The geography of stupidity: From where do all the bad ideas come?

The 30-year rule governing the release of Cabinet papers means that the British people only learned of a covert 1980s policy to manage the decline of northern England in early 2012. We can only guess at what is really being said behind closed doors today. There are some clues in a series of newspaper reports published in 2012 and in the social backgrounds and professed beliefs of the current Cabinet. They point to what might be the real intention behind reforms in education, health, housing and social security.