Category Archives: quisling elite

How English football became foreign football played in England

Robert Henderson

English football has “enjoyed” the benefits of more or less unrestricted market forces
and the globalist ideology for twenty years. The result is instructive: a combination
of huge amounts of new money (primarily from television, sponsorship, inflated ticket
prices, the cynical merchandising of club strips and money introduced by immensely rich foreign owners) and greatly increased freedom of movement for footballers has gone a long way to destroying the character of English professional football and the nature of its support.

Before all this happened English league football had existed very successfully for more than a hundred years – the Football League was formed in 1888, the first in the world. With 92 clubs, England has supported (and still supports) the largest full-time professional football league in the world (since 1992 the Football League has been divided into the Premier League – the old First Division – and the Football League which contains the other three divisions. As there is relegation and promotion between the Premier league and the rump of the Football League, the position structurally is essentially the same as the old 4 division Football League).

Despite many alarms about clubs going bust, very few went out of business in those one
hundred odd years. Their teams were overwhelmingly staffed by Englishmen and the minority who were not English were almost always drawn from the rest of the British Isles. Players frequently stayed with one club for much of their career and many came up through the youth and reserve teams of the clubs for which they played. Frequently the players were also supporters from childhood of their clubs. Ticket prices were cheap and even the poor could regularly watch their teams. It was truly a game for all.

The poorer clubs made ends meet by selling players to the richer clubs. Even if a player was out of contract, a club could demand a transfer fee or insist on a player continuing to
play for them, provided they had offered the player another contract not inferior to the one he had previously had with them. Until the early 1960s, players were subject to a maximum wage and could not move at all if a club refused to release their league registration.

Very much a controlled market. The point is it worked. English club football was stable. After the reforms of the 1960s players had reasonable freedom of movement and decent wages. The Football League was also strong in footballing terms. Until they were banned from European competition in 1985 after the Heysel stadium disaster, English clubs  dominated European club competition, winning the European Cup every year between 1977 and 1984. Although such extravagant success was not matched at national level, the England side had a record which was more than respectable – in the 1990 World Cup, despite having been kept out of European club competition for five years, the England side reached the  semi-finals.

In twenty years the leading English clubs have gone from being staffed overwhelmingly by English players to a position whereby most Premiership clubs regularly put out sides with
fewer than half the side made up from English players. In some cases, such as Fulham and Chelsea, teams frequently take the field with two or fewer English players. In 2009/10 the average number of foreign players in the first team squads of Premier League clubs was 13. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/8182090.stm.) Moreover, the more prominent the club, the less likely English players were to play English. Arsenal illustrates the change dramatically: 1989-90 season: 19 players were born in UK, two born abroad; in 2009-10 four players were born in the UK, 23 were born abroad. The Premier League inquiry into the “tapping-up” of the then Arsenal and England left back Ashley Cole by Chelsea (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/4596209.stm)n quotes Peter Kenyon of Chelsea as claiming that ‘Cole told him at the meeting that there were a series of cliques at Arsenal, that the “team was primarily run by the French boys” and that he was concerned with a lack of team spirit at Highbury. (http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/french-clique-runs-arsenal-coles-revelation-to-chelsea-492976).
That epitomises what is wrong with the current English elite mentality. Arsenal
are a team run by a French manager who has systematically excluded English
players from the team whilst ensuring that his own countrymen are dominant in
the imports.

Why do foreign managers favour their own? It is partly because those are the players they
know. They come to England knowing next to nothing about English players other than those in the top clubs or England side. Football below the Premier League is unknown to them. But there is also the ethnic factor. When a foreign manager comes into a country the thing he is most fearful of is a homogeneous phalanx of native players. He fears this because they people he doesn’t understand and because they are representatives of the dominant culture. The manager’s response is (1) to divide and rule by bringing in many foreigners and (2) to bring in many of his own countrymen to act as a cultural guard for him.

But it is not only foreign managers who have gorged on foreign players. British managers,
including English ones, have done so albeit to a lesser degree. One of the drivers of this behaviour is driven by the demands of owners for instant success. It is obviously easier to buy an established player from abroad than taking a chance on young English players untried at first team level. Even if the foreign players do not bring success the manager can say well I tried and the board can point to foreign purchases as evidence that they are “willing to invest”. However, there are other incentives, legal and illegal, for English managers to buy foreign. Managers’ contracts can contain clauses which give them a percentage of any fee if a player is subsequently sold on. That’s the legal way. The illegal way is to take “bungs”, that is, payments made to a manager by the selling club as a reward for selling a player they would not otherwise have sold or persuading the board of the buying club to pay far more than a player is worth. Deals for foreign players make it much easier to hide bungs because the buying and selling clubs are in different legal jurisdictions.

The destruction of the old ties between players and their clubs has other pernicious effects.
Foreign players are mercenaries and move very frequently chasing higher wages. The wages of players have become so astronomical that the future of many clubs has been placed at risk. The fans have been milked by ticket prices which have gone through the roof. Many of the poorer followers who had watched their clubs man and boy have found themselves unable to continue going regularly to games. What has happened in the Premiership is mirrored in varying degrees by the clubs in the Football League.

If other circumstances had remained the same, things might not have changed radically. But of course circumstances did change and, indeed, the Premier League would almost certainly not have been formed when it was formed if new media opportunities had not arrived. Satellite television was in its infancy, but provided a dynamic competitor for the  terrestial channels. The only British satellite broadcaster BskyB was in severe difficulties in its early years. The company decided to try to save itself by concentrating on high class sport. It began paying massive amounts for sporting events which had previously been seen only on terrestial TV. No sport was more handsomely rewarded than Premiership football. The formation of the Premier League resulted in a five year contract with BskyB worth £304 million, riches which utterly dwarfed anything which had gone before. Not only that, but the amount of televised football was massively increased. That in turn increased media exposure generally which inflated revenue greatly as international interest grew. The Premiership TV deal in 2010 was worth £1.4 billion (http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/premier-league-nets-16314bn-tv-rights-bonanza-1925462.html)

To the new TV money was added much increased sponsorship deals, itself driven by the additional media exposure football was getting. Merchandising became a racket with the larger clubs changing their strips every five minutes. Clubs also found they could put their ticket prices up substantially and still fill their stadia. This was not surprising because Margaret Thatcher had insisted after the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 that clubs in the higher divisions become all-seater. That commonly reduced the capacity of stadia by 50%. By the early 1990s that policy was taking effect.

So much money came into Premiership football that it changed utterly the way the top clubs were run. Many floated on the stock market and became responsible first and foremost to their shareholders. They could also afford to pay wages which matched those of the more extravagant clubs on the continent such as Real Madrid and Inter Milan. If nothing else had  changed, it is a fair bet that the likes of Manchester  United would still have employed some of the great foreign players of the world. However, the numbers would have been few and the quality high. Unfortunately, in the decade in which the new money became available, two events greatly increased the mobility of players both
domestically and internationally.  These led to a massive influx of foreign players, managers, coaches and eventually owners into England.

The first event was ever increasing scope of the EU’s single market regulations followed by the “Bosman ruling”. Together they allow free movement within the EU of players with
citizenship of an EU country, provided the player is out of contract. (Bosman is an obscure Belgian footballer who in the mid 1990s successfully challenged the right of his  club to prevent him playing at the end of his contract by refusing to transfer him by holding onto
his registration).

The position was worsened by the pusillanimous behaviour of successive British Governments when dealing with players from outside the EU. In theory any non-EU player can be banned from playing in Britain. However, the Major government introduced a system of work permits for such players whereby any player playing more than 75% of his country’s international matches in the previous year could play in Britain (the rules
were somewhat tighter for the weaker FIFA ranked nations). Not content with this concession, clubs began pleading special circumstances, to which the Government almost invariably acceded if the appeal was from a leading  club. The result was that for the Premiership at least, any player from anywhere could in practice be employed.

Without the Bosman ruling allied to the Single Market regulations and government weakness over non-EU  players, the basic form of British football would have remained. Players would not have been able to move very freely between countries or even within clubs in England. Football wages would still have risen, but by nothing like the as much as they have because the bargaining position of players would have been much less.

Perhaps most importantly, teams in the higher divisions, including the Premiership would
have spent the money they have allowed to go out of English football through foreign transfer fees and wages (very few English players have gone to foreign clubs) on English players and with English clubs. A good deal of the transfer money would have gone to  clubs in the lower divisions, strengthening their position and English football generally. As things stand, Premiership clubs have virtually ceased buying players from the divisions
below the Premier League.

The effect of the ever growing reliance on foreign players is the exclusion of not merely established English players from the leading sides but also the denial of opportunity to the coming generation of England players. Talented English youngsters are being denied regular opportunities or any opportunities at all. It was not from a lack of talent. Take the case of Liverpool. In the 1990s their academy produced McManaman, Gerrard, Fowler, Owen, Carragher. That was under British managers. From 2000 to 2010 Liverpool had foreign managers, Houllier and Benitez. Not a single Academy player gained a regular place in the first team. This was all the more surprising because Liverpool won the FA Youth Cup in successive years (2006,2007). To add insult to injury, Benitez not only refused to use any the Academy players from these years, he instigated a “reform” of the Academy which prompted the departure of successful Academy director, the old Liverpool
player Steve Heighway.

