20/10/04

In Tuesday's Comment you say the No side needs to give an alternative. But in this vote the ballot paper does not say "either/ or" , it says "Yes or No!"

The No side was designated by the Government to offer constructive scrutiny of the actual proposals. Every time we do so, people start to agree with us and the desperate Yes campaign attacks us. So far they have attacked the messenger on dozens of occasions.

They have denied the trend of poll after poll. They have attacked the Chamber of Commerce. They have said we are a Conservative campaign, when we have people of other parties and of none. They constantly interrupt and howl us down on television.

We can discuss the alternatives, but only when the people of the North-East have consigned this expensive talking shop, consisting of the same old politicians, to the dustbin. Then, and only then, can the Yes and No sides sit down together and ask the Government to do better.

There are lots of alternatives, but the Government is only offering us one. They can hardly complain when we read it, understand it and say it fails the North-East. The debate on the alternative can begin in earnest after November 4. It will be certain that the No side will be willing participants. - Graham Robb, NO Spokesman

IT is extremely irritating to be told continually by John Elliott, and others of the No campaign, that the regional assembly will have no powers.

For 15 years, as chairman of Gateshead's housing committee, I and my officers argued Gateshead's case for housing investment with ministers and civil servants.

The allocation of this money - currently £100m annually - will transfer from the Government to the elected assembly.

£100m is not nothing. And how it is allocated, to councils and housing associations, is an important decision. The money covers new-build and major refurbishment of affordable rented housing.

I believe an open, accountable, allocation process can only improve the quality of the decisions which will be made - and there have been some disasters in the past.

The No campaigners should tell us what exactly is wrong with decisions like this being taken by accountable people in the region. - Paul Tinnion, Whickham.

IN 1996 a national development project, Lifelong Learning in the Workplace, was partly funded by the Government, the five Northern Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs) and the TUC.

At the setting up stage there were a series of negotiations with the TECs that ate into the time available for the project. Eventually agreement was reached and the bid was won.

Although the project was regional, each TEC had their own ideas about the conduct of the project in their area. Persuading them that the Northern TUC, the facilitator of the project, was taking a unified regional approach took valuable time. The project was very successful and the outcomes have been adopted across the country.

The adoption did not occur without some difficulty. It is more usual to finance educational initiatives locally, but the character of this initiative matched the original regional approach. People were eventually persuaded to make a landmark decision to fund regionally.

If there had been a regional assembly, many more hours could have been devoted to the project. This is not the only project where the various rivalries between Tyne, Tees and rural areas impeded the progress of all. Perhaps when considering which way to vote in the referendum it would be wise to look at the big pictures. - Bill Morehead, Darlington.

ON November 4, we in the North-East will be asked to vote on a decision which in my opinion would change the lives and our pockets for years to come. Just think for a moment of the Scottish Parliament: estimated cost £40m; actual cost £437m, to be paid by the Scottish people.

This ill-thought scheme of a regional assembly, dreamt up by the Deputy Prime Minister, was thrown out by our neighbours in North Yorkshire and Mr Prescott's homeland of Humberside as well as the North-West.

Does he honestly believe that we in the North-East are of less intellectual ability and intelligence than those, including his own constituents? If he does, he dramatically underestimates our intelligence.

These people are the salt of the earth and I do not think for one moment they will go for this ill-thought out and what could turn out to be a very expensive scheme with very little or no benefit for the chosen few. - Name and address supplied.

IF the voters of the North-East want one good reason to vote Yes in the regional referendum, they should look at what is happening now in East Anglia where the Government is trying to force through a massive house building programme against the wishes of local people.

The regional assembly, as in East Anglia, consists of nominated and appointed people with no direct accountability to the people. As such the Government can play the usual divide and rule game to get its way.

This could never happen if there was an elected regional assembly in that part of the world. The process of election transfers real power from the people to those whom they elect, as any elected person will tell you. The chances of a central government riding roughshod over the mandated wishes of a directly elected regional assembly will become vanishingly small.

East Anglia today, will be the North-East tomorrow, unless we vote Yes. - Councillor Nigel Martin, Durham.

THE most fundamental of all human qualities is loyalty: loyalty to God, your nation and your friends.

Of these, second in importance is your nation. It is your motherland, that nurtured and protected you as it did your forefathers.

That being the case, I urge readers to see the proposed regional assembly for what it is: part of a sinister plan to break up the United Kingdom for the purpose of selling us out to Europe, and to vote against it accordingly. - Tony Kelly, Crook.

PETER MULLEN

UNTIL now I thought that your choice of Peter Mullen as a regular correspondent in your newspaper was a bad one.

His extreme right-wing views are offensive to myself and obviously to many other readers of your newspaper.

But the positive side to all this is that Hear All Sides, since the second Gulf War against Iraq, has contained many excellent letters, notably those of Peter Winstanley, which have been an inspiration and a joy to read.

So thanks, Peter Mullen, you've done a good job, though I loathe your God-is-always-on-our-side stance.

You certainly know how to make enemies. - Rev John Stephenson, Sunderland.