There is a union between those of us who have “North East” in the title of our constituencies, and we always give way to each other politely and gracefully.
We need to be very careful on the issue of inequality, because it turns out that it can be narrowed by having a deep recession. That surely cannot be the object of any Government’s policy. We should therefore look at the figures with care. The same is true of relative poverty—it can be reduced through a recession.