Category Archives: technology

Elite Mischief – Gordon Brown and The Francis Crick Institute

I was recently contacted by Bloomberg News and asked to comment on the  Francis Crick Institute, a massive research laboratory which is being built in central London  on land immediately behind the British library and a road’s width  from the Eurostar terminal.  The laboratory will be handling dangerous toxins and consequently the site is deeply unsuitable both  because of the risk of an accidental escape of toxins  or terrorism.

In addition to the security dangers, the land was sold improperly by the Department of Culture Media and Sport.  The bid was by public tender withe DCMS secretary of state making a decision on strict criteria. The sale was improper because Gordon Brown when Prime Minister intervened consistently to ensure it went to the consortium backing the Francis Crick Institute.

I met with Mrs Gerlin on 8 November. Whether she will use the story remains to be seen.

The full details can be found by following links given in my Briefing Note  to Mrs Gerlin dated 9 November.

——————————————————————————————————–

Mr Robert Henderson

October 25, 2012

Dear Mr Henderson,

I am a healthcare reporter for Bloomberg News in London. I am working on a story about the Crick Institute, which is to be located near your home. I have read some of your objections to it on your blog and have tried reaching you by email with no success.

I would be interested in speaking to you and would like to arrange to meet you near the site. Are you able to meet with me the week of Nov. 6-8? I will be away from London until then, but if you think you have the time, please call my office  (020 7673 2907) and leave a message or send me an email at agerlin@bloomberg.net.

Thank you for your attention.

Kind regards

Andrea Gerlin

Reporter

——————————————————————————————————–

Andrea Gerlin

BLOOMBERG NEWSROOM

City Gate House

39-45 Finsbury Square

London EC2A 1PO

Tel: 0207 330 7500

9 November 2012
Dear Andrea,

Let me summarise our meeting today.  The stories for you in the Francis Crick Institute project are these:

1. Gordon Brown’s interference with the DCMS bidding process.   The bids were meant to be assessed only by the DCMS ministers.  The documents which you saw today showed that Brown was interfering as early as 1 August 2007, the day before the expressions of interest closed, and che ontinued to be involved right up to the announcement he made in the Commons in November 2007.  These documents show unambiguously that  the bidding  for the land was a sham with the Consortium bid behind what is now the Francis Crick Institute actively supported by Brown from the beginning. See http://ukcmri.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/gordon-browns-involvement-in-the-sale-of-the-land-to-ukcrmi/

2. The failure of the unsuccessful bidders to take action when I  sent them the details of Brown’s  interference with the bidding process which meant they had expended  their time and money for nothing. This is almost certainly due to the fact that the serious  bidders  rely heavily on public contracts and did not want to put future contracts in jeopardy by making a fuss about this bogus contract bidding. See http://ukcmri.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/the-failed-bidders-notified-that-the-bidding-process-was-a-sham/     and http://ukcmri.wordpress.com/2011/03/04/notification-of-the-contamination-of-the-bidding-process-to-the-lead-contractor/

3. The failure of the officers of Camden Counci l who prepared  the brief for the planning committee  to include the details of Brown’s interference with the bidding process in the brief. See http://ukcmri.wordpress.com/2010/12/19/challenge-to-the-granting-of-planning-permision/ and http://ukcmri.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/camdens-response-to-my-notification-of-planning-permission-irregularities/

4. The failure of  the Mayor of London to take up the question of Gordon Brown’s interference with the bidding process  after I had sent him the details. See http://ukcmri.wordpress.com/2011/01/14/notification-of-planning-irregularities-to-boris-johnson/ and http://ukcmri.wordpress.com/2011/01/14/boris-johnson-gives-the-go-ahead-to-ukcmri-laboratory/

5. The new leader of the Green Party in Britain, Natalie Bennett,  took a leading role in the opposition to the laboratory, including giving evidence before the Science and Technology select committee.  Despite having ready access to the media as she was then a Guardian online editor , Natalie refused to use the evidence of Brown’s interference with the bidding process.   Try as  I might I never got a meaningful explanation for why she would not use the material . At the least there is a considerable disjunction between her public promotion of herself as a Green campaigner  and her failure to use information which, apart from being a potent weapon in the fight against the siting of the laboratory , was a first rate political story in its own right. As her politics are well to the left (see http://www.nataliebennett.co.uk/) , a plausible motive for her failure to use the  information would be her unwillingness to damage a prime minister and a party with which she had much sympathy. See http://ukcmri.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/the-new-leader-of-the-greens-knows-how-to-keep-mum/

6. The biohazard and terrorist dangers. These include the use by the Consortium of a non-existent classification of biohazard level 3+. They have been persistently challenged on this and never given a straight answer.  The section on security in this post covers the issue – http://ukcmri.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/objection-to-ukcmri-planning-application-for-a-research-centre-in-brill-place-london-nw1/

These issues are serendipitous as news stories because there is a cataract of elite misbehaviour still hitting the public, a substantial part of which involves the ill consequences of privatisation through the putting of public work out to private contract. I send by separate email a selection of recent media stories about privatisation, both wholesale and piecemeal, which will give you an idea of how disorderly public contract awarding has become and how prone to corrupt practices.

To make  the subject as accessible as I can for you I have placed below links to every post made on the UKCRMI blog (I managed to sort out the lost posts after you went). If you click on them they should take you to each post directly. The titles of the links are self-explanatory. 

I am willing to make available to you any of my documentation which is not already on the UKCRMI blog; to give Bloomberg an interview to be broadcast or appear in written form and write an article for Bloomberg.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

——————————————————————————

Links to UKCRMI blog posts
——————————————————————————

Re:Francis Crick Institute – Briefing noteTuesday, 13 November, 2012 9:15

From:
“Andrea Gerlin (BLOOMBERG/ NEWSROOM:)” <agerlin@bloomberg.net>

View contact details

To:
anywhere156@yahoo.co.uk
Robert,
Thank you for talking with me and for sending me further details. I
will take a look at this material and let you know if I have any
questions.
Regards,
Andrea Gerlin
Bloomberg News, London

The truth about UK oil and gas

The Scots Numpty Party (SNP) bases its case for the viability of Scotland’s independence  on the idea that wicked England has been “stealin’ ouir oil” and that  if only they had control of the tax revenues from UK oil and gas Scotland would become a Caledonian El Doraldo.  Sadly for such people a 2009  a  Scotland Office paper  “Scotland and Oil” dealing with the tax income from oil  and gas  fields around the UK painted a rather different picture. It concluded that:

“• If all North Sea oil revenues had been allocated to Scotland there would only have been 9 years out of  the last 27 when Scotland’s finances would have  been in surplus.

• Including all North Sea oil revenues the last year  of surplus was in 1988-89 and since then there has been 18 years of annual deficits with Scotland’s spending being greater than the tax raised in Scotland.

