| Levelling Up 12:44 - Jun 9 with 2259 views | johnlangy |
Here's something I wasn't aware of from the Budget in March.
The general belief, as far as i'm aware, was that levelling up funding was designed to help bridge the chasm in wealth between London and the rest of the UK.
What a surprise to find that that rundown Northern community Canary Wharf (population apparently 18,000) was awarded £242 million while Wales (population 3,100,000) was awarded £170 million.
Thoughts anyone ? | | | |  |
| Levelling Up on 12:46 - Jun 9 with 1933 views | Boundy |
I try not to think anymore , its just all too depressing | |
| "In a free society, the State is the servant of the people—not the master." |
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| Levelling Up on 14:30 - Jun 9 with 1865 views | johnlangy |
I don't blame you Boundy. | | | |
| Levelling Up on 16:10 - Jun 9 with 1823 views | onehunglow |
The wealth of this country ,the Industrial Revolution and its might was driven by the North ,Wales and Scotland . The south east was where the power base was and still is . The only part of the country not to suffer the industrial decay people from North,Wales and Scotland know only too well.
London is grotesquely pre eminent in every way and the biggest sin Thatcher and those before her committed was not decentralising power and constitutional base .
For example, Leeds could have taken over some of the Trading power , Wales could have seen Government departments transferred there ,as should have Scotland .
Trouble is ,politicians want it to stay as it is
Couldn’t be done ?
Crap | |
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| Levelling Up on 16:50 - Jun 9 with 1801 views | max936 |
Good post that! | |
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| Levelling Up on 17:17 - Jun 9 with 1786 views | onehunglow |
Many countries are centred on their capital ties but ours is ridiculous
It’s fair to say (for me) that draw a line from the Solent to the Wash and you have the wealth of this country and the cheeky farkers are those who refer to the likes of us as having regional accents | |
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| Levelling Up on 17:46 - Jun 9 with 1776 views | SullutaCreturned |
As usual thse in power pay lip service to the nedds of the many while looking after the chosen few.
There is a long held even though roundly discredited idea that a strong capital city will see a trickle down effect and the wealth generated will spread across the country.
It hasn't worked from London and the devolved governments have followed the same dea and it hasn't worked there either. It's a load of hogwash.
In fact, has it worked anywhere?
I'm no economist but I think a strong economy is one spread across the whole country, one that is balanced and provides jobs and wealth for all corners of the realm.
Young people are leaving Wales because their prospects are better elsewhere. I don't know if it's the same story in the other devolved countries. As a result Wales is turning into a giant retirement home. | | | |
| Levelling Up on 17:50 - Jun 9 with 1775 views | onehunglow |
London and Londoners look after only themselves .
They always have.
We’ve all heard them patronising and looking down on the rest of this cvountry,folk who made the wealth in the first place
Ships from Glasgow and Tyneside and Birkenhead
Coal from Wales
Cotton spinning North West
Steel from Scunthorpe
All gone and we can all FO.
Innit | |
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| Levelling Up on 19:01 - Jun 9 with 1720 views | johnlangy |
I sent this to our local MP recently as a pretty radical levelling up idea. All thoughts welcome.
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Something has been broken in this country over the last fourteen years and what is needed is something radical to address, and hopefully fix the fracture that the Tories have created.
Finances, or lack of, will be the major problem facing Labour when they form the next Government. I have a suggestion that will have a number of huge positives for the country over the next ten years or more which I believe Labour should implement.
As things stand at the moment Labour will be hamstrung with spending when they are elected. Imagine if the chancellor was able to say we will be able to free up £20 billion (just a guess - I have to put some number to it) over the next ten years to invest in essential services while also being able to boost the economy.
The idea will achieve the following. It will provide a HUGE ‘levelling up’ boost to the North of England and also free up an enormous amount of money for the services I mentioned above, at least over time. It will also be an incredibly attractive idea to millions of Northern voters making the UK feel more like one country rather than a them (London/South East) and us (everywhere else).
My idea (it’s not a new one) is to finally make the decision to scrap the refurbishment of the HOP in favour of a new Government site in the midlands. This new site for parliament will cost a fraction of the refurb option of the current HOP and free up the enormous amount of money I’ve mentioned above.
The new HOP could be created in a fraction of the time the refurb option would take. Then, when not required as the centre of Government the best use of the current HOP would be as a fantastic museum which would generate an absolute fortune (obviously not free entry) the proceeds of which could then be used for the restoration work. I appreciate that would also take a long time. But I imagine the refurb for that purpose would almost certainly be a lot less than a refurb for continued use as the current centre of Government.
Currently the British public are being told that there’s no extra money for the NHS, education, the Police and justice system, local councils to fill potholes and so on. Imagine telling them that in spite of the dire financial constraints the country faces there’s at the same time going to be a blank cheque to refurb the current HOP.
They would, quite rightly be up in arms saying it’s the Westminster bubble again, If ‘they’ need it they will get it and never mind the rest of us. And they will become increasingly uninterested in our so called democracy.
