'Foot in Mouth' outbreak in North East

Nice to see the Conservative NESNO campaign only launched in July because, 'it was not known until then if there would be a referendum.'
Another 'foot in mouth' statement following on from the quote by Graham Robb, the North East Says No spokesman, a former Tory candidate, who claimed that 'the campaigners were not opposed to an elected assembly in principle, and that if such an assembly were given more powers, they might support it.'

Great to see that they are on the same side.

Calls for probe into `no' votes
Sep 16 2004
By Gayle Tomlinson, The Evening Chronicle

Campaigners against a North East Regional Assembly are calling for a probe into the Electoral Commission's decision on the official Yes and No parties.

The North East No Campaign is calling for the investigation after a different No campaign, North East Says No (NESN), was selected.

Organiser of the North East No Campaign, Neil Herron, said he was shocked NESN had been selected as the preferred campaign after it was only set up in July this year.

He said the NESN was a Conservative-led campaign and would push the referendum into party politics.
He said: "We are calling for an investigation into the Electoral Commission's decision. They have given the No campaign to a campaign run by the Conservative party. The decision has polarised the campaign to a political one."

The NESN was launched in July and a spokesman admitted that it does have support from the Conservatives. He added that the campaign also had support from a number of business people and members of other political parties.
He said the campaign was only launched in July as it was not known until then if there would be a referendum and he called for attention to be turned away from campaigning politics to the matter in hand.
He said: "Yes, they are part of the campaign, as are more than 100 small business people, farmers, teachers and doctors. We are happy to have the support of the Conservative party, the UKIP and some of the North East's most important business people.
"We have got to get over this issue and look at the content of the campaigns."

John Tomaney, chair of designated Yes 4 the North East, said their campaign was not about party politics and called for a united No campaign front.

He said: "The Yes campaign is about the future of the North East, not party politics. We are a completely independent organisation and have attracted a broad range of supporters from right across the political spectrum, including supporters of the three main parties. The different No campaigns have had months to try to agree a common platform on which to stand and it's disappointing that they haven't achieved that. The No campaigns are united only by their negative attitude, and have no fresh ideas on how to improve the lives of people across the
North East."