• Even if all oil revenues had been allocated to Scotland the total deficit would have outweighed the total surplus by £20bn since 1980-81. “ (see page 1 – all references below to pages without a url  refer to this url – http://www.scotlandoffice.gov.uk/scotlandoffice/files/Scotland%20and%20Oil%20-%20Background%20paper.pdf)

So there you have it, the official view is that even if all the oil and gas revenues were   allocated to Scotland they still would not pay their way. Of course, a substantial part
of the oil and gas  tax revenue would not go to Scotland because of the fields  in
English waters.  Exactly how much is debatable, but  most of the remaining gas
is in English waters, viz:

“The SNP claims that Scotland would receive 95 per cent of oil revenue, but its calculation is based on the total revenue from oil and gas. Its opponents say that they do not take into account the large number of gas fields in English waters.

“THE EXPERT SAYS: Prof Haszeldine says: “The vast majority of the oil is in Scottish waters. With practically all of the gas in  the UK in the southern North Sea, that is in ‘English’ territory.” He says it is hard to separate the revenue from oil and gas. “(http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/politics/Can-oil-and-gas-fuel.2834598.jp)

There is also the intriguing prospect of  the outer Islands, the Orkneys and Shetlands,  not wanting to leave the UK or seeking independence.  That would take more oil and gas
revenue out of Scottish hands.

The fact that even  the total  oil and gas tax revenues did not bridge the gap between what Scotland received in money from the Treasury and what she contributed to the Treasury is unsurprising. The price of oil is high now but this is an abnormal. In the period 1980-2003, the price was always below $20 a barrel  apart for two years in the mid 1990s when it was a couple of dollars a barrel  higher.   (see page 3 “Scotland and Oil”) . The price did not rise above $50 dollars a barrel until 2007.

There has also been great volatility in the tax take in recent   years:

“In July last year [2008-9] sitting with the price of oil breaking new highs at $147 a barrel and  projected revenues for the current year [2008-09] at £13.2bn, finances were looking  incredibly good. However, sitting today with oil prices at $70 per barrel and projected  revenues for the current year [2009-10]  of £6.9bn the finances would be looking  substantially different and spending plans would have had to have changed.” (see page 10 “Scotland and Oil”).

At present the Scottish Parliament is in a very fortunate situation. It knows, more or less,  what revenue it will have to spend  for the coming financial year because its funding comes from the UK Treasury. Thus it is spared the  responsibility of raising money from its electors . It is in the same position as, for example, the BBC.

If Scotland were independent it would have to raise the money to be spent by central government.  That would bring a very different relationship between the politicians
and the Scottish electorate.   If  a very large slice of  Scottish government revenue was dependent on oil  and gas revenues , massively swings in the tax collected from year to year, as happened in the years 2008/9 and 2009/10 , it  would  make  forward planning very difficult indeed.  To understand just how volatile tax revenue from oil and gas  has been since production began see http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/corporate_tax/table11-11.pdf.
No electorate is going to be cheering if politicians are constantly having to change spending plans.  The worse case scenario  would be that the oil and gas revenues would be so low that  a Scottish government would simply not be able to fund  the ordinary business of government.  That is not so far-fetched because of the great difference between revenue and expenditure when oil and gas revenue is ignored.   For  2007/8 the Scotland Office estimated that  without including any revenue from oil and tax,  Scotland paid £45,191 billion  into the UK exchequer and received £56,285 billion back, a deficit of £11, 094 billion. (http://www.scotlandoffice.gov.uk/scotlandoffice/files/Time%20Series%20Analysis%20of%20Government%20Expenditures%20and%20Revenues%20in%20Scotland.pdf).

Apart from the volatility of the oil and gas price, there is also the rapidly depleting reserves of oil and gas around  the UK.   Production has already fallen from just under  3 million barrels a day in 1999 to  about 1,25 million barrels in 2014. ( see page 5 “Scotland and Oil”).  The amount of oil and gas will continue to fall over the medium term and the quantuity  oil and gas extracted will be strongly influenced by the oil and gas price. The
lower it is, the less exploitation of the smaller marginal fields.  In the medium term Scotland can look forward to diminishing tax returns whatever happens.

There is a further fly in the Caledonian water.  As the price of oil and gas has risen and the
political volatility of  many of the major oil and gas producers has increased, increased interest has been shown in extracting gas and oil from shales. Most of the likely sites in the UK are in England or English waters.  http://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/energy/shalegas.html.
If this source of hydrocarbons proves to be as abundant  as its advocates claim, the demand for oil and gas from the ever more marginal fields around the UK will diminish.

There are many other economic dragons which an independent Scotland would need to slay, including dealing with their over-reliance on taxpayer funded jobs and how they would fund their share of the UK’s public financial obligations at the point of independence, but the volatility and shrinking of the UK’s oil and gas tax receipts  would be arguably their greatest challenge simply because of the heavy dependence the
advocates of independence have placed upon their continuation at a high rate.

Human accomplishment and the English

Robert Henderson

In  his  book  “Human  Accomplishment”   the  American  Charles  Murray
calculates  the  contribution  to  civilisation  made  by   individuals
throughout  history  up until 1950.  To give his calculations  as  much
objectivity  as possible he measures  the amount of attention given  to
an  individual   by  specialists in their  field in   sources  such  as
biographical  dictionaries – put crudely, the greater the frequency  of
mention and the larger the space devoted to an individual,  the  higher
they score.

Murray  quantifies   achievements  under  the  headings  of   astronomy
(Galileo  and  Kepler  tied  for  first  place),  biology  (Darwin  and
Aristotle),  chemistry (Lavoisier),  earth sciences  (Lyell),   physics
(Newton  and  Einstein),   mathematics  (Euler),   medicine   (Pasteur,
Hippocrates  and  Koch),   technology  (Edison  and  Watt),    combined
scientific (Newton), Chinese philosophy (Confucious), Indian philosophy
(Sankara), Western philosophy (Aristotle), Western music (Beethoven and
Mozart),  Chinese  painting  (Gu  Kaizhi  and  Zhao  Mengfu),  Japanese
painting  (Sesshu,  Sotatsu and Korin),   Western  art  (Michelangelo),
Arabic  literature,  (al-Mutanabbi) Chinese literature (Du Fu),  Indian
literature  (Kalidasa),   Japanese  literature  (Basho  and  Chikamatsu
Monzaemon), Western literature (Shakespeare).  

Objections have been made to Murray’s methodology such as the fact that
many  of the great achievements of the past,  especially in  the  arts,
have  been anonymous,  which give it a bias towards the modern  period,
and    fears that it has a built-in Western bias –  the  representation
of  non-Western  figures in the science  and technology  categories  is
minimal.   Nothing can be done about anonymity – it is  worth  pointing
out  that the majority of those heading the categories lived  at  least
several  centuries  ago  – but  Murray  substantially   guards  against
pro-Western  bias with the breadth and number of his sources and it  is
simply  a fact that science and advanced technology arose only  in  the
past few centuries and that both are essentially Western  achievements.
It  is  also noteworthy that Murray’s  method only places  one  of  his
fellow   countrymen  at  number  one  in  any  category    (Edison   in
technology).  If  any bias exists it is unlikely to  be  conscious.  At
worst,  Murray’s  findings  can be seem as a fair  rating   of  Western
achievement.

