Critics of the prime minister’s “levelling up” speech have missed one very positive element (Boris Johnson’s speech on ‘levelling up’ decried for lack of substance, 15 July). Mr Johnson admitted that “investing in areas where house prices are already sky high and where transport is already congested and by turbo-charging those areas, especially in London and the south-east” would drive prices higher and force people to move to already overheated areas.
These words effectively torpedoed the government’s ludicrous and destructive Oxford-Cambridge Arc project. The five overwhelmingly rural counties under threat mostly enjoy above-average prosperity and productivity, and have no need of the million homes the government wants to dump on productive farmland there. The vast public investment proposed should be reallocated to places that would actually benefit.
Jon Reeds
Smart Growth UK
• The Johnson government’s “levelling up” process seems also to involve a further raid of £1.9bn from the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme. This, while providing an important contribution to the welfare and economy of ex-mining areas, is also paying some miners less than £1 a week, as a reward for years of service in the mines. Johnson’s plans are clearly based on the old idea of robbing the poor to pay the rich!
Bill Newman
Royston, South Yorkshire
• The most significant contribution to “levelling up” in recent times was the Sure Start programme, which Tory governments have eviscerated. Without any commitment to restore that programme fully, any talk of “levelling up” can be no more than smoke and mirrors. The prime minister’s speech, empty of any concrete substance, amply confirmed the hypocrisy of the high-sounding phrase.
John Brind
Hethersett, Norfolk
• Spending £50m on libraries would do more to lift the young and the poor out of poverty, and provide opportunity for the many, than spending £50m on football pitches, which at best is likely to give a few dozen working-class boys access to unprecedented wealth, while leaving the remainder in the same old misery, with nothing but fantasies of success to feed on.
Rob Lowe
Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire
• The conclusion of Zoe Williams’ sketch on Boris Johnson’s “levelling up” speech (15 July), in which she said he “has a neck like a jockey’s bollocks”, caused me to think about jockeys’ bollocks for the first time in ages. Then I saw that Greg Wood’s tips in three consecutive horse races at Haydock were Somewhere Secret, Macho Pride and Lucky Shake. Surely a sign? While the second horse won and the third came third, the first was eighth and my spaffed £5 accumulator merely served as a reminder that the only reason Tories have bigger balls than socialists is because they sell more tickets.
Fr Alec Mitchell
Holyhead, Anglesey
• Zarah Sultana, Coventry South MP, says that Boris Johnson is “not fooling anyone” with his soundbites. On the contrary, he is successfully fooling many millions of people – millions who vote for him, millions whom the Labour party somehow manage not to reach or inspire.
Peter Kaan
Exeter, Devon
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