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Post by ntyuk1707 on Oct 14, 2023 0:41:51 GMT
What's wrong with the 48 counties? For statistical purposes where data is not supplied on a county-level, the most logical split is Greater London, South, Midlands and North.
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Post by ntyuk1707 on Oct 14, 2023 0:46:01 GMT
I don't know why anyone is trying to shoehorn regions into England. The same thing was attempted in Scotland and the results were poor.
England is England. It should be treated as an equal part of the United Kingdom instead of being segmented into nine parts to adopt some plurality region system with the rest of the UK which absolutely nobody asked for.
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Post by ntyuk1707 on Oct 14, 2023 0:48:20 GMT
By the way, there was good reason barely anyone wanted a North East England regional assembly at the 2004 referendum. It is an unnecessary waste of money. Extra layer of beaucruary with less accountability than would exist before, as is the case with police & crime commissioners and 'devolved' mayor regions (why do these even exist???).
Either give England a parliament/assembly or don't. No need to convolute it or segment the country for your own constitutional fantasies.
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Post by johnloony on Oct 14, 2023 3:11:29 GMT
Ask everybody in England “Which region of England do you live in?”. Ask it as an open question, with no set optional answers. Collate and assess the answers. If there are any areas where there is a general consensus of the same answer (e.g. “Yorkshire”) get the Boundaries Commission to draw boundaries of regions accordingly.
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Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on Oct 14, 2023 5:36:03 GMT
By the way, there was good reason barely anyone wanted a North East England regional assembly at the 2004 referendum. It is an unnecessary waste of money. Extra layer of beaucruary with less accountability than would exist before, as is the case with police & crime commissioners and 'devolved' mayor regions (why do these even exist???). Either give England a parliament/assembly or don't. No need to convolute it or segment the country for your own constitutional fantasies. I've always disagreed with an English Parliament because it wouldn't reflect that England really is a jigsaw nation of regions, it'd be another Westminster, and with the Commons and Lords we've got two examples of how bad they are. Cumbria is not Kent. The NE is not the East Midlands. Cheshire is not Essex. And we need to represent that far more than trying to pretend that England is a united nation under one flag. Remember that "we" don't even have an agreed national anthem because people are too scared to detach from God Save the Q/K What interests me is that English nationalists, with whom I rarely agree, make some of the same points I do, then conclude that the answer is a national devolved Parliament. I look at England and its disrespect from Westminster and see regions and counties. This is what happens, we differ. |
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ilerda
Conservative
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Post by ilerda on Oct 14, 2023 12:34:54 GMT
Again though there is this fallacy amongst politicians and politically-interested people that someone’s identity is or should be intrinsically linked the democratic and political institutions that govern them. In my book it’s perfectly fine for people in East Cleveland to identity as Yorkshire folk and introduce themselves as such, whilst also voting for and being subject to the governance of a devolved Teesside Mayor (and ideally small Assembly).
I see why it’s useful and necessary at the level of the nation state, but the logo of the authority that collects your bins or resurfaces your highways can easily be totally detached from your own regional identity, the food you eat, the cricket team you support or the accent you speak with.
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xenon
Forum Regular
Posts: 427
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Post by xenon on Oct 16, 2023 22:09:51 GMT
I've often thought about how England could adopt a sort of federal system to align better with the devolved nations and provide some decentralisation that doesn't involve pointless mayors and the like. The classic example (and one which Britain had a role in creating) is of course the German Bundesländer, but given Germany's history as an assortment of smaller states this model doesn't exactly lend itself to steadfastly unitary Britain.
A better example to follow would be Mitterand's regions in France. They were created out of a political desire to provide an alternative to a stagnating centrally-managed economy and bureaucracy. As such, although they paid attention to historic boundaries to avoid a soulless compass-point system like ours, they weren't bound by them to the same degree that Germany was (which has resulted in anomalies like Bremen and Saarland).
You could start by giving each province in England ('region' is too vague a term) the same powers as afforded to Wales either upon devolution under the 1998 Act, or after the separation of the executive and legislature under the 2006 Act. This could even be a two- or three-step process, with provinces having different levels of devolution according to local preference – although this does then run of creating a confusing patchwork like the current mess with city deals and combined authorities.
Either way, the areas on which the Provincial Assemblies could legislate would be –
Agriculture, forestry, fisheries and food
Ancient monuments and historic buildings
Culture
Economic development
Education and training
The environment
Health and health services
Highways
Housing
Industry
Local government
Social services
Sport and recreation
Tourism
Town and country planning
Transport
Water and flood defence
Elections would either be by STV in 3 to 5 member constituencies made by aggregating Westminster seats, or by the excellent but sadly now defunct Baden-Württemberg method of second mandates. The Executive would be made up of a First Minister and a cabinet of five to seven others.
