Category Archives: Democracy

England to be allowed its own national identity?

Today there is an interesting article, published in “The Scotsman”, which shows an encouraging glimmer of understanding that there is the potential for a winning synergy between Scottish and English Nationalism:-

“Reform requires us to address a crisis of identity”
By George Kerevan

“Lasting constitutional change will need co-operation from a sovereign, confident England – which does not exist”

REGULAR readers will know that I occasionally tilt against the failure of the SNP to hold a public debate on key aspects of post-independence policy. So you might think I sympathise with the recent call by Michael Moore, the mild-mannered Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Scotland, for the SNP to say “exactly what independence would involve”. Indeed, the first question Mr Moore wants the SNP to answer is: “What regulation would be applied to our banks and who would enforce it?”

But Mr Moore speaks with a very forked tongue. For a start, he gave his speech on the day his party colleague, Vince Cable, was fulminating over Chancellor George Osborne’s decision to kick bank reform into the long grass. So Michael, can I ask what financial regulation your coalition agrees on, and when will it happen?

In the recent (lost) AV referendum, the tactic used successfully by the opponents of a fairer voting system was to harp on that the alternate vote system had not been fully explained. Rather than argue their own case, they implied the other side was not coming clean about theirs. Sadly, Mr Moore has adopted the same cynical tactic.

However, Mr Moore commits an even bigger sin – he can’t see the political wood for the trees. For the issue before the Scottish electorate is not independence. Alex Salmond is shouting through a political megaphone that he wants a referendum with three questions: the break-up of the UK, fiscal autonomy (de facto Home Rule), or the creaking status quo. Does anyone disagree on the likely outcome?

The SNP has stated unambiguously that in any constitutional settlement it will keep the pound sterling and share common (but non-nuclear) defence arrangements with England. What is that but Home Rule as the Liberal government defined it in 1914, when it enacted a Scottish Home Rule Bill at Westminster (only to see it shelved when the Great War broke out)?

So why is Mr Moore fixated by independence? Because he and his ilk view the SNP in isolation rather than as part of a general crisis of Britishness. The rise of the SNP and Plaid Cymru, the savage Troubles in Northern Ireland and the growth of populist and semi-fascist currents in England are all part of the same political mosaic. The British state, its economy and civic identity were the product of Empire. Two world wars, ensuing bankruptcy and de-colonialisation demolished this imperial project and, with it, a common notion of Britishness.

In Scotland, the end of Empire led a new generation in the 1960s to reinvent themselves as Scottish rather than British. This was accelerated by the indifference of London to the collapse of Scottish heavy industry. A similar, if diluted, process began in Wales.

In the forgotten Bantustan of Northern Ireland, the economic decline of the old Protestant ascendancy combined with the blind ignorance of Westminster to ensure a violent reaction by the Orange “British” working class.

In only one part of the UK was the appearance of a modern, post-imperial national identity thwarted – England. The big London parties allied to brand any manifestation of Englishness as culturally regressive, politically irrelevant or borderline racist. Why? The Tories were reluctant to recognise the end of Empire, while Labour feared a loss of electoral influence. This is a great shame, for the roots of Englishness lie in the rule of law and individual freedom.

By ignoring Englishness, the big parties grew blind to the need to reform the British constitution at root. Yet the evolution of politics, culture and economics over the past 50 years means that our national identities – Scots, Welsh, Irish and English – are not going to fuse into a homogeneous whole – quite the opposite. Which implies that we still need a new, post-imperial compact between these sovereign peoples if we are to make the British Isles congenial. The SNP is offering such a compact, if only Mr Moore and others will listen.

Of course, Mr Salmond does not use the words Home Rule or confederation. Spotting this, some Unionist politicians, including the normally sensible Menzies Campbell, have called on Mr Salmond to come clean that he has abandoned the SNP’s long-cherished goal in favour of “diet-independence”. But Mr Salmond is never going to use this formulation, and asking him to is tantamount to rejecting the SNP’s offer of Home Rule. First, Mr Salmond is too smart a politician to give up the threat of separation before he gets what he really wants. Second, he will not risk any division in the SNP’s ranks before he has delivered something tangible by way of fiscal autonomy.

But can Mr Salmond deliver Home Rule or will the SNP split? My reckoning is that the majority of party members view fiscal autonomy as the litmus test of sovereignty, not embassies or flags. The keeper of the fundamentalist flame, Jim Sillars, has already shifted to a more pragmatic position, preferring to remove any implied threats to English interests that might hinder the transfer of de facto sovereignty to Holyrood. Besides, internal resistance to Mr Salmond has long since been dissipated by the massed phalanx of MSPs and their paid advisers.

There are those in the SNP – like me – who doubt if a workable confederation with England will emerge, though I’m willing to give it a try. My view is that the Unionist political establishment – witness Mr Moore – is totally capable of looking a gift horse in the mouth. Even if Mr Salmond wins fiscal autonomy, lasting constitutional reform can only work inside an agreed framework of co-operation – on interest rates and security policy – between the sovereign nations of these British Isles.

But that implies a sovereign English parliament as equal partner rather than a grudging, dominant Westminster. And a sovereign, confident England does not exist. For the same Unionist parties that have put up a fighting retreat in front of Scottish nationalism are the very ones that have also refused to develop a modern, liberal English nationalism.”

Here is the Article on the Scotsman’s site
http://www.scotsman.com/politics/George-Kerevan-Reform-requires-us.6829467.jp?articlepage=1

A brief biopic of the author is here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Kerevan

I think that you will agree at least a glimmer of hope there but unfortunately still in the media conditioned mindset of thinking of English Nationalism as a threat.

Meanwhile, on the BBC News Politics site,we can see how very limited is the British Establishment’s interest in fair treatment for England.

Mark D’Arcy, the BBC’s Parliamentary correspondent in his “Viewing guide: The pick of the week ahead in Parliament” says:-

“Friday is private members bill day in the Commons, and topping the bill is the Report Stage debate on the Conservative backbencher Harriet Baldwin’s Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill. This takes a stab at giving a partial answer to the West Lothian Question by requiring that in future all bills put before Parliament should contain a clear statement of how they affect each of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – including knock-on financial implications. She hopes that this would allow it to become accepted practice that Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs would not vote on England-only Bills. The Government attitude is interesting, to put it mildly. The Coalition Agreement includes a promise to set up a commission to look at the West Lothian Question (the issue of MPs from devolved parts of the UK being able to vote on English issues, when English MPs can’t vote on the same issues in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) but that commission has yet to be set up. Ministers clearly don’t want the Baldwin bill, and she can expect pressure to withdraw it.

