I've been handed emails showing that Ministers and DfT officials were warned about Northern rail chaos 2 years ago. They show utter contempt for Northern passengers. #PMQs
DfT officials describe key routes as 'not really valued' and discuss giving a "sop" to campaigners.
They admit key Northern routes will be axed as early as 2015...
...but Ministers continued to assure MPs those routes will be saved.
DfT officials discuss spreading false information to deflect public attention from route closures.
Chris Grayling says he will learn the lessons. He must explain what he knew and when. All emails must be realised.
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Hastings and coastal towns like it across the UK are in desperate need of investment after 13 years of neglect by the Conservatives.
But they’re forced to bid for partial refunds on the money that’s been taken from them via an opaque system of competitive funding pots.
This broken system (which even Michael Gove admits isn't working 👇) forces local communities to go cap-in-hand to Whitehall, competing with one another for the ear of junior ministers who hoard decision-making power in Westminster.
Tory MPs have just voted to cover up why the government made the astonishing decision to block a fully independent investigation into the serious allegations made about the Teesside steelworks, and instead choose to hand-pick the terms for their own review…
It is disgraceful that the Conservative Party has voted to deny people on Teesside the answers they deserve about the use of hundreds of millions of pounds of public money and the transfer into private hands of 90% of an asset that is a vital part of Teesside's civic inheritance.
Having rejected cross-party calls (including from the Conservative Mayor) for a National Audit Office investigation, ministers need to clarify that the review they have set up will have all the same powers as the NAO would have had…
The Levelling Up department is set to spend nearly £2.5bn less on regeneration projects this year than planned, including (in the middle of a housing crisis) £1bn earmarked for new affordable homes this year.
This will only exacerbate the housing crisis and make homeownership a more distant dream for thousands of families.
To have crashed the economy, sent mortgage costs spiralling and now be pushing the supply of new affordable housing off a cliff, represents new heights of incompetence.
From a Chewing Gum Task Force to diagrams showing what a good park looks like, this is the story of how the government in Whitehall micromanages thousands of tiny decisions every week, while failing to do its actual job properly.
🧵👇
Britain is one of the most centralised countries in the developed world, with power hoarded at Westminster and local leaders and communities lacking a say in most of the decisions that affect their daily lives.
Over recent years central government has been micromanaging an extraordinary range of decisions.
For example, officials at the Department for Transport decided who should receive money for the maintenance of local traffic lights 🚦
In 2021 the Conservative PM was clear: “The most important metric is wage growth - that is what I mean by levelling up.”
This week we learned that real wages have fallen in every region of the UK since 2010.
By their own metric the Conservatives are utterly failing ❌
Mini🧵👇
In October 2021, Boris Johnson said this to @BBClukewalton:
“I’ve given you the most important metric which is – never mind life expectancy, never mind cancer outcomes – look at wage growth… that is what I mean by levelling up.”
WATCH it here 👇
He may be a full two Prime Ministers ago, but when he said that:
🆙 Michael Gove was Levelling Up Secretary (as he is again now)