Category Archives: Liberal Democrats

SHOULD THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS NOW BE PROSECUTED FOR MIS-DESCRIPTION?

SHOULD THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS NOW BE PROSECUTED FOR MIS-DESCRIPTION?

At the Liberal Democrat Conference, Jo Swinson, their new Scottish Leader (when was the last time they had an English one?) breezily called for the votes of 17.4 million British voters (15,188,400 English voters) to be disregarded.  The “Liberal Democrats”, if elected to Government, would simply now revoke the Article 50 Notice served by Theresa May on 29th March 2017 under the EU Notification of Withdrawal Act 2017 (which by rights should have got us out of the EU at 11.00 p.m. on the 29th March 2019!).
Following this policy shift by a woman whose husband is apparently in receipt of millions of EU money (see article below), the mask has been dropped by this Party of being willing to abide by democratic decisions.
As their former Leader Paddy Ashdown put it on 23rd June 2016 on the TV referendum vote programme:- “I will forgive no one who does not respect the sovereign voice of the British people once it has spoken. Whether it is a majority of 1% of 20%, when the British people have spoken you do what they command. Either you believe in democracy or you do not.”
The “Liberal Democrats” also show by their addiction to Europhile Statism that they are against the bedrock of liberalism, which is “Free Trade”.  Rather than Free Trade what they want is EU State regulation. 
The “Liberal Democrats” do not even adhere to Liberal values on Free Speech.  They are amongst the keenest to ban people from writing, saying or speaking anything critical either of multi-culturalism or of the various restrictions on Free Speech which multi-culturalism insists upon. 
In short they are a Party which is completely devoid of either Democratic or Liberal values. 
In addition to this the “Liberal Democrats” are very much a Party which is globalist and hates the very idea of our traditional nation and our nation state.  This is at the root of why they are not willing to recognise a democratic vote because they would deny that the People of our country are even a “demos”.  The Liberal Democrats particularly loath the idea of England as the above quotation from their former leader Charles Kennedy vividly demonstrates. 
So Liberal Democrats are not merely a blight on our national politics but their whole way of thinking is actually a vicious cancer within the heart of our Nation eating away at its very existence.  So the question arises what can be done about them?  Clearly we can campaign against them and should do so.  We should of course also campaign against their multi-culturalist, globalist values, but can we bring the law into the equation? 
It is of course particularly important for the English Democrats to stop the Liberal Democrats from besmirching and misusing the word ‘Democrats’ in their Party name!
In the circumstances we have an interest in prosecuting them if at all possible. 
The relevant legislation is the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 as amended by the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.  An issue is whether politics is a trade.  I don’t think that question has been legally tested though and after the “Liberal Democrats” behaviour would you call their politics a profession? 
The way to bring a prosecution is I think that we could prosecute their Party for selling something which is using their false description.
What do you think?
Here is an article about Jo Swinson’s husband’s sizeable financial interest in supporting the EU:-
“IT LOOKS LIKE JO SWINSON’S PASSION TO STOP BREXIT OR A NO-DEAL BREXIT “AT ANY COST” HAS TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLIED.
Swinson’s point blank and quite illogical refusal to join the cross-party coalition to prevent a no-deal Brexit has a 3.5m euro explanation. And the irony of the whole context goes to show that the LibDems are as insincere and deceitful as they ever were.”
This is political dynamite. The European Union gave a 3.5m euro donation to Transparency International, which in peak irony is supposed to be an anti corruption watchdog with a mandate to foster, erm, transparency.
It is run by Jo Swinson’s husband. Has Jo Swinson declared this conflict of interest to the House of Commons? No.
Is that a breach of House of Commons protocol? Yes.
Is it a breach of the law? Yes.
So who is Jo Swinson’s husband? His name is Duncan Hames. He is the director of policy at Transparency International UK.
He also used to be the Liberal Democrat MP for the Chippenham constituency in Wiltshire, holding the seat during the disasterous Cameron/Clegg coalition government responsible for the deaths of 130,000 poor, sick and disabled people under their deadly “Welfare Reforms”.
The same Welfare Reforms Iain Duncan Smith justified with the phrase “Work Frees People” – a sentence last seen, in German, above the entrance gates to Auschwitz.
Unlike Lib Dems we aren’t prone to calling our opponents “Nazis” simply for disagreeing with our political opinions but in this instance, if the cap fits…
During this period Mr Hames was Parliamentary Private Secretary to none other than David Cameron’s number 2, Nick Clegg.
So as you can see, the Swinson family household has its fingerprints all over the social degradation our nation suffered during that horrendous 5 year period.
The idea that the Liberal Democrats under Jo Swinson are the answer to our nations’ current predicament does not stand up to a single moment of scrutiny.
Here is a link to the original article>>> https://nyebevannews.co.uk/swinson-fails-to-declare-family-company-was-given-3-5m-euro-by-the-european-union/