Having, somewhat to her own surprise, piloted the Bill through the the most perilous stage of the parliamentary life-cycle, the Second Reading debate, and through Committee where it was unamended, (although that may owe something to the broken leg suffered by Labour constitutional affairs spokesman Chris Bryant) Harriet Baldwin can now hope to send it off to the Lords. The main way of preventing this would be for opponents to put down a deluge of amendments at Report Stage – and talk out the available debating time. We shall see.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14737976

Which all goes to show that if England and the English Nation are ever to get fair treatment it will only be because there is a credible English Nationalist party forcing the pace!

Eddie Bone: A sensible prescription for an English Parliament

This article was published in The Yorkshire Evening Post on Saturday 27th August. Eddie Bone is a good friend of mine and a fellow campaigner for an English Parliament. The article makes compelling reading and it is nice to see the mainstream press allowing debate on such an important issue.

A DECADE ago, the people of England would not have been discussing the prospect of independence for Scotland.

However, independence is now clearly on the horizon following the historic and game changing Scottish National Party victory in May.

Most people when they’re asked about Scottish independence will say that the unfair system now operating in the UK needs to change and they highlight the Barnett formula which gives Scotland a bigger share of public spending. They might not understand this formula, but they see its effects.

They see things like free prescriptions in Scotland, while in England they have to pay.

They see the Scottish elderly getting subsidised care; they see free university education for Scottish students when English students are landed with thousands of pounds worth of debt.

The Campaign for an English Parliament (CEP) knows a key concern for the English is the establishment of a different style of NHS created by unfair cutbacks being implemented on them. They now realise that the health service is being protected in Wales and Scotland but not in their communities.

The CEP has been campaigning for over a decade and in the early days most people viewed themselves as British and not English.

What we’re now realising is that more people in England are identifying themselves as English than British and, as national identities evolve, it becomes inevitable that the British identity will become less attractive.

If the Unionist parties fail to show the value of Britishness, then it will disappear.

Although the Union has given us all constitutional stability over the past 300 years, it now means that England doesn’t have a democratic voice.

This has meant most people are rekindling their love of England out of both want and necessity.

They do not want their children to suffer with tuition fees or their elderly relatives to suffer for the sake of feeling British. The chain that interlocks Englishness and Britishness will be broken altogether if it is twisted too hard.

This should make us all reflect on a line in a Rudyard Kipling’s poem when he writes “he never means anything serious till he talks about justice and right”.

Although he is talking about a different time period, everyone in England is now awake to devolution and the talk of injustice.

People appear to accept that Scotland always had national institutional recognition, so when Scotland talks about independence, you’ll find that people are coming round to the idea that it might break away.

Yet it is a different scenario for Wales. It is seen as having more of a cultural nationality. The CEP has noticed an uneasy feeling since the Welsh were given more powers through the Assembly.

It seems to have unnerved the people of England and for the first time they are able to see that the break-up of the Union might actually impact on their lives. The domino effect of devolution has finally penetrated English consciousness.

We’re only beginning to feel the real impact of public spending cuts which will accentuate the problems.

Already 64 per cent of people in England are saying “give us a Parliament for England”. Yet what is more surprising is the quickly achieved percentage jump of people in England willing to discuss independence. It appears that the English just did not want to take responsibility for the break-up of the Union.

Now they can place it at the feet of the Scottish they appear happier to express their Englishness.

Our union of nations needs discussion not from a Scottish view as the British Broadcasting Corporation appears to want, but it also needs to be discussed from an English and Welsh perception.

The writing is now on the wall; the English are starting to enjoy Englishness again.

Most British MPs make the mistake that when they initially mention devolution to people in England, their eyes glaze over.

But if you mention the effects of not having a Parliament on issues like prescription charges, all of a sudden they become very vocal, their eyes become bright and they quickly say, we need an English government. And they’re right.

Eddie Bone is chairman of the Campaign for an English Parliament.

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/debate/columnists/eddie_bone_a_sensible_prescription_for_an_english_parliament_1_3714541

Make St. George’s Day our National Holiday – Sign our Petition

Today the English Democrats launch their biggest ever online campaign. Our main website is now collecting the 100,000 signatures needed to force a debate in the Houses of Parliament on St George’s Day being officially recognised as England’s national day.

We set up one of the most successful Facebook Causes:- ‘Make St. George’s Day a Bank holiday! I am English & Proud! (English Democrats’ Cause)’. We now have over 705,000 Cause members! Our Cause calls for St George’s Day to be officially recognised as the National Holiday for the English. There is huge national support in England for this issue!

We are now collecting signatures for our E-Petition with the aim of forcing a debate in Parliament. We need 100,000 signatures to make it happen.

You can sign our petition by clicking here or following the link below:

http://www.voteenglish.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=220&Itemid=586

You can also join our Facebook Cause by clicking the link below, please make sure you’ve already signed up to Facebook causes first.

http://www.causes.com/causes/181031-make-st-george-s-day-a-bank-holiday-i-m-english-proud-english-democrats-cause?recruiter_id=150860020

There is massive public support for this issue but we need your signature on our petition to help build up pressure on the politicians to give the English the same rights as the Scots, Irish and Welsh nations enjoy to celebrate their Patron Saints’ Days.

Not as white as they are painted

Robert Henderson

Those of us who do not share the liberal’s ostensible love of the multicultural mess they have made of modern Britain will be gratified to hear that the latest communal outbreak of the Joy of Diversity has brought the riotin’, lootin, whinin’ folk to their doorsteps.
The riots and lootfests currently occurring throughout London and other cities either “blessed” with large black populations or close to those which do have them – Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham, West Bromwich, Wolverhampton, Leicester, Bristol and Liverpool – have spread from black ghettos such as Tottenham, Brixton and Hackney to richer areas such as Lambeth, Ealing, Notting Hill and Chalk Farm.
The last is of particular interest because Chalk Farm abuts the ancestral home of liberal bigots, Hampstead, and the rioters and looters got to the boundary of the Chalk Farm/Hampstead divide. How the collective population of Hampstead –which is preternaturally white for an inner London borough – must be sighing with dismay that they did not personally experience so vivid an outbreak of the “joy”, especially as
they experience so little of it in normal times due to the terrible shortage of
black and brown faces in their midst (http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2010/10/16/how-the-well-to-do-liberals-choose-to-live-a-lesson-from-primrose-hill/).

White liberals in Notting Hill had cause to be especially excited. According to BBC Radio 5 (the 10.00 pm show 8 August) police warned a householder who rang them to report
looting to stay inside his home because there were allegedly rioters going about armed with machetes. Just think of how he must have shaken fit to burst with excitement as they thought of what blacks in Africa generally do with machetes.