The list of those heading the various categories (see second  paragraph
above)   suggests  that  Murray’s method is pretty  sound  despite  any
possible methodological  shortcomings,  because those who come top  are
all men of extreme achievement.  There might be arguments over  whether
Aristotle should take precedence over Plato or Kant,   but no one could
honestly argue that Aristotle was an obviously unworthy winner of first
place in the philosophy category.

Of the 13 categories which  can include Westerners (they are  obviously
excluded  from  non-European  literature  and  art),   Englishmen   are
undisputed firsts or share  first place with one other in four: biology
Darwin   with  Aristotle;   Physics  Newton  with  Einstein;   combined
scientific  Newton  alone;  Western literature Shakespeare  alone.   No
other  nation  has  more  than two representatives  at  the  top  of  a
category.  The thirteen Western including categories have a total of 18
people in  sole or joint first place.  England  has nearly a quarter of
those  in first place and more than a quarter of the 15 who  are  drawn
from the modern period, say 1500 AD onwards.   

Apart  from those coming first,   the English show strongly in most  of
the Western qualifying categories (especially in physics – 9 out of the
top 20, technology – 8 out of the top twenty – and Western literature).
The  major  exceptions  are   Western art  and   music,  where  English
representation  is mediocre.   I think most people who think about  the
matter  at  all  would feel those  cultural  strengths  and  weaknesses
represent the reality of English history and society.     

The fact that England shows so strongly in Murray’s exercise  gives the
lie  to  the common representation of the  English  as  unintellectual.
Moreover,  there is much more to human intellectual accomplishment than
the fields covered by Murray,  most notably the writing of  history and
the social sciences,  areas in which England has  been at the forefront
throughout the modern period: think Gibbon,  Macaulay,  Herbert Spencer
and Keynes. 

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

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

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

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

To have produced Shakespeare,  Newton and  Darwin alone would have been
a  great  thing for any nation,  but  for England they are  merely  the
cherries  on the top of a very substantial intellectual  cake.  Beneath
them  sit dozens of others of serious human consequence:  the likes  of
Ockham,  Chaucer,  Wycliffe, Francis Bacon, Marlowe,   Halley,  Hobbes,
Locke, Gibbon, Priestly, Cavendish, Newcomen, Faraday, Austen, Dickens,
Keynes, Turing… ‘Nuff said.

England and the rejection of violence

Why was England so different from other countries in its political, social and economic  development?  How was it that only in England did parliamentary government evolve and the one and only bootstrapped industrial revolution arise?  Perhaps much of the  answer  lies  in the fact that the English, in comparison with any other large nation, have long been wonderfully  adept  in dealing  with the central  problem  of human  life –  how  to live together  peaceably.  A  Canadian  academic, Elliott Leyton,  has  made  a study of English  murder through  the centuries in his book Men of Blood. Leyton finds that the rate of English  (as  opposed  to  British murder) is phenomenally  low  for a country of her size  and industrial development,  both now  and for centuries past.  This strikes Elliott  as  so singular that he said  in  a recent interview “The English  have  an antipathy to murder  which borders  on eccentricity; it is one  of the great  cultural oddities of the modern age.” (Sunday Telegraph  4 12 1994).

 This  restraint  extends to warfare and social disorder. That is not to say England has been  without violence,  but rather that  at any point in her history the level of  violence  was  substantially lower than in any other comparable society. For example,  the  English Civil War  in the  17th  Century  was, apart from the odd inhumane blemish,  startlingly free of the gross  violence common on the continent of  the  time  during the 30 Years War,  where the sacking and pillage of towns and cities  was  the norm. A particularly notable thing,  for civil wars are notorious for their brutality. 

The  way  that  England  responded  to the  Reformation  is instructive. She  did not suffer the savage  wars of religion which  traumatised  the  continent  and  brought  human calamities  such as the  St Bartholomew Day’s  Massacre  in  France  in 1572,  when thousands of French  protestants  were   massacred at the instigation of the French king. 

It  was not that the English did not care deeply about  their  religion,  rather that they have been, when left to their own  devices,  generally loth to fight their  fellow  countrymen  over  anything.  English  civil  wars  have  always  been essentially  political affairs  in which the ordinary  person has little say, for the struggles  were either dynastic or  a clash  between Parliamentary  ambition and  the  monarch.  Even the  persecution of  the  Lollards  in  the late fourteenth  and fifteenth centuries and the persecution  of Protestants  under Mary I had a highly political aspect.  The former  was a vastly disturbing challenge to the  established social  order  with men being told,  in so many  words,  that   they could find their own way to salvation and the latter  an  attempt  to  re-establish not merely  the Catholic  order  in  England,  which had been overturned since the time  of  Henry  VIII’s  breach  with Rome,  but also what amounted to  a  new  royal dynasty with Mary’s marriage to Philip of Spain.

Even the prohibitions on Catholics and non-Conformists  after the  Reformation had a fundamental political basis  to  them, namely, they were predicated on the question of whether  such people be trusted to give their first loyalty to the crown.

The treatment of foreigners

Compared with  other  peoples,  the  English  have been noticeably restrained  in their treatment of other  peoples residing  within their country.  A few massacres of  Jews  occurred before their expulsion from England in 1290,  but from that  time  there has not  been  great slaughter of a minority living within  England. Since  1290  there  have been occasional outbreaks of anti-foreigner violence. During the Peasants’  Revolt  London-based Flemings  were  murdered.  In later times an anti-Spanish “No Popery”  mob was  frequently  got up in London and he influx of Jews and Huguenots in  the 17th and 18th centuries caused riots,  one so serious in 1753 that  it  caused the repeal of a law naturalising  Jews  and Huguenots.  But  these riots did not result in great  numbers of dead, let alone in systematic genocidal  persecutions of any  particular group.  Most notably,  the English  fonts  of authority,  whether  the crown, church  or  parliament,  have   not incited let alone ordered the persecution of a particular  racial or ethnic group since the expulsion of the Jews.  They  have persecuted Christian groups, but that was a matter  of  religion  not  ethnicity, the  Christians  persecuted  being  English  in the main. The only discrimination  the  English  elite  have formally sanctioned against an ethnic group for  more than half a millennium was the inclusion of Jews within  the  general  prohibitions passed in the half century  or  so after  the Restoration in 1660 which banned  those  who  were  not members  of the Church of England from holding  a  crown  appointment such as an MP or election to public offices  such  as that of MP.

