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Friday 30 September 2011

Police frightened to arrest "Travellers"?

Every now and again a story emerges which typifies just how far our society has changed.
 
It is just under 100 years since 306 soldiers were shot during the Great War for "Cowardice in the face of the Enemy". Now, as Murray Wardrop of the Daily Telegraph reports:-
 
Police refuse to tackle burglary suspects at travellers’ site 'over health and safety fears’
Police refused to raid a travellers’ camp where suspected thieves were hiding because the officers were worried about breaking health and safety rules.
 
 
Ecton Lane traveller's camp Photo: SWNS
 
 
The machinery at Preston Lodge Farm which was taken by travellers Photo: SWNS
 
The suspects had allegedly burgled a farm and Sean Stanley, 27, and his father Paul assumed that retrieving their stolen property would be straightforward, having followed the getaway vehicle and shown it to the team of five officers.
 
But the police declined to enter the camp and seize the van, insisting that they first had to carry out a “risk assessment”.
 
The Stanleys offered to do the job for them but were warned they would be arrested if they approached the site.
 
Northamptonshire Police yesterday admitted that no arrests had been made and that the vehicle and stolen property had not yet been seized following the alleged burglary on Sunday.
 
The Stanleys chased the thieves after their arable farm near Wootton, Northants, was raided around 10pm.
Undeterred by one of the suspects allegedly brandishing a shotgun as they sped off, they tracked down their van at a travellers’ site 10 miles away.
 
Officers arrived at Ecton Lane Travellers Site, a legal, council-owned camp near Northampton, and the Stanleys pointed out the vehicle, hoping to recover their property, stolen vehicle parts.
 
Sean Stanley said: “I followed them to the traveller site and could see the vehicle from the road.
 
“I gave police the licence plate and showed them where it was. I gave police everything on a plate but they said they had to carry out a risk assessment.
 
“I understand there is protocol but they are the police and should be used to dealing with things like this.
“They were scared, they wouldn’t go in. We could see the van so my dad and I said we would go and get it and we were told we would be arrested.”
 
His father added: “It’s a very sad situation when the police aren’t prepared to confront a situation like this.”
The burglars stole an aluminium flat bed container, wheels and bumpers from one of the farm’s lorries worth around £1,500, the Stanleys claim.
 
They were also attempting to steal headlights, bumpers and wheels from another vehicle on the farm when they were disturbed by a neighbour, it is alleged. The raid was the second in four months at the farm.
 
Northamptonshire Police said that three police officers entered the camp in the early hours on Monday but decided not to risk seizing the suspects’ vehicle.
 
A spokesman said: “Three police officers did enter the site at Ecton Lane and located the suspect vehicle but an assessment was made not to recover the vehicle in the early hours of this morning.
“There were various issues. It was very early in the morning and we had not spoken to the witness to the burglary at that time.
 
“No arrests have been made but detectives are investigating the matter and we have now taken a full statement from the victim. A complaint has been made by the victim about the decision not to recover the vehicle and this also is being investigated.
 
“We are reviewing whether the decision made was proportionate to the information we had been given.”
The Stanleys also complained they felt the police response was inadequate, given that one of the thieves had threatened them with a shotgun.
 
 
This kind of dereliction of duty is by no means as rare as we taxpayers, who pay police salaries (at rates considerably higher than soldiers), would wish. Consider the much discussed shooting of Mr de Menezes in 2007 at Stockwell. The police thought he was a suicide bomber but even so let him get into a crowded London bus because they said they hadn't done their Health and Safety Assessment; ie the Met were willing to put the lives of members of the public at risk in preference to their own lives. "To Protect & to Serve"?
 
Let's elect Police Chiefs so that at least we, as voters, can hold them democratically to account!

Wednesday 28 September 2011

MY AFTERNOON SPEECH TO THE ENGLISH DEMOCRATS’ AGM

Here is the picture that the Guardian took of me making the speech:


Ladies & Gentlemen

Welcome back and now that we have cleared up our various formal house-keeping issues for the organisation of our Party, I would like to turn our attention to the strategic situation for the English Democrats.

One of the strategic realities that we have always to contend with and therefore to accept is that, in England, we have a media and an officialdom that is deeply hostile to the very idea of England.

I would remind you of Charles Kennedy’s comment, when he was Leader of the Liberal Democrats, he felt it was perfectly legitimate and permissible to say he supported Regionalisation, a policy which had nothing more or less behind it than the intention of breaking up England altogether. He supported it he said and I quote:- “Because Regionalism in England is calling into question the very idea of England itself”. Just imagine if an English politician had said the exact same thing about Scotland! To attack England and the English Nation in that way is seen as perfectly legitimate and acceptable to our rulers. The media in general in many cases are just as much part of the current political class as are the Liberal Democrats and are certainly just as keen to denigrate England and the English Nation.

I personally have been repeatedly faced over the last 10 or more years with questions as to whether I, and we, are far right extremists and/or part of the BNP for simply daring to mention the dreaded ‘E’ words, by which I mean England or English. We are not and never have been and never will be.

But let me tell you Ladies and Gentlemen, we are not going to be discourage and we are not going to give up mentioning the ‘E’ words and in fact we are going to say those ‘E’ words ever louder and more forcefully until we succeed in compelling dramatic change for the better for England and England’s people and our English Nation!

Another strategic fact which we have always had to contend with is that our Party has been in competition with older more established and richer parties which are also competing for the votes of people who care for their country within England. I mean those people who will be thrilled to see a proud English Nation, Free of the trammels of political correctness and of the EU. Those other parties that have pitched for that vote have been the Conservative Party which has done so by the simple expedient of lying about what they are really about.

Also there is the British National Party, who while they were campaigning with a manifesto in many respects apparently not very different from our own, they have too often been exposed as having some members who sympathise with Nazism, Holocaust denial and White Race Nationalism and whose leadership has managed to loose several million pounds of money raised by the members and supporters, but Ladies and Gentlemen please take note that included in their membership were some people who really just wanted to do their honest best as patriots for their country at a time when no other party was offering a sensible credible alternative.

There is also UKIP which is probably the only really true British traditional patriotric Party on the stage of our politics today. They believe strongly in the 1689 Bill of Rights, with Queen in Parliament as sovereign; The God Save the Queen anthem, the red, white and blue and the Last Night of the Proms vision of British patriotism. I can tell you however that even they recognise that the game is up, for that kind of vision. It has no appeal in Scotland or Wales, only sectarian appeal in Northern Ireland and increasingly little appeal in England.

There was recently an opinion poll which by Com Res which the Independent newspaper rightly pointed out showed that there is less support in England for continuing the Union of the United Kingdom amongst the English than there is in Northern Ireland amongst the Catholics! (48% as opposed to 52%).

