Couple of good letters...

Northern Echo
27th October
REGIONAL ASSEMBLY
I WAS astounded to note that you urged your readership to vote Yes to a regional assembly.
How dare you assume, like some totalitarian, to dictate as to how any of us should vote in the forthcoming election?
It is not your business to tell us how to vote. What is your business is to report both sides of the argument, clearly and without bias.
As for not wanting a new regional parliament building, just how long do you think the newly-elected fat cats would put up with a converted office block in Durham?
- J Watson, Washington.

ANYONE intending to vote Yes for an elected regional assembly on November 4 should ponder long and hard on the following:
1 Just why is this Government, which is so addicted to centralised control, almost falling over itself to give us an elected assembly, which could theoretically prove very troublesome to it in the future? Is it for their benefit or ours?
2 In effect, you are only voting Yes for the basic idea of an elected assembly. What will you do if you do not like the detail when it is eventually announced?
3 The possible range of powers put forward at present are only from a Draft Bill prepared by the Government, but which has not yet been agreed by Parliament. The Essential Guide to the North-East Referendum, issued by the Electoral Commission, clearly states that the Draft Bill may change later.
4 Do you believe that we really have been given enough firm information on which to vote for changes which could have such far reaching consequences? There will not be any going back.
5 We are not being offered anything like devolved government or home rule.
6 Two-thirds of the seats on the assembly will be decided by the first past the post system, with only one third decided by proportional representation. That means one party domination.
So forget inflatable elephants and rats as well as the views of personalities and study the facts.
- J. Routledge, Witton Gilbert.