So the North eAST VOTED NO TO A ASSEMBLY. WHAT i SAW WAS THE SAME OLD SCAREMUNGERING BY THE NO PEOPLE. TOO SMALL. TOO EXPENSIVE AND A WHITE ELEPHANT.
WHEN WILL PEOPLE IN THE NORTH EAST STOP BEING CONNED BY THESE IDIOTS ONCE AGAIN.
LONDON SHOULD NOT HOLD THE PURSE STRINGS AND THE NORTH EASTERNERS SHOULD NOT TAKE THIS LYING DOWN.
WAIT TILL A TORY GOVERNMENT IS ELECTED IN THE SOUTH THEN YOU WILL BE SCREAMING FOR YOU ASSEMBLY.
RE: transfer of council stock. Labours former health secretary Frank Dobson said as recently as Nov 1st. that Government-backed ballots on the future management of council housing would be denounced as invalid if they were scrutinised by United Nations election observers. He also said If they sent in international observers from the UN to look at these almo ballots they'd be denounced as invalid. Vote for the almo and you'll get your house done up - don't vote for the almo and you'll live in a dump for ever more. Now is that a fair choice? Yet another example of this Government trying to manipulate a ballot to get their own way.
Mr Davis, I read this on the netHousing associations borrow private money to fund the repair costs. The government has prevented councils borrowing in the same way. It prefers housing associations to raise the money because their debts - unlike those of councils - don't count as public borrowing. Ultimately, however, the taxpayer pays for housing association borrowing because it is funded through revenue from rents, largely paid for by housing benefit. Councils spend millions of pounds promoting the idea to council tenants ahead of these votes. Most tenants vote in favour because transfer is presented as the only way of getting much needed repairs to their homes. No alternatives are on offer, also rents are only protected for a 5 year period.
Trevor Davis
from Newcastle
15:24:03 18 November 2004
Mr Kerr no transfer can take place unless the tenants agree. All transfers are subject to a ballot of tenants and rent levels are protected under current legislation.
Mr. Davis Newcastle, I agree the Government are forcing the sale of council houses across the country by introducing their decent homes legislation, in fact what I said was as much Quote Local councils and the Labour Government are selling off council houses across the country to Housing trusts, forcing tenants to pay increased rents or forcing them to try and get on to the property ladder. Rent are only held down for only 5 years, then the housing associations can increase their rents with impunity. I also believe there is an extra Service charge that can be levied which isnt covered by the Governments legislation, and which can be increased at any time. I also believe that Housing association rents are on average between 17 and 50% higher than council rents. The idea of selling of council house off to Private housing associations is so good, that there are numerous campaigns across the country fighting it.
Trevor Davis
from Newcastle
10:31:31 18 November 2004
Mr Kerr local council's are being FORCED to transfer their housing stock by the Government. Under the Govt's decent homes standard legislation local authorities housing stock condition must be at a certain standard by 2010. The Govt are not providing local authorities enough money to reach this standard therefore Councils are being forced to transfer to housing associations or set up arms length companies to attract the necessary funding to achieve this standard. That said Govt legislation is also protecting housing association tenants by limiting the allowable increase in rents. Your statements re Councils selling off their homes is factually incorrect, they are being forced down a blind alley.
Mr J . A tkinson.[ a proud geordie]
from NORTHAMPTON
20:04:38 16 November 2004
WHEN death came to the idea of an North-East Regional Assembly on November the 4th here is my 'EPITAPH'. as the months went by one got a whiff of the decaying corpse of the YES VOTE when Blair's cronies were crowded into the North-East and as the weeks went by the whiff got stronger and stronger and in the end Prescott
dug the political grave for the North-East Regional Assembly
on November the 4th 2004.
D Fox Wallsend. The Yes campaign leaflet said A Yes vote for regional Government can bring us, for example: more good quality jobs, more opportunities for young people through better training apprenticeships, affordable homes to get people on to the housing ladder, and better train bus services. Without any additional funding or powers how could they have achieved that? Training was never part of the RA remit. Transport was never within the RA remit. Local councils and the Labour Government are selling off council houses across the country to Housing trusts, forcing tenants to pay increased rents or forcing them to try and get on to the property ladder. On top of all this Presclott kept a veto that allowed him to override and decisions made locally the conflicted with the Governments interests or that of Brussels. So if that is what an elected assembly were offering, what is your un-elected assembly offering? Please enlighten us!!! NERA to GO!!!
