January is the longest month, and the cost-of-living crisis is biting hard. In the north-east, Newcastle United are near the top of the Premier League following a Saudi-backed buyout of the club in 2021. The only downside to success is that many Geordies now can’t get a ticket to watch their team play. Some have turned south of the Tyne, to Gateshead FC, a local non-league team. Gateshead play in an old athletics stadium and charge a tenth of the cost of Newcastle. Sustainability and accessibility are opponents in a game where money is the referee.
Things are a bit different over the water in France, where I recently went to watch Paris FC play. For this I paid: nothing. All tickets for the club’s home games are free of charge. If we want to grow civic engagement in our beautiful game, we need to look at new models of funding lower-league football as a social and economic good, and demand the Premier League gives more back to grassroots clubs and fans.
Creative accounting
Growth is the rabbit being chased, Elmer Fudd-style, by Rachel Reeves and her team at the Treasury. Someone needs to tell them that one of the bunny’s favourite hiding places is in publishing. The UK publishing industry has continued to grow 20 per cent year on year since 2020 and generates one of our biggest exports: books. In January, Lisa Nandy launched our new Centre for Writing and Publishing in Newcastle. The centre will drive skills, investment and growth by shaping the future of British publishing in areas like intellectual property and AI.
The centre was made possible by a partnership between the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Northumbria University, the North East Combined Authority, Hachette, and New Writing North. The creative industries are often dismissed by economists as “soft infrastructure”. But the centre is evidence of the hard impacts that can be achieved through devolution. Making culture-funding decisions for the UK from a room in Westminster does not create growth or innovation. Arts Council England review panel, take note.
Burning bridges
Soft infrastructure needs hard infrastructure – railways and roads – in order for people to access it. The Gateshead flyover began to crumble two weeks before Christmas, cutting off the city of Newcastle. Gateshead Council paid for it to be propped up so that Metro trains could run underneath it, but neither the mayoral authority nor the council has the £90m needed to demolish and rebuild it. The flyover connects Gateshead to the Tyne Bridge, an iconic landmark that is also half shut, undergoing three years of repairs. These repairs are now at risk as Keir Starmer has refused to uphold a pledge by the previous Conservative government to pay the £62m bill. If this had happened in the south-east, it would be a national scandal – but this isn’t just a north-east issue. The flyover and the bridge are symbols of a much wider state of decay across essential UK infrastructure. We can’t build a better Britain on crumbling foundations.
University challenge
British universities contribute significantly to regional and national prosperity. But many are facing a difficult financial situation caused by rising staff and operating costs, reduced numbers of overseas students and stagnant domestic fees. University tuition fees have remained the same since 2018, as the price of everything else has risen. The crisis most impacts research and development. The bulk of research funding covers 80 per cent of costs, with the institution picking up the remaining 20 per cent. In a new age of deficit, this is creating a two-tier system in which smaller universities can no longer afford to bid for competitive funding.
The UK needs growth. To allow turbo-chargers of our economy to operate at reduced capacity makes no sense. Asking business to step in and solve every problem when many are also struggling is not a plausible response. We need a pragmatic conversation about how we fund, value and promote universities as civic anchors, talent engines and growth machines.
Gilty pleasure
For anyone still working their way through Christmas chocolate, it’s good news: the value of your stash might be more than you think. Last week, bakers reported that rises in the price of chocolate risk putting them out of business in 2025. The value of a 10kg bag of milk chocolate has jumped from around £50 in 2024 to £129 this month, and is expected to reach £150 in the summer. By this Christmas, miniature Heroes could be the new gilts. Put everything on Dairy Milk and start stockpiling.
[See also: The costs of Labour’s growth boosterism]
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This article appears in the 29 Jan 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Class War