I feel I should jump into the LibDem v Conservatives argument raging in the local press because both sides have their facts wrong about regional government.

It is correct that a Council of Europe was set up in 1949 along the regional lines we see today.

However, its function was inter-governmental cooperation on a few specific matters and not to become a government itself.

The European Union plans to become the government to which each of the 111 European Regions answer, thereby cutting out national and local governments as we know them.

Contrary to claims that Regional Assemblies would bring democracy closer, they would in fact take democracy away from the elector.

Our MPs and local councillors are the only people we elect to represent us who we can recognise in the street and both are being stripped of any power to influence decisions that affect us. Our local councils have for some years, and against the wishes of many councillors, been relieved of the power to create local policy in favour of less accountable regional authorities. We do already have accountable, devolved local units - they are called Counties!

Regionalisation means a total restructuring of government as we know it with the intention of transferring direct control to Brussels within a decade.

If the elector is happy with that prospect and wishes to do away with the current system, they should be armed with honest facts and given a choice in a referendum asking, simply, whether they want Regional Assemblies or not.

Christopher Kingsley, West Midlands Constitutional Convention Ltd, Court Cottage, Yarkhill.