CLEARING THE WEEDS IN THE POLITICAL GARDEN

CLEARING THE WEEDS IN THE POLITICAL GARDEN

As any gardener knows, the first thing you have got to do in sorting out a flower bed that has become choked with weeds is to remove all the weeds and cut out any of the dead flowers etc. in order to make it worthwhile digging in your fertilizer or compost and planting your new plants.
This is the sort of stage that we have reached with our Parliament, which is now stuffed, in both the Commons and the Lords, with people who are not merely unpatriotic, but are actually anti-patriotic and are hostile to the very idea of our Nation.  They are Internationalists and Multiculturalists. 
For our national politics to flourish we need to see such weeds removed from our political flowerbed and also all the deadwood and old decayed plants as well, so that we can have a fresh and more honest and a patriotic revival!
In this sense it is welcome to see that Boris Johnson’s Government has had the guts to withdraw the Whip from all those Conservative MPs that betrayed the trust that had been placed in them by voting against Boris Johnson this week.
Even better was seeing Amber Rudd resign form Cabinet and the Conservative Party in response. She is the classic career-minded entryist who, in ideological terms, is a Liberal Democrat Remainer, Multiculturalist, Globalist, but could see that her career prospects would be better if she badged up as a Conservative.
These people were all elected on the ticket of implementing Brexit and, as ‘Conservatives’ were expected to be loyal, not only to their manifesto mandate, the country, but also to their Party Leader.  They proved disloyal on all counts.  They have no place to be remaining in our Parliament and it will be good to have them all thrown out of Parliament come the next General Election.
As for those who have crossed the floor to join other parties, they have gone fully beyond the pale and so will have to stand or fall come the next General Election with their new party rosettes on.  Let’s see what their local electorates make of them then!  I suspect none of them will be re-elected.
Less visibly, our Left-wing biased media has been more coy about reporting the movement of Labour MPs to the Liberal Democrats.  The latest one being Luciana Berger. 
Looked at from the point of view of purging our politics of the corrupt old ideologically meaningless “broad church” Establishment parties of Labour and the Conservatives, both of these developments are to be welcomed.   
We need to move to a politics where its voters can rely upon a party label to tell us much of what is in the political tin, as we would expect to be able to do if we were buying tinned food.  
If an ordinary trader made a business out of putting labels of baked beans on tins of peas, they could expect to be prosecuted under the Trades Description Act.  We urgently need something similar with our politicians to enable us to hold them to account if they fail to deliver on what they promised when they were standing for election.
I notice that those MPs that betrayed their electorates often talk about Edmund Burke’s idea that he was “a representative” of his electorate rather than his electorates “delegate”.  It is however worth remembering that, despite that explanation sounding quite grand, in fact at the next election, when he had proved himself to be unwilling to do what his electorate wanted him to do, he lost his seat! And quite right too! 
We need to move away from the bogus pretences of so-called “Liberal Democracy”, where undemocratic elites hide behind the pretence of democracy.  I think that we need to move instead to a proper functioning “Popular Democracy” where politicians are expected to live up to focussing on doing what is needed to be done to deliver the Will of the People. 
What do you think?

BRECON & RADNORSHIRE BY-ELECTION – COCK-UP OR STITCH-UP?

BRECON & RADNORSHIRE BY-ELECTION – COCK-UP OR STITCH-UP?

