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Regional assemblies for Northern England

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Regional assemblies for Northern England

Postby Al on Mon Jun 16, 2003 9:10 pm

So, does anyone else think that this is another constitutional change worked out on the back of an envelope?

The one good thing about it is that, as John Prescott has been put in charge, it does not appear be a government priority. Hopefully, the plans can be either amended or dropped quickly.

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Re:

Postby KateBush on Mon Jun 16, 2003 9:17 pm

I know what you mean--it seems to be a mickey taking waste of money. I'm all for people having more of a say in how they are governed but these assemblies will be ruled in turn by Westminster. So if they decide ANYTHINg that goes against Westminster policy then it can be overruled. what's the point in that? It seems totally unfair....
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Re:

Postby Sarah on Mon Jun 16, 2003 9:25 pm

A lot of people living in the North of England feel that Westminster is remote and doesn't respond to the needs of their region
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Re:

Postby Pilmour Boy on Mon Jun 16, 2003 9:58 pm

In what way will Westminster be able to override them? The regional assemblies will take over from the RDAs and also take over other functions from QUANGOs.

Now, if you wanted to bitch about the reshuffle, perhaps I might be able to agree with you...
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Re:

Postby Pilmour Boy on Mon Jun 16, 2003 10:00 pm

Oh- and if there's one thing that this isn't, it's worked out on the back of an envolope. This has been on the cards since the mid 1990s, and I for one am glad that the goverment has finally got around to doing something about it.
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Re:

Postby Al on Mon Jun 16, 2003 10:06 pm

The trouble is not that the idea of regional assemblies is a bad one but that little or no thought has gone into the potential political structures. The county in which I live (Cumbria) is, largely, a one with a rural based economy. Now rather than be put together with a similar county (Northumberland) in a Northern Assembly, Cumbria is being lumped together with Greater Manchester and Merseyside. Why wasn't more thought put into which counties would be put together? Would it have been too much for the government to ask people what region they wanted to be in? Come the referendum it will be pointless for the people of Cumbria voting because the decision is effectively out of their hands.

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Re:

Postby Anon. on Tue Jun 17, 2003 4:37 pm

[s]Pilmour Boy wrote on 22:58, 16th Jun 2003:
In what way will Westminster be able to override them? The regional assemblies will take over from the RDAs and also take over other functions from QUANGOs.


/me barfs at the abbreviations
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Re:

Postby kensson on Tue Jun 17, 2003 5:29 pm

[s]Anon. wrote on 17:37, 17th Jun 2003:

/me barfs at the abbreviations


(/me barfs at having to defend Pilmour Boy...)

I'm also upset at using '/me' and 'barfs'.

RDAs, I'll agree, is Newspeak (Regional Development Authorities, I think?); QUANGO (more usually in lower case) is pretty common, though. QUasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisation, since you ask.
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Re:

Postby Eliot Wilson on Wed Jun 18, 2003 11:03 am

The problem with the idea of regional assemblies is that it is, largely, a bunch of wank. Economic difficulties? More politicians will solve that! The assemblies will be largely powerless to address deep-seated issues, and, for crying out loud, England only has fifty million people. Is it really so difficult to govern? London is not that remote, and an awful lot of the "Well, they don't understand our problems" is nonsense. I live in the north of England and would be perfectly happy to continue to be ruled by Parliament directly. If only Scotland still were...
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Re:

Postby Al on Wed Jun 18, 2003 11:15 am

"London is not that remote.."

Perhaps not physically, but there are other ways in which it is very remote.

"...and an awful lot of the "Well, they don't understand our problems" is nonsense"

And an awful lot of it is not nonsense.

"I live in the north of England and would be perfectly happy to continue to be ruled by Parliament directly."

Well as long as you're happy then who cares what other people think, eh?

The problem with the proposed assemblies is that the areas they will cover are based on purely arbitrary lines drawn on a map by someone in a Whitehall broom cupboard. In the dark. For example, take the village of Gilsland. Some of it is in Cumbria and some is in Northumberland. Under the assembly plan the village will be split between two very different assemblies.

