Category Archives: Politics

A guide to Anglophobe propaganda

The England-haters use contradictory propaganda tactics in their quest to undermine any attempt to give England a political voice or any other  point of national focus.  They argue that England is too large to be given a parliament because it would be overly dominant in what would be a de facto federal Britain (Ken Clarke). They say that the English cannot be trusted with power because they are a violent people (Jack Straw). They rant that  English nationalism is dangerous (Gisele Stuart). On the obverse of the Anglophobe propaganda coin they argue that there is no such thing as Englishness, no such people as the England, that England is simply a geographical expression (John Prescott).    The two positions: that the English are dangerously nationalistic and there is no such thing as the English cannot both be  sustained, because if the English do not exist they cannot be dangerously nationalistic and if they are dangerously nationalistic they must exist.

The anti-English camp can rely on Britain’s national politicians to decide whether or not England has a Parliament and a government devoted to her sole interests.  Other points of national focus such as England’s dominant role in world history and her sporting teams are more problematic because , unlike an English Parliament and government,  they actually exist. The Anglophobes deal with the history problem with a two-pronged attack.

They ensure that English history is barely taught in schools and such history as is taught is slanted to cast the English (and British) in the role of historical villains, most notably in the case of the Atlantic slave trade, the British Empire  (although little is taught about the Empire beyond  the message that it was a case of colonial exploitation and that it was that exploitation which made England/Britain rich, a claim which at best is simply wrong  – it was the industrial revolution which made England then Britain rich – and at worst a politically motivated lie.  Teaching the history of the Empire in any depth would of course run the risk of those being taught beginning to think what an amazing thing it was for a country  on the edge of Europe to have  created such a political and geographical edifice and from there to begin to think that only an extraordinary people could have managed such a feat.

As for institutions such as England’s national sporting teams,  there is nothing the England-hater likes more than to see such teams being regularly beaten.  To this end virtually unfettered access to England’s top-level sporting  club sides by foreign players and coaches is permitted. This results in fewer and fewer opportunities for English players  even in the most popular English game, football, where less than a third of the players who start in the Premier league each week are English.   This smaller player pool also gives national selectors the excuse to try foreign players who have qualified for England through very lax qualification rules to play in England sides, a fact that drives the Anglophobes to paroxysms of delight for the more than an England side is one only in name, the happier they are for it satisfies their desire to both have a side which is less and less attractive to the English and one which represents their fantasy of a “diverse England”.  For the same reason of “diversity” the Anglophobes also energetically urge the selection of  English born blacks and Asians at the slightest provocation. Let  an Asian take five wickets in a County Championship match or a black score a couple of goals in the Premier league and he immediately becomes in the eyes of the politically correct an England prospect.   

Political correctness is the other great Anglophobe engine.  By making “discrimination” the supposed test of fairness for any situation, the politically correct have made it impossible for any perceived favouring of the English, even if this is merely to extol the merits and accomplishments of the English, to occur without squeals of racism, xenophobia, English arrogance and English nationalism  rising from the white English-haters and their ethnic minority clients. Mass immigration allows this type of mentality unlimited rein.

The Anglophobe desire to dilute Englishness as a concept can be seen in two recent media stories.  A film of the Hobbit is to be made in New Zealand. When Hobbit extras were being selected an Asian woman Naz Humphreys, was initially rejected by the casting manager with the words  ”We are looking for light-skinned people. I’m not trying to be – whatever. It’s just the brief. You’ve got to look like a Hobbit.” (Daily Telegraph 29 Nov 2010). Ms Humphrey’s inanely  commented  ”It’s 2010 and I still can’t believe I’m being discriminated against because I have brown skin.” (ibid).  She then complained to the director Peter Jackson whose spokesman came along with the routine crawling pc response,  describing the casting director’s words as “an incredibly unfortunate error” and  insisting that no one at a senior level would ever “  issue instructions of this kind to the casting crew. All people meeting the age and height requirements are welcome to audition.” (ibid).  The outcome will doubtless be a sprinkling of what Dame Edna Everidge calls “tinted folk” amongst the extras in what is a quintessentially English tale which shock horror! was conceived as being entirely white. How do we know this? Tolkein tells us . Here is his  description of Hobbits: “Their faces were as a rule good-natured rather than beautiful, broad, bright-eyed, red-cheeked with mouths apt to laughter and to eating and drinking.” (From the prologue of the Lord of the Rings.)  It is instructive to compare the politically correct response to an Asian playing a white part with the hostile reaction  to white person playing  Othello when the squeals of politically correct rage are unending.

But we do not have to rely solely on a physical description of Hobbits. Tolkein’s stated intention was to create an English myth:

“I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from  the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story – the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing  splendour from the vast backcloths- which I would dedicate simply to: England; to my country. It would possess the tone and quality that I desired, somewhat cool and clear, be redolent of our ‘air’ (the clime and  soil of the North West, meaning Britain and the hither parts of Europe: not Italy or the Aegean, still less the east), and, while  possessing (if I could achieve it) the fair elsuive beauty that some call Celtic (though it is rarely found in genuine  ancient Celtic things), it should be ‘high’, purged of the gross, and fit for the more adult mind of a land now long steeped in poetry.”

He wished to do this because:  “I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved country: it had no stories of its own, not of the quality that I sought, and found in legends of other lands. There was Greek, and Celtic, and Romance, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Finnish, but nothing English, save impoverished chapbook stuff.”

