Thanks to Monty Python, parrots joined doornails on the very short list of things it is possible to be as dead as. Should the Northern Powerhouse be added to this select list?

Former Northern Powerhouse Minister (2015-16) James Wharton spent 90% of his official time during his period in the role in London, according to information revealed in a Freedom of Information request. But the embarassing information was only extracted from the government after a long court battle.

The director of Manchester-based think tank IPPR North said it was disappointing that the minister spent so little time in the region getting to know what Northern businesses and communities needed, The Guardian reports.

The Department of Communities and Local Government (now Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government) engaged in “what appears to have been a strategy of wilful procrastination in order to obstruct a request for information” according to the Information Commissioner, according to The Guardian.

Complaints of the demise of the Northern Powerhouse initiative, launched by George Osborne in 2012, are now widespread in the Manchester property industry.

Last week Bisnow reported Canning O'Neil Director Conrad O'Neill saying: "The idea of the Northern Powerhouse as something that will deliver... is now an expression you whisper, because it's basically dead in the water."

Wharton was succeeded by Andrew Percy MP (2016-2017) and then by Jake Berry MP (from 2017) as Northern Powerhouse Minister.