The election victory of George Bush is a hugely significant event in its own right but at least part of the reason why it gets so much coverage here is due to the near-absence of anything good happening in the UK. It has been this way for years.
Hence, I am doubly-delighted to note that a small proportion of the British electorate has done something right for a change:
People in the North East have voted “no” in a referendum on whether to set up a new regional assembly.
The total number of people voting against the plans was 696,519 (78%), while 197,310 (22%) voted in favour.
That is not just a ‘no’, it is a big, fat, resounding ‘no’.
The ‘new regional assembly’ that HMG was attempting to foist on the public was supposed to be the first of many similar boondoggles designed (allegedly) to facilitate ‘local decision making’.
Dressed up in the fuzzy, fashionable, eminantly spinnable language of ‘decentralisation’, these assemblies actually represent nothing more than yet another grossly expensive tier of government, complete with an army of paper-shufflers, ticket-punchers, regulators, office-holders, rubber stampers and form-fillers. Not to mention the heavy battalions of outreach co-ordinators, inclusivity counsellors, gender advisers, diversity directors, real nappy officers and sundry other busybodies and parasites.
In short, the whole thing is simply an ‘Enemy Class’ job-creation scheme and I like to think that (at long last) some sections of the British electorate were able to see the truth of this. Perhaps, just maybe, some of the long-suffering British cash cows have decided that they have donated more than enough blood to these Vampires-Who-Walk-By-Day.
HMG has promised that, in the event the referendum was lost, they would drop the whole idea. I am not at all confident they will abide by that pledge. The career ambitions of their supporters will not be so easily thwarted.
But, for now at least, I am prepared to bask in the moment and declare myself temporarily content.
Instead of wasting parliamentary time on unwanted devolution, the government should focus on sorting Westminster out.
We need an elected second house as a legitimate check on the Commons . We must stop the injustice of Scottish and Welsh MPs still being able to legislate on English matters which no longer longer affect Scotland and Wales as a result of devolution. And parliamentary constituencies need further reform to address the over-representation of certain areas.
In short the Westminster parliament needs to be made more representative and democratic. We do not need more talking shops which in reality are designed to render the electorate further from where real power lies.
The EU plan of divide and meddle has been thwarted for now. Long Live England.
“Instead of wasting parliamentary time on unwanted devolution, the government should focus on sorting Westminster out.”
I’d prefer Brussels myself.
Anyway, this is a jolly good result and also bodes well for the EU constitution referendum.
David
I noticed that Labour had tried to reassure voters that there wouldn’t be a new and expensive building like the one we have here in Edinburgh. But of course no one in Scotland expected that we would be lumbered with the Holyrood fiasco – the old Royal High School building was ready and waiting for use by the new parliament. Perhaps north-easterners didn’t trust Labour promises!
The assembly idea would have been real devolution of a sort: a preliminary to the removal of westminster parliament and the dissolution of the UK into regions (too powerless to act) under an overarching EU superstate (too remote to care). This was what the euro-tranzi planners had in mind, I think. A variety of “vertical” gerrymandering, leaving a “democracy” where entrenched leadership would be all but untouchable, and national identity would be too fragmented to pose a risk of rebellion.
David, you are right that the assembly supporters are not going to let a little thing like an 80% defeat get in the way.
According to the Gruan Jane Thomas, head of the ‘yes’ campaign in the Yorkshire and Humber region, said
“One of the things that is abundantly clear,is that people are not against the principle (of Assemblies)… they did not like the package. What will come out of this is that it was not strong or robust enough.”
Julian
Spot on. The entire ‘devolution project’ is, of course, an attempt to parcel up the UK into bite-size, Euro-Region chunks.
A fine day indeed.
Thanks for the quote, Barry. I see Jacques Delors’ Rule (if they vote ‘no’, they shall keep on voting until they vote ‘yes’).
It’s excellent news. I had a big grin on my face driving to work this morning (wiped off my face with the bad news from Iraq).
The EU plan of divide and meddle has been thwarted for now. Long Live England.
RAH!