Opportunity is the key. This has always been a problem. To take a few examples from the 1980s Peter Beardsley nearly slipped through the net before making it in the big time, John Aldridge was in his late twenties before being given a chance in the old First Division and Gary Lineker was a comparatively late developer who did not play for England until he was twenty-three. If this occurred when most places in the top division of English football were available to Englishmen, it is one greatly magnified today when most positions are not available to Englishmen.

All the major English clubs have academies with age group teams running Ajax-style from
primary school age upwards. In the first half of the nineties, Man United’s youth football produced Beckham, Scholes, Butt and the Neville Brothers for England. Ominously in the last five years, no  other English youth player has come through to be a first team regular. In the past fifteen years, Arsenal have produced only three players from their own resources (Parlour,Ashley Cole and Jack Wilshire) to command a regular place in the first team. Chelsea have produced one – John Terry.

The denial of opportunity to English players inevitably damages the English national side. There are 20 teams in the Premiership which gives 220 starting places. Less than half of those places go to English players. Does anyone doubt that if another 120-150 or so English players were given the opportunity to play in the Premiership, a dozen or so would not show themselves to be of international quality?

All in all, a very dismal story for anyone who cares about the long-term health of English football, which is looking less than rosy. Players’ wages have become so grossly inflated – they have risen fantastically since 1990 with players being paid £200,000+ a week at the top of the scale – that they threaten the viability of many clubs, A few clubs, such as Blackburn Rovers when they won the Premiership, have managed to arrive at the absurd situation of playing more in wages than their total income.

The heavy dependence on TV money is potentially dangerous. In 2000 the English Football League (then known as the Nationwide Football League) discovered the worth of a private contract. They signed an agreement with ITV digital for a three year contract worth around £300 million to show Nationwide games. A year into the contract, ITV Digital  found that they grossly overpaid for the contract and presented the Nationwide with a take it or leave offer of £50 million instead of the contracted £189 million which was still to be paid. This was refused and ITV Digital placed in administration.
(http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/football-league-sues-itv-digital-for-acircpound178m-651218.html).
The result was many clubs below the Premier League being severely embarrassed as they had budgeted on the assumption that the ITV Digital money would be paid.  The same scenario could conceivably hit the Premier League.  BskyB no longer have a monopoly of Premier League TV rights because of the intervention of the European Competition ommission. Setanta obtained some of the rights when the last TV contracts were signed. They rapidly failed  (http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/jun/22/setanta-espn-premier-league-tv).
It is conceivable that the at some time in the future either BskyB will run into trouble or the Premier League will cease to have its international appeal and bids for Premiership matches plummet.  That would place most Premiership clubs and all Football League clubs
(they receive a share of the Premier League money) in serious difficulties because many of their players are on long contracts (as a result of Bosman) with grossly inflated wages. Clubs such as Manchester United and Chelsea would doubtless be able to become very rich by marketing their own TV but most clubs would be much poorer.

The other  financial dangers to football in England arise from foreign owners. Some, such as the Glazers at Manchester United, take a great deal of money out of the club to both finance the massive borrowings they made to purchase the club and in profits. That means fans are paying more and more for tickets and merchandise and there is less money to spend on players.  The situation is also only sustainable if United continue to have the same sort of success and world-wide appeal. Others are immensely rich men or consortia such as the owner of Manchester City and Chelsea. The danger here is that the owners may lose interest and sells the club on to someone without such deep pockets who cannot bear the cost of the existing players’ contracts. The other danger is that an individual such as Roman Abramovich runs into the same sort of trouble that his fellow Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky who now languishes in a Russian jail or simply goes bust. That would leave the club high and dry unable to meet running costs. As more than half of current Premier League clubs are foreign owned this is a real source of danger.

What the present plight of English football shows is that the market is inappropriate in some spheres of economic activity. Football is not the same as selling baked beans (as the erstwhile MD of Birmingham City, Karen Brady, once said). Football is about sport. It is
about trib al loyalty. The emotional relationship between the fan and the club is intense. It is formed most commonly in youth and remains until the fan’s dying day. It is only incidentally about money and business.

A combination of excessive money and the free movement of people has turned a social institution, English professional football, on its head. It has gone from being a sport available to all even at its highest level to one affordable only to the better off. The national character of the game has been tossed aside in the pursuit of money. The long term interests of the English game have been ignored. And for what? The satisfaction of businessmen who have no concern for anything other than the balance sheet.

The ill effect of market forces and free trade on football illustrate the shortcomings of the
market. When selling bake beans it may be the most efficient and desirable method of meeting the customers needs. When more than mere material need or profit are involved, the market is not merely  inefficient in producing the desired ends but is positively destructive.

What happens in football occurs in all our major team spectator sports. County cricket games commonly start with four or five foreigners in a side; rugby union teams  are awash with South Africans, New Zealanders, South Sea Islanders  and Australians.

What goes for sport goes for the rest of British society. Our industry and commerce is
increasingly run by foreigners or exported abroad  incontinently; senior public service positions go  increasingly to foreigners. Immigration on a massive scale continues to undermine the economic prospects of native Britons.

Generally, the elite attitude is that a foreigner has exactly the same status in Britain
as a British citizen, who is no longer privileged by the fact of being British in culture as well as name. That is a recipe for the dissolution of a nation state.

Mass migration is an English not a UK problem

When people talk of mass  immigration to the UK they really mean mass immigration  to England.  The  2001 census gave this breakdown by ethnic group for the UK:     

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=455This is a graph showing Population of the United Kingdom: by ethnic group, April 2001

 The white group comprised   White British   50,366,497   85.67%

                                                     White (other)   3,096,169         5.27%

The non-white population will be underestimated  because of  (1) the fact  that the ethnic origin question  relied on the willingness of the census form filler to answer the question honestly or at all and (2) the large number of illegal immigrants. The latter  are overwhelmingly non-white, not least because the countries with majority white populations have a large degree of legal access to the UK  (EU Associates such as Switzerland  and the EU countries barring Bulgaria and Romania   have complete access and foreigners  with  a British parent or grandparent are granted a large degree of access) while the countries with majority non-white  populations have much more restricted  access.) The Census is also distorted because of the many  legal residents without English, a growing number of old people who are not up to completing the census  and a large population of transient residents such as students. The 2001 census had  98% of forms returned.

The extent of the possible  discrepancies   is shown by a council in central London: “Westminster council has the most cause to feel hard done by. In 2000, in the so-called mid-year population estimate, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) counted 244,000 people as living under the wing of the local authority. A year later, the official census (also carried out by the ONS) provided a figure of just 181,000. “We’re adamant that something major did go wrong,” says Kit Malthouse, deputy leader of Westminster council. The ONS and the council are now trying to work out where the discrepancy lies by comparing their lists of addresses for the area.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2003/sep/11/thisweekssciencequestions).

This seeming undercounting in places such as Westminster had a profound effect on their  central government funding which was based substantially on the size of  a borough’s population. More broadly, under reporting of population had  implications for EU funding because a lower population meant a higher average income, whereas a lower average income meant a greater likelihood of  EU grants.  Westminster response was to compile its own population count “ from sources such as the number of people paying council tax, or who registered to vote, or who used its hospitals. For example, it found that between 1991 and 2001, its electoral register rose by 26 per cent, and the primary school rolls by 28 per cent. In the end, its count came up with a figure close to the ONS’s pre-census estimate. “We have a very mobile population, a high proportion of young people, asylum seekers, students, hostels,” Malthouse said. “Twenty-five per cent of our population turns over every year… There were obviously problems in getting forms to the people… They say that our population fell by 6,000 over ten years, but during that period we have built 8,500 homes”  (http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2003/11/thelastcensus/)

The completion of forms in some areas was pitiful, viz:   “If you get a response rate of 95-98 per cent and then you have the coverage survey it is very clear it will work,” Gill Eastabrook, the then chief executive of the statistics commission, told me in May. “What happened in Westminster is that they did not get anything like 90 per cent. It was in the 70s…The problem is in the inner cities. But it is not that simple. Oxford and Cambridge are quite high up the list. It might have something to do with students. This is not about undermining the census as a whole. It is about specific bits.” The commission’s inquiry into the census, conducted at Westminster’s request, is due in the second half of October.” ( http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2003/11/thelastcensus/)

The discrepancy between the 2000 mid-year estimate and the 2001 census for the overall UK population was approximately 1 million.  Len Cook, the head of the ONS, tried to explain the missing people by various means such as students registering at more than one address,  sour grapes on the part of councils who by implication had been receiving funds for people who did not exist, claiming that the mid year estimates were wrong and most improbably, that  the emigrants from the UK,  overwhelmingly men  in twenties  and thirties,  had been  not been recorded as having emigrated.  The last reason  provoked this scornful comment from ,” said David Coleman, professor of demographics at Oxford University:

“To suggest that 800,000 white British males had left these shores unannounced over the last decade was beggaring belief, especially as there was no evidence of them cavorting on Bondi beach…The influx of asylum seekers and ethnic minorities – many of whom are known from past surveys to be undercounted, especially in major urban areas – would a priori be a more plausible explanation for the shortfall on the census figures.” Illegal immigrants, who would avoid direct, doorstep measures like a census, could show up on other records, like doctors’ lists or housing records – thus possibly accounting for the difference between Cook’s count and councils’ estimates.” (http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2003/11/thelastcensus/)

In short, the most likely explanation was that many immigrants, the overwhelming majority of whom were non-white, had not been counted.

