Graham Stringer, Labour MP for Blackley, says: 'I am in favour of devolution, but the elected assembly is a charade. I think it will lead to the lowest common denominator. It will be bad for Manchester and bad for Liverpool.
'There is no purpose for it. It will be expensive, bureaucratic and it will be distant from the people. It will centralise rather than decentralise power.
'I would like to see the government have a proper regional policy which would mean dispersal of civil servants from London.
'If the government was serious about a regional strategy, it would not have a national stadium in Wembley ' it would be in Manchester or Birmingham.'
Louise Ellman, was born in Manchester but is now Labour MP for Liverpool, Riverside. She would welcome an elected assembly because it would drive economic regeneration, dish out passenger transport grants currently distributed from London and have powers of consultation with the Strategic Rail Authority.
'The North West would also have a voice in Europe,' says Ellman. 'The Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament do have their representatives in the European Commission. The proposals do not give us power for that, but would give us much higher status and would give us the beginning of strong devolution ' a start we could build on'.
Richard Leese, Manchester city council leader, says: 'If there is going to be regional government, we would like to see far more being very clearly delegated from central government, and we want very strong safeguards that it is not centralising things from local government.'
As for the Manchester-Liverpool joint concordat, Leese reckons this shows the 'more bang for your buck' principle at work. 'Getting both cities functioning more effectively is good for both cities and good for the North West region,' he says. 'If Liverpool's Capital of Culture bid is successful, it will bring more visitors to the area, a lot via Manchester airport. During the Commonwealth Games, people had to stay in Liverpool to get a hotel. We had volunteers from Merseyside. I also know from talking to lots of people from Liverpool that they felt an enormous pride in this event taking place successfully in their region.'
Liverpool's economy is striding ahead, helped in part by the buoyancy of Manchester - the acknowledged regional capital ' whose hot property market makes rents in Liverpool seem more competitive.
'The only resentments remaining are on the football pitch now. The relationship is one of respect, because we face the same issues,' says Ralphs.
Tom Dempster, regional policy executive at the Manchester chamber, says: 'It is important that Manchester and Liverpool exploit every possible link we can have together.'
As for an elected assembly, the Manchester chamber's members have thus far been underwhelmed by the debate. A survey of 3,500 members yielded only a one per cent response. An event for business people at the Bridgewater Hall on April 24 ' titled Regional Devolution: Will it do the business? ' aims to create more interest.
Property developers Urban Splash are a business success founded on Manchester-Liverpool co-operation. Set up by
Tom Bloxham, who studied in Manchester, and
Jonathan Falkingham, who studied in Liverpool, they have redeveloped industrial buildings into homes, dividing their business equally between the two cities for the last ten years.
Falkingham has no doubt that the Manchester-Liverpool divide has narrowed.
'Our company employs equal numbers of people from both cities and I do not detect enormous differences,' he says. 'Both are very gritty and determined, and there are all the stereotypical things such as scousers having a great sense of humour.
'When we first started, there was a bit of an issue, and we could detect it in subtle ways, but now the divide seems to manifest itself only in which football team you support.'