Whaa underlies all of this is the state wasting peoples hard earned money on mis guided, or selfish ideas, dreamed up by narrow elites. All of the consultancy and research alone must have cost a fortune so far. How exactly will it benefit people in say Liverpool, or Runcorn or Chester to be governed as part of the North west from the so-called regional capital, Manchester? All this will do is cost a fortune, moving state institutions around, and ultimately creating winners and losers as the state does already.
I'd like to see less governance full stop. People don't need to be shown the way all the time by people whose only known achievements consist of being elected in political elections- and we all know the kinds of personal characteristics that aid in achievements like this.- half of the time it certainly doesn't rerquire any brains.
I'd like to see the UK follow a pattern more like that of Germany. A watered-down federal setup based on individual city regions. The morons in this country have ASSUMED, for various reasons, that there needs to be a northern capital (Leeds-Manchester) and a southern capital. But the experience in Germany is different- there, we see very powerful medium-sized cities. Hamburg is the richest city in Europe and is not the largest by any means- nor has been the subject of some arbitrary scheme to make it more powerful (as per Manc and North West, and Manc-Leeds "corridor".)
This whole regionalist agenda just stinks, and forces many people to think and be against their naturally evolved inclinations. I remember being at my Mum and Dad's recently and on the North West news the back ground was of Manchester city centre. I remember my Mum asking where it was. She has grown up, lived and worked in the Liverpool city region all her life- Liverpool, Runcorn and Wales. She's never even been to Manchester- just because her life path has never required she does so. I myself am much more mobile than my Mother, yet I have only been to Manchester twice or three times, and one of those times was only to change trains.
It only takes a bit of maturity and brain power, even for people affiliated with the regional chosen one, to understand that people have their own localities that they love and are proud of and actually MEAN SOMETHING to them. They don't dislike other people or places, but either do not understand, or oppose the fact that some politicians have decreed that from now on their own attachments and places should be slowly eroded as part of some grand and psychotic scheme that doesn't even make any sense- or even been rationally explained/justified.
The whole North West agenda, and focus on Manchester and Leeds is fucking stupid, and I've yet to see a singly person persuade me otherwise.