Scottish drum banged with wet hankies in the North East

He kept his bargain by turning up but he is well aware that the drum was banged very quietly and as far away from contention as possible...and after most people who are going to vote had voted.
Nice building tho' Jack ;-)

McConnell drums up support for English devolution
HAMISH MACDONELL
The Scotsman
2nd November
SCOTTISH POLITICAL EDITOR
JACK McConnell warned voters in the north-east of England yesterday that they would put back the cause of devolution 25 years if they rejected plans for a regional assembly. The First Minister travelled to Newcastle to make a last-ditch appeal to voters to support the government’s plans for devolution in the area.

But he ended up delivering the dire warning - the first Labour politician to do so - that a "no" vote in the referendum would end all hope of devolution for the area for at least a decade, and probably longer. Mr McConnell compared this week’s vote to the failed Scottish devolution referendum of 1979 and warned that decision had put back the devolution cause in Scotland by 25 years. He also claimed a "no" vote would send out a signal to the whole of Europe that the North-east was not confident enough to run its own affairs. Mr McConnell’s surprisingly strong words in the debate over regional devolution for England represents the most forthright intervention by any Labour politician in the campaign. Other senior figures, including John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, have tried to play down the implications for the government of a "no" vote.

The referendum is being decided in an all-postal ballot, which closes on Thursday, and latest figures suggest 37 per cent of the population have already voted. However, given that people usually vote early in postal ballots, the final turnout is unlikely to be much more than 40 per cent. Mr McConnell spoke out during a tour of a recording studio in Newcastle. He said: "One of my worries about the vote taking place is that if there is a ‘no’ vote, the sign that gives out outside the North-east of a lack of confidence in democracy and running your own affairs is a very bad signal.

After the 1979 referendum, 25 years ago, a big signal was sent out that Scotland did not want to run its own affairs." The First Minister suggested that a "no" vote would have an impact on all the other areas considering devolution. "It will be noticed in the West Midlands, in the North-west, in Europe; it will go against the European trend. If the North-east goes in the opposite direction, it will be a bad signal to send out," he said. "The message about 1979 is a very strong message. If the North-east votes ‘no’, people in the North-east will regret this for 20 years. There is no second chance for the next decade. We paid too high a price in Scotland for not voting for devolution [in 1979]." The First Minister met only a small number of young people at the BseHQ studio, but even though he had time to answer no more than a few questions, one of them was about the cost of the Scottish Parliament. The spiralling bill for the Holyrood building has been one of the recurrent themes of the North-east campaign, with many voters uneasy about the prospect of a similar fiasco if they vote for devolution.

The First Minister explained that Holyrood had now been constructed and that it was going to become one of the best buildings in the country. But Mr McConnell appeared to try to distance himself from the early decisions, implying that he had had "reservations" about the Holyrood project from the start. "A lot of us had big reservations about it, but now that it has been built, we have had thousands and thousands of people to come and see it. "It has been contentious, but it will be one of the great buildings of Britain in years to come," he said.