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| Levelling Up on 18:39 - Jun 10 with 1605 views | SullutaCreturned |
I love that idea. A new seat of government and nt just in the Midlands but outside of any town or city, a self contained building with it's own bloack of flats for the MP's to use, each constituency allocated a flat and every flat kitted out with exactly the same equipment so no more expenses malarkey. Anything that needs replacing comes from stores in a like for like exchange.
We know it'll never happen though. | | | |
| Levelling Up on 20:28 - Jun 26 with 1433 views | builthjack |
A local town was promised £20million as part of the Tory levelling up thing. Yet to see.it. | |
| Swansea Indepenent Poster Of The Year 2021. Dr P / Mart66 / Roathie / Parlay / E20/ Duffle was 2nd, but he is deluded and thinks in his little twisted brain that he won. Poor sod. We let him win this year, as he has cried for a whole year. His 14 usernames, bless his cotton socks.
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| Levelling Up on 20:41 - Jun 26 with 1416 views | Boundy |
And yet we see 100 million pound being spent on a bus station in Cardiff, our very own se corner. | |
| "In a free society, the State is the servant of the people—not the master." |
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| Levelling Up on 21:05 - Jun 26 with 1384 views | JumpingJackFlash |
Levelling up was never going to be implemented. It’s bizarrely a socialist idea proposed by a Tory government. | | | |
| Levelling Up on 22:35 - Jun 26 with 1320 views | majorraglan |
Levelling up is nothing but a con and a sop to Brexit. Most of the money hasn’t been spent and a significant proption of wha5 has been spent was spent in marginal Conservative seats. I’ve previously posted an entry with lots of details to corroborate the above, but I can’t find it. | | | |
| Levelling Up on 09:27 - Jun 27 with 1244 views | controversial_jack |
Many of the so called depressed Northern towns and cities have left ours well behind in infrastructure. Swansea is like a third world shithole in comparison to many Northern towns. Cardiff has had more investment, it's it's transport system ids not brilliant either | | | |
| Levelling Up on 09:55 - Jun 27 with 1231 views | raynor94 |
I'm still waiting for the levelling up between Cardiff and the rest of Wales | |
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| Levelling Up on 10:06 - Jun 27 with 1229 views | johnlangy |
I've rewritten and extended an earlier post of mine in this thread with input from a post from the major  .
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NOTHING CHANGES
Millions of average voters say nothing changes whether Labour or the Conservatives get into power, that Labour are just Conservative light.
There are two MAJOR changes Labour should make that would change that mindset completely. And they are changes that the vast majority of voters, whether Labour or non Labour, would not only agree with but would relish. And the changes would show that Labour, rather than living in the Tory 17th Century live in the 21st Century where the real people of the UK live.
There has been a debate for some time now about whether to refurbish the Houses of Parliament or to establish a new seat of Government elsewhere. This is a question that will have to be addressed in the not too distant future so I propose that the new Labour Government make the decision now,scrap the idea of the refurbishment option and build the new seat of Government somewhere in the midlands. The second suggestion I would make is that they get on with scrapping the House of Lords, something regularly talked about but never acted on.
Achieving both these idea would take some time but, barring a disastrous first term Labour will almost certainly retain power in 2029 so will have ten years or more to achieve these things and to reap the benefits.
Firstly this is a list of just some of the problems facing the UK now that Labour will have to address.
An NHS with a waiting list of 7.5 million while being short of 20,000 doctors and 40,000 nurses.
A woeful lack of GP’s.
A fundamentally inadequate care service.
An education system short of probably at least 10,000 teachers.
RAAC schools crumbling.
Policing a complete shambles with the service short of 20,000 experienced officers.
The CPS in chaos.
The Prison System in chaos.
The armed forces cut to the bone, currently down to 72,000 servicemen.
Legal immigration of 750,000 each of the last two years.
Illegal immigration across the channel.
As a result of the above the basic pillars of a civilized society to a large extent are not there any more.
Just imagine the outcry around the country if, with all the above problems and the lack of money to address them the Government suddenly announced they were going to provide an open cheque book for the refurbishment option of Westminster.
This is a list of the benefits of going ahead with these changes.
The last estimated cost of refurbishing the Houses Of Parliament that I saw was £25 to £30 billion. And it will likely end up costing far more, £50 billion maybe. The cost of a new build will be a fraction of that. And if it only involves a House of Commons and not a House of Lords it will be far less again. The money released and available for investment in public services would be at least £20 billion.
Along with the new House of Commons accommodation could be built to be used by the MP’s on parliament sitting days. I don’t know the cost to the taxpayer of the second homes MP’s currently use when in London but I imagine it is horrendous. Again, an enormous saving.
Then there’s the cost of peers attending the House of Lords. Again a horrendous cost where peers attending are paid £350 a day.
Another enormous benefit will be that this development would provide a huge ‘levelling up’ for the North, something the Conservatives completely failed to achieve. So Labour could point to having done their job for them. How many people in the ‘North’ would object to that.
And one huge non monetary benefit will be that the real or imagined corruption that has been going on regarding MP’s London accommodation provision and peers’ actual attendance when apparently signed into the House of Lords for the day will be removed immediately.
The finances released to put toward fixing the problems left over by the Conservatives will only go part way in addressing the many problems Labour will face.