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Re:

Postby Al on Wed Jun 18, 2003 11:21 am

Almost forgot, Scotland is governed (parliaments don't rule) by Parliament directly. Or have you not heard of the Scottish Parliament?

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Re:

Postby Eliot Wilson on Wed Jun 18, 2003 12:09 pm

Now now, Al, I have been patronised by better men than you. The Scottish Parliament is an abomination, a collection of self-important, third-rate local councillors who are a drain on the public purse. It is, as it was feared that it would be, Strathclyde Council writ horribly large. However, you will notice if you read my post, that I wished Scotland were still ruled by the (Westminster) Parliament.

I am curious as to why the Government does not understand the problems of northern England. Firstly, its members can be advised of them and lobbied by the appropriate local groups. Moreover, it may not have escaped your notice that the Prime Minister sits for Sedgefield, the just-resigned Health Secretary sits for Darlington, the Chief Whip sits for a Durham seat, the Foreign Secretary sits for Blackburn, the Home Secretary sits for a Sheffield constituency... I don't think we can accuse the higher echelons of Government of ignorance of the north of England.

But the fundamental point is this: we live in a Parliamentary democracy. Each area elects its representatives (or rather delegates, in some senses) and Parliament collectively (actually the Queen-in-Parliament, as, Al, you seem keen on precision of terminology) passes legislation for the whole country. God forbid that England begins to be broken up into petty fiefdoms, in the way that the Government has already begun to prise apart the constituent parts of the United Kingdom.
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Re:

Postby Pilmour Boy on Wed Jun 18, 2003 12:25 pm

While I wouldn't like to say that the leadership of the Labour Party is divorced from its roots, it is pretty estranged from the PLP. It really is interesting what one hears late at night on the terrace...
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Re:

Postby Al on Wed Jun 18, 2003 1:24 pm

Eliot, I wasn't seeking to patronise you. I wouldn't want to support or encourage you.

You consider the Scottish Parliament to be "an abomination, a collection of self-important, third-rate local councillors who are a drain on the public purse". The same could be equally said of the Westminster Parliament. Yes, the MPs you mentioned sit for Northern constituencies but that does not mean a) they understand the problems of the North or b) they care enough about them. At the end of the day, any Westminster government (of whatever party) is more concerned with what happens in the South of England than with what is happening elsewhere in Britain. Finally, it was not the government who began to prise apart the United Kingdom but the voters in Scotland and Wales who demanded change. I fail to see how you can champion "parliamentary democracy" (if you believe there is such a thing) but attack popular democracy.

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Re:

Postby stan on Wed Jun 18, 2003 3:20 pm

[s]Eliot Wilson wrote on 13:09, 18th Jun 2003:

I am curious as to why the Government does not understand the problems of northern England. Firstly, its members can be advised of them and lobbied by the appropriate local groups. Moreover, it may not have escaped your notice that the Prime Minister sits for Sedgefield, the just-resigned Health Secretary sits for Darlington, the Chief Whip sits for a Durham seat, the Foreign Secretary sits for Blackburn, the Home Secretary sits for a Sheffield constituency... I don't think we can accuse the higher echelons of Government of ignorance of the north of England.


whilst it is true that the pm sits for sedgefield constituency it is also true that blair hates (or at least dislikes) sedgefield for two reasons. firstly the village of sedgefield is (according to 2001 voting) heavily Conservative, secondly when he did try living in sedgefield he got hounded out for being a socialist and now he lives in trimdon. that story still makes me laugh for many reasons.

if he represensts sedgefield in parliament can i ask why he has failed to do anything about: improving the lacklusture golf course, bulldozing the disused and often smelly refuse centre, winterton hospital (once the countries largest hospital of its kind now full of overly expensive "executive housing" - hmmm a very grassroots labour thing of him to do - personnaly i prefered it when they allowed the horses to frolic freely around that field).

out of interest is the fact that the primary school i attended (sedgefield hardwick) is now encircled by barbed wire fence and the secondary school i also attended (sedgefield community college) now littered with cctv cameras any reflection on his law and order policies?. a wee bit draconian i personnaly think. i still have no idea what hes doing to hardwick hall, nor that big hole and the south side that was suppossed to be a dual carraigeway connection to the a19 eighteen months ago!

