Government is cynically using the new round of 'levelling-up' to bribe voters - Yorkshire Post Letters

The government is cynically using the new round of 'levelling-up' funding to bribe voters in those marginal constituencies it might lose at the next General Election.

Sunak's Richmond constituency will receive £19m, yet it is one of the most affluent in the country and benefits at the expense of deprived areas.

Voters in Conservative seats will get almost £20 per head more than in similarly deprived non-Conservative ones, and those in northern 'red wall' marginals such as Burnley, Workington and Blyth Valley will receive almost twice as much.

Some regions in the North are the poorest in Western Europe and surely the purpose of levelling up funding should be to address this problem.

However, of the bids that were rejected six came from Leeds, four from Bradford, two from Hull and three from York.

As with the 'VIP lane' scandal of contracts for cronies which wasted tens of billions on unusable PPE, the Tories are again syphoning off our tax money for their own ends, bending the rules rather than working for the public good. This is corruption – and all Conservative MPs who keep quiet about it are equally complicit.