George Osborne’s £13bn ‘northern powerhouse’ fund includes routine council spending on potholes
“In further embarrassment, a communities minister was also accused of misleading parliament over the money after he claimed to MPs in the Commons last week that the government was “investing £13bn in rail in the north” for “more trains, newer trains and more regular journeys”. “…
“It has now emerged, however, that only £3bn of that money is for rail schemes – of which £1.35bn had already been allocated, mainly to upgrades in and around Manchester.”
Spotted by Regular Reader
Rotherham Politics 
I’m surprised people are surprised. The day the Tories won with a majority was a death knell for the North. They lied with all sorts of promises just to win our votes and most people fell for it. With the redrawing of the political map on the horizon (from 650 MP’s to 600) the Tories stand to gain the most and ensure they will rule (not govern) for at least the next 10-15 years. In the meantime we will continue to suffer while the rich get richer.
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The old trick of making promises you do not intend to keep, is one used by all the political parties, remember the Liberals 2010, Student grants. As for the Tories being in power for a considerable time, well that because the opposition is so useless. To be frank would you put Labour in charge of the country, just look how hopeless the Rotherham Labour Party is and multiple , frightening.
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While ever Rotherham votes Labour it will get nothing. The Labour Party do not need to do anything to get the votes and so they don’t. The Tories will get nothing even if they do bribe Rotherham (with its own money). The only thing either of them will react to is the potential loss of their MP, so the sooner Rotherham becomes a marginal seat the better.
Would you pour any money into a political rotten borough populated by an ungrateful whining population who pride themselves on being anti just about anything you do? Rotherham is not blameless in the cause of its sufferings. To the outside world RMBC is Rotherham, along with the three stooges Campion, Barron, and Healey.
Maybe one of them might be in the 50 MPs to go in the possible Parliamentary cull; no real loss there perhaps.
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Proposed electoral boundary changes plus proposals to stop Scottish MP voting on England only issues will probably keep Labour out of power for ten or fifteen years, at least. Certainly the Tories will have to be pretty bad to lose power.
The are especially aided by the disarray within the Labour Party, that even to members appears like a bunch of ferrets fighting in a sack over something nobody else understands.
We now have the most right wing government in my memory, and that is as far back as Heath. One cannot help but think that the Labour Party are culpable in bringing this plague down upon us,
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If you think it’s bad now just wait till 2020 when it’s nailed on we’ll have a UKIP MP here.
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