West Midlands NO! Campaign

The press have spent the last couple of days carrying stories about the trans-national regions again, horrified that Federal Europe has lumped London and the South East in with France.

This story seems to make it into the news roughly every 6 months with the same newspapers expressing the same horrified surprise at the same story they’ve been carrying for the last couple of years.

The idea behind the EU’s trans-national regions is the same as the British government’s idea of English regions - to abolish the nation state.  In the case of the British government, they want to abolish England and replace it with 9 euroregions with their own regional government and identity.  Fortunately for us, the number of traitors willing to support death by regionalisation are still quite low and regionalisation is still progressing at a slow enough pace that we may still be lucky enough to have an England in a decade’s time.   The EU’s idea - having already carved up every member state into artificial regions - is to merge the multitude of euroregions into larger regions that cross national boundaries, attempting to remove national identities and replace them with artificial EU regional identities.

The problem with the EU regionalisation agenda is that it’s driven my the Germans who have been a federation of regions for centuries and simply cannot understand that nobody else in Federal Europe has a regional identity in the way that they do.  It’s that EU belief that one size fits all when it simply doesn’t, especially where England is concerned.

The West Midlands will be in the trans-national region of the Atlantic with Ireland and parts of Spain, Portugal and France.

Our friends at West Midlands Taxpayers Alliance have a piece on the Supplementary Business Rates proposed by the New Labour think-tank, IPPR.

The IPPR’s Centre for Cities thinks that it’s a good idea if local authorities or Local Strategic Partnerships are given the ability to impose an additional 2p to 4p tax on businesses.

The intention has always been that the City Region would have tax-raising powers but this has, of course, been kept as low profile as possible by the propagandists in Birmingham.  In fact, it probably wouldn’t have been made public at all if it wasn’t for some detective work by West Midlands NO!

Advantage West Midlands (AWM), the unelected Regional Development Agency for the West Midlands euroregion, has signed a £100,000 sponsorship deal with Worcestershire County Cricket Club using taxpayers money.

Their reason for spending taxpayers money intended for regeneration and attracting investment into the West Midlands on sponsoring a cricket club is that it will promote Worcestershire and the West Midlands euroregion around the world as a place to do business.

Rubbish. This is nothing to do with promoting the West Midlands, this is a vanity project typical of an unelected quango that doesn’t have to justify its spending to voters.  If it was about promoting the West Midlands then it would just be the words “West Midlands, England” on the adverts, not AWM’s logo.

The Shropshire Star had another story the other day (not available online) highlighting the disastrous regionalisation of the Ambulance Service control rooms in the West Midlands euroregion.

West Midlands NO! predicted at the time that closing control rooms in the name of regionalisation would cost lives and that prediction is coming true.

I have had personal experience of the regionalised ambulance service and the unacceptable delays in dispatching ambulances because of a lack of local knowledge and stories in the press are confirming that mine wasn’t a one-off.

The latest experience is a councillor who had a head on collision on the Shropshire/Welsh border.  The councillor was disorientated but unhurt but the other driver was unconscious.  It took 16 minutes and repeated attempts to explain his location before an ambulance was dispatched.  The driver had more luck than the gentleman in my story but 16 minutes is more than enough time for someone to bleed to death or for a treatable injury to become fatal.

Let’s hope West Midlands Ambulance Service has an exit plan for its failing regionalisation experiment because it’s just not working and a human life is far more important than the political ambition.

Our friends at West Midlands Taxpayers Alliance have spotted a welcome step in the right direction with regard to the unelected regional development agency, Advantage West Midlands (AWM).

According to the Birmingham Post, AWM is to have its budget overseen by elected local authorities instead of by the equally unelected and unaccountable West Midlands Regional Assembly (WMRA).

This is a step in the right direction but it must be remembered that this is only happening because WMRA is being abolished and AWM is being given more powers.  Having its spending scrutinised by elected councillors is an encouraging move but AWM will still have more power than it currently does and the only outcome we will be satisfied with is its abolition.

