'Shropshire gets crumbs while London takes the big slice' - your letters, and a 1971 archive moment of hospital helpers
Readers share their views on national and local issues, from transport funding and politics to animal welfare and concerns about antisemitism.
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Different rules for Shropshire
The latest billion pound transport project in London is the extension of the Docklands Light Railway. A mere £1.7 billion to be precise.
There was a 'token' delay while it was 'considered', but it would always secure the funding, no doubt on the grounds of facilitating economic growth and reducing CO2 emissions.
In reality there are extremely influential companies in the Docklands that can apply political pressure and get the ear of ministers and secretaries of state. So it's a foregone conclusion: London gets what it wants, as do some other favoured areas of the country.
Contrast that with Shropshire, an area that would be pleased to receive funding to improve bus services and bring a couple of rail lines back into use.
No, Shropshire along with other rural counties can be quietly forgotten. Here growth doesn't matter, neither does getting to work, education, social isolation, leisure and of course the High Street.
The pleas from our political representatives can be ignored or met with comfortable platitudes that amount to nothing. Yet we are expected to meet government housing targets, putting even more pressure on our crumbling, pot-holed roads and infrastructure.
Here council funding is squeezed to the point of near bankruptcy which is the point when the men and women from the Ministry would be sent to 'sort things out' following a 114 declaration.
The promised 'Bus Revolution?' er...not yet...
Government finance only exists from what we pay in taxes and you may well say we in Shropshire, get the crumbs of the national cake as the big slices go to the 'influential' places. It's robbery hiding in plain sight and needs calling out. So, I suggest our Representatives in Government dispense with Parliamentary Protocol and tell it as it is. Ok Lindsay Hoyle may get a bit flustered at the use of unparliamentary discourse, but no doubt as a northerner, he'll secretly approve and chuckle to himself on his way home.