Englishness is also attacked more obliquely. Take the latest film in the Narnia series, “The Dawn Treader”.  The C S Lewis books from which the film adaptations are made are both very English in character and tone, but they are also built around a resolutely  Christian theology.  England is not a Christian country in the sense of  most of its people being worshipping Christians, but Christianity is woven into its historical and moral fabric.  It is part of the English cultural skeleton.

In the Narnia books represents Christ or if you prefer Christian values though the lion Aslan. Lewis described Aslan as ‘ “ an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question: “What might Christ become like if there really were a world like Narnia?”.’ (Daily Telegraph 04 Dec 2010).

In  “The Dawn Treader”,  Aslan is voiced by the Irish actor Liam Neeson.  After its release Neeson said: “Aslan symbolises a Christlike figure, but he also symbolises for me Mohammed, Buddha and all the great spiritual leaders and prophets over the centuries.

“That’s who Aslan stands for as well as a mentor figure for kids – that’s what he means for me.”  (ibid)

Walter Hooper, Lewis’s former secretary and a trustee of his estate, commented  “It is nothing whatever to do with Islam. Lewis would have simply denied that. He wrote that ‘the whole Narnian story is about Christ’. Lewis could not have been clearer.”  (ibid).  

The intent of comments such as Neeson is to reduce the world to a multi-cultural soup which remove works such as Narnia away from their English roots.

Such behaviour is  not trivial  because these two examples of the deracination of Englishness are just that, examples.  This type of behaviour is commonplace and the steady drip, drip of the propaganda does have an effect. It should be vigorously  resisted on principle.

Important English constitutional documents

The text of each of these important constitutional documents has been posted as pages on England Calling.  The links can be found at the top of the blog.

1. The development of Parliamentary Government

These documents show the gradual reduction of the power of the  monarch and the eventual development from this of Parliament and eventually the shift of the executive power from the monarch to the House of Commons.

1100 The charter of liberties of Henry (also known as the Coronation Charter)

This concerned primarily the relationship between the King and his nobles and foreshadows that part of  Magna Carta  which deals with things such as inheritance and the treatment of widows.

1215 Magna Carta

Apart from the  stating of rights and restrictions on what King John might do in certain situations, this was the first formal attempt to impose a council with powers to not merely advise the King but to restrain him (article 61).  This article was never implemented.

1258 The Provisions of Oxford and  1259 The Provisions of Westminster

These attempted to do what article 61 of Magna Carta  intended,  impose on Henry III a council with power to restrain the King.

1311 The Ordinances of the Lords Ordainers

These  vigorously  reiterated Magna Carta, bound Royal officials to obey the Ordinances and   in article 40 introduced a panel to have power to interfere with the king’s ministers, viz:  “ Item, we ordain that in each parliament one bishop, two earls, and two barons shall be assigned to hear and determine all plaints of those wishing to complain of the king’s ministers, whichever they may be, who have contravened the ordinances aforesaid.”

1628 The Petition of Right

This was a direct challenge to the attempt of Charles I to extend the Royal Prerogative, or more unkindly, to simply assume that he could do anything, in the early years of his reign. The primary complaint  was Charles’  raising of money without Parliamentary approval.  It set in train the events which led eventually to the proroguing of Parliament for 11 years(1629-1640).  The Petition relies heavily on citing documents such as Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest, as well as the usual insistence of the restitution of English liberties.

1641 The Grand Remonstrance

This was another attempt to persuade  Charles I to do Parliament’s will by what had the form of a traditional petition to the King but the content of demands with unspoken menaces .  The King was not blamed personally – the failings were ascribed to a Papist conspiracy – but the tone of the petition was much more robust than the Petition of Right and left no doubt that Parliament was not pleading for Royal indulgence but insisting that Charles did their bidding.

It listed 204 separate points of objection, including a call for the expulsion of all bishops from Parliament and a  Parliamentary veto over Crown appointments. Charles refused to agree to all Parliament’s demands  in December 1641 and the first Civil War began a few months later.

1653 The Instrument of Government

This document  is in content if not formal description a written constitution. It created Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector, stipulated that the office of Lord Protector was not to be hereditary, required regular Parliaments,  and  laid down a mesh of obligations and restrictions on government.

1689 The Bill of Rights

Further formal restrictions on the monarch, a list of rights to protect the liberty of all English men and women, the protection of MPs, regular Parliaments  and the assumption of the English crown to be in practice dependent upon the support of Parliament, thus driving the final nail into the coffin of the  doctrine of the divine right of kings.    This opened the way for the development of the executive in Parliament.

1789 The American Constitution and Bill of Rights

The influence of English constitutional development can be clearly seen in the Constitution and Bill of Rights (the first  ten amendments).  The short lived US Articles of Confederation is  placed below the Constitution and Bill of Rights to allow comparison between the documents.

2. The unification of Britain

1535 The unification of England and Wales

There was no formal Act of Union between England and Wales but the 1535 Act   – “An Acte for Lawes & Justice to be ministred in Wales in like fourme as it is in this Realme” –  was the most important  piece of legislation in the piecemeal process of  administrative incorporation of Wales into England which took place  in the latter years of Henry XIII. The text of  this Act  is in England Calling.