Enough of the funnies. This is serious. Nothing equivalent has happened in Britain before. UK Race riots since the late 1950s have been restricted to the ghetto areas themselves and were much less widespread as a consequence. Nor was there anything like
the scale of destruction of property or looting we are presently witnessing. The widespread use of arson this time is particularly striking. It would probably be necessary to go back to the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots of 1780 to find greater destruction of property in London. However, the Gordon Riots were genuinely concerned with a particular political issue rather than being primarily an excuse to loot and destroy.

Why has this happened now? Thirty years of pandering to blacks by the British elite in all its guises – politicians, mediafolk, big business, public servants and educationalists – has taken its toll. Blacks have been taught that two things by Britain’s liberals: nothing is their fault and everything they do wrong is down to ol’ whitey who just can’t stop oppressing them . On the white liberal side, they get their emotional rocks off by engaging in paroxysms of white guilt whilst cynically using ethnic minorities as a client class, of whom blacks are their unequivocal favourites. (The white working class used to be the clients of the liberal left, but that changed in the 1980s when the unions would not play ball with the Labour Party hierarchy and three successive defeats at the hands of Thatcher persuaded most Labour politicians that dumping the white working class was necessary if they were to get into power before they were on their Zimmer frames).

The response of white liberals

Initially, white liberals and blacks claimed that looters were protesting about the shooting dead of a black man Mark Duggan by police in Tottenham on Thursday 4 August 2011 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14459516).This response was obvious nonsense – violent protest is one thing, looting quite another. Unable to write this off as a peaceful political protest gone wrong, Liberals and their black quangocracy clients (the blacks who are treated as “community leaders” , those who receive considerable amounts of public money to run “multicultural” projects or given highly paid publicly funded sinecures) are in a quandary. They know that these riots are being conducted overwhelmingly by blacks. They know that the general public understands this because of the voluminous media coverage. They realise that to deny the fact that this is a black event puts them in the position of “Comical Ali” during the Western attack on Iraq when he denied allied attacks were getting through as allied planes bombed the land close behind him. But they are only too well aware that to admit the truth (that this is a black problem) would undermine the politically correct virtual world they have created in which everyone in a position of power or influence in Britain has to give lip service at least to the idea that ethnic and racial diversity is a good in itself and infinitely preferable to homogeneous societies.

Faced with this profound difficulty liberals and their ethnic minority clients have taken one of two paths. The first mode of evasion is to portray the riots as having no racial
context and to rely on the intimidatory effect of decades of multicultural propaganda together with liberal control of the media to allow them to call black white without attracting too much public ridicule. BBC reporters have been especially addicted to this nonsense by stressing at every opportunity that there are “people of all races” taking part in the riots. The more daring ones emphasise the fact that there are white rioters – it would be interesting to know the national origins of the few white rioters because eastern
Europeans and gipsies in particular have a liking for theft and mayhem. Best of all the BBC (bless their liberal bigot hearts) have repeatedly described the rioters and looters as protestors. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8690267/London-riots-BBC-criticised-for-branding-thugs-as-protesters.html).

Getting on to BBC phone-ins to point out the black genesis of the riots has been next to impossible. On 7th August I did manage to take part fleetingly in a phone-in on the BBC
Radio 5 Stephen Nolan programme (10.00 pm -1.00 am). After half an hour of listening to Nolan and his guests chatter happily about the riots without mentioning the racial aspect , I rang to mention that, try as I might to believe them, I could not help noticing that the vast majority of the rioters were black and consequently it was not a general social problem but a black social problem. I attributed the source of the problem to a near universal sense of victimhood amongst blacks. I bolstered this latter judgement with the fact that I, unlike white liberals who almost invariably arrange their lives to live in very white worlds, have lived for most of my adult life and live now in parts of London which have a large black population and consequently I engage daily with blacks, many of them, shock horror! poor and uneducated.

It took me another forty minutes to get on air, during which time the programme continued to parade a gallery of politically correct grotesques that included a Metropolitan Police officer who is a leading light in the black police association. When I eventually was allowed to broadcast my comments provoked outrage from this individual and I was immediately cut off, most frustratingly, before I could point out to him that he had unambiguously identified himself as a racist by joining a black-only representative group .

Later in the programme Nolan had as studio guests Edwina Currie (the one-time Tory Minister) and a retired suffragan bishop by the name of Stephen Lowe. Their job was to review the papers. Lowe castigated the Telegraph for having a long gallery of photographs
showing blacks rioting and looting. He objected to this because – wait for it – the coverage made it look as though this was a black riot. Hilariously, this earned a stern rebuke from
Currie who repeatedly accused Lowe of bringing race into the equation by mentioning the racially monochrome nature of the Telegraph photos. Not to worry, the Telegraph made up for this terrible blunder next day by publishing a series of photos released by the police of rioters. Guess the colour of the first rioter shown. Yes, that’s right, he is white. As was the person in the third photo. Sadly, the pretence of it being a racially neutral riot could not be sustained and the rest of the 14 photos were overwhelmingly black. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/uknews/8690951/London-riots-CCTV-pictures-of-suspects-are-released-by-the-Metropolitan-Police.html). The Telegraph have continued to disgrace themselves in politically correct eyes by printing another series of black villains in their 9 August issue.

The early signs from court appearances resulting from the riots suggest there is something very odd going on when it comes to the application of the law. As anyone can see from the media coverage, the vast majority of rioters are black, but the number of those appearing in court who are white is much greater than their proportion of the rioters and looters. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2024767/Man-charged-riot-incitement-Facebook-London-rioters-guilty.html#ixzz1UjYYfl00)

I suspect one of two things is happening: either the police have concentrated on arresting white rioters because they are (1) unlike the black culprits, often not part of a gang of rioters/looters and (2) arresting them does not cause any ethnic mayhem . Alternatively, the police/CPS are deliberately pushing white cases to the front of the queue to give the
false impression that the rioters are not overwhelmingly black. The other thing which looks suspicious is the routine showing of black rioters in groups and whites in what look like cropped photos in which a single person is shown. These could be extracted from scenes showing one white rioter amongst a crowd of blacks.

The other general liberal tactic is to blame it all on economics and preferably Tory cuts. This has the advantage of leaving race out of it altogether. Harriet Harman, a minister in both the Blair and Brown Governments, was sure that this was linked to the rioting and looting. (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/neilobrien1/100100392/harriet-harman-and-the-intellectual-bankruptcy-of-the-progressive-left/). Mary Riddle, a Labour Party media groupie employed by the supposedly Tory Daily Telegraph, was in no doubt that the riots are due to social deprivation in general and the creation of an uneducated underclass in particular: “London’s riots are not the Tupperware troubles of Greece or Spain, where the middle classes lash out against their day of reckoning. They are the proof that a section of young Britain – the stabbers, shooters, looters, chancers and their frightened acolytes – has fallen off the cliff-edge of a crumbling nation.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8630533/Riots-the-underclass-lashes-out.html.

