LIES, DAMNED LIES AND THE BRITISH MEDIA DISCUSSING ENGLAND!

In the small media flurry of anti-English articles surrounding St George’s Day and the start of taking evidence by the Government’s Devolution Commission, this article was published uncritically in the Daily Telegraph.

Here is the article:-
“For England’s sake we still have to answer the West Lothian Question
Recognising that the UK is more than just Greater England is the key to saving it
By Jim Gallagher, 18 Apr 2012
Holyrood has finally approved, in the Scotland Bill, the biggest transfer of powers ever from Westminster but the argument over independence and the relationship between Scotland and England continues.
From an English perspective the time has come to do something about the West Lothian Question. But what is the answer? Gladstone thought this puzzle was beyond the wit of man: but in a research paper published today – England and the Union - I offer an answer.
When asked, most people think it can't be right to allow Scottish MPs to vote on English domestic issues, when they are devolved in Scotland. The same was true for many years in Northern Ireland and, now the Cardiff Assembly has real legislative powers, it matters for Wales as well.
The problem is that Westminster is the UK's Parliament but it's England's Parliament too. The same goes for the Government.
So why not have an English Parliament – wouldn't that be tidy all round? It may be entirely logical but it is entirely wrong. The most prominent supporter of an English Parliament is Alex Salmond, because he knows it's the way to end the UK.
An English Prime Minister, controlling most public spending, would soon be a bigger figure than David Cameron, the UK's Prime Minister.
Westminster would no longer be the focus of our national politics. Nation would treat with nation and the union would become a thing of the past.
The Union on these islands is worth preserving: future generations would be astonished at our ineptitude if we let it disintegrate in response to pressure from nationalists who don't even command majority support in Scotland.
But it's a lopsided creature, with England 85 per cent of the whole, dominant economically and politically. Nothing is going to change that, and it explains why the English seldom think much about it. For the most part, they've had no real need to distinguish between England and the UK.
But during the last 10 years the three small Celtic nations have gained a degree of political autonomy, and asserted their identities more clearly. The English needn't worry about that, but it has made them more aware of their own identity – and with that comes pressure for some sort of political recognition.
Most English people want "something" done; the problem is that there is no neat "something" to do.
One possibility is to cut the number of non-English MP's at Westminster. That's not really an answer, as some would still be there and voting. But it would make some sense if – and only if – a big part of Westminster's tax powers were given to the devolved bodies. Otherwise we break the link between taxation and representation.
The best answer lies in changes to parliamentary processes for English legislation. This takes us down the arcane byways of Commons procedure: but it can be done, and would oblige a government to pay heed to English opinion.
A variant of the plans Ken Clarke drew up for the Conservative Party in 2008 is entirely practicable. The trick is to set up a route through the Commons that involves English (or for some things maybe English and Welsh) committees at key points. All MPs would retain the same status, but certain committees could reflect only English views.
It is important that England's government should continue to be able to govern and so the new committees should be designed not to hamstring that government.
Here is how to would work. The whole House of Commons would vote on the second reading of a bill. That way the government – if it has a majority – should be able to determine the decision in principle on its bills.
But then the stages at which a bill can be amended - committee stage and report stages, should be taken in English committees, with a majority of English MP's. There would have to be some limits to the number and scope of amendments that could be made to a bill, but the government would have to accept them if it wants to get its bill through.
Such dramatic change would need a cross party consensus – it's too easy to present it as being driven by partisan advantage – but a few facts might help in a shrill debate.
First, the idea that a Tory voting England regularly has Labour governments imposed on it by the Celtic fringe is a myth. To form a stable government any party needs to win England. Other MPs are only critical when England is split down the middle.
That's seldom happened: Harold Wilson struggled on with an English minority but a UK majority for two years from 1964, and for 8 months in 1974. But since then Labour has only won when it won England.
The risk will be even less now that constituencies are to be equalised. And England-only legislation is not as common as people think. So change will neither guarantee a Tory hegemony nor cripple every Labour government.
Consensus ought to be possible. The UK lacks a convincing explanation of why and how the Union hangs together - what makes a political union work, how do we keep our deeply integrated economy and still devolve some tax powers and, hardest of all, what sort of social union are we?
Devolution made it harder to take the Union for granted. Scottish nationalism made it imperative to answer these questions. Perhaps it's fitting that it's the realisation that England is a political community too, and so the Union not just a greater England, that will make it possible to give the answers.”

Perhaps I should no longer be surprised at the duplicity of the British Political and Media Establishment but somehow I expected better of the Daily Telegraph despite its self-proclaimed “Campaign for Britishness”.

The first point to note is this article is a blatant attack on the integrity of England and the idea of Englishness by someone styling himself as a professor, who claims to write “From an English perspective…”

So I wondered who is this apparently Oxford based “Professor”?

The strap line under the article states:-
“Professor Jim Gallagher is Gwylim Gibbon Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford”

It goes on to state that:-
“England and the Union : How and Why to Answer the West Lothian Question”, is published by IPPR. ( www.ippr.org).

The article seems to be part of the publicity for the launch of a think tank paper.

So Prof Jim’s paper is published by the IPPR - that is Labour’s favourite think tank the - Institute of Public Policy Research.

So far, so interesting but when you go to Nuffield College’s site and look up “Professor” Jim Gallagher you will find:-
“Jim Gallagher former 10 Downing Street Adviser and former Head of Justice Department, Scottish Government
Professor Jim Gallagher is a Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford and a former head of the Scottish Justice Department. He is a Visiting Professor in the School of Law at the University of Glasgow, and Non-Executive Director of Lothian and Borders Police as well as a Council Member of the Law Society of Scotland, and a Director of a number of companies in the Financial Services sector.”

