Recent Letters

Prescott faces struggleSep 11 2004
By Middlesbrough Evening Gazette
John Prescott is facing an uphill struggle to win a referendum on RegionalAssemblies in November.

The Yorkshire folk, helped by a very successful Yorkshire Says No campaign, have rejected it wholeheartedly.

East Riding County Council has pulled out, calling it a money-wasting talkingshop.

In North Yorkshire nine local authorities have agreed to discuss theirmembership at their next meeting in October.I sincerely hope the North-east will follow their example and say no.

Prescott's brief to create the European regions is beginning to look a trifledoomed.
MRS B STARK
Hull

I WOULD like to pose a few questions on John Prescott's leaflet An ElectedAssembly For The North-east.I

f an assembly is voted in, how many MPs and councillors will be without jobs?

And if no jobs are lost why do we need yet another level of Government?

Why have Newcastle, Gateshead, Hartlepool and Stockton had millions of poundsspent on redevelopment schemes when Middlesbrough and Redcar have had verylittle or none at all?

Why are we having to vote on this matter when leaflets cover County Durham andNorthumberland only - with no mention of Darlington, Hartlepool or areas southof the River Tees?

When we changed from Cleveland County to separate borough councils they all said it would be cheaper to have four councils instead of one.How can four have the purchasing power that Cleveland Council had. Also four CEOs and all the other extra staff required means duplication in a lot of cases?

Conned before by politicians but not again.

Look at the overspend on the Scottish Parliament building. Would that be repeated here?

Welsh and Scottish MPs should not vote on matters concerning England only, as English MPs cannot vote on Welsh or Scottish matters.
ROGER THOMAS Redcar

Hexham Courant
NONSENSE
Published on Friday, September 10th 2004
I NOTE that in recent propaganda in the North-East the Labour Party is trying to associate the opposition to regional government solely with Conservatives.

This is of course a nonsense.

Large numbers of Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters also oppose the break up of our local government system for the sake of the totally alien "regionalism" which the European Union is forcing (via Blair's Eurofanatic Government) on the people of Britain.

We know from Foreign Office papers that even in the early 1970s the British Government knew that the surrender of our national sovereignty to Brussels would mean a regional system of Government for the United Kingdom.

From the point of view of Brussels, the best way to remove powers from the legitimate national governments in national capitals was to have their respective "regions" report directly to the EU Commission in Brussels, bypassing Westminster.

When I looked not long ago at the names of those people supporting the regionalist One NorthEast, it was remarkable how many of them were also supporters of The North-East in Europe. The connection is clear. The democratic majority of all political parties will reject regional rule as fervently as they reject Euro-rule.

It falls to the North-East (specially selected by a Government which will only ask those they think will give the right answer) to give a resounding NO to Mr Blair and his regional political careerists.
Rodney Atkinson,
Meadowfield Road,
Stocksfield