Like in other developed countries, manufacturing has sharply declined in Britain as a share of total income over the past century. While the movement stagnated in the 2000’s in France and in the US, it kept on falling in Britain. Labour has succeeded in redistributing income among people, but could not stop the regional divergence generated by the decline of manufacturing. This divergence is deeply rooted in economic geography mechanisms that will be hard to counteract, whoever wins the next election.