In the end the figures were fudged with the aid of an independent follow-up survey called the census coverage survey (CCS)  conducted just after the Census during  four weeks in May and June 2001. Over 4,000 professional interviewers conducted 320,000 10-minute interviews on doorsteps in all regions of the country with a particular concentration of effort on the inner-city districts likely to have had the worst return on census night.  From this estimates were made of the profile of the missing  million. These were then included in the final census statistics.  (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2277835.stm)

The regional distribution of the non-white population in the 2001 census

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=457

 This is a graph showing Regional distribution of the non-White population, April 2001

Regional distribution of the non-White population, April 2001  Census

Non-White ethnic groups comprised  9 per cent of the total population in England compared with only 2 per cent in both Scotland and Wales, and less than 1 per cent in Northern Ireland.

The concentration of non-white population  in the 2001 Census

45 per cent lived in the London region in 2001, where they comprised 29 per cent of all residents.  The  West Midlands had  13 per cent of the non-White population,  the South East and North West 8 per cent each  and Yorkshire and the Humber 7 per cent.    81% of all non-whites lived in those five regions.

Less than 4 per cent of those from non-White groups lived in the North East and the South West. Minority ethnic groups made up only 2 per cent of each of these regions’ populations.

Seventy eight per cent of Black Africans, and 61 per cent of Black Caribbeans and 54 per cent of Bangladeshis  lived in London.  Of  Pakistanis 19 per cent resided in London,  21 per cent in the West Midlands, 20 per cent in Yorkshire and the Humber, and 16 per cent in the North West.

How the population has changed since 2001

The latest official population estimate (2009)  for the UK is 61.8 million. (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=6) . That is a three million increase over the 2001 census figure. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=15106

The figures for each of the home countries in 2001 were

England

49,138,831

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/profiles/64.asp

Wales

2,903,085

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/pyramids/pages/w.asp

Scotland

5,062,011

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/pyramids/pages/179.asp

Northern Ireland

1,685,267

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/pyramids/pages/152.asp

Getting hard figures for population changes since 2001 is next to impossible. However, these are  latest official population estimates (2009) for each of the home countries

England  51,809,700   Increase  since 2001  2,670,869   percentage increase   5.43%   

Wales      2,999,300     Increase  since 2001      96,215    percentage increase   3.31%

Scotland   5,194,000    Increase since  2001     131,989  percentage increase    2.05%

N. Ireland 1,788,900   Increase  since 2001    103,633  percentage increase     6.15%    

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=15106 click on  Mid Year Population Estimates 2009: 24/06/10 (2.7Mb – Zip) then click on each country’s Excel file

The latest Government estimates of on-going immigration and emigration are:

Migration Statistics Quarterly Report No 8: February 2011 (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/mig0211.pdf  –  p4)

“Estimated total long-term immigration to the UK in the year to June 2010 was 572,000, similar to the level seen since 2004• [This includes British citizens returning].

“The provisional estimate of net long-term migration to the UK in the year to June 2010 was 226,000. This continues the increase since the year to December 2008, when net migration was 163,000. The increase has primarily been driven by the fall in emigration. (Figure 1.1) p5

“The estimated number of non-British citizens immigrating long term to the UK in the year to June 2010 was 455,000, not statistically significantly different from the estimate of 432,000 in the year to June 2009. The estimated number of non-British citizens emigrating long term from the UK was 200,000, not statistically significantly different from the estimate of 224,000 in the year to June 2009. (Figure 1.3) p6”

Since 2001 net annual migration into the UK has never been less than 148,000 (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/pop0809.pdf)

In 2009 it was reported that “The number of immigrants in the UK has risen by more than two million since 2001, according to a Government report.  Around 6.6 million UK residents – 11 per cent of the population – were born abroad, according to surveys by consultancy Oxford Economics.” (http://www.immigrationmatters.co.uk/2-million-more-immigrants-in-uk-since-2001.html)

A vision of the future is shown by the demography of children. The  Daily Telegraph reported in 2007 of  ethnic minorities  that “Across the country, they account for almost 22 per cent of pupils at primary school compared to 20.6 per cent last year. At secondary level, numbers rose at a similar rate, to 17.7 per cent…. Across inner and outer London, black and Asian pupils outnumber white British children by about six to four.” (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1564365/One-fifth-of-children-from-ethnic-minorities.html ).

 The future

Leeds University published research in 2010 which produced projections of the ethnic composition of the UK population in 2051: ETHNIC POPULATION PROJECTIONS FOR THE UK  (http://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/853/uk_in_2051_to_be_significantly_more_diverse) This estimated that  21 per cent of the UK population would be non-white and that the white British component would have fallen to 67 per cent with an overall white population of 79 per cent (http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/fileadmin/downloads/school/research/projects/migrants/WP_ETH_POP_PROJECTIONS.pdf – see para 20).

Demographic projections are notoriously treacherous but 21 per cent in 2051 strikes me as being very conservative. As the size of the non-white population grows they will inevitably gain more political power both at local and national level. That will make it increasingly difficult for any  Government to stem the flow.  In addition, if the UK remains within the EU there will be a continuing flow from the poorer EU countries, some of which will be non-white as the non-white population of the EU is growing.  There is also the looming possibility of Turkey’s admission to the EU which would grant 70 million (at present figures) Muslims the right to move freely within the EU.  There could also conceivably be other countries joining the EU, especially those in Eastern Europe.  The EU’s  growing power may also  mean other countries which are not members of the EU, will  come to enjoy the same migration privileges as countries such as Switzerland and Norway which have an arrangement with the EU which means they would be  signed up to the “four freedoms” of the EU which includes freedom of movement.  

To the poisonous embrace of the EU can be added treaties and conventions such as the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Convention on Refugees.  As global instability  grows through a mixture of economic globalisation and Western liberal internationalist interventionism such as that in Libya at present, the flow of refugees is likely to increase and the difficulty in removing them from the UK worsen as judges make the law derived from the Human Rights Act ever tighter.

On the domestic  level, the younger age profile of non-white  immigrants and their descendants  born in Britain and their higher  reproduction rates  point to an inexorable overhauling of the native white population.  The larger their percentage in their population, the greater will be the demand for foreign relatives to be allowed to settle in the UK.

Counterbalancing the non-white population growth will be  foreign white immigration . These people in principle will be able to become complete assimilated within a generation if they choose that path. As the numbers of white immigrants from the EU is large and communities big enough to form cultural  ghettos,  the assimilation may take longer than a generation. However,  even if they do not rapidly completely assimilate, there will be much less cause for friction between them  and the native white population because the racial issue do not arise. The growth of non-white groups  will also be a driver for white immigrants and their descendants to assimilate because contrary to what liberals claim to believe racial solidarity is potent.

There is no reason to believe that the settlement and demographic patterns within the UK of  the past sixty  years  will change dramatically, especially in the case of the non-white  population which is overwhelmingly in England.  Groups which have a strong identity and reason to maintain it will  continue to live in and move to areas where their groups are already strong. That means England (and particularly the south East and the larger cities) will be subject to ever increasing non-white settlement and reproduction.  

Can anything be done to stop England becoming a place which is unrecognisable as the homeland of the English?  The answer is yes if the political will is there. The first thing would be the recovery of control of our borders. That requires the UK’s  withdrawal from the EU, the repeal of the Human Rights Act, the repudiation of the UN Convention on  Refugees and the repudiation of any other treaty or UK Statute which prevents control of our borders.  British citizenship should be denied to anyone  who  was not born here or possessed of a parent who was British. Having done that,  it will be possible to start removing the illegal immigrants and making life less comfortable for immigrants legally here but without citizenship.  This could be done by withdrawing the benefits of the Welfare state in its broadest sense  from them; those without work deported  and a  legal right given to any native Briton to take a job being done by a foreigner provided they were capable of doing the job.  Finally, dual citizenship should be made illegal and those with dual nationality who wished to remain in the UK would have to relinquish any nationality other than British.

The English Year Zero

The French Revolution  attempted to sweep  away  many of the everyday cultural anchors that attach a people to a way of life: the currency, the calendar and the systems  of weights and measures.  The new  calendar did not last but the currency and metric system did. The French lost forever an important part of their shared experience.   It was perhaps the first attempt at a Year Zero obliteration of the past not by an invader but by the elite of a people.

Britain has never experienced a cultural  upheaval as starkly dramatic as the French Revolution,  but  revolution can come in subtler ways.  In the past forty years she has seen her counties butchered; lost her historic currency and suffered  a creeping undermining of her traditional  weights and measures.  Like the French revolutionary experience, this damage  been inflicted from within.

Edward Heath’s  re-drawing of  county boundaries through the Local Government Act  1972 (active from 1974) saw Cumberland and Westmoreland lost as they were merged into Cumbria; Herefordshire, Worcestershire and England’s smallest country, Rutland,  obliterated; Lancashire,  Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Somerset, Gloucester , Northumberland, Durham and  Warwickshire shorn of much of their historic territory and population  through the creation of the metropolitan “counties”  of Greater Manchester, Merseyside, South Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear, West Midlands and West Yorkshire and the meaningless  new counties of Avon, Cleveland, Cumbria, Hereford and Worcester, and Humberside created. 

