for the North East goes down the pan before even up and running, pretty sure it will now evolve somewhere South of Teeside with substantially more backing.

What about all this levelling up thing, the Tories need to do some thing if they have any chance of winning the next election to keep hold of the red wall seats they won in the last election.

I don’t have a problem with that.

Why it was going to bring jobs to the N.E. .

….Last time I looked, Redcar was in the North East.

Well let’s hope it gets build some where, as usual the U.K. is lagging behind, there are 6 factories in the rest of Europe and there will be 25 by 2025, currently only 1 in the U.K. at Nissan.

the problem does not start and finish in the NE. parts of east lancashire and west yorkshire are just as bad. way this country is going there is more chance of the south levelling down.

If I'm elected in the next elections I'm going in on a promise of opening up two large car battery plants in the area, moving the national stock exchange from London to Peterlee, upgrading Shotton airport to international status, moving the Tate Gallery from London to Horden, extending the Tyneside Metro down to Seaton Carew, giving everyone their own wind turbine for their property to produce their own power and providing every family in the North East with a free fish and chip supper once a week.

Do you think I'd get in?,

All I'd need to do is conveniently renege on all of the promises when successful... result.

As for levelling up..... don't make me laugh, a greater false promise than all of the above.

You missed out nailing a micro wind turbine to your head….handy to download after a windy walk.

I suppose you will head up the Fantasy Party, akin to Raving Lord Sutch of the Raving Loony Party

Good luck but you might lose your deposit

Can't you promise to re-open The Seagull at Crimmer Paulus?

Site is expected to be taken over by another battery builder or new entrant to business.

Was hoping to refurbish the "Gull" and turn it into a cryochamber storage plant, you know for people who've had enough of the current climate and want to come back in 200 years time, when world population is down to about 20 million and Pools are in the Premiership. And like France currently everybody can get a state pension at 62.

64 if Macron gets his way. Got the World service on this morning and apparently the railways are striking in France… and the nurses and doctors too.
C’est La Vie….

Hartlepool being bandied about on the local news tonight as one of the winners in this fund shareout, £16 million for the Northern Arts film studio, maybe those two guys who bought Wrexham should've come here and then clocked on just down in Church Street.

Strikes are because they want to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64, the average State Pension is £1500 a month but you have to have worked nearly 42 years to qualify for it.

Obviously the strikes are because he’s raising the retirement age, you have to have something to actually strike about.
But working continuously to get the full whack sounds fair to me….I know able bodied people who have never worked, yet they pick the same pension as you or me.

there are many blind and disabled people around who manage to find work they are able to do. you cannot let the workshy starve but surely those who put the hours in should be rewarded for their actions in paying tax and full council taxes. did 42 years plus, but in those 42 years i must have got 60 in with all the overtime i did.

Obviously people with ill health and disabilities of whatever nature should be in a separate category and I know disabled folk keen to work. I’m referring to those able bodied column dodgers we all know to whom work is a four letter word.

they know the system but nowadays people seem frightened to out them and think up reasons to feel sorry for em and help them. cannot imagine there will be many single folk amongst them as the system gives them the least by a long way.

The Tories are just a bunch of criminals according to this morning's paper, Zahawi dodging huge tax bills, Sunak being fined for not wearing a seatbelt and that brazen Lady Mone and her husband being linked to more dodgy dealings, and that's just the first two pages.

So this £2 billion "levelling up monies".......over how long?
Its going to take a good few years to spend this especially Morecambe so if its say 4 years thats £1/2 billion per year which is probably the normal government capital budget for these type of projects.
So is it just a repackaging/rebranding exercise?
Just asking like?