If Harman and Riddle were correct all poor areas would be susceptible to this behaviour and most of the rioters would be white. This is not the case. The reality is that the criminality is, as anyone can see from the press and TV, overwhelmingly being perpetrated by blacks. Moreover, the first of the rioting arose in black ghettos. Most tellingly, no town or city which does not have a substantial black population or such a population close by has seen rioting. This also gives the lie to the claim from the Conservative side that the riots are down to the lax discipline in schools and the undermining of parental authority which has produced a generation of youngsters without respect for the law or any authority .

Clearly the causes of these riots lie in something other than poverty, a lack of school discipline or poor parenting. Ostensibly the behaviour is caused by 30 years of our elite pandering to the black population of Britain by telling them how oppressed they are and how racist Britain is. This has undoubtedly stoked their appetite for victimhood and given
them a belief that they owe nothing to society in general. That gives them the moral release to riot and loot.

The black response to the killing of Mark Duggan demonstrates the difference between blacks and whites. The police in Britain kill very few people compared with virtually anywhere else, not least because they are not routinely armed. Most of those they kill are white. Violent protests or protests of any sort rarely if ever occur when the person killed is white because whites still trust the police (just) to behave reasonably . When a black man is killed it is assumed by blacks that it is tantamount to a murder and violent protest is more often than not the eventual outcome. It remains to be seen what the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) report concludes about the Duggan shooting, but if as has been reported by the media Duggan had a gun on him it is difficult to see how the police could be criticised for killing him if he either had it in his hand or it was near him and he was reaching for it when he was shot .

But there is a deeper problem. Blacks display the same general type of uncontrolled behaviour in societies of very different types throughout the world, whether it be where
they are in the racial majority or minority, in an advanced industrial country or one from the depths of the Third World. There is genocide and mutilation in places such as Rwanda and Sierra Leone; rioting, looting and episodic murder in Britain. The degree of misbehaviour may vary but its general type is the same; a lack of self-control expressing itself in gratuitous violence.

That places the victimhood justification for misbehaviour in Britain in a different light. It is simply a rationalisation of general black social behaviour. Why do blacks tend to behave like this? Part at least of the answer is probably to be found in the inferior average IQ of blacks. In IQ and the Wealth and Poverty of Nations (2002), the British psychologist Richard Lynn and the Finish economist Tatu Vanhanan included their estimations of the average national IQs of 185 states . They reached the estimates
either by using studies of IQs conducted by others or where these were not available, by extrapolating from neighbouring countries which did have IQ studies. For example, if the estimate based on studies of country X was 80, a neighbouring country Y which had no studies would also be taken as 89. In the case of all black African countries the estimated average IQ was 69. (http://www.rlynn.co.uk/pages/article_intelligence/t4.asp).

Such a low average black IQ was unsurprisingly greeted by widespread disbelief and objections were raised about the validity of the studies used and the practice of extrapolating from other countries where no studies existed . In 2006 Lynn and Vanhanan published IQ and Global Inequality which addressed the objections and, while not removing them altogether, did show that the correlation between the imputed
IQs and IQ studies of the states in question made after 2002 were strong (.91) (http://www.people.vcu.edu/~mamcdani/Publications/McDaniel%202008%20book%20review%20IQ%20and%20global%20inequality.pdf).

But even without the African studies and estimates, it is known that black IQs are inferior to those of whites or East Asians such as the Chinese. The average American black IQ is a well established 85, considerably higher than the 70 of black Africans but still way below the average white IQ of 100. Moreover, black Americans have a large admixture of white genes, so an average IQ between the black African and the white American average IQ is
exactly what would be expected if it is granted that IQ is strongly dependent on genetic inheritance. It is reasonable to assume the blacks in the US without a white admixture would have an average IQ closer to the 70 estimated for black Africans.

What is the consequence of such a low average IQ? The first thing to understand is that people with low I Qs are not monsters but simply people who have a different level of
mental competence. They have less capacity for abstract thinking, are more literal minded, live more in the present . In short, they are childlike. This makes them more susceptible to
irrational and uncontrolled behaviour http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2010/12/02/blacks-the-odd-man-out/). This could be the root of the strong propensity for violence and a lack of social awareness seen amongst blacks. Other factors such as higher testosterone levels in blacks may also have some effect.

But there could also be another factor in play which is a corollary of the low IQ. Someone with a low IQ may find living in an advanced society extremely stressful because they
cannot cope with the intellectual demands which the society exerts on them. It is interesting that some types of mental illness are linked to low IQ (http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2010/11/27/a-low-iq-individual-in-a-high-iq-society/). This could be part of the reason at least for the fact that diagnosis of mental illness, especially schizophrenia, amongst blacks is high in Britain. It is claimed by some, especially educated blacks, that this is due to racism within the British mental health services. This is difficult to take this seriously in these pc times. If diagnosis of mental illeness was to be skewed by bias it would be more likely to result in fewer diagnoses of mental illness amongst blacks not more. Plausibly, blacks become disproprotionately mentally ill in Britain simply because they cannot cope. The paranoia engendered
by the victimhood fostered by white liberals will not help their mental state either. (http://www.blackmentalhealth.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=154&Itemid=139).

The emasculation of the police

The most chilling thing about reports from the scene of the riots and looting has been the persistent claims of those at the scene but not part of the criminality that there is either an absence of any police or where there were any police, they were ineffective.

If the first riot in Tottenham had been quashed there is a good chance that the others might not have happened or have been much less serious. Quashing a single riot should have been within the power of the Met which has more than 30,000 officers, not immediately but within an hour or two after they had re-directed officers from other parts of London. Instead the police in Tottenham stood back and watched the looters for many hours.

Why have the police been so supine? It is primarily a consequence of the injection of political correctness into police officers’ minds with its most potent strand being “anti-racism”. A lesser secondary cause is the ever more stifling culture of “health and Safety” which the police have embraced . (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13319812
and http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1997/42/contents). This has resulted in the police putting their own safety before that of the public, a straight reversal of what used to be the case. Effective policing system cannot operate on such a basis.

