Category Archives: English

What the nation state owes you and what you owe the nation state

In its purest form liberal internationalism holds that a man may live anywhere he wishes and owe no particular allegiance to any people, place or society. In theory, although not in practice, it is a an imagined universe in which the individual is supreme in his atomistic and egotistical desires and the nation state no more than an administrative adjunct to his life.(In practice, the liberal internationalist says that you may behave as you wish provided your behaviour meets politically correct “absolute” values.)

If liberal internationalism was merely the eccentric philosophy of those without power it would be no more than another utopian curiosity. As it is the present ideology of Western elites it is a positive danger. Through their control of politics and the media they have sufficiently translated into reality this fantasy of the world as a place of undifferentiated settlement to the point where it has severely disrupted every Western society.

The engines of the disruption have been immigration on a grand scale of peoples unwilling or unable to assimilate, “globalisation” of trade and industry and an elite propaganda regime, totalitarian in its scope and intent, designed to decry native Western cultures and de-culturalise native Western populations by denying them knowledge of their past, whilst promoting the interests and cultures of the immigrant. To these ends Western elites have abused their control of the law, the media, public policy and state education. They have created a situation whereby no one may hold a public position without at least paying lip-service to their creed.

Why is liberal internationalism is so dangerous?

The liberal internationalist view of the world is vicious because it is completely at variance with the social instincts of Man, which invariably express themselves in some form of tribal organisation, whether that be a band of fifty people roaming the plains of Africa 10,000 years ago or a modern nation of many millions. Men have an absolute need to feel part of a community with which they identify naturally and ideally wish to possess a territory which they can call their own. That is why empires invariably decay and nations are virtually indestructible, short of an act of genocide.

In short, treating a country simply as no more than a convenient place of residence is a short and certain route for social disaster. Ultimately a nation state only exists because its inhabitants both have a shared sense of identity (the nation) and a willingness to defend the interests of the country, including in extremis fighting for the country. Destroy that and you destroy the integrity of the nation state. The ultimate consequence of no sense of place is no place.

The value of the nation state

A homogeneous society, a true nation, engenders a natural loyalty amongst its members: a society in which ethnic groups compete for space, the type of “multicultural heaven” envisaged by the liberal elite, results invariably in a first loyalty to the ethnic group.

Beyond the natural sympathy and cultural sharing which glues together a nation, the nation state is also the only social vehicle for delivering a degree of democratic control to large societies. Such democratic control in turn allows the nation to retain its integrity by such measures as restricting immigration.

Citizenship and nationality

As a society becomes ethnically fragmented it loses its natural ballast. Citizenship becomes the only thing which liberal internationalist governments can hold to as a unifying force. But citizenship is a conscious human construct and is no substitute for the natural loyalty engendered by the tribal loyalties of the true nation.

Citizenship and nationality are often treated as synonymous. This is an error. A man or woman may be both a citizen of a state and a member of a nation. But he or she can equally be a citizen without belonging to either the nation or nations that comprise a state and may be a member of a nation which either has no legal status within the state, for example English, or is a nation situated outside the state of which the person is a citizen, for example, an Indian immigrant to the USA or Britain.

The cartoonist Ronald Searle expressed the difference during a recent interview. Searle has lived in France since the 1960s, yet when asked whether he would take French citizenship if it was the only way of remaining in France he replied: “If they said you can only stay in France if you become French I’d say, ‘Not possible’. It’s like saying P G Wodehouse should be French. You can’t simply put on a nationality like a jacket. I remain extremely English whatever happens.” (Sunday Telegraph 28 9 03)

The nation is the totality of individuals within a given shared community, the natural sociological expression of the individual will. Citizenship is merely a legal ticket to exist and reside in a place.

Why the nation state should favour its own members

It makes moral and prudential sense for any society to both secure the loyalty of its people with guaranteed privileges which are not extended to foreigners and to reduce the opportunities for social friction. In a free society where the individual has to decide to give his or her loyalty, the utility of such privileges is much greater than it would be in a dictatorship. In a democracy it makes not merely sense for a government to secure and better the condition of its people, it is a necessity.

How loyalty is destroyed

The modern industrialised nation state that is Britain confers great privileges on those who are part of it. It provides a secure environment based on the rule of law, a decent material standard of living, healthcare and education free at the point of use and, in the form of the welfare state, a safety net for those who fall on hard times. It is, in short, a very efficient life support system which most people in the world are desperate to become part of by hook or by crook.

