Regionalisation of England by stealth.

[TheOstrich]

Agree with the OP. It's easy to dismiss this as a pre-election gimmick, but it's the thin edge of the European wedge. The onset of federalisation, German style.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalism_in_Germany

I think there are huge questions about taking the Greater Manchester NHS services out of the NHS and merging them with the local Social Services. £6bn is a huge budget. What sort of democratic oversight will there be?

Will medical services in this new city-state authority be ring-fenced so the burghers of (say) Alderley Edge, Wilmslow and Ormskirk have no access to them?

[Workingman]

Ossie, as well as imposing these things on the population there is, as yet, no detail about oversight and such things.

This evening Look North did its bit for advertising the Yorkshire Region (Assembly) the spokesman said that there was a great clamour for Yorkshire to be ruled in such a way. It surprised me, because living here I have heard no such thing...

As for ring-fencing, that is an interesting point. Where will the City-State end and The Nothing begin?

[cruiser2]

heard on the news that this system of having the NHS and Social Care under one managment has been tried in Northern Ireland since 1974 and is still not working.

It will just be another layer of jobs for the boys without any improvement in either of the two existing services and a battle over who gets what money.

Another example of beaurocy gone mad concerns Preston bus station. Lancashire County Council have just released information about designs for the alteration. Yet this is in the centre of Preston town.
As someone has suggested, do away with Lancashire County council. Massive savings on buildings, councillor fees etc.

[Suff]

Ossie, if you look at the history of Germany, it's been a bunch of semi independent states since Roman times. It didn't start to become forged into a nation fully till 1871 and has only had it's current form since 1945. Most of Bavaria was Austrian and always had been so long as there was an Austria. Which explains a lot to me.

I've known a bit about Germany history but as I didn't bother with history at school (no memory for irrelevant facts as I saw them), I really hadn't studied it. However if you look at the post 1871 Germany and the post 1918 Germany, you can perhaps understand why people didn't quite jump into war at the threat of taking "back" Poland.

If they are trying to turn the UK into a federal state like Germany they are on a hiding to nothing. England has been England since, pretty much, the 10th century. It's been one country since 1066 and has had one administration since 1066. When you look at France and the Plantagenet empire, Italy and the fact that it has only been around in it's current form for less than 200 years, you can understand the EU mania for "federalism" and trying to use the regions to work against the centre.

However in the UK, this simply doesn't wash. People don't want it and people see no benefit in it. Which is why I think, in the end, it will fail. Unless, of course, people don't vote on it as an issue.

[cromwell]

If they are trying to turn the UK into a federal state like Germany .

Yes, they are.

However in the UK, this simply doesn't wash. People don't want it and people see no benefit in it. Which is why I think, in the end, it will fail. Unless, of course, people don't vote on it as an issue.

What the people want absolutely does not matter.

It will succeed because all the main parties want it, the media will collude with them in telling the most blatant lies about it and the people will get no choice about it.
As WM pointed out, it has started already. An organisation called "Yorkshire First" (one man and his dog) were given air time to spout unchallenged their garbage about a great clamour for regional government - which is an absolute lie and the first of many to come.

[Workingman]

Right! Let's be clear, this has nothing to do with the EU, not one iota. This has everything to do with the devolution of powers to NI, Wales and Scotland and denying the same powers to the English.

The English political elite want English regions in order to divide and rule. It suits them greatly NOT to have an English parliament on the lines of the Scottish model or NI or Welsh assemblies. In order to get their way, and as Cromwell rightly points out, they will be imposed and we English will not get to vote on them.

Were we to be asked, and we will not because the mechanism to do so is in the hands of politicians, we would vote against regions and for a parliament.

[TheOstrich]

Apologies for resurrecting an old thread, but now we have this ...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/m ... copenhagen

All part of the Great Plan .....

[Workingman]

The silly season has started early... even for the Danes!

Ossie, I thought that you might be on about Nick Clegg's latest.......

A Cornish Assembly

[Suff]

Perhaps Sweden might want to let it go.

You also have to remember that there were open borders in Scandinavia before Schengen. Their levels of collaboration and integration are much higher than the norm for the EU.