Taxpayers Alliance have their figures slightly wrong - the £300m annual budget that AWM administers without proper oversight or scrutiny isn’t funded by the EU, it is paid for entirely by the English taxpayer.  AWM normally administers funding from the EU’s regional development fund but the payments have been stopped because the EU has concerns about AWM’s accounting.

According to the Times, Gordon Brown is planning to create a network of London-type mayors in the “English regions” to combat Englishness and promote the Britishness agenda he has become obsessed since being parachuted into the post of Prime Minister without a mandate.

England has always been considered expendable by the Labour Party, hence their willingness to embrace the EU’s regionalisation agenda.  Balkanising England suits Labour’s political agenda - England doesn’t vote Labour but enough of “the regions” probably would making it easier possible for Labour to win another election.

The North East euroregion rejected regionalisation in a referendum a couple of years ago but that decision has been ignored.  Only 22% of people in the North East wanted regional government and that was the euroregion that the British government said had most support for regional government.

The people of England don’t want regionalisation, the British government has no democratic or moral mandate to impose it on us.

Via: Campaign for an English Parliament

No Mandate Brown is appealing to “middle England” to support more devolution for Scotland and support the union.

No Mandate Brown says that the UK is “the world’s most successful multi-national state” but that the union isn’t “a contract of convenience that can be renegotiated”. Multi-national or multi-regional? Remember, as far as Liebour is concerned there is no such thing as England.

Also today, Jack Straw is going to set out a “statement of British values” that define British citizenship and press the non-existent case for a British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. There’s that word again - responsibilities. It’s no longer enough that you live here, work here, pay your taxes here or were even born here - you must have some good old British responsibilities for the British good.

The Demon Headmaster will be pressing for more power at local, regional and national level with more power for city governments. The national level is, of course, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (which isn’t even a nation). The regional level, obviously, is England which must never be given any form of acknowledgment as a national entity. City government (aka City Regions - the EU’s favoured form of “local” government) will only apply to England … sorry, the English Regions … because local government is devolved.

Apparently, today is the first day of Jack Straw’s consultation on Britishness, British values and a British Bill of Rights. Has anyone English been invited to take part in this “consultation”? If Jack Straw and Gordon Brown get away with what they’re trying to do right now then that’s the end of England forever.

As predicted by West Midlands NO!, Shropshire Ambulance Service and anyone else with an ounce of common sense, the regionalisation of the Ambulance Service in the West Midlands has proved disasterous with only 65% of emergency 999 calls in Shropshire being responded to within 8 minutes.

The British government’s minimum target is 75%.

I have first hand experience of the consequences of unnecessary centralisation in the Ambulance Service.  A few weeks ago I was going to hospital in Oswestry in north Shropshire and stopped to help someone who needed help at the side of the road.  It turned out he was having a heart attack.  The ambulance took 15 minutes to get from the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital - the nearest A&E department - to Oswestry.  A couple of miles up the road is Gobowen Hospital where I was going but the A&E department was closed a few years ago in favour of a centralised A&E service in Shrewsbury.  The man died on the side of the road in front of me two minutes before the ambulance arrived.

When I phoned the ambulance I got through to a control room in the West Midlands, not nearby Shrewsbury.  I had to describe where the man was and they had to look it up on a map.  Valuable time was wasted doing this and in asking several times for road names or numbers.  Someone in the control room in Shrewsbury would have known the place I was describing - it’s a major road and the local landmarks are well known in that end of the county.

The loss of local knowledge in the 999 control rooms is a major blow for Shropshire but compared to Stafford, the county is relatively local to Brierley Hill where the Ambulance Service has its great big control room.  There’s at least a possibility that the person taking the call will have heard of some of the places they’re being told about but the further from the centre you get, the less likely that is.

The Ambulance Service is refusing to acknowledge that the drive for regionalisation is the cause of the life-threatening jump in response times, blaming “an unprecedented increase in category A emergency calls” for the poor performance.

Let’s be clear here - it is not the fault of the emergency operators who do the best possible job they can to save lives in spite of the poor judgement of their management.  The blame lies squarely at the feet of the management of the Ambulance Service and the politicians that continue to force the square peg of regionalisation into the round hole of real life.

