Get outside of London and there’s a palpable sense that our interests, for decades, have been put at the back of the queue. Listen to people in pubs, on buses, at school gates and in working men’s clubs and here’s what they’ll tell you: they’ve been ripped-off. We pay the same tax here as they do in London, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but we get less, significantly less, back in spending on public services. This is not a party political point; it’s true of all parties of government in London and has been for 40 years. With new powers devolved to English regions, and crucially with regional mayors who are from the region they’re standing to…

Source: The Times March 17, 2017 03:45 UTC