If you follow the trail further you find that “Professor” Jim Gallagher doesn’t work at Nuffield College or even work at the University of Glasgow!

In fact what is he a “Professor” of? (or for?)

Then if you consider his fellow “Gwilym Gibbon “Fellows” at Nuffield College then matters start to fall into place. Here is the list:-

“THE POLITICS GROUP AT NUFFIELD COLLEGE
Patrick Diamond, Gwilym Gibbon Research Fellow
Professor Jim D. Gallagher, Gwilym Gibbon Research Fellow
Guy Lodge, Gwilym Gibbon Research Fellow”

And here are the biographies of the other 2 “fellows”:-
“Guy Lodge, Associate Director for Politics and Power
Areas of expertise:
Political and constitutional reform in the UK
Political participation and democratic change
Contemporary British political history
Central and local government
Devolution and UK territorial politics
British elections and voting systems
National identity
Guy also leads IPPR’s partnership with the Institute of Policy and Analysis, Rwanda (IPAR).
Guy regularly comments on British politics and public policy issues in the national and international media. Recent appearances include the BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, Channel 4 News, The Daily Politics, BBC Breakfast, Five Live and The Week in Westminster. His work has been extensively covered in the print media with recent coverage in The Times, Financial Times, Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Independent, Daily Mail, Sun, New York Times, Economist, International Herald Tribune, Prospect magazine and the Australian.
His book Brown at Ten (co-authored with Anthony Seldon) was named as one of the Independent’s political books of 2010 and was described by the Guardian as a ‘must read for anyone who wants to know what really happened in the final three years of the Labour government’.
Before joining IPPR, Guy worked at the Constitution Unit, in the School of Public Policy, University College London. He has also worked in the House of Commons and at the Fabian Society.
He is a Gwilym Gibbon Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford University, and is also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Relations, also at Oxford University. He was educated at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Patrick Diamond is Gwilym Gibbon fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford, and a visiting fellow in the department of politics at the University of Oxford. He is also an elected member of Southwark Council and is the former head of policy planning in 10 Downing Street and senior policy adviser to the prime minister. Recently, he was co-editor of "After the Third Way: The Future of Social Democracy in Europe.”

Dear Reader, please guess which Party was in power when two of these three “Fellows” worked at Number 10. Clue - it shares the first letter of the word ‘Liar’! In short these Gwilym Gibbon Fellowships appear to be a patronage club benefit for a certain type of politics!

Now pause a minute to consider how incestuous is the relationship between “British” politics and the “British” media that such an article, with such an author, and from such a background, could be reported in the Daily Telegraph, in such a way! The moral is that you cannot take what the British media says at face value!

On Shakespeare's birthday (and St George's day) English nationalism is a rising "tide in the affairs of men".

The enemies of what LibDem Charlie Kennedy attacked as the "IDEA of England itself" can see that, in England, English nationalism is Shakespeare's rising "tide in the affairs of men". Rather than take it "at the flood" they would rather try to confuse and dissemble, well knowing that a dishonest "friend" is more dangerous than an open enemy.

Here's the latest article in the Daily Telegraph's "Campaign for Britishness" - which would have been more accurately entitled as 'Threequarters of people in England say St George's Cross is NOT racist'!

The article reports uncritically a "Report" done by "British Future".

British Future's website claims it "is a new independent, non-partisan thinktank seeking to involve people in an open conversation, which addresses people’s hopes and fears about identity and integration, migration and opportunity, so that we feel confident about Britain’s Future.
We want to ensure that we engage those who are anxious about cultural identity and economic opportunity in Britain today, as well as those who already feel confident about our society, so that we can together identify workable solutions to make Britain the country we want to live in."

British Future's Director, Sunder Katwala, is revealed, by a cursory Wikipedia search, as:- " Sunder Katwala is a British political activist and former general secretary of the Fabian Society. He was previously with The Observer newspaper, as a leader writer and internet editor, and was Research Director of The Foreign Policy Centre think-tank from 1999 to 2001. He became Fabian general secretary in October 2003, and held the position until July 2011.

Katwala also writes for The Guardian newspaper, for the Liberal Conspiracy blog, and most regularly for the Fabian blog Next Left.

The Daily Telegraph has included Katwala at number 33 in its list of the '100 most influential left-wingers in British politics."

Given the last paragraph it is hard to accept any proper motive for why this "Report" is given this uncritical treatment by the Telegrpah (with the exception perhaps of sloppy research?)

Here is the Telegraph article:-

"St George’s flag is a racist symbol says a quarter of the English
The English feel far more patriotic about the Union Flag than the St George’s Cross, according to a new poll.

By Jasper Copping

22 Apr 2012

The survey found that while 80 per cent linked the British flag with such feelings, only 61 per cent associated them with English one.

By contrast, the Scottish and the Welsh were far more likely to feel pride in their flag – the St Andrew’s Cross and Red Dragon respectively – than the English in theirs.

The survey was carried out by the think tank British Future as part of a report analysing how people from around the UK view their “national identity”. It will be released tomorrow, on St George’s Day.

The organisation say the results show that more needs to be done to encourage a sense of “English patriotism” if the Union is to survive.

In a letter to The Sunday Telegraph, signed by academics as well as MPs from all major parties, the think tank also calls for the introduction of a new English national anthem to help foster a greater sense of identity at sporting and national occasions.

The organisation, which has also written to the Prime Minister and other party leaders, suggests holding a popular vote to select an anthem such as Jerusalem, Land of Hope and Glory, I Vow to Thee, My Country, or Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, which could be adopted by the English and be used in the same way as Flower of Scotland by the Scots and Land Of My Fathers, by the Welsh.

