Prospects for the economy 2) Andy Silvester: The fundamentals are strong. But confidence is in shorter supply.

Doomsday predictions remain overblown, but the real, specific concerns of business are worth listening to nonetheless.

Judy Terry: The Local Enterprise Partnerships are a Conservative success story

They provide much better value for money than Labour’s unwieldy Regional Development Agencies managed.

Free marketeers and interventionists battle for the soul of the Conservative manifesto

The former fear that it will revive what they believe are business-unfriendly ideas about foreign takeovers and workers on boards.

Sean Worth: The right industrial strategy could pay electoral dividends

Downing Street can win votes in the regions without resorting to Blair’s pork-barrel spending.

Judy Terry: Councils must be included in the industrial strategy

Local Enterprise Partnerships have shown how business can prompt local authorities to speed up decision making.

Enterprise Zones have proved a quiet success story – let’s have more of them

Brexit will allow us to decide on our own regional policy.

Simon Parker: Brexit wasn’t just about control. It was about people being left behind by the London elite

The focus on leaving the EU needs to be balanced by a powerful new Department for Growth, with a mandate to devolve power and drive up regional prosperity.

How London and Scotland stand out

It’s about what they contribute – and take from – the public finances.

David Kirkby: The National Living Wage could undermine the Northern Powerhouse – so let’s vary it by region

There are negative possibilities for the supply of jobs, positive ones for productivity – and a lot of variation across sections.

Steve Hughes: Osborne’s record. Some progress on the deficit. Slower going on rebalancing. But now he has a chance to deliver.

The second piece in our mini-series on whether the Chancellor is achieving the rebalancing of the economy he wants.

Cllr Robert Pritchard: The West Midlands Powerhouse draws nearer

Tamworth will be there at the table grabbing the opportunity of the new Combined Authority.

Judy Terry: Regional procurement in the public sector could save millions

Too often, existing suppliers have contracts renewed without proper scrutiny.

Lord Hennessy: Never before in recent times have constitutional possibility and peril jostled together quite like this

It’s crucial for the shared future of those who live in these islands that we should not Balkanise ourselves, in either structural terms or in our minds and hearts.

Five reasons Labour can’t be trusted with the future of England

Having left England out of the devolution deal, they then tried to break up the country. And that was just the start.

How Pickles has transformed local government over the past five years

Bureaucracy and political correctness have been cut back while taxes have been kept down.