The demand for an English parliament

What demand is there for an English parliament? The British political elite backed up by their stooges in the media like to  pretend that there is no desire amongst the English for a parliament, a proposition which they are strangely unwilling to put to a ballot despite the fact that opinion polls show strong and growing support for the idea, for example,  the ICM for Power April 2010 poll gave this result

Question: England should have its own parliament with similar powers to those of the Scottish Parliament.

Strongly agree: 43%

Slightly agree: 25%

Neither agree nor disagree: 10%

Slightly disagree: 8%

Strongly disagree: 12%

http://riselikelions.co.uk/english-parliament-opinion-polls

The reality is that British  fear the English would welcome a Parliament. That explains the fervour with which the proposition is publicly attacked. No one expends much energy belittling something which does not exist or which is not feared.

There is not of course any great public clamour at present. It would be amazing if there was, because no mainstream political party advocates such a parliament and the national media makes a positive fetish of screaming nationalism or racism whenever one is publicly mooted. The media are also most assiduous in censoring and abusing those in favour of  a parliament. Without mainstream political leadership and access to the mass media, it is next to impossible for a political idea to make headway. Come the rise of a credible political movement  with English interests at heart and things will look very different. The media will not then be able to censor so effectively and there will be a focus for  dissent.

Once political leadership is given, it would be extraordinary if the English did not favour control over their own affairs. The mere fact of granting devolution to Scotland and Wales must heighten and clarify English feelings for an English parliament. The natural outcome of such a splitting of political  responsibilities  will be the growth  of  a resentment by the English of the subsidies currently given to the Celts. From such a resentment will come a desire within England for each country within Britain to finance both the cost of home rule and a proportionate share of general charges  such as defence and the servicing of the national debt.  What the Celts cannot reasonably expect to have for very long is home rule financed by England, for that would be having your political cake and eating it. At present we are in easy economic times. Come a depression  such as we have now and English resentment of money being exported to the Celts will be fuelled. Already there is dissatisfaction with the proposed  cuts in welfare.

There is also the increasingly mean-spirited attitude of the Celts to the English. The extent to which the Scots, the Welsh and Northern Irish Catholics actively wish to leave the UK is debatable. Their widespread resentment of England and all things English is sadly not.  To be English in any part of the UK other than England is to risk utterly gratuitous insult. Those who blithely dismiss anti-English Celtic feeling as being either the product of a small minority of political activists whose importance is unduly inflated by media attention or simply sporting chauvinism – implausible even by the dismal standards of liberal apologia  – are either dullards or wilfully dishonest.

The unpalatable truth is that Celts too often  jealously nurse  an ancestral  resentment of the  English.  This resentment expresses itself from the outright terrorism of the Fenian Irish through a belligerent rudeness found most commonly amongst the working class to a snide middleclass dog-in-the-manger attitude. It is something which has grown  greatly in recent times. The comedian and actor, Billy Connolly,  put the matter succinctly when he said that Scottish antipathy towards the English had gone from  being a music hall joke akin to the rivalry between Yorkshire  and Lancashire to a truly vicious hatred of the English. 1 The English, like any other people, do not respond favourably to habitual, gratuitous and sustained abuse.

But even if the English had at present no great desire for a parliament,  circumstances  make one a  necessity.  If democratic politics means anything,  any responsible British mainstream political party would adopt an English parliament as  a matter of prime policy. They are meant above all to represent the interests of their constituents. In this case the  large majority of the constituents are  English. Manifestly, it is not to the advantage of the majority to subsidize those over whom they have no political control and to have no independent political representation.

As with complaints of English nationalism, the bogus nature of the claim that the English should not have a parliament because they do not clamour for one publicly can be shown by the treatment of the rest of the UK. Support for a Welsh Assembly was muted in the extreme: approximately 25% 2 of the total electorate voted for it and 50% bothered to vote. This did not prevent the government from hastily granting such an assembly. Even in Scotland, only 60% of the electorate voted and a parliament was granted on a YES vote of only 45% of the total electorate. Scarcely rampant enthusiasm.

Celtic hands deep in English taxpayers’ pockets

Let me start with a rock-solid  fact:  England receives considerably  less Treasury funding per capita than any of  the other home countries. This may come as a surprise to many, because the higher  Treasury payments to Scotland get  the vast majority of the media coverage and  this gives the impression that Wales and N Ireland do not benefit in the same way.  In fact, the Barnett Formula applies to all three Celtic home countries.

What is the Formula?  Here is the Treasury‘s description: “Under the Formula, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland receive a population-based proportion of changes in planned spending on comparable United Kingdom Government services in England. Changes in each devolved administration’s spending allocation is determined by the quantity of the change in planned spending in departments of the United Kingdom Government, the extent to which the relevant United Kingdom programme is comparable with the services carried out by each devolved administration and each country’s population proportion.”   

This  means that the funding advantage of the Celts is permanent while the Formula remains in its present form. This is so  for two reasons: there  was a disproportion  built into the Formula  at its creation in the late seventies – higher payments to the Celts than England on the grounds of their relative poverty and the additional costs of servicing sparsely populated regions such as the Highlands –  and  every time funding to England  is increased the Celts receive a proportionate increase based on their respective  populations, that is, they get per capita the same increase as England.   

The differences in public funding are considerable. The latest  per capita Treasury funding figures are for 2008/9:

England     £7971

Scotland     £9538    (£1567 more than England)

Wales          £9162    (£1191 more than England)

 NI               £10,003 (£2032 more than England.)

