Here is an interesting little video of the Beast of Bolsover doing his thing.
In southern ‘leafy suburbs’, 30% of #HS2 route will have tunnelling, but that falls to 2% in the north to save money, claims Dennis Skinner pic.twitter.com/TtNQa8czut
— Daily&SundayPolitics (@daily_politics) November 1, 2017
Much larger parts of the South will receive tunnelling for HS2 compared to only 2% in the North. This is having the consequence of seeing people turfed out of their homes in the North to make way for the rail project while those in the South can stay put thanks to the tunnelling they have been granted. Mr Skinner, rightly in my view, saw this as yet another example of how the South is favoured at the expense of the poorer parts of the UK.
The situation regarding spread of churches is quite interesting too. The Gospel Data Geek has crunched the numbers on FIEC and Gospel Partnership churches in England. It is notable that over half (c. 55%) of Gospel Partnership churches exist in the South East alone (including London). This compares to just (27%) in the North West and North East (including Yorkshire and The Humber). If one considers the counties listed as ‘East of England’ (Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk as part of the South East (which I do), the numbers are starker.
This data shows 65% of Gospel Partnership churches exist in the South compared to 35% of churches in the North. That is nearly double the number of Gospel Partnership churches in the South than the North.
Whilst the FIEC register a slightly more modest 34% of churches in the South East (including London) compared to 24% in the North (including Yorkshire & Humberside), there is still some disparity between the North and South in terms of distribution of churches. Taking the same approach as above, we see 60% of FIEC churches in the South compared to 40% in the North.
Could it be that we have aped the same sort of contempt of the North as many of our politicians?
Or maybe there are simply less faithful churches in the North. Not everything is a londoncentric conspiracy.
Err, clearly the stats tell us there are just less. Whilst it may not be a conspiracy, it is nonetheless a problem as far as the gospel is concerned.
[…] the fact that the FIEC still has nearly twice the number of churches in the South as the North (see here). However, he rightly acknowledges that ‘the churches in the poorer communities are generally […]