Society (From The Northern Echo)

Society

9:56am Friday 10th July 2009 in

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WE kid ourselves we live in an egalitarian society, yet the gulf between rich and poor has never been wider.

On one side, you’ve got people who, not content with salaries of £500,000 or more, pay themselves spectacular bonuses whenever they feel like it.

On the other, there are more than one million victims of home repossession and negative equity. How, in these circumstances, the undeserving rich can live with themselves, has me beat.

One effect of this malignancy is the impact on rural communities. We all know what happens. Rich urbanites buy up country properties for use as second homes. Local people, whose families have lived there since time immemorial, can’t compete and have to move out, and you end up with a ghost village.

It’s gone on for a long time, and neither the so-called Conservatives, with their supposed concern for old England, nor the so-called Labour Party, with its supposed concern for social justice, have lifted a finger to stop it.

Tony Kelly, Crook, Co Durham.