Translating the per capita figures to the respective populations produces national additional funding  to the Celts in 2008/9 of:

Scotland     (approx population 5.1m) £7.99bn  extra

Wales          (approx population 3m)   £3.57bn  extra

N. Ireland   (approx population 1.8m)  £3.56bn extra

If the per capita funding of the Celts  had been at English levels in 2008/9  UK  government expenditure would have been reduced  by approximately £15bn pa. 

How much have the Celtic nations gained since the Barnett Formula was introduced?   Mike Denham, a former Treasury economist, produced a report for the Taxpayers Alliance in September 2009 which  came to the conclusion that in “ the last two decades (since 1985-86), higher spending in the three devolved territories has cost UK taxpayers a cumulative £200 billion (£102 billion in Scotland; £43 billion in Wales; £57 billion in Northern Ireland). http://tpa.typepad.com/home/files/unequal_shares_the_barnett_formula.pdfhttp://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/TaxPayersAlliance.pdf

But not all government expenditure made inside Britain  or is identifiable. The total identifiable spend on public services for 2008/9 is:

England        £400666bn

Scotland        £ 48023bn

Wales             £ 26777bn

NI                  £  17322bn

Outside UK    £14053bn

Total               £506840bn

In addition there is  the non-identifiable spending and  accounting adjustments  for 2008/9.

Non-identifiable  public expenditure   £79018bn

Accounting  adjustments                      £22500bn

 Total  UK  Expenditure  2008/9         £608359bn

(The identifiable and non-identifiable stats can all be found at http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/pesa09_chapter9.xls – tables 9.1-9.4).

The unidentified expenditure is important because nationalist Celts  complain   that England gets a larger amount proportionately of the expenditure than the Celtic nations. This is a claim with little force because the unidentified expenditure in 2008/9  accounted for less than 8% of the total UK budget spend . The three Celtic  nations have a combined population of 10 million  which is about  16% of the UK population.  16% of the 2008/9  unidentified expenditure is only £12bn.  Even if all the £12bn had been spent in England, an obvious absurdity, the Celts would still be about £3bn to the good on the year ,for they have received £15bn more funding than they would have received if their per capita funding matched that of England.

The funding of the extra Celtic expenditure

Where does the additional  funding for the Celts come from?  In the cases of N Ireland and Wales  it must come from  England because the tax raised in those two  countries is  less than the amount they receive from the Treasury. (Exactly how much tax is raised in each home nation is a little problematical, because it is not possible to assign  all tax revenue to a particular home nation. Nonetheless, it is clear that N Ireland and Wales with their significantly lower average wage and higher unemployment  than England and  Scotland and with no oil and gas revenues  to claim must receive substantially more from the Treasury than they contribute).

The Scottish position is complicated by the Scots nationalist claim that all the North Sea oil and gas tax revenues are  rightfully Scotland’s  and consequently Scotland is  a net contributor to the UK national tax pot.  This is both irrelevant and wrong in fact.

It is irrelevant because while the UK is a unitary state, tax is gathered at the UK level and distributed to finance public spending throughout the UK as a whole. If England was poorer than Scotland,  that would  be an argument for Scotland  subsidising England, because, as Unionist Scottish politicians have long argued,  UK funding should be on need.

The nationalist claim is wrong on two counts. First,  the tax from oil and gas has not covered the additional funding over an extended period and, second,  not  all  the  oil  and gas is  in Scottish waters.

The Taxpayers Alliance  report mentioned previously concluded “North Sea Oil has not funded the Scottish spending gap, despite

Scottish Nationalist claims to the contrary. In only five of the last 23 years have North Sea Oil receipts exceeded the cost of higher funding paid to Scotland. Even with current high oil prices, the income from the Scottish share of North Sea Oil only just covers the spending gap, and North Sea. Oil output is projected to fall by 50 per cent by 2020.”

Hence, even if Scotland had been  granted all the tax revenue from the North Sea for the past 23 years,   they would still have been subsidised very substantially by England over that period.  As for the future, that will see  an ever diminishing tax return from the North Sea even if the price of oil remains high because output is falling rapidly. Should  the oil price falls substantially, as it might well do if alternative energy sources are developed or massive fresh sources of oil such as the Canadian oil shales are exploited,  the North Sea tax receipts could rapidly become a minor consideration for Scotland’s economy – at the low point of  oil prices in the 1990s ($11 a barrel), North Sea receipts were less than £2bn pa.. 

But the oil and gas tax revenue  position is even less promising than that for Scotland,  because  not all the oil and gas is indubitably in Scottish waters.  Much, possibly the large majority of  gas, is in English waters ( Scotsman   North Sea Oil & Gas 13 Dec 2006   Andrew Stuart).  Then there is the question of  territorial waters at the English/Scotland border.  Where there is a boundary between two countries which ends at a coast, international law allows the territorial waters of each country to be determined by extending a line  at the angle at which the land boundary meets the coast. In the case of the boundary between Scotland and England abutting the North Sea the angle is 45 degrees, which means some of the oil and gas fields off the Scottish coast would fall within English territorial waters.

Oil and gas production is self evidently no basis on which to build Scotland’s future.

