What is really going on in politics? Get our daily email briefing straight to your inbox Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Sometimes even adults need a good fairy tale to keep them going.

So thanks to Northern Powerhouse Minister Jake Berry (words that read like the calling card of a mobile disco DJ from Wigan) for touring his patch for a week and claiming everything is hunky-dory up here as we eagerly await Brexit’s golden dawn.

The North’s economy is in “rude health” he wrote, and its resilient people are ready to rise “to the ­challenges Brexit may bring” with the Tories’ Northern Powerhouse “key to delivering this change”.

Meanwhile, in the real world, the Northern Rail Network is on its knees due to the indifference of the Tory Transport Secretary, and the North is about to lose £2.37billion of investment because the Tories used flawed statistics to underestimate, by 13,000, the number of new homes needed.

Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham says the Cabinet Office refused to talk to northern politicians about Brexit (despite regular meetings with London’s mayor) or release assessments of the potentially ­catastrophic impact of a no-deal withdrawal.

And recent analysis showed that of the top seven Leave-voting constituencies, which now have a majority of voters in favour of remain-ing, five are in the North.

(Image: Andy Stenning/Daily Mirror)

Which may be down to the dawning realisation that when EU funding to the poorest areas dries up, Tories won’t inject fresh money.

Because they couldn’t give a flying ferret about the needs of anyone who can’t keep them in power.

Wales has had £4billion in EU ­structural funds since 2000, and between 2007 and 2013 more than 20,000 projects in the North received Brussels funding.

Can you really see the Tories matching those huge injections when the post-Brexit cash drain kicks in and they go into an election needing to bribe their heartlands?

Where I live, in Liverpool, EU funding kick-started the transformation of the city centre and waterfront, coming at a time when some Tory ministers wanted to pull all ­financial support and let it suffer terminal decline.

(Image: Julian Hamilton/Daily Mirror)

As a solid anti-Tory city in a mainly anti-Tory region, there was no political capital to be lost by pulling the plug.

There still isn’t. In January, the new Royal Liverpool hospital was 80% completed when Tory-bankrolling builders Carillion went bust.

Ever since, it has sat there, a vast, unfinished building site, as patients who desperately need the new hospital have to make do with the dilapidated one which should by now have been demolished.

Local politicians have lobbied the government to step in and finish the job but have been told that the funds aren’t in place.

Meanwhile, another stalled Carillion hospital, The Midland Metropolitan, has been given the £300million needed to get the job done.

Coincidentally, the West Midlands Metro Mayor is Tory Andy Street, one of a very few electoral successes on Theresa May’s watch.

Just like the DUP, which May bribed with £2billion to keep her in power, the magic money tree can always be shaken when there’s political capital to be gained.

Sadly, if you live in those areas where Tory votes are thin on the ground, once the EU funding dries up, don’t expect many golden leaves to fall.

Even sadder, you’ll find a majority of people in many of those areas actually voted for that fate.