THE Wessex Party notes that Ben Bradshaw, the MP for Exeter, has been promoted into the new job of Minister for the South-West.
Since no equivalent has been chosen for the South-East, Mr Bradshaw is, de facto, the Secretary of State for Wessex.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all have Secretaries of State. Wessex is in terms of population larger than all three put together, and should have a Secretary of State. It is most unsatisfactory for Wessex to be split between two regions with a bureaucratic iron curtain' running between Dorset and Hampshire, Wiltshire and Berkshire, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. The railways and the M4 do not recognise the Government's artificial South-West and South-East regions.
Mr Bradshaw is an elected politician. That is an advance over the previous situation with the two appointed Regional Assemblies. In the absence of the elected Wessex Parliament with powers equal to Scotland's there will remain a democratic deficit allowing the regional quangos to run amok.
ROBERT SHRATT, The Wessex Party.
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