D Fox Wallsend. You still haven't answered the question as to what NERA does for the NE. Come on enlighten us, give us the benefir of your wisdom, what is it's purpose. I've already established that NERA don't build roads or buildings etc. and they can't provide additional nurses, policemen or firemen. So come tell us what benefit does NERA give us for the £2.2m a year they get from the public purse!!!! NERA to GO.
Three issues here. One, the driving force is the EU, which wants Regions as the top tier of its local government. But put that on one side. Two, does the government in London really want to distribute power more widely? No, it just wants its own agents across the country doing its bidding - hence the lack of independent decision making powers offered. Three, if the government really wanted to become more hands off,
would people prefer to run their affairs through the existing cities, counties and towns, or do they feel the need to work as a larger geographical unit, which they themselves identify as their region? Eg, a few years ago thousands of people in Cornwall were induced to sign a petition calling for a powerful regional assembly, thinking that it would be a Cornish assembly. They werent told that it would cover five other counties as well. Theres been a lot of duplicity involved in this top-down push for regionalisation.
North Northumbrian
16:41:22 15 November 2004
Mark from Sussex, I wasnt making the point that Northumberland is scottish,altough if you look The liberty of Tynedale and Berwick upon tweed were ruled by scotland, it is true the gealic presence at the time of the kingdom anywhere was dal dreada (the Kingdom of the Irish known as the scots
D Fox
from Wallsend
16:18:41 15 November 2004
Jim Kerr: Sticking more and more exclamation marks after your statements does not overcome the lack of reasoning behind them. An argument against the specific proposals on the basis of what they would deliver is not an argument against Regional Devolution in any form no matter how many times you repeat it. If the No campaign had wished toc campaign against decolution in any form then they could have. They didn't so they did not win that argument. I've already told you why I am in favour of the NERA and it has nothing to do whith thwe Labour Party or unions. They don't build roads but I am in favour of lots of thing that don't build roads and don't want them all abolished just for the hell of it.
D Fox Wallsend: The list of weaknesses of the proposed assembly are of course familiar and you can't argue against them because they are precisely why you and Preslott and Co lost the referendum. 80% of the NE voted against the referendum because they could see that the more PRescott and Blair tried to manipulate a Yes vote, 80% of the NE could see through their lies!! You can't defend against the NO campaigns arguement, because the NO campaign told how it was in the bill. No additional powers and No additional funding. You know as well as the rest of us, Presclott had 21/2 years to get the bill right, and up until 4-Nov he was still trying to swing the Yes vote on promises of what might have been. The Yes campaign was a shambles, and the deserved to lose, and you are still defending it!! Give up, you have lost the referendum, don't live the next few years in denial!! NERA to GO!!!
D Fox from Wallsend. We are still awaiting for you to enlighten us as to why NERA and Regional assemblies are so good for the region. Go on convince us, what do they do? By the way the Qunagoes you seem to want to get rid of and replace with RA's are all controlled by Phony Blair, Presclott and CO. So come on tell us all what does NERA do for the millions of pounds of public money that funds them. Have they provided 1 extra teacher, policeman, fireman, or nurse? Have the built 1 road or school or building!! Tell us, and whilst you are telling is tell us what is in it for you. Are you a member of Unison, GMB, etc? NERA to GO!!
D Fox from Wallsend. So now we all know you are not part of NERA, what about the labour party, or labour party supporting Union, why do you support NERA, what is in it for you. NERA to GO!!
Despite the massive rejection of regional government, Prescott is pressing ahead with his pre-existing plans to regionalise the emergency services. It was reported on Saturday that the four fire control/call centres in the north east will be shut down and replaced by one regional centre, work on the new building (naturally!) to start next year. The official report estimated that up to £20 million a year could be saved by moving from 49 local control centres to just 9 regional control rooms but thats for the whole of England and Wales, and it works out at less than a penny per person per week. It will cost lives, theres no doubt about that but what the heck, the EU wants Regions as the top tier of its local government, and thats all that matters.
Pablo
from Newcastle
11:32:34 13 November 2004
I'm laughing at the born in north east newcastle university graduate stating that the people deserve all they get for resoundingly voting NO. Well at least the north east are exporting the scrapings at the bottom of the barrel to London in the form of under educated graduates
D Fox
from Wallsend
17:04:48 12 November 2004
Jim Kerr: The list of weaknesses of the proposed assembly are of course familiar. You cannot, though, pretend they are an argument against an assembly in any form because they are not. If an Assembly was a bad idea IN PRINCIPLE, as both you and Neil Herron believe, then the actual contents of the bill wuold be irrelevant. By trying to pick up votes from people who would support an Assembly with greater powers as well as those who share their opinions, both the official and unofficial No campaigns have given up on anything but a pretence of representing the people of the region.