But these benefits have been steadily eroded over the past fifty years by mass immigration, the movement towards free trade and the growth of international treaty obligations, most notably Britain’s membership of the European Union. The effect of these changes has been to increase social discord by (1) introducing foreign and unassimilated elements into British society, (2) exporting jobs and (3) passing effective political control on many major issues from Westminster to bodies such as Nato and the WT0 or the EU Commission. The nation state has failed the British in these matters. Thus, we can see that the state owes more to its citizens than such things as maintaining order, defending its borders and providing welfare provision. It must provide the social structure within which they can be achieved.

If either immigration or the export of jobs – both under the control of governments – make a man redundant or force down his wages, the affected individual can scarcely be blamed for feeling that his government is not merely failing to represent his interests but is actively damaging them. What incentive does that man have to feel an absolute commitment to his own society? He will be bound by his ties of family, friendship and cultural imprinting, but what he will not feel is any sense that he is something more than a human atom within a society which has no particular interest in him at best and is actively hostile to him at worst. This will produce ever greater selfishness and unwillingness to engage in social support because instead of the welfare state providing help for those with whom a natural affinity exist, it begins to be seen as simply a feeder of competing ethnic groups. Where, as often happens, ethnic minority groups are seen to be taking more than a proportionate share of the welfare or, in the case of adult immigrants, receiving welfare when they have contributed nothing the resentment is greatly increased.

More fundamentally, if an elite constantly tells the mass of people that their culture is worthless and their history shameful, whilst constantly promoting the interests of immigrant peoples and cultures, it inevitably has the effect of creating disorientation in the mass of people and weakens national cohesion.

What the Nation State owes its members

The primary duty a democratic government owes is to those it represents, that is those who vote it into power and their dependent children. If the interests of these clash with the interests of foreigners, whether resident in the country or abroad, the interests of foreigners must fall.

How is a democratic government to meet this duty? It must strive to create the circumstances in which a society is most prosperous, peaceful and secure, both physically and psychologically. I suggest these are the ideal requirements:

– To maintain a clear distinction between natives and foreigners. That requires a strict control of immigration.

– To protect the industry and commerce of the country sufficiently to both provide employment and for the strategic reasons of self- sufficiency in vital goods and services.

– To spend taxes in ways which only benefit the country and its members directly.

– To ensure the maintenance of democratic institutions, in particular by avoiding entanglement in international treaties which emasculate democratic control.

– To facilitate the promotion of a knowledge of the country’s culture and history above all other cultures and histories.

What the individual owes the nation state

Conversely, there are ideal requirements of the member of the nation state, viz:

– The individual should feel himself to be a natural member of the nation.

– The individual should not see himself as part of a group which owes its first loyalty to that group rather than the nation.

– The individual should give preference to his fellow countrymen.

– The individual should defend his nation against foreign abuse.

– The individual should be willing to sacrifice his own interests where these clash fundamentally with the interests of the nation – most dramatically he should be willing to fight and die if the homeland is attacked.

– Generally, the individual should always act to protect the interest of the nation. The interest of the nation can be normally determined by simply reducing any given national choice to the analogy of a personal choice in the individual’s private life and asking what the individual would do in such circumstances.

An ideal to which to aspire

The obligations of government and the individual described above are the ideal for the security of a nation state. Of course, no society will ever achieve such perfection, but the nearer a society approaches the ideal the more secure the society and the happier its members will be. Conversely, the further it strays from it, the closer to civil war and fragmentation will come.

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.

Cameron’s “British values” enshrine political correctness

David Cameron’s definition of Britishness contains within it the three central tenets of political correctness: racial equality, gay rights and sexual equality. That means anyone, indigenous or immigrant, who does not agree with political correctness is, in NuTory Boy’s eyes,not British.

This is decidedly sinister. It means that the official Government position now makes illegitimate those who, for example, wish to object to mass immigration on the grounds that it is a surreptitious form of conquest, anyone who refuses to accept that civil partnership is equal to marriage or those who reject the idea that sexual equality means there must be women in equal numbers to men in every form of employment.

Cameron is also being disingenuous. Just before the last general election the Equalities Act 2010 (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/4) was passed with all-party support. The Act has jurisdiction over what are termed ”protected characteristics” . These are: age; disability; gender reassignment; marriage and civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sex; sexual orientation

The key characteristics are “race” and “religion or belief”. The whole apparatus of UK public service (including schools) are required to “protect” all the categories. “Protecting” race and religion or belief means in practise that multiculturalism will be preserved. To take one example, it will be impossible to teach British history honestly because it would be deemed either insulting or excluding to ethnic minorities. Disability and marriage also offer opportunities for the reinforcement of multiculturalism.