Well Ladies and Gentlemen, let me remind you of the famous words which Shakespeare puts in the mouth of Brutus:-

“There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.”

I suspect over the coming year we will see a continuing and dramatic steep decline in the effectiveness of the British National Party. They were in my view deeply wounded by Nick Griffin’s simply appalling, ineffective and bizarre performance on Question Time. The disappearance of vast amounts of money has led to a breakdown of trust within the Party and a highly corrosive leadership battle, resulting in Nick Griffin apparently scraping home with a majority of a mere 9 over his challenger Andrew Brons (less than the number of spoilt ballots, which were 11), and with a total support of under 1200 votes for either candidate.

The Conservative Party’s coalition with the Liberal Democrats is tending to position them more openly as Europhile corporate globalists interested only in the interests of big business and big government. As I say even UKIP is recognising that their positioning is wrong and is now desperately trying to reposition itself as being more open to Englishness but look likely to be bogged down in another internal conflict over their response between those who are really English nationalists but haven’t realised it yet and those who are British nationalists.

Looking wider afield there is also the issue of Alex Salmond’s outright and historic victory in Scotland which means that he has a free hand in Scotland to make sure that by the time it comes to vote on his proposed Independence referendum, he is in a position to win it. We are still at that stage of the campaign where many people, particularly in England, are complacent as to the outcome and who think that Britishness will continue unaffected.

I also wonder quietly whether we might not find the Argentines retake the Falklands and I wonder what credibility then the fraud of Cameron will have in trying to pretend that Britishness allows us, in the words of the Establishment “to punch above our weight on the world’s stage”!

There is as I mentioned earlier a change in attitude towards our National Identity as to whether people are British or English in England and more and more people are now saying that they feel English not British or more English than British. In this our people are only catching up with the 70% or 80% that would say the equivalent in either Scotland or Wales.

Searchlight, no friend to any patriot, did a detailed study in which they claimed that 48% of people in England would support a political party that called for an English Parliament, celebration of St George’s Day, and an end to mass immigration and withdrawal from the EU. Ladies and Gentlemen, I seem to recognise those policy commitments!

Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, let me tell you that Tony Blair won his last landslide majority with the votes of 21.6% of the electorate. Any party that was able to actually get the votes of 48% of the electorate in a parliamentary democracy would be in government – permanently! That means, even our enemies think that this Party could become a great success and change the very face of politics in our country - but to get there we need to become credible.

Credible in political terms does not mean having the best manifesto, it does not mean having the best logo, it does not mean being nice to everybody, it does not mean pleasing everybody, it certain does not mean being politically correct, what it does mean is nothing more and nothing less than that the voters think that we could win.

I often tell a story of the first time I met Nigel Farrage, in the Bromley by-election where UKIP had spent over £80,000 and drawn in its activists from all over the country and had dropped a dozen or more leaflets in every single household in the constituency and banged on most of the doors. He said to me that he had thought that UKIP was going to do very well until about a week before the election when he spoke to a woman who said to him that she totally supported everything that UKIP stood for and she wanted desperately to get the country out of the EU but she was going to vote for the Liberal Democrat candidate because she thought the Lib Dems had a chance of “getting the Tory out!” Ladies and Gentlemen that is credibility.

That woman was saying that she was not going to vote for the party that she most believed in, she was going to vote for the party whose policies she disagreed with most strongly on the basis that they might be able to win. That is the position that we need to get to and we can only do that by looking dry-eyed and clearly at what opportunities are available for us – and by taking them!

Well one of those opportunities at present is that some of the people who wanted to do their honest best for our country but made the mistake of joining the BNP are now joining us and will help us become that electorally credible party.

We need to be sure that such people are genuine converts to a more civic or cultural nationalism and that they will be an asset to our party but we do not need to be too defensive. We have the best message, we have right on our side and we are England’s best hope. So I say to us here today and to our Party and to the English nation in general, I say, in the words of Percy Bysshe Shelley:- “Rise like Lions after slumber in unvanquishable number, shake your chains to earth like dew, which in sleep had fallen on you – Ye are many – they are few”.

MY ENGLISH DEMOCRATS’ MORNING AGM SPEECH

Ladies & Gentlemen & Fellow Members of the English Democrats

I am delighted to welcome you, as your National Party Chairman, to the English Democrats’ 10th Annual General Meeting - This is our 10th AGM if you include our launch at Imperial College in August 2002.

It is normal to talk about politics as being something of a roller coaster and it is true that it does have its ups and downs, but I think the interesting thing about the career of the English Democrats since 2002 is that we have - year on year - been on a consistently upward path. I am hopeful that that upward path is now reaching the breakthrough point to political credibility and therefore political success.

I am reminded of the Royal Air Force motto ‘Per Ardua ad Astra’ – ‘through difficulties to the stars’. The English Democrats’ aim is to be one of the fixed constellations in the heavens of our country’s politics. We are already a surprisingly long way up that path in the eyes of the media and political establishment.
Over the years I and many others have put in an immense effort but that is bearing fruit.

It has now been several years since I have come across a national or even a local politician or any political journalist who has not heard of us.

Nevertheless we haven’t yet achieved full Brand Awareness with the public, but you have to bear in mind the marketing theory that an ordinary person doesn’t register a brand, whether it be commercial or political, until the 5th time that the brand is brought to his, or her, attention, but, given in political terms, our very short span of existence with no enormous resources behind us, we have done remarkably well and we too infrequently congratulate ourselves. So let me correct that now – well done English Democrats! Well done also to us all here today – we are not so much Lenin’s “Vanguard of the Proletariat” as the “Vanguard of the English Nation”!

In the last year we won two borough Council seats fair and square and in the face of fierce and dishonest opposition in Boston, we won a contested parish council in Medway, and also a couple of uncontested Parish Council seats. We came second in quite a lot of seats and did creditably in many seats right across England. We have also had some councillors come over to us, along with numerous others who want to join a party that is making progress and is serious about its English Nationalism. We also had a spectacular success with our National Campaign for Elected Mayors – triggering a referendum in Salford.

I am very hopeful that this will lead to still greater success in the coming year not only in local elections across the country and also hopefully in our London Assembly campaign and also in the elections for Law and Order Commissioners if that becomes law.

As a mark of the kind of work that has been done over the last year I have had a copy of our new general leaflet and also one of my own local leaflets on your seats. We have also recently launched a new, and I hope you will all agree, much better Website than anything we have previously had, much more focussed on the important things that a political party’s website should be intended to achieve, namely the building up of the strength of the party both in terms of members and in terms of money because I have to say to you one of the greatest weaknesses and difficulties that we as a Party have laboured under all these years, is the lack of serious resources.

