It was billed as a “Listening Tour” of the regions. It ended with Andy Burnham and Cllr. Phil Bialyk, Labour leader of Exeter City Council, tête-à-tête in the Met Office HQ listening to a presentation on the D-Day weather forecasts.

Owl has asked a correspondent with Whitehall experience to imagine how this might have happened.

“Escaping the Westminster Bubble, a listening exercise in the regions”

Prime Minister this weekend you are visiting Devon as part of your renamed “cost of living” tour.

We have devised a plan which we believe, subject to your approval, finesses the potential pitfalls identified below.

Local Sensitivities

A particular sensitivity to be aware of is the strongly held belief amongst the native population that the historic notion of “County”, its boundaries and identity, matter. 

This weird notion is one they share almost as strongly as their neighbours in Cornwall. There is scientific genetic evidence to support claims of unique identities for these two counties.  However, we cannot let these old fashioned ideas of identity get in the way of pursuing our metropolitan growth agenda.

Which leads me to highlight a related issue: contention surrounding former Minister Steve Reed’s decision to embrace the Exeter, Plymouth and Tobay idea of creating three Unitary Urban Authorities.

The consequence is that  the remaining half a million people in Devon have been consigned to an administratively unmanageable rural rump authority. That it is causing unease is not entirely surprising. It was the devolution proposals with only minority support and least favoured by some three quarters of the population during consultation.

The LibDem led Devon County Council, with cross party support, has started a legal challenge.

Note that outside Exeter and Plymouth, Labour representation is thin on the ground.

The question is: do you reach out and meet these differences head on, try to find common ground and consensus so policy changes can be made more lasting and political toxicity reduced, as you argued in your Manchester speech?

Perhaps you would prefer to duck this for the moment?  We can always plead shortage of time and claim that you are focussed on “cost of living” issues?

Though, maybe in the light of your visit to fire stricken Stourbridge, your ordering of a national telephone fire alert and ban on BBQs, we should now rebrand it as a “Policy Roll Out” tour.

An announcement of £65m for farmers would sit well with this when you visit a Cornish potato farm, scheduled for Saturday.

Correspondence

Nicola Daniel, a local, wrote online to you last week asking if you had read her letter in the Times. [The press office popped a note into Monday’s red box.] She suggested you visit Ilfracombe, which has the lowest healthy life expectancy of any rural town in the country. Central Ilfracombe ranks as one of Devon’s most economically deprived neighbourhoods, with roughly 30 per cent of town centre residents facing income hardship.

Devon is a very large county with poor transport connections and Illfracombe is isolated on the north coast. So even if you were inclined to take up this challenge we can argue insufficient time.

The Solution

Our proposed solution is that you travel to the Met Office HQ Exeter where you can be accompanied by a friendly face, Exeter City Council Labour Leader Phil Bialyk. There you will meet Met Office staff in a controlled space rather like a Whitehall department. Home from home as it were. We have given them a heads up on this and they have prepared a presentation on how vital the met forecast was to the D-Day landing decision (June 6 1944).

Admittedly it will not be very rural but such a visit would reinforce your plan to regenerate the regions by similar government office relocations. (Your predecessor, Tony Blair, relocated the Met Office from Bracknell to Exeter in 2003.) The main thing is for you to be able to say you visited Devon.

Press access will be controlled so we do not expect the editor of the Exeter Observer to be present. We wouldn’t want him raising the Centre for Cities 2026 report that found Exeter had experienced declining living standards alongside below-average economic growth in the ten years to 2023, placing it among the worst performers in the country alongside Aberdeen, Birkenhead, Burnley, Dundee, Ipswich, Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Wigan.

The devolution policy you inherited “bets the farm” on Exeter’s economic vibrancy driving growth, not on it being a bit of a basket case.

The Met Office operates one of the most powerful and massive supercomputing systems in the UK.

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES MENTION AI. The data processing undertaken by Met Office staff is likely to be amongst the first to be replaced by AI. There is enough doom and gloom within local academic circles subject to University retrenchment.

Local Customs

Finally, since you will be travelling to both Devon and Cornwall it would be safest if you declined any offer to eat a “cream tea” These counties fiercely contest whether the cream or the jam goes on the scone first. We don’t want an Ed Milliband bacon sandwich moment, should you get it wrong.

Extensive photo coverage will be provided by PA .