AWAITING MP COMMENT’S

I SCRUTINISED carefully Rossendale MP Jake Berry’s column in the Free Press; for his thoughts going forward following the announcement from his political masters in Whitehall, that the Northern Powerhouse; for which Mr Berry is the Leader/Minister, is not now going to get the promised rail electrifications and upgrades so well publicised during the last election campaign; and “Lo and Behold” not a word.

No, the powers residing in Downing street have decreed that, instead, the promised funding will go to the second Crossrail project in London and we in the North can make do with a few new diesel trains.

Interestingly when the City Mayors of Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds (all Labour) objected to this betrayal they were accused by the Tory Government, not of lying or distorting the facts, but of political mischief making as if their protests were a schoolboy prank.

It seems not enough people in the North voted Conservative; perhaps this is a punishment for us not supporting Teresa.

Was the “Northern Powerhouse” simply a marketing slogan which has now been kicked into the proverbial long grass?

Having been so publicly eviscerated by the Cabinet, I would have expected Mr Berry to immediately resign his post as the Minister for the Northern Powerhouse and return to the back benches, but nothing has happened yet. Bill Malley Haslingden