The differing size of the public sectors

The Celtic countries have dangerously high  proportion of their GDP concentrated on public spending.  While England has a a public sector which is 43% of GDP, Scotland  has one of 56% of GDP,  with Wales posting over 60% and Northern Ireland over 70% (The Sunday Times

January 11, 2009 Scotland on a par with Cuba for state largesse Jason Allardyce)

Bad as these figures are the near future is much bleaker. A recent report  by the Centre for Economics and Business Research projected the Scottish public spending to rise to  67% of GDP by 2012. (Telegraph  Auslan Cramb, Scottish Correspondent 11 Jan 2009). 

The reason why the Celtic countries can sustain such a high level of public spending when their private wealth creating sector is so small is beautifully simple: the subsidy provided by England both openly and covertly.  The Celtic countries GDPs are considerably inflated by this subsidy.

Public spending also has an effect on tax revenues. Income tax and National Insurance deducted from public servants is simply a book-keeping event. It does not add to the tax gathered, merely, moves it from one government ledger to another. The larger the public sector, the smaller the amount of tax actually gathered.

The  costs of  independence

Independence would mean much more than losing the direct English subsidy. A Celtic nation seceding from the UK  would have to (1) take a share proportionate to .their population of the UK national debt (currently £800bn and rising), (2) shoulder the costs of any government contracts (especially PPP and PFI obligations) which are solely for the benefit of the seceding country, (3) establish their owned armed forces, (4) create their own  free standing civil service including a  diplomatic corps and  (5) fund their own benefits system.  In addition, any public sector jobs in the Celtic countries which cater  wholly or partly for English affairs, for example, the administration of English tax and benefits in Scotland and Northern Ireland or the DVLA  centre in Wales  and UK defence  expenditure such as that on Trident in Scotland would return to England.

They would also lose the advantage of being part of  a large nation state with an unparalleled history of meeting its financial obligations. The dire economic condition of Iceland and the Republic of Ireland (RoI) show how easily small countries can be capsized by  irresponsible behaviour by governments and financial institutions. What causes pain in large nations can be mortal with small ones, vide Iceland and the Republic of Ireland.  Imagine what Scotland‘s  position would be if  it had to fund the fall out from RBS and HBOS. The vast sums required would simply overwhelm it.

The Celtic nations might imagine that if they were independent they would be automatically be welcomed with open arms by the EU  which would act as a substitute  for England as a financial protector  of the last resort This is far from certain because the EU  has rather a large number of  financially incontinent members at the moment and is unlikely to welcome others.

Will things change?

There is one thing which would  alter  matters radically is an English Parliament,  but that, sadly,  is not on offer. Labour and the LibDems are committed in practice to the status quo because it suits their  parties who draw much of their representation from seats outside England., while the Tories offer not even an English Grand Committee..

 All that  Cameron has had to say on the matter is that those sitting for Scots seats (not Welsh and N. Irish seats note) should be excluded from votes on issues which only affect England, a concept he has signally failed to define and which Scots MPs  have already said they will  routinely challenge on the ground that anything which affects  England affects Scotland because of the English predominance within the Union.  It is noteworthy that Cameron has recently promised greater powers for Scotland. ( David Cameron in Holyrood powers pledge Simon Johnson Telegraph 14 Feb 2010) which will make change more not less difficult.  

The likelihood is that the next Parliament and  Government will stumble on with  things largely as they are on the devolution front,  That is England’s tragedy, but in the long run the Celtic  nations’  tragedy as well for the longer the inequity of the present situation continues, the greater will be the English backlash when it comes.

Why nothing short of an English Parliament will do

The  political alternatives to an English Parliament are all insufficient,  impractical or unnatural. The Tories supposed  preferred solution is to allow English MPs a veto  on matters which affect only England.  This  is impractical because it ignores the position of the executive. Such a system would mean in effect that no party elected without an English majority could govern. Suppose for example that the party divisions in the Commons were as follows: for the entire UK (659 seats) – Labour 339, Tories 280, others 40:  for England alone (525 seats) – Labour 230, Tories 280, others 15. The UK wide Labour majority would be robbed of any say over the expenditure of approximately three quarters of all public expenditure in the UK. Further complications  would arise if the English component of the Commons was “hung”, that is no parliamentary party had a majority of English seats. The worst possible situation would be a Commons in which the overall House and the English component were both “hung”, but with radically different balances  between the parties. For example, suppose that Labour and the  Libdems had an overall majority in the Commons, but did not have an overall majority between them of English seats.

There would also be the question of who would make policy to present to the Commons. Obviously it could not be a party without an English majority for that would be pointless. It would have to be the party with a majority of English MPs. This would mean in effect an English government within Westminster, which would have more practical power and  patronage that the UK government.

The other alternatives  are  an English Grand Committee, an English Secretary in the cabinet, a reduction in the numbers of non-English MPs and regional English assemblies . An English Grand Committee would solve nothing for of itself for it would decide nothing. The Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Grand Committees were of importance prior to devolution, if at all,  because each of the Celtic parts of the UK had a  cabinet minister with the powers of a viceroy, a budget to meet most of their domestic expenditure under the control of the cabinet minister and  a bureaucracy to carry  out ministerial policy. An English Secretary with similar powers would be an absurdity, because he or she would exercise more power than the prime minister for most of UK government expenditure and patronage would be under his control.

