Where and what is the North East of England?

If the critics are to be believed, then the North East of England is both the birthplace and the graveyard of English regional devolution and regionalism (Figure 6.1). John Tomaney, speaking at his professorial inauguration in 2003, argued that the ‘North’ had a long history of autonomy from the English ‘centre’. And yet, when on 4 November 2004 the people of the North East were invited to vote on an elected regional assembly, they spoke clearly, with 78 per cent of those voting (39 per cent of all those eligible to vote) rejecting the proposal and ending the current Labour government’s devolution plans ‘for a generation’. Part of the problem is that although regional identity is strong in the North East of England, the identity is complex, and simple narratives of ‘Geordie pride’ inevitably fail to catch that complexity.