So Rishi is promising to divert levelling up funds to Tunbridge Wells....

[Jansobieski]

At a hustings speech in that well known centre of rural deprivation Tunbridge Wells Rishi has bemoaned the labour policy of channelling money to areas of urban deprivation in the north and he's going to change it. Presumed it would be a throwaway remark from 2013 that he could deny but no, actually was part of a filmed speech in a large garden to elderly folk ground down down by years of poverty and deprived of a waitrose on every street corner. Who knew Rishi the class warrior 😂

@jgw1 because they're not going to leak a full clip when they're trying to smear him, are they? If you're willing to believe a 10 second clip isn't taken out of context I'm glad you won't be voting for our next prime minister

It's not great and what you expect from a Tory. But he isn't stupid, unlike Truss.

Well surely if what he actually said was totally innocuous, someone from his team would share that with the world, or are you saying his team are too incompetent to do that?

@jgw1 they've shared the full context...

Are you going to share that video with us so we can all be better informed?

@jgw1 are you missing something here - there's no full video. There's full context been shared but they don't have the full video.

Oh right. So there isn't firm evidence of what he went on to say, just someone's word for it, who may have a vested interest in it.

So are you telling us that Team Rishi are so incompetent they dont have a film of what he was saying? Or are they hiding that film from us?

His words follow Dehenna Davison MP telling the Barnsley audience on Question Time that people were putting "too much emphasis on money" when talking about Levelling Up.🙄

None of this is about whether Tunbridge Wells has one area which is less well off.

Local authorities where the ratio of deprived area to affluent area is too great, cannot raise sufficient taxes to deal with the problems. Because they have too few wealthy people (and thriving local businesses serving the wealthy) paying for services for too many people needing services (disabled, working poor, support for families).

Funds from central government smooth out this effect by redistributing from overall more affluent areas to overall deprived areas. At least, they're supposed to.

The theory is that if Tunbridge Wells has small areas in need, in addition to larger areas of great wealth, then Tunbridge Wells can afford to sort this out itself.

No he categorically wasn't promising to divert levelling up funds to Tunbridge Wells. He was saying that he'd already been doing it. Sneaky tory lying bastards the lot of them.

Come to think of it, why is it a vote-winner among Tories for Sunak to be promising them government funds?

I thought the whole tenet of modern right-wing thinking was that government intervention is bad. Not necessary, not even neutral, but actively bad.

Surely receiving government funds is anathema to them?

According to Tory thinking, the burghers of Tunbridge Wells – and Tory voters in rural areas too – are all supposed to be pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps and doing it for themselves.

If they want better broadband, for example, they're supposed to found companies to serve themselves as consumers.

Is Sunak daring to suggest the market sometimes gasp fails?

PLease stop assuming there is no poverty in the south or in rural shires. Rural poverty is better hidden but it's still there.
Rather than making silly generalisations, I'd want to know exactly what any money would be spent on.

That’d certainly be a turnaround. Between the extra taxes and NI on higher earners, the loss of personal allowance, removal of interest costs from rental profit calculations, loss of pension funding and then at the other end the increases in minimum wage, this government has been pretty incessant in its efforts to funnel money in the other direction.

Liz Truss is likely to be our next prime minister and I am pleased because the Tories will be roundly beaten in the next election hopefully.

The completely silly thing is that any politician thinks that people might spend their way out of an inflationary recession whilst petrol and energy remain so ridiculously, shockingly expensive. Three times over a year ago. They won't, obviously. She must know that.

There are deprived rural areas, but I don't think Tunbridge Wells is one of them. It's not exactly what I'd describe as rural, for a start.

Honestly, what an arse. At one time I thought he had some common sense and had his head screwed on straight, but not any more.

I don't know if he has common sense as JRM hasn't commented upon it, and JRM is a renowned expert in common sense.

It's all relative. Which petrol station? I don't drive but I knew about the M&S one. Please advise.

It's the Shell one (near the BP M+S) that has a mini Waitrose...

I'm sorry, you're right. I don't drive.

Tunbridge Wells vs Thanet

Hmmmm

Shhh!!! No facts! Facts fry lefty brains