Last week on the 1st August there was a Parliamentary by-election, the reports of which had been very overshadowed by the national political events, like the formation of the new Boris Johnson Premiership and Cabinet.  Then almost out of the blue, as it were, we learnt that the Conservatives have lost the seat. 
There were suggestions in the Remainer Main Stream Media that Boris has already lost his bounce. A more obvious point on the facts would be one that they are not so keen to report, given their pro-Labour bias, that in fact the Labour candidate had almost lost his deposit in a Welsh constituency which had once been part of Labour’s Welsh permanent fiefdom!  The seat was Labour for many years until 1979.
A bit more enquiry reveals that the Conservative Party’s candidate had previously been the MP, but the by-election was called as a result of a Recall Petition because he had been convicted of creating fraudulent invoices and claiming fraudulently on his parliamentary expenses. 
So what on earth induced the Conservative Party to put him up again as a parliamentary candidate?  Was it incredible arrogance?  Incredible stupidity? Or some sort of devious plot?
Of course in human affairs generally it is often a mistake to discount the role of sheer mistaken stupidity.  That maybe what has happened here; perhaps coupled here with a sense of obstinate entitlement. 
There is however an alternative idea to consider. 
Let’s first look at the timeline here:-
The previous MP and recent Conservative candidate, Christopher Davies, pleaded guilty of putting in false expenses in March 2019 and in April he was sentenced.  
The Speaker launched the legal petition on the 24th April and the petition was opened on the 9th May and remained open for signatures until the 20th June.  It only needed to get 5,303 signatures but in fact got 10,005 signatures.  10,005 petitioners who signed to remove him amounted to 19% of the 53,032 electors in Brecon and Radnorshire. 
 
Mr Davies was re-selected as the Conservative candidate (the re-selection process now requires not only the local party to support the candidate, but more importantly requires the National Nominating Officer of the Conservative Party to sign the candidate’s Nomination Certificate.  The National Nominating Officer of the Conservative Party is Victoria Carslake, who was of course an appointment by Theresa May). 
The close of nominations in this by-election took place on 5th July and, as I mentioned, the election took place last week on the 1st August. 
This timeline alone shows that this by-election can really have absolutely nothing to do with Boris Johnson.  The fact that the recently convicted fraudster Conservative candidate still managed to do so well might really show that Boris Johnson, if he had any effect on it at all, very nearly got him re-elected however unsuitable he might be as an MP!
So I return to the question of why would the Conservatives put up a candidate who has not only been recently convicted of fraud on his parliamentary expenses, but also to strong feeling locally about this, triggered this by-election? 
Another possibility, other than Conservative stupidity, might be another devious plot by Theresa May and her inner circle. 
We now know that Theresa May never sought to negotiate any form of proper Brexit.  She never suggested to the EU negotiators that we might leave with ‘No Deal’ and she never attempted to get the United Kingdom a good deal.  Her whole effort was to try and tie us up as close to the European Union as possible, which is why she went on, not only lying about what she was doing, but also signing us up to yet further EU commitments, such as the new EU Army. 
She also called her General Election not because she wanted to guarantee Brexit, but rather because she wanted to be independent of the Brexiteers and to impose her Agreement on the country. 
So I suggest that a possible scenario is that this totally unsuitable Conservative candidate was re-selected in order to lose that seat and so give Remain supporters in the House of Commons yet more clout. 
All this was going on whilst Theresa May was trying to and partly succeeding in getting huge further spending commitments which would bind the hands of her successor, which was already most likely to be Boris. 
If this is what was actually happening, then this by-election is nothing to do with Boris except in the sense that it was always set up as a trap. 
The most laughable suggestion is that this is all the fault of the Brexit Party splitting the vote.  This is of course a variant of the old line of the most cynical Establishment vote manipulators that you cannot vote for anybody else other than the Conservatives otherwise you get Labour (or vice or versa if you are a former Labour supporter). 
Whilst it is true that the Brexit Party got more than the difference between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat, it does not follow that people who voted Brexit Party would have voted for the Tory convicted fraudster.
Of course all this undemocratic nonsense relies upon the most appallingly undemocratic electoral system, the “First Past the Post” which regularly cheats large numbers of voters out of their preferred outcome. 

