City mayors and council leaders must be involved in the government’s decision-making on Covid

Editorial: The Northern Research Group wants Downing Street to set out an ‘exit plan’ for areas under tier 3 restrictions – a reasonable request but the group will probably be disappointed

Esther McVey and Jake Berry are putting pressure on the PM (AFP/Getty)

Such is the modern Conservative Party’s taste for factionalism that it boasts a “research group” – agitators in suits, mostly – for almost every occasion. The notorious “Spartans” of the European Research Group were the pioneers, and have now been followed by the China Research Group and the Northern Research Group. There are well-founded rumours that a lockdown-sceptic Covid Research Group will be joining the party before long. It seems to be getting a little out of control.  

At the moment, it is the NRG that is causing trouble, up north and down in Westminster. The group has joined a very loose alliance with the local Labour mayors to pursue economic assistance for those parts of the north moving up the Covid tiers. The NRG’s leader, Jake Berry, helpfully points out that the group’s MPs can represent the prime minister’s Commons majority, and are holding him to his vague promise to “level up” the north of England.  

Though not exclusively (there are traditionally Tory country seats across the north of England), they also represent the strategically important, marginal “blue wall” seats gained from Labour at the December 2019 general election. More than 50 MPs have joined the group, including former ministers David Davis and Esther McVey, unlikely warlords in this nascent Tory civil war.