The report, This Sceptred Isle, shows that only 61 per cent of the English said they associated the St George’s Cross with pride and patriotism, compared to 84 per cent of Scots and 86 per cent of Welsh, when asked about, respectively, the St Andrew’s Cross and the Red Dragon.

Almost a quarter (24 per cent), of the English said they considered their flag to be racist, compared to 10 per cent of Scots and seven per cent of Welsh, when asked about their own flags.

The report blames the “extreme street hooligans of the English Defence League” for “toxifying” the St George’s Cross, although it says politicians should also take responsibility for failing to “speak up for the inclusive patriotism of the English majority”.

It draws a clear parallel with the situation in Scotland and Wales, where civic leaders have done more to “counter rejectionist or exclusive versions of national identity”.

However, by contrast, the English have far more positive associations with the Union flag with 80 per cent linking it to feelings of pride and patriotism, compared with just over a half of Scots (56 per cent) and just over two thirds (68 per cent) of Welsh.

Despite the continuing pride in the Union flag, the report warns that English anxiety over its own flag risks damaging the Union.

It states: “England, the land of Shakespeare, seems uncertain how to find its modern voice. Historically an understated Englishness has been conflated with being British.

"It is ignoring England that now presents a greater threat to the Union than anything else.”

Sunder Katwala, the director of the think tank, said: “We’ve done nothing in the era of devolution to give a voice to England as well as Scotland and Wales, which has left English identity too open to an extremist fringe.

“The EDL with their street yobbery are not the only ones to blame for the unusual anxiety that too many people in England feel about their own flag of St George.

"They share the blame with the politicians who haven’t spoken up for a modern English patriotism, as well as our British identity.

“While the devolution debates in Scotland and Wales appear to have modernised the Scots and Welsh associations with their flag, attitudes to the English flag are lagging behind.”

The poll, conducted in the year of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, also show varying levels of support for the monarch.

Eighty per cent of the English said the Queen evoked feelings of pride, compared with 41 per cent of Scots and 35 per cent of Welsh.

The poll was conducted for British Future by YouGov, and involved 2,600 from across the UK.

The relatively new think tank is a non-partisan organisation, with members from across the political spectrum. It is dedicated to investigating the concept of national identity and patriotism in the UK."

I wish everyone a Happy St George's day! I shall be spending part of mine giving evidence to the McKay Commission on WLQ/Devolution! Later I shall be at our St George's Day dinner.

Could dodgy postal votes decide our next government?

This is such a potentially significant problem for our Democracy that I think this excellent article should be quoted in full. What do you think?

Mary Ann Sieghart: How dodgy postal votes may decide our next government
One of the biggest problems with postal votes is that they don't guarantee you a secret ballot 16 April 2012
Rachida (not her real name) was playing badminton in a Blackburn sports centre when I asked her if she'd talk to me about politics. I was making a Beyond Westminster programme for Radio 4 about how British Asian voters were deserting the three main parties. This young woman was initially very reluctant to contribute, and when she saw a middle-aged, male Labour councillor from her community trying to eavesdrop, she begged me to send him away.
But once he had gone, she opened up. British Asian politicians in Blackburn (and they're almost all Labour), she said, had imported practices from Pakistan and India. Some did favours in return for votes. Some were sexist. They didn't have the interests of the whole community at heart. Worst of all, they put serious pressure on British Asian women to vote for them.

"Has anyone ever asked you to fill in a postal vote or to give them your postal vote so they can fill it in for you?" I asked.

"I think that's common practice in Blackburn, if I'm being honest," she said. Had it happened to her? "Yes."

Bravely, she had resisted. But this was a confident, articulate British-born woman, who had the strength to defy the local bully-boys when they tried to pressurise her into voting for them. And she was still scared enough of their reaction to ask me to use a false name in the interview. So imagine how hard it must be if you are newer to Britain, or less sure of your rights,and your husband, father or local councillor puts a postal ballot in front of you and says "Sign here".

Most people see postal votes as a convenient way of avoiding the traipse to the polling station on a working day. Since Labour liberalised the law in 2000 to allow postal voting on demand, the number of people using them has soared. In the 1997 election, it was just over 2 per cent. By 2005, it was 15 per cent (and double that in Blackburn). There is no official figure for the 2010 election, but some constituencies reported increases of 200 per cent in postal vote applications. And this was particularly true in seats with a large Asian-heritage population.

Almost all the worst instances of postal vote fraud since 2000 have happened in seats with large south Asian concentrations, such as Oldham, Blackburn and Tower Hamlets. In 2004, Richard Mawrey QC, presiding over an election court, found six British Asian Labour councillors from Birmingham guilty of corruption that would, he said, "disgrace a banana republic". He declared that the Government's introduction of postal voting on demand was "an open invitation to fraud".

One of the biggest problems with postal votes is that they don't guarantee you a secret ballot. What use is the privacy of your own home if you have to fill in the form with your husband or father looking over your shoulder? Or if you are allowed only to sign the form, but have to hand it over to him to cast the vote? The great thing about a polling station is that no one is allowed to enter the cubicle with you. I was once even stopped from bringing a child in with me who wanted to see democracy in action.

So far, most of the complaints about postal vote fraud have centred on phantom voters: two-bedroomed flats with supposedly 15 people living in them, all of whom opt to vote by post. Because the registration form only has to be filled in by the head of the household, and few other checks are made, it is "childishly simple" to cheat in the British system, said a Council of Europe report in 2008.