The cultural fragmentation of the UK also has the devolution dimension. Where do ethnic minorities actually stand in a devolved UK? German-born Labour MP Gisela Stuart writing in online magazine openDemocracy.net in December 2005 described the problem, whilst also gaily insulting the English: “It has only been in the last five years or so that I have heard people in my constituency telling me ‘I am not British – I am English’. That worries me.

“British identity is based on and anchored in its political and legal institutions and this enables it to take in new entrants more easily than it would be if being a member of a nation were to be defined by blood.

“But a democratic polity will only work if citizens’ identification is with the community as a whole, or at least with the shared process, which overrides their loyalty to a segment.” (Quoted in Birmingham Mail 18 11 2005)

The problem for people such as Ms Stuart is that Britishness was destroyed by devolution. There is no longer a comfortable overarching label of British under which everyone can be placed. All that is left for the people of Britain to cling to are emotional ethnicities.

The situation is most acute in England because that is where the majority of ethnic minorities in the UK live. There is hard evidence that ethnic minorities in England routinely do not think of themselves as English. In 2005, the CRE commissioned from the research firm Ethnos a poll designed to discover how Britons identify themselves (http://www.cre.gov.uk/downloads/what_is_britishness.pdf). A couple of passages are particularly telling:

“In England, white English participants identified themselves as English first and British second, while ethnic minority participants perceived themselves as British. None identified as English, which they saw as meaning exclusively white people.”

“Britishness was associated with great historical and political achievements, but only amongst white participants (whether from England, Scotland or Wales), not those from ethnic minority backgrounds”.

This tells us two things: ethnic minorities in England routinely reject the idea of Englishness and ethnic minorities everywhere in the UK have no identification with Britain’s past. So much for Britishness.

The great anti-patriot

The news that the singer-songwriter (I use the term with extreme laity) Billy Bragg has been the subject of mail which has the temerity to point out the disjunction between his ostensible political views and his manner of life. Headed “The Village Idiot” the letter ran:

‘ Billy “BIGHEAD” Bragg can orate as long as he likes about his “England” but the message that comes from this bilious Marxist singer is that he has shunned the poor embattled English he was raised amongst to bask in celebrity style in Burton Bradstock overlooking the English Channel.

In his own words the only ‘person of colour’ in the area is the Asian who runs the local garage/store but Bragg is always harping onto people not to vote BNP.

“ Billy ‘socialist leftist marxist’ moved out of multicultural London years ago to live in a mansion in Dorset which is just about the whitest part of England.

I would say that the man is a “hypocrite” to put it mildly.

Racial attacks on white people in England (by mostly males) are now reaching something like epidemic proportions , and Billy “BIGHEAD” wants this for Dorset.

He is a sad, sad apology for an Englishman. He even wants to pull down the Union Jack.

Bragg is useless as a singer and as a man, you traitor.’ (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1344406/Musician-Billy-Bragg-victim-malicious-hate-mail-attack-Dorset-village.html)

Not the most fluent or elegant piece of writing, but it does make its point which is an increasingly potent one, namely, that those who incessantly bang on about the joys of diversity invariably show a remarkable aversion to being one of its beneficiaries in their own lives.

Those unfamiliar with Bragg need a few facts about him to understand what the writer of the anonymous note is getting at. Bragg has made his living and reputation as a political anima through his songs and ordinary political campaigning. He promotes both the idea of an England of allcomers – a subject he deals with in his book The Progressive Patriot (2006) – and traditional socialist values wrapped in what he fondly but mistakenly imagines are the roots of English socialism, namely, the Levellers who arose during the English civil. (He is mistaken because the Levellers were fighting not for economic but political change, for the right of most but not all men to vote with women completely left out of the enfranchisement equation. The Levellers far from wanting socialist measures, developed ideas which foreshadowed much of the political thinking of Locke, the arch political and economic individualist. )

Bragg’s socialism came before his “ progressive patriotism” . He backed the miners’ strike of 1984 and became part of Red Wedge, a group of musicians who campaigned against Thatcher in the 1987 general election. His interest in what it is to be an English patriot is a relative latecomer with his first serious public foray being his 2002 album England, Half-English. Bragg’s idea of what constitutes both patriotism and Englishness is distinctly rum, for what he calls his patriotism is a recipe for dissolving Englishness which in turn would render the idea of patriotism in an English context an absurdity.

