Jonathan Todd

Given that I have traveled from London to the north to spend Christmas with my family, this seems the perfect juncture to post this slice of Jeff Stelling genius. It can only be the kind of people who have never been to Middlesbrough and do not know about the Cleveland Hills, the inspiration for Stelling’s ire, which can give us the offensive politics of David Cameron’s favourite think-tank. In many ways, their “close the north” rhetoric is more redolent of heartless spivs than even the latest financial scandal to befall the Tory high command. Well, perhaps, Policy Exchange provides the heartlessness and Michael Spencer the spiving.