‘Levelling up’ mixed messages insult North – Yorkshire Post Letters

FOLLOWING Tom Richmond’s comments on politicians’ verbal shorthand (The Yorkshire Post, March 13), I dug out my Oxford English Dictionary.

“Level” and its derivatives occupy 23 column inches. The diversity – positive and negative – illustrates why politicians have laid claim to ownership; potential duplicity by the verbal bucketful!

George Osborne’s “Northern Powerhouse” suggested something virile and functional; but it never happened and presumably it now rests in the heaving Westminster ‘Northern’ skip. In describing the current vocal spate of ‘levellings’ – up, down and round-about – Tom Richmond uses the term “nebulous”; you’re too generous Tom.

From: Michael Clarke, Market Place, Kirkbymoorside.

ON an almost weekly basis, the weekend edition of The Yorkshire Post contains economic solutions from career soldiers, spin doctors, politicians, civil servants. I never realised the wealth of economic knowledge from so many that, in the words of a former respected politician, “couldn’t run a whelk stall.”

The truth is you could have the best connectivity, infrastructure, skills and manufacturing base, but without demand it would be reliant on continual taxpayers’ support. The North’s prosperity is reliant on people with “nous”, and more importantly, “experience of wealth creation”, both sadly lacking at the moment.

Railing over MoD’s woes

From: Michael J Robinson, Park Lane, Berry Brow, Huddersfield.

I WAS reminded of the recent calls for the railways to be 
re-nationalised when I read that the Ministry of Defence has managed to ‘squander’ £24bn in leaving the Army ‘four years away from being able to field a “warfighting division”.

MPs described the MoD, and specifically the British Army’s efforts to modernise its ageing fleet of armoured vehicles, as “a woeful story of bureaucratic procrastination, military indecision, financial mismanagement and general ineptitude”. How different our railways may turn out to be if any form of civil servants were ever again allowed to apply their expertise and business acumen to that or any other industry.

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