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In a previous letter, Alan Wright mentioned the huge investment the Government was making in the North East.
However, Alan failed to tell readers the chicanery involved in the awarding of grants from the £3.6bn
“Towns Fund” announced just before the 2019 election.
Of the 541 towns on the list, senior civil servants recommended the North East should receive 11 awards.
Robert Jenerick decided we did not need all that money and decided to take away four of our towns, and £100 million of possible funding, and give it to towns much further south.
Redcar (three), Blyth
(20), Middlesbrough (24), and Hartlepool (33) were in the High Priority Group and automatically qualified; that left three ministerial choices.
Next on the list came South Shields (50) and Sunderland (54) who all had large Labour majorities, but were overlooked.
Instead, the £50million in grants went to Bishop Aukland (100) and Thornaby-on-Tees (240).
The strange thing is these two seats had Labour majorities of only 502 and 888 respectively and Sunderland Conservatives never said a word.
The awarding of these grants is now subject to a Judicial Review.
In the recent Cabinet reshuffle, Michael Gove succeeded Robert Jenrick as Housing Secretary but, of more interest to us in the North East, he was also handed responsibility for “leveling-up”.
In unearthed audio recordings from his time at Cambridge University, he describes his admiration for Margaret Thatcher.
He said at the time: “We are at last experiencing a new empire: an empire where the happy south stamps over the cruel, dirty, toothless face of the northerner".
“At last Mrs Thatcher is saying I don’t give a fig for what half of the population say because the richer half will keep me in power.
“This may be amoral, this may be immoral, but it’s politics and it’s pragmatism.”
Remember this the next time a Tory knocks on your door soliciting your vote.
“Diplomacy is perhaps the best way forward for this troubled land.”
David Byrne. Pallion.