Economic recovery in the United Kingdom has at last arrived, at least in the short term. But if there is one lesson from the 2008 crash and aftermath that needs to be remembered, it is that market forces cannot be left to their own devices even when the going seems good. Political debate hitherto has been about the speed and scale of deficit reduction, but if prosperity is beginning to return, attention has to switch to concerns other than GDP growth. The economy was out of balance before 2008 and may well be even more unbalanced in the future, and such distortions have a high human cost. One imbalance is the discrepancy between the South-East of England, focused on London, and the North. Most of the new jobs created in the past year have appeared in one already crowded corner of the Brit