FACEBOOK AGAIN REVEALS ITS PRO-REMAIN POLITICAL BIAS


FACEBOOK AGAIN REVEALS ITS PRO-REMAIN POLITICAL BIAS

Some time on Thursday last week Facebook “Disabled” my “Personal Profile”.
The first I knew about this was when I tried to sign on to check if I had had any messages. I was then told that the account had been “Disabled”. 
Here is exactly what the text said:-
“Your account has been disabled
For more information, or if you think your account was disabled by mistake visit the Help Centre”
For more information about our policies please review the Facebook Community Standards.  If you think your account was disabled by mistake please contact us.”
I of course thought that that must be wrong and therefore went to their next page which said:-
“Why was my account disabled?
Your account has been disabled for violating Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.
Our Policies
One of Facebook’s main priorities is the comfort and safety of our members.  The following are not allowed on Facebook:
·       Support for a violent and/or criminal organization or group
·       Credible threats to harm others or the promotion of self-destructive behaviour
·       Targeting other individuals on the site
·       Hate speech or singling people out based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or disease
·       Graphic content including sadistic displays of violence against people or animals and depictions of sexual assault
·       Selling recreational or pharmaceutical drugs
Learn More
After looking carefully at that page I was able to see that there was some element of an appeal process, so I clicked onto the link they provided and got a page which only told me to send them a PDF of my passport or other ID.
So all I was able to do in response to my Profile being “Disabled” was to send them an image of my passport to confirm my identity!
On Friday I received a response saying that the ID Team couldn’t help with any appeal!
Which is absolutely hopeless.
At that point I thought Facebook’s procedures for appeals were completely inadequate and didn’t even remotely approach the basic “Rules of Natural Justice”.  I therefore sent off an email to every Facebook email address that I had got. 
Here is my email to them:-
“Dear Sir
I have tried to log in to my above profile and your system asked me to submit an ID check.  There is no proper detail of any reason why this happened nor a clear appeal process just some generic items which can’t be relevant to me.
I am currently a candidate standing in an election here in England and I have already done your double identity check for political figures and advertising so you should be aware.
Here in the UK it is a crime under the Representation Of the People Acts for candidates to be slandered so I would politely ask you to sort this out and restore my profile or I shall get the police involved tomorrow.”
In reply I did get this answer:- 
“Hi Robin,
Thanks for your report.  We’ll review the information you provided and get back to you when we have an update on your report.
In the meantime, you can review our Community Standards to learn more bout what is and isn’t allowed on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards?ref=cr
We appreciate your patience.
View updates from your Support Inbox:  https://fb.me/1FCup0kANUMY5ok
Thanks,
The Facebook Team
At the time of writing this blog, I have not received any substantive response explaining either why they have done it or what they are going to do about it.
I, in common with many other EU Parliamentary candidates, did receive a visit from the police advising us on security and so have received contact details of the officer who is responsible for dealing with political crime. I have therefore started the process of reporting this matter to the police, since Facebook would seem to interfering in an election which could well amount to a criminal offence.
The police have acknowledged that they are now investigating Facebook’s actions.
I shall wait and see what the police will do about this before considering my civil options against Facebook, which at the least would seem to amount to a breach of contract and may well be at least an implicit defamation in wrongfully disabling my profile.
Facebook’s actions call into question what exactly this is all about. 
I should explain that I have had my profile up on Facebook for at least 10 years (although I now of course cannot check exactly when I signed up!).  In all that time I have not been banned or warned of a ban for anything that I have ever posted up.  That is quite simply because I have not posted up anything that is even remotely against Facebook’s so called “Community Values”, nor even of questionable taste.
Furthermore I would say that as far as my profile is concerned I had not actually posted up anything new on my profile for quite a few days.  Also I hadn’t posted up anything else, other than updates about the case which I as a solicitor and Chairman of the English Democrats, am bringing against the Government (to get a Declaration that, as a result of our Notice expiring, we were Out on the 29th March!). 
In addition Facebook is well aware of my being involved in politics as a few months ago they had written to me to ask for me to sign up to what they describe as something along the lines of ‘double identity verification’ for political figures which would then allow me to place political adverts.  I had done this and I had also placed a few political adverts.
So the situation is my profile has been disabled and this has happened in the context where I have only been posting information up about the case. 
I had not even posted up very much about the English Democrats and myself having stood in the EU elections.  That is of course because the primary reason for standing in the EU elections was to publicise the case. 
Since what I am aiming to achieve with the case is that a Declaration that were actually already out and that therefore these elections are null and void. 
In response to this activity Facebook has disabled my profile without notice and without giving any explanation as to why they have behaved in this way and without providing a proper appeals process! 
Could this have anything to do with Facebook’s internationalist/globalist agenda and of their appointment as a Director of Nick Clegg of the “Bollocks to Brexit” Liberal Democrats?
Go figure!

