View Full Version : Levelling Up
It is a good idea...
...and Germany has successfully achieved it (or very nearly) with the lifting of East Germany...
...however (uh oh, bad news coming)...
...Germany has spent €2 trillion (Euros) which is £71 billion per year, every year from 1990 and 2014.
https://www.centreforcities.org/blog/what-can-german-reunification-teach-the-uk-about-levelling-up/
(Germany is the example that Boris used in a speech last July.)
The UK has allocated £4.8 billion total. I can predict, fairly accurately imho, that doing it on the cheap is not going to work. There may be enough money to bribe a new Tory constituency but to lift the whole of the north? Nope.
Luckypants
03-02-22, 09:44 AM
Its ********, I was having a right rant about it yesterday while the news was on. The dogs recognised the signs and went to bed!
If its a flagship policy, why has it taken 2 years to announce basically nothing new.
If it was serious, why put a proven idiot like Gove in charge?
Wales is getting no new money, but still has some of the poorest areas in Europe (yes, not just the UK!)
How can they say they want to improve transport when they stripped out the money to electrify rail?
HS2 money to extend it 'to the North' is stripped out and is not being spent elsewhere in the North.
The BBC graph of spending on rail per head in London vs the English regions enraged me.
Many other points about why this is something Westminster is not serious about, but the above is the highlights of my rant. Basically they know that the South East gets all the government spending on infrastructure and the like so they are pretending to do something about it, but really don't want to and will not do the necessary.
Luckypants
03-02-22, 10:09 AM
On reflection, my above post is a bit on the reactionary side. I'll leave it up there so you can all enjoy the irony of that post after my post yesterday about keeping political debate civil.....
Admin hat on.... lets keep the political debate at a non-insulting and civilised level please.
I don't understand why political debate often descends to name calling and threats, but lets keep away from that folks.
its a long read but interesting (https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7386/CBP-7386.pdf). my take is that NI is almost self sufficient. well done :smt023
On reflection, my above post is a bit on the reactionary side. ......
:drink:
;-)
Gove copied parts of Wikipedia for his Levelling Up plan (I write these things and then look what I've written and wonder: "Is this normal behaviour from adult politicians?")
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/parts-of-michael-gove-s-levelling-up-plan-copied-from-wikipedia/ar-AATqRCs
According to that link it drifts off on a tangent talking about Constantinople (word for word from wiki). It also talks about Jericho (the exact same quote, twice).
So, Gove's plan was rushed out and is probably meant as a distraction from BoZo's partying. Are there no adults left in the Conservative Party?
Luckypants
03-02-22, 01:53 PM
Seems my reaction entirely warranted :-k
To paraphrase and blatantly crib from others, this govt set themselves a dismally low bar and consistently fail to meet it.
They have no shame, full stop. If you are going to be inept at least try to do it well.
:nomore:
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