It is quite easy to talk yourself into feeling that Britain is irredeemably broken. No less a social commentator than Jeremy Clarkson averred in last weekend’s Sunday Times that we live in “a country where the roads look like they’ve been attacked by badgers, the police are useless, the taxes are ridiculous, the benefits are worse, the exhibits in every art gallery are covered in soup”. Which is, of course, one way of looking at it.

The ongoing scourge of potholes notwithstanding, I have been looking at it a slightly different way this week, and feeling rather more optimistic about our nation’s prospects. Clarkson went to Miami to discover a city that’s prosperous and dynamic and forward-looking. I went to Manchester.

England’s second city has undergone an astounding transformation since the turn of the century, fuelled by the expansion in high-tech, digital, life sciences and media businesses, and since 2015 its economy has grown by more than 3 per cent a year, twice the national average.

And everywhere are the signs of civic confidence: an integrated transport system that is a model for urban living; the once-dilapidated warehouses, mills and factories that have become fancy (and........

© iNews