Of all the things which give a human being a sense  of belonging and permanence it is the land in which they live.  People form  an emotional attachment to  things. They buy products because of their branding. They give names to their cars.   Sailors have an intense relationship with their ships.   How much more potent is the relationship with the place where they live. Unsurprisingly, human attachment to land is the most emotional attachment  after family. Territory is what men have fought for more than anything else because a secure place to live is the source of all security.    Humans need continuity, not incessant and dramatic change.

Few if any things are more disorienting than the re-naming of the place where you live. It seems to strike at reality. That is why when politicians try to make such changes, the old names commonly  live on for generations, sometimes centuries; why Petrograd became St Petersburg again so readily after the Soviet Union fell.   

Why did Heath do it? Ostensibly on the grounds of administrative convenience. He might as well have suggested the Church of England would have been better served by  demolishing its great mediaeval cathedrals and building new modernist ones.  It was the act of a man who at best lived beyond the touch of history and at worst was a willing destroyer of  English culture in his desire to translate Britain into a province of a United States of Europe.

Decimalisation was primarily promoted on the tawdry, false and utterly soulless  grounds that it would substantially  increase business efficiency, a claim as improbable as Nye Bevan’s belief that the cost of the NHS would soon drop as the population’s health improved due to better healthcare . Even if the claim of business efficiency  had been true, it would have been  a criminally trivial reason for  ditching a currency with a 1,300 year history dating back to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the 7th century with their silver  peningas (pennies).     It removed  from circulation those reminders of the past, the many old coins in circulation. Before decimalisation every handful of change reminded one of England’s history.  You looked at coins and saw the heads of  different monarchs,  ran you hands over the coins and felt the centuries which they represented.  It was common to find coins dating to Victoria’s reign and there were a fair number older than that. Occasionally something really old would appear (the oldest coin I ever received in change dated from the reign of Charles II).   It was a form of informal education. With decimal coinage all this was  swept away if not  exactly at a stroke – florins, shillings and sixpences limped on for a few years –  but most of the history was  lost immediately because pennies and halfpennies became obsolete overnight.

Metrication replaces measures which grew organically over the centuries from the natural usage of  the people – a hand was the breadth of a hand, a foot the length of a foot, a yard is the distance of a man’s arm – with an alien and contrived system.  Imperial measurements are man-related. Metric measurements are simply arbitrary measures derived from such things as the diameter of the earth. They are the imposition of a foreign and arbitrary system on the English. No one forced the English to use imperial measurements.  They  grew out of Man’s natural behaviour.  It is natural to use an arm, hand or foot to act as a measure. Even today we  use our feet  place close one after another or paces to measure a distance.     The yard arose from need and inclination: the metre was an artificial construct.  Imperial and metric are a pair akin to English and Esperanto.

Choosing units which grew naturally out of men’s needs means that they are the units with which people are most comfortable.  For many everyday purposes metric units tend to either be too large or too small because they have been based not on experience but on an intellectual construct of the Age of Reason.  A pound feels naturally right, a kilo too heavy.   A centimetre is too small for many measurements and a metre too large.  Imperial measurements offers an intermediate measurement the  foot.  So it is with other measures.  We have the pint, quart and gallon; metric gives us merely the millilitre and the litre. Of course, Imperial standard measurements are the result of an Act of Parliament, but they were based on the usage which grew from  human beings developing what they needed. That made Imperial measurements  comfortable to use.  

The same people who constantly attempt to debunk any claim to uniqueness or distinctiveness about England and its people will doubtless point out in their pathologically self-hating way that miles are derived  from the Latin miles and pennies  the Latin denarii. That is irrelevant. What matters is that a people takes and moulds words  to their own wishes.  It is like a man who takes clay and melds it into one pot rather than another. The clay is the same, the pot is not.  

The argument that the change to a decimal currency and metric measurements is justified because of its greater ease of use holds no water.  As one who grew up using Imperial measurements  and a currency denominated in pounds, shillings and pence, I can vouch for the fact that this caused no great difficulty in everyday life.  It was what came naturally.  It is also debatable whether  in pure arithmetical terms a base of ten rather than twelve  has more utility. The duodecimal system can be factored more fluently, for example,  10 is factored by just  5 and 2, 12 is factored by 2, 3, 4 and 6.. Nor is a base of ten natural. Commonly amongst primitive peoples the counting system is something along these lines: one, two,  plenty.  No automatic use of ten because we have ten digits on the hands and feet.

The creeping metrication has produced a disturbing result.  Those who are  older  still think entirely in Imperial  and are confused by metric. The young , who have been taught only metric* in schools,   often have no firm grasp of the system  because  a system of weights and measures  formally taught  is no more likely to be remembered by most  than is algebra.  Consequently  they are confused by both Imperial and metric  measurements.   (A good way of testing whether someone understands metric is to ask them their height in metres or the waist measurement in centimetres. If you get five in a hundred to give the correct answer I would be surprised. )

The upshot of this change to metric  is not an increase in efficiency of  ease of calculation by the population as a whole but a widespread  abrogation of individual judgement on the value of things by measurement  simply because people do not understand the measure being used.  This ignorance  also has effects on work in those jobs where precision of measurement is necessary.  If someone mixing paint does not  know the difference between a millilitre and a litre trouble is assured.  The general effect is for large numbers of people to have lost any sense of proportion in measurement. It is akin to the number blindness of those who cannot do arithmetic without a calculator and consequently have no idea of whether the result they get from the input is correct.

There is also the political dimension.  Since 1896 Britons have not been  forced to  use Imperial measurements . (They were  at liberty to use either imperial or metric  in trade after  Parliament passed the Weights and Measures (Metric System) Act  in that year).  Britain’s membership of the EU has removed that freedom with  metric  measurements now being the legally required system when used for goods and services sold by quantity. Dual labelling  – metric and Imperial – was allowed  by the EU but this was meant to be phased out  by 31 December 2009. However, that demand has been dropped and what the EU calls ‘supplementary indications”  (Imperial measures) are continuing without any definite end. Nonetheless, the metric  system is the dominant legal system and any trader refusing to use  a metric measure is liable for prosecution as the “Metric Martyrs”  (most famously Steve Thoburn)  discovered.  If you want to sell a pound of potatoes you have to weigh it on metric scales and price it according to the metric price. 

It might seem  strange that the people who continuously tell us that the preservation of cultures is the most important thing in the world are also the people who  pushed through decimalisation  and are in the process of  forcing metrication on us at all costs. Sadly, there is no mystery.  It is cultural cleansing arranged by our elite in who are Quislings in the service of liberal internationalism in general and of the EU in particular.   The upshot is that English  children have been and are being denied what has been part of being English for many centuries.

I have entitled this piece the English Year Zero. Why not the British Year Zero? Because counties, our  currency and the Imperial system of weights and measures have their origins in England. Their  antiquity and origins  make them more valuable to the English than to the Celts.  A native of Yorkshire calls himself a Yorshireman  but a  Scot does not refer to himself as Midlothian or a native of Lanarshire a  Lanarkshireman. Rather, a Scot will refer to themselves as a highlander, by their clan, their religious affiliation (Protestant or Catholic)  or derive their status from a city such as  Glasgow.   The Welsh and Northern Irish have similar cultural reference points. Similarly, the Celts  have in the back of their mind that the pound sterling and  Imperial weights and measures are English imposed devices which makes them value them less at best or even be actively glad to see them destroyed or under threat.   

* school pupils are taught “rough metric equivalents of imperial units still in daily use”, but are not taught how to manipulate Imperial units –  Mathematics – The National Curriculum for England Key stages 1–4, Joint publication by Department for Education and Employment and Qualifications and Curriculum Authority 1999.

English education and the great grade inflation fraud

English education has suffered greatly from its politicisation in the liberal internationalist interest, but even more fundamental damage was done by progressive teaching methods which failed to provide many children with an adequate grasp the three ‘Rs’ (and left a depressing number either completely  illiterate or what is coyly called “functionally illiterate”, while  most are unable to do simple arithmetic and lack any sense of number or proportion,  so that they have no idea whether the sums they poked into their calculators produced answers which were correct.

The most obvious consequence of the gradual decline in educational standards  was an erosion in exam quality.  At first it was small things. Practical exams for science O Levels were dropped. Then came multiple choice questions. The curricula in all subjects  shrank.  New,  less academic subjects such as media studies found their  way into the exam system and elbowed the academic aside. Eventually  came the ultimate corruption of the exam system with the introduction of continuous assessment.  With  the fall in school standards, the  universities and polytechnics inevitably had to drop their standards. 

The  corruption of exam standards was further driven by a desire to expand the numbers of children passing school exams and the numbers going on to Higher Education.  To this end O Levels and the old CSE exams for less able pupils were abolished in the 1980s  and replaced with the General Certificate of Education (GCSE). Around the same time a decision was made to vastly increase the numbers of students in Higher Education. To make this policy more attractive to would-be students, the polytechnics were renamed universities in 1992, with the consequence that more than 100 institutions with that title were suddenly competing for students, with as we shall see later, evil effects.

