BURNLEY MP Peter Pike cries "Foul!" after his town loses out in a £5million government contest for road safety cash.

The award of the prize to Gloucester, he says, is blatantly political as that's a key town the Tories must win at the election to stay in power.

But whether that claim is true or not, Mr Pike cannot be accused of sour grapes over Burnley's loss.

For this contest required the town to make a case for how this money would help it cut road accidents.

In doing so, it beat off challenges from 26 other towns - and lost out at the final hurdle.

But if Burnley had such an evidently good case, why should it get nothing at all?

That, as much as any sinister vote-buying politicking with the result, is the vexing point about these government-run contests for money - that, ultimately, it is withheld from more places that need it than is given to those which benefit.

Is that not a fiddle, too?

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