Tories pledge to act on poverty in Bristol.

(From Bristol Evening Post)

The gulf between rich and poor in Bristol is a Charles Dickens-style Tale Of Two Cities, the Conservatives have claimed.

There is a "subculture of poverty, deprivation and alienation from society" in some urban areas - even though prosperity is just streets away, the Tories say.

The claim draws on ward-by-ward statistics to highlight the vast social divides across Britain.

They show that in Lawrence Hill around 58 per cent of the population is "income deprived" - families who don't have jobs or incomes from other sources - closely followed by Ashley on 50 per cent and Southmead on 49 per cent.

But in …