This comparative  lack of  violence  can plausibly be seen as the ground for England’s maintenance and unique development of a Parliament and  the development of the rule of law a  consequence  of England’s political  arrangements. From that sprung the gradual erosion of monarchical authority. Put those three developments together and there is arguably the ground upon which first a great commercial edeifice was built followed by industrialisation.  

But even if that is the immediate cause of English development it does not explain why  the English become  exceptionally peaceable within their own territory.  One could argue that being an island helped, not least because England has not been subject to a forced foreign conquest  from the continent  for the better part of a millennium. However,  England has suffered a good deal of inter-nation warfare within the British Isles, especially with Scotland. She has also fought many a campaign around the world, both as England and later under the banner of Great Britain. It is not that the English are or have been naturally timid.  

Perhaps the fundamental answer to English peaceableness  lies in the fact  that the English enjoyed a level  of  racial and cultural  homogeneity  from very early on.  Long  before  the English kingdom existed Bede wrote of the English as a single people.  The  English have never killed one another  in  any great  quantity  simply  because one part of  the population  thought  another  part was in some way not English.  That is the best possible starting point  for  the establishment of a coherent community. 

The  favoured  liberal  view of England is  that  it  is  the mongrel nation par excellence.  In fact,  this is the  exact opposite of the truth.  The general facts of immigration into England are these. The English and England were of  course created  by  the  immigration of Germanic  peoples.  The British  monk, Gildas,  writing  in  the  sixth  century, attributed  the  bulk  of  the  Saxon  settlement  to the practice  of  British leaders employing  Saxons  to protect   the Britons from Barbarian attacks after Rome withdrew around   410  A.D.  The English monk Bede (who was born in  A.D.  673)   attributed  the origins of the English to the Angles,  Saxons   and  Jutes who came to England in the century  following  the   withdrawal  of  the  Romans at the  request of  British  war leaders.

Archaeological  evidence suggests that  substantial  Germanic settlement in England had a longer history and  dated  from  the  Roman  centuries, perhaps from as early  as  the  third  century.  What is certain is that in her formative  centuries  following  the  exit  of  Rome, the  various invaders  and  settlers  were drawn from peoples with much in  common.

They  were  the  same  physical type, there  was  a  considerable similarity of general culture, their languages  flowed from a common linguistic well. When the Norsemen came they too brought a Teutonic  mentality and origin. Even the Normans were Vikings at one remove who, if  frenchified,  were not  physically  different  from  the English  nor  one imagines utterly without  vestiges  of  the  Norse mentality.  Moreover, the number of Normans who settled  in England immediately after the Conquest was small, perhaps as few as 5000.

After  the Conquest,  the only significant  immigration  into England for many centuries were the Jews.  They were expelled  from England in 1290. There was then no really large  scale  and  sudden immigration from outside the British Isles  until  the flight of the Huguenots after the revocation of the Edict  of Nantes (which granted limited toleration to the  Huguenots within France) in 1684 by Louis X1V.

There was other immigration in the period 1066-1650, but it was  small and highly selective. Craftsmen of  talent  were  encouraged particularly in the Tudor period. Italian families  with  trading and banking expertise (such as it was in  those days) appeared  after the expulsion of  the  Jews.  Foreign  merchants  were  permitted,  but for much of  the  period  on sufferance  and  subject  to  restrictions  such  as forced  residence within specially designated  foreign quarters. 

The  upshot of all this is that for six centuries  after the Conquest  England was an unusually homogeneous country,  both racially  and culturally. This is reflected in the  absence since  the  Norman Conquest of  any serious regional separatist  movement within the  heart of English  territory. There  has been meaningful resistance  at  the periphery  – Cornwall,  the Welsh marches and the  far north,  but  even that  has  been  effectively dead since the sixteenth century. Englishmen have fought but not to create separate nations.

The unusual restraint of the English  is also shown in their dealings with foreigners  abroad. England did not routinely go in for sack and pillage as was common on the continent and occasional massacres  often occurred in special circumstances,  for example,  Cromwell’s in Ireland happened in   aftermath of a  massacre of Protestants in Ulster in 1641 and the fear that Ireland would be used as a springboard for a Royalist invasion of England.

Nowhere was the restraint seen more emphatically than in the Empire. If  a people were forced to become part of an empire, the British Empire was indubitably the one to join. There were of course outrages committed in the Empire’s name,  but there was no general policy of  cruelty and, for the final century of the Empire’s existence, official British policy towards the colonies was that the interests of the natives should come first.  

If  the  theory that a homogeneous population long occupying a territory without suffering foreign conquest results in greater social restraint  is correct,  this may have  a profound implication.  Assuming that personality is substantially innate, natural selection will act upon the type of personality which is best suited to the environment. It could be that the native English are, on average,  genetically better suited to live in a society in which politics are decided by peaceful transfer of power and business and personal disputes are mediated through the law.   On top of any genetic propensity is added the culture of restraint which has developed from the genetic propensity over the centuries.

Should it be true that the English have a unique genetic national shape and  a culture which uniquely plays to that genetic national shape, then mass immigration will weaken both by introducing both different genetic types an competing cultures.

If England was a sovereign state again

For  England  it  is difficult to  envisage  any  insuperable disadvantage  in  the break up of the UK,  but  easy  to  see definite and  substantial  advantages. Most importantly,  England would be able to act wholeheartedly in her own interests. Her  considerable population,  wealth and general sophistication  would  ensure that   she could maintain without any real   difficulty   the present levels of government provision from the welfare state to  the  military.  The powers vital to a sovereign state – the ability to control immigration, trade and the laws of the land – would be once again in English hands.  Acting within the confines of the nation would allow  meaningful democratic control to once again be exercised over parliament as politicians could no longer act as Quislings in the service of globalism because they would have to account .  

England would  no longer  pay subsidies to  the Celtic Fringe. These  currently total  around £16 billion as there are around 10 million Celts and each receives from the Treasury  approximately £1,600 per head more than  the English receive. In addition, the tax take in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales is less per capita than in England and the take-up of benefits higher (benefits are not devolved).  Consequently, England has to pay disproportionately more of the UK benefits cost than her share of the UK population.   The same applies to other non-devolved areas such as defence and foreign policy.

England’s removal from the EU  would save around £5-6 billions just on the net difference between what is paid to Brussels and what  Britain gets back.   Much, probably most,  of the remaining money is ill-spent because it can only be used in ways sanctioned by the EU. Most of the Dangeld paid to Brussels  is paid by England.  That burden would be removed  from the English taxpayer.   Further savings would come from removing the dead hand of EU directives from  Britain, the  cost of which is overwhelming borne by England.

Billions more can be saved by ending foreign Aid. This is currently around £9 billion pa. It will rise in the next few years to between £11-12 billion because of Gordon Brown’s committment to donating the UN’s  target figure of 0.7 per cent of GDP by 2014.  Most of this money is paid by the English taxpayer.