The British elite’s official pandering to ethnic minorities goes back to 1965 when the first Race Relations Act (RRA) was passed followed by a second stronger Act in 1968 which was one of the things which provoked Enoch Powell to make his “Rivers of Blood” speech in the same year. (http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/03/19/enoch-powells-rivers-of-blood-speech/). A third RRA with considerably more teeth arrived in 1976 which elevated ethnic minorities to a de facto protected status, not only by strengthening the penalties for “inciting racial hatred” but by its provision of a wide range of privileges to ethnic minorities in the areas of work, education and social provision.
(http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1976/74)

Then came the Scarman report into the Brixton Riots of 1981. Lord Scarman did not accuse the Metropolitan Police of racism, but called for the development of community policing, the recruitment of more black officers and laid part of the blame for the riots on social deprivation, particularly the high rate of unemployment in Brixton. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/25/newsid_2546000/2546233.stm)
This began the long march towards the police policing ethnic minority areas not on the basis of what crime was occurring in them, but what they could get “community leaders” – who tended to be self-appointed – to agree to and the ascribing of virtually any black
behaviour to deprivation.

The next and longest nail in the coffin of rigorous policing of blacks (and ethnic minorities generally) came with the Macpherson report into the death of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence (http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm42/4262/sli-47.htm). Macpherson accused the Metropolitan Police of being “institutionally racist”, that is racist not consciously but through the prevailing ethos (“canteen culture”)
within the force, an accusation which was eventually embraced wholeheartedly by the Met followed by all the other UK police forces. Macpherson defined racism and institutional racism as:

‘RACISM

6.4 “Racism” in general terms consists of conduct or words or practices which advantage or disadvantage people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin. In its more subtle form it is as damaging as in its overt form.

6.34 “Institutional Racism” consists of the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic
origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people.’

A good examination of the ill effects of the acceptance of the existence of “institutional racism” can be found at http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/cs06.pdf).

Macpherson also provided an absurd and dangerous definition of what constituted racist behaviour which should be investigated:

DEFINITION OF RACIST INCIDENT

12. That the definition should be:

“A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person”.

‘13. That the term “racist incident” must be understood to include crimes and non-crimes in policing terms. Both must be reported, recorded and investigated with equal commitment.

‘14. That this definition should be universally adopted by the Police, local Government and other relevant agencies.’

This meant that any complainant who was malicious or simply burdened with a sense of victimhood could turn an ordinary crime into one which was racist or even worse turn an incident which had no meaningful criminal content into a criminal act.

Macpherson continued:

‘REPORTING AND RECORDING OF RACIST INCIDENTS AND CRIMES

15. That Codes of Practice be established by the Home Office, in consultation with Police Services, local Government and relevant agencies, to create a comprehensive system of reporting and recording of all racist incidents and crimes.

16. That all possible steps should be taken by Police Services at local level in consultation with local Government and other agencies and local communities to encourage the reporting of racist incidents and crimes. This should include:

– the ability to report at locations other than police stations; and

– the ability to report 24 hours a day.

17. That there should be close co-operation between Police Services and local Government and other agencies, including in particular Housing and Education Departments, to ensure that all information as to racist incidents and crimes is shared and is readily available to all agencies….’

And

‘PROSECUTION OF RACIST CRIMES

‘34. That Police Services and the CPS should ensure that particular care is taken at all stages of prosecution to recognise and to include reference to any evidence of racist motivation. In particular it should be the duty of the CPS to ensure that such evidence is referred to both at trial and in the sentencing process (including Newton hearings). The CPS and Counsel to ensure that no “plea bargaining” should ever be allowed to
exclude such evidence. ‘ (Ibid)

To put the cherry on pc policing, in 2000 the Blair Government passed the Race Relations
(Amendment) Act . This extended the obligations laid down in the 1976 Act for private bodies such as companies and charities to the police and other public authorities so that “ It is unlawful for a public authority in carrying out any functions of the authority to do any act which constitutes discrimination. (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/34).

Faced with that battery of multiculturalism supporting law and the ever more fervent support of the political elite for political correctness, unsurprisingly the British police became paranoid about being seen as “racist”. The “anti-discrimination ” credo has put any officer judged to have been racist – and this might be no more than a bit of banter suggesting that a black officer is difficult to see in the dark – at the risk of instant dismissal. It has also given a lever for non-white officers with the police to go on the
grievance trail (http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/217239_43_gmp_officers_in_police_racism_claims).
The upshot is that police officers from newly minted constables to grandees such as chief constables and the Metropolitan police commissioner have become not only extremely of what they say, but reluctant to act forcefully against suspected black criminals. This reluctance is particularly marked in situations such as riots where they know they will be filmed by the mainstream media and private individuals.

In 1989 the Metropolitan Police changed its title from the Metropolitan Police Force to the Metropolitan Police Service. Other police forces followed suit. The change of name is symbolic of the profound change in attitude. The British police moved from being keepers of the peace and catchers of criminals to quasi-social workers crossed with political commissars who are ever eager to enforce political correctness by investigating
any alleged “hate crime” even though the idea of a hate crime only has a spectral
existence in English law. No absurdity is beyond them as shopkeeper Gavin Alexander found in 2007 when the police swooped on his shop and took several golliwog dolls into custody (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23389075-police-seize-golliwogs-in-racism-probe.do).

Needless to say, as political commissars the police are less than eager to investigate complaints which do not fit into the pc regime. In 2001 I made a complaint to the Racial and Violent Crime Squad against the BBC Director-General Greg Dyke who described his own organisation as “Hideously white”. This met all the necessary criteria for prosecution: Dyke was a public figure, he headed the largest media organisation in the world and his words indubitably incited hatred against whites. The police refused to register the complaint let alone investigate it even, though I persuaded an MP to write to the Met complaining about double standards (http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/the-ever-increasing-madness-of-political-correctness/).

The future

The situation is potentially very serious. Imagine a situation where riots and looting such as these could be called up regularly without an adequate police response. It would be close to anarchy. This is what we risk. Potential rioters and looters have seen the police reduced to helplessness. They will think they can do it again whenever they choose.

This was flash mob rioting using social networking. Those on a network simply need to wait until they receive a message telling them where the next meeting point for a riot
is and head for it. They get their loot and riot, then get another message telling them to move on elsewhere. The police can be run ragged. The same applies to any violent political protest rather than straightforward criminality. Any society can be reduced to chaos if enough people refuse to respect the law. That is the message which comes out of these riots.