What does Bragg mean by Englishness? Essentially whatever it evolves into. He religiously promotes the idea of England as being a land of immigrants, even citing the expression “Anglo-Saxon” as evidence of mixed roots. Of course if you go back far enough all nations are the creation of migrants., but that misses the point of nations, namely, they are the tribe writ large. A nation only exists when all those enclosed within it see themselves as belonging to it and are accepted by the others in the nation as belonging. What Bragg advocates is the inclusion within Englishness of any migrant from any background regardless of whether or not they can realistically be accepted as English or think of themselves as English. The logical end of Bragg’s mentality is that it would not matter if not a single person who would now be considered unequivocally English existed provided there was a land called England filled by whomsoever. This stands to patriotism as anti-matter stands to matter.

In his “anti-racist” crusade Bragg advocates the “re-claiming” of symbols of English patriotism such as the cross of St George from what he fondly imagines is “the extreme Right”. As polls relating to immigration and multiculturalism invariably show large majorities opposed at some level to both, to say that those expressing concern about the way this is changing England represent “the extreme Right” is clearly nonsense. All Bragg is encountering is the entirely natural human resistance to the invasion of territory by those who do not belong to the nation.

Back to the complaints made by the anonymous writer. It is very odd indeed that someone who professes such a love of diversity should choose to live in a Dorset village which is probably as white and English a place you could find these days. If diversity is such a wonderful thing why is Bragg not choosing to live amongst it? Tellingly, he has not moved to a village in the county of birth and upbringing, Essex. Parts of Essex are rural, so he could have found similar physical surroundings to where he now lives. The difference with Dorset of course is that Essex is rapidly being filled with immigrants. Writing in the Telegraph (12 4 2010) Ed West got to the heart of Bragg’s unspoken situation:

‘Laban Tall has an interesting take on it, pointing out that Bragg now echoes the revised Labour policy. The official line used to be “multiculturalism is great for everyone”; these days it’s “we realise now that mass immigration is actually pretty terrible for the poor, but we’ve gone this far, so you’ll have to put it up with it; or vote for a party founded by a man who used to spend his weekends dressing up in brown shirt uniforms.”

‘Many people considering that party are not, I suspect, very keen on “sending back” their ethnic friends, but on stopping the Government importing any more people. And they know Labour are not going to stop now – they’re too much in thrall to the race relations industry and too many MPs rely on ethnic minority votes. They’ve invested too much in mass immigration. To admit mistakes would be like a cult member entertaining the possibility that the guy who says we’re all going to be beamed up to heaven in a spaceship is not, after all, the reincarnation of Jesus, but a mental case.’ (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100033896/billy-bragg-battles-the-bnp-over-englands-soul-%E2%80%93-but-does-it-have-one-any-more/)

Bragg is doubly a hypocrite. Not only does he shun the joy of diversity, but he lives the life of a rich man. His house in Dorset is large with a fair sized garden. The Daily Telegraph value it at £1.5 million. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/music-news/8241614/Hate-mail-urges-villagers-to-drive-out-Billy-Bragg.html) . It is more than a little difficult to see how someone living the life of a rich man can really understand what it is to be poor, especially poor, white and English in areas of heavy immigrant settlement. He has a further problem. Someone who proclaims themselves to be a socialist is faced with the moral question of why should I have so much when so many have so little? How does that fit into the socialist dictum of “ to each according to his need”? Frankly, it cannot. Moreover, Bragg makes a great thing of personal freedom. As my old history teacher never ceased saying “Money is power”. That being so, equality of material circumstances ought to be his aim.

Material success brings a change in mentality and experience. Bragg has gone from being one of the have-nots to the haves. His position is now essentially that of patron/leftist celebrity not the grass roots “I’m defending myself and my class” red radical he appears to still imagine himself to be.

English education, immigration and political correctness

What allowed progressive education to go from being a primarily a method and philosophy of teaching to a potent political ideology was mass immigration. Originally the progressive view of immigrants was that they must be assimilated into English society. When it became clear by the mid-seventies that assimilation was not going to work, progressive educationalists rapidly switched to the doctrine which became multiculturalism. By the early eighties assimilation was a dirty word in educational circles. The educationalists were followed by the politicians.