You might like to know that I met Nigel Farage of UKIP recently who expressed admiration for what we have managed to achieve, given our puny resources and, in particular, he said that he thought that our 280,000 votes in the last EU elections, achieved in the main with only a party election broadcast, was, in his words: “enormously impressive”. He was clearly envious of something that we have got that he hasn’t, which if you will pardon me saying is that we have the political Viagra of standing for and spearheading a great social change that is happening in England.

There is a book too rarely read by Westerners but one which is compulsory study for Eastern political, military and business leaders. It is called the “Art of War” by Master Sun (Sun Tzu).

What you will find, if you read it, is a masterpiece of the coldblooded and stonehearted real - politique that you often find at the core of non-Christian civilizations.

What it suggests is that when faced with difficulties you should always look at Taoist or judo style tactics; so, if your opponent throws a punch at you, you don’t block it you grab their hand and pull – hard!

Here are some pearls of Sun Tzu’s wisdom:-

MASTER SUN - he say

A military operation involves deception. Even though you are competent, appear to be incompetent. Though effective, appear to be ineffective.

This is explained as

A military operation has no standard form – it goes by way of deception.

Or:

Without deception you cannot carry out strategy, without strategy you cannot control the opponent.

-ooOoo-

MASTER SUN - he say

Cause division among them.

This explained as:-

Send interlopers to cause rifts among them.

Or:

Break up their accords, cause division between the leadership and their ministers, and then attack.

Or:

Seduce them with the prospect of gain, sent interlopers in among them, have rhetoricians use fast talk to ingratiate themselves with their leaders and followers and divide up their organization and power.

Or

You may cause rifts between the leadership and their follows or between them and their allies – cause division, and then take aim at them.

-ooOoo-

Opponents should also note that

MASTER SUN also says:-

Attack when they are unprepared, make your move when they do not expect it.

In England, people are giving up on the idea of Britishness partly because they are asking themselves how can we English be British all on our own if Scots and Welsh people only want to be Scottish and Welsh, but also partly because Britishness has really passed its sell by date. Given that it was originally about imperialism and posturing on the world stage it can no longer really be relevant to a comparatively piffling little country off the north west shore of mainland Europe which seemingly cannot even afford to have a High Seas Fleet, yet has a State that is so greedily over-weaning that we are one of the most over-taxed people on earth!

Recently we saw, with the appalling riots and looting, how our country is changing. These were not simply race riots as some tried to make out, but nor was race completely irrelevant as others have tried to make out. The core of the issue was a toxic combination of a developing Under Class culture being met with an incompetent response from Authority.

Mass immigration played its part on two levels, one part because we have no proper control over our borders and have had an influx of large numbers of foreign criminals. This shows the importance of our Party’s policy of having a points system so that we only get the cream of what the world has to offer coming here! Another part is due to the fact is that so many of our young people have no hope of getting a job when so many of the jobs that they might have done are taken by unskilled and semi-skilled foreigners. Again our immigration policy offers the answer.

The development of an amoral underclass culture is partly a product of the absolute aversion to discipline in our schools. For example, take the ridiculous behaviour of Ofsted inspectors at Old Buckenham Hall School in Suffolk, where two teachers were originally arrested at the insistence of the Ofsted inspectors for “child abuse”. It turned out that that “child abuse” was nothing more, and I emphasise nothing more than the two teachers had told disruptive children to stand in the corner facing the wall!

The official multi-culturalist opposition to traditional Christianity and consequently also in opposition to traditional morality has also played its part.

Which brings me on to political correctness generally, which was one of the principle reasons that the police backed away from doing what previous generations would have considered to have been their duty, namely to get stuck in to the rioters and, if necessary, break their heads. There is also a suspicion that the police were concerned with their own health and safety and their current pay negotiations with the Government may have featured at least to some extent in some police officers’ minds.

There is also a wider issue which all the wind and noise made by our British Political Establishment has failed to deal with. This is that we now have a State whose law enforcement officers have more powers than ever before and more criminal offences have been created than ever before. Yet it is in this very context that the State is ever more hostile to ordinary citizens defending themselves or even defending their property or defending their communities. This seems especially so if they choose to label themselves as English or worse if they call themselves the English Defence League!

Just consider for the moment the comment of David Donald Cameron, who you will remember once told Andrew Marr of the BBC that he was happy for the Scots to receive disproportionate subsidies at English taxpayers’ expense because “I am a Cameron and there is quite a lot of Scottish blood flowing in these veins.” On these riots and on the English Defence League’s attempt to keep the looters out of Eltham, he said “That in our society there was none sicker than the EDL”.

What a bizarre and ridiculous statement to make from somebody who claims the mantle of traditionalism by purporting to be a “Conservative”. The man is a fraud and quite frankly unfit to be handed the rule over that last part of the British Empire – I mean England!

Thank you Ladies and Gentlemen for listening to me patiently. I will talk further later in our meeting about strategy for the development of the Party, but now without more ado it is time to get on with our formal agenda for today.

Wednesday 14 September 2011

A Unionist Keyboard warrior rises in fury!?

I recently had the following amusing and instructive email exchange with an Ex-UKIPper from the West Midlands, who, while posing as a friend, hoped to be as the proverb says:-

“As coals are to burning coals, and wood to fire; so is a contentious man to kindle strife”.

See how successful he was!

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From: paulb
To: robintilbrook
Sent: 07/09/2011 23:20:47 GMT Daylight Time
Subj: Its over your Dream

Robin

With the Cuts now Biting and the country on its knees your Dream of an English Parliament is now over people have far more important things that concern them.

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From: paulb
To: robintilbrook
Sent: 07/09/2011 23:27:27 GMT Daylight Time
Subj: Smaller parties

Robin I have told you so many times that the only show in town as Regards the smaller parties is UKIP the rest havnt a cat in hells chance.The EDP cannot compete with them

With less than 48 hours to go to the start of the UKIP 2011 Annual Conference in Eastbourne, the latest poll from Angus Reid clearly shows that UKIP is the fourth largest party in the country.
The poll, which puts UKIP on 7%, asked participants which party they would be most likely to support if a General Election was held tomorrow.

Labour scored 39%, Conservatives 33% and the Liberal Democrats 11%. The SNP polled 5% whilst the Green Party and the BNP were level at 2%.

In the Midlands and Wales, UKIP is only 1% behind the Liberal Democrats.

UKIP starts its two day conference in Eastbourne on Friday with a number of speakers covering key areas such as housing, energy, crime, long term care, defence, education and overseas aid.
A number of leading names from the Eurosceptic movement from across Europe will also be speaking including Timo Soini, Leader of the True Finns.

UKIP Leader Nigel Farage said: "These figures show that UKIP is leaving the other smaller parties behind as more and more voters conclude that UKIP is the political party that is speaking their language on a number of important issues.