What will happen now? Even if the police could identify them, the numbers are too great to bring to meaningful justice. Numbers are always difficult to assess where there is a fluid crowd, but the sheer volume of riots and the length of time they have lasted must mean there have been thousands of people committing criminal acts. Even if each incident only involved a couple of hundred people it would be easy to run up a figure of 10,000. Many of the crimes – arson, serious criminal damage, serious theft – would have to carry a heavy prison sentence if adequate punishment is to be administered. To process that number of people through a police investigation, the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts would be a colossal task. Those who are old enough to remember the Poll Tax fiasco will recall how the magistrates courts became choked trying to process Poll Tax refuseniks. This would be much worse because the crimes would all go before a jury in the higher
unless a guilty plea is entered. There would also be the strong likelihood of appeals, something which did not arise often in the case of a refusal to pay the Poll Tax.
Even if these problems could be overcome, there would be no obvious place to incarcerate those convicted because our prisons are already so jam-packed everything is done to avoid
imprisoning people and desperate remedies such as letting prisoners out early a frequent resort.

If people are not brought to justice or are brought to justice without any serious
punishment resulting , the numbers of those who are willing to riot and loot
will grow. This will drag in blacks who have not been willing to loot and riot before.
It will also tempt other ethnic minorities to join in on the basis that if the blacks can get away with it why shouldn’t they have some of the spoils. A proportion of whites will also be tempted if they see ethnic minorities getting away with murder. That is the truly pernicious nature of what is happening: it continually encourages more disorder.

The point to cling onto is that without the mass immigration of blacks none of this would be happening. If some whites are engaging in the disorder it is only because the black rioters have provided the platform for them to behave in that way. We can safely say that because rioting to loot just has not happened in British society when there was no large black population here. Nor do we find such rioting happening in areas dominated by native white Britons.

The riots have all taken place in England. The reason is simple: the vast majority
of post-1945 immigrants have settled in England not the rest of the UK. It is the English who have had to bear the brunt of mass immigration’s most obnoxious consequences.

What should be done? I suggest this. All attempts by government to appease ethnic minority groups should stop. No more money for community leaders, ethnic based charities or public projects which promote the interests only of minority ethnic groups. All the laws such as the Race Relations Act and the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000
which give de facto privileges to ethnic minorities and prevent honest objections to immigration and its consequences should be repealed. The police should be banned from playing the role of political commissars and get back to honest coppering; catching villains
and maintaining order. Institutionalised political correctness should be stripped from public service and any organisation which receives public money.
Most importantly, politicians and the mainstream media should stop incontinently promoting the liberal fantasy of multicultural heaven and recognise that it is not heaven but at best purgatory.

What will the Coalition Government do? Sadly, the odds must be on more appeasement
of blacks in particular and probably ethnic minorities in general. Over the past 30 years vast sums of taxpayers’ money has been poured into appeasing blacks and Asians. A
good example is the permitting of Housing Associations which, overtly or covertly, provide social housing for particular ethnic groups (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/the-truth-about-social-housing-and-ethnic-minorities/). In addition to spending money, politicians and the mainstream media have given a grossly disproportionate amount of time and publicity to telling blacks and Asians how valuable they are to Britain. Like foreign Aid, the attempts to create
a healthy society by pouring money into alienated and naturally separate communities are doomed. They simply take the money and attention and then ask for more of the same without becoming any more responsible either individually or to the wider society . They will undoubtedly be coming back for largesse and attention now and it is difficult to imagine a political class which has wholeheartedly signed up to the wonders of diversity refusing them another hand-out. Perhaps the moving of the Joy of Diversity into the districts inhabited by white liberals will change their public views but do not bet on it. They are well aware of the ill-effects of mass immigration which is the reason they take such care to live in very white worlds themselves. Provided they can arrange things to keep the immigrants from intruding into their own lives they will probably keep quiet and carry on peddling the same tired multicultural nonsense.

Those who still think that multiculturalism can work need to understand that not only is it more psychologically comfortable for minorities to remain separate, but that it can be advantageous if the host community is soft enough to pander to it.

What has happened to “English votes for English laws”?

The obvious democratic imbalance in the post-devolution settlement is the absence of an English parliament. The Scots, Welsh and the Northern Irish have devolved assemblies which are steadily increasing their formal powers and political permanence through the development of a political class concerned only with their own home country. The English neither have a parliament nor the prospect of one, for no House of Commons party is committed to creating an English parliament.

This is no small matter because the absence of a parliament robs England of a national political focus and voice at a time when other parts of the UK are growing ever more strident in their demands through their devolved political institutions.

But the imbalance is far more than simply the lack of a Parliament. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, despite their devolved powers, still retain cabinet representation, grand committees, select committees and special question times devoted to their local affairs.

The Scottish Grand Committee is made up of all MPs sitting for Scottish seats. It has rarely met in recent years because the powers given to the Scottish Parliament mean that Bills passed at Westminster affecting only Scotland are rare. However, the committee has not been abolished and could be reconvened.

The Welsh and Northern Irish Grand Committees are still regularly functioning bodies because their assemblies have lesser powers than those of the Scottish Parliament. That may change in the case of the Welsh Grand Committee because of the extension of powers voted for in the recent Welsh referendum. The Northern Irish and Welsh committees debate issues relevant to their countries. This can be a very wide-ranging remit as it can include such business as the effects of a Queen’s Speech on the two countries.

The Welsh committee consists of the 40 Welsh MPs, and up to 5 others. The Northern Ireland Grand Committee includes each of the 18 MPs in Northern Ireland, together with up to 25 other MPs.

The Celts have a second bite at the Westminster committee cake, for there are select committees for each of them, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, the Scottish Affairs Committee and the Welsh Affairs Committee.

To complete the Westminster representational hat-trick, there remains within the Cabinet Secretaries of State for each of the Celtic countries.

What does England have? Absolutely nothing: no Parliament, no devolved powers, no Grand Committee, no select committee, no question time, no secretary of state in the Cabinet.

Most obnoxiously MPs from non-English seats can vote on English matters even where, as is often the case with the Scottish parliament, English MPs cannot vote on equivalent legislation for parts of the UK other than England. Thus Scottish MPs voted for Foundation hospitals and increased university tuition fees in England, despite the fact that neither measure will be introduced into Scotland because the devolved Scottish political establishment is against them. The Welsh will be joining the game as they have just voted yes (2011) to the Welsh Assembly receiving similar powers to those of the Scottish Parliament.

Not content with denying the English a voice, the Blair government attempted to begin the process of political Balkanisation in England by announcing in 2003 that referenda for assemblies in the North East, the North West and the region of Yorkshire and Humber would be held. According to the draft Regional Assemblies Bill of 2004, the assemblies would have had much inferior powers to the Scottish Parliament and inferior powers to those of the Welsh Assembly.

The Blair government tested the water with a referendum for a North East Assembly in November 2004 believing that this was the English region most likely to vote for an assembly and if they did this would act as a spur to other regions to follow suit. The ploy failed so miserably, with voters rejecting the an assembly by 696,519 votes to 197,310, that plans for further referenda were dropped.

