Preston, Jeremy Corbyn’s model town
How one city became an unlikely laboratory for Corbynomics
Extract: ‘First, it set about persuading local public institutions—colleges, the police, a housing association, the university—to consider spending more of their combined £1bn budget locally, as “anchor institutions”. Local suppliers were given advice on how to pitch for tenders that may have seemed out of reach. The Centre for Local Economic Strategies, a Manchester-based think-tank, audited the spending of six such institutions last month and found that they spent 18% of their most recent year’s budget in Preston, compared with 5% in 2013. In cash terms, this meant an extra £75m being spent in the city—around £530 per citizen. The share of their spending in Lancashire doubled from 39% to 79%. It required no extra money nor new legislation. “It’s about collaboration,” says Mr Brown. “You have to be clever in austerity.”
