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Originally posted by nogger
What I think you'll have, which we have here, is a Regional Development Council (I think that's what they're called) which is unelected (a Quango) but has a large say in how money is invested in the region. I think that's what's meant by a NE assembly.
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Yes, that's how it works at the moment. It's democratic only to the extent that councillors from each district within the RDC's patch sit on the council. The assemblies have a limited remit and do little that grabs headlines so they generally go unnoticed.
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The proposed one for the NW will cover, as far as I know, an area that runs from the Scottish border all the way down to at least Manchester and possibly beyond. How's that local?
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I agree. When I lived in the Wirral our complaint was always that a council largely dominated by the Labour-voting east Wirral (Birkenhead and Wallasey) had little interest in generally Tory-voting west Wirral (Heswall, West Kirby and Hoylake). There was even a campaign, at on stage, to split the borough in two. So how transferring some of Wirral council's powers to Manchester is supposed to improve things, I have no idea.
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As for national government, can anyone tell me what the Conservative's policies on anything actually are? And how they differ from those of the current Labour government?
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The Tories have deliberately refused to be rushed into policy announcements since the last election but some of the ones they have made and that come to mind are:
Scrapping University tuition fees
Making greater use of private hospital beds by paying towards the bills of people who choose to go private and get off an NHS waiting list
Overhaul of the tests-and-targets culture in schools
There are others but it's late and I'm tired... sure their website might say more, although I've not looked myself:
www.conservatives.com
EDIT - I am not 'a Tory', but I consider myself to be politically open-minded. If one lot don't deliver, try the other lot. Except don't touch the traitorous Lib Dems with a barge-pole.
