To "Mike, Edinburgh, Scotland not the UK"

I am glad to say your attitude is not typical of Scots, but it demands a response.

I do not recall ever having the opportunity to withdraw from the Contract of Union - unlike Scotland - and I for one would most certainly do so. The current situation is unbalanced, and denies England the rights given to Scotland and Wales.

So Mr Brown - lets have a referendum for England then shall we? No? Thought not. And I wonder why (see article for clarification).

G Thomas, Surrey, England

Surely the fact that Scottish students do not need to pay university fees whilst there English counterparts do is the most striking example of the sort of spending Southern tax-payers object to. I for one will be leaving with over twice the debt of Scottish students at my university-who is to blame for this? The Scottish MPs in Parliament. It's a disgrace.

BC, London,

Surely the most striking example of the sort of favouratism in Government funding which Southern tax-payers object to are University fees. I will be leaving with over twice the debt of my Scottish counterparts at the same university (many of whom are financially better off than me to begin with). Whilst I do not understand the reasoning behind it I understand that Scottish MPs are responsible. When I pay taxes I want this disbalance to be addressed.

BC, London,

I was just wondering how many Northern Rock credit card holders are south of Watford? Or even south of Nottingham?

Howard Broadwell, Nottingham, England

Worth mentioning that with all the talk about North Sea oil revenues these are pretty small in the grand scheme. The UK as a whole is a trillion pound economy, North Sea oil revenues are 0.2 - 0.3% of that. Hardly a bank breaker.

Carl, London / Warwickshire / Derby,

Labour has always pandered to its heartlands of Scotland and the north just as the conservatives have for London and the home counties. This is nothing new.
Strangely enough any close-ish election is ineviably decided in the most marginal area, the Midlands, yet this is the area that is always left out of any of these discussions.
Oh and for the record though its true that Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have higher public spending and jobs its also true that London has the benefit of all of the centralised institutions of this country in the capital, head offices, finance sector and government, the pressure on costs particularly housing is enormous, just how much more cake do you want!

Jonathan Miles, Birmingham, England

Oh that is absolutely shocking......

Now the truth, why dont you English who subsidise our Country simply declare you are withdrawing from the Contract of Union. We are quite comfortable with it. One can only guess that when it comes down to it you lot are all mouth, you know that we are subsidising you lot. You know without us you are no longer G8 material. You know without us your voice in the EU is a lot less. You know that there will be no more pretending that you are a world power. Put it this way you lot live on the never never. You have government Debts in the hundreds of millions, you have personal debt in the trillions and you have no natural assets to sustain your population.

Do us all a favour by either shutting up or put up. Thats right I didnt think so.

Mike, Edinburgh, Scotland not the UK

Scotland has bankrolled and paid for England since the 1970's through North Sea oil revenues. So all this talk about Southern England paying for the rest of the UK is complete nonsense.

Clemen, Leeds, uk

If the south of England pays for the rest of the country but does not control it, what is the point of the Union?

Paul Francis, Brisbane, Australia

In response to Gillian, the think-tank Reform published a report looking into the ratio of public-sector to private-sector employment and economic activity between different regions.

It's entitled 'Whitehall's last colonies' and was published in July 2006. It should be easy to track it down with a quick Google search.

Unsurprisingly, it points to how a very large public sector is stifling job creation and enterprise in the private sector in many regions of the UK.

Ari, London,

I think the last ten years has seen massive tinkering with the electorate of the UK. Not only has the redistribution agenda of the horrendous tax credit scheme led to vast political gerrymandering with ongoing bias towards Labour but also the great departments of state have also been relocated to Scotland and the North. The division between state and private sector has been amplified with a North/South divide which will lead to an inevitability of future tensions. The Union was considered flexible to allow devolution in 1997 by the New Labour Project, they have sown the seeds of it's demise. The split of the UK is inevitable.

John Henderson, Wing, Buckinghamshire

Interesting,

Can anyone tell me how may jobs in Scotland and Wales are in the private sector .

And more impotantly, how many jobs are in the public sector and by the public sector I mean those directly and indirectly funded by the state ?

And how many people of working age in Scotland are living on non-working benefits ?

Those would be interesting figures wouldn't they?

And would tell us the real economic situation in Scotland

gillian , chester, uk

Interesting to see the range of comments. The critics of the piece all live in the north and benefit from the largesse of the South. While the supporters all live in the South. No surprise there really./
But take just two items in today's news and you can understand why the North does lack enterprise, mainlines on state handouts, and costs more to run than the South.
1. The Royal Mail strike is supposed to be over, and guess what the chippy scousers find a reason to stretch it out. The reason? "We were asked to wait half an hour before coming in to work and this is in breech of our contracts". Give me a break!
2. Surrey Police is Number One in the league table of performance for all police authorities yet recieves one of the lowest precepts (funds) of any. The funding margin between Surrey Police and a Northern County is very wide indeed.
Yes I live in Surrey (born in East End) and worked continuously without pause for 45 years without ever receiving a single state handout.

