So Kenneth Clarke (Interview, G2, 16 April) didn’t see that the effect of Tory policies on former thriving economies might result in a backlash from the post-industrial towns where the cuts were the most debilitating.
He wouldn’t have had to go far from his home on “Bread and Lard Island” (a wonderful old Nottingham epithet for West Bridgford) to Mansfield – it’s 17 miles up the A60 and then a bit further to Worksop. Those communities didn’t feel misunderstood, rather the feeling was that they were callously and cruelly disregarded by the government of the time as their livelihood was consigned to the dustbin of economic progress. Anyone with O-level economics would have seen what was to come.
Presumably Clarke, like the rest of us, can’t foresee what is to come next. Let’s hope his ageing party is ignored by the young in favour of progressive politics and a change from the clownish behaviour we see in the Houses of Parliament.
But please don’t patronise us, Mr Clarke – the government knew exactly what it was doing, but not the consequences, it would seem.
David Gretton
Gedling, Nottinghamshire
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