businesses also decide where to invest and where to cut, and they have exactly the same choice: to choose London, where there is power and money, or somewhere else.

With all the opportunities focused in London, our friends and family are forced to move down there in order to find work.

As people leave the North to seek work in London, businesses and money go with them, which makes it even less likely for government and business to invest in the North.

This leads to too few jobs in the North, and too many people in London.

When far too many people seek work for the number of jobs available, this drives down wages and forces people to take precarious work, such as zero hours contracts. This happens in both London (too many people) and the North (too few jobs).

Too many people in London also drives up rents, which unbalances the housing market across the whole United Kingdom.

Every penny taken from Northern public services is a penny that doesn’t go to public workers.

This means Northern public workers cannot spend as much, and local businesses in the North receive less from them.

So the cuts to public spending ripple outward so that everyone ends up poorer.

Less money earned locally means less income tax for the government to spend on public services: more cuts follow in a vicious cycle.

As more wealth is concentrated in London, more and more power is held by Westminster politicians.

This makes it easier for Westminster Politicians to enrich themselves, whether through huge salaries, eye-watering expenses, or lucrative second jobs. All of which are legal.