RCW, Woking, Surrey

The better politicians do their jobs, the more they are despised. In times of stability and wealth everyone is cynical about old boring in Downing Street. Were we facing foreign invasion, he'd be seen as a great and inspiring leader.

London is out of step with the rest of the UK economy. It has, thank goodness, found a niche as the financial market for the rest of the world. The rest of the country either serves London or does pretty much nothing. Whilst it is a serious problem, it is hard for any government of any complexion to tackle something so fundamental.

Malcolm McLean, Bradford, UK

Bang on Alice. Brown just doesn't understand the psychological gulf between the South East and say Scotland or Wales. Of course there are poor people, stupid people and lazy people everywhere but in the South East people make themselves available for work are more flexible and more enterprising. They have to be because they have higher rents and mortgages to pay and get less support from the government. I started my own business and was directed to the Business Link where grants for start up businesses were advertised. On enquiring I found out that living in the south east, without disability, or having an exotic origin I was on my own. I don't begrudge the disabled and others their assistance god knows they deserve it. But it just underlines the feeling in the South. We're on our own. We work hard. We drive the economy, we pay our taxes and we get nothing back except a bunch of whinging Scots and others saying we're too well off. There's a lot of resentment and Osborne is on to it.

Samuel Gee, Farnham, UK

Alice we have been living in a followership emphasis over the last 10 years . A manifesto that has won 3 terms in office. The truth is Tony Blair and Gordon Brown as well as David Cameron and Alex Salmond even Ming Campbell are all followers to an intellectual plutocracy that has created a governance manifesto which has won elections. That intellect and wisdom as well as stability forms the intellectual plutocratic ideals that has virtually kept the Prime Minister in office through resolute and sound leadership.
Thus all the leaders are followers to that ethos of a greater intellectual plutocracy and that is the truth. That is why New Labour is still in office today and that is why the SNP are the party of Government in Scotland.

The Director, LONDON, England

The point, Mr Edwards that Alice Miles is trying to make is that government spending in these regions is helping to prop them up. You can do that for a while, just as you can provide people with crutches when the break their legs, but in the end you must put policies in place that help sustain an enterprise economy, where real wealth is created locally and enable people to live with dignity, confidence and self-respect.

The way to do that is not stuff people's mouths with welfare cheques but to encourage through tax incentives and minimum bureaucracy the best possible climate within which to conduct business. It takes hard work and a long time but it can be done.

Ben, London,

Gordon and his Darling are really fouling up the work done by some reasonably efficient constituency MPs.

The way we have been treated with contempt in the South west, in particular Dorset, where the constraints on all of us ,including our very efficient but mistreated county council is very evident. We are suffering cut backs in rural transport , library services, roads that need repairing , schools, elderly care etc, our local rates are huge, our rural fuel is sending other costs escalating, and our poor farmers have just about given up, Our fishermen are being squeezed by regulation after regulation, and our rural economy is dire. Key workers and youngsters are priced out of the market place for homes, and we have a huge aging population

We are meant to be hosting the sailing part of the Olympics , our roads have just about had it, coupled that with the soaring railfares. The value of savings and good pensions have been diminished by this border raider of a PM and Darling.

maggie snook, weymouth, Dorset UK

An unintelligent piece. All you actually say is that richer people are fed up with helping poorer people. Using 'regions' is just arbitrary - you may as well say the young are fed up of supporting the old. The piece is a sanitized version of the line that nasty politicians always use - blame some 'others' for your problems. I could complain that Cheshire's taxes are spent in the East End, as the Scot's could argue that they support the South by allowing them the bulk of their oil. Enlightened people realize that it's in all our interests to help others. A good start would be to spend *more* on the North to reduce England's structural problems - every time I fly to the USA (almost weekly) - I have to go through Heathrow - helping clog up your Southern transport network. Oh, and when we Northerners couldn't find local jobs, Tebbit told us to get 'on our bikes'. I suggest that young Tarquin, who can't afford to move out of his parents' mansion consider the same advice and tries Salford.

Gareth Edwards, Cheshire,

Well, I'm from the south east and have also lived in Yorkshire & the midlands, and having experienced various areas of the UK, yes, I agree we don't get much for our money in the south east. House prices and council tax are astonishingly high, salaries aren't much more than they are in the north (or not if you're in the charity or public sector, at least) and the environment in the outer London boroughs is noticeably more grotty than it was even 5 years ago.

I don't agree as regards transport though. Only someone who hasn't tried commuting in other parts of the UK could possibly describe London's transport as terrible. It is grubby, but there's lots of it, including late at night and on the weekends. Try getting home by train after midnight somewhere like Leeds.

I for one would be more comfortable if there were a few more southerners in the Cabinet.

Josie Aston, Bromley, UK

Thatcher once referred to those in the North as not being "our people" and treated them as such, so a bit more money for the North was/is necessary to redress the imbalance.

However, the key point that this could lose Brown the next election is spot on as the article actually defines the precise geography of 'middle' England.