Leading academic analyses why nationalism has a bright future!

Leading academic analyses why nationalism has a bright future!

Professor Matthew Goodwin of Essex University has written frequently on the subject of “Nationalist Populism” as he calls parties that support more direct democratic politics than the tired old elitist so-called “Liberal Democracy”. 

His book is of interest for anyone interested in politics, let alone nationalist politics and, whilst you will not agree with every analytical conclusion that he reaches, nevertheless he makes an interesting and thought-provoking case for his analysis. 

What about this extract?   
“…we have argued that four broad transformations have been key: people’s Distrust of the increasingly elitist nature of liberal democracy, which has fuelled a feeling among many that they no longer have a voice in the conversation, and which is likely to spur their support for a more ‘direct’ model of democracy; ongoing anxieties about the Destruction of the nation that have been sharpened by rapid immigration and a new era of hyper ethnic change, which raise legitimate questions as well as xenophobic fears; strong concerns about relative Deprivation resulting from the shift towards an increasingly unequal economic settlement, which has stoked the correct belief that some groups are being unfairly left behind relative to others, and fears about the future, and the rise of De-alignment from the traditional parties, which has rendered our political systems more volatile and larger numbers of people ‘available’ to listen to new promises, while others have retreated into apathy.

The ‘Four Ds’ have left large numbers of people in the West instinctively receptive to the claims being made by national populism: that politicians do not listen to them, even treat them with contempt, that immigrants and ethnic minorities benefit at the expense of ‘natives’ and that hyper ethnic change and in particular Islam pose a new and major threat to the national group, its culture and way of life.

We have also seen how these are far from fringe concerns.  Sometimes more than half of the populations in the West express views that are broadly in line with national populism.”

The book is somewhat of the nature of “ranging shots” from a First World War dreadnought battleship, since Prof Goodwin is politically an opponent, as he demonstrates in his conclusion. 

However his analysis as an opponent is in many ways as confirming of the shape, dimensions, speed and course as true “ranging shots” should be.

Let’s hope our opponents don’t read his book!

Here is a link to the book>>> https://www.amazon.co.uk/National-Populism-Against-Liberal-Democracy/dp/0241312000/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1544018818&sr=1-1&keywords=national+populism+the+revolt+against+liberal+democracy


MAY 2018 ENGLISH LOCAL ELECTION RESULTS


MAY 2018 ENGLISH LOCAL ELECTION RESULTS?
So what have we learnt as a result of the English 2018 local elections? Are they a political “watershed” milestone in English politics?
The first thing to note was that so far as the Labour Party was concerned, despite wildly optimistic predictions from the ideological Left and others, like Sadiq Khan, Labour only did well in areas where there was either a preponderance of politically correct Middle Class, mostly State employees, often with non-traditional value lifestyles, or in areas heavily dependent of welfare benefits, or where “ethnic minority” immigrant populations have become dominant. Labour is continuing on its path of becoming the multiculturalist “Rainbow” Party!
Elsewhere in England, Labour made very little progress.  As Prof Matthew Goodwin of Kent University and Prof John Denham of Winchester University and also the English Labour Network were correctly predicting that, in all the areas where people still predominantly identify themselves as being “English”, under its current policies (where Labour politicians can barely mention England or the English), any hopes of a Labour breakthrough were doomed.  This has proved to be absolutely correct. 

See: John Denham: Why does our Labour Party refuse to talk about England? >>>> https://labourlist.org/2018/04/john-denham-why-does-our-labour-party-refuse-to-talk-about-england/

And: Why Labour Needs An English Manifesto >>>> https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/labour-manifesto_uk_5a7d8cd3e4b044b3821c372f