The consequence of having a single exam (GCSE) for all 16 year olds was predictable: to prevent embarrassing numbers of failures, the standard of the new exam had to be reduced below that of the already much less demanding O Levels of the 1980s (even so, in 2005 around 30 per cent of children fail to gain five GCSEs at C grade or higher.) The upshot was that the GCSE candidates either left school at 16  lacking even  the rudiments of education needed to fill run-of-the-mill jobs – many are functionally illiterate and even more lack basic numeracy –   or entered A Level courses woefully under-prepared, especially in subjects such as maths.  A Levels and degree courses were again, of necessity, reduced in standard to adapt to pupils and students who were substantially under-prepared compared with those arriving under the pre-GCSE examination regime.

At the same time as standards were eroding, the Tories introduced in the 1980s the madness of league tables and targets.  The consequence of these – not just in education but generally – is to distract from the actual purpose of what an organisation is supposed to do and to promote dishonesty in the pursuit of attaining the targets and showing well in league tables. 

The league tables provoked even more tampering with the academic standards of school exams as examination boards competed with one another to produce the “best” results, that is, ever higher pass rates and grades and schools chose the examination board most likely to give them ostensible examination success.

The  response of both politicians and educationalists  to the inexorable rise in GCSE and A Level results since GCSE was introduced has been to hail them as evidence that educational standards are continually rising. Such claims have the same relationship to reality as Soviet figures for the turnip harvest or tractor production.  All that has happened is that both the difficulty of exams and the severity of marking has been reduced.  In 2004 an A Grade in GCSE Maths  from Edexcel, one of the largest exam boards, could be gained with 45 per cent (Daily Telegraph 18 9 2004), while a “B” grade at one Board in 2004 (OCR)  could be a obtained with a mere 17 per cent (Sunday Telegraph 16 1 2005).  (When challenged about lowered grade marks, those setting the exams claim that the questions are becoming  more difficult.)  Course work, which counts towards the overall exam mark,  is reported as being either routinely plagiarised from the Web or showing other evidence of being  other than the pupil’s unaided work. 

In addition to the lowering of exam marks and the fraud of continuous assessment, school exams have begun to shift from final tests  to  modular exams which are taken throughout the course. Hence, pupils on such courses never take an exam which tests them on their entire course. 

Of course, all this change to school exams, combined with the introduction of the national curriculum tests,  creates a great deal of extra work for teachers and distracts them from the actual task of teaching – pupils are tested at 7, 11, 14, 16, 17 and 18.  It has also spawned a truly monstrous examination bureaucracy,  which according to a recent report from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (a state body) costs £610 million per year (Daily Telegraph 14 2 2005) and has left the country desperately scrabbling around for  examiners.

The  frequent complaints of university teachers about the inadequacy of the students coming to them  and the even more  vociferous  complaints of employers about applicants who lack competence in even the three “Rs” are pretty substantial straws in the wind suggesting a general educational failure. My own direct experience of youngsters all too often bears out such complaints –  I find especially depressing recent graduates with good degrees from top universities who are  bizarrely ignorant of their degree subjects and poorly equipped to research or analyse.

The universities also joined in the grade inflation caucus race.  I went to University in the late sixties. In those days – when less than 10% of UK school-leavers went to university – Oxford and Cambridge awarded around 40%  of undergraduates the top two degree classifications . The newer universities were much stingier, many awarding only  4-5% of firsts and 30% of upper seconds.  They did this to establish their credibility.  Now it is common for universities to award  firsts to more than 15% of undergraduates and firsts and  upper seconds to two thirds of those who graduate.  A recent (I Jan 2011) Sunday  Telegraph  investigation discovered “The universities awarding the highest proportion of firsts or 2:1s last year were Exeter, where 82 per cent of graduates received the top degrees compared with just 29 per cent in 1970, and St Andrews – Scotland’s oldest university, where Prince William met fiancée Kate Middleton – where the figure was also 82 per cent compared with just 25 per cent in 1970.

“Imperial College London and Warwick both granted 80 per cent firsts or 2:1s last year, compared with 49 per cent and 39 per cent respectively in 1970.  At Bath University the figure was 76 per cent last year compared with just 35 per cent in 1970. “http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/8235115/Dumbing-down-of-university-grades-revealed.html

There was some grade inflation before the late eighties but it was small compared with what has happened since. Until, the late eighties universities received their funding in the form of a block grant from a government body called the Universities Grants Committee ((UGC) This meant there was no temptation to inflate degree awards because the money did not follow the individual student. The UGC was scrapped in 1989 and the money attached to each individual student. This changed the relationship between  the university and student from being one where the student was seen as just that to one where the student became primarily a bringer of money. This relationship changed again with  first the abolition of grants and then the introduction of fees which made placed the student in the position of customer.

Anecdotes are always tricky as evidence,  so let us consider an objective fact which explains why widespread educational incompetence is inevitable in the circumstances which have been created.  IQ  is normally distributed within a population, that is it forms a Bell Curve with most people clustering in the middle of the curve and a few people at the extremes of the curve. Such a distribution means that the proportion of the population with IQs substantially above the average is quite small – approximately 25 per cent of the UK population have IQs of 110 or more.  Now, it is true that IQ as a measure of academic success is not infallible, not least because motivation is necessary as well as intellect.  But what is true is that a decent IQ is necessary for  academic success. Put another way, someone with an IQ of 150 may or may not take a First in maths: someone with an IQ of 90 never will.

The way IQ is distributed means that the ideal of an exam suited to everyone (GCSE) is a literal nonsense, because that which would test the brightest would be beyond the large majority and even that which the majority could cope with would be beyond those in the lower part of the ability range. The grades awarded for GCSE bear this out.  The  large numbers of those getting the top marks mean that the exam is too easy for the brightest, while the 30 per cent or so of school-leavers who cannot attain 5 passes at C grade or better tell you it is too difficult for the lower part of the academic ability continuum. 

 A similar problem of fitting exams to a very wide ability range has affected universities. Tony Blair set a target of 50 per cent of either school-leavers or people under the age of 28 (the target seems to move) to be in Higher Education – at the beginning of  2005 the percentage is over 40 per cent. Blair’s target meant that many of those at university will have mediocre IQs. 

Let us  assume for the sake of simplicity  that 50 per cent of school-leavers is the target rather than 50 per cent of those under 28. There are only around 25 per cent of people with IQs of 110 or higher in any age group. If every one of those 25 per cent went to university (50 per cent of those scheduled to go to university if the Blair target is met) it would still leave the other half of those going to university  to be found from those with IQs of less than 109. Hence, with 50 per cent of school-leavers at university,  at least half the  people taking degrees would have, as a matter of necessity,  moderate IQs.  In fact, the position is worse than that,  because significant numbers of those with IQs substantially above average will not go  to university.  That means even more than 50 per cent of students would have moderate IQs. Trying to set degree courses suitable for people with,  say,  IQs  ranging  from 90-160 cannot be a  practical proposition.

The coalition government has not committed themselves to Blair’s 50% target but neither have they said it will not the reached or even exceeded, the Government line being anyone who wants to go to universitty should go.

The upshot of all this is that the better  universities can no longer trust an A at A Level to be a true reflection of excellence because so many people are awarded As and a new A* grade has been introduced in the hope that it will distinguish outstanding candidates.  However, this is unlikely to be a long-term solution as it is a sound bet that A* will be awarded in ever greater numbers.

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.

English education: the roots of its politicisation

When I left school in the mid-sixties the Empire was effectively finished – the final nail in the coffin of imperial feeling was banged in by our entry into the EU in 1972,  which alienated the  white dominions – and a new spirit of anti-Establishment feeling was beginning to erode school discipline. But progressive ideals had not yet taken hold the  educational establishment and the comprehensive disaster was only in its infancy. The school leaving exams, the O and A Levels, were a real test of competence in both their subjects and of  the literacy and numeracy of candidates. To take but one example of the difference between then and now: even O Level science exams had, for 16-year-olds, demanding practicals as well as written papers. 

By the mid seventies the grammar schools had been reduced to a rump of a few hundred. Ironically, most of those which had converted to  comprehensive schools or which had chosen to become private schools to preserve their status,  had been forced to change by a supposedly conservative government, that of Ted Heath, whose education minister was  Margaret  Thatcher.  The  failure  of  Heath  to  stop comprehensivisation  was a harbinger of what was to happen under the future Conservative governments of Thatcher and Major.

Comprehensivisation

The comprehensive ideal  is not innately wrong.  Children of very widely differing abilities can be successfully taught  together. Traditionally, the greatest public schools  in England have been  comprehensives of a sort.  They took boys who varied from the exceptionally bright to the stonewall stupid and managed largely  to successfully educate both groups and all those in between.  The very bright won scholarships to Oxbridge, while the stonewall stupid  at least left school functionally literate.

But these schools were hopeless models for a  state comprehensive system. They drew almost all of their pupils from the middle and upper classes  and the resources available to the schools from fees and endowments vastly outstripped any that could ever be available to state funded schools. The social class of the pupils meant that the pupils had expectations of being in the higher reaches of society when they entered adult life and parents who actively wanted and expected their children to be educated. To these advantages were added  greatly  superior financial resources which permitted the recruitment of first rate staff, small classes and personal tuition.

