This week Jack explores whether Britain's provincial towns — like the town he grew up in and many places he has lived since — have been "left behind" as the economy has evolved over recent years.

Wigan MP and Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy explains why she famously put towns at the heart of her political philosophy, and how she believes places like Wigan can be transformed in the decades to come. Mansfield MP and local council leader Ben Bradley considers the shifting political forces that helped make him Mansfield's first ever Conservative MP in 2017.

FT journalist Sebastian Payne discusses his eye-opening road trip through numerous small and medium-sized towns in the north of England last year which resulted in his book, "Broken Heartlands."

Academics Professor Henry Overman and Professor Will Jennings mull the demographic and economic changes which have created such disparities between different urban areas, and what we might do to address them. And the Centre for Cities think-tank's Paul Swinney warns Britain's largest metropolitan areas must not be neglected amid the increasing government focus on smaller towns.

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