As for the provinces themselves –
Tamar (1.8 million) comprising Devon and Cornwall
Severn (3.1 million) comprising Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Bristol and Somerset
Wessex (2.7 million) comprising Hampshire, Dorset and the Isle of Wight
Weald (3.5 million) comprising Kent, East Sussex and West Sussex
London (8.9 million) comprising Greater London and the City of London
Upper Thames (3.6 million) comprising Surrey, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire less Milton Keynes
East Anglia (3.5 million) comprising Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk
Soke (3.4 million) comprising Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire, plus Milton Keynes
Mercia (5.9 million) comprising West Midlands, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Shropshire and Staffordshire
Trent (4.3 million) comprising Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Lincolnshire, and Derbyshire less High Peak
West Pennine (7.4 million) comprising Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire, Lancashire, and Westmorland and Furness, plus High Peak
Yorkshire (5.3 million) comprising God's own county, less the bit in Teesside
Northumbria (2.9 million) comprising Durham, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, Cumberland, plus Teesside.
Apologies about Soke, I couldn't think of a good name for that area which is not-quite the South and not-quite the Midlands. Provinces tend to be smaller in the south and larger in the north mainly due to the distribution of urban areas. Some boundaries will obviously be controversial, but I think there's a few novel ideas in there which capture connections between counties better than the current regions do.
I might spin this out into a separate Federalism thread if I have any more fanciful ideas, as I think someone suggested further up.
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Post by mattb on Oct 17, 2023 9:30:15 GMT
The problem with all of this is that everything within about 100 miles around London is functionally, economically and culturally a single region. That's getting on for half the population of the England. However you divide that region, you end up with a collection of places that have more to do with London than they have to do with each other.
(e.g. your 'Weald' region - the only thing (say) Horsham and Margate have in common is their link to London. Same for (say) St Albans and Peterborough; or Bicester and Reigate; and so on).
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ilerda
Conservative
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Post by ilerda on Oct 17, 2023 9:35:22 GMT
The problem with all of this is that everything within about 100 miles around London is functionally, economically and culturally a single region. That's getting on for half the population of the England. However you divide that region, you end up with a collection of places that have more to do with London than they have to do with each other. (e.g. your 'Weald' region - the only thing (say) Horsham and Margate have in common is their link to London. Same for (say) St Albans and Peterborough; or Bicester and Reigate; and so on). But also ironically the intense feeling of the residents that they're not London. |
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Post by finsobruce on Oct 17, 2023 9:40:43 GMT
The problem with all of this is that everything within about 100 miles around London is functionally, economically and culturally a single region. That's getting on for half the population of the England. However you divide that region, you end up with a collection of places that have more to do with London than they have to do with each other. (e.g. your 'Weald' region - the only thing (say) Horsham and Margate have in common is their link to London. Same for (say) St Albans and Peterborough; or Bicester and Reigate; and so on). But also ironically the intense feeling of the residents that they're not London. They've got the best of both worlds then.  |
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Oct 17, 2023 10:48:19 GMT
The problem with all of this is that everything within about 100 miles around London is functionally, economically and culturally a single region. That's getting on for half the population of the England. However you divide that region, you end up with a collection of places that have more to do with London than they have to do with each other. (e.g. your 'Weald' region - the only thing (say) Horsham and Margate have in common is their link to London. Same for (say) St Albans and Peterborough; or Bicester and Reigate; and so on). But also ironically the intense feeling of the residents that they're not London. I think that's true of, say, Reigate, but if you tell somebody from Peterborough they live in London they'll just look confused. |
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Khunanup
Lib Dem
Portsmouth Liberal Democrats
Posts: 12,039
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Post by Khunanup on Oct 17, 2023 11:58:36 GMT
The problem with all of this is that everything within about 100 miles around London is functionally, economically and culturally a single region. That's getting on for half the population of the England. However you divide that region, you end up with a collection of places that have more to do with London than they have to do with each other. (e.g. your 'Weald' region - the only thing (say) Horsham and Margate have in common is their link to London. Same for (say) St Albans and Peterborough; or Bicester and Reigate; and so on). Don't think that's really true at all, at least south of London. You might be right about Margate and Horsham, but you can't say that about Canterbury and Chichester and certainly not about Hastings and Margate. And it's often underestimated the sheer volume of population along the south coast from Poole to Medway, which really odoes create urban agglomerations of their own (and an area of massive neglect in connectivity between them by central government). The Solent area (most of Hampshire, Isle of Wight and eastern Dorset) certainly has huge cultural, economic and historical links which is all within 100 miles of London but utterly independent of its influence for those links. |
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Post by uthacalthing on Oct 17, 2023 13:10:55 GMT
