In The Right Region

The Tyneside-based media are having a fit at today's publication of Regional Identities in North East England, 1300-2000 (Boydell Press, £50), by Dr Adrian Green of Durham University and Professor Tony Pollard of Teesside University.

Probably because it is only saying what everyone knew anyway: that the very term "the North East" did not occur before the nineteenth century, and that only the creation of Tyne Tees Television in 1959 even began to over come the previously very sharp division at the Tyne between the two entirely distinct counties of Durham and Northumberland (each of which contained, and contains, significant local loyalties). Never mind, of course, that the "North East region" also contains Middlesbrough and its environs, complete with Yorkshire accents and a Yorkshire country cricket ground.

But unfortunately, Green and Pollard seem rather taken with the dreadful "city regions" idea, although if one good thing might come out of the creation of unitary local government in Northumberland and in County Durham, it is that that effectively renders the city regions impossible. What those who want them mean is that they want the Cleveland and Tyne & Wear Metropolitan County Councils back. So why not just say so?