Philip Dunne MP reveals Labour's latest insult to rural Britain

Research for the Centre for Policy Studies by Conservative MP Philip Dunne has revealed how Gordon Brown has used his control of the nation's purse strings to tilt the growth of funding towards urban Britain - much of it Labour's heartlands.

Commenting to The Telegraph, Mr Dunne said:

"Gordon Brown has a simple strategy to win the next election: to bribe his areas of traditional strength with money pinched from Tory-voting shires. Central government grants of all kinds to councils and other public bodies have increased far faster in cities and big towns than they have in country area.  We have witnessed a deliberate policy of switching taxpayers' money from the country to the city. It has been done in secret, with no announcement, no public debate, no explanation and no justification."

The leader-writers at The Telegraph agree that politics explains the change:

"Country people have made the mistake of refusing to return Labour councils. Indeed, in the southern counties, Labour has virtually disappeared as a political force - an eviction far more dramatic, though less remarked, than the paucity of Tories in Liverpool and Manchester.  Put bluntly, spending more in an area makes its inhabitants likelier to look to the state for their livelihood, which in turn makes them likelier to vote for the high-tax party."

The rural-to-urban drift of funding - previously highlighted by Owen Paterson MP - is only one manifestation of Gordon Brown's use of the highest and stealthiest tax burden in British history to buy votes.

There is the subsidy of Scotland and Wales and the transfer of money from south to north generally.  The massive growth in public sector employment and the quangocracy.   And, of course, the subsidy of the trade unions in return for them paying 90%+ of the Labour Party's bills.

Comments

[englandism.com]

Speaking from ruralshire.

Here’s a tick list for you Mr.Broon:

Close down our post office and consequently take away the only village shop. Done.

Impose a smoking ban and make a pint of beer more expensive than a bottle of supermarket plonk. Close down the village pub. Almost done.

Supertax our tools of the trade known as Landrovers dressed up as greenery but in fact a class based hatred of Chelsea tractors. Being done.

Close down our country sports dressed up as animal rights but in fact green eyed spite. Thoroughly done.

Fuel: Give no allowance for the necessity of car use or the absence of affordable energy supplies for basic heating. Done to death.

[Graham Doll]

Don't forget 'close down our local surgery and make us travel to town centre polyclinics to see a different doctor (or triage nurse) every time'.

[Peter Gooderham]

Entirely consistent with "Betraying the NHS" by Michael Mandelstam. He describes the systematic downgrading of NHS services in rural Suffolk, with concurrent denials from the government and rubbishing of opponents. Sounds familiar?

[Subsidy junky]

I bet you his figures don't include the outrageous CAP ladelling cash to farmers. Ever me a poor farmer? Exactly.

[englandism.com]

And artificially inflate house prices to provide an all too thin veneer of economic prosperity by the means of restricting supply thereby infesting the rural margins with weekenders and/or commuters driving the young out of the villages that they were born in.

Now the high street of my village blows with tumbleweed amid the deserted erstwhile family homes and the shuttered midweek windows of urban second home prosperity.

However, the entire village now appears to be for sale (for some reason).

[David Parker]

Subsidy junky.
Ever visited the bankruptcy courts? Plenty of our farmers have. Britain's share of CAP subsidy is minute and most British farmers would like to see the CAP abolished, but tell that to the French, Germans, or Spaniards !

[stephen hoffman]

there is absolutely nothing wrong with polyclinics -and before you criticise me im not a fan of Gordon brown and am a stedfast conservative. The Polyclinics will provide a better service than GPS can , they will work at more convenient hours , will be more efficient and will provide more choice -and with a wider range of GPS to see - if that is at the expense of a few inefficient GPS then fine . My Uncle and Grandad were both GPS -and they admitted GPS are paid to much -and this leads to them being in their comfort zone not providing for patients .

As for post office. Thatcher should have privatised them . The reason they are closing down is because they are hopelessly inefficient just like he mines in the 1980s.

[YMT]

Voters in the countryside and the south have long known that Labour hates us, mainly because we won't vote for them. But then Labour know this so we get no investment in any of our services, our public transport is terrible, the government takes our money and goes investing it up North. You just have to go round some of the towns and villages in Kent and Sussex to see how many of then are slowly falling to bits while you go up north and they have new shopping precincts, buses, trains etc.. I want someone to make a map showing the proportion of public money that has been spent on areas for re-generation, development and all since Labour came to power.

