Cameron shows he can listen

SWING seats in Yorkshire helped carry David Cameron to Downing Street. With tens of thousands of jobs in manufacturing, financial services and the new green economy, the region will be a vital bellwether of the new Prime Minister's attempts to lead Britain to economic recovery.

That's why the coalition chose to hold its first Cabinet meeting

outside London in Yorkshire. Ministers clearly realise that meeting the people who put them in power is essential to understanding what went wrong under their predecessors.

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Mr Cameron, along with his deputy, Nick Clegg, is trying to build a new Britain but it will be one without Yorkshire Forward in its present form. As he explained to Yorkshire Post readers yesterday, the Regional Growth Fund is designed to provide a much-needed boost to parts of

the country, like this one, which have become too dependent on the state for employment.

Yorkshire's manufacturing industry will be a major part of this and although Mr Cameron recognised its importance, particularly in heavy engineering and carbon capture and storage, he must accept that the decision to withdraw the 80m loan to Sheffield Forgemasters will delay a vital stimulus to the nuclear supply chain, much of which is based in this region.

What he did do, however, in contrast to the speech-making style of Gordon Brown, was engage with voters' anxiety over how Britain can bolster its uncertain economic recovery. Cracking the mystery of how to reduce red tape, which Mr Cameron admitted had stumped governments for the last 25 years, creating simpler incentives for small and medium-sized firms to take on apprentices and supporting social enterprises represent sound ways to support businesses and jobs.

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As a lesson in the realities of Government, the question and answer session underlined one essential truth: that you can't please all of the people all of the time. Mr Cameron couldn't answer all of voters' concerns over Forgemasters, the feasibility of moving more of the civil service out of London or over the huge cost of criminals who go to prison and then re-offend after release, but he showed he was listening. As he said himself, Britain faces enormous problems and he has only just got started.