Such progress as Labour did make can be explained either: 1/ by a collapse of the Green vote, (most of whose voters went back to Labour except for where the “Progressive Alliance” was effective; for instance in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, where 29 seats changed hands.  Almost all of these were lost by the Conservatives, and they all went to the “Progressive Alliance” of Liberal Democrats and Greens.  This success has led to some support from Labour MPs for Labour to join it >>> https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/may/07/labour-mps-revive-campaign-for-progressive-alliance, ;
Or 2/ by the third of former UKIP voters who appear to have voted Labour. 
These former UKIP voters have probably gone back to Labour on a conditional basis thinking that Labour is still committed to its General Election promises of ensuring a full Brexit.
However if Labour’s Parliamentary Party continues on its trajectory to become more Remain supporting and undermining of Brexit, this vote may easily be switched next time to parties that are genuinely in support of leaving the European Union.  It would appear that Labour’s deceitfulness and disingenuous on the Brexit question has to some extent worked – so far!
So far as the Conservatives are concerned, they are projecting this result as a great success, given that it was mid-term into a Government.  However it seems obvious from a look at the statistics that in fact their success, such as it was, was dependant on both hanging onto their own vote and also recruiting an average two-thirds of the former UKIP vote. This means that their continued success is very dependent on their Government maintaining a reputation for working towards leaving the EU.  This is however a Government which will have had to have achieved Brexit by the time of the next General Election. If they have failed to deliver a satisfactory Brexit by then, this result contains a strong hint of severe troubles to come for the Conservative and Unionist Party!
The result also does show that the Conservative leadership have again successfully used their long-standing tactic (also true of the majority of “Conservative” MPs, including Theresa May) of being dishonest and disingenuous by pretending to be Eurosceptics.  It is worth remembering that when the decision time came in the EU referendum they came out as Europhile “Remainers”.  If their true position has become clear, to those that voted Conservative this time, by the next election then I would say “woe betide” the Conservative Party – if there is then a credible alternative. 
The leaders of both Labour and the Conservative Party, Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May, are clearly both liabilities for their parties, not only personally but also through political ideology.  If either Party were to exchange their current Leader with someone more in tune with real mainstream opinion in England, then their rivals would be in serious trouble come the next General Election.
So far as UKIP leadership is concerned the results were disastrous.  I understand, but didn’t hear her say it, that their Suzanne Evans MEP has said that the results show that “UKIP is over”. 
In my view, UKIP’s Party members and voters have done England a tremendous service in forcing Cameron to give us the EU Referendum and helping to ensure that it was won for Brexit. 
It was always going to be difficult for UKIP to adapt itself, given the disagreements amongst its members and supporters on most other issues other than wanting to come out of the EU, UKIP’s Leadership troubles have of course also contributed dramatically to breakup of UKIP support.  Having blocked UKIP branches from supporting a democratic Brexit voice for England with a ‘Brexit’ English First Minister they have failed their membership by gifting to the Conservatives the Eurosceptic position.
What these election results show however is that, if Brexit is not satisfactorily delivered by the Conservatives, and English interests continue to be ignored by both Labour and the Conservatives then there is a crying need for the English Nation to have a political party which will speak up for us. 
UKIP leadership has missed its English democratic chance but UKIP’s membership does have a natural place to go if they want to! They still can make their voices heard above a corrupt and out of touch British “Remainer” elite.
I, of course, think that English voice will be only found in the English Democrats.  In the coming months, I and other English Democrat activists, will be working to encourage over to our Cause of open English nationalism, all those English voters who care about England’s future, to come over to us so that will be able to effectively represent the English Nation. My message is:- Don’t give up your political voice, Don’t allow yourself to become a ‘ sad returner’ to the tired and old LibLabCon political group. England needs you! The English Democrats are here for you!
As Helen Lewis, the Deputy Editor of the New Statesman (aka Helen Lewis-Hasteley and married to Jonathan Hayes the Digital Editor of the Guardian) said on BBC Radio 4 on the 4th May just before the 9.00 o’clock News, the only way for UKIP to have been able to come back would have been as an English nationalist party.  Being a Labour “Remoaner”, she of course thought that would be “ugly”.   I will leave you to imagine what I think of that!

The reporting of the death of Charles Kennedy

A week ago we had the death of Charles Kennedy, the former Leader of the Liberal Democrats. His death cannot have been entirely unexpected, not only because of longstanding ill-health issues, but also that those were not unlinked with his now well-known alcoholism. Having lost his seat, despite the fact that there were further opportunities beckoning him, the temptation to drink must have been overwhelming.

It has however been interesting to see how his death has been reported by the British Establishment Political class and the comments that they have made, which all seem to be along the lines of what a wonderful warm person he was. I did not know him personally and, indeed, never met him so I cannot vouch either way for that. 

The one certain thing that I do know about him which has an impact on my attitude to him is that, not surprisingly, as a Lib Dem Leader, he was a highly enthusiastic Europhile who, not only as a Lib Dem, but also as a Scot, hated the “very idea of England”. 