The only important disadvantages for England could be balance of payments deficits (primarily from the loss of oil, gas and whiskey  production)  and  ructions  in  the   international institutional  sphere.  Happily,  adverse  balances of  trade are  (eventually) self-correcting even if the correction,  as is the case with America,  can seem an age coming.  Moreover, with the free global currency market and a floating pound, an          adverse  balance of trade does not hold the horrors  it  once did, for international borrowing is infinitely easier than it was  and   devaluation of the currency is not  viewed  as  a  national  humiliation.    England   might   be   temporarily embarrassed  by a substantially increased trade deficit,  but there  is no reason to believe that it would be prolonged  or seriously affect the English economy.

As  for  international  upheaval,  it  is  conceivable that England  would  be unable to sustain  a  claim  to  Britain’s  privileged  position on international bodies such as  the  UN Security  Council  and  the board of IMF.  However,  this  is  unlikely for a number of reasons. To begin with there is  the precedent  of Russia which assumed all of the Soviet  Union’s international  entitlements.   Britain  is  also  the  United States’   only  halfway  reliable  ally  on  most  of   these       international  boards.    To  this  may  be  added  Britain’s position  as one of the larger international  paymasters  and providers  of reliable military muscle.  None of these  facts need essentially change with the substitution of England  for Britain.  Perhaps most importantly,  the denial to England of any of Britain’s institutional places  would pose the awkward question of who was to take any vacant position.  This  could (and almost certainly would) in turn raise the whole question of  whether  the  constitutions  of  most  world  bodies  are equitable or suited to the modern world.  (The  constitutions were after all created approximately fifty years ago and  are in  no  sense  equitable).  To deny England  would  mean  the opening of a can of worms.

Conversely, it could be plausibly  argued  that membership of such international bodies represents a liability rather  than   an advantage and England would be well shot of them.

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 in saner times

I was born in 1947. Never, perhaps, has England (and Britain) been more of a coherent community.  The dramatic recent experience of the Second World War  filled the minds of everyone  and that  shared experience  bound together even more tightly  a very racially and culturally homogenous country.  It was rare to see a black or brown face even in London, and any suggestion that someone from a racial or cultural minority should do anything but  their best to assimilate into English culture would have been generally thought to touch the confines of lunacy. It was a very English, very British world. 

It was a time when Britain made most of the manufactured goods that it consumed, including its own cars, aircraft, ships, and it would have been thought extraordinary for a British Government to fail to protect British industry.  Great industrial names such as Austin (cars) and  Fry’s (chocolate) were not only English-owned and English made but leaders in the English market.  The shops which people used were generally owned by the English and more often than not family enterprises.  Every day an inhabitant of England  was reminded that  they were members of an advanced technological society which could make or grow what it wanted and that most of what they consumed was made in England (or at least Britain) or came from the Empire. 

The idea of Empire was still important – just. The fifties were the very last moment when an English boy could grow up with an  imperial consciousness as part of everyday life. There was no assumption that the Empire would collapse. India might have gone in 1947, but the assumption amongst both the general population and the political elite was that Britain would have to bear “the white man’s burden”  for many  a long year yet.  That will seem extraordinary to the point of fantasy now, but  it is true. In the forties and fifties  the Foreign and Colonial Office continued to  recruit and train young men for careers  as imperial servants such as District Officers and white  emigration from Britain to places such as Kenya and Rhodesia was officially encouraged. 

Against this background English schools taught as a matter of course a curriculum that extolled English and British values, history and culture.  History for the English child was British and imperial history first with  European history a poor second. Geography was concerned primarily with the physical and demographic demography of Britain.  English literature concentrated on the classic English texts from Chaucer through to Trollope.

But it was not simply English history and culture which was imparted. Whole class teaching was the norm with the teacher firmly in charge. Children were expected to acquire the factual knowledge of a subject as well as its process. Because discipline was not generally a problem, schools were primarily institutions to teach people rather than being the child-minding depots we all too often see today.  There is a good case for saying that the general standard of English education was never higher than in the quarter century between 1945 and 1970. This was not only because of the good overall educational standard, but because  all pupils, unlike the pre-war system, now got a secondary education as of right.

That is not to say everything in the post-war educational garden was lovely.  Before comprehensive education began under the first  Wilson Government,  English state education was divided between grammar schools, secondary moderns and a small number of technical schools – the last were intended as training grounds for artisans, to use an old fashioned word.  The consequence was to lower, irrevocably in most instances,  the social horizons and aspirations of those who did not  pass the 11-plus and go to grammar schools, because it was very difficult to move to a grammar school after the age of 11.  It also created a sense of inferiority and resentment amongst many 11-plus failures.

Despite these shortcomings,  the system was unreservedly to be preferred to what we have today. The grammar schools not only produced a  genuinely educated class, but provided  an escape  route  to something better for clever children from even the poorest backgrounds.  That opportunity grew with the significant expansion of university and polytechnic places in the fifties and sixties. In 1950 approximately  2 per cent of English school-leavers went on to higher education: by 1970, following the implementation of the Robbins Report (1963), the figure was approximately  7 per cent (and this was the age of the post-war baby-boomer generation, so there were more pupils in the age group in 1970 than 1950).  Most tellingly, in the 1960s, before the destruction of the grammar schools,  workingclass children in higher education  formed a greater proportion of the whole student body than it does now – there are more workingclass students now, but that is simply a consequence of the vast increase in those in higher education to more than 40 per cent.

England and the only bootstrapped Industrial Revolution

Of  all the social changes  which have occurred in human history,  none has been  so  profound as the process of  industrialisation.  The  two previous  great general  amendments  to  human  life  –  farming   and urbanisation – pale into insignificance. Before industrialisation,  man lived  primarily  from  the  land and  animals  whether  from  farming, husbandry or hunter-gathering. In the most advanced civilisations,  the vast majority of populations lived outside large towns and cities. Even in  industrialising England a majority of the population derived  their living  directly  from the land as late as the 1830s.  France  did  not become a predominantly urban nation until the 1930s.  

With  industrialisation  came  not  merely a  change  in  the  material circumstances, but profound social alteration. There arose much greater opportunity  to move from the small world of the village.  The  massive increase  in wealth eventually made even the poor rich enough  to  have aspirations.  Sufficient numbers of the wealthier classes became guilty enough  about  abject  poverty existing beside great  wealth  that  the condition  of  the poor was further mitigated  by  greater  educational opportunity,  welfare provision and legislation regulating the abuse of workers  by  employers.    Political  horizons  were  expanded  by  the extension of the franchise.  

