It has just been a few days since the announcement that the North East is to go it alone and after a little excitement Thursday / Friday the subject has all but died. The North East's biggest selling Sunday, the Sunday Sun had just one paragraph buried in one of the inner pages. In the Journal today there is nothing except in the letters pages and apart from one 'dreamer' the rest are scathing. Here they are some of them...
"U-Turn will not win Tony what he might expect."
So 'President Tony' has done another U-turn and scrapped the regional assembly ballots in Yorkshire and the North West, leaving the North East on its own.
Is he doing this because he thinks that he will get an easy YES vote up here? Think again Tony."
Robin Thompson, Amble.
"So, wasn't our postal ballot just as much of a mess?"
Addressing the House of Commons on the subject of the regional assembly vote, Local Government Minister Nick Raynsford displayed arrogance and ignorance.
Delaying the vote in Yorkshire and the North West, he said with regard to all postal ballots that, 'none of the concerns related to the North East.' Does he not realise that the same possibilities for fraud, misuse and intimidation exist here as well as in other areas?
Does he not know that over 17,000 people here had their votes disallowed in the European elections?
Is he unaware that four local authorities here had severe problems getting the ballot papers out, and were behind schedule?
For any vote to command respect, the electors must have full confidence in the system of voting, and that is lacking with an all-postal ballot.
Judith Wallace, Chairman, North East No Campaign, Sunderland.
"Mr. Prescott seems to think we are more gullible."
It makes me ashamed to be a North-Easterner to read that the North West and Yorkshire / Humber are to have their assembly referendums postponed whereas the North East's will go ahead. We are obviously presumed to be stupid enough to vote for Mr. Prescott's idiotic dream.
I W Aitchison, Longhorsley.
1 comment:
But everybody knows people in the North East are stupid. After all, they live in the North East. QED.
R
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