My fear that Boris Johnson will be a London first premier – Yorkshire Post letters

READING the article by the Bishop of Ripon (The Yorkshire Post, July 22) asking a new Prime Minister to “walk in our shoes and try to understand the North”, I was reminded of an encounter with Boris Johnson in 2010 when I was in a role working with the lamented – by many – regional development agency and he was at the peak of his tenure as Mayor of London.

Why Boris Johnson must learn from Theresa May mistakes and Power Up The North form day one – The Yorkshire Post says

When we were introduced, I explained to him that I was enthusiastically promoting the importance of the financial and professional sector for Leeds City Region, nationally and internationally. “Ah” said Mr J. “And what, exactly, is a City Region?”

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I explained that it was an academic concept that defined the footprint of a city – the area where its economic influence dominated and of course I emphasised the scale and importance of Leeds within a national context.

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“Hmm,” comtemplated the Mayor for a few moments. “But my dear boy – what you have to realise is that England itself is London’s City Region”.

As someone four years older than Mr Johnson, I was flattered to be called a boy, but I remain concerned that a new Prime Minister may continue to see our major Northern conurbations as little more than poor suburbs of the capital.

From: Ian Smith, Colston Close, Bradford.

FOR Justine Greening (The Yorkshire Post, July 20) to attack suggestions to prorogue Parliament, when others are intent on denying democracy through all sorts of other mechanisms, is a little unfair.

Political parties, through those MPs who’ve denied their local and the majority of national constituents, have already lost Britain. Proroguing would make no difference to current practices of Parliamentary representation.

The comment that politicians, in principle, should ‘engage’, ‘unite Britain’ and ‘represent communities’ maybe right, but so many MPs chose not to represent their communities on Brexit; they chose to present their own, or their party’s views instead.

The dangerous precedent mentioned has already been set, although not through attempts to prorogue Parliament; but because hollow promises from politicians who feign democracy mean little, if anything, anymore.

A straw poll would be interesting. The outcome might well show that a majority wouldn’t want to shut down Parliament for any cause, other than to demonstrate contempt.