WITH their towering columns and gilded clockfaces, the Victorian town halls of England’s northern cities look like the seats of empires. And so they once were. Bradfordian woolmen and Mancunian cottonspinners led Britain’s Industrial Revolution, bringing their cities national clout and global fame. But a century-long suction of power to the capital has turned Britain into an extraordinarily centralised country. Ninety-five per cent of taxes are raised in London, leaving the grand council chambers of the regions to hear debates on parking fines and dog fouling.

Now there is a chance for England’s cities to win back some of their long-lost power. Seeking savings and an answer to English envy of Scotland’s growing autonomy, George Osborne, the chancellor, has offered to cede billions of pounds of spending on transport, education, policing and health to clusters of cities that agree to join together and be run by an elected mayor (see article). The new freedoms, which represent the biggest change to the way Britain is run since the second world war, would allow England’s cities to thrive again. They must seize the chance.

Going south

The London power-grab was well meant. Labour’s creation of a welfare state in the 1940s centralised power in the name of equality. Aneurin Bevan, who set up the National Health Service, declared that the crash of a bedpan dropped in a local hospital should resonate in Westminster. Margaret Thatcher snatched more powers in the 1980s in a bid to raise standards (as well as handicap “loony left” city strongmen in the north).

But the pooling of power in London has suited the capital better than anywhere else. Though southerners complain that their taxes flood to northern welfare claimants, the south receives more in-kind benefits, such as transport subsidies, than the rest of the country. Public investment in infrastructure is more than twice as high per person in London as in the North East, where average income is a quarter less. Britain is absurdly top-heavy: whereas half a dozen German cities have economies three-quarters the size of Berlin’s, no English city’s economy is even a quarter the size of London’s.

Handing back control over intrinsically regional matters like transport and policing will help cities run more smoothly. Giving them control over skills budgets should boost growth, by matching training to businesses’ needs. Devolving health care, and combining it with social care, will save billions. And directly elected mayors will be more visible, accountable heads of government than anonymous council cabinets. Manchester, a trailblazer of city autonomy, has grown faster than any other northern city in the past decade.

Still some cities are wary because the offer requires them to merge with neighbouring towns. That works in Manchester but is contentious in Bradford, which smarts at the idea of joining its rival, Leeds. Towns in the East Midlands have no star city around which to orbit. And the North East may be too big: its mayor would govern from Berwick to Barnard Castle (imagine London’s mayor running Calais). Sceptics expect incompetence and corruption, as seen in Tower Hamlets (see article). But voters can kick out the failures—and London bureaucrats have hardly presided over a triumph. Regional experiments can show which policies work and which do not.

This deal offers a chance to claw back power, make savings and reshape English governance. Cities should grab it. If they would rather answer to Whitehall than share power with their neighbours, let them. But they must remember that those town halls were not built to discuss bin collections.