The  industrial revolution altered the balance of power throughout  the world.  David Landes “In the wealth and Poverty of  Nations”  describes the effect succinctly:  “The industrial revolution made some  countries richer,  others (relatively) poorer; or more accurately, some countries made an industrial revolution and became rich;  and others did not  and stayed  poor.”(p168).  Prior  to industrialisation,  the  disparity  in wealth  between  states,  regions and even  continents  was  relatively small.  Come the Industrial Revolution and massive disparities begin to appear.  For  Dr  Landes,  it  is  to  the  success  or  otherwise   in industrialising  which is the primary cause of present  disparities  in national wealth.

All  of this tremendous amendment to human existence occurred   because the  one  and  only bootstrapped Industrial Revolution  took  place  in England.  Why  England?  David Landes in the  “Wealth  and  Poverty  of Nations”  sees the  historical process of industrialisation as twofold. First,    comes     a  pre-industrial  preparatory  period   in   which  irrationality  of thought is  gradually replaced by scientific   method and what he calls “autonomy  of  intellectual inquiry”(p201),  that  is, thought    divorced   from   unquestioned   reliance   on    authority, irrationality,  especially superstition.   At the same  time  technology begins to be  something more than by-guess-and-by-God. This gives birth to industrialisation  by creating both the intellectual climate and the acquired knowledge,  both scientific and technological,  necessary  for the transformation from traditional to modern society. It is as good an explanation   as  any  and  fits  the  flow  of  England’s   historical development.

It is not utterly implausible to suggest that without England the world might have had no Industrial Revolution. Those who would scoff at  such a  proposition should consider the cold facts:  even with  England  and Britain’s   example to follow no other nation matched   her  industrial development until the 1870′s and  then the first  country to do so  was a  state  ultimately derived from  England,  namely the  USA.  Nor  did  England produce an industrial revolution only in England, they actively exported and financed it throughout the world, for example, most of the European  railway  building  of the years 1840-70  was  the  result  of British engineers and money.  

Some  may  point to scientific advance in Europe from 1600  onwards  as reason  to  believe  that industrialisation would  have  been  achieved without England. It is true that Europe advanced scientifically  in the seventeenth  and eighteenth centuries,  but scientific knowledge is  no guarantee  of  technological progress.  Moreover, a good deal  of  that scientific advance came from England.   Nor does  scientific  knowledge  have  any natural connection  with the severe social upheaval  required for  a transformation from the land-working  dominated   pre-industrial  state to capitalism.  Indeed,  the landowners of pre-industrial  Europe had  a vested interest in not promoting industrial advance.   Moreover, in many parts of Europe,  particularly the East,  feudal burdens became greater not less after 1500.  This was so even in as advanced a country as  France.   Consequently,  the   widespread  social  mobility   which historians  have generally thought necessary to promote a  bootstrapped  industrial revolution simply did not exist in  Europe at the  beginning of  the  British  Industrial revolution. Even  the  country  most  like England in its commercial  development, the Netherlands, became socially and politically  ossified in the Eighteenth century,  with a bourgeoisie developing  into an aristocracy and representative government  narrowed to what was in effect a parliament of nobles. 

There will be those – Scots in particular – who will chafe at the  idea that  the industrial revolution was dependent upon England.  The  facts are against them.

Scotland  before  the union with England (1707) was a  remarkably  poor state.  Nor,  despite its much vaunted educational system –  supposedly much   the  superior  of  England  –  had  it  produced  many  men   of international importance. Read a general  history of Europe, either old or  modern,   and you will  find precious few Scots mentioned on  their own account before the Union.    The names John Eringa and Duns  Scotus with  perhaps a nod to John Knox are the best the reader may hope  for, and  the former two had to leave Scotland to make their names.  If  any other  Scotsman who lived before the Union  is mentioned,  he  will  be noticed  only  because  of his connection with  another  country,  most commonly England.   It required the union with England to give Scots  a larger stage to act upon.  Without the union,  the likes of David Hume, Adam  Smith  and James Watt would in all probability  have  been  roses which  bloomed  unseen in the desert air.   That is not  to  decry  the talents and  contributions  of Scots, which are considerable, merely to describe a necessary sociological condition  for their realisation.

Let  me  demonstrate how much of an English enterprise  the  Industrial Revolution was by using the example of the development of steam  power. Contrary  to many a schoolboy’s imagining,  James  Watt did not  invent the steam engine. That was the province of Englishmen.  The Marquess of Worcester  may have produced a working steam engine on his  estates  in 1663;  James Savery certainly did in 1698. This was improved by another Englishman,  Thomas Newcomen.  Their machines were crude beam  engines, but the technological  Rubicon had been crossed.

It is true that the Scotsman Watt’s  improvements to the steam engine – the  conversion of linear to rotary action and  the introduction  of  a separate condenser – were profoundly important and provided the   means to  extend the use of steam engines from their limited applications  in pumping water from mines. But it should be noted that he had to come to England  to achieve his improvements through his association  with   an English  entrepreneur of genius,  Mathew Boulton,    who at  his   Soho works  in Birmingham had probably the best engineering facilities  then in  the  world.  It was also Boulton who pressed Watt  to  develop  the conversion  of linear to rotary action.  It is worth adding  that  Watt was  a timid,  retiring personality who left to his own  devices  would probably  have  achieved  little of practical  consequence.   Moreover, within  a  generation  of Watt’s improvements,  the  English  engineer, Richard Trevithick had greatly improved on Watt’s engine  by  producing a high pressure steam engine, arguably a more important advance than Watt’s innovations because without it steam engines would have remained large and seriously underpowered.. static installations unable to drive vehicles such as trains and ships..

But before steam could play its full role there had to be a  revolution in  iron  production.  This was accomplished  by   Englishmen.    Until Abraham Darby began smelting iron with coke made from coal in the early 1700s,  iron making was an expensive and uncertain business carried  on in small foundries using charcoal to fire the kilns (an ironmaker named Dudley claimed to have used coal successfully for smelting as early  as  1619  but died without establishing a business to carry the  work  on).  Compared with coal,  charcoal was in short supply.  Worse, it did  not produce  the same intensity of heat as coal converted into coke.  Darby and  his son solved the basic problem of smelting with coke  made  from coal. Henry Cort’s puddling process  allowed cast-iron to be refined to remove the brittleness. A little later Benjamin Huntsman improved steel making. In the middle of the next century the  Bessemer  revolutionised steel  production  to such a degree that its  price  fell  dramatically enough  to  make steel no longer a luxury but the  common  material  of construction.  All these advances were made by Englishmen.

