Press Release: AWM – Words are small comfort when there is very little to back them up The West Midlands NO! Campaign is urging people not to be taken in by Advantage West Midlands’ self-congratulations over its response to the recent floods. The £2m which AWM is claiming to be giving out in flood relief [...]

A couple of months ago Gordon Brown said that he wanted a “different kind of politics”.  He said that he would “listen and learn”.  Gordon Brown is a liar. When Shropshire County Council first proposed abolishing local councils and replacing them with a single, sub-regional unitary authority, people said they didn’t want it.  Three of the five [...]

No Mandate Brown has shown that he is hell-bent on the destruction of our country and the imposition of regional government whether we want it or not. Hot on the heels of his appointment of regional ministers to each of the euroregions in England (the West Midlands has been lumbered with Liam Byrne, MP for [...]

No Mandate Brown, the unelected pretender to the office of First Minister of England, has dealt what may prove to be England’s fatal blow. The Goblin King has appointed a Minister for each of the made-up regions of England.  Before his coronation as unelected Prime Minister the MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath made noises about resurrecting [...]

The DTI is using taxpayers money to fund a “task force” to investigate barriers to black and ethnic minority businesses. Apparently, black and ethnic minority business owners find it harder to get finance for their business than white people born here. The “task force” looks like being another one of these unelected, taxpayer funded regional [...]

Too angry to talk about this any more – just read this.

Rotherwas Access Road Work has commenced on the £12m Rotherwas Access Road, partly funded by the unelected regional development agency, Advantage West Midlands (AWM). [1] AWM is part-funding the access road through a £9.5m “Rotherwas Futures” project [2] but the scheme has already been refused funding by the Department for Transport because it does not [...]

One of the most bizarre things to come out of Sunday’s BBC Politics Show on Advantage West Midlands (AWM) was the chief exec of the West Midlands Regional Assembly (WMRA) saying that he opposes regional assemblies! That should go down well at the EU Committee of Regions.

As mentioned the other day, West Midlands NO! will be featured on todays BBC Politics Show at 12 o’clock on BBC1. The Politics Show website has been updated with details of the programme and a mention of the West Midlands NO! Campaign.

I was interviewed by the BBC last night for a Politics Show programme on Advantage West Midlands. The show is being broadcast at 12 noon this Sunday on BBC1.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/regionalquangos/  England is infested with undemocratic, unaccountable regional quango’s. These include regional assemblies, regional development agencies, regional observatories and the new city regions. None of these quango’s are elected and none of them answer to the public yet they cost the taxpayer billions of pounds. This whole tier of unwanted regional government should be abolished [...]

The following West Midlands NO! campaign article appeared in the Birmingham Post on 27th December: If someone were to tell you that the biggest threat to England right now was regionalisation you would probably laugh at them but it’s true and it’s happening right now. England is infested with regional quango’s – all unelected and [...]

An Illiberal Democrat councillor at Bridgnorth suggests that Bridgnorth District Council’s decision to defer a second vote on a unitary authority for Shropshire whilst the chairman of the council was on holiday (the chairman had cast the deciding no vote last time) was of dubious legality because it was a common law from 1895. Said [...]

On the front page of the Telford edition of today’s Shropshire Star is a story about the cost of the city region to the council taxpayers of Telford. Taxpayers are likely to stump up more than £100,000 over the next few years to finance Telford’s new role in the West Midlands City Region, it was [...]

RegionalAssemblies.co.uk shows us the price we pay for having unelected, ineffective regional government. The EU is hosting a constitutional convention to decide the future of a European state.  Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been invited but there will be no English representation because England’s euroregions don’t have law-making powers. The answer is simple.  Abolish regional [...]

Telford MP, David Wright, is urging his constituents to have their say on local government. He can be contacted at info@davidwrightmp.org.uk Might I suggest something like: Dear David, I saw your piece in the Shropshire Star inviting people to get in touch and have their say on local government. About time someone asked! Giving more [...]

Mike Knowles, the chairman of the Campaign for an English Parliament (CEP), has written a strongly worded letter of complaint to the BBC over its anti-English bias in general and specifically over this regionalisation “story” which I covered the other day. On a related note, anyone in the West Midlands who is opposed to – or [...]

The BBC have carried out a poll in the North East euroregion on devolution and concluded that there is support for regional government because 69% want local control on issues such as transport.  The people questioned said they didn’t like unelected regional assemblies and only 20% of people think they do a worthwhile job. The [...]

Had some success resulting from the official launch of the West Midlands NO! campaign today. A local MP called and offered to meet me, a couple of people have offered some support and it got a decent sized story in the Shropshire Star. The Shropshire Star used quotes I’d given to a reporter at the [...]

Campaigners bid to halt city region plan By Sunita Patel A campaign to halt regional government plans that will see Telford swallowed up into a West Midlands-wide city region dominated by Birmingham was launched today. The West Midlands “No!” campaign is calling for a referendum on the issue. It follows the proposal for a Birmingham, [...]