That brings us to regional assemblies. These present  daunting practical difficulties. There is no natural division of regions in England. Even those parts which are most commonly cited as having a strong regional identity – the South West, Yorkshire   and the North East – are far from being homogeneous. There is an emotional division between Cornwall and the rest of the South West.  Yorkshire is extremely diverse, the south with its large cities and very substantial ethnic population having little in common with the North Riding, which is largely rural.  As for the North East, anyone who knows the area will realise that the people are far from seeing themselves as a single entity and often display considerable rivalry, for example between Sunderland and Newcastle. As for the rest  of England, there is no obvious division anywhere. Moreover, traditional regional loyalties are much diluted by internal migration. In Cornwall, for example, less than forty percent of its population was born in the county.  There are local loyalties in England, but they are precisely that, local, being based on neighbourhoods, towns, cities and villages.

If Regional Assemblies were set up, all the complaints which are now levelled at Westminster will be replicated and most probably amplified, because local animosities are greater than national animosities. There will be accusations of remoteness – the likely representative  regions would be physically large – complaints of unequal spending within the  region and disputes about the distribution of centrally raised taxation. There is also the problem of subsidies. The richer regions would come to resent paying for the poorer in the same way that England resents subsidizing the Celts. Eventually this dissatisfaction would be given a political voice. Already there are political stirrings in London about  the amount of money which is redistributed to the rest of the country. For example, on 22/7/99 the London local paper, the Evening Standard, carried an article by the chair of the Association of London Government, Toby Harris. It began: ” For too long the taxpayers of England have been bank-rolling the rest of  the UK. Too much of the tax revenues generated by our households and businesses are recycled to the supposedly more needy regions of the UK, while too many of the capital’s own needs go unmet.” As London has an economy larger than Sweden’s, a reduction in her willingness to pay tax would have very serious implications for the poorer parts of England. Everything I have said about the problems facing the Celts  within a federal UK apply to English  Regional government. Regional Assemblies would lose whatever appeal they might have once it became clear that subsidies from the wealthier parts of England might cease or be reduced.

There is also the question of what powers Regional Assemblies could  be reasonably given. The natural tendency for Westminster will be to give them as little power as possible, indeed to produce bodies which are little more than local councils. Yet this will be easier said than done. The Scottish Parliament controls most domestic matters other than major tax raising. Even the Welsh Assembly deals with  a great deal of domestic legislation – those who doubt this should tune into Welsh Questions in the Commons. Time and again questions are rejected because they deal with matters now outside Westminster’s competence. It is difficult to see how English Regional Assemblies could be given anything less than the Welsh and improbable that they could be denied that which has been granted to Scotland. Indeed, it is improbable that the Welsh will be satisfied with a lesser status for long. This has profound implications. That Scotland or Wales may institute new laws which differ from those in England is one thing because they can claim to be a national governing entity: for English Regions to do the same quite another. To take an example, we could end up with different laws on abortion in the South West and Yorkshire.  Even  more problematic would be regional differences with commercial implications, such as different rates of tax or safety regulations. In effect, we would have not one system of English law but many.

Reducing the number of non-English members at Westminster is a non-solution. It is true that there is an imbalance which should be addressed because seats in England are on average substantially larger than those in the rest of the UK , for example, Welsh seats are around 14,000 electors short of those in England. . However, even if the imbalance is remedied, it would  not address Tam Dayell’s  West Lothian Question, namely why should non-English members vote on English matters when English MPs may not vote on Celtic matters?.

There are those who argue that no change is necessary because English MPs are always in the majority. This argument  is bogus because it ignores the reality of party discipline. It is highly improbable that English MPs of any political colour would regularly breach three line whips.  Most particularly, it is difficult to imagine Labour and Tory MPs sitting for English seats combining to defeat a Labour government. But the difficulty goes beyond the obvious. Any future Labour or LibLab coalition government would probably be substantially dependent on non-English seats.  Consequently,  such  a government would never introduce policies driven solely by what is best for England. Good examples of such behaviour  already exist in the present Labour government’s failure to take action to reduce either the number of Celtic seats in the Commons or the subsidies paid by England to the Celts.  The suggestion is a piece of casuistry worthy of a sixteenth century Jesuit.

Regional assemblies may appear to be off the political agenda at present but there are three reasons why they may reappear. The most potent is the fact they are the Euroenthusiasts’ preferred means of preventing England from realising her political potential . The groundwork for this has already been  done through the institution of eight Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) and the creation of unelected  consultative bodies which roughly correspond to the physical areas covered by the RDAs. Interestingly, these divisions of England correspond to the English regions planned by the EU. It is true that the coalition government is committed to abolishing the RDAs, but it is a fair bet that something similar will take their place.

The second reason why regional assemblies may again become a live political option is that it suits both Labour and the LibDems, both of whom are less than dominant in England at national level.  They would see such assemblies as a means of building support and power in England. That would be particularly so if some form of PR was used to elect the assemblies. It would also have the advantage from their point of view of weakening England as a political force by politically Balkanising it.

The third reason is that should the Alternative Vote become the system for electing the Commons Britain would be in a situation of  more or less permanent coalition, with at least one of the coalition partners being in favour of regional assemblies. The fourth reason is that regional assemblies would kick the West Lothian question into touch for a while at least as the English were distracted by the novelty of the new assemblies. The fifth reason is the ambition of would-be politicians of any stamp  who will see new opportunities to get their feet under the political table and their snouts into the taxpayer filled trough.

Although people do not generally realise it, the process of English political regionalisation has already begun with the mayor and assembly for London . As London and its environs has an substantially larger economy than Scotland this is of considerable significance.