Multiculturalism was embraced as a mainstream political ideal in the late 1970s because politicians did not know what to do about mass coloured immigration and its consequences. Both Labour and the Conservatives initially promoted the French solution to immigration – make them black and brown Britons. But by the end of the seventies integration was deemed by our political elite to be a failure at best and oppression at worst. Multiculturalism was its successor. Once it became the new official doctrine, the many eager Anglophobic and internationalist hands in English education and the mass media were free to give reign to their natural instincts.

The idea behind multiculturalism is that it squares the immigration circle of unassimilable immigrants and a resentful native mass by saying everyone may live in their own cultural bubble. In practice, this required the suppression of British interests and the silencing of British dissidents on one side and the promotion of minority cultures and the privileging of the immigrant minorities on the other.

English history and culture ceased to be taught in schools in any meaningful way. Where it was part of the curriculum, it was the subject of ever increasing denigration. Politicians of all parties gradually became more and more reluctant to speak out for the interests of the native Briton. Laws were passed – most notably the Race Relations Act of 1976 and the Public Order Act of 1986 – potentially making it an offence to tell the unvarnished truth about race and immigration or make any telling criticism of any minority ethnic group.

As the new elite doctrine of multiculturalism became established, it became necessary not only for the elite themselves to espouse it but anyone who worked for the elite. Any public servant, any member of the media, any senior businessman, an professional person, was brought within the net. This produced the situation we have today whereby no honest speaking about any subject within the pc ambit is allowed in public without the person being shouted down and in all probability becoming either a non-person or forced to make a public “confession” reminiscent of those during the Cultural Revolution.

Most importantly, multiculturalism allowed the progressives to portray Englishness as just one competing culture amongst many, all of which were equally “valid”. This had two primary implications: other cultures should be given equal consideration within the curriculum and any promotion of one culture over another was illegitimate. In fact, these implications were never followed through. Practicality meant that the multiplicity of cultures in England could not all have equal billing, while the promotion English culture was deemed to be “oppressive” both because they are the dominant “ethnic” group in England and because of their “evil” imperial, slave-trading past. The educationalists’ cut the Gordian knot by treating the inclusion of items of any culture other than English within the school curriculum as a “good”, while insisting that references to England and her people should always be derogatory and guilt inducing.

The better part of a quarter of century of this policy has resulted in English education system being successfully subverted. English cultural content has been marvellously diluted and denigration of the English is routine bar one thing: the liberal bigot invariably lauds the toleration of the English towards immigrants, a claim at odds both with historical reality and the liberal’s general claim that England is a peculiarly wicked and undeserving place.

English education has officially become not a way of enlarging the mind and opening up intellectual doors, but merely a means to produce “good” politically correct citizens and workers equipped for the modern jobs market. The last Labour Government has decreed that pupils are no longer to be pupils but “learners”. The desired ends for these “learners” are “Be healthy; stay safe; enjoy and achieve; make a positive contribution; and achieve economic well being.” (Daily Telegraph 19 2 2005). This is a programme couched in language remarkably similar to those of totalitarian regimes such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

The Blair Government introduced citizenship lessons in schools – I will leave readers to guess what makes a good citizen in the Blairite mind – and played with the idea of introducing a citizenship ceremony for all 18-year-olds. The present coalition shows no sign of radically altering matters because they are always trying to do two mutually exclusive things at the same time: get rid of some of the more outlandish examples of political correctnmess whilst appearing to be very politically correct. The consequence is little movement as the one impulse tends to cancel out the other.

The beginnings of English intellectual history

English intellectual history is a long one. It can reasonably be said to begin in the early eighth century with Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English, which amongst other things firmly establishes the English as a people before England as a kingdom existed (“At present there are in Britain…five languages and four nations – English, British, Irish and Picts…” Book One).

In the late ninth century comes Alfred the Great, a king whose reign was one of constant struggle against the Danes, but who thought enough of learning to teach himself to read as an adult and then engage in translations into Old English of devotional works such as Pope Gregory’s Pastoral Care, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History and Boethius’ The Consolation of Philosophy. It is difficult to think of any other monarch anywhere who showed such a practical concern for learning.

From Alfred’s reign comes the Anglo-Saxon Journal (ASJ), a work also written in Old English. (There are nine surviving versions written at different places, eight of which are in Old English with the odd man out being in Old English with a Latin translation). The journal is a history/myth of Britain and a narrative of the settlement of Anglo-Saxons within it until the time of Alfred and then a putative record of and commentary on the great events of English life from the time of Alfred until the middle of the 12th century (like all suchmedieval works the veracity of the ASJ is questionable, but at worst it gives a flavour of the mentality of those living at the time). The work is unique in medieval Europe for its scope and longevity and is particularly noteworthy for the fact that it was written in the vernacular throughout the three centuries or so of its existence, this at a time when the normal language for writing in Western Europe was Latin.

