To feel that the South West has been abandoned (long and ranty)

[zeezeek]

My family still live in Cornwall and they have been completely battered by the wind and the rain for weeks now. Last night they had to be evacuated from their house. The main train line down to Cornwall (in fact also half of Devon) is completely destroyed and a lot of prime agricultural land in Somerset is under water.

People are losing their livelihoods and they have been lucky that there have been no loss of life. In a region where there is already high unemployment - the impact on the farming, fishing and tourist industries will just make the situation worse. Freight trains can no longer get down past Exeter.

The EA are effectively blaming the poor buggers who are affected by this and seemingly forgetting that people and homes are also affected. The government doesn't give a shit and the Environment minister didn't even bother taking a pair of wellington boots with him on his photo opp visit. Our future King made silly comments about how a disaster beings people together while his waste of space daughter in law spends taxpayers money jetting off to the Caribbean. Comments in sensible, intelligent newspapers are also blaming people for daring to live on a flood plain (which has never flooded to this extent) and by the sea.

I know that I am BU, but tonight - when my parents are still not allowed home and my brother has had his fishing boat sunk - I am feeling very, very pissed off with the media who seems to be making such a big deal out of a 2 day tube strike - there are buses.

Sorry, but needed to vent. Have nothing against Londoners - I lived there for years.

whitecloud I'm sure your DH is doing a great job. You'll understand why it is perhaps not entirely comforting to know how hard they are working in the south east. Not comforting at all. Not surprising either. :(

op agree with the whole of your original post, especially the Saint Kate and twatty Charles bit.

really hope things get better for your family.

it must be bloody dreadful.

Even with the entire tube closed, London still has hugely better public transport than anywhere else (the South West for example...!)

(Are you a Londoner if you live in London or if you are from London? How long do you have to live in London to be a Londoner? Are you a Londoner if your job is sometimes based in London and you live elsewhere? What if you mainly work from home and use skype? More importantly, can you chip bits off of London at the edges if you don't like them like the south west and Bristol.....)

Exactly.

Kids go to school on that train.My friend is a single parent who has to get to work early.She now has a major issue.You can't just hale a cab,jump on a bus or walk to the next station here.

A lot of our extortionate buses are hourly.

Where there is a bus service.

OP: I am skipping most of the thread to say I totally agree with you - I lived in London for 10 years, but having moved north 2 years ago I am amazed by the London centric nature of the media. I am really sorry to hear that your family's livelihoods have been so threatened.

please don't equate the powers-that-be who are based in London with Londoners - they are not the same! And I didn't elect Boris. Or Call-me-Dave, for that matter.

The situation in Somerset is very bad, and is being badly handled and, until recently, poorly covered by the media. But saying that Londoners (8 million of them) can't have a wee moan about the tube strike because things are worse in Somerset - well, I think the Haitians might take exception to that. And the residents of New Orleans. Yes, it's bad. But taking random pot shots isn't the way to get sympathy for your (righteous) cause.

Retro pear! Ooh I'd love an hourly bus! We get two per day! 1.5 hours from the nearest train station.

If the car breaks down then no work for me. I love the SW. It is fab, but the winters can be hard and difficult. This year's atrocious weather is going to have huge ongoing impact for everyone I know whether farmers or hoteliers.

And I completely agree that London MPs and their minions just don't get it. Parliament is completely London-centric and cares not a jot for the "regions" unless they can buy a country pile for holidays or retire here.

The blue wash of Tories in Devon and Cornwall are mostly down to those groups of retirees and semi-residents who just want somewhere pretty and remote, but have no idea what the reality of rural life is.

I also think that suggesting that we dont question the powers that be 'because we elected them' is highly inappropriate to say the least considering the topic of this thread. Its baffling actually.

OP I haven't read the whole thread but the problem is that the UK is first and foremost London centric, that is where most money is spent, virtually all decisions are taken. Next are the home counties.

There is little interest in/money for the rest.

It is shocking, unfair, stupid, short sighted but unlikely to change as none of the main parties are very interested.

Yes and most money is generated in London too..

I don't think it's really about money - it's about population - London is full of a rag bag of people from all over the place many of whom come from somewhere else and would live somewhere else if they could find work.

That is what makes it london, for good or bad.

In other words, the vast majority of Londoners are just trying to get on with their lives and have little interest in politics. Clearly there are a few doughnuts and many of them spend their time in the Houses of Parliament, but with 8 million people there are bound to be a few doughnuts.

