Yorkshire Post hits the nail on the head...nice one Simon

Yorkshire Post
Simon McGhee
It could all end in tears for Prescott
IN the early hours of Friday, John Prescott's efforts to build a new era of English regional devolution will finally be decided.Simon McGee
Two-and-a-half years ago, his White Paper, proposing a new tier of directly elected government for the English regions was unveiled in a fanfare of enthusiastic constitutional revolution.Scotland, Wales and London had their own engines of change, he argued. Why shouldn't the rest of England have their chance to give London the finger and fight for their own corners of the United Kingdom?And now the chunk of the country believed to be the keenest for a new form of self-government, envious of what the Scots have managed to secure for themselves across the border, is emerging from months of lobbying to decide, not only for themselves but for Yorkshire and many other parts of the country, whether to kick-start the Deputy Prime Minister's vision – or to sink it, good and proper.The all-postal ballot that has been taking place north of these Broad Acres is one of the most exciting polls in years.Let's face it, it's been more than a decade since the result of an important British election was actually in question.Many of the region's civic leaders, business people and academics seem to have lunged at the prospect of having their own elected chamber. And polls over the years have almost unanimously pointed to the North-East electorate as being far keener than those in any other region to develop their own identity.That's why they're holding a referendum and we're not; the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister realised it didn't yet stand a chance of winning over the people of Yorkshire and the North-West with the vision of weak mini-parliaments currently on offer.Suddenly, however, the tide in the North-East seems to have changed radically, in a way that none of the cognoscenti seems to have foreseen.All the recent polls in the region, taken as more and more people have come to learn about the proposals, have shown that the ordinary man and woman in the street is actually sceptical of another tier of government.Maybe it's the result of a general malaise with politicians, maybe it's growing anger with the relentless rise in council tax, which another layer of government would simply aggravate, or perhaps it is the argument that the model of government on the table is actually relatively toothless.Either way, the politically involved élites seem to have grossly underestimated Joe Public's ability to be brutally realistic and not to subscribe to the everything-will-get-better creed of the believers. John Prescott and his lieutenant, in the shape of kindly uncle Nick Raynsford, are both staring into the abyss this weekend.The polls suggest that they have grossly underestimated the fact that voters won't subscribe to another layer of government simply because someone else has one.The justification has to be greater than that. And the support from Cabinet colleagues, to ensure that powers really are handed down from Whitehall rather than sucked up from councils, has to be more robust.If Prescott can't even prise the Learning and Skills Councils away from the Department for Education and Skills to give to the assemblies, how can he ever dream of handing power over things that really matter, like transport, to regional parliamentarians?But it's more than that. The way the whole issue has been prosecuted also undermines Mr Prescott's case.The recent obsession with postal ballots, despite massive flaws in the voting method, was enough to rouse suspicions.But the late cancellation of the referendums in Yorkshire and the North-West was the last straw – ultimate evidence that, despite all the hot air to the contrary, what people here wanted really didn't matter after all.Once it was thought that the people of Yorkshire might not vote their way, it was Prescott and Co in London who decided the region shouldn't have a say after all: the most outrageous and hypocritical decision that could possibly have been made.London will decide whether or not you have a vote on devolution, but Mr Prescott in London will also take this chance away from you if he thinks you won't agree with him.In the end, Mr Prescott, whose political clock is ticking towards retirement, may have actually done his own cause almost irretrievable harm in trying to bulldoze his agenda through, instead of preparing the ground for a successful campaign somewhere down the line, when the conditions might be better suited.The idea was a grand one. What a shame it looks as if it will all end in tears and humiliation.
30 October 2004