The division of England into regions was one of the conditions of the UK’s entry into the EEC. Whilst the EU is quite open about it’s regional agenda, the British government still insists that regions are nothing to do with the EU. If this is the case, then why does the EU map of Britain only have 3 countries on it?

With the exception of the police, all emergency services in the West Midlands are regionalised and if the Home Secretary gets his way then the police will be regionalised by the end of the year. The fire service and ambulance service have been regionalised and there is now a strategic West Midlands health authority running the NHS in the West Midlands.

The West Midlands Regional Assembly and its associated quangos are all unelected and exempt from the Freedom of Information Act meaning they can work in complete secrecy and are not answerable to the public. When the powers that be are challenged over the amount of power taken from democratically elected representatives and given to unelected regional government, they say that the regional assemblies are “indirectly elected” which means the same thing but doesn’t sound as bad.