But although elected assemblies were not established in England, the process of setting English regions against one another was put in hand shortly after the Blair Government was formed through the creation of Quangos. Eight English Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) were established under the Regional Development Agencies Act 1998. These were for: the East of England, East Midlands, North East, North West, South East, South West, West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber.

A ninth RDA, the London Development Agency, was established in July 2000 following the establishment of the Greater London Authority (GLA). The first eight RDAs are responsible to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) ministers. The London Development Assembly is responsible to the Mayor of London and the London Assembly.

What do RDAs do? Here is the LDA website description:

“Our aim is to create better futures for London’s citizens by delivering projects that will help produce a prosperous, inclusive and sustainable city.

Working in close partnership with the Greater London Authority, London boroughs, businesses and the third sector, we have:

•provided practical advice and help to Londoners and to London’s businesses

•promoted London on a world stage – most recently at the Shanghai Expo

•helped set up the first two of the Mayor’s academies

•won recognition and international acclaim for our regeneration activities

•enabled London to start making significant cuts to Co2 emissions through our climate change programmes

•put projects in place that have helped thousands of Londoners benefit from the impact of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games” (http://www.lda.gov.uk/our-work/index.aspx)

There most significant role is probably their administering of the EU Regional Development Fund disbursements to English regions.

All the RDAs are scheduled to be abolished by March 2012 (http://www.bis.gov.uk/policies/economic-development/englands-regional-development-agencies), but it is not certain that this will happen because the Government has conceded in the face of opposition from the Lords over the Public Bodies Bill which authorised ministers to make the decision (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldbills/025/11025.i-ii.html), that Quangos will not be abolished without parliamentary scrutiny.

The RDAs will be superseded by Local Enterprise Partnerships. These concentrate on much smaller areas than the RDAs. The Coalition Government describes them as:

“Local enterprise partnerships are locally-owned partnerships between local authorities and businesses. Local enterprise partnerships will play a central role in determining local economic priorities and undertaking activities to drive economic growth and the creation of local jobs. They are also a key vehicle in delivering Government objectives for economic growth and decentralisation, whilst also providing a means for local authorities to work together with business in order to quicken the economic recovery.

“As local enterprise partnerships are based on more meaningful economic areas, they will be better placed to determine the needs of the local economy along with a greater ability to identify barriers to local economic growth.” (http://www.communities.gov.uk/localgovernment/local/localenterprisepartnerships/)

To date the Government has announced 30 partnerships that are ready to establish their local enterprise partnership boards. These are:

Birmingham and Solihull

Black Country

Cheshire and Warrington

Coast to Capital

Cornwall and Isles of Scilly

Coventry and Warwickshire

Cumbria

Enterprise M3 (North Hampshire/West Surrey)

Greater Cambridgeshire and Greater Peterborough

Greater Manchester

Hertfordshire

Kent and Greater Essex and East Sussex

Leeds City Region

Leicester and Leicestershire

Lincolnshire

Liverpool City Region

New Anglia

North Eastern

Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Derby, Derbyshire

Oxfordshire City Region

Sheffield City Region

Solent

South East Midlands

Stoke and Staffordshire

Tees Valley

Thames Valley Berkshire

The Marches

West of England

Worcestershire

York and North Yorkshire

Until these bodies are up and running it is impossible to say exactly what powers they will have or what the relationship will be between them and national government.

As part of the Balkanising of England agenda of the recent Labour Government, English Regional Grand Committees were established in November 2008. However, these no longer exist because the Standing Orders that set up these committees expired in April 2010. With the exception of London, the regions of the UK that were covered by a Regional Grand Committee were the same as those administered by the RDAs. London was omitted because it has an elected assembly and mayor.

The nearest any mainstream party has come to offering England any redress for the democratic imbalance is to call for “English votes for English laws”, that is, laws which affect only England should be decided by only English MPs. This idea surfaced as far back as 1999 when William Hague made it official Tory policy. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/394997.stm). David Cameron has also supported the policy. (http://www.heraldscotland.com/english-votes-for-english-laws-would-damage-union-1.847545).

After the Coalition Government was formed in June 2010 Nick Clegg was given the task of considering the matter (http://toque.co.uk/nick-clegg-charged-considering-west-lothian-question)

To date no concrete proposals have been made or the matter been seriously discussed in Parliament. I have emailed both Cameron and Clegg asking what the Coalition’s position is without eliciting a reply. It is reasonable to assume that the question has been kicked into the long grass.

“English votes for English laws” is no remedy for the disadvantage under which England currently suffers, but it would act as a catalyst for an English Parliament in two ways. First, if the matter was done honestly, the majority of the UK Government budget would be decided by English MPs because most is spent in England. That would create an impossible tension between a UK Government and the English majority if the UK Government could not form a majority from English seats alone. Second, the mere fact of having to concentrate on English interests would create a sea-change in the mentality of the English political elite. MPs sitting for English seats would be unable to ignore the essential unfairness of the present situation because English voters would expect them to do something about it.

There are dangers with “English votes for English laws”. One way it could be fudged is by declaring many Bills which are obviously affecting England alone to be matters of UK importance. There would also be ample opportunity to push legislation through without the procedure being invoked on the grounds that it is EU deriving from the EU. It is conceivable that the process could be emasculated whilst leaving Westminster politicians free to say the “West Lothian Question” has been solved, a tactic which would not remove the problem but could suppress public debate about it. Nonetheless, it is the only realistic way forward those who want an English Parliament and Government for the foreseeable future. Consequently, it is a tactic (not an end in itself) which should be supported.

The Low, Low Standards Of The “NO” To AV Campaign

For democracy to be seen to done in an election the candidate chosen must get more than 50% of the vote. If this does not happen you get the situation that we in the UK are familiar with. Candidates and governments are elected with less, sometimes much less than half of the votes cast. To get around this the French use the “run-off” system in their Presidential elections. In this, if the leading candidate does not have more than 50% of the vote, the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated and the voters are called back to vote again. This continues until one candidate gets more than half the votes. Such a system ensures that a minority President, or government, cannot be elected. It is democratic and it is fair. But, with its multiple rounds of voting, it is arduous and time consuming.

GHTime Code(s): nc

The Alternative Vote

On the 5th May we in England will have our first opportunity, ever, to vote on the voting system that is used to elect MPs.

Let me say that again. “we in England will have our first opportunity, ever, to vote on the voting system that is used to elect MPs.”

The democratic spirit and the English civil war, Commonwealth and Protectorate

Stuart society was a world on the physical, economic and intellectual move and waiting to move faster if the right engine appeared. The civil wars of the 1640s was that machine.