now granted hes a busy dictat and can not do everything he promised - even though he promised that f-ing road improvement over a decade ago, but i do feel that a semi-devolved local authority that is directly accountable in a similar way to the quasi-successful scottish parliament might actually address some of these issues!
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Re:

Postby stan on Wed Jun 18, 2003 3:31 pm

[s]Al wrote on 12:15, 18th Jun 2003:
The problem with the proposed assemblies is that the areas they will cover are based on purely arbitrary lines drawn on a map by someone in a Whitehall broom cupboard. In the dark. For example, take the village of Gilsland. Some of it is in Cumbria and some is in Northumberland. Under the assembly plan the village will be split between two very different assemblies.


another example of this would be sedgefield. when i were born in 81 being born so in sedgefield made me a yorkshireman as the village was in yorkshire and controlled by yorkshire council. then london seemed to think it was a good idea to muck things around up north whilst showing blatant disregard for how things were done up their.

my home address is (??) belsay court, sedgefield, stockton-on-tees, co durham.
during the eighties they tore strips off north yorkshire and created a county cleveland (WTF!) but alas, cleveland was simply full of conurbations and sedgefield. let us just say the towns had no idea how to govern a farming village. so they decided to throw sedgefield into co durham, so now im supposed to be a durhamer! thanks to all this we pay council tax to durham, get surviced by yorkshire fire brigade (who resented servicing somewhere that didnt pat them council tax) and our post code begins with TS21, the TS standing for Teeside. very efficient me thinks. so one address three counties!?!

so now they're gonna give us a regional assmebly... well it seems that we're to be governed by the newcastle office and not the yorkshire one. so thanks to london i evidently (may) soon become an adopted geordie.

anyone who has read my last two posts still wants to bicker with me about london giving a frig about us up north go right ahead. ill be interested to see which head ill have on; the yorkshire one, the teesider one, the durhamer one or the geordie one.
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Re:

Postby Sarah on Wed Jun 18, 2003 6:01 pm

I know what you mean Stan. I don't know whether I'm living in Cleveland, Stockton-on-Tees or North Yorkshire. I don't understand the politics of this regional assembly thing, or whether I support it. I just think that north of the Tees a lot of people do think of themselves as northerners, with nothing to do with London, and would probably support the notion of a regional assembly, for good or ill.
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Stan

Postby Eliot Wilson on Thu Jun 19, 2003 10:39 am

It's a minor point, I know, and deeply off-topic, but when Winterton was closed it was inevitable that the land would be sold and some kind of development made on the site; after all, it's a big plot, and they were never going to let it just go to pasture.

It's a nice building, too, in a Victorian-mental-hospital way. And I'm not just conjuring this out of the air; my father used to run Winterton.
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Re:

Postby stan on Thu Jun 19, 2003 1:39 pm

[s]Eliot Wilson wrote on 11:39, 19th Jun 2003:
It's a minor point, I know, and deeply off-topic, but when Winterton was closed it was inevitable that the land would be sold and some kind of development made on the site; after all, it's a big plot, and they were never going to let it just go to pasture.


oh absolutely i agree. but they promised us a business site to compliment the industrial park next door. then they realised it was easier to sell it of to a housing developer

It's a nice building, too, in a Victorian-mental-hospital way. And I'm not just conjuring this out of the air; my father used to run Winterton.


how odd. then he'd have known my dad, his mother and my godmother. he'd also have known how its closure had such a negative effect on the local economy and why the business park idea was so popular.

yes, it is a little off course but... the houses (so the story goes) were built along the lines of government development figures. now, surely a regional assembly would be more in tune to the needs of the area and realise the need for work, not more houses.

ironically alot of folk who left winterton during its closure went to work in darlington for rothmans cigarette company which announced its closure yesterday! and is it too cynical of me to suggest that milburn was aware of its impending closure so choose the weekend for his departure from cabinet to deflect some of the inevitable backlash?
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Re:

Postby rhodesia84 on Sun Jun 22, 2003 1:35 am

I believe this regional assemblies business is another left-wing attempt to abolish England. By divyying (sp?) up the country, they may bury what little national identity England still has.


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