But a Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust report in the same year drew attention to other problems with postal voting in Asian-heritage areas. It observed that the Biraderi tradition of clan politics that has been imported into many communities from the Asian sub-continent lent itself to the delivery of block votes to a party. Sometimes these postal ballot papers are taken to "voting factories", to be filled in by party activists. Biraderi is a practice that infuriates young British Asian voters, particularly women, as I saw in Blackburn, and as the whole country saw in the Bradford West by-election.

Postal votes used to be granted only if voters could show they were unable to get to a polling station. A Home Office Working Party warned in 1994 that "a move to absent voting on demand might increase the opportunity for fraudulent applications to be made without the knowledge of the elector. On balance, we consider that the risk of increased fraud outweighs the potential advantage for the electorate of making absent voting available to all". But Labour went ahead regardless.

And even the police think it's a bad idea. A report to the Metropolitan Police Authority by the Assistant Commissioner for Specialist Operations spelled it out in 2006: "Anecdotally, some community contacts have remarked on how practices that are seen as acceptable outside the UK have been adopted in respect of UK elections – for example, the head of an extended family instructing members to vote for a particular party or candidate. Postal voting increases the risk, as the safeguard of a truly secret ballot is removed."

This government plans to deal with the phantom voter problem by bringing in individual voter registration in 2014. Under the new system, the head of a household won't be able to register all the people living (or not living) under one roof: voters will have to do it individually and provide dates of birth and National Insurance numbers so their identity can be verified.

But this does nothing to prevent coercion, particularly of women. What we need to do is to go back to the system that used to prevail – whereby postal ballots are granted only to people who physically can't get to the polling station.

It might be a slight inconvenience for some voters. But it's only right in a democracy that everyone should be protected by a secret ballot. And you don't even have to feel sorry for Rachida and her sisters to want the law changed. In those constituencies with a high percentage of postal votes, it's scarily easy for a result to be stolen. If the next election is anything like as close as the last, it's quite possible that the next government could be decided by dodgy postal votes.

There's still time to clean up the system by 2015. Nick Clegg should tighten up the rules on postal voting in the same legislation that he is bringing in for individual voter registration. It's not just the women of Blackburn, Bradford and Birmingham who need it. So does the health of our democracy and our reputation in the world. After all, who wants to live in a banana republic?

m.sieghart@independent.co.uk / twitter.com/MASieghart

Mckay/WLQ Commission

Regular followers of this blog will remember that I posted my reaction to the Coalition's setting up of their "West Lothian Commission" (copy and paste this to your toolbar if the link doesn't work >>> http://robintilbrook.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/english-unrepresented-on-governments.html) and that I commented on it further in a BBC News interview (http://robintilbrook.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/my-news-interview-9312.html).

I can however now reveal that I have been invited to give oral evidence to the Commission - now named after its Chairman.

Here is the correspondence (in the usual email reverse order and made suitably anonymous) beginning from their initial call to the English Democrats:-

Dear Mr D.

Thank you for your email. I confirm that I shall attend on the 23rd April.

Yours sincerely
Robin Tilbrook,
Chairman,
The English Democrats


In a message dated 17/04/2012 11:48:02 GMT Daylight Time, secretariat writes:

Dear Mr Tilbrook

Thank you for your call just now and for confirming that you can make the 11.30 session on 23 April. I will send the confirmatory details to you later this week.

I can also confirm that your submission was received and that it will be passed to the Commissioners later today.

Yours sincerely
O. D.
The McKay commission Secretariat
17 March 2012


---- OriginalMessage ----
From: secretariat
To: RobinTilbrook
Sent: Mon, Apr 16, 2012, 05:56 PM
Subject: Re: Re: FOR REPLY PLEASE: Commission on the consequences of devolution for the Ho...

Dear Mr Tilbrook

Thank you for your response. Your submission will be passed on to the Commissioners today.

As stated in my telephone message just now, I can confirm that do indeed have a slot available at next week's evidence session. It will be from 11.30 or so onwards on Monday 23 April, will last for up to 45 minutes and will take place very close to Parliament itself. If you could please confirm your ability to attend this session I will send you a map later this week.

Yours sincerely
O. D.
The McKay Commission Secretariat
16 March 2012

---- OriginalMessage ----
From: RobinTilbrook
To: secretariat
Sent: Fri, Apr 13, 2012, 12:21 PM
Subject: Re: FOR REPLY PLEASE: Commission on the consequences of devolution for the Ho...

Dear Mr D.
Thank you for your email and telephone call. Yes I would be pleased to give oral evidence.

It is our view that the question that the Commission has been set up to examine is properly the “English Question”. Even in its original formulation the “West Lothian Question” is clearly about what the impact of devolution would be on England.

The English Democrats’ view is that the only coherent, fair and democratic resolution to the English Question is an English Parliament, First Minister and Government with at least the same powers as the Scottish ones, within a Federal UK. It is our view that if this is not offered soon the demand within England will move on to Independence; thus failure to address issues properly now will result in the end of the UK.

The suggestion that fairness for England or any useful amelioration of the current unfairness to England and to English National Interests can be achieved by merely tinkering with the internal procedures of the House of Commons is risible and does not even begin to address English nationalist aspersions. If Scotland deserved its own Parliament because, in Tony Blair’s words, “it is a proud and historic Nation”, then so does England.

Turning to the Coalition Government’s proposal to tinker with House of Commons procedure; the English Democrats say, inter alia, as follows:-

1. Their proposal only addresses the limited question of representation within the legislative process of the House of Commons and it fails totally to address the Executive side of the democratic deficit of the English question.
2.It will be almost impossible to sensibly differentiate ‘England only Bills’ for as long as the Barnet Formula means that any spending issues in an ‘England Bill’ means an impact on the budgets of the other Nations of the UK.
3. Whatever Body (e.g. the Speakership) is charged with determining an English Bill that Body will be politicised as that determination may be crucial to the government being able to legislate if there is no majority for its Bill amongst MPs representing English seats.

