SOME of us have parish councillors who may be called town councillors. All of us have district councillors. A few of us have directly-elected mayors. Many of us have county councillors. We all have MPs. We all have European MPs. We may one day get regionally-elected peers in the House of Lords. On Thursday, the North-East should get the chance to decide whether it wants to elect members of a regional assembly.

Local government is a strange patchwork quilt, with many instances of extremely bad stitching. Many patches overlap and some clash quite horribly with their neighbours.

Thursday's White Paper on the English regions has many questions to answer. How will a regional assembly fit into the existing patchwork quilt? There will have to be some unpicking to make room for it. The county councils - first Durham and then North Yorkshire - appear the most likely victims, which would mean turning district councils into more powerful unitary authorities.

But how successful have the unitary authorities of Teesside and Darlington been? Are they too small to give value for money - one reason for high council tax rises? Are they too parochial to have a strategic vision- is this why they form partnerships and quangos to try to work together? Can anyone see tiny Teesdale as a cost-effective unitary?

What powers will the regional assembly have? Peter Mandelson said the main reason the people of Hartlepool elected a mock monkey as their mayor was because they felt the Government hadn't given the new position enough power and resources.

If a regional assembly is just a powerless talking shop, the same could happen - and while a monkey might be a suitable face for Hartlepool, a troop of apemen would not be the best way to promote the North-East as a whole.

How will it be genuinely regional? The case for Durham City as its headquarters seems to have been won, and the idea of revolving its meetings around the region's towns may at least make people feel it is working in their neighbourhood.

But one headline yesterday said that "Geordieland" is about to be created in the North-East.

This may be another example of a London newspaper knowing nothing of life beyond London, but it also represents the real fears that Teesside will be overwhelmed by Tyneside. And as Darlington fought so long and so hard to free itself from Durham's yoke, will it now want to be subsumed into "Geordieland"?

A regional assembly is a superficially attractive idea. The White Paper must make it an idea of demonstrably attractive substance