London has received most investment for many many years, so it is,not surprising most money is generated there and most people are drawn to London as they cannot find a,job elsewhere.

This is a UK specific problem. In other countries, wealth tends to be a bit more spread out.

Yes and most money is generated in London too..

Well, there you go - so hurrah for London and the lovely people there and never mind the rest of us trying to earn a living in other parts of the country. How utterly insulting and ridiculous. This is why people get so angry.

I grew up in the SW, but lived most of my adult life in London and the SE - I love London and I love the home counties, but it is no good trying to pretend that those of us who live and work here are somehow better citizens than my parents - who were both teachers in Cornwall before opening a B&B on retirement, or my brother - who is a fisherman in a Cornish port and, btw supplies several restaurants in London and the SE.

London has good flood defences. That's great - we need to protect our capital and our economic heart.

The SW does not - so therefore the message that they are getting is that the industries down there - not just fishing, farming and tourism - but numbers of SME - which the govt says it supports and a few major industries as well, a dockyard where there are nuclear subs, other military installations, academia, the health service...need I continue? - is less important than those businesses and services in London.

Why does it have to be an either/or situation?! In fact the suffering of the South West with the floods and the tube strike in London are both crappy situations with entirely different causes and effects, and they both suck!

I'm a Londoner, born and bred in the South West - I'm completely torn by this thread!! Feel so sorry for all the folk in Somerset and Cornwall - incredible that it's ongoing with no end in sight it seems. Just awful, and so miserable for your family OP, I do feel bad for them. I know plenty about the floods down there though, cos its been all over the news here.

Tube strikes have been pretty crappy too, but like I said, the 2 really aren't comparable. Londoners are just piggy in the middle between a posturing mayor and posturing unions. Many are struggling in already hard economic conditions (impacting the whole country of course), and can ill afford to lose pay or piss off employers due to tube shenanigans. Walking or buses often aren't an option due to the sheer size of the place - it would take me a good 3 hours to get to work by bus and all day to walk it!

So massive sympathy goes to the flood bound of course, but we Londoners are also allowed to feel a tad pissed off no? Completely different situations, both rubbish. Why is it a competition?

You first need to see long term investment, before other parts can start generating money.

Unfortunately there is no political will to do so.

London has public transport 363 days a year.

My 16y DD has never been on a local bus, we don't have any.

DMIL's Cornish friend had a bus stop at the bottom of her garden, tourists were & when told the next and only bus was on Thursdays.

It is not a competition, but there are no limitless funds.

True, there aren't limited funds. I just don't see what there is to be gained by an "I've got it worse" fight. Both situations clearly need to be resolved and I seriously doubt the South West would be left underwater as a direct result of trying to sort the tube crap or vice versa.

Incidentally OP, I did feel a lot of sympathy for you. Starting to revise my opinion though having read this little gem from you earlier in the thread:

"I have been accused of not understanding Londoners misery at a 2 day tube strike - seriously? 2 days where some people are inconvenienced???? How fucking selfish can you people get? When people in the SW see comments like that then is it any wonder that they have such a low opinion of you? Get over yourselves. There are still buses, some other tube lines are running, taxis and, god forbid - you could walk"

Nice to know you have such a low opinion of me, despite never having met me and despite my feelings of sympathy for you and yours. D'you see what I mean that it's not helpful for us to tear strips off one another regarding 2 incomparable situations? I wonder if you would make the above comment to Londoners whose businesses will go under as a result of the strikes, or staff who lose their wages and can't afford their rent hmm? I hope not. If you do believe that, then I'm afraid I lose all sympathy for you entirely.

Whizbang - 2 days....understand - 2 days. The Somerset levels and the farmers who work on them (not just land owners) have been affected for weeks and there is no end in sight.

My brother's boat sunk. He has insurance, but doesn't know if and when they will pay out and until then he can't work. If he can't work then nor can the 2 men he employs. That's three families affected.

All the time my parents B&B is shut their staff cannot work. More families affected.

Some of the people affected by the government's neglect of the SW may well end up on benefits because businesses there will shut.

That's why I - and lots of other people in the SW are angry. Especially when, as you said, the two situations are incomparable.

The tube strike is inconvenient.

What Devon/Somerset/Cornwall are facing is destroying livelihoods. It is disastrous.