A general comprehensive system lacks the advantages of a great public school.  Most of the schools will be dominated by the children of the working class simply because they are by far the most numerous.  That would be true even if all private schools were abolished and “bussing” of middle and upper class children was enforced to ensure that schools were socially mixed.

Inevitably the adult expectations of working class children tend to be lower than those of the middle and upper classes. Their parents are generally less supportive of the idea of education. A significant minority are actively hostile to their children becoming better educated than they are because it divorces the children from their workingclass roots.  Few will be able to provide active academic  assistance to their children.  Those facts alone make mixed ability teaching difficult. Add in the much smaller financial resources available to state schools – which expresses itself in larger classes, a narrower curriculum and, on average,  less able and  less  well motivated staff  – and you have a recipe for low educational attainment. In such schools the bright and academically interested  pupils often become isolated, under-challenged intellectually  and frequently bullied, while the duller,  non-academic majority  are allowed to plough an educational furrow,  which stretches from  academic inadequacy to an outright failure of education. 

In practice comprehensivisation was much worse than that.  Bussing was not enforced.  The better off continued to send their children to fee-paying  schools – today approximately 7 per cent  of  our schoolchildren are privately educated, a higher proportion than in the 1960s when many middleclass parents were happy to send their children to state grammar schools. (It is a grand irony that comprehensivisation rescued the public schools,  many of which were  struggling to maintain numbers by 1965).

Social segregation by the use of fee-paying schools was amplified both by the natural segregation of social classes into geographical areas – in the absence of enforced “bussing” a middle class suburb will have a local school which is largely filled with middleclass children – and by the widespread practice of middle class parents moving to areas where good state schools were available. The consequence has been a state school system which is heavily segregated by class, with the schools dominated by the working class tending to be the lowest achieving.

The subversion of the social mixing part of the comprehensive ideal was further  complicated by mass immigration. This introduced not only racial and ethnic conflict into schools, a toxic enough disruptive element in itself, but also created grave practical problems  because so many of the immigrant children did not have a competence in English.  The  official promotion of multiculturalism and  its concomitant  idea  that any member of an  ethnic  minority  is  automatically a victim of white society  complicated the position further, not least in the area of discipline. Ethnic minorities soon realised  that in the context of an  official  sponsorship  of “victimhood”  they could get away with more and more. Native English  children seeing this, naturally enough, also became more inclined to  misbehave. 

Because immigrants settled almost entirely in large towns and cities, these problems were and are confined almost exclusively to schools where the white pupils were workingclass, who found  their already inferior opportunities for education further reduced. Worse,  immigration was the final lever which allowed progressive education to not only gain absolute ascendency in the English state  educational system, but to transform the progressive ideal into an overt political ideology, the ideology we know today as political correctness.

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

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

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

English Speaking Union debate: ‘This house believes that an English Parliament is the last hope for a United Kingdom’

 Report and commentary on the Campaign for an English Parliament  English Speaking Union debate  24 November  2010

Proposition: ‘This house believes that an English Parliament  is the last hope for a United Kingdom’

Chair: Louisa Preston (BBC Presenter)

For: Scilla Cullen (CEP), David Wildgoose ( (English Democrats)

Against:  Prof.  Hugo de Burgh (Ex-journalist and now a Director, China Media Studies at Westminster U, Eddie Bone (CEP)

NB Eddie Bone was playing devil’s advocate (see below) as he is a supporter of an English Parliament  

The proposition for  debate was lightly worn as  both the platform speakers and  comments and questions from the floor tended to circle around the questions of a federal UK and the practicality of an English parliament.  Nonetheless, it was an interesting evening with a healthy turnout.

Scilla Cullen

Mrs Cullen’s main thrust was directed at what she claimed were  breaches of the 1707 Act of Union. She illustrated this by pointing to the  fact that we now have at  two Parliaments – at Westminster and Edinburgh – in the UK ( four if the Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies are treated as  parliaments)  whereas the Act says there will be but one Parliament for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and different tax and regulatory regimes for trade between the four home countries, something which she claimed was forbidden by the Act.

There are two objections to Mrs Cullen’s  argument.  The Act of Union is simply an ordinary Act of Parliament. It has no superior status as constitutional law. This means that it can be amended or repealed overtly by an Act of Parliament or by the  application of  the English legal doctrine of  implied repeal, viz:

“As a general rule, if an Act is partially or wholly inconsistent with a previous Act, then the previous Act is repealed to the extent of the inconsistency. It does not matter that the later Act contains no express words to affect the repeal or alteration. This is known as the doctrine of implied repeal. (page 3 –  http://cseng.aw.com/catalog/uploads/Carroll_C05.pdf – there is a good presentation  of the history and development of the doctrine at this url )”

There have been attempts since Britain’s entry into the EU (EEC at the time of entry) – most notably in the  ‘Metric Martyrs’ case –  to establish that some statutes have a de facto constitutional status and should not be subject to implied repeal – but no higher court has sustained the claim. (This failure to create a superior constitutional law status  underpins  David Cameron’s recent claim that Parliament is supreme and consequently Britain could leave the EU simply by an Act of Parliament. Cameron  is incorrect because of the Lisbon Treaty – see below under Wildgoose).  It is worth adding, that even if some ordinary Acts of Parliament were retrospectively given a superior constitutional law status and were not subject to implied repeal, the constitutional position would remain unclear because  the Acts with constitutional law status would  contradict one another. 

The existence of implied repeal means  that any complaint that the  original Act of Union has been breached by later law has no legal force.

As for the claim that the original  Act required equality of  tax and trade regulations throughout Great Britain, this is simply wrong because there are exceptions such those in clause  VI  (the full text of the Act can be found at  http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/the-act-of-union-1707/ ). Most notable is clause IX, viz:

“THAT whenever the sum of One million nine hundred ninety seven thousand seven hundred and sixty three pounds eight shillings and four pence half penny, shall be enacted by the Parliament of Great Britain to be raised in that part of the United Kingdom now called England, on Land and other Things usually charged in Acts of Parliament there, for granting an Aid to the Crown by a Land Tax; that part of the United Kingdom now called Scotland, shall be charged by the same Act, with a further Sum of forty-eight thousand Pounds, free of all Charges, as the Quota of Scotland, to such Tax, and to proportionably for any greater or lesser Sum raised in England by any Tax on Land, and other Things usually charged together with the Land; and that such Quota for Scotland, in the Cases aforesaid, be raised and collected in the same Manner as the Cess now is in Scotland, but subject to such Regulations in the manner of collecting, as shall be made by the Parliament of Great Britain.”

At the time of Union England  had a population in the region of 5 million and Scotland a population of approximately 1 million.  If Scotland had been taxed at the same rate as England under that clause they would have been paying not £48,000 but nearer to £400,000. Hence, from the very beginning Scotland was treated much more favourably than England when it came to taxation.

Mrs Cullen was on firmer ground when she pressed the fact that we had a de facto federal system which could only be equitable by the creation of an English Parliament .  She illustrated the point by mentioning that we currently have the absurdity  of  the  SNP’s Richard Lochhead,  a domestic Scottish politician without any electoral base  in UK politics,  negotiating on behalf of the UK with the EU over fishing policy. 

David Wildgoose

Mr Wildgoose wanted a federal UK but it would not have been one which I think most English men and women would welcome. His idea of a federal government was one in which 55 seats at Westminster were taken from the Celts and given to the English, with “English votes for English laws”  and the federal issues decided by the entire Parliament. The problem was he was not envisaging a situation  in which the English subsidy to the Celts ended, for example, he assumed   welfare benefits would continue to be  funded from Westminster .  This sat uncomfortably  with his claim that he wanted “The English to be equal citizens with equal rights”.

During the Q and A session afterwards I detailed what a stable and long lasting  federal UK should involve –  four national parliaments with home rule including fiscal responsibility and one assembly to deal with federal matters such as foreign affairs, defence and the servicing of the national debt.  Oddly, Mr Wildgoose claimed this was not a federation but a confederation. I pointed out, sadly  without success, that  a confederation is a loose league of states without any overarching government, for example, the confederation which arose immediately after the end of the American  War of Independence , while a federation has an overarching government such as that which was formed when the United States was established.   Clearly what I was proposing was a  federal system while Mr Wildgoose was suggesting no more than  a procedurally  amended House of Commons.

Mr Wildgoose also recited the oft made claim that because Parliament is supreme Britain can leave the EU simply by passing an Act of Parliament repealing all the Treaties which enshrine our EU membership in law. This is no longer true. The Lisbon Treaty  contains for the first time a mechanism for any EU state wishing to withdraw from the Union, viz:

“Article 50 of the Treaty runs:

“1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.

2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.

3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.

4. For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, the member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it. A qualified majority shall be defined in accordance with Article 238(3)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

5. If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to rejoin, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49.”

Apart from requiring a qualified majority of the other EU states (QMV means in practice the support of most of the large EU nations), the state which wishes to withdraw would be excluded from any discussions on the conditions for withdrawal. Then there is the delay before withdrawal can be effected. It is probable that the minimum period of waiting before secession would be two years, because it would be extraordinary if the EU did not try to make withdrawal as difficult as possible, while the provision in paragraph 2 that departure must be by negotiation “setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union” means that it will necessarily be a protracted process.