"I also believe that many are fed up of the same old faces and empty promises when it comes to so-called 'big three' parties and are looking for a credible alternative.

"Increasingly UKIP is becoming their party of choice."

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From: RobinTilbrook
To: paulb
Sent: Thu, 8 Sep 2011 8:56
Subject: Re: Its over your Dream

Thanks but I don't agree

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From: paulb
To: RobinTilbrook
Sent: 08/09/2011 14:02:30 GMT Daylight Time
Subj: Re: Its over your Dream

You are Living in a World of your Own Robin.

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In a message dated 08/09/2011 15:55:49 GMT Daylight Time, paulb writes:

Robin

Oh Dear me Robin I have being followiong things over the months from stuff forwarded on to me I see you are being Swamped with Extreme elements of the far rightfrom the BNP.Not a very good Idea that Robin it will all end in tears

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From: paulb
To: robintilbrook
Sent: 07/09/2011 23:27:27 GMT Daylight Time
Subj: Smaller parties

Robin I have told you so many times that the only show in town as Regards the smaller parties is UKIP the rest havnt a cat in hells chance.The EDP cannot compete with them

With less than 48 hours to go to the start of the UKIP 2011 Annual Conference in Eastbourne, the latest poll from Angus Reid clearly shows that UKIP is the fourth largest party in the country.
The poll, which puts UKIP on 7%, asked participants which party they would be most likely to support if a General Election was held tomorrow.

Labour scored 39%, Conservatives 33% and the Liberal Democrats 11%. The SNP polled 5% whilst the Green Party and the BNP were level at 2%.

In the Midlands and Wales, UKIP is only 1% behind the Liberal Democrats.

UKIP starts its two day conference in Eastbourne on Friday with a number of speakers covering key areas such as housing, energy, crime, long term care, defence, education and overseas aid.
A number of leading names from the Eurosceptic movement from across Europe will also be speaking including Timo Soini, Leader of the True Finns.

UKIP Leader Nigel Farage said: "These figures show that UKIP is leaving the other smaller parties behind as more and more voters conclude that UKIP is the political party that is speaking their language on a number of important issues.

"I also believe that many are fed up of the same old faces and empty promises when it comes to so-called 'big three' parties and are looking for a credible alternative.

"Increasingly UKIP is becoming their party of choice."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: RobinTilbrook
To: paulb
Sent: Thu, 8 Sep 2011 8:56
Subject: Re: Its over your Dream

Thanks but I don't agree

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From: paulb
To: RobinTilbrook
Sent: 08/09/2011 14:02:30 GMT Daylight Time
Subj: Re: Its over your Dream

You are Living in a World of your Own Robin.

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In a message dated 08/09/2011 15:55:49 GMT Daylight Time, paulb writes:

Robin

Oh Dear me Robin I have being followiong things over the months from stuff forwarded on to me I see you are being Swamped with Extreme elements of the far rightfrom the BNP.Not a very good Idea that Robin it will all end in tears

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From: RobinTilbrook
To: paulb
Sent: Thu, 8 Sep 2011 17:10
Subject: Re: Wrong course

Simply not true

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From: paulb
To: RobinTilbrook
Sent: 08/09/2011 19:02:42 GMT Daylight Time
Subj: Re: Wrong course

yes it is and it will all end in tears.

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In a message dated 08/09/2011 19:17:34 GMT Daylight Time, paulb writes:

Private and Confidential

There is Growing Speculation that John Botting who has being looking for a way out has now got one I am hearing he is about to Resign as so called leader of One England because UKIP could be about to announce tomorrow they are adopting an English Parliament policy so botting will then re join UKIP.

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From: RobinTilbrook
To: paulb
Sent: Thu, 8 Sep 2011 20:20
Subject: Re: John Botting

Yes I am not surprised by this. They are and I have helped them frame it

Robin

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In a message dated 08/09/2011 20:53:48 GMT Daylight Time, paulb writes:

Dont talk Rubbish Robin how have you made them frame it.

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From: RobinTilbrook
To: paulb
Sent: Thu, 8 Sep 2011 22:03
Subject: Re: John Botting

We have had regular meetings. They approved it today

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From: paulb
To: RobinTilbrook
Sent: 09/09/2011 07:35:07 GMT Daylight Time
Subj: Re: John Botting

why dont you merge them makes sense

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From: RobinTilbrook
To: paulb
Sent: Fri, 9 Sep 2011 10:58
Subject: Re: John Botting

Their policy was approved unanimously by the NEC yesterday is intended to give sufficient to England to preserve the Union by basically following the Cranbourne model of reforms to the HofC and HofL - a big step in the right direction and will apply pressure on the Establishment to shift. Do you like our new website and my blog?

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From: paulb
To: RobinTilbrook
Sent: 09/09/2011 15:58:10 GMT Daylight Time
Subj: Re: John Botting

Robin
You didnt answer my question what about merging EDP and UKIP.Your website is superb and your blog is eexcellent I have heard that a few UKIP activists From Stone were about to defect to EDP.But this latest news will stop such defections now.

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From: paulb
To: robintilbrook
Sent: 09/09/2011 16:26:13 GMT Daylight Time
Subj: UKIP English Parliament policy a disaster for the union

Robin
As a Unionist UKIPs policy is a Disaster and would lead to the enviable Break up of the United Kingdom I could never ever support such a policy.UKIP are going down the wrong road..

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In a message dated 09/09/2011 16:38:23 GMT Daylight Time, paulb writes:

I Urge all UKIP member delegates at the Conference to vote against this policy its a DISASTER for the UNION.

Please Circulate to as many as possible. policy attached in Email this morning

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From: RobinTilbrook
To: paulb
Sent: Fri, 9 Sep 2011 23:53
Subject: Re: UKIP members must vote against English parliament policy

WILL ANYONE PAY ANY ATTENTION?

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In a message dated 10/09/2011 01:36:50 GMT Daylight Time, paulb writes:

There is a great deal of concern about this policy it has rotten English Nationalist finger prints all over it and its a disaster for the Union your policy would lead to the break up of our country.The dangers of English Nationalism head as risen

You Robin and English Nationalists like you are as much a danger to our country as that of the SNP and Plaid it was you that said the EDP was Englands version of the SNP to damn right you are.Your agenda is a ticking time bomb.

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From: RobinTilbrook
To: paulb
Sent: Sat, 10 Sep 2011 8:04
Subject: Re: UKIP members must vote against English parliament policy

I am surprised at you. I don't know whether we are more of a threat than the SNP yet but we are determined to fight for England and to win that fight and we are making real progress. I regard "turning" the only real British Patriotic party as a coup!

