Latest News About England: End London's monopoly and invest more in the regions

sábado, 22 de febrero de 2014

End London's monopoly and invest more in the regions | letters

There is a gross disparity between spending in the south-east and the rest of the country

How depressingly predictable: the rail link to Cornwall is severed, so some local MPs (and others elsewhere in the south with their own axes to grind) immediately demand that investment be switched away from HS2 to upgrade the network in the West Country ("Divert HS2 billions to rebuild railways in 'poor relation' south-west, MPs demand", News.) Why seek to make this an either/or choice, especially when we are assured that "money is no object"?

HS2 would at least begin to address the gross disparity between the lavish ongoing infrastructure investment in London and the south-east and the notable absence of anything comparable elsewhere.

It may be understandable that regions that have had so little for so long should feel driven to compete against each other for crumbs from the London table, but it is hardly an edifying spectacle. It would make far more sense for them to band together to demand a moratorium on further investment in the capital until per capita investment across the country more fairly approximates that in London.

Chris Haslam

Threshield North Yorks

Men learn the wrong lessons

The wonderful Helen Mirren has only commented on part of the story ("Now Mirren hits out at TV's body count: 'Most of these victims are young women", News).

Yes, many young women are perceived as victims and this is constantly reinforced by both TV drama and news. But she does not comment upon the fact that while many young women are socialised into a passive role, the perpetrators of these crimes are invariably young men who are socialised into an aggressive, competitive and drink-laden culture.

They grow up believing that women "ask for it".

So before Dame Helen reinforces the cultural notion that women are there to be victims, she needs to look at the ways in which men are socialised.

MJ Tuckwell

Shilbottle Northumberland

The housing market paradox

Rosemary Shewry and I were plainly in different countries in the 1960s and 1970s ("Rent controls led to house boom", Letters).

She claims that controls dried up private rents in that era. How strange. I was living in a small flat in north London at a quarter of my disposable income (it would cost me a half in today's equivalents).

And all my young friends were similarly housed, generally with reasonable landlords. The Thatcher house-buying bubble didn't kick in properly until the 1980s, so where were all the other renters living up until then? And recent flooding must surely have given people second thoughts on building more houses on the natural sponge which is our countryside.

The long-term way forward is to make better, and fairer, use of the existing housing space – by a geographically-based, steeply progressive system of land value taxation. Political dynamite but unavoidable.

And a basic point about capitalism. The more we spend on our housing, the less we have to spend in the high street. What a bizarre paradox that Mrs Thatcher's idea strikes at the very heart of consumer capitalism.

David Redhaw

Gravesend Kent

My link to the World Service

I feel very strongly that the BBC World Service must survive ("Should UK licence-fee payers still fund the World Service?" Editorial). Previous governments correctly "deemed its excellence, expertise and independence a gift worth beaming round the globe".

It should in fact be funded (at arm's length) by the Foreign Office as it was until very recently. I am currently writing about my father, Noel Newsome, director of the BBC European Service 1940-45.

The huge number of letters to him from grateful listeners, national as well as international, testify to the paramount importance of the service in keeping hope alive and to the belief that Britain would triumph.

The BBC should continue to maintain Britain's voice and place in world affairs. Let us hope there will be no more periods as dire as 1939-45, but who but the BBC can at any time be relied upon for impartial, truthful reporting of news and views?

Penelope Newsome

Oxford

Two votes for equality

Isn't it time that politicians claiming to want to see equal numbers of women and men in parliament stopped tinkering around with "shortlists for seats split between the genders", "all-women shortlists" or "the A list", and adopted the obvious solution?

If we all had two-member constituencies, with each of us having one vote, we could give one to our male representative and one to our female representative, the objective would be achieved at a stroke ("Labour to hit record for women MPs", News,).

The fact that this suggestion hardly ever gets even considered is a pretty clear indication that it's just a matter of lip service and not a genuine ambition.

Kevin McGrath

Harlow Essex