Yours faithfully
Robin Tilbrook,
Chairman,
The English Democrats


Dear Mr Tilbrook

I am writing further to our telephone call today. As mentioned, the Commission on the consequences of devolution for the House of Commons invites you to give written and oral evidence to the Commission, setting out your view on the issue.

The establishment of this Commission was announced through a Written Ministerial Statement in Parliament on 17 January 2012 (see the Commission’s website - http://tmc.independent.gov.uk/key-documents/written-ministerial-statement-17-january-2012/). A news release sent out following the first meeting of the Commission on 29 February (see http://tmc.independent.gov.uk/news/first-meeting-mckay-commission/) invited comments and submissions from those with an interest in the consequences of devolution for the House of Commons.

The Commission will meet in London on 23-24 April 2012, when evidence will be taken in a public session from relevant experts and interested groups.....

If you wish to accept the invitation to give oral evidence, it would be most helpful if you could let me know as soon as possible, please; and also if you would provide a written submission setting out your views. I would be grateful if the written submission could be provided to the Secretariat, if possible, by Tuesday 17 April 2012.

I would also be very grateful if you could let me know tomorrow Thursday 12 April if you intend to give oral evidence to the Commission.

If you have any questions, please contact me

Yours sincerely
O. D.
The McKay Commission Secretariat
11 April 2012

What do you think? Have you got any other points that you think that I should make?

“Equality and Diversity” Pitfall?

Below is a report from 2010 about a significant case in the development of “equality and diversity” law.

The report is written from a Jewish perspective and is doubly interesting, as it vividly illustrates the double edged nature of this highly political legislation. Legislation which, until recently, seemed to be only useable by the so called ethnic minorities. Now however it is clear that a claimant asserting anti-English discrimination can use it just as effectively - even against an 'ethnic minority' defendant employer.

I would say not only can English claimants use it but also they should do so and not only for the money but also to ensure that this law is fairly applied to everyone!

Discrimination and Identity in London: The Jewish Free School Case
by J. H. H. WEILER

It is not every day that the Chief Rabbi of Britain, Sir Jonathan Sacks, is found by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom to be guilty of racial discrimination, but that is what happened in the recent Jewish Free School (JFS) Case.

The facts of the case are as simple as the underlying legal, religious, and cultural issues are complex. The Jewish Free School, founded in 1732, is Europe’s largest Jewish secondary school and one of the best schools in London. Moreover, as a state-funded school, it is literally free. As a matter of policy, JFS gives preference to Jews in its admissions decisions. Since the number of Jewish applications consistently exceeds the places available, non-Jews are, in effect, excluded. No one contests the right of JFS to do this. By law, Catholic schools can give preference to Catholics; Muslim schools to Muslims, and so on. The law also allows such schools to determine eligibility by reference to religious “membership or practice.” But there is no exemption for discrimination on grounds of race.

The legal limits of JFS’s policy were recently tested when a twelve-year-old boy, identified in court documents as “M,” applied for admission to the school. M’s mother, who is Italian Catholic by birth, converted to Judaism through a non-Orthodox rabbinic court. At the time of his application, M was living with his father and although the two of them were members of a Masorti synagogue, M was denied admission because Chief Rabbi Sacks, whose authority is recognized by JFS, did not recognize the conversion of his mother as valid, rendering M not Jewish, by extension.

In determining whether M was Jewish, the Chief Rabbi, as head of the United Synagogue, applied the criterion of “membership in the Jewish people” rather than that of “the practice of Judaism.” Membership was determined by traditional norms: someone born to a Jewish mother or converted according to halakha. Since Rabbi Sacks and the United Synagogue do not recognize the halakhic authority of Masorti Rabbinic courts, M was treated as if he were a non-Jewish applicant, his family’s practice of Judaism notwithstanding. A lower court upheld the school’s right to do deny M a place, but this decision was reversed on appeal and came before the Supreme Court.In the eyes of the Majority, this exclusion amounted to prohibited racial discrimination.

Five Law Lords found direct discrimination, which, under British Law, can never be justified or excused. Two Law Lords found indirect racial discrimination which can be justified or excused but which was not so justified in this case. Only two found for the School and the United Synagogue. So how did the Majority reach its conclusion?

English law includes “ethnic origins” as a proxy for race, which is understood to be “appreciably wider than the strictly racial or biological.” Several criteria determine ethnicity: shared history, cultural tradition, common geographical origins, descent from a small number of common ancestors, a common language, a common literature, a common religion, being a minority within a larger community, and so on.

A group defined by reference to enough of these characteristics would be capable of including converts, for example, persons who marry into the group … Provided a person who joins thegroup feels himself or herself to be a member of it, as is accepted by other members, then he is [for the purposes of the law prohibiting racial discrimination,] such a member. The Majority found that on these anthropological criteria, the Jewish people are an ethnic group.

Now, one should not condemn the British courts for construing race anthropologically and giving a non-religious definition to Jewishness. In the first place, it is consistent with the purpose of Britain’s Race Relations Act. Anti-Semites are distinctly uninterested in halakhic definitions of Jewishness, and we would not want someone who was discriminated against as a Jew to face a legal defense that—according to Orthodox standards—she was not actually Jewish, ergo it wasn’t really discrimination. Second, we do not want the legislature or the courts to be in the business of setting religious criteria for Jewishness. But we should note that a gap exists between this anthropological definition of Jewishness and a religious definition. It is possible that someone would be anthropologically Jewish but religiously not. (Many such Jews were gassed at Auschwitz.)