During the time before Britain left she would be bound by EU laws and the EU could adopt directives which could do Britain a good deal of damage, for example, directives which severely interfered with the City. These would not even have to be directives deliberately designed to harm Britain, but simply decisions advantageous to the remaining members which would  take no account of any damage that might be done to Britain. Britain would take no part in discussions or votes on EU legislation introduced during the period between asking to withdraw and actually withdrawing. There would almost certainly be significant conditions for withdrawal which impinged upon British sovereignty including agreement to ‘voluntarily’ adopt much EU legislation, both existing and future. With the Treaty unsigned Britain could have simply stated that it was withdrawing. Such a declaration would raise the question of whether Article 56(1) of the Vienna Convention on the Law on Treaties, to which our political elite have also promiscuously bound Britain, would sanction withdrawal. The Article runs:

“1. A treaty which contains no provision regarding its termination and which does not provide for denunciation or withdrawal is not subject to denunciation or withdrawal unless:

a) it is established that the parties intended to admit the possibility of denunciation or withdrawal; or

b) a right of denunciation or withdrawal may be implied by the nature of the treaty.”

Whether the various treaties which encumber the EU before the Lisbon Treaty is in force could be said to imply a right of withdrawal is a matter of legal debate, although the fact that the Lisbon Treaty itself makes provision for withdrawal is a tacit admission that withdrawal was always implied. But legal or not, a situation where the right of withdrawal was claimed where no treaty sanctioned, forbade or laid down conditions for withdrawal would be a vastly more fluid and, consequently, Britain would be in a much stronger bargaining situation than that which would exist after the Lisbon Treaty becomes law. After implementation of the Treaty, Article 54 of the Vienna Convention on the Law on Treaties would apply to the EU. That Article runs:

“The termination of a treaty or the withdrawal of a party may

take place:

(a) in conformity with the provisions of the treaty; or

(b) at any time by consent of all the parties after consultation with the other contracting States.”

This is in conformity with the withdrawal Article in the Lisbon Treaty and the EU’s legal position would be greatly strengthened by the Treaty‘s implementation. That is one of the reasons why the EU is so desperate to get the Treaty ratified before the next British general election.

But legality in international matters is not the same as legality within a nation state. This is both because there is no democratic legitimacy for international law and for the entirely practical reason that there is no means of enforcing such law, short of blockade or war. Hence, international law is all too often observed in its breach by powerful nations and enforced by the powerful on the weak. Its unreality is shown in Article 42 of the Vienna Convention on the Law on Treaties:

“Validity and continuance in force of treaties

1. The validity of a treaty or of the consent of a State or an international organization to be bound by a treaty may be impeached only through the application of the present Convention.

2. The termination of a treaty, its denunciation or the withdrawal of a party, may take place only as a result of the application of the provisions of the treaty or of the present Convention. The same rule applies to suspension of the operation of a treaty.”

This means that for Britain to legally withdraw from the Vienna Convention all Britain’s co-signatories would have to agree to the withdrawal, a  truly fantastic hope.” (Extract from my recent Quarterly Review article Life after Lisbon: freedom or servitude?)

 Hugo de Burgh

Prof de Burgh served up a very rum political dish. On the one hand he was wont to make comments such as the EU is  “Germany’s Fourth Reich” and  a claim that the best governments in the world were all to be found in the Anglosphere as well as constantly extolling the culture and traditions of England. He was also roundly contemptuous of modern politicians,  whom he sees as largely corrupt and self serving, and the centralising tendencies of recent British governments. On the other hand  he was adamant that that there should be no English Parliament. 

There are two contradictions here. First, if  English culture and traditions are so valuable,   it follows that they are worth preserving and like everything else worth preserving this is best done by those with the most direct interest, in this instance the England.  Second,  if Prof de Burgh wants less centralisation, what could be a better place to start than by removing English spending from the bonds of UK policy? It was noticeable that while advocating a devolution of powers generally to the local levels, the Professor did not feel it necessary to suggest that the Celtic Fringe assemblies be abolished.  Astute readers will see that Prof de Burgh’s ideal UK is not a million miles from that of the Blair government with England balkanised and the Celts left politically intact.

How did Prof de Burgh justify his opposition to an English parliament? Apart from his localism argument,  he conjured up a vision of a new world dominated by China with the Anglosphere  replaced as top political world dog by the Asiansphere  and argued from this that it made no sense for England to assert her nationhood because England would be too small and insignificant to have a significant voice.  Why this would be a significantly smaller or significant voice than that of the UK – England having five sixths of UK population – he did not attempt to explain.

The Professor eventually  let the cat out of the bag by saying that England (and the rest of the Anglosphere) should exercise its influence by simply continuing as before  which would set an example to nations without a tradition of the type of values he most admired in the Anglosphere such as representative democracy (note: England  invented representative government not democracy)  and equality before the law.  This is the modern liberal internationalist version of the late imperial ideal of bringing  civilisation to “lesser breeds without the law”.

Prof de Burgh told a fascinating story about a recent encounter he had with a rising member of the Chinese elite who was already an important administrator.  Most Chinese the professor meets love to show off their English. Not this one. In fact, he did not speak at all and was proud of the fact.  The Chinese official explained  that he had made a conscious decision not to learn English because he wanted to remain untouched by foreign culture as this would allow him to fully understand and appreciate the people he would be effectively governing.  That is precisely the mentality which Lord Macartney encountered on the first official British embassy to China in 1794 (His journal is available from the Folio Society in their publication An Embassy to China. ) The liberal idea that China will become a model of Liberal democracy rigid with political correctness is so far removed from the Chinese mentality as to be comical were it not for the threat China potentially pose to the West. (Those who wish to understand the immense ambition of the Chinese should read Parag Khanna’s “The second world”.)

Prof de Burgh disavowed this mentality but clearly admired it. In fact, it is a classic expression of  the natural human desire to guard the security of the tribe.  I applaud that, but seek the same privilege for the English and any other nation.

Eddie Bone

Mr Bone’s contribution  I found unreservedly  fascinating. He has amassed a positive treasury of quotes of Anglophobic politicians from all the major parties and used these to put the anti-English Parliament government case.  There was Jack Straw claiming the English were dangerous because they were violent, David Cameron recoiling with horror at the idea of being Prime Minister of  merely  England , George Robertson rubbing his hands at the idea of regional governments in England, John Prescott bizarrely  claiming he is a “proud Welshman”  and William Hague insisting he is a Briton first and foremost.

Mr Bone has promised to send me a copy of his quotes which  I shall post on the England calling blog (he has agreed to this). 

Questions and comments from the floor

There was a good array of questions including important issues which had gone largely or wholly unmentioned by the speakers such as the complication of the EU and the dire economic situation of the Celtic Fringe. 

The  mood of the meeting was overwhelmingly one of anger at the way England was being treated.

The vote on the proposition was carried overwhelmingly.

My general observations

Those who want an English Parliament must  ensure they:

1. understand the legal position before making claims. It is not enough to think that something is so or to rely on a quote. It is imperative to go and look at the full Act or Treaty to properly understand the situation and quite probably to read an expert commentary on the Act or Treaty.

2. realise the importance of economics to this debate because the Celtic Fringe countries  are all economic basket cases, for example, the public service proportion of their GDP is approximately 70% Northern Ireland, 65% Wales and 58% Scotland. They survive at their present level of expenditure simply because of the English subsidy which is probably in the region of £25 billion a year once the higher per capita Treasury funding  to the Celtic Fringe (£15 billion), the lower tax take in the Celtic Fringe than in England and the higher per capita benefits bill (which is paid by Westminster)  in the  Celtic Fringe than England . None of the speakers raised the issue and I was the only one to do so in the Q and A.  

3. understand that unless each home nation has full autonomy for domestic issues and has to raise all the tax they use to fund domestic and their share of federal funding, the odds are that England would still end up subsidizing the Celts.

English Icons – an exercise in Anglophobic NuLabour propaganda

Late  in 2005 a body  called Icons Online  launched a  website  English Icons  (www.icons.org.uk -the website is still up but is no longer being actively managed). The  organisation  was the creation of  the Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS). It  claimed to be entirely independent   despite  being  funded by the DCMS (to the  tune  of  £1m according to the Daily Telegraph 28 4 2006).   The minister with direct responsibility  for  Icons Online was the black London MP  David  Lammy, while  cabinet  minister Tessa Jowell  had indirect  responsibility  as minister for the DCMS.

The ostensible purpose of Icons Online was to provide the English with a sense  of nation by  celebrating English  accomplishments,  inventions, events and such forth.  The public  would nominate and vote on such things and that a number of these  nominations would  be selected to be official English Icons. 

This  was  an official projection of the liberal  propaganda  myth  that the English have no sense of nation and the  Icons’ website unashamedly  made  this intent clear:” Some people argue that there is no such thing as  a  shared  English culture.  They say all those  invasions  by  the Normans  and  Romans  simply left  us with a  ‘hotch  potch’  of  other people’s  cultures.  Paradoxically,  this melting  pot  is  what  makes England  unique.  And today’s multicultural communities make  this  mix even more vibrant and interesting.” 

