Kennedy... "Blame Blair for the defeat."

Blair has never been supportive of Prescott's plans, but it is interesting to see that the penny is starting to drop with the journalists as to why 'another' No campaign was set up despite the very successful People's No Campaign of over two years standing.
In the post mortem of the referendum, all will be revealed, and when the 'No' vote is achieved you need to watch as to who will attempt to claim credit.

Northern Echo
4th November 2004
Decision day for the region
by Robert Merrick & Chris Lloyd
THE recriminations over a possible No vote in today's referendum began at yesterday's Prime Minister's Questions, with the Liberal Democrat leader suggesting that Tony Blair should take the blame for any defeat.
Charles Kennedy appeared to criticise Mr Blair, whose Sedgefield constituency would be part of any North-East assembly, for not throwing himself whole-heartedly behind the devolution cause.
Mr Kennedy told Mr Blair: "One of the lessons of the North-East campaign is that, the more positive campaigning that is done in advance, the better it is when the decision is actually reached."

Mr Kennedy's eve-of-poll comments came just two weeks after the two party leaders stood shoulder-to-shoulder on a balcony overlooking the River Tees, to campaign for a Yes vote.
On that occasion, Mr Kennedy insisted that "the principle at stake is too important for party politics".

Mr Blair is known to have long been lukewarm about elected assemblies, putting pressure on his deputy John Prescott to drop plans for similar polls in the North-West and Yorkshire.
The Prime Minister also insisted any region gaining an assembly must have a single tier of local government, to counter criticisms of too much bureaucracy.

However, this means potentially widescale changes to the council structure in Durham and Northumberland, with many people seeing their councils become more distant from their doorstep - a curious side-effect for a measure that aims to bring power closer to the people.

In an interview with The Northern Echo last month, Mr Blair admitted he had been initially more sceptical about regional government, but had been converted to its cause partly by the experience of giving it to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London.
Mr Blair has made two trips to the region to support the Yes campaign - the same number as Chancellor Gordon Brown.

In the Commons yesterday, Mr Blair said: "It is most important that North-East voters take this opportunity to go out and vote Yes. This North-East assembly is going to be handling hundreds of millions of pounds of money.
"It will mean an actual reduction in the number of overall councils in the North-East."

During yesterday's questions, Mr Kennedy related the North-East's referendum experience to the forthcoming vote on the European Constitution.

He urged the Prime Minister to undertake early and full-blooded campaigning to make the case for the constitution, about which a referendum is expected in early 2006.

The North-East Says No campaign is being seen as a dry-run for a campaign against the constitution. The No campaign's leading lights have, as well as North-East businessmen, included a couple of members of a Euro-sceptic London think-tank, New Frontiers.
They have, in the past, advised the Conservative leadership on strategy. This has caused the Yes campaign to label them rats - 'rather arrogant toff southerners' - although one of them was born in Durham.

Their aggressive tactics in the North-East have been populist and simple. Their inflatable white elephant has become the most memorable image of the campaign as it captured many people's fears about the assembly.
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