Indeed he told a Dumfermline meeting of Liberal Democrats back in 1999, when he was their Leader, that he was an enthusiastic supporter of Regionalisation “Because Regionalism in England is calling into question the very idea of England itself”. Nothing could really be clearer as to his Anglophobia. That is enough to damn him politically as far as I am concerned.

It is however interesting to consider the British Political and Media reaction to mr Kennedy’s death. Especially, in light of the kind of comments that they have made about Alex Salmond’s comment in which he simply tried to suggest that Charles Kennedy might have had some sympathy for the Europhile SNP brand of Scottish nationalism. This may after all be true, since it certainly is the case that Mr Kennedy was keen, as any Europhile would be, to break up the old great Nation States so they could be more readily digested by the emerging EU State.

We are hearing a lot about Magna Carta at the moment but we don’t need to go back nearly as far as that to a day when it was quite normal for rival politicians not merely to hate each other but to try to get their rivals executed when they fell from power. That was the normal state of affairs in England as recently as the early 18th Century and in the 17th Century it was all too typical. 

Of course in those days politicians generally sincerely believed in their politics. Also then the difference between the various political groupings was a serious matter of principle, as opposed to the sort of cosy club that now prevails and which Alex Salmond would appear to be in danger of being blackballed from! 

Here is an example of the type of article which I am refering to:-

With Charles Kennedy’s death a light has gone out in Scottish and British politics


The late former Liberal Democrat leader always had a smile on his face, but was every inch the serious politician

By Alan Cochrane
Charlie Kennedy was one of those fortunate people who didn’t need a surname. To everyone, throughout Scotland and over the entire political world, he was just Charlie. Thus when I received a text shortly after six thirty this morning asking: “Have you heard about Charlie,” I knew at once who we were talking about.

And, sadly, I also at once guessed the worst. To many, if not most, of those who knew Charlie Kennedy it was not an exactly surprising, if still appalling, bit of news that he had died a little over three weeks after losing his seat in his beloved Highlands in the general election.

I take nothing away from the Ian Blackford, the SNP candidate who defeated Charlie – he has all the attributes necessary to turn out to be an accomplished MP – but with Kennedy’s death a light has gone out in Scottish and British politics.

That may appear as an over-worn cliché but Charlie Kennedy did brighten every room, every company, every conversation he entered. He was a marvellous communicator an engaging companion and will be missed terribly.

There was an impish quality to his public persona and he was seldom without a smile on his face but he was every inch the serious politician and was a hugely successful Liberal Democrat leader – at least with the public.

He demonstrated in spades his political skills in what was perhaps his finest political hour – when he withheld his party’s support from George Bush’s invasion of Iraq, leaving only the Tories on their own in backing Tony Blair. It was tactical masterstroke which increased dramatically his party’s support in the country in the 2005 general election.

But you cannot talk about Charlie Kennedy without talking about his battle with booze. He did not hide his struggle with drink. At first when challenged about his drinking, he tried to laugh it off and insisted that as a Highlander it was not exactly an unnatural trait for him to enjoy a dram. However, he did eventually concede that it was a problem that had got out of hand and he did try to tackle it. But it did contribute to his losing the leadership of the Lib Dems and thereafter his position in the political firmament gradually receded.

However, his popularity with the general public never diminished and he played a key part in fighting by-elections for the Lib Dems and was one of the stars of the all-party Better Together campaign last year in fighting off the SNP led plan to break up Britain. Charlie spent the bulk of that campaign in his native Highlands, helping to ensure that it voted ‘No’ to independence.

I didn’t see much of Charlie recently, and I had the impression that of late he seldom ventured out of his Highland fastness. However, when last we encountered each other he pointed at me and with a huge grin asked the assembled company: “I see a large edifice over there. It looks like Alan Cochrane.”

You couldn’t really use such a description about Charlie Kennedy. He may have put the beef on a bit lately but he will best remembered as that slight, red-haired Highlander with a permanent grin on his face.

But there was nothing insignificant about his political standing and the affection in which he was held by the people who matter most – the voters.

He will be much missed. 
 
(To see original article, click here >>> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/politics-blog/11645170/Voters-will-remember-Charles-Kennedy-with-affection.html).

