Letter: Kentish rant

Neal Ascherson's description of the South-east as the "subsidy junkie" of Britain may well be true for London, but for those of us non- metropolitans who live outside the M25 it is a very different picture. In this part of Kent, the public transport is atrocious, we enjoy little of the largesse from Brussels, our arts board is the least funded in the country and we get less than our fair share of lottery hand-outs.

No other part of the UK suffers more from the "London effect", yet to most politicians and commentators, and certainly to the BBC and Channel 4, we are the invisible region. London may be in the South-east but, no, Mr Ascherson, it is not the South-east.

Martin Jackson

Hawkhurst, Kent