Lady Hale, in a lucid and succinct opinion, captures the core of the Majority’s reasoning:
There is no doubt that the Jewish people are an ethnic group ... [I]t is just as unlawful to treat one person more favourably on the ground of his ethnic origin as it is to treat another person less favourably. There can be no doubt that, if an employer were to take exactly the same criterion as that used by the … Chief Rabbi and refuse to employ a person because the Chief Rabbi would regard him as halachically Jewish, the employer would be treating that person less favourably on grounds of his ethnic origin... M was treated less favorably because he did not come under the Chief Rabbi’s definition of Jewishness, as the son of a Jewish mother. In the eyes of the Majority that definition was an ethnic and hence racial determination. The Jewish Free School was guilty of racial discrimination. Or was it?

In order to highlight the problems with the Supreme Court’s decision, let us imagine that both of M’s parents were Italian by birth, or for that matter Chinese. M would then be ethnically Italian or Chinese. But had his mother undergone a halakhically incontestable conversion, M would be fully Jewish, according to Rabbi Sacks and JFS—race, genes, and ethnicity notwithstanding. This is the traditional Jewish position, and there is nothing racist about it. Thus, an M with exactly the same “racial” or “ethnic” makeup would be considered Jewish had his mother satisfied the religiousrequirements of conversion. This is the traditional Jewish position, and there is nothing racist about it.

As an internal Jewish matter, the wisdom of the Chief Rabbi and JFS’s decision to exclude students such as M calls for serious reflection. But even from the perspective of the non-Orthodox denominations, whose conversions the Chief Rabbi does not recognize, the result of the case should be alarming. All Jewish denominations accept the proposition that Jewish identity is determined by either descent or conversion, though they differ on the precise rules. Indeed, the Masorti movement accepts the same Jewish legal tradition, but interprets it more liberally. A Reform school could also face an M who felt Jewish but was not so by Reform criteria, say because neither of his parents had converted, as noted by Rabbi Bayfield, head of England’s Reform Movement in a statement cited in the Court’s decision.

The Majority has conflated the secular anthropological criterion of ethnicity, which is the province of the civil authorities, with the religious criterion, which is the province of religious authorities.

Was the Chief Rabbi concerned with ethnicity as the Majority Held? To the Minority, it was clear that his concerns were not even remotely ethnic or racial. Thus, Lord Rodger in dissent: Faced with a boy whose mother had converted under Orthodox auspices, the governors would have considered him for admission without pausing for a single second to enquire whether he or his mother came from Rome, Brooklyn, Siberia, or Buenos Aires, whether she had once been a Roman Catholic or a Muslim, or whether he or she came from a close-knit Jewish community or had chosen to assimilate and disappear into secular society. In other words, the “ethnic origins” of the child or his mother … would not have played any part in the governors’ decision to admit him … the only ground for treating M less favourably than the comparator [i.e. a son of an Halakhikly converted woman] is the difference in their respective mothers’ conversions—a religious, not a racial ground. This is cogent but it should be noted that it is this very example given by Lord Rodger which seems to animate the Majority too. Although never explicitly articulated, the following argument seems to underlie the Court’s decision: How is it possible that the Jewish Free School and the Chief Rabbi can consider someone eligible who is an atheist, uninterested in Judaism, believes in none of its propositions, and whose main reason for going to JFS is that it is excellent and free, while rejecting a candidate such as M, who is a deeply religious, committed, and knowledgeable Jew, albeit non-Orthodox? Since the first applicant is, by definition, not religious, preferential treatment of him over M must be due to racial discrimination.

What is wrong with the above implicit reasoning? Well, nothing except that it is underwritten by a profoundly Christian understanding of religion and religious membership. It is shaped by the fundamental Christian idea of the New Covenant in which the “old” covenantal boundaries of Israelite peoplehood were dissolved, and a universal salvific message was extended to all individuals regardless of the people to whom they belonged. To quote Paul, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” On this view, you are Christian if and only if you believe in Christ. This idea of religion as a matter of doctrinal conviction has shaped the Western sensibility as to what religious membership means. It is to be respected. But it is not the Jewish understanding of religious belonging. In fact it originated in a rejection of Judaism. (Paul also spoke of being circumcised in the heart rather than the flesh.) One can, as a Jewish religious proposition, belong to the Jewish people even if you have lost your faith.

What is troubling about the Majority is its sheer incomprehension and consequent intolerance of a religion whose self-understanding is different than that of Christianity. Their anthropological reading of ethnicity is suitable in the circumstances for which the Race Relations Act was intended. But when the law makes an exception for religion and the religion in question is Judaism, it should be understood on its own terms, not on Christian (or, more precisely, Protestant) terms. But, one might protest, even if one accepted the self-understanding of the religion in question, that acceptance cannot be absolute. We would not allow child sacrifice, even if religiously mandated. What, then, if I continue to hold that the Jewish self-understanding and definition of membership—descent and conversion—just are discriminatory? In fact, this is the unstated conclusion of the Majority’s decision, and it is deeply troubling. For the most troubling discrimination I see here is the one against Jewish institutions applying religious criteria of membership. Lady Hale speaks of the Jewish “people.” The Jewish religious definition of peoplehood—descent and conversion—is no different from all of the secular definitions with which I am familiar. You are French, or Italian, or German, or Irish, or Australian or, yes, British, if you are born to a parent or parents belonging legally to that people (descent) or if you legally naturalize (conversion). Some countries add place of birth, but practically none exclude the two first criteria.

