The Weekly Wind-down: Deal or No Deal ends with a whimper while Hull gets gritty for the silver screen

NOEL EDMUNDS was nowhere to be found, but there was a high-stakes game of Deal or No Deal being played out this week.

In the end there was a deal – of sorts – although if there is anyone who is extolling the virtues of the devolution deal for West Yorkshire, they are not succeeding in being heard. Perhaps it was part of Danny Alexander’s alternative Budget speech.

While there wasn’t a great deal in the Budget to get excited about, the local highlight was probably George Osborne’s comparison of job growth figures.
“Which county has created more jobs than the whole of France?” asked the Chancellor. “The great county of Yorkshire.”

Once the chuckles – well, slight smiles – had faded in Deloitte’s war room, there was then a quick huddle with the PR advisers. Having just been asked to evade any questions about certain aspects of tax advice to avoid causing any consternation, there was one more issue to check.

“Are we ok to upset France?”

THIS morning sees the publication of the catchily-titled report, The Northern Powerhouse: One Agenda, One Economy, One North, which sets out the blueprint for transport connectivity across the north of England.

Presumably the newspaper revelations this week that One Direction might be going its separate ways prevented the addition of that term in the title, but if the media strategy is anything to go by, joined-up thinking might be in short supply.

A press release was issued, embargoed until midnight, but the report was not being made available for another 11 hours until Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin has launched the document.

The Department for Transport has a little bit of history for quietly shuffling out news when attention is elsewhere. After all, it is the home of the infamous September 11th email “it’s now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury”.

But it did strike me that if I wanted to produce a report that was read by as few people as possible I might look to do some of the following: release all the nice bits in a press release ahead of the launch, host the event in a place the mainstream media largely ignore, hold it in a week dominated by a big political set-piece, and, to copper-bottom the strategy, publish the report towards the end of the week.

As for this document’s launch: it’s in Liverpool (tick), on a Friday (tick) in Budget week (tick). What footnote or table of figures in the report does someone want us to overlook?

LEEDS CITY COUNCIL approved plans on Wednesday afternoon to progress a bid to be European Capital of Culture in 2023. Following Hull’s raised profile since being awarded UK Capital of Culture status, presumably any wavering councillors were inspired by the press release from Screen Yorkshire that had been published just a few hours earlier.

It trumpeted the fact that “filming has commenced on ID2, sequel to revered 1995 cult football hooliganism classic ID” and that it is being shot on location in Hull.

But in case anyone is imagining Hollywood glitz and glamour, this film is at the, errr, gritty end of the silver-screen spectrum.

It also might not be making an appearance in any tourist board information, despite Screen Yorkshire’s enthusiasm for the project.

“Hull will double for Rotterdam’s red light district,” it said…