Ravo Stanley, Liverpool,

I concur with Mr. McCallum of Calgary.
Moreover, it really is the Enid Blyton school of economics. I've never read such self-serving, asinine tosh in all my life. If this is what passes for serious comment then we really are witnessing the end of the Union.
It's that sort of simplistic, sweet shop economics, so loved of Mrs. T., that has seen the unstoppable rise of nationalism in Scotland and the seduction of the seventies slogan, 'It's Scotland's Oil'.
'The Little "Engerland"' mentality found on the football terraces will be matched pound for pound (pun intended) in the outlying colonies if this sniffy, superior attitude is allowed to take grip.

Paul Mack, Paisley, Scotland

It is not unreasonable that the richer parts of the UK should help fund those less well off but it is totally unacceptable that the people of England, who pay most of the taxes, are denied the national self-government that the Labour party has allowed Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland. This is taxation without representation. The English have never been asked if they wish to have their own national assembly. All the polls suggest that they do. And this democratic deficit sits ill alongside the Claim of Right for Scotland, signed by Brown, which recognises the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of government best suited to their needs. The English people have the same right. Moreover the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly of Wales were intended to provide a 'focus' for those nations - while no-one speaks for England. What benefit is the Union to the English??

Ian Campbell, Leatherhead Surrey, England

This article has brought comments from around the world but few from southern England. Do they not care that they are being ripped off.
As a Scot I agree with it's sentiments

Jim Tevendale, Dundee,

Lets see......... Borrow more, tax more, invest less. Break your own fiscal rule of not borrowing more than 40% GDP and not bat an eyelid. Force the building of homes on uninsurable flood plains, have no joined up transport policy and have no idea what is going on at grass roots level (or care).
Can't wait to vote them out. Come on Gordon let's get the chance sooner rather than later.

Peter Arundale, Barnham, West Sussex

I have to agree with Jim McCallum when he says, 'Surely this is not a serious article'.
Is it really suggesting that Gordon Brown, because he is Scottish, doesn't understand part of England (not the whole of England mind, just a part of it)? That somehow Gordon Brown is 'out-of-touch' because the South is in exactly the same position as many other places in the UK where first time buyers can't get on the property ladder and prices are always going up?
And just to counterbalance Fiona's contribution to Alice Miles' argument - my mother has lived in both Scotland and England and thinks the opposite is true! The South, she often tells me, is egocentric, very concerned with its own interest (and my how many love to think London is the beginning and end of the UK) while everyone else can perish for all they care!
So I suppose it depends on your point of view.

YoungCannibal, Edinburgh, Scotland

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not
-Thomas Jefferson. This is an exaggeration of the point in question however if you choose to live in a state run on the principles of socialism then you should know what you're going to get. It is'nt rocket science. If they manage to continue to reduce every citizen down to lowest common denominator so there are no 'losers' then they will have achieved their aim and the successful areas of the UK will not only have lost out to the weaker areas of the UK (in terms of what they contribute to the state compared to what they get out of it), the UK will also have stifled what makes/made it competitive internationally. Oh Brownski...

Richard Pope, Dubai, UAE

(As a Scot) ... A point well put without being offensive to either 'camp'.

Dave Scott, St Albans, United Kingdom

Spot on Miss Miles.

Denver Watt, Osaka,

Precisely why we need an English National Party! The Scots, the Welsh and the Irish have theirs.

William Thomson, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

I think it is the right time to have an independet parliament of England.

Mack, London, UK

Mr Brown fails to understand quite a bit. For instance, he displays the bizarre notion that companies exist only to provide jobs and pay taxes. That those companies might exist to provide benefit to their customers doesn't seem to occur to them. Hence IR35, S660, the last budget, and all the other measures that show the depth of his hostility to small companies and the self-employed. The Tories are either keeping their powder dry on this one, or missing a trick - a positive policy here would skewer Labour as the only response is to alienate the self-employed by tarring them all as tax-evaders.

P Orphyry, Skipton,

Having recently been travelling in England, I had always thought that the North/South stereotypes were just that - stereotypes. But the figures speak for themselves, I guess.
Southerners have forged their own success. Why should their concerns be sidelined now simply because they are better off. This fact makes their concerns no less important or valid. And as Ms Miles points out, it doesnt make their votes any less crucial!

James, Adelaide, Australia

It is good to know that a Scottish lady measuring curtains is the wisdom of knowledge for an astute southern belle. I bet that Scottish lady overcharged the gullible columnest for the service. Surely this is not a serious article. Not only are the UK figures in dispute, especially for Scotland, but are being challenged almost daily by all Scottish politians.
The South has the financial sector and head offices which because of reporting procedures throws everything out of wack. The South do not work harder than other regions and numbers can be manipulated to substantiate their desired effect. I'll give you an example. If London extends their underground routes, funded by public money, but contracted to private contractors. Is that public or private expenditure. And if the main contractor subcontracts to other private parties? is that public or private expenditures. Everbody has a part to play and at this time, the UK is a whole, with interdependency.

Jim McCallum, Calgary, Canada