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Help me out here, please. I keep hearing people talk about the need to devolve more powers to the cities or regions in England, but what exactly do they mean by it? Wibble mentioned that the people in Manchester want more powers for the North West, but what is it that they want? Or does more powers actually just mean more money? I'm open minded about any ideas for change, but equally I don't just want another layer of highly paid professional politicians who do very little except hold meetings in fancy new offices. Furthermore, I'm concerned that allowing different cities or regions to go off in different directions (in terms of how they prioritise their spending), will just lead to more squabbling and envy. For example, obviously we southerners are sensible folk, so we'd use our new powers wisely and spend the money on education and healthcare. But the northerners would probably piss their money away building greyhound racing stadiums and giving away free flat caps and racing pigeons to everyone over 30. Then, in ten years time, they'd be bombarding the internet message boards complaining that streets in the south were paved in gold, whereas theirs were covered with pigeon shit. That would only lead to greater demands for division and separation within the UK. (I can say all that without being 'regionalist' because i was actually born in the north ) Anyway, my personal opinion is that we already have too many politicians, doing too little, so why would we want to create more? And, although the Westminster MP's are mostly corrupt khunts, at least there is some chance of the media scrutinising them and the public holding them to account, because there's only around 600 of them. What chance would we have to do that if thousands of dodgy councillors or regional or city leaders were suddenly given a load more powers? They'd no doubt get away with murder. A lot of people can't even be bothered to vote once every four years in a General Election, so they're hardly likely to bother to keep a close check on what the decision makers in their local city or region are up to. I dunno - like i said, i'm not against change or progress, but i just worry that more powers = more politicians = more khunts.