Somebody should buy Midwinter a subscription to the North East's regional morning newspaper – The (Newcastle) Journal. The presence of at least one article or editorial a week comparing the massive advantages which higher levels of public spending offer to Scotland as compared with its adjacent region, might persuade him that there is indeed a political problem in a UK resource distribution pattern that massively advantages middle and upper class Scots (by residence) like himself against their neighbours, precisely through the political implications of the technicalities of the present funding formula. For example, the lead story in The Journal (6 November 2001) notes that per capita public expenditure in Scotland is £434 per annum more than in the North East, with £177 per head more on education and £181 more on health. It goes on to point out that GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per capita in the North East is 77% of the UK average, compared with Scotland's 96%. The scale of England in terms of population as against the other component ‘nations’ of the United Kingdom, and the very high degree of inter-regional inequality within England, is forcing the issue of regional level resource distribution onto the UK political and administrative agenda. The historical compromise embodied in the Barnett formula, so-called because it was introduced by Joel Barnett, Chief Secretary of the Treasury in the late 1970s as a method for allocating resources to the national departments delivering services, first in Scotland and then subsequently for Wales and Northern Ireland, is clearly breaking down. This was part of the overall expenditure control mechanism of the Treasury in relation to spending departments and although the intention was that the operation of the formula would lead to a convergence of per capita spending among the UK's component nations over time, this has not proved to be the case. Rather the small ‘nations’ of the UK all have substantially higher per capita levels of expenditure in most service areas than is the case for England as a whole or for English regions, which are as, or substantially more, deprived than Scotland, although Wales and Northern Ireland remain deprived regions.