D Fox
from Wallsend
16:56:47 12 November 2004
Jim Kerr: I am not involved in the NERA in any way and would have preferred it to be replaced by an elected assembly. But insofar as it, through having members delegated from councils, gives some local input into the priorities of One North East and other Quangoes. You on the other hand appear to want no such input and for these Quangoes to be accountable only to London.
Kenny
from Durham
14:57:52 12 November 2004
Yes we've lost a battle but the war goes on.
Arise a new Northumbria defeat never!!
D Fox Wallsend. Re: mud-slinging, inconsistent and illogical set of arguments the No campaign put forward! Well the only argument they put forward was that the NE was being offered an expensive talking shop with no powers no additional funding. They also said an RA would have no additional powers to create jobs, reduce hospital waiting , improve our schools, make our streets safer, finally no power to up grade the A1. All of which was true, all of which the YES campaign said could happen but didnt see fit to put it in the bill even though they had 21/2 years to prepare it. All the mud slinging came from Presclott, Hall, Mallon and co. who said the NO campaign was run by the Southern Tories, even those Neil Herrons campaign had cross party support and is based in Sunderland. By the way Ive never voted Tory nor shall I. We dont need Michael Howard to disband this drain on the public purse the Peoples NO campaign will do that. NERA to GO!!
D Fox Wallsend. You campaigned for an elected assembly, and now you seem to be campaigning for the un-elected assembly. Are you employed by them? Are you a member for the labour party mafia here in the NE, perhaps a councilor? Or are you one of the Union representatives from Unison, GMB, TUC who publicly supported and financially supported the establishment of RAs with union member funds without balloting them? Come clean tells us all why you want the rest of us to keep on funding this back door assembly, if it is such a good idea to have NERA perhaps you will enlighten us all as to exactly how the benefit the NE, when they have admitted themselves that they cant take credit for building one road or one building. Just face the facts, the Yes campaign were thrashed and you wont accept it that the NE dont want another talking shop filled with career politicians and Union poodles, which the NE council tax payers are expected to pay for. NERA to GO!
Mr J. ATKINSON
from NORTHAMPTON
10:37:37 12 November 2004
WHAT a mess our country is in today.we have Blair's autocracy on one hand and mass feebleness of the public on the other.hence the turmoil we see in
society after 7 years
Blair's labour Government is still remarkably tolerant of
nasties in towns and cities no wonder
we don't have a clean society today.the concepts of being moral is coniderate.clean respectful.reasonable and so forth.but BLAIR
and and his GOVERNMENT
have different ideas about the concepts of been moral.Blair said pathetically that he was going to resign if the vote was againt war in iraq.why did Blair wait until the the war was over(not including todays terrorism) to mention his idea of resignation
in my opinion the reason is quite simple
he wanted to win over public sympathy and he got it.now he think's he is untouchable.now he is more egoistic and more vulgar than any preivous prime minister.perhaps someone who understands
psephology can explain
why Blair won two general elections since
1997?
You people really need to wake up. Accept that fact that you lost by a large majority in a referendum that the government did everything it possibly could to deliver a yes vote. Labour has a large majority of MPs, a majority of them from north England and Scotland. Well the Scottish cabinet is looking after its people in Scotland, why aren't
Labour MPs looking after their own constituency?
The only way to solve the West Lothian question is to scrap the Scottish parliament, or better, set up an English Parliament.
Land Of Hope And Glory
It is truly bizarre how those of you who say that that the north east of England has lost a chance to speak for itself are the same people who are defending the unelected regional assemblies. Planning powers have been taken away from Conty Councils and given to these quangos. With breath-taking arrogance the East Of England RA rubber-stamped, the day after the 78% No VOTE, our vice-fuhrer's plan to build over 500,000 new houses in eastern England, against the wishes of local people.
How do the unelected assemblies spend our money? Well two summers ago, I and others protested against the SEERA who had all come down from Guildford for a jolly at The Grand Hotel Brighton, the most expensive hotel in Brighton. They all would have got their mileage allowance on top of the Grand's bill.
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