But the psychological change in the mindset of the British people that this will bring about will be incalculable. The UK will be a far less ‘us and them’ place to live. The Westminster bubble will be finally burst.
And the new parliament can be, and should be, planned to be built in a way that will make it far more accessible to ordinary people. A simple example would be a far larger public gallery for instance.
And why not. We’ll be the ones paying for it.
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| Levelling Up on 12:28 - Jun 27 with 1179 views | Joesus_Of_Narbereth |
I don’t think it’s viable to move the Houses of Parliament to the midlands. All the ministries are in Whitehall, Downing Street, the treasury, all the infrastructure of government and all the people who work there will need to be moved too.
The buildings and their location is absolutely not the issue. It’s the people inside them that are the problem. | |
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| Levelling Up on 14:43 - Jun 27 with 1127 views | johnlangy |
It would be a hell of a big job I agree. But if it's so obviously unviable why have successive Governments been considering the option of relocation ?
As regards the ministries, my first thought was that 99% of the people that work in them are just civil servants who go to work, do their job and go home again. The fact that the Government may have moved somewhere else wouldn't impact them in the slightest.
There would be a small number of senior people who may well interact directly on a daily basis with MP's in parliament. There are huge numbers of people who spend well over an hour commuting daily in to London to their jobs at present. Why can't those Civil Servants commute out of London to the new Parliament site ? What's so different ?
And now they've got HS2 to do it. | | | |
| Levelling Up on 15:40 - Jun 27 with 1097 views | SullutaCreturned |
Thanks to the internet and smart phones this isn't true. Meetings can be done online and then we'll save a fortune on food expenses too! | | | |
| Levelling Up on 15:59 - Jun 27 with 1092 views | Whiterockin |
Where the parliament is situated is not the problem, the members are, UK and Wales. | | | |
| Levelling Up on 17:50 - Jun 27 with 1067 views | Joesus_Of_Narbereth |
Yes but to just move everything to the midlands just for the sake of it seems a bit pointless to me. And what about history? Tradition? Westminster has always been the site of Parliament barring a few temporary jaunts elsewhere during times of strife. The Curia Regis met there, as did the Witanagemot during the later days of Saxon England under the king who tied to turn back the tides whose name is a swear word on here and Ed the Confessor.
Westminster hall has survived nearly a thousand years, pretty much every major historical figure in our islands history, both the famous and infamous has walked under that roof. Do we just bulldoze it and build flats? | |
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| Levelling Up on 18:10 - Jun 27 with 1057 views | SullutaCreturned |
No we don't bulldoze it, we make it a tourist attraction!
We do thisto save billions and modern parliament, fit for purpose.
Hostory is great, i love it I really do but keeping something goingwhen it is beyond practical, and far too expensive is just silly.
Traditions change, they always have and always will. It used to be traditional for me and my mates to meet down the Clarencd before the Swans, the Vetch is gone, the Clarence is flats now. It used to be traditional for British tribes to take the heads of the vanquished and hang them around their doors or across their horses backs starightafter a battle, no matter how much we feel like doing that to the tories, we can't! | | | |
| Levelling Up on 18:47 - Jun 27 with 1047 views | johnlangy |
Well said cat. It would be one of the best museums in the world attracting millions of tourists.
Currently it costs us £2 million a day just to keep it safe to use. That's £0.75 billion a year. If Labour stay in power for two terms that will be £7.5 billion (I was really good at maths in school) and we'll be in the same situation as now.
As a museum, with an entrance fee, the income would eventually pay for the refurb cost. | | | |
| Levelling Up on 22:50 - Jun 27 with 999 views | majorraglan |
I agree with you that we need to be less London centric, but I think it would be very difficult to move out of London (as much as I’d like to see a lot more shipped out of there) because it would cost billions to move the support structures such as police protective services, many civil services etc away from there.
There was mention of Canary Wharf getting more levelling up money than Wales, from what I’ve seen Canary Wharf is becoming a bit of a ghost town, why not move government down there? | | | |
| Levelling Up on 10:51 - Jun 28 with 959 views | johnlangy |
It will be very interesting to see the turn out next Thursday. I say that because far and away the biggest problem for the future, in my opinion, is the way the disconnect between the general population and the political class will develop. People are rebelling against how they are being governed and I see that getting worse as time goes on.
The possible ramifications of this will be far worse than the cost and difficulty of what i've suggested. Whenever ordinary people talk, whether on forums like this or when asked on radio phone ins or on TV they are always saying things like 'I don't trust politicians', 'they're all in it for themselves', 'I don't feel as if they understand my situation', 'they don't do anything that benefits me or my family or community' etc etc.
I could go on but the message is effectively the same. We are an Us and THEM society and the gap between us is widening.
Something radical has to change and saying let's do the same as we've been doing for the last three hundred years or whatever is definitely not the answer. People need to feel as if they have some connection with how they are governed.
Of course these ideas would be expensive. It would cost billions. But staying and doing the refurb would i'm certain rise to at least £50 billion. And we'd still have the London centric group in their disconnected bubble in charge as has been the case for centuries.
And the problems will get worse. | | | |
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