Interesting Links for 23-09-2014

[andrewducker]

• On Upgrading One’s Wristwatch
  (tags: watch technology Apple obsolescence )
• 'F*ck it, I quit': TV reporter Charlo Greene quits live on air in spectacular fashion
  (tags: tv marijuana )
• English devolution - with maps
  (tags: devolution uk england politics )
• Fantasy Flight's employees are leaving it the _worst_ reviews
  (tags: review employment )
• snopes

Comments

[rhythmaning]

The post on English devolution highlights some of the main problems for me: a lack of coherence and cohesion.

The counties don't have critical mass, I'd say - albeit that central government should devolve more to county councils and make them more accountable. (The ruse of limiting council tax rises - also pursued vigourously by the SNP government in Scotland - really limits accountability.)

And the larger regions don't seem coherent: for instance, Tynseide and Northumberland? They're contiguous, but I reckon they would have very different issues - and the rural areas would be swamped by the cities.

I think the really critical issue is around the south east: London, where many people work, will completely dominate the surrounding regions. Similarly Birmingham and the other Midlands regions.

There are lots of issues here. It will take ages to come up with a workable model.

Interesting times.

[danieldwilliam]

You’re right. Very complex and no obviously good immediate steps.

I favour a citizen led constitutional convention to look at the whole thing. If it’s going to be an unsatisfactory fudge let us have one that has been fudged by the people.

Or, I’d favour increased devolution to London.

Perhaps followed by splitting England in two, the North and the South ex London. The civil service used to be split into North and South Offices.

[camies]

Three. Who gets the Midlands? A Midlands region would inevitably be dominated by Birmingham but less so if it was not West and East Midlands but one region which contained Birmingham and the other WM population centres, and Leicester, Nottingham, Lincolnshire and Derby as well. The North would be anything north of the Midlands.

[danieldwilliam]

South England, North England, Midlands and London might work quite well.

[steepholm]

the rural areas would be swamped by the cities.

This is something I worry about too: I don't like the way people talk about "city regions" in political terms (the phrase might make more sense in an industrial or economic context), because it implies that cities are somehow more real or legitimate, and everything else is just hinterland.

On the other hand, the contrast between big cities and relatively unpopulated rural areas is nowhere more marked than in Scotland, and no one as far as I'm aware has advanced this as an argument against Scottish devolution, so it would be inconsistent to make it a decisive point in the case of North East England.