The Norman Conquest subordinated the English politically, linguistically and socially for the better part of three centuries,but it did not kill English intellectual endeavour. Those three centuries of oppression saw the emergence of many of the ideas which were later to produce the modern world. John of Salisbury produced a work on politics (Policraticus 1159) which was “the first attempt in the Middle Ages at an extended and systematic treatment of political philosophy” (G H Sabine A History of Political Theory p246) and one which argued for a form of limited monarchy and the overthrow of tyrants, views given practical English expression in Magna Carta (1215). The period was also noteworthy for the strong showing of annals and histories, most notably those of Eadmer (Historia Novorum or The History of Recent Events – it covered the period 950-1109), Henry of Huntingdon (Historia Anglorum or History of the English 5BC-1129) an Matthew Paris (Chronica Majora). In addition, the Common Law was formed, English became once more a literary language (Chaucer, Langland), John Wycliffe laid the intellectual roots of the Reformation and, perhaps most impressively, ideas which were later to provide the basis for a true science emerged.

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.

The British elite express their hatred and fear of England

John Prescott’s office in the Department of Nations and Regions (sic) in response to a question as to why we could not tick English in the nationality box on our census forms – “there is no such nationality as English.”

The official answer to the West Lothian Question has always been not to ask it. Once England enters the mix as an acknowledged grievance, stand back!

— Anthony Barnett

New Statesman, The Staggers, 19 May 2010

There is no need for an English parliament because there is no England.

PETER ARNOLD

NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE

— Cllr Peter Arnold

Letter in the Independent, 17th March, 2006

The average Englishman thinks that they have got a Parliament which is the Westminster Parliament and I think resentment could perfectly well be sorted out so long as we could tackle what I regard as this niggle that sometimes English matters are setlled against the majority of votes of the English MPs. This English Parliament would be quite a dangerous remedy to that because it will just take a little step further this sense of separate identity.

— Ken Clarke

House of Commons’ Justice Select Committee, 20th February, 2008

You hear people yelling about some looming crisis. What do you do? You sit back, sip your cooling tea and don’t bother your fat backside. How else can we explain the utter lack of interest in the possibility of the breakup of Britain, at least as far as the English majority is concerned?

— Andrew Marr

Guardian, 18th April 1999

Sometimes people say to me ‘You know, David, it would be easier to be Prime Minister if you wanted just to be Prime Minister of England’. And I say ‘I don’t want to be Prime Minister of England, I want to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, all of it, Scotland included’. I believe in the United Kingdom head, heart and soul. I would never do anything to put it at risk. People need to know that.

— David Cameron

Press Association, 14th May 2010

However much we disagree about issues, we should try to work together for the benefit of the whole of the United Kingdom and for the benefit of Scotland as well.

— David Cameron

Speech in the Scottish Parliament, BBC, 14 May 2010

I don’t care whether pandering to English Nationalism is a vote winner. The very fact that in my two years as leader I haven’t ripped open the Barnett Formula and wandered round England waving a banner shows you that I am a very convinced Unionist and I’m not going to play those games.

— David Cameron

Telegraph, 10 Dec 2007

English resentment of the Scots should never be underestimated as an emotional or indeed a political force. No home-grown Conservative descanting on the iniquities of the modern political system can last more than a minute without noting that Labour’s stranglehold over the Commons rests on its 50 or so Scottish MPs. The West Lothian question, whereby Scottish Labour MPs can intervene in English domestic affairs but not vice-versa, burns unappeasably on.

— DJ Taylor

Independent, 6 December 2009

Since devolution there has been a growing English consciousness and that has given credence to the unfinished business of devolution. The issue is not an English Parliament. It is how you reform the way in which the House of Commons operates so that on purely English business, as opposed to United Kingdom business, the wishes of English members cannot be denied.

— Malcolm Rifkind

Daily Mail, 28 October 2007

The creation of an English Parliament is likely to threaten the stability of the Union. For this reason an England-wide solution to governance of England is unsustainable.

— John Tomaney

Empowering the English Regions, 1999

Whether in the Labour Party, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party or the Ulster Unionists—all of us who share the desire to preserve the Union, must insist that this House does not become an English Parliament. It must be a British Parliament as long as the Union exists, and for it to be a British Parliament it must have roughly comparable powers and responsibilities for the four countries of the Union.

