Barrow-in-Furness. Blackpool. Grimsby. Great Yarmouth. The list of 100 places set to benefit from £3.6bn of government regeneration money includes many of the towns most synonymous with the 2016 vote to leave the EU. The Towns Fund, launched at the start of this month by Boris Johnson in Manchester, is very consciously designed to appear to address those “left-behind towns” – the prime minister’s words – where the argument to leave the EU most clearly struck a chord. The folk of Boston, Lincolnshire, are rated as the Brexitiest in the entire country – the only place where more than three-quarters of people decided to vote to leave. Their reward, seemingly, is not yet the UK actually leaving the EU, but at least a chance to bid for a share of this cash.

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