However it is a coup which will be most useful in applying pressure on the Establishment Unionist parties and that is where the focus now will turn to.

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From: paulb
To: RobinTilbrook
Sent: 10/09/2011 16:05:07 GMT Daylight Time
Subj: Re: UKIP members must vote against English parliament policy

you can be surprised at me all you like your reckless agenda will destroy the union.you are only surprised what robin because i dont support you and possibly UKIPs stance.Me Never your agenda is quite simple and it will lead to the break up of my country not this pathetic stuff you spout about a federal uk.The evil face of English Nationalism has reared its Ulgly head and it must be faced down and defeated and I promise you this Robin I and others and Unionists everywhere will Unite to defeat you.

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From: RobinTilbrook
To: paulb
Sent: 10/09/2011 20:37:49 GMT Daylight Time
Subj: Re: UKIP members must vote against English parliament policy

Excellent - bring it on!

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From: paulb
To: robintilbrook
Sent: 10/09/2011 16:57:31 GMT Daylight Time
Subj: UKIP English parliament policy not yet offical party policy

the feed back is robin that this is merely a proposaland it will be rejected and be binned yes it has the backing of the NEC.but theres a new NEC to be voted in soon and lobbying is already starting and there is quite a lot of opposition to this policy proposal.

also see below in last few lines

Mr Farage, who was re-elected leader last year for his second stint, also asked party members to consider proposals for an English parliament.

Following devolution, he said English people "feel used and under-represented" and that the unity of the UK has been weakened by the process.

However, a decision on officially adopting the idea as party policy is not expected for some time.

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In a message dated 10/09/2011 18:36:38 GMT Daylight Time, paulb writes:

as far as i am now concerned i am breaking off all contact with you robin and any elements of the EDP/English Nationalism.

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From: paulb
To: robintilbrook
Sent: 10/09/2011 18:38:58 GMT Daylight Time
Subj: remove me from your email list


Robin
please remove me from your email listings i want nothing further to do with you.

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From: RobinTilbrook
To: paulb
Sent: Sat, 10 Sep 2011 20:57
Subject: Re: breaking off contact

I thought that you were out of contact for some time until you thought that you would have some fun and bait me!

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From: paulb
To: RobinTilbrook
Sent: 11/09/2011 00:00:57 GMT Daylight Time
Subj: Re: breaking off contact

Remove me from your Email Adress Book I still get round robin emails from you I do not want anything to do with you or any section of English Nationalism you say bait then say bring it on you are a very silly man Robin with that kind of baiting you will be sorry ypu ever said it now remove my email adress from your address book..You will be defeated thats not a threat thats a promise.The EDP will now be exposed from all sections of Unionism

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From: RobinTilbrook
To: paulb
Sent: 11/09/2011 00:09:16 GMT Daylight Time
Subj: Re: breaking off contact

Great - as the man said "Publish and be damned!"

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From: RobinTilbrook
To: paulb
Sent: Mon, 12 Sep 2011 20:21
Subject: Check out Bloggers4UKIP: UKIP now supports devolution Bloggers4UKIP: UKIP now supports devolution

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From: paulb
To: RobinTilbrook
Sent: 12/09/2011 23:01:08 GMT Daylight Time
Subj: Re: Check out Bloggers4UKIP: UKIP now supports devolution

Robin

Why have you sent me this I am not Interested please as Indicated remove me from your email address book as requested.I as I have said will now go out of my way over the coming months Years or how ever long it takes me and others to help destroy the ulgy face of English Nationalism working with others you wanted a war and boasted great bring it on very very foolish man you are robin making an enemy of me.A word of advice Mr Tilbrooke I can be a good friend but by christ i can be a terrible enemy. Robin you will regret the day you tried to be a smart arse in your email with me the way you baited me.you wont have a clue whats happening in your own party as we speak.Over the coming months and years or however long it takes me and others we will see the job through to its conclusion.Happy hunting

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From: RobinTilbrook
To: paulb
Sent: 13/09/2011 01:51:22 GMT Daylight Time
Subj: Re: Check out Bloggers4UKIP: UKIP now supports devolution

Bit of a silly thing to write isn't it Paul. English Nationalism has many enemies throughout the British Establishment. So welcome to their club!

Better to have an open enemy than a secret one.
"When he speaketh fair, believe him not: for there are seven abominations in his heart."

Also, it now seems, that I gave you more credit for open mindedness and intelligence than you may have deserved. I thought that you might have been interested in an analysis from someone within UKIP who is also hostile to the English Democrats.

In any case I will now leave off making any further contact with you and have deleted you from my circulation list. Kindly do likewise unless you are able to control your spleen better in future.

Robin

Monday 12 September 2011

Tory Planning Sleaze exposed - so soon!

Sometimes there is a story which needs almost no comment or explanation because we all instinctively recognize it as embodying all our worst fears about a certain group or person. This is such a story. It tells us that all our worst fears about the greedy, self interested, base commercialist and corporatist entity, laughably called the Conservative Party, are even truer than we feared. They just don't care a damn about England except as an opportunity for personal gain.

There is a well worn adage that Labour corruption is usually around Contracts and Tory corruption is usually around Planning Permissions. Half of that adage seems proven by this story alone!

Melanie Phillips has excelled herself, as has the Telegraph, and both should be congratulated but we should all be writing blistering letters to our MPs - although there would seem to be no point in my case, as mine is Eric Pickles himself!

How could the Tories - of all people - let developers rip out the lungs of England?

By Melanie Phillips on 12th September 2011

Once upon a time, the Conservative Party actually believed in conserving. At the very core of its being, it possessed a visceral desire to protect and preserve what was valuable — or indeed, invaluable — to our society.

If there was one issue above all others with which the party was closely identified, it was conserving the countryside.

Indeed, even when David Cameron decided that the Tories had to identify themselves with modernisation and change, the symbol he chose for the party was a tree.


English idyll: The village green at Alfriston East Sussex

That seemed to reflect both traditional conservative values and the fashionable preoccupation with the environment. Yet now it might seem that the party should change its symbol once again — to a tree torn up by its roots.

For the Government is trying to ram through nothing less than the destruction of swathes of the countryside by changing the planning laws to make it easier to build on greenfield sites.

Despite its claim that this will give local people more of a say in planning decisions, the reality is that — given the inbuilt presumption in favour of development — if local communities object to house- building, their opposition will be flattened along with the woods and hedgerows.

Even village greens will be under threat, since with communities being forced to pay up to £1,000 to apply to save green spaces from the developers, it is less likely they will do so.

In short, these plans would change much of England’s green and pleasant land into a continuous urban sprawl — what has been called the greatest threat to the countryside since World War II.