— Malcolm Rifkind

Hansard, 14 November 1977

— Ken Clarke

House of Commons’ Justice Select Committee, 20th February, 2008

The re-emergence of Welsh, Scottish and indeed English nationalism . . . can be seen not just as the natural outcome of cultural diversity, but as a response to a broader loss of national, in the sense of British, identity.

— Linda Colley

Britons: Forging the Nation

Government has attempted to tackle the question of national identity before, most recently with efforts by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. These were expressions of nationhood concocted in Westminster against a benign economic backdrop. Now all our political parties must search for an animating, inclusive and optimistic definition of modern England to choke off what the EDL taps into.

— John Cruddas

Sunday Times, 24th October 2010

Everyone pays the same taxes so public expenditure should be on a fair basis. Scotland has done very well, so it shouldn’t be subsidised. There is a danger to the union if extremists in England start saying, why is Scotland getting all this money? The Barnett formula needs to be looked at again.

— Peter Bone

Sunday Times, 10 January, 2010

I was never a passionate devolutionist. It is a dangerous game to play. You can never be sure where nationalist sentiment ends and separatist sentiment begins… I supported the UK, distrusted nationalism as a concept and looked at the history books and worried whether we could get it through. However, though not passionate about it, I thought it inevitable. We didn’t want Scotland to feel the choice was status quo or separation.

— Tony Blair

My father’s side of the family by being Camerons are predominantly Scottish. On my mother’s side of the family, her mother was a Llewellyn, so Welsh.

— David Cameron

Telegraph, 10 Dec 2007

As the economies of Europe stutter and shrink, nationalism is on the rise almost everywhere. In Britain we have been blinded to it by our insularity and by the risible performance of the British National Party. But British nationalism is a red herring in this context. It’s the contest between Scottish nationalism and English nationalism that will do much to shape the future.

— David Runciman

London Review of Books, Vol. 32 No. 10, 27th May 2010

The establishment of a Scottish Assembly must be a top priority to ensure that more decisions are taken in Scotland by Scots.

— Margaret Thatcher

Edinburgh Rally, 1975

The danger is of a very virulent and unpleasant English nationalism arising after Scottish independence.

— Vernon Bogdanor

Dinner with Portillo – Why Should We Care About Scottish Independence? BBC4, 15th Sept 2009

So far as I know, no one has yet put forward a positive case for devolution to England, based on a moral vision of what England and the English stand for or might come to stand for. Sadly, this is not surprising.

— David Marquand

Our Kingdom, 7 January 2008

What moral vision does the revived English national consciousness embody? It’s pitifully inadequate to say that England should have a devolved government because that is what the Scots and Welsh now have, and leave it at that.

— David Marquand

Our Kingdom, 7 January 2008

I believe that devolution has made us stronger as a United Kingdom and given democratic accountability for decisions in Scotland and Wales that used to be made centrally. Across the country, we need to see whether there are further ways of devolving power. However, I do not see a new parliament for England as the answer. The vast majority of the UK parliament is comprised of English MPs, and so there is no reason to believe an English Parliament would enhance accountability.

— Ed Milliband

Labour Space

The break-up of the United Kingdom will give the best and the brightest of the English the decisive push which will take them off the fence in favour of the European Union, not because they love England so little but because they love England so much. For a nationalistic Little England will be a travesty of Britain’s former self, with all its vices bloated and all its virtues shrunken.

— Peregrine Worsthorne

England Don’t Arise!, The Spectator, 19th September, 1998

There is no need for an English parliament because there is no England.

Scotland, Wales and Ireland are fairly homogeneous nations, each with its own clearly defined character and culture. That is why devolution (or independence) has been quite successful in all three. In England, the picture is far more complex. There are millions of Scots, Welsh and Irish living in England. The overwhelming majority of non-white migrants also live in England, along with many hundreds of thousands of other Europeans and people from other parts of the world. England is the genuine mongrel nation, and I welcome that. This fact however, makes identity far more complex and difficult than in the other British nations.

For example, I regard myself first and foremost as a Northumbrian, then as British, and finally as European. Here in the north-east we only began to be part of the nation after 1603. Before that, the independent kingdoms of England and Scotland played havoc with the area, and used it (and abused us) for their own dynastic ends. I have no loyalty to England. For me, the British state has meaning and relevance precisely because it has little connection with a brutal past based on ignorance and exploitation.