Among the rights of being British is eligibility for election to Parliament. Imagine a different M, born and bred in Britain, speaking English and feeling entirely patriotic, but, alas, the son of non-British parents whose naturalizations were invalid by extant British rules. “I am afraid, Sir,” the British election officer will say, “that until such time as you legally naturalize, you may not stand for election, which is a right reserved to Britons.” “Even to Britons,” M might protest, “who never set foot in this country, who hate it, who disparage it, who want to abolish the Monarchy?” “I am afraid so” would be the inevitable answer of the election officer in Britain and in virtually every other country.

If the majority of the Law Lords of the Supreme Court in the JFS case accept the peoplehood of the Jews, why would they hold the Jewish religious definition of membership to be discriminatory when it is similar to the secular universal practice among all other peoples?

UNLUCKY ENGLAND DAY DEMO – FRIDAY 13TH JULY

Here is advance notice of a date for your diary to come and demonstrate in London (venue to be arranged). On Friday the 13th July we will mark the “Unlucky England Day”!

On this day, English taxpayers have to pay £7.65 per prescription charge whereas Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish taxpayers pay nothing - courtesy of English taxes; On this day, English NHS hospitals charge English patients, and their families and visitors car parking charges - unlike Welsh patients; On this day, English pensioners are made to pay for residential care whereas Scottish pensioners get it for free - courtesy of English taxpayers; On this day, English students are being made to pay £9,000 a year university tuition fees whereas Scottish students and EU students studying in Scotland get their tuition for free - courtesy of English taxpayers; On this day, the subsidy from English taxpayers to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be about £133,879,780; On this day, the payments made by English taxpayers to subsidise the EU will be £87,431,693; On this day, an estimated 400 illegal immigrants will come to settle in England; On this day, an estimated 800 legal immigrants will come from other parts of the EU to settle in England (permitted by of EU rules); On this day, there is no democratic representation of the English Nation in an English Parliament; On this day, there is no First Minister or Government for England!

So on Friday, 13th July is England unlucky? Or what?

Come and join us and demonstrate against the “hard luck of the English”!

An Easter Lesson?

A Biblical political lesson?

As Anglicans, my family and I went to Church on Easter day.

The service, at Chelmsford Cathedral, suitably bedecked with the Cross of St George, finished with a rousing rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus which sent us off humming.

During the service part of the Epistle reading caught my eye:-
"For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away" 1 Peter 1:24

This is one of those verses that might be taken fatalistically and, if you do so, would tend to sap our will to action but I take it as a positive CALL to action.

In this sense it points out that we all only have a short time to make a difference for the good of our country and nation.

So let's waste no time and do our best now and keep doing so until it is the time for us to "wither"!

Don't you just love Peter Hitchens when he is on one of his rants?

The trouble is that he is a lightening rod that electrifies people only to earth them and leave them flat, with an enervating sense of powerlessness.

It is almost a staple part of English culture to grumble, stereotypically in the pub, that "THEY" should "DO something about" whatever it is that offends our sense of fairness - and there is certainly and rightly plenty to do so!

However we, as English Nationalists, need to focus on actually doing something to try to make a positive difference for our country and nation - and not just grumble about it or wait for others to do it!

The beauty of doing so within the vehicle of a campaigning political party is that the task is readily broken down into do-able parts - while you are reading this I am off out leafleting and canvassing!

This is Peter Hitchens' Mail on Sunday column 07 April 2012

I said I'd never stand as an MP... Well, I've changed my mind

"If George Galloway can get elected, should I too stand for Parliament? I have resisted the idea for years. I once worked at Westminster and saw the powerlessness of the individual MP against the thuggish pressure of the party whips.

I know that almost all elections in this country are rigged to suit the big parties. I am saddened by the way so many good people honestly imagine that they pick their own MPs at General Elections.

In fact, by clinging to habitual party loyalties, they just confirm the choices already made for them in secret by the party machines.

These machines are ruthlessly centralised nowadays, so that any independent or honest person is sifted out of the selection process. A few get through by accident, but you will have noticed that the experiment with open primaries has not been repeated. We can’t have actual voters playing any real part in picking candidates for safe seats. That would mean revolution.

Then there is the problem of party loyalty itself. I am endlessly baffled by the way in which the patriotic, honest, law-abiding people of this country vote for Labour and Tory candidates who loathe Britain and refuse to stand up for nation, law, liberty or justice. Yet they do. The millions of patriots who voted Tory at the last Election committed an act of self-harming idiocy. To support Mr Cameron’s openly declared Left-liberal project was as unreasonable as punching yourself repeatedly in the face, or burgling your own house.

Yet suddenly, in the past few weeks, I think we can hear the sound of mental chains snapping. The ridiculous and squalid performance of the Government on so many different subjects has – perhaps briefly – woken large numbers of people from their dreamlike doze of dangerous complacency.

They may have vaguely known that government was for sale. But the sight and sound of the unlovely Peter Cruddas openly selling the Prime Minister of this country (and his wife) to anyone with the money to pay suddenly brought home the truth in a way that thousands of words could not have done.

Mr Slippery’s attempt to get himself out of this was even more obviously the act of a fraud who has been found out and knows it. Caught in the searchlight, we saw a naked Public Relations Man, whose first and last resort is trickery and slickness, because that is what he prefers.

First we had a fake panic over petrol, then a fake pretence at being a man of the people by claiming to have stuffed his face with a fictitious Cornish pasty from a shop that had long ceased to exist. What a surprise, then, to find him last week claiming unconvincingly to have a lively Christian faith, while his Home Secretary gets on with snubbing and sidelining genuine Christians in the accursed name of ‘equality and diversity’ – Mr Slippery’s real religion, as we surely must now realise.

