Nobody ever believes me when I tell them that my relatives founded Middlesbrough but it’s entirely true. Having raised the money to build Stephenson’s Rocket, my Quaker forebears realised that, if only there was a port nearby, there might be options for export. Their brainwave gave birth to ’Boro, a town now widely assumed to be the Detroit of England. It’s an interesting place: there’s no grand architecture, but it does at least have the vestiges of the old ICI chemical plant, a complex so prominent that it supposedly inspired the cityscapes of Blade Runner. There’s no romanticising it, though: Middlesbrough is deprived to the extent that I should probably be paying reparations.

Freije is entirely awful, so I have no doubt whatsoever that she’ll win

Freije is entirely awful, so I have no doubt whatsoever that she’ll win

But at least I’m not pushing the Turner Prize, this year hosted at MIMA, the town’s strangely consistent Blair-era contemporary art museum. As reported by the Observer’s Laura Cumming, the Tate – the travelling award’s parent organisation – has contributed nothing to the project except for the extremely modest prize money; Middlesbrough, meanwhile, has had to raise approximately £1 million in order to stage the........

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