The inclusion of North Lincolnshire was courtesy of Barbara Castle. Having spent £600m (a vast sum in those days) building a pointless bridge, they had to demonstrate some kind of “affinity” and community.

Peter Walker was happy to go alogn with it when he reorganised the Counties in 1974 because losing Labour Grimsby made Lincs CC safer for Cons.

You make an important observation about the separate concerns of the “National” (ie London) press and the Scottish press.

Before devolution, many things were organised separately including the NHS; Law, justice and prisions; Religion; Education.

Devolution transferred the responsibilities of the Secretary of State for Scotland to the Scottish Parliament. Because these matters were no longer discussed between Scottish Office ministers (based partly in London) and the “UK” ministers the differences have increased.

We shouldn’t be surprised at that for that’s what devolution is meant to do. Solutions designed for (and hopefully appropriate to) E&W are not applied in Scotland if circumstances are different, and Scottish ministers can address the needs of their departments without a default position that they will adopt the E&W solutions perhaps with minor modifications or changes in terminology.

Scottish ministers now look at proposed English-only legislation and take a view on whether or not to take account of the changes but there is no presumption that they necessarily need to take any actiion at all, far less to do the same thing.

The fact that the Scottish Government is now of a different party has of course increased divergence. Sometimes this is intentional (ending hospital privatised cleaning contracts) but it will also be inadvertant because of reduced contact between ministers.

The result is that when I now read a “national” newspaper, it is often uncertain whether the report refers to E&W or Scotland or UK.

Sometimes there is a clue if the name of the responsible minister is mentioned, and I usually assume that data for “Britain” relating to Education or Health relates in fact only to “England and Wales” since it is collected separately. One is left to guess whether Scottish data would show that a problem is twice as bad or doesn’t exist at all.

This is especially true of health or education statistics.

It’s bad enough that I waste time reading something I wouldn’t read if I knew it didn’t apply to Scotland, but it is worse when you just can’t tell.

There is progress. Since Richard Holloway was the Scottish Episcopal Bishop of Edinburgh, his successors have resisted the London journalist’s assumption that they speak for the leadership of the national church and the fact that the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland can’t and won’t do that either is beginning to be understood better after only 400 years.

Readers of the Scottish edition of The Sun are spared Kelvin Mackenzie’s anti-Scottish column and the paper is less openly pro-Conservative since few of its readers are likely to vote Conservative if they vote at all.

SNP advocacy is the least important of the forces driving us inexorably towards separation. It hasn’t had much effect in the last 40 years and it isn’t working now despite the fact that there are more opportunities to persuade voters.

The relative competence of the Scottish Government is obvious to all, and some of their policies are more popular than those of NewLabour, not just with the electorate as a whole, but even within the Labour party itself, but media ignorance and insensitivity to Scottish sensibilities, geography and rurality which rivals that of the former Conservative government makes a significant contribution too.

It’s actually most of Yorkshire with the exception of the towns of Redcar, Thornaby and Middlesborough. Bits have been lost to Lancashire and Westmoreland over the years but we’ve stolen bits off them too.

Why North and NorthEast Lincolnshire got included, noone really knows. Theres little affinity with the East Riding yet they got shunted together in 1974, and ended up in our region rather than the East Midlands or, if you prefer regimental recruiting areas, Anglia/Eastern England.

Ask 100 people in Yorkshire to tell you what region they live in (as opposed to county) I think mostly they would say “The North”, (unless they work for/are funded by the RDA or GO)

But all of the “regional” identities you mention are County based.

That is why the only two English “regions” which are recognisable to their inhabitants are London (Middlesex, LCC, then GLC) and Yorkshire / Humberside – though there are parts of the North Riding in the NE region, and Humberside includes bits of Lincolnshire.

The NE is essentially Northumbria and County Durham, hence has a quasi regional identity, while the bulk of the NW region is formed from historic Lancashire (including some bits appropriated from Yorkshire.)

Devolution is an ambiguous term. Do we mean decentralised administration of centrally funded facilities or genuine release of control from Whitehall to allow local authorities to pursue their own policies ?

How is that compatible with a “National Health Service”, still less the plethora of rules regulations targets and controls imposed on local councils from Whitehall ?

However, I think you will raise many hackles if you say that there are no regional identities in England. Perhaps above all, what about Yorkshire. And also at least the core of Lancashire (you proposal of administering Cumbria along with the North East not least would imply treating Barrow-in-Furness would treat combine some of historic Lancahsire with the North-East1).

Even in the South East there are counties with historic identities. For instance, Kent made a separate agreement with William the Conqueror in 1066. Whilst some of Kent has regrettably been submerged into London and suburbia, there still is most definitely a county identity in Maidstone and East Kent. The separation of Medway as a unitary authority is of course a most regrettable gerrymander – again, there was no consultation with ordinary people in Kent.. Incidentally, a significant reason for County identity, in a county with a lack of keading football teams, is the Cricket Club: hertfordshire’s status as a minor county for cricket is unhelpful to solidarity. Compare Essex and witness the development of cricket in Durham.

The South West of England is another area with a definite regional identity , both in general and in relation to specific counties such as Somerset and Devon. Cornwall of course increasingly regards itself as a country (or duchy) in itself and would like treatment comparable to Wales etc. rather than as part of England.

Giving counties like Cornwall a separate identity could give them an additional voice in Europe. Why should Kent have no European Commissioner etc. when we are comparable in size and population, and richer in terms of money, than many European nation states?

The current regions don’t work not least because we the people were never consulted about them. There are many things I dislike about Europe, but the principle of subsidiarity is not one of them. We need devolution, and accompanying voting procedures, for regional or sub-regional (in many cases historic county) units within England. This is as a matter of principle, but I believe it would also bring the UK generally greater prosperity and not least help greatly in addressing the electoral apathy and disillusion which is reflected in very many posts on this site.