The assembly idea would have been real devolution of a sort: a preliminary to the removal of westminster parliament and the dissolution of the UK into regions (too powerless to act) under an overarching EU superstate (too remote to care).
Surely it is only the latter part which is objectionable? So long as they weren’t “powerless” under an “overarching EU superstate” Dissolution of the UK into regions could have real benefits and would surely be likely to lead to an increase of liberty as more liberal regions out-competed more statist regions.
As far as I can see, the problem is not that these regions will be suborned into the EU superstate but that the establishment of devolved assemblies isn’t actually accompanied by any reduction in centralised power. These assemblies amount to yet another tier of regional bureaucracy to an already bloated centralised bureacracy.
We don’t need regions, we’ve got counties. If county councils had the power to join forces for legitimate common purposes in natural (not ‘economic regions’) groupings, that would be all that’s required.
We don’t need a separate English parliament either, with all its waste and grade inflation among employees. All we need is an English Grand Committee at Westminster to solve the West Lothian question. Let the Scotch and Welsh pay the full cost of their tinpot assemblies full of third-rate hacks who aren’t good enough to be proper MPs (FWIW) and who aren’t public-spirited enough to serve for no wages as so many councillors do.
BTW, one new kind of election I am in favour of is the right to elect police chiefs, like they do in the States. Be interesting to see what would happen to the Met in such circumstances.
Always thought the north-easterners were a fairly sensible bunch. H’away the lads!
To the above chorus of approval, I can add only one thing.
If you weren’t certain how big a blow this has been to statism, the degree to which the BBC has tried to downplay it provides the clue.
I guess the no campaign did very well against this latest boon-doggle. A certain fat former-seaman probably feels a bit annoyed right now. Oh well. Good see people being sensible and not believing politicians daft promises for a change.
If there is to be devolution for England, as there must, there is now no alternative to an English Parliament.
http://www.thecep.org.uk/news/
Bill, Bill, Bill – ‘… the government should focus on sorting Westminster out.’
This government of obfuscation, meaningless language, smoke and mirrors has intentionally created the soggy, muddy, opaque landscape in Westminster for the furtherance of its own agenda – not yours. That purpose is to “find” a solution for the mess it has created. Regional assemblies! Rather than remote Westminster, which no one understands, especially now – and even remoter Brussels (which is actually our friend although we recognise that people have a problem understanding this), we are bringing democracy closer to the people with regional assemblies!! If everything goes according to plan, you bunch of nobodies who over-chill the Sancerre will be given an opportunity to vote for a phalanx of nobodies who will have no power whatsoever – except to draw pay cheques and enjoy pensions at your expense! Democracy in action!
Yes, of course they will come back with “a new package”. Isn’t there any way that governments can be forced to accept the will of the voter, as expressed at the ballot box? Isn’t there any way – constitutional lawyer here? – to force them to accept the results and forbid them to rejig them and dress them up in a new set of meaningless words and force the citizenry to vote again?
I am asking this seriously. This is a new hazard that citizens of EU countries are facing: an arrogant refusal to accept the will of the majority in legitimate polls.
England should be constitutionally recognised. I think they should sort out the “WLQ” fast, English votes on English legislation. . . Then it wont be so bad when they “pool” our sovreignty in the EU or create powerless regions in the name of devolution; for the EU.
Poor Mr. Prescott, plans he drew up 20 years ago. . . I hope he resigns, unfortunately for him he wont be missed.
I wrote on this subject (having waited up till 01:30 to hear the result) and what I wrote has not appeared.
Am I whining? Yes I am. However, my general condition of life makes me less tolerant.
A key point here is that expensive administrative structures of regional government have already been created, and as David correctly predicted, the government has refused to get rid of them.
The Conservative party has made ritual noises demanding that these administrative structures be abolished – but it has not led any great campaign, and nor have the newspapers.
The Daily Telegraph (for example) contented itself with an editorial and left it at that.
Britain is not in the state it is in because the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats are very strong – it is really a matter of the supposedly anticollectivist forces being so weak and half hearted.