Comments on: A voice for the north

By: Nigel Sollitt

Nigel Sollitt — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 10:06:54 +0000

Apologies: ‘Salveson’ not ‘Salverson’!

By: Nigel Sollitt

Nigel Sollitt — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 10:00:41 +0000

I am an officer of Yorkshire Devolution Movement (YDM)and have to say that the points presented here by Paul Salveson are absolutely flawless and reflect almost everything that YDM stands for. Without regional devolution we in Yorkshire and the rest of the north will find ourselves in a position where we fall further behind the south due to the inequality of investment by central government, and further behind the Scots and Welsh due to the advantages of devolved powers that have been bestowed upon them! The kind of solutions mentioned by Mr Salverson are exactly what is needed to stop the rot in the north and the only way to implement those solutions is through regional devolution. Mr Salverson mentions “people’s identities” and where I mentioned that he reflects ALMOST everything YDM stands for, it was to this matter that I was referring. If ‘devolution’ is empowering people to decide their own destiny, how can the starting point for devolution be ‘regions’ that were imposed by a central government without any consideration for the identities and loyalties of the people within them? Of course, I refer specifically to the fete of Yorkshire folk whose identity as such has been threatened by the disection of their historic county and forced placement of some under alien councils and govt regions, but doubtless, people of other identities feel exactly the same. This matter also needs to be thrown into the pot come judgement day!

By: Philip R Hosking

Philip R Hosking — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:00:28 +0000

“hope other English regions will want to go down the same road” That’s rich! The Cornish campaign for greater home-rule has been running since the 1950 and before, arguable culminating in the petition of 50,000 signatures calling for a Cornish assembly: http://www.cornishassembly.org/

We have very much been blazing a trail with very little support from the London parties.

Yet here we are with some Labour regionalists arguing that it is they that are at the forefront. Even with the support of the Labour machine they messed up the last chance they had at regionalism.

The Cornish handed the New Labour government a gold opportunity to devolve power down and they ignored us and chucked our petition in the bin, wishing instead to impose the unloved artificial South West region upon us.

If you are serious about pushing democracy down to the people then why not let them decide what size and shape their regions should take.

The Dark Side of Devolution. Top Down vs. Bottom Up Regionalism in England. Cornwall and the North East Compared: http://www.scribd.com/doc/55381705/The-Dark-Side-of-Devolution

The North South divide? Tell me why does Cornwall qualify for the highest level of EU Convergence funding (before that objective one funding), and then tell me all about the North South divide again. Labour looking after its homelands more like.

By: Will Podmore

Will Podmore — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 15:26:45 +0000

Remember the referendum in the North-East?
The EU wants a union of dependent provinces, not of sovereign independent states. In particular, it wants to break up Britain.

The Labour government connived at this. It pushed for elected Regional Assemblies, but in the only referendum held on whether we should have such bodies, 78% of the people of the North-East voted No.