Even worse is the whiff of corruption that is beginning to emanate from these proposals. For over the past few days, the claim has surfaced that the Conservative Party’s palm is being greased by those who stand to gain financially from this change in the planning laws.

According to reports, dozens of property firms have given a total of £3.3 million to the party over the past three years, including large gifts from companies seeking to develop rural land.

In addition, it is claimed, property developers are paying thousands of pounds for access to senior Conservative MPs.

The Property Forum, a Tory donors’ club, is charging ‘key players’ within the industry £2,500 a year for breakfast meetings to ‘discuss current topics’ with top-ranking Conservatives.

The Forum raises around £150,000 a year for the Conservatives and is advertised prominently on the party’s website.


Brownfield: Development in London's Docklands have shown how wastelands can be brought back into use and profits made

The Government has furiously denied that members of the Property Forum helped shape its proposals. But Michael Slade, the Forum’s chairman and chief executive of the property developer Helical Bar, has boasted that the donors’ club plays a key role in shaping the party’s planning policy. Not so much cash for access as cash for concrete.

Maybe this is an empty boast: but there’s worse still. At the weekend, there were further claims that senior figures in the house-building industry were involved in drafting these planning reforms — including an executive from the house-builder Taylor Wimpey.

Three out of a four-strong panel recruited by Housing Minister Greg Clark to help rewrite the planning regulations reportedly had some kind of personal involvement in the building industry. To add insult to injury, just about every minister involved in these proposals has blocked development proposals in his own back yard.

Chancellor George Osborne and Communities Secretary Eric Pickles opposed the building of waste facilities in their constituencies; Mr Pickles also opposed the building of an old people’s home.


Gaffe: Minister Greg Clark

Greg Clark, meanwhile, the minister who is leading these reforms, fiercely opposed the previous Labour government’s plan to build 6,000 new homes in and around his Tunbridge Wells constituency.

He called this proposal a ‘nationally imposed hike in housing numbers [that] will place yet more pressure on our precious green spaces’, and said brownfield sites must be the priority for building.

What a miraculous transformation appears to have taken place in Mr Clark’s brain! For now he is accusing those who are making exactly the same argument against his own proposals of ‘nihilistic selfishness’ on the grounds they are blocking homes for young couples.

As the opposition has mounted, the Government has even claimed it is being subjected to a ‘carefully choreographed smear campaign by Left-wingers’.

Ah yes — those rabid Left-wing revolutionaries of the Royal Town Planning Institute, the Chartered Institution of Water And Environmental Management and the Royal Society For The Protection Of Birds. Just who do ministers think they are kidding with this absurd claim?

Indeed, it’s the Government’s own battle-cry of ‘affordable housing’ which is actually the classic Left-wing position.

There’s no doubt that more houses are, indeed, urgently needed. Much of the reason for this lies with the ruinous policy of mass immigration pursued by the Labour government, as well as the breakdown of the family into multiple households.

If the immigration rate continues to skyrocket, by 2025 the population will have risen by some 11 million over 15 years. To cope, Britain would have to build the equivalent of some 22 cities. Rather than despoil the countryside, wouldn’t it be preferable to restrict immigration to sustainable levels?


Protected: The lake District, protected from unwarranted development by its National Park status, but under constant pressure

Nevertheless, this is not the whole story. Official figures show more than 300,000 homes have been sitting empty for more than six months.

There is also said to be enough ‘brownfield’ or previously developed land for an additional three million homes. One reason this potential has not been turned into homes is that housing developers are reluctant to build when house prices are low as they will make less profit.

In other words, much could be done before having to resort to concreting over the countryside. Yet the Government appears determined instead on a course that offends the English in particular at a profound level.

For one of their special characteristics is their passionate love affair with the countryside. It plays a key part in England’s identity, celebrated as it is in its literature, music and art.

Its importance was specifically recognised in the post-war planning laws, which were designed to protect what was special and precious about the English landscape.

Indeed, it is surely not too fanciful to say the landscape is part of the English national character. It helps give it its solidity, rooting it in that which lies beyond the ephemeral constructs of mankind.

It helps the English to love their country. It elevates them through exposure to a store of natural beauty. It simply makes them feel better to be alive.


Breathing space: An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Green Belt land, near High Wycombe

Yet much of this is to be destroyed in an act of sustained vandalism by a political party that laughably calls itself conservative, but instead intends to let the market rip out the very lungs of England.

The Chancellor says the existing planning laws act as a brake to economic growth. The refrain that everything in society has to be subordinate to economics sounds remarkably familiar. Wasn’t this supposed to be the ‘nasty party’ philistinism that Mr Cameron was determined to bury?

Didn’t the Cameroons arrive at the blinding realisation that there was more to a civilised society than market forces? Has the Chancellor decided to reverse direction on that particular road to Damascus?

The Government is having an increasingly desperate fight to ram these changes through because it has brilliantly managed to unite the Right and the Left against it.

Conservatives have watched with dismay as the Cameroons have ridden roughshod over one conservative principle after another. However, it is in the meadows and copses of England that Mr Cameron may meet his Waterloo.


Green Belt: Land that has not been previously built on is usually cheaper to develop

Hands Off Our Land

Telegraph.co.uk
Monday 12 September 2011


Planning minister's in pact with developers over reforms

Greg Clark, the planning minister, privately has urged property developers to lobby David Cameron amid concerns that his planning reforms will be blocked, according to a leaked email seen by The Telegraph.


Greg Clark, the planning minister, is spearheading plans to overhaul England's planning system Photo: CHRISTOPHER PLEDGER

By Andrew Porter, Christopher Hope and Robert Winnett

Property developers privately admitted that the minister's objectives "align with ours" and said they had "earned more brownie points than we could ever imagine" by helping him.

Mr Clark is spearheading plans to overhaul England's planning system, to encourage development by simplifying the rules. This newspaper has launched a campaign opposing the changes.

The minister has publicly insisted that he is introducing carefully balanced proposals taking into account both environmental and economic concerns.

However, the leaked email will add to growing fears that the minister has become too close to the property industry and is working alongside developers to force through reforms, which establish a "presumption in favour of sustainable development".

The message was sent between senior members of the British Property Federation, a lobbying group for developers, housebuilders and supermarkets, following private discussions with Mr Clark and his officials.
In it, Ghislaine Trehearne, the group's policy officer, disclosed the minister's fears that Mr Cameron may back down on the reforms following public opposition.

"Greg Clark and his officials are … deeply concerned at the level of opposition that has been provoked by The National Trust and are worried that Number 10 might be spooked by this mobilisation of middle England and do the sort of U-turn that they did on the forestry sell-off," she wrote.

"We have been firing off letters to the press, and have sent a letter to No 10 supported by the leading developers in the commercial property industry."

