Letter: Look north, look south, Tony

SO TONY BLAIR has emerged from his bunker in London to prove to the people of "The North" that there is no North-South divide ("North- South divide is over, says Blair", 5 December). I wonder how he will manage it. Sure, there are some prosperous areas in the north of England and in Scotland, but the truth is that the South is mainly rich with a few poor areas and the North is mainly poor with a few rich areas.

If he tries to massage the statistics to prove differently, he will antagonise a large section of the electorate. He will do himself more good by admitting the truth and promising to do something about it than by denying the facts. If he wants evidence, he could read the recent statistics on premature death in many inner cities in the North, migration from north to south, the heavy pressure for building on green belt land in the South, the difference in average wages, and the relative movements in house prices.

As a disillusioned member of the Labour Party in Leicester, I watch the booming economy in London from a very average economy in the East Midlands, which could at any moment be retarded if the Bank of England deemed the economy to be overheating due to inflation in the South-east.

There are several reasons for the above conditions, which we should be addressing. First is infrastructure. Why do Eurostar and the Shuttle terminate in London and the South-east? What opportunities have the economics of the North without effective transport? There has been talk of widening the M25, more airports for London and extending the London Underground, but Glasgow has yet to have a completed motorway link with the M6.

Then there are the huge empires of Westminster, the House of Lords and Whitehall, all the salaries of the MPs, senior civil servants and their retinues, the consultancies put out to the City, monstrous and over-budget capital projects such as the Millennium Dome, the Royal Opera House, the British Library - all of which use taxpayers' money (and I include lottery money as a voluntary tax).

From this continuous injection of cash into the South-east comes the multiplier effect on its economy. The money earned is spent there and engenders more investment in more businesses. Hence, demand for labour, and inflated salaries, more congestion, and the need for yet more government expenditure.

Who subsidises whom? How can it be claimed that social security, used to offset unemployment and low wages, is a subsidy, whereas taxpayers' money for capital projects, infrastructures, government consultancy contracts and salaries, all set in one area, is not? If there is to be any marked change, some of this money has to be spent beyond the South- east of England.

GORDON McAUSLANE

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