Punishing London

Although it isn't currently online, there is apparently a A story has appeared in the London Evening Standard stating that government funding for housing in the capital has been slashed from £205 million to just £1·5 million — less than half a percent of what it was going to be.

It isn't a shortage of funds behind this: it is simple gerrymandering. At Conservative Home, it is also stated that such funding in the Labour heartlands of the north east will double, despite having a far lesser need.

Long-term readers of my writings elsewhere will be aware of the evidence I have presented showing similar gerrymandering of public funds for self-serving political reasons as they affect my home area (Medway), so this news will probably come as no great surprise to them. Just to encapsulate that in a sentence: Medway Council has some £28 million taken away every year, based on the Government's own funding formula of what is needed (not "wanted", not "wouldn't it be nice if…") in order to do the job.

That money goes instead primarily to Labour-run areas, many of which are profligate with your money and mine. Exactly the same is happening again with London. Under Red Ken, no doubt the funding would have remained intact; but with Boris as mayor it was an opportunity to take advantage of Labour's control of the national purse strings — in the form of countless billions of pounds of ever-increasing tax revenue — to abuse and manipulate that system for their own ends.

All very predictable, of course, as that leopard never changes its spots — but important to have documented and notified to as many people as possible.

Punishing London