The call for a White Rose parliament of YORKSHIRE

[chem1st]

Labour MP Rt Hon David Blunkett has spoken in the house of COMMONerS;

 

Blunkett urges 'White Rose Parliament' for Yorkshire

 

Published Date: 27 October 2010

The people of Yorkshire should be given their own "White Rose Parliament" with its own budget, Labour former Cabinet minister David Blunkett has suggested.

Using the same funding formula applied to Wales - which has a devolved budget of £14.5 billion for a population of three million people - the Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough MP said Yorkshire would be entitled to a budget of £24 billion for its 5.2 million people.

 

"You put great store by devolving decision-making to ordinary people," Mr Blunkett told David Cameron at Prime Minister's question time.

 

"Can you think of one single reason why the people of Yorkshire shouldn't determine their own priorities?

 

"And, mischievously, one reason why the people of Yorkshire shouldn't have their own White Rose Parliament?"

 

Mr Cameron replied: "I didn't know that you ... were making these arguments all through the last 13 years, but this is a revelation.

 

"What we are doing is we are saying to councils in Yorkshire as up and down the country, 'We are getting rid of the ring fences, we are giving you the power to spend your money in the way that you choose'.

 

"We have got rid of the bossy, centralised interfering approach that I'm afraid you were rather part of."

 

The Sheffield Star can also be found on the BBC website, and was broadcast on look North (if your a Londoner on housing benefit) too.

 

What do you think?

[discodown]

It would be good but it won't happen. The Sheffield Budget would be wasted on trying to get Sheffield to look as much like Leeds as possible and the whole budget would be wasted on building a massive wall around Yorkshire until it was like New York in the film Escape From New York

[mj.scuba]

The Sheffield MP making another laughing stock of himself, unfortunately my MP. As if we need another level of red tape and beurocracy and more people to call to account and more wasted money on running costs. As if people in their droves are going to his surgery demanding a White Rose Parliament. If a White Rose Parliament was justified, surely a Red Rose Parliament and many others would be justified. Talk about pouring money down the drain.

[chem1st]

It would be good but it won't happen. The Sheffield Budget would be wasted on trying to get Sheffield to look as much like Leeds as possible and the whole budget would be wasted on building a massive wall around Yorkshire until it was like New York in the film Escape From New York

 

Would we want to do that if we were in control of our own budget/future?

 

I'd imagine we rebuild the castle and promote local history and tourism whilst addressing the social ills of the day.

 

(I'm generally pessimistic but I have a lot more faith in our own so to speak)

[chem1st]

The Sheffield MP making another laughing stock of himself, unfortunately my MP. As if we need another level of red tape and beurocracy and more people to call to account and more wasted money on running costs. As if people in their droves are going to his surgery demanding a White Rose Parliament. If a White Rose Parliament was justified, surely a Red Rose Parliament and many others would be justified. Talk about pouring money down the drain.

 

If we did away with the top down approach from the UK to England to Yorkshire. We could collect and spend at a local level and maybe skim a level of bureaucracy off...

[Darth Vader]

Yes, let's have our own budget but make sure Blunkett has NOTHING to do with it.

[Nagel]

What good would devoluting do us? We need all the help from the rich parts of Britain we can get.

[hard2miss]

Im putting my cards on the table here and am going to say that I can see this being a reality.

 

I say this because I also think that this country could all to easily go down the road of a civil war within the next 5 years like no other time since the last one.

 

Lets hope Im wrong but I won't be surprised if it doesn't go that way and this isn't offered on the table to try quash it.

[happyhippy]

What good would devoluting do us? We need all the help from the rich parts of Britain we can get.

 

We need saving from them, you mean.

 

For a start, North Yorkshire is as fruitful as it comes, and equally the Cotswolds and Far South West would happily hive off the other areas of England which drain them.

 

The real problem is that we have a maelstrom in charge of the Government. Now either reach agreements, or go back to the country! I still say the nexy Election will be in February.

[Dave_H]

Last thing we need is another layer of beurocracy.

Another gravy train where the 'elected representatives' will fill their boots and ignore the rest of us (until the next election).