UKIP Uncovered
What motivates the leaders of the United Kingdom Independence Party?


Thursday, September 23, 2004 

Damian Hockney letter in Newcastle Journal.

The following letter is from yesterday's edition. Today's article on some of the regionalisation problems and dilemmas may be read from this link:-

LETTER IN NEWCASTLE JOURNAL 22nd September 2004

Elected Assembly will undermine local government

As a recently elected member of the London Assembly, I strongly urge the voters of the North East to vote No to a similar body in the North East.

The setting up of regional assemblies is a deliberate fraud, designed to give the impression that decisions will be taken closer to them, when in fact the whole thing is an exercise in weakening local control and giving more power to central and Brussels government. The Mayor and Assembly in London is a body which administers large budgets and which simply carries out orders from afar. We are effectively elected civil servants with limited scrutiny powers and no power over legislation.

On everything from Congestion Charging to the micro detail of local policy, we depend upon Brussels or Westminster diktat. We have just lost our traditional London buses because of a Brussels ruling. If you do vote Yes, you will not be voting for local decision making. You will be voting to strengthen centralised decision making in London and Brussels, with a team of 25 ineffective politicised local scrutineers running along in the wake with neither the resources nor the will to effectively challenge threats to local interests.

That is no substitute for effective local government. The foundation stone at London's City Hall which I pass every day bears the inscription "home of London Government". Some "Government". I call it the Blarney Stone, but I am not tempted to kiss it.

Damian Hockney
Leader, UK Independence Party Group
London Assembly
City Hall LONDON SE1 2AA

posted by Martin |7:08 AM
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