The email also appears to confirm fears among campaigners that the changes to the draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) are being driven by the Treasury, which is looking for ways to stimulate the economy, at the expense of the natural environment.

The email continues: "The upshot of all this is that minister Greg Clark is delighted with the BPF and hugely grateful for our effort. He is of the opinion that the Chancellor will stand firm in the face of opposition from National Trust members in the shires – but he doesn't believe we can afford to let up and should seize every opportunity to press the case for planning reform.

"We are not, of course, a mouthpiece for CLG [the Communities and Local Government department] ministers but on this occasion their objectives definitely align with ours – so we can afford to be enthusiastic in our support, with the advantage that we have now earned more brownie points than we could ever imagine." The email appears to have been sent at the end of last month.

Developers who were sent the email include Sue Willcox, head of planning at Sainsbury's; Niall Tipping from Grosvenor Estates; Nigel Hawkey, head of planning at Quintain Estates, and Emma Cariaga, head of strategic projects at Land Securities.

Disclosure of the message comes after The Telegraph revealed that the Conservatives had accepted millions of pounds from developers – and a special club had been set up that allowed developers to effectively buy places at meetings with ministers and senior Tories.

Yesterday, it emerged that senior members of the housebuilding industry helped draft the wording of the government's consultation document.

Jack Dromey, Labour's shadow communities minister, said the Government needed to "come clean" over its links to property developers. A spokesman for The National Trust said: “It saddens us but doesn’t really surprise us that the developers are in the minister’s pocket. All those who are 'pro’ the NPPF are those who stand to gain.”

The news comes as up to 80 MPs and peers were due to meet today in the first public show of discontent about the policy. Last night, a Government source said: “Number 10 are fully behind our planning reforms and fully behind what we are doing. The Government utterly rejects any suggestion that policy is being driven by property developers.”

Liz Peace, chief executive of the British Property Federation, defended the email. She said: “I don’t accept that this amounts to collusion – it’s simply us doing our job to support the interests of our members.”

Property developers pay for access to Conservatives

Property developers are paying thousands of pounds for access to senior Conservative MPs, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.


Major players within the property industry have paid for access to senior politicians Photo: TROIKA
By Heidi Blake
9:14PM BST 09 Sep 2011

The Property Forum, a Tory donors’ club, is charging “key players” within the industry £2,500 a year for breakfast meetings to “discuss current topics” with top-ranking Conservatives.

The disclosure, which is likely to cause a new “cash for access” row, comes after the Government was accused of granting developers “a state licence to print money” by overhauling planning laws to make it easier to build on greenfield sites.

It will lead to concerns that key Conservative policies could have been influenced by major players within the property industry who paid for access to senior politicians.

The forum raises around £150,000 a year for the Conservatives and is advertised prominently on the party’s website.

Its entry on the donor’s page says the forum is “for key players within the property industry to meet senior Members of Parliament over breakfast, discuss current topics and learn about related issues”.

Grant Shapps, the housing minister, met members three months before the general election to explain the Conservatives’ Green Paper on planning ahead of its publication.

Michael Slade, the forum’s chairman and chief executive of the property developer Helical Bar, was highly critical of the party’s planning policies in opposition.

Writing in the Property Week trade magazine last February, he warned that empowering councils to make planning decisions locally could “paralyse” house-building. But critics of the new policy have warned that the reforms, which include a “presumption in favour of sustainable development”, would effectively sideline councils and amount to a “developers’ charter”.

Mr Slade, who has donated more than £300,000 to the Conservatives individually and through Helical Bar, has claimed that the club plays a key role in shaping the party’s planning policy.

He said in an interview in 2008: “One issue is the Tories seem to be strangely seen as 'nimby’, and we are looking at how we get over this.

“We are talking about how strategic developments and infrastructure can encourage local boroughs to see the benefits of development.” Mr Slade also claimed to have been in close contact with Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, as he formulated his policy to build 50,000 affordable homes in the capital.

The Conservatives were mired in a “cash for access” row in August last year, three months after coming to power, after it emerged that David Cameron was raising money for his party by offering to attend dinners with businessmen who donate £50,000 a year.

Despite the controversy, The Leader’s Group is still offering its members the chance to “join David Cameron and other senior figures from the Conservative Party at dinners, post-PMQ lunches, drinks receptions, election result events and important campaign launches”. Members of Team 2000, another donors’ club, are given the chance to hear about the party’s policies in government “first-hand” from Mr Cameron and senior MPs at “a lively programme of drinks receptions, dinner and discussion groups”.

The Conservatives last night denied that members of the Property Forum had a hand in shaping government policy.

A spokesman said: “The Conservative Property Forum is a discussion forum for people with an interest in property.

“It in no way influences policy. Any relevant donations made by members of this forum are publicly declared to the Electoral Commission just like all other relevant donations.”

Mr Slade was unavailable for comment last night.

Sunday 11 September 2011

Oh dear! The poor old Brits just don't get it , do they?

"Mayor writes to ministers after Scottish victory", Adrian Pearson of the Newcastle upon Tyne based newspaper "The Journal" reports:-


"CHANCELLOR George Osborne has been urged to address the threat to the North East economy after 900 would-be Tyneside jobs went to Scotland.

North Tyneside elected mayor Linda Arkley has written to cabinet ministers warning that the region’s economic recovery will be undermined if Scotland is allowed to offer lower taxes while at the same time possessing a multi-million fund to tempt in new firms.

Her warning comes after it emerged internet book supplier Amazon ditched plans to open a new customer service centre in North Tyneside and instead choose Edinburgh when the company secured a £1.8m grant from Scottish Enterprise to train new staff. The company said help from Scotland’s dedicated business support group was an important part in its decision.

Scottish threats to the North East economy first emerged last month, when offshore energy firms said a Treasury consultation on handing First Minister Alex Salmond the ability to lower corporation tax would undermine efforts to support the sector on Tyneside.

The banks of the River Tyne are host to a large section of the North East enterprise zone, offering five years of lower business rates and increased capital allowances for manufacturing firms likely to set up there.
Last month it was chosen as the location by the council leaders and major employers forming the region’s local enterprise partnership.

North Tyneside Council would not comment on the Amazon snub, but Mrs Arkley has released letters sent to the Department for Business and the Treasury over the summer warning of the need for a level playing field.

In her letter she said: “Given the North East’s proximity to Scotland, their ability to offer incentives and have powers over levels of corporate tax, in addition to further levers to drive forward economic growth, represents a significant threat to our moves at a local level in North Tyneside and across the local enterprise partnership area to attract businesses to invest and bring jobs to the area.

“At a time when we are taking forward moves to rebuild and rebalance the economy, granting greater freedoms to Scotland could inadvertently undermine our ability to take these steps to the best of our abilities on behalf of our communities.”