Large scale organisation is also intellectually demanding.  If a  ready and cheaper supply of iron was a necessary condition for the industrial revolution,  so  was the very idea of large scale  manufactories  using machines.  Undertakings employing hundreds of men on one site were  not unknown before the 18th Century – a clothier named Jack of Newbury had  a factory employing 500 in Tudor times –   but  they were very rare.   In 18th  Century England  such enterprises became if not  commonplace,  at least   not  extraordinary.  By the next century they  were  the  norm.  Industry  became for the first time geared to a mass market.   Nor  was  this  new  method  of  manufacturing confined to  the  necessities  and banalities of life.   Factories such as  Josiah Wedgewood’s at  Etruria  manufactured  high quality and imaginative china directed  deliberately at  the growing middle classes.  All the most successful  18th  century machines for mass production were  developed by Englishmen. Arkwright’s water frame, Crompton’s mule, James Hargreaves spinning jenny. 

Once  the  first  blast of the industrial revolution  had  passed,  the fundamental fine tuning was undertaken by Englishmen,  with men such as Whitworth  leading  the  way with machine tools and  new  standards  of exactness in measurement and industrial cutting and finishing. All very boring to the ordinary man, but utterly essential for the foundation of a successful industrial society.

Many   vital industries since have originated in  England.  To  take  a few,  George  Stephenson  produced the  first  practical  railway  (the railway  probably  did  more  than anything  to  drive  the  Industrial Revolution because it allowed a true national market to operate  within England);   Brunel  issued in the age of the  ocean  going   steamship;   William  Perkins laid the foundation for the modern  chemical  industry by discovering the first  synthetic dye;  the first electronic computer was  designed  in  Britain,   after the  theoretical  foundations had been laid  by   the Englishman,  Alan Turing.  (In the previous century another Englishman, Charles  Babbage,  designed  but did not finished  building  the  first programmable machine.) 

Alongside the development of manufacturing ran that of agriculture. The enclosure movement was already well advanced by 1700. By the  middle of the   nineteenth  century  it  was  effectively  finished.  Not  merely feudalism but the peasantry were gone. The old,  inefficient open-field system was a dead letter. With enclosure came agricultural  innovation. In  the  eighteenth  century we have  Jethro  Tull,  whose  seed  drill greatly reduced the amount of seed needed for sowing,   Robert Bakewell  whose selective breeding greatly increased the size of sheep and cattle and “Turnip”  Townsend who greatly increased crop efficiency by various mean  such  as  the  marling of sandy soil.   The  importance  of  such developments cannot be overestimated because the population of  Britain rose so dramatically  in the next century. 

The  technological inventions and discoveries made by the English   are legion. The list below gives  some idea of their importance and range.

Thomas Savery (1650-1715). Invented the first commercial steam engine -a steam pump. 

Thomas  Newcomen (1663-1729).  Improved Savery’s engine by  introducing the piston.  

Richard  Trevithick  (1771 – 1833). Invented the  high  pressure  steam engine. Built the first steam locomotive.

George Stephenson (1781-1848). Made the railway a practical reality. 

Abraham Darby (1678-1717). Developed the process of smelting iron using coke.

Sir Henry Bessemer,  1813-1898. Devised a process for making steel on a large scale.

James Hargreaves (1722-1778). Invented the spinning jenny.

John Kay  (1733-1764). Invented the  flying shuttle.

Samuel Crompton  (1753-1827). Invented  the spinning mule.

Richard Arkwright (1732-1792) Invented the waterframe.

Edmund Cartwright (1743-1823). Invented the power loom.

John  Harrison  (1693-1776) First to build watches accurate  enough  to solve the longitude measurement problem.

Edward Jenner (1743-1823). Developed vaccination.

Joseph Lister (1827-1912). Developed  antisepsis.

Sir Joseph Whitworth (1803-1887) standardised  screw threads,  produced first true  plane surfaces in metal, developed ductile steel.

Henry Maudslay (1771-1831).   Invented the screw-cutting lathe and  the first  bench  micrometer  that  was capable of  measuring  to  one  ten thousandth of an inch. 

Joseph Bramah (1748-1814). Invented the hydraulic press.

John Walker (1781- 1859).  Invented the first friction matches.

John  Smeaton  (1724-1792) made the first  modern  concrete  (hydraulic cement).

Joseph  Aspdin  (1788-1855) invented Portland Cement,  the  first  true artificial cement.

Humphrey Davy (1778-1829).  Invented the first electric light,  the arc lamp.

Michael Faraday (1791-1867). Invented the electric motor.

Isambard  Kingdom  Brunel (1806-1859).   Built the first  really  large  steam ships – the  Great Britain, Great Western, Great Eastern.

Sir  Isaac  Pitman (1813-1897).  Devised the most  widely  used  modern shorthand.

Sir Charles Wheatstone (1802 – 1875).  Developed an electric telegraph at the same time as Samuel Morse.

Rowland Hill (1795-1879). Invented adhesive postage stamps.

John Herschel (1792-1871). Invented the blueprint.

William  Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877)  Invented the   negative-positive photography and latent image shorter exposure time.

Sir  Joseph  William Swan (1828-1914).  Invented the  dry  photographic plate.  Invented, concurrently with Edison, the  light bulb.

Sir William Henry Perkin (1838-1907). Created the first artificial  dye –  aniline  purple  or  mauveine – and  the  first   artificial  scent, coumarin.  

Alexander  Parkes  (1813-90).  Created the  first  artificial  plastic, Parkensine.

Sir   George  Cayley  (1773-1857).   Worked  out  the   principles   of aerodynamics,  his  “On  Ariel Navigation” showed  that  a  fixed  wing aircraft  with a power system for propulsion,  and a tail to assist  in the control of the airplane, would be the best way to allow man to fly. Also invented the caterpillar track.

Sir  Frank  Whittle  (1907-1996).  Took out the  first  patents  for  a Turbojet.

Sir Christopher Cockerell (1910-1999). Invented the hovercraft.

Charles  Babbage (1792-1871).  Worked out the basic principles  of  the computer. 

Alan Turin (1912-1954). Widely considered the father of modern computer science – worked out the principles of the digital computer. 

Tim  Berners-Lee  (1955-).  Invented the World Wide Web  defining  HTML (hypertextmarkup language), HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) and URLs (Universal Resource Locators).

England and the Enlightenment

 In his book “Enlightenment:  Britain and the creation of the modern  world”, the  historian Roy Porter remarks how peculiar it is  “that  historians have  so  little  to say about the role of  English  thinkers   in  the European  Enlightenment  as a whole” (p3).  Peculiar  indeed  when  one considers  the  English  intellectual personnel of the  17th  and  18th centuries and the  high  reputation  English institutions and ideas had amongst    the  leading  lights  of  the   continental   Enlightenment, especially  in  the  country  which is  generally  represented  as  the powerhouse of Enlightenment thinking,  France.   Here is the philosophe of philosophes,  Voltaire,  at full Anglophile admire: “The English are the only people on earth who have been able to prescribe the limits  of Kings by resisting them;  and who,  by a series of struggles,  have  at last  established  that  wise  Government,  where  the  prince  is  all powerful  to  do  good,  and  at the  same  time   is  restrain’d  from committing evil;   where the Nobles are great without insolence,   tho’ there  are no vassals;  and where the People  share in  the  government  without confusion.”  Lettres philosophiques on Lettres Anglais (1775).