General Election

While this election has been not only very long and was fixed in the calendar for several years, it has been interesting to see that there has been much more polling evidence than usual, particularly with Lord Ashcroft’s polls.

It has also been interesting to see that despite the £100 million or more that the Establishment parties and UKIP have spent between them on billboards, leafleting and social media based canvassing and telephone canvassing it seemed to have made very little difference between the two main parties until the last moment; more of that later!

These were interesting elections in the second tier of parties about the SNP, the Liberal Democrats and UKIP. Now we see their results!

So far as UKIP is concerned the result was a devastating disappointment. Not only has UKIP proved a disappointment to English nationalists, as per one of my earlier blog articles, but won’t even have satisfied their British nationalist supporters.

The SNP’s results in Scotland have brought the end of the Union very much back onto the agenda. One of the burning issues of the next five years will therefore I think be the need for a voice for English nationalism.

In the last 18 months it has been UKIPs time in the sun. Their failure to deliver leaves, I think, the way wide open for the only English nationalist party to come forward.

The English Democrats are now an experienced party of campaigners dedicated to England and our English nation and will not be blown off course by the winds and noise of political storms and while we may not agree with the Scottish National Party on the vast majority of their policies, the one thing that we do agree with them on is the need for an effective voice for our Nation.
 
In an imaginary play we might have:-
 
Stage directions: Enter – triumphant SNP contingent.

Exit – dejected Liberal Democrats and UKIP contingents.

Enter – determined band of English Democrats with Cross of St George flat flying to cries of horror and alarm from the British Media Establishment chorus!

Shhh! Lib Dems are about!

There seems to be something about Liberal Democrats that makes them hate England. At the moment they are, I don’t think the word is too strong to use, conspiring to find another way of breaking England up into “Regions”.

Their behind the scenes activity in think-tanks and discussion groups is all about trying to find another way of energising the “Regionalisation” of England. Their talk is all about trying to confuse people between talking about counties and “Regions” in the same breath so that people do not look at the small print to see that in fact what is intended is nothing to do with counties but everything to do with “Regionalisation”. In their desperation they are even trying to say that the North-east referendum result was not a vote against “Regionalistion”!

Now we have two Liberal Democrat Lords, Lord Purvis of Tweed and Lord William Wallace of Saltaire who arranged a debate for Monday, 16th June in the House of Lords entitled “Plans for further de-centralisation of the UK in the event of a “No” vote in the Scottish Independence Referendum”. Observers of the oily disingenuousness of our LibDem political masters will find no surprise that the key element of the discussion was about how to break up England.

The names that they have chosen to give their titles suggest that these two noble Lords loyalties might lie North of the Border, but Lord William Wallace of Saltaire is in fact an academic who has spent most of his life in England, but has distinguished himself politically by his desire to advance the cause of European integration for which reason he has been awarded the Légion d’Honneur.

So far as Lord Purvis of Tweed is concerned, the Scottish newspaper, the Sunday Post, reported on the 20th October 2013 that “Purvis returns as Lord Jazzer despite ballot box defeat” who reported that “Purvis, a MSP until the SNP landslide in 2011 is a man steeped in constitutional concerns. Nick Clegg has made him Lord Purvis of Tweed to act as a bridge-man between the Westminster and Holyrood parties. Even his title straddles the border. Said Purvis:- “I’ll bring the respect of someone who has been a Member of the Scottish Parliament as a fan of the procedures in Holyrood. It will provide a platform to work on the growing middle ground as an alternative to independence.”” The paper rightly continues “The problem for Purvis, with his talk of accountability, democracy and constitution, is that on Tuesday he will don an outrageous ermine cloak and take his place in the least accountable or democratic place in British politics. This is, after all, a man rejected by the voters returning to front line politics without the need for an election.”

So there we have it, the classic Westminster farce in which people talk about democracy, accountability, citizenship and community, whilst trying to work to deny the English their sense of a national community.

Never forget that a former LibDem leader, Charlie Kennedy told an enthusiastic meeting of Liberal Democrats in Dunfermline in 1999 that he supported the break-up of England into Regions because he said “In England Regionalisation is calling into question the idea of England itself”!

So what should an Englishman do when the LibDems are about? Perhaps we could use US President Teddy Roosevelt’s famous saying: “speak softly and carry a big stick”? 

What do you think?