Mrs Arkley added: “I would strongly urge you, in all negotiations with the Scottish Government, to consider the implications of any greater freedoms for Scotland on the economy of the North East given our geographical proximity.”

In a letter to Business Secretary Vince Cable, she warns the minister his actions risk creating an “un-level playing field when an area of deprivation and high unemployment is prevented from offering financial support, yet Edinburgh is able to use public money to attract a project to their city, already relatively affluent by comparison.”

Ms Arkley was repeating concerns voiced last month from the region’s oil and renewable energy sector, which competes with Scotland for jobs and investment.

Andrew Hodgson, chair of industry body Subsea North East agreed a balanced playing field was needed.
He said: “The North East is the region within the UK with the highest level of unemployment. We require the appropriate support to enable us to promote our regions advantages in a fair way. Our proximity to Scotland will always mean that we have to be aware of the incentives offered there."

“I am confident that measures that have already been announced in relation to the enterprise zone can provide a base to begin to address these issues, but we have to build a stronger support base if we are to deliver improved economic prosperity.”

A spokesman for the Department for Business said: “The Government is committed to promoting growth across the whole country, and we are working closely with local enterprise partnerships to understand the barriers to local growth.

“These partnerships, including the North Eastern partnership, are helping to shape government policy, for example, imputing into the growth review work.”

With great respect to the Lady Mayoress, whom I am sure is a decent and well meaning qualified nurse (albeit a Tory), it is obvious that the isue here isn't between Scotland and the "North East" (whatever that might mean after its comprehensive rejection as a concept by the electorate in the 2006 regionalisation referendum) it is between Scotland and ENGLAND!

Her purblindness on this national issue is characteristic of Establishment officialdom and, like the story of the Emperor's new clothes, is both a tale of 'group-think' and of there being 'none so blind as them that will not see"!

England has no-one in government arguing for English interests to be looked after. In these circumstances, it should really not surprise anyone, of any sense at all, that our interests are all too often ignored by the British Government.

We need our own First Minister, Government and Parliament with at least the same powers as the Scottish ones! And,before more damage is done, we need them NOW!

Tuesday 6 September 2011

Scottish Tory Splitter Ends Delusions Of Unity – Will It Mark The Dawn of a Federal UK?


For years, the British Establishment parties in Scotland have operated as minor branches of their larger, UK/Unionist British head offices. Despite Scotland now having a powerful and evermore independent legislature, the Unionist parties have in Scotland remained subordinate to their organisational masters in London, pretending to be different but forever tethered to Westminster. Last May the SNP took effective advantage of this situation, winning an historic majority on the back of a campaign that they are the only truly Scottish party.

Murdo Fraser MSP, the favourite to be the next leader of the Scottish Tories, is attempting to change all that, claiming:

"If I am elected as leader of the party, I will turn it into a new and stronger party for Scotland. A new party. A winning party with new supporters from all walks of life. A new belief in devolution. A new approach to policy-making. A new name. But, most importantly, a new positive message about the benefits of staying in and strengthening our United Kingdom. A new party. A new unionism. A new dawn."

There have been some rumblings of support from some Tories in Westminster, and the general belief is that Mr Fraser's democratic mandate (should he win) will allow him to manage the party as he sees fit.
On the other hand some Westminster Tories have reacted with knee jerk anger to any threat to their dominance within their Party but fears that the move will encourage independence are perhaps misplaced. The centre right is pro-unionist and will resist the move to destroy the current constitutional status quo. However, the move could do more to advance the march of federalism than any other event since devolution, even perhaps more than the recent electoral successes of the SNP.

Some commentators have likened the move to situation in Germany where the Bavarian CSU operates as an ally of the CDU a Party which covers the rest of Germany. This argument has its merits, but also its limitations. Germany has 16 states, meaning the CDU contests and represents the vast majority of Germany. Without Scotland, the rump of the Tory Party will contest only England and Wales.

Although Wales does not have a politically effective Nationalist party, the Scottish Tory split could lead to demands for a dedicated English Conservative Party organisation and, in the light of the unresolved West Lothian question and the Scottish Parliament's increasing power, confidence and independence, the calls for an English Parliament will surely grow as will the demand for a truly English Nationalist Party like the English Democrats.

This sequence of events depends on the success of the new party. If the new Scottish Tories do manage to reinvent themselves, regain the trust of the electorate and create a united centre-right party to challenge the diverse and dominant left in the country, Labour and the Liberal Democrats may feel inclined, even obliged, to follow their lead and create separate entities to competitively contest elections. With this, a federal UK becomes the inevitable medium term consequence.

To suggest that the rebranding and reforming of even one of the main Establishment parties could lead to a historic change in the UK itself is an ambitious suggestion and one that relies on a fair degree of speculation. However, it will undoubtedly put the Conservatives (or whatever they become) on an equal footing with the SNP as a dedicated party for Scotland and demonstrates the ever-diverging political trends between Scotland the rest of the UK.

It is interesting to note that the “Blue Labour” movement has also been talking about becoming more pro-English and UKIP, the leading traditional British Nationalist party, is also considering adopting some measures to address England’s democratic deficit –both moves are considered only in order to try to preserve an increasingly constitutionally precarious “United” Kingdom and for tactical electoral advantage.

Saturday 3 September 2011

Good News from Salford!

The People of Salford will now get the opportunity to change how their council is led and to elect their own Council leader - rather than have another 'Buggins' foisted on them by the gang of Labour local hacks!


By August, having started only in March, our English Democrats' volunteers in Salford had collected over 10,500 signatures on our Petition to trigger a referendum for an Elected Council Leader (aka "Mayor"), under the 2000 Local Government Act. We actually only needed 8,805 but we expected the Council's current leadership to try to block it - so we got enough extra to prevent them from doing so!

Very reluctantly and after ignoring the legal time scales and after considerable lobbying and even the threat of Legal Action by local English Democrats, Salford City Council have now acknowledged the petition and have confirmed that it is valid and that it has triggered a referendum to let the people of Salford decide if they want an Elected Mayor.

I would like to openly congratulate our North West chairman, Stephen Morris, and his Salford Team for being the first of our groups to successfully trigger a local referendum on this issue!

At our September Conference last year I launched our project of getting Elected Mayors throughout England, as part of The English Democrats' mission to resuscitate English Democracy, and revealed that Mayoral Petitions had been registered in every relevant Local Authority in England by the English Democrats.

The race is now on to see which of our local groups will succeed in triggering the next referendum!

Here is an interview with Peter Davies, our Mayor of Doncaster, who is doing his honest best for his Town - perhaps every town will soon have its Peter?

Click here >>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6SriGBU6xeI

Friday 2 September 2011

England to be allowed its own national identity?

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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