Labour government sucking the South dry

GORDON BROWN is facing a growing backlash over the way hard-working southerners fund northerners and Scots.

Workers in the South East believe the Scottish PM and his team don’t understand the pressures of life in and around Greater London.

Figures show well over half the economy of Scotland, the North West, North East, Wales and Northern Ireland is funded by the taxpayer.

Yet the economy in highly populated London and the South East – Britain’s engine room – gets just a third.

Critics in the South East believe they are becoming the cash cow for the rest of the country.

Currently 19 per cent of all UK tax receipts come from London and 37 per cent from London and the South East.

Only seven per cent of tax comes from Scotland.

And just TWO Cabinet ministers represent a southern seat.


The PM represents a Fife seat and his Chancellor Alistair Darling is MP for Edinburgh South West.

Defence supremo Des Browne represents Kilmarnock and International Aid secretary Douglas Alexander is the MP for Paisley, near Glasgow.

It reveals Northern Ireland’s budget per head of population is 70.5 per cent of the nation’s wealth. Wales gets 64.3 per cent, the North East 63, Wales 55.6 and Scotland 54 per cent.
And their figures show the gap is widening, not closing.

Ministers keep pumping cash into northern regions because they need the votes to win an election.


source: GEORGE PASCOE-WATSON Political Editor at The Sun