The answer to the West Lothian question is the creation of a fully federal United Kingdom, based on Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the regions of England. There would still be disparities of size, but these would be far less than a separate English parliament would create. The failure of the referendum in the North-east in 2004 doesn’t invalidate the concept. Devolution is working in Scotland and Wales; and independence has given most of Ireland a new lease of life. We just need to expand that successful formula to the rest of the United Kingdom.

PETER ARNOLD

NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE

— Cllr Peter Arnold

Letter in the Independent, 17th March, 2006

It is not the English people’s fault that they make up 80% of the population of the UK, but it does mean that England cannot sit happily alongside the other nations as a political unit. The only sustainable federations are ones where the constituent parts are more or less the same size. This means revitalising the case for democratic regional government in England (not dismissing it, as the Conservatives are doing).

— Richard Laming (Federal Union)

Letter to the Guardian, 19 February 2009

Let us not forget that in Scotland the Scottish Constitutional Convention had eight years to develop their proposals for the Scottish Parliament. Then those proposals were put to referendum. In England there needs to be an equally wide process of deliberation and consultation: the English deserve no less.

— Robert Hazell

Public Law; 2001, Summer, 268-280

Coalition Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg on the 16th November 2010 stated, at the Hansard Society event, ‘that there is no evidence at all that devolution leads to inequalities.’

Oliver Letwin’s reply ‘that David Cameron is England’s First Minister’ when asked if England like Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should have a first Minister? – stated at the conservative party conference, fringe event, 2010

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.

It isn’t “just sport”

Sport has a particular importance to England at present because sporting sides are the only source of national focus the English have. The English are denied a parliament, they are betrayed by their political elite who shudder at the idea of English nationalism, they are constantly insulted by the national media, but the national sides continue. These sporting institutions permit the English to articulate their feelings as a tribe. Even English men and women without any interest in sport should support them for that reason if no other.

Those who say “it’s only sport” should stand back and reflect on the amount of time, effort and money which is spent throughout the world on sport. Women may be generally less enthusiastic, but sports obviously speak to a deep seated desire within men.

Man is a tribal animal. If he were not it would matter not a jot whether one team won or another, unless money was on the result. But manifestly men do care and care passionately when no material advantage is to be gained or lost by the result. In fact, the relationship between a football fan and his club is probably the most enduring of his life, for it commonly begins in childhood and ends only with death.

The outpouring of joy when a goal is scored dwarfs any other public expression of positive feeling today. Those who imagine that a football club is merely a business and that selling football is no different from selling baked beans, fail to understand the game and the fan.

Sporting heroes are heroes in the literal sense for they play the role of the champion whether it be in single combat (tennis) or as part of an army (football). There is something primal about this. Watch even a powerful man in the presence of his sporting hero and the powerful man will almost certainly be unconsciously deferring to the sportsman.

Team sports are war games, a war game in fact as well where men meet in a form of direct physical confrontation which is a pretty good substitute for tribal war, war fought hand to hand with sword and shield and spear. Sport is war without the weapons. That is its primal glamour.

Because of their function as lightening rods of national feeling the existence of England sides are hated and feared by our elite. The erstwhile and now deceased Labour Sports minister, Tony Banks, persistently puffed the idea of a British football team, something that is indubitably not wanted by any of the four home FAs or the vast majority of fans.

The political dimension goes beyond the English national sides. In these politically correct times sporting crowds in England for the major sports are also disturbingly white for the liberal bigot elite. Vast amounts of time and money have been devoted to making crowds “more representative”, happily with precious little success. Football crowds in particular are a source of concern to our liberal elite because they provide the one opportunity where large numbers of the white working class can gather together and express themselves uninhibitedly without having to gain the permission of the police. This concern is amplified by the general contempt which the British elite have developed for the white working class which, in the sporting context, is especially focused on the football fan. (Margaret Thatcher more than any other individual fostered the contempt when she routinely painted English football supporters as hooligans and enthusiastically promoted the exclusion of English football clubs after the Heysel stadium tragedy at the 1985 European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus. )

But sport has much more to it than tribalism. It is a constant in a changing world. It is a source of aesthetic delight. It speaks to the whole range of human emotions. When a great batsman goes to the wicket when his side is in trouble and makes the bowling look easy, the whole mood of the players and spectators changes within minutes: when a football side which is 2-0 down gets a goal back the swing in moral certainty from one side to another is palpable. It is much more than being “just sport”. It is a mirror of what it is to be human.