I've often thought about how England could adopt a sort of federal system to align better with the devolved nations and provide some decentralisation that doesn't involve pointless mayors and the like. You could start by giving each province in England ('region' is too vague a term) the same powers as afforded to Wales either upon devolution under the 1998 Act, or after the separation of the executive and legislature under the 2006 Act. Either way, the areas on which the Provincial Assemblies could legislate would be – Agriculture, forestry, fisheries and food Ancient monuments and historic buildings Culture Economic development Education and training The environment Health and health servicesHighways Housing Industry Local government Social servicesSport and recreation Tourism Town and country planning Transport Water and flood defence ............ I might spin this out into a separate Federalism thread if I have any more fanciful ideas, as I think someone suggested further up. This post was liked by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ and uthacalthing. But with caveats. Already you are going down the rabbit holes of the electoral systems and the boundaries before you have established the principle, and in doing so you endanger the principle. The only question you need to discuss now is what is it for and how does it benefit society? To my mind, the biggest single issue is health care, how does one reform the NHS in a manner that overly emotional idiots and grifting political activists are unable to obstruct? How do we bin the vile concept of the postcode lottery and replace it with local decision-making and accountability? How do we get Westminster grubby paws off health care? How do we enable differing models to develop so that they can be deemed successful or unsuccessful? To my mind, the regions/provinces are principally Health and Social Care Boards that are not answerable to Westminster. I would want them to have tax-raising powers and I would want them to be VERY transparent. It's not good enough that they can vary VAT or Income tax by 2%. The better model is that they and they alone can levy a specific tax so that everyone can see exactly what their services are costing them. The tax is effectively hypothecated. I dont think this works on your model of small to medium-sized authorities. I think it is 8-10 across all of England. Given public opposition to the very concept of regions, it might be better to consider making them bodies populated by the current MPs with them sitting on Fridays. If they are limited to one day a week it might slow mission creep. Worth a new thread |
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ilerda
Conservative
Posts: 1,104
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Post by ilerda on Oct 17, 2023 13:20:09 GMT
Either way, the areas on which the Provincial Assemblies could legislate would be – Agriculture, forestry, fisheries and food Ancient monuments and historic buildings Culture Economic development Education and training The environment Health and health services Highways Housing Industry Local government Social services Sport and recreation Tourism Town and country planning Transport Water and flood defence Legislate on all of these? Do you actually mean legislation? I could accept the ability to set policies or priorities or distribute funding etc, but the idea that we could have different legislative frameworks for health, education, agriculture, pollution, housing, employment rights etc for all these places is frankly absurd. |
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nyx
Non-Aligned
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Post by nyx on Oct 18, 2023 18:53:38 GMT
Similarly, Whitby is clearly and unequivically in Yorkshire but people keep telling us we should shut up and be annexed to Teesside. Has this really been suggested since the 1970s? I live in East Cleveland and I've never heard anyone seriously suggest that we should be in a local authority with Whitby. Of course, people here think they are clearly and unequivocally in Yorkshire too. This is not diminished by being in a particular council area or combined authority or whatever. I wouldn't say people discuss what local authority they should be in much in general. However I would say that much of North Yorkshire does naturally look towards Middlesbrough, which is of course traditionally in Yorkshire. If you're in Richmond or Northallerton or Thirsk or Whitby, the nearest big city to you is not York but Middlesbrough (well, technically not a city but for all intents and purposes is). |
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ilerda
Conservative
Posts: 1,104
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Post by ilerda on Oct 18, 2023 21:17:38 GMT
I’ve often thought that postcodes are probably a more accurate reflection of identity than local authorities. Some notable exceptions aside (DN and PE for example) the postcode areas would make good upper tier authorities and the postal towns would be good municipal/second tier authorities.
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Oct 18, 2023 21:25:27 GMT
I’ve often thought that postcodes are probably a more accurate reflection of identity than local authorities. Some notable exceptions aside (DN and PE for example) the postcode areas would make good upper tier authorities and the postal towns would be good municipal/second tier authorities. In most Northern cities, people identify which part of the city they live in by the postcode. Unfortunately in London, some of the younger Londoners identify which gang they're in by the postcode sector. But outside there, it's probably something that matters to postal delivery and nothing else. |
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Post by gwynthegriff on Oct 18, 2023 21:25:50 GMT
I’ve often thought that postcodes are probably a more accurate reflection of identity than local authorities. Some notable exceptions aside (DN and PE for example) the postcode areas would make good upper tier authorities and the postal towns would be good municipal/second tier authorities. Not sure a Shrewsbury-centred upper tier authority would sit well in Aberystwyth . . . |
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,808 
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Post by J.G.Harston on Oct 18, 2023 21:27:19 GMT
I’ve often thought that postcodes are probably a more accurate reflection of identity than local authorities. Some notable exceptions aside (DN and PE for example) the postcode areas would make good upper tier authorities and the postal towns would be good municipal/second tier authorities. I really really really really want to disagree with you, but they do make a good amount of sense. |
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Post by bjornhattan on Oct 18, 2023 21:31:03 GMT
I’ve often thought that postcodes are probably a more accurate reflection of identity than local authorities. Some notable exceptions aside (DN and PE for example) the postcode areas would make good upper tier authorities and the postal towns would be good municipal/second tier authorities. I tend to agree with you - but I wouldn't recommend making that argument in Windsor! |
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