North West Assembly

Exactly, in my area (Withington ward) 20% of people earn above £60k a year. They are lot very rich people in the South Manchester/Cheshire and parts of Lancashire. Yet we still get less funding per head than southerners.

Do you support it? I am in favour of it because its about time decisions were made in the North West for the North West and not in London.

You're from the south then yeah?
You don't genuinely think individual MPs can really make that much difference do you? Sadly not, unless they have a ministerial role which obv most do not. They just don't have the time or resources, and are usually simply not important enough to have requests for great change listened to. It would take a level of power vastly higher than that which backbenchers have to lessen the extreme centralisation of power in London.
Whitehall as much as Westminster is key here: whatever anyone says otherwise, many of the major decisions are taken here. Civil service power is still very much concentrated in the metropolis rather than the regions, and this DOES make a huge difference. If the mandarins had not all been living in London for all or most of their careers perhaps they would be less London-centric but this is not the case. Given that their whole lives are in one city it will obviously be harder for them to understand what life is like in rural areas, or the north, or really anywhere that's different. Yes, it would be lovely if we lived in a perfect world and it was actually possible for ordinary constituency MPs to have as much power to achieve change as you've suggested is possible, but they don't.

Perhaps gnostic could also count up the amount of halls and manor houses in the north compared to the south

Well, I think we should talk about actual plans that have been proposed. I think John Prescott suggested devolved assemblies for pretty much all the different regions of the UK.

I'm totally against the current situation where Scotland and Wales are totally segregated while no English region has its own assembly to deal with ITS issues.

So on what issues exactly do you think the north is neglected? And surely if that is the problem we should be trying to redesign the controls in westminster rather than wasting money on more government

Surely the plan to move some of the civil service jobs out to northern and midland cities will help some what with the lack of people who are making decision actually living in the north. I would like to know why many of the people on this board who are from the north and support this assembly seem to have a problem with people in the south generally. I mean what is the problem with living in the south? We are all part of the same country and the people in the south don't seem to have the same problem with people from the north and the midlands.

My problem is not with people living in the south or southerners, my problem is people in London making decisions which directly effect other cities in the country. It just seems the government only really cares about London and the rest of the country don't count.

I am not sure that it is entirely true, I guess I will see when I move out of London in september. There is obviously a problem with the current north south divided that has to be addressed. I just think that more than one plan should be come up with so there are more options about what can be done ranging from doing nothing to the north west assembly. I also think that it is only fair that if the north west get and assembly that every other region should get one too.

I know the North East and Yorkshire are also proposed to getting one. I am not sure why the Midlands or South West isn't.

The North South divide is why some people hate southerners though because its wrong, there is no reason it should exist, the North West ecnomeny more example is worth more than Irelands or Greeces so other parts of the country generate a lot of income for the country yet don't get the same amount of funding.

Like I said I realise that there is a problem that needs addressing I just think that other options need to also be considered. What is the harm in looking at all the possible options.

Its all North-West-centric in here isn't it? No mention of the North East or Yorkshire-Humber assemblies...

How would you plan to redesign the controls in Westminster then? If you've got a plausible plan as to how this can be done then I'd be inclined to listen, though like I said you'd also have to factor in Whitehall too and this is all exceptionally complex (as I'm sure Tony Blair will tell you, constitutional reform is a bitch). But if you or anyone else can think of not only a way in which the balance of power and degree of centralisation could be completely altered but also a way in which your idea can plausibly be implemented then I may well go along with it.

Actually I didn't mention neglect, I pointed out that the people making the decisions which will affect the north west tend to have interests that lie elsewhere, and naturally this means that they are thinking of people other than us and do not usually have experience of life in the region. To this end I myself don't think picking out specific areas of neglect is a useful approach, it is more a case of being generally passed over and so looking at the whole picture not sections of it is useful. There are others who disagree with me though, amazingtrade for example feels Manchester has been neglected for investment in transport lately, and he does have a point.