 A  strong argument can be made for the English Enlightenment  not  only existing  but  occurring  a century or so  before  that  of  any  other nation  and subsequently providing much of the  basis  for the  general Enlightenment movement.  

Consider these figures from  the seventeenth century:   William Gilbert (science,   especially  magnetism),   Francis  Bacon  (philosophy   and science),  Thomas Hobbes (philosophy), John Locke (philosophy),  Thomas Harrington     (nascent economics     and    sociology),   William  Harvey (biology/medicine),    Robert   Hooke   (polymathic    scientist    and technologist),  John Rae (biologist), Edmund Halley (astronomy),  Isaac Newton  (mathematics and physics).  What did they have in common  other than  intellectual distinction?   They were all driven by the  idea  of reason,  by the belief that the world could be  understood  rationally. That  is  the  real  essence  of  the  Enlightenment,   the  belief  in rationality,  in particular,  the belief that the world is  subject  to  physical laws, that God does not intervene capriciously, that the world is not governed by magic.  Such ideas did not preclude a God or prevent an intense relationship with the putatively divine, but they did encase God   within  a  rational system of thought in which  His   action  was limited, voluntarily or otherwise. Newton may have been utterly fixated with the numerology of the Bible but he believed the world was  ordered according to physical laws.    From  the belief that the universe is organised  rationally  comes  the corollary  that it can be understood,  that everything is  governed  by laws which can be discovered by men. This idea pre-dated Newton, but it was his ideas,  most notably his laws of motion and theory of  gravity, that elevated the idea to almost a secular religion.   During  the next century   intellectuals   took  the  example  of   Newton’s   inanimate mechanistic physical world and extrapolated the idea to every aspect of existence, from biology to philosophy  to social policy. If only enough was known,  if only enough effort was made,  then everything,  of  this world  at least,   could be understood and controlled  and   everything could be the subject of rational decision making.      

The 18th  century Enlightenment  had another aspect,  an  association with the  democratic or at least a wish that the power of kings  should be greatly curtailed – the Voltaire quote given above is a good example of the mentality.  This also  has its roots in England.  The ferment of the  English  Civil war  not only produced  proto-democratic  political movements  such as the Levellers, it also started  Parliament along the road  of being more than a subordinate constitutional player by forcing it to act as not only  a legislature but as an executive.  Stir  in  the experience  of  the Protectorate,  simmer for  30 years or so   of  the restored  Stuart kings,  mix in  the Glorious Revolution of 1689  which resulted  in  the Bill of Rights and established the English  crown  as being in the gift of Parliament  and  season with half a century of the German  Georges  and   you have the British (in  reality  the  English) constitution   which was so admired by Voltaire,  who  thought it quite perfect,  and  which  gave the American colonists the  inspiration  for their   own political arrangements (president = king,  Senate =  Lords, House  of Representatives = Commons,  with a  Constitution and Bill  of Rights  heavily influenced by the English Bill of Rights.)

Engalnd and the practice of science

 England was from the seventeenth century in the vanguard of the rise of science.    William  Gilbert’s   work on   magnetism  was  followed  by William Harvey tracing the circulation of the blood,  Halley’s work  on comets and Robert Hooke’s polymathic span from microscopy to a  nascent theory  of  gravitation.   Above all  stood the  formidable  figure  of Newton,  neurotic, splenetic and marvellous, a man who demonstrated the composition  of light and developed the powerful mathematical  tool  of the  differential  calculus,  besides formulating the  laws  of  motion which  form  the basis  of all mechanical science and  the   theory  of gravitation,  which was the most complete explanation of  the  physical universe until Einstein.

Newton  probably  had more influence on the mental world than any  man  before him.  Even  today  his importance is  vast.    Quantum   mechanics   and  Einstein’s  physics  may  have superseded the  Newtonian  as  the  most advanced explanation of the physical world,  but Newton still rules as the  practical  means of understanding the world above  the  subatomic. More generally,   Newton  provided an intellectual engine which allowed men  to make sense of the universe and to see order and  predictability where  before  there had been an order seemingly kept from  chaos,  and often  not  that,  by  the  capricious will  of  a  god  or  gods.  The psychological as well as the scientific  impact of Newton was great.

To these early scientific  pioneers may be added  the likes of   Joseph Priestly  (the  practical  discoverer of oxygen),    John   Dalton  who proposed the first modern atomic theory), Michael Faraday (who laid the foundations  of the science of electromagnetism),  J.J.  Thompson  (who discovered  the first atomic particle,  the electron),  James  Chadwick (the  discover  of  the  neutron)   and  Francis  Crick  (who   jointly discovered  the  structure of DNA with his pupil,  the  American  James Watson).      

Then  there is Charles Darwin,  the man with a strong claim to  be  then individual  who  has most shaped  the way we view  the  world,  because natural  selection  provides  a  universal  means  of  explication  for  dynamic systems.  We can as readily visualise pebbles on a beach  being selected  for  their utility in their environment (from qualities  such as crystal structure, size, shape)  as  we can a horse. As with Newton, Darwin profoundly affected the way men look at the world.

Of all the important scientific fields established since 1600,   I can think  of  only two in which an Englishman did not play a substantial role in their discovery and early development. . Those  exceptions are Pasteur’s proof of germ theory and Mendel’s discovery  of  genes.   The list below  gives  an idea of the scope  of  English scientific discoveries. 

Isaac Newton (1642-1727). Gravitation, laws of motion, theory of light.

Robert Hooke (1625-1703). Wrote Micrographia, the first book describing observations made through a microscope. Was the first person to use the word “cell” to identify microscopic structures. Formulated  Hooke’s Law — a law of elasticity for solid bodies.

Henry Cavendish (1731-1810).  Discovered the  composition of water  and measured the  gravitational attraction between two bodies.

Joseph Priestly, (1733-1804). Discovered Oxygen.

Humphrey Davy (1778-1829). Discovered  the elements  potassium, sodium, strontium, calcium, magnesium and barium nitrous oxide.

Michael  Faraday (1791-1867).   Widely regarded as the   greatest  ever experimental  scientist.  Conceived  the idea of   lines  of  force  in magnetism, discovered electromagnetic induction, developed the  laws of electrolysis.

Charles Darwin (1809-1882). Created modern evolutionary theory.

John  Prescott Joule (1818-1889). Calculated the mechanical  equivalent of heat.

John Dalton, (1766-1844). Created modern atomic theory.

Sir  J  J Thomson (1856-1940).  Discovered the electron  and  made  the first  attempt  to represent atoms in terms of  positive  and  negative energy.

Sir James Chadwick 1891-1974.  Discovered the neutron.

Francis Crick (1916- ). Joint discoverer of the structure of DNA.