THE Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, has announced the North West is to hold a referendum on whether to have a regional parliament.

I predict that the North West will give the idea a knock-out punch. It is unwanted, unnecessary and utterly uninteresting.

Only Labour would want to rip apart our present system of local government -- which works -- and replace it with a new layer of bureaucracy costing the taxpayer millions.

Cumbria, Lancashire and Cheshire County Councils will all be replaced by one remote, tinpot parliament in Liverpool or Manchester. This measure will only succeed in making politics more irrelevant at a time of soaring voter apathy.

I urge the public to kick this dangerous idea out. The last thing we need is our very own Millennium Dome.

DAVID SUMBERG, North West Conservative MEP.