Back in December I reported how Caroline Spelman had dropped the Conservative Party’s policy of abolishing Regional Development Agencies. Then last week Ken Clarke was reported as ordering a review of the nine English RDAs to decide what to do with them, but now the Conservative Party has denied there’s a review. So there’s going to abolish them, but not and going to review them, but not. All clear I trust?
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About as crystal clear as the Liberal Democrats’ recent policy change on RDAs, then.
It’s all a bit silly isnt it. The Conservative silliness follows from the Government’s silly decision to scrap regional assemblies rather than the RDAs. It is the RDAs that are unelected, unaccountable quangos; the regional assemblies were the only democratic oversight of the area. However, the assemblies werent popular with business, because they kept representing people instead of commercial interests; whereas the RDAs are totally about commercial interests.
What is the Liberal Democrat policy on RDAs? I am hearing a rumour that there could be a ‘Northern’ exception to abolition. isn’t this something the party should be debating?
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[…] Regional Development Agencies, the cause of quite a lot of confusion in Conservative policy-making, the agreement is explicit that they go, to be replaced by Local Enterprise Partnerships. These […]