The following was in tonight’s Shropshire Star:

Claims City Region costs won’t be fair

People in Telford will be paying on average substantially more towards the controversial West Midlands City Region than their counterparts in Birmingham, campaigners claimed today.

The operating cots of the city region will be divided into 10 equal shares - meaning the one million residents of Birmingham will pay the same £37,000 bill as Telford’s population of just 160,000.

Critics say this is an unfair burden for Telford and an illustration of how public money is being wasted on what it claims is an unelected quango.

Details of the costs have been obtained through a Freedom of Information request by West Midlands NO!, a campaign founded by Telford man Stuart Parr.

He said, “The city region will not be funded on a pro-rata basis as previously thought, but by simply dividing the costs into 10 equal shares.

Benefit

“This means, for example, Birmingham’s one million residents will be collectively paying the same £37,026 contribution to the running costs of the city region as the 160,000 residents of Telford.

“This is hardly a fair distribution, especially when Birmingham City Council openly admits that Birmingham will benefit most from the city region.”

Mr Parr said Telford & Wrekin Council was also expecting to spend at least £77,000 monitoring and working with the city region and had set aside another £100,000 for costs associated with membership.

He said no cost/benefit analysis of city region membership had been conducted.

“This just confirms what we’ve been saying all along - the city region will be run by Birmingham for the benefit of Birmingham and the rest of us will be paying for it,” he said.

Telford & Wrekin Council’s cabinet recently voted formally to join the city region limited company, with Councillor Andrew Eade, council leader, being appointed a director.

Councillor Eade has repeatedly expressed scepticism about the city region and has come under fire from political opponents for joining up. He told full council last week he still believed it was “regionalisation by stealth” but felt he had to protect Telford’s interests.

See also: Taxpayers Alliance

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEInformation provided to the West Midlands NO! Campaign following a Freedom of Information Request has raised some serious questions about the City Region.

The City Region will not be funded on a pro-rata basis as previously thought, but by simply dividing the costs into 10 equal shares. This means, for example, Birmingham’s 1m residents will be collectively paying the same £37,062 contribution to the running costs of the City Region as the 160,000 residents of Telford or the 305,000 residents of Dudley.

This is hardly a fair distribution of the operating costs, especially when Birmingham City Council openly admits that Birmingham will benefit most from the City Region:

“The benefit to Birmingham will be that the city region partners all recognise the unique role of Birmingham at the heart of the city region. The partners have supported, for example, the investment in the redevelopment of New Street Station and the extension of the Midland Metro through the city centre. In the future, the partners can be expected to support investment in other projects that are vital to Birmingham’s continued development as the regional capital and as a successful international city. Birmingham can therefore expect to benefit significantly if powers and resources are devolved to the city region, because many of the projects that the city region gives priority to will be projects in Birmingham.”

Birmingham City Council claims that it will not spend more than the £37,062 contribution to the City Region’s budget but Telford & Wrekin Council is expecting to spend at least £77,000 monitoring and working with the City Region and has set aside another £100,000 for costs associated with membership. Is Telford wasting more taxpayers’ money than it’s already wasting by joining the City Region in the first place or is Birmingham hiding the true cost of the City Region?

The response also confirms that no cost/benefit analysis of City Region membership has been conducted meaning that hundreds of pounds of taxpayers money has been committed to funding a project when they don’t know how much it will cost or what, if any, they can expect to gain from it. If this decision had been made by a company, the shareholders would have been baying for blood by now!

Stuart Parr, founder of the West Midlands NO! Campaign, said: “This just confirms what we’ve been saying all along - the City Region will be run by Birmingham, for Birmingham and the rest of us will be paying for it”.

Andrew Bridgwater, West Midlands NO! Campaigner, said “If the City Region is going to turn a profit then surely it should be self-funding? Unless we’re being misled and the City Region is going to cost money for as long as it’s there, I see no reason why taxpayers’ money should change hands at all. In fact, if it is going to cost more money than it makes then all the more reason not to hand over any cash”.

[ENDS]