Regional assemblies in England would not utterly destroy English national feeling,  but they would  lead to the  development of regional political classes which would,  out of self-interest or ideological conviction, actively work to create bogus divisions within England. In the absence of a national English parliament, such regional voices would be difficult to counter.

Of what has England to be ashamed?

Of what has England to be ashamed? There are wars of aggression such as the Hundred Years War, but these are the common currency of history. As with the history of all peoples there are massacres, such as that of approximately 150 Jews at York in 1190 or the several thousand deaths  which followed the storming of Drogheda in Ireland in 1649 , but they are precious few in England or abroad. Moreover, in the case of Drogheda, the killing took place after the town had refused to surrender and the convention at the time was that the lives of those who had refused to surrender were forfeit if the victor choose to take them.  There is nothing to compare with the mass killings of men such as Genghis Khan or  the frightful slaughter of the  Thirty Years’ War.

England’s immediate Celtic neighbours have had on the whole a good deal from their association with England. Those Celts who imagine that England has exploited their countries in a peculiarly gratuitous, vicious and avaricious fashion should look at the general historical (and, indeed, present) fate of small countries faced with powerful neighbours. That general fate includes occupation by force, the reduction of conquered populations to a servile state, wholesale  depredations, chronic legal disadvantages, the refusal of free trade – even with the occupying power, the absolute  exclusion from government and, at the worst, genocide.

Compare such behaviour with that of England’s towards Scotland, Ireland and Wales for the past century and a half  (at least). During that time all Celts have shared absolute legal equality with Englishmen, have enjoyed the immense  benefits of free trade with England, had an inside track to the first industrial revolution, have been able to export their surplus populations to England, have received greater parliamentary representation than the English, have been given the privilege of national parliaments, a privilege denied England as I write,  have benefited – particularly since 1945 – from preferential government spending paid for by the English, and, most important for small peoples, have received the protection of the British state which would be nothing without England. As for the Irish Famine, that most prized price of victimhood for Irish nationalists, it was caused not by deliberate British policy but by the administrative inadequacy of the British state to deal with such a calamity.  

In truth, it is a very long time since the English behaved with gratuitous harshness or deliberate unfairness to even Ireland, despite the fact that Fenians remain to this day a source of provocation which would bring condign punishment in most parts of the world as it is now and which would have guaranteed such punishment everywhere at any time in history prior to the nineteenth century. If Celts had an ounce of intellectual and emotional honesty they would stand amazed at England’s moderation not shout their unreasoning hatred or bleat imagined wrongs.

As for the British Empire, although it is an obnoxious thing to be a subject people, it is reasonable to consider the condition of those who became imperial subjects before they were part of the empire. Apart from those taken forcibly to the colonies as slaves, all the native populations who came within the Empire lived either in despotic states such as those in the Indian sub-continent or in tribal societies where they were subject to the commonly brutal conditions of such a life. It is also true that many lived under foreign rule before they became subjects of the British Crown, most notably those living with the Mughal Empire. The fact that Britain was able to establish the Raj in India points to the fact that the native populations were far from happy with their rulers before Britain took control. That control was only established, as happened with the Spaniards and Portuguese in America, because sufficient of the native population was willing to support the would-be colonial powers.

On the plus side, Britain brought much of value to  the Empire. Playing the “What did the Romans ever do for us” game, Britain can point to the rule of law, parliamentary government, large scale administration, modern armed forces, access to European intellectual life, organised education and modern technology.  Most importantly, being ruled by Britain meant having an inside track to modernity. It is also true that from the second half of the 19th century official British imperial policy was predicated on the principle of putting the interests of the native population first.

To modern eyes the slave trade is the grossest blot on England’s name. I am repelled by both the idea of slavery and the particular cruelties of the Triangular Trade, but then I am a man living in an advanced industrial state with all the conditioning and prejudices that implies. Placed in the context of human history it looks rather different.  Forms of legal and customary bondage from full blown chattel slavery where the slave is simply property to the indentured  labourer who binds himself to an employer for a legally set period, have been the norm rather than the exception everywhere at every time. Where formal bondage did not exist, informal bondage through economic circumstances has been the fate of most men and women who have ever lived.

It should also be remembered that the trade could not have been carried on without the cooperation of native Africans.  Until the 19th Century European involvement in Africa was very limited, being mainly restricted to coastal settlements, many of which were no more than forts. Had the African not been so eager to sell his fellows, the trade could not have existed. The balance of power was unarguably with the African slavers not the European buyers.

England also made amends. Not only did Britain abolish the slave trade much earlier than most, she maintained an  antislavery patrol for more than sixty years in the Atlantic. In the 1830s, She also ended slavery in the Empire at the immense cost to the British taxpayer of £20 million in compensation payments to slave owners at a time when UK GDP was only £453 million (http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/).                

Put in the context of contemporary behaviour, at any point in her history, England’s behaviour,  both domestically and abroad, will, at worst, stand comparison with that of any other nation or state and, at best, be seen as morally superior at most times and places.  A first rate example of this is the fact that England was the first state to provide general support for the poor by the Poor Law Acts of 1597 and 1601. The operation of the Poor Laws may have bad reputation today, but they did provide the means of subsistence at a time when the common European experience was to depend on private charity or starve.

B>gg?r The English?

Westminster is in a mess.The Economy is a mess. The war in Afghanistan is a mess. And British politicians in the main parties do what comes naturally. They dump on the English.