The covert reason Icons Online was created is simple; NuLabour  were  only too well  aware  that the English have an immense sense of nation  and  were growing increasingly restive about their deliberate marginalisation  by the  British  political elite,  who besides  regularly  insulting   the English, siphon off vast amounts of English money to give to the Celtic Fringe   whilst denying the English any national political voice in  an English Parliament having given such a voice to the other parts of  the UK.

The  Blair Government   was  trying control this growing English  unrest  by creating a soviet-style propaganda unit whose ostensible purpose  was to give voice to  the wishes of the people,  but  whose real purpose was to   produce  a  preordained  propaganda  scenario.   The   preordained propaganda  scenario  in this instance was to portray  England  and  the English  as a happy-clappy  multicultural heaven.  This  intention  was signalled  not only in  the passage from their website  quoted   above, but  also  by the choice of The Windrush as one of the  original  panel chosen Icons. Further evidence comes from  the official minutes of the Icons advisory board (available on the ICONS  website). The minutes for  13 10 2005 stated:

“JD [Jerry Doyle,  Icons’ MD] reported that the Daily Mirror had agreed to be media partner to the ICONS project at launch stage.  Efforts  had also  been  progressing  to  ensure that  ICONS’  partners  were  fully involved in the project. It had been a great success to date, and there was an impressive coalition of support from the National Trust. English Heritage and a range of city museums.  Being inclusive was also crucial to  the project and JD said she was pleased to report involvement  from the Black Cultural Archives,  the Jewish Museum and the Muslim Council. Efforts would continue over time to include other groups.” 

While  the  minutes for 8 12 2005 run:

“Partnership news was reported to the meeting by JD. Meetings had taken place  with the Football Association, Pride personnel in  Brighton  and Mencap  (re an art competition in 2006).  ICONS attended the launch  of Islam Awareness Week to build up contacts and Ken Livingstone  supplied his nomination at the event.”

According to the Icons   website,  the  official icons were to be chosen by  “An advisory board [which] has been set up to help us sift  through nominations and decide which will be featured on this site. This group,  drawn  from a wide range of backgrounds and experience,  will  consider all  your comments and suggestions – as well as the public  vote.”   “A wide range of backgrounds and experience” eh?   The board  is comprised of entirely of  public servants, members of Quangocracy,  mediafolk and academics.  The nine members included these three (text taken from Icons website):

“Vineet  Lal is currently England Brand Manager with Enjoy  England  at VisitBritain.    Enjoy  England  is  the  official   national   tourism organisation for England,  and Vineet has been working with the England team since its inception in March 2003.  Originally from Edinburgh,  he grew  up  in  Scotland and his tourism career  has  included  roles  at Edinburgh and Lothians Tourist Board and  isitScotland…  [He]  thinks it  is  a  delightful  irony that someone with  such  a  strong  Celtic background should end up working on a brand strategy for England!”

“Jo  Turner is head of Arts Online and International at the  Department for  Culture Media and Sport.  She has worked for the department  since 1993 looking after policies concerning sport and young people, widening access  to museums (including the introduction of free admission),  and broadcasting.  She  also looks after DCMS policy  matters  for  Culture Online.  She has worked as Private Secretary to Ministers dealing  with Sport,  Broadcasting and Tourism.  Jo has a degree in History,  and was previously  a  curator  at  the  Imperial  War  Museum,   dealing  with photograph  collections,  and has published work for the IWM about  the contribution made by ethnic minority forces.”

“Sam Walker is director of the Black Cultural Archive and Museum. Based in Brixton,  the Black Cultural Archive and Museum was developed during the  1980s to collect and document the history and life experiences  of black peoples in the UK…”

The last published Advisory Board  minutes (dated  23 2 2006)  includes this  statement:”  The second wave of Icons (for addition to  the  site late April) was discussed.  The editorial director suggested  additions to  his  original list to better represent the results  of  the  public vote. Advisory Board agreed.”  

When this “wave of  Icons”   was announced  in April 2006  they included the Notting Hill Carnival and Brick Lane. I used the Freedom of Information Act  to get the actual voting figures.  The Notting Hill  Carnival  was chosen by the panel despite 84.5% of the public voting NO.  Brick  Lane was chosen with a mere 20 people taking part in the vote.   The  voting figures provided by the DCMS for all 21 Icons were:    

Icon name                votes      % yes    Yes Votes    No Votes

Big Ben                        3321      87.70%      2913        408

Blackpool Tower       1090      65.20%         711        379

Brick Lane                       20      65.00%           13            7

Cricket                         2650      87.80%      2327        323

Domesday Book         1126      80.90%         911       215

Eden Project                 597      30.80%         184       413

Globe Theatre              637      73.20%       466         171

Hadrian’s Wall            1040      74.60%       776        264

Hay Wain                       610      70.80%       432        178

HMS Victory                1378      82.10%      1131       247

Lindisfarne Gospels      245      61.20%        150        95

Mini-skirt                        933      45.30%        423       510

Morris Dancing            6923      88.30%      6113      810

Notting Hill Carnival    2189      15.30%        335    1854

Origin of Species            727      69.60%        504       223

Pride and Prejudice     

by Jane Austen               790      65.80%        520       270

Pub                                 4353      87.90%      3826       527

Queen’s head stamp

design by Machin          596       68.60%        409       187

St George Flag             2265       87.80%      1989       276

Sutton Hoo Helmet       661       64.10%        424       237

York Minister                 735       68.20%        501        234

The Daily Telegraph (28 April 2006) reported that these icons had  been chosen   as English icons because  each was  “one of the 21 most  voted for  icons  suggested  by the public since the website was  set  up  in January”.    Clearly neither the Notting Hull Carnival nor  Brick  Lane was  “one  of the 21 most voted for”.   They were  selected  simply  to progress  Icons  Online’s  openly declared  multicultural  agenda:  the purpose  of The Notting Hill Carnival  being  to include blacks;   that of Brick Lane  to include Asians within the concepts of Englishness and England.

Icons Online  also censored  comments  made about Icons,  both  those nominated  and  chosen.  Here is the  project’s  director  Daniel  Hahn writing  to me concerning comments made about the Windrush which  never appeared on the site:  “  Thank you for your e-mail and your continuing interest in our site. At present we have three comments published,  and ten which have been submitted and rejected. As you’ll see if you browse through the other icons on the site, we are happy to include debate  on our site by publishing comments that don’t support a particular thing’s iconic status;  we are not,  however,  prepared to publish anything  we believe  to  be obviously racist or in any other  way  offensive,  into which category I’m afraid those ten rejected comments fall. “

In addition to  pushing of the multicultural agenda,  the Icons Website was  manipulating matters in the general politically correct  interest. The  most   notable example of this to date was  the  fox  hunting  Icon nomination.  This has been changed from  “fox hunting” (as nominated by the  public)  to   “hunting and the ban”,  something  which  was  never nominated by the public nor voted for.  (The Icons website still has it as  fox  hunting but their press releases have it as  hunting  and  the ban).

Apart  from  being a great political scandal,  the behaviour  of  Icons Online  also  has  criminal implications because  taxpayers’  money  was being  used for purposes other than those which Parliament  has  agreed to, that is   to fund a project to allow the ordinary Englishman and woman to express their sense of national identity.  The further  manipulation  to  prevent non-pc Icons such as fox-hunting being  included  compounds the offence.

I wrote  to Tessa Jowell, my MP Frank Dobson and the  then Tory shadow spokesman  on Culture,  Media and Sport Hugo Swire asking them to  take action to expose the scandal and prevent it continuing.  Jowell did not reply and  Dobson refused to act. 

Swire sent me a long letter which dealt in detail with the manipulation of the fox hunting nomination, but failed entirely to mention let alone address  the  choice of  the Notting Hill Carnival  or  Brick  Lane  as Icons.   However,  he did send me an interesting reply he received from the DCMS when he put down  this Parliamentary  question: “Mr Hugo Swire (Devon  East):  To  ask the Secretary of State  for  Culture,Media  and Sport,  whether (a) she,  (b) Ministers and (c) an official  instructed that  hunting be omitted from her Department sponsored  cultural  icons survey.” (22 5 2006). 

The reply was given by David Lammy:  “No Ministers or officials in  the Department for Culture,  Media and Sport,  has instructed the editorial team at the ICONS project on what to exclude from the list of nominated items.  Such decisions are entirely a matter for the projects editorial team governed by an independent Advisory Board…”

English Icons was clearly a politically correct propaganda  exercise  to “include”  everyone  living in England.  Its effect is  of  course  the opposite: it angers the English and leaves ethnic minorities where they were before:  feeling anything but English  for the icons celebrate not Englishness but something other.

The  fact that so many people (1854) took the trouble to vote “NO,  the Notting  Hill Carnival is not an English icon”,  and only 20 people  in the entire country  bothered to vote one way or the other on the  Brick Lane nomination tells you two things:  (1)  next to no one thinks  they are English Icons and (2) the English are very strongly opposed to this type of political manipulation.    The problem the English have is that a lack of any mainstream political voice.  Until that is remedied   the British elite will continue to manipulate and abuse then.  The  English Icons project is a prime  example of that abuse.