Press Release: Prescott's Department says he got it wrong

Press Release
The People's No Campaign
27th March 2006

No Campaigner calls for the North East Assembly to finally be put out of its misery...
after report by Prescott's own department says he got it wrong.

The report commissioned by Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott's own department is scathing and has been slipped out during a time to bury any such bad news...at the time of Gordon Brown's budget and is another nail in the coffin for regional assemblies across the country.

The report English Regional Governance in 2004, commissioned by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, and co-authored by leading Yes Campaigner, Professor John Tomaney, has issued a damning verdict of the remaining tier of unelected regional assemblies and other agencies.
It reports, "The recent strengthening of regional governance arrangements and the proliferation of regional strategies and programmes appeared to have made no discernible difference to long-run patterns of uneven regional development in England."

Mr Prescott, who was badly bruised by the scale of the rejection of an elected body in the North-East, was also told that there was no real public enthusiasm for the rest of the regional apparatus."Existing regional agencies were found to have achieved very little visibility, credibility or legitimacy in the eyes of a representative sample of regional electorates. At the same time, there was little confidence that an ERA [elected regional assembly] would make a substantial difference," said the report, overseen by Salford University.

The ODPM said last night that the report was outdated and indicated that Mr Prescott's enthusiasm for devolving power from Whitehall was undiminished."The field work undertaken for this research is now two years old," said a spokesman. "The world has moved on since then."

Neil Herron, the leading No campaigner against both the unelected and elected North East Assemby states, " Perhaps the world has moved on ... with more people realising that regional government is part of the EU dynamic and not driven by the people.
This report is yet another example of John Prescott's contempt for democracy and his personal ambition to regionalise the country by stealth. It is now becoming increasingly clearer to the public at large that regional assemblies are nothing more than useless, toothless talking shops full of the usual 'gravy train' suspects. The sooner that these unwanted bodies are disbanded the better and the money they soak up from the local ratepayer and national taxpayer spent on more worthwhile matters."

ENDS

Contact:

Neil Herron
Campaign Director
The People's No Campaign
12 Frederick Street
Sunderland
SR1 1NA
Tel. 0191 565 7143
Mob. 07776 202045

Notes for Editors:

Neil Herron was the Campaign Director for the successful North East No Campaign that helped deliver the emphatic 78% 'NO' vote in the country's only ever referendum on the subject.
www.northeastnocampaign.co.uk

The People's No Campaign was initially set up to oppose the European Constitution but has now expanded to campaign against all forms of unaccountable and unacceptable governance, including unelected regional assemblies.
www.thepeoplesnocampaign.co.uk