Representative government is one thing, democracy quite another. That did not come to England in its formal form of a full adult franchise until the twentieth century. But for a brief period in the 1640s a franchise for the House of Commons broader than any used before the late nineteenth century was more than a pipe dream.

The Civil War and its republican aftermath, the Commonwealth and Protectorate, changed English politics utterly. It brought the end of claims by the English crown to Divine Right and absolute monarchy. It promoted the political interests of the aristocracy and gentry as a class. It forced those on the Parliamentary side to exercise power on their own responsibility. It created a political class which saw politics as something they could control rather than merely be part of as an adjunct to the crown. It raised the idea that there should be a law superior to that which even a parliament could pass. It began the constitutional process which resulted in cabinet government. It laid the foundations for the formation of political parties as we know them. In short, it planted the seeds of modern representative government.

Into this new world were cast men whose political philosophies ranged from acceptance of the divine right of kings to unyielding communists. In the middle were those, such as Cromwell, who though socially conservative, realised that power and political interest had shifted not merely from the king to Parliament, but also in some sense to an appreciably broader circle of people than before. Such people were willing to extend the franchise to a degree, although still restricting it to those with property for fear that the poor would dispossess the haves if they had the power to elect and that those with no material stake in the country would have no sense of responsibility and duty.

But that was insufficient from many, especially those who fought on the Parliamentary side in the wars, and something else occurred which was to be even more momentous in the long run. The belief that men generally should only be ruled by those they had themselves elected became a serious political idea.

That the idea should find expression as a serious political idea in the 1640s was, of course, partly a consequence of the disruption of society by civil war, but that was more an opportunity rather than a reason. Innumerable civil wars all over the world have come and gone without the democratic spirit being given rein. What made the England of the time unusual was the long-existing ideal of individual freedom which had reached a high degree of sophistication, including the notion that free debate, the sine qua no of democracy, was of value in itself. Here are two passages which give a taste of the way minds were working in the 1640s. First, John Milton writing in the Areogapitica in the 1640s:

And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose upon the earth, so truth be in the field [and] we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and falsehood grapple; who ever knew truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter…

The second statement comes from the Leveller Richard Overton’s ‘An Arrow against all Tyrants’ (19th October, 1646). It contains as good a refutation of the power of authority without consent over the individual as you will find:

No man hath power over my rights and liberties, and I over no man’s….for by naturall birth all men are equally and alike borne to like propriety, liberty and freedom, and as we are delivered of God by the hand of nature into this world, everyone with a naturall, innate freedom and propriety….even so are we to live, every one equally and alike to enjoy his birthright and privilege…. [no more of which may be alienated] than is conducive to a better being, more safety and freedome….[for] every man by nature being a King, Priest and Prophet in his own naturall circuit and compasse, whereof no second may partake, but by deputation, commission and free consent from him, whose naturall right and freedome it is. [An Arrow against alltyrants].

These were not odd voices crying in the wilderness. The democratic spirit was widespread in the 1640s. By this I do not mean that men were commonly calling for full manhood suffrage, much less the emancipation of women. Even the most democratically advanced of the important groups which evolved during the Civil War, the Levellers, were unclear as to whether those who were deemed dependent in the sense of not being their own masters – servants and almstakers – should be given the vote or, indeed, who counted as a servant or almstaker.

Rather, there was a sense that the social order had been rearranged by the war, that men were on some new ground of equality and had a right to a public voice. In particular, there was a belief that those who had fought for Parliament had won the right to enfranchisement. There was also a widespread feeling, which penetrated all social classes, that the existing franchises (which as we have seen varied greatly) were frequently too narrow and that the towns, particularly those most recently grown to substantial size, were grossly under-represented.

Ideas of social and political equality had, as we have seen, existed long before the Civil War, but never before had large swathes of the masses and the elite seen anything approaching representative democracy as practical politics under any circumstances. The political and social elite of the period after 1640 may have been desperately afraid of a general representation of the English people, but they did not say it was impossible, merely feared its consequences. They may have loathed the idea of every man his own political master but they were forced by circumstances to admit that a Parliament elected on a broad franchise was not a fantasy.

The Putney Debates in 1647 provide a vivid record of the political fervour and mentality of the times. Parliamentary and Army leaders including Cromwell and his son-in-law Henry Ireton, met with a variety of people on what might broadly be called the democratic side. A substantial part of the debate was taken down in shorthand. It is a most intriguing and exciting document, despite its incompleteness and some confused passages. The sheer range of political ideas it displays is impressive. It shows clearly that the 1640s experienced a high degree of sophistication amongst the politically interested class and that this class was drawn from a broad swathe of English society. The ideas run discussed from the monarchical to the unreservedly democratic, epitomised in Col Thomas Rainsborough’s famous words:

… I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to lead, as the richest he; and therefore truly, sir, I think it’s clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do not think that the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that government that he has not had a voice to put himself under… (Col Thomas Rainsborough Puritanism and Liberty The Putney debates p 53).

Democracy, the revolutionary idea

Why was the idea of every man being an elector so revolutionary? There was of course the age-old traditional fear, known to the Greeks, that the masses would dispossess haves if they had control of who was to hold power. But the matter went much deeper than that. The enfranchisement of a wide electorate is perhaps the most fundamental political change a society can undergo. It forces the elite to take note of the masses in a way that no other system does. Even the humblest man must be considered as a man in his own right, a person with a vote and needs and wishes. Those needs and wishes may be heeded and met to varying degrees according to the success an elite has in subverting the representative process through such tricks as international treaties and the development of disciplined political parties, but what the majority needs and wants cannot as a matter of course be ignored completely when each man has a vote.

A form of male-only democracy existed in the ancient world, but it was never inclusive because the citizens were only a part of the population of a Greek civis and the large numbers of unfree men and free men who were not citizens were excluded. The Roman Republic had enjoyed in varying degrees at various times democratic expression through plebeian institutions such as the concilium plebis and offices such as that of tribune. But that was a class based representation which arose to oppose the Patrician class, not a self-conscious representation of individual men.

Received wisdom it may be now, the idea that every man (but not woman then) should have an active voice in choosing those who would represent and govern them was to most people, poor and rich, a truly novel and disturbing concept in the middle of the 17th century.

Elected Mayors

By now all local authorities will have chosen between the two modes of governance allowed them. Either the democratically elected mayor or the “North Korean” style strong council leader.

There is little difference between the two in terms of costs or powers. There are however major differences when it comes down to local democracy.

Hertfordshire English Democrats Supporters Club

Not Left, Not Right, Just English!