[Mrs Gillian Watson]

Is this list of disparity in regional spending not also a slap in the face for the Conservative Councils who are prudent with taxpayer's money?

[Graham Doll]

Where is the evidence that polyclinics will provide a better service? They might be open longer than the 8am to 6.30pm that surgeries are currently contracted to provide, but seeing a different doctor, mostly on short term contracts, each time will not improve quality. Nor do the elderly or chronically ill wish to travel miles from their home. Also, the job has changed dramatically since days of yore - hospital general physicians are all but extinct and GPs have taken over their role. It wasn't that long ago when you would have to go to the hospital for a blood test!

Polyclinics are an expensive experiment at taxpayers' expense - like the failed NHS Direct, national records system and ISTCs.

[Deborah]

Perhaps - for those Conservative Councils who ARE prudent with taxpayers money - unfortunately some are not.

[Curly]

I have to admit surprise that this article has aroused so much interest.

It was ever thus!

[George Hinton]

Gerrymandering on a scale that leaves Lady Porter in the learners class.

[Alan.S]

Is anyone really surprised that Gordon Brown uses tax money for political purposes ??
We already have the situation where over 50% of the country get all or part of their income from the government. These are the various government employees and anyone on benefits. Note that I do not include age related pensions. So if Gordon throws more money in the Labour 'homelands' it is just to maintain or increase his support.

[Jamal McAkhbar]

Interesting parallels between the Burmese Junta, Mugabe, Lenin, Stalin, Castro, Mao, Blair and Brown. If you're not in the party, you starve. Look at what Devolution was designed to do.

[Patsy Sergeant]

Well 'Curly' @ 12.33 - you obviously live oop north, or in a cocoon!

Graham Doll @ 10.09 - and they are shrinking our hospital facilities, whilst at the same time building super large hospitalS! up north, which are regularly shown on 'Nightwatch' (on ITV!); yes down here in the south there is one 1, large new hospital apparently being built, although there isn't much to see at the moment -(when I was in it two weeks, having been forwarded from our own much commended hospital - as they have already cut down services, thanks to PCT cuts).

The local PCT had three options (to streamline services in our county - their ideas encouraged by this ...government), so of course they picked the ONE option guaranteed to cause the most hardship - not to say deaths (and that is not just my opinion!).

Our council is one of the lowest if not actually the lowest funded council in this country, BUT there is a demand for the HIGHEST number of new houses, but of course no promise of back-up funding for infra-structure to supply those housing estates.

At the same time there is a demand for an ECO town of 5,000 houses which of course means at least 10,000 new residents.

There is ONE major road running east/west through the county - which all these houses would access - and it was reported locally, last week, that the surface of this road is breaking up, because of the constant hard wear.

It is my firm belief that this government is intent on a cull of conservative voters here in the South, and I mean 'cull', because our ambulance service has warned that in the daytime and in the summer it will take at least AN HOUR to get a patient to the nearest hospital (as far as I know we do not have - as yet - the kind of helicopter service that is supplying the nice new hospitals up north).

The government may not determine to kill people, but they can hardly expect ANYONE to vote Labour and endure the sort of sub-facilities which are forced on them by this government!

[Paul Marks]

In Northamptonshire we are more than 300 million Pounds behind in road maintenance. Whilst this is partly due to a shift of money away from the road budget to social services undertaken during the period of Labour party rule in Northamptonshire (from the terrible day in 1989 when we lost the county by one seat and that seat by only two votes - till three years ago when we recaptured the county)it is also due to the move in central government grant by the Labour government nationally.

This grant is not welfare - the people of Northamptonshire pay road tax, car tax and petrol tax but the money does not go to the County Council (which is responsible for most roads in the county) therefore the central government grant is a way of getting some (a small percentage) of our own money back.

Instead the Labour government chooses to give the money to councils controlled by the Labour party, and what money is allocated to road maintainence is often put through the absurd "regional" government process.

For example, money counted as part of the money (our own money) that the government sends back to us, is going to be spent on a new road from Newark to Nottingham. Perhaps down in London they think Nottingham is part of Northamptonshire ("Nottingham/Northampton sounds the same") as we are all the "East Midlands".

The sooner this "regional government" fraud is done away with the better. These Euro regions (for that is what they are) are not wanted by the people.

[RichardJ]

Money raised in a county should be spent in that county. That will put a stop to any corruption.

[Malcolm Dunn]

This is not a suprise but well done to Phillip. Sadly Labour have very few votes left to lose in rural Britain.