Cuts to welfare payments will hit the local economies of northern towns and cities as much as five times as hard as the Conservative heartland southern counties, according to research commissioned by the Financial Times into the impact of austerity http://link.ft.com/r/TWK799/3CXQO1/A7P8KJ/4CB50D/Q3ZKTR/N9/h?a1=2013&a2=4&a3=10