So the heavenly duo (they come from up there after all, don’t they) have come up with the bright idea of selling off English Assets. Gordo’s list of quick sales; the Dartford tunnel, the Chanel tunnel, the Tote and so on are all English. When he says that he will be asking local authorities to make sales of their assets he is referring only to English local authorities.

Note that he will not be selling off Scottish assets, even though the two worst offenders in the current Banking crisis are Scottish Banks. That is because Gordo, when he worked on the legislation to form the Scottish Parliament and give the Scots Home Rule, made quite sure that it completely protected the assets of Scottish local authorities so that Westminster could not direct the sale of their assets as he can those of English local authorities.

This means that every school playing field, every public space, every local airport, the pride and joy of the local people as well as a source of employment will be up for sale, quite possibly to foreign European companies flush with back-handers from their governments. And are they going to employ local workers or will they bus in their own people?

However when it comes to preserving their own power and egos it isn’t just plundering English assets that the heavenly duo are so good at. They also deal a good hand in cynicism. On Wednesday  14th October 2009 the government announced a plan to spend £12 million in 130 white working class wards. Where is this money coming from? From the £16 billion of English Assets. In other words the Labour government intends to buy votes in next years general election by returning to the English less than 0.1% of the money it gets from selling their playing fields, leisure centres and employment opportunities.

The Tories are no better. Despite the fact that their web site calls them the English Tories their leader, David Cameron, is on record as saying “I do not want to be the Prime Minister of England”. Well Mr Cameron, the Leader of an English Parliament would be the First Minster, as in the Scottish Parliament. Only someone totally uninterested in England and the English could make that mistake.

The best that can be said about the Liberal Democrats is that they simply ignore England.

Only a few days ago the Sun newspaper transferred its allegiance to the Tories from Labour. Gordo’s response was proudly to  announce that it wasn’t the Sun that would decide who ruled at the next general election, it would be the British People.

Wrong, Gordo! it is the English people, as always, who will decide who rules next.

Will they vote for Gordo, the financial genius who sold off more than half of England’s gold at $275 and ounce or $3.5 billion when at today’s price of  $1063 per ounce it would have been worth $13.5 billion, the financial genius who claimed to have put an end to booms and busts, the financial genius who claimed to have saved the world?

Will they vote for Cameron, surely he must be a Scot, who cares so little for the English that he has stated that he doesn’t even want to lead them?

Will they vote for Nick Clegg, a man indifferent to the aspirations of the English?

Or will they vote for a party that will put England first, that wants England to be a nation once again, a party that cares for England, English jobs and English assets?

Only time will tell!

How The Rich And Powerful Scam The Rules For Their Own Benefit?

What if the Law and the Constitution enshrine something that we know is morally wrong? What then?

In the Government of the People, by the People and for the People this question is  important, it is difficult and, in its propensity to bring about civil strife, it is dangerous. Abraham Lincoln asked this question and struggled with it for many years. His simple answer, that  no individual or community had the right to do what was wrong led to his selection as the Republican candidate for President. And as they say, “All the rest is history”.

For the rest of us the issues are never so great, but the result, when we fail to adopt Lincoln’s answer, can be just as significant in our lives as well as in the lives of others.

Two examples of a moral failure in this respect have recently been before us in the news. The first is the matter of MP’s expenses and the second was a the case of a man sent to a private clinic, by the National Health Service, for an everyday knee operation who died because the clinic had no blood supplies on hand.

In both cases the defence is the same, “I/We followed the rules. I/We are blameless”. Well, not if you are Mr Lincoln, you’re not, say the rest of us!

It must surely be obvious to the parties in cases such as these that if harm results then the excuse of following the rules is not admissible. The degree of accountability  depends on the degree of the error and the level of knowledge and responsibility at which the parties operate.

In the case of the MPs there had already been concern raised within the House.  The failure to recognise that, helping yourself liberally from the public purse is morally wrong, whatever the rules may be, is worrying. It points to our premiere legislative body consisting of people who, in the main, appear to be unable to make moral decisions. And if they cannot do this then they are not fit to rule us.

The case of the clinic is perhaps worse in that a man died, perhaps because of the clinic’s failure to put difficult moral questions to itself. The answer, to the reporter’s question that surely it should be obvious that if an operation is being carried out then blood may be required as a matter of extreme urgency, of “We followed all the rules”  is clearly a failure of moral sense. We expect the professionals who treat us to do so in a safe manner having regard to all the unfavourable events likely to occur and to the importance of the outcome. Surely death as an outcome is important in any moral society?

The willingness of what appears to be many important people, organisations and their leaders to act at all time, without respect to other peoples safety or their property, in other words to act without morality, is a cancer in the side of our present society. A cancer moreover inserted by those who far too frequently have been heard to make harsh judgments on other people, often poorer and less well educated than themselves.

The answer is to change the law, if indeed the law needs changing. We all need to know that the law requires of us to carry out, when the health and safety of others or their property is in question, at the level of competence it is reasonable to expect from us, an analysis of the  importance of outcomes and of their likelihood of occurrence irrespective of any rules or contractual agreements in force. If for some reason we do not like the answers or cannot implement them  then we should be expected to take the moral decision and not go ahead with what was intended.

In the meantime, whilst we wait for the civil authorities to make their minds up about wrong doing, we should surely expect those who have failed this moral test to do the moral thing. Apologise and make recompense!