The British Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Right Honourable George Osborne MP is anti-English – shock?

The article from the Telegraph below is about the admiring reaction of one of Labour’s “thinkers”, Jon Cruddas MP, who is commenting on George Osborne’s adoption, as he sees it, of the latest version of the British Establishment’s efforts to try to break England up into “Regions”, viz “City Regions”.

For any English Nationalist, the fact that a leading “Conservative” politician would want to break England up into Regions, will cause no surprise whatsoever, after all it was the Conservatives who introduced the whole concept of regionalising England and implemented their original scheme under John Major under the EU Maastricht Treaty.

For the general public however the problem with the Conservatives is of course their “skill” in misleading the public and lying about what they are trying to achieve.

They are a party whose electoral appeal depends strongly on people’s patriotism but they are not actually a patriotic party. On the contrary, they are a party of globalisation and international capitalism and are generally the big business party.

Their vote also depends strongly on ordinary peoples’ Euro-scepticism, but in fact the Conservative leadership, whilst willing to make plenty of noises of a Euro-sceptic variety, are arguably the most Europhile of all the parties in what they actually do in office. They are a party that took us into the EU on a deliberately dishonest prospectus by Edward Heath, and thereafter cemented us into the EU both under Mrs Thatcher (one of the leaders of the pro-EU group in our 1976 referendum) and then John Major with the Maastricht Treaty.

All the noises that Cameron and Osborne make about Euro-scepticism now are for blatantly obvious reasons, a combination of increasing problems with their genuinely Euro-sceptic back-benchers and fear of the electorate now given a genuinely Euro-sceptic option, i.e. UKIP, which although seems unlikely to get many MPs, nevertheless seems very likely to cut short David Cameron’s and George Osborne’s time in office at the General Election next year.

So the problem with the Conservatives is the fact that they are much more likely to be successful in deceiving voters into thinking that they are patriotic Euro-sceptics and for those that don’t think very deeply at all they may even think that the Conservatives care something for England.

For those who are that confused the antidote is this clear statement from the then leader of the Conservative Party, William Hague (who David Cameron recently described as the greatest living Yorkshire man!). Here is what he said in 2003:- “English nationalism is the most dangerous of all forms of nationalism that can arise within the United Kingdom, because England is five-sixths of the population of the UK. Once a part of a united country or kingdom that is so predominant in size becomes nationalistic, then really the whole thing is under threat.”

So far as Labour is concerned, I think increasingly few people believe that Labour is patriotic, let alone pro-English. Emily Thornberry and the overreaction to her demonstrated, for all those who needed such a demonstration, that Labour’s leadership is not only anti-English but very nervous about being found out as being anti-English and somewhat incompetent about it.

The article also shows another instance of where the “mainstream” parties in the traditional democratic model are supposed to be competing, are in fact not competing, but instead are somewhat conspiring against the interests of the public and, in particular, the English Nation.

Here is the article. What do you think?

Jon Cruddas praises Tory adoption of Labour’s cities agenda

Labour’s head of policy review says the chancellor has made successful land grab of Labour’s agenda on cities and English devolution

The chancellor, George Osborne, has made a significant and successful land grab for Labour’s agenda of re-empowering English cities as the new engine of economic growth, the head of Labour policy review, Jon Cruddas, has admitted.

He has also conceded that Labour had probably not been as agile as its Conservative opponents in projecting its English devolution policy, adding that the party still faced its biggest challenge to build a movement for national renewal and optimism in a cold economic climate.

His remarks to a meeting held by Progress, the New Labour pressure group, in Westminster may reflect a frustration that one of the central themes of his policy review has not been given the prominence he wanted, allowing Osborne to reach a devolution deal with Labour northern cities, notably Manchester.

At one point in the summer it appeared Labour might have monopoly ownership of the English devolution agenda, especially after similar plans put forward by the former Conservative cabinet member, Lord Heseltine, had apparently been spurned by Downing Street.

Cruddas said: “On this I have been very impressed with what Osborne has done. They parked the Heseltine project for a couple of years. Then they realised from late July what was happening and for the last few months they have tried to backfill around this policy agenda, and I think they have done that very effectively. Personally, I think it is good for the country that the Conservative government is going there just as Labour is going there.”

He explained that Labour had spent two years re-engineering a growth strategy and solving the English democracy question through devolution to cities. “Osborne has been agile enough to see that and has made a major land grab about a lot of our policy. The question of England has been central to a lot of our thinking in our policy review and maybe we have not been as agile as our some of our opponents in putting that up in lights in the way that we should.”

He said the model of devolution to Greater Manchester was very attractive. He added: “I congratulate the government on what they have done, and, most important, I congratulate them on learning about the innovations of great Labour leaders – we should be speaking very confidently to that agenda because it is our agenda. It resets what we are about.”

He said Labour-led English local government in the past four years had saved lots of money and yet innovated the delivery of public services, claiming this represents a new model for social democracy. “Labour nationally should be incubating the best practices in English local government and distilling it into a new story of where the future of the country lies.

“Osborne was very successful in the past three months in grabbing hold of this agenda and our response should be we welcome this change in direction and working alongside this Labour innovation across our cities.”

Cruddas has also become an enthusiast for the way in which technology can empower citizens and innovate public services. He also praised another Conservative figure, singling out cabinet office minister Francis Maude, saying: “I must admit Maude has done a great job for the first couple of years in his department re-engineering government digital services.” He said the issue was how to take Maude’s reforms to the next stage using open data to codify new forms of citizenship as “the foundation stone of a new wave of radical public service reform”.

Discussing the politics of despair represented by Ukip, Cruddas said: “You have to confront it by a totally different story about national renewal of a country, especially in England. That is the only option available to us. It has to be based around a story about what this country could be rather than what it was in danger of becoming if these forces are incentivised by people running from them.”

Cruddas also aligned himself with those who favoured a bold manifesto offering a big picture of a new country, rejecting those who say “keep our mouths shut, turn up the dial on immigration and welfare and then we are in”.

Any cursory reading of Labour history is that it wins when it is bold, he added, claiming “we are in an epic era of change”.

He added: “My view is that you cannot waste opposition. It’s disrespectful to the electorate.”

Here is the link to the original Guardian article>>> Jon Cruddas praises Tory adoption of Labour’s cities agenda | Politics | The Guardian