Those of us who have known this for ages, who have studied Mr Slippery’s bottomless cynicism, grotesquely greedy expenses claims and instinctive Leftism on all major issues, have until now been stuck hopelessly at the edge of things, surrounded by deluded optimists who think that Mr Slippery is only held back by Nick Clegg, and is preparing to emerge as his true self at some vague point in the future, round about the same place as the one where parallel lines meet.

Surely this is now unsustainable. As for the other parties, they are the same. I think that is one of the reasons for George Galloway’s victory in Bradford West. The old loyalties are at last dying, the Coalition actually speaks for nobody, there is no proper opposition in Parliament and – instinctively, like a flower seeking light – the electorate is recognising that this has to be put right. Mr Galloway is not, of course, the solution. We must do better than that.

John Maynard Keynes once said: ‘When the facts change, I change my mind.’ And he asked those who criticised him: ‘What do you do, sir?’ Well, I too have changed my mind.

And I think several hundred other people should do the same. In each parliamentary seat, concerned and wise men and women should now turn their minds to finding a candidate who has independence of mind, who is neither bigoted nor politically correct, who loves this country and is proud of its independence and its ancient liberties, who hates crime and injustice, who supports the married family and the rule of law, who understands that education without authority is impossible.

Where by-elections arise, they should be ready to fight them, and when the next General Election comes they should be ready to fight that too, to bypass and overthrow the sordid, discredited tyranny of spivs, placemen and careerists that is now ruining what ought to be one of the greatest civilisations on Earth.

I urge them to do so, under the simple motto of Justice and Liberty, a name that nobody can copyright and a pledge that nobody can fake. And if they do, then I’ll seriously consider putting my name forward."

I do wonder whether Hitchens will ever cease dithering and DO something!

But I hope that every reader will!

Will you?

1984 in 2012 - a guest post

The UK is today on track to be a Police Surveillance State on a par with China and Iran.

The British Government has again announced it is to enact legislation to enable it to look at all our emails, texts and website searching. It will also monitor all our telephone conversations. That means that everything you say and read and do, will become State property. The State will steal your right to privacy, freedom of expression and association. All this is to be done in the name of 'State security', a chilling phrase to those who believe in freedom of the individual above that of the State, and have knowledge of recent history. They tried this before in 2010 but the outcry caused them to defer the plan. Maybe now, however, they feel that we have become softened up to the idea of intrusion into our private lives by large corporations and particularly internet media and organs of the state, that we will be more amenable to its re-introduction.

All this should, however, send shivers of fear down the spine of every man and every woman who believes in Freedom. And those who peddle the naive belief that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear are almost as dangerous as those who wish to implement this measure. Let us not forget that for evil to prevail it only requires good men to do nothing.

The people of England, through long tradition, probably still believe in freedom of speech and association, and probably believe they still exist, but political correctness and its agents eroded that long ago.
For nearly fifty years after the Second World War was won against a totalitarian regime, another war, 'The Cold War' was conducted. This was mainly a war of propaganda and espionage and it was waged against the stated evils of the Soviet Union and its satellite States, which were genuine. The People of the Nations of the UK were told those States had to be opposed because they also spied on their people and controlled their thoughts and actions. They viewed their people as potential 'enemies of the State'. They also encouraged their people to spy on each other. Millions of pounds were spent on opposing these States, vast resources applied to the propaganda effort. Lives were lost. The grounds for all this were the protection of our Freedoms against foreign domination, when all the evils described would be visited upon us.

The British State and its political Establishment is now intending to introduce these very evils. State security will take precedence over the freedom of the individual. Don’t be fooled that this is aimed at terrorists and potential terrorists, for it is all of us who will suffer, the ordinary innocent subject. It will turn the police still further into agents of the State. The police will need to be looked upon with suspicion, more than they do now. It will be the policeman who knocks your door down at four o’clock in the morning, probably accompanied by someone in a long coat (maybe even a leather one!) because you have used the wrong word or phrase in your email or text message. Because State spies will be scanning every one of your messages for key words and phrases which they deem dangerous or threatening. They will be monitoring your innocent debates and discussions, and the websites you visit; the ones they think subversive or threatening, and if you visit them more often than they think you should you will be regarded as a subversive. Your file will be marked. We will have our own British ‘stasi’.

And don’t believe them when they say this is all for your own good, or that surveillance will be limited, or that it will all be carefully controlled. This is just the kind of thing that gets out of control; it acquires a life and momentum of its own. It won’t be long before ‘State Security’ deems the measures inadequate, and that more are needed. Apparatus is already in place for your innocent meetings in the street to be observed. Next your conversations there could be heard too. All this will happen unless, we the people, rise against it again, and object as we did about the introduction of Identity Cards, a previous dangerous authoritarian measure.

So far, I have only mentioned terrorists. But these measures are to be aimed at criminals too. What level of criminal - international drug smugglers, people traffickers? It could be quickly extended, and you could be an innocent victim if you are by chance going about your lawful business but in the wrong place at the wrong time (or underpaid your tax by £10!).

And there are civil rights to be considered. We know the State is worried at the ease by which demonstrations can be organized. But these demonstrations are legal in a free society, so what right does the State claim to monitor communications of this type?
There is no time to be lost. These proposals are dangerous to the Freedoms our ancestors fought for. They fought against the powerful and unanswerable organs of State, religion and aristocracy, hundreds of years ago, which brought about modifications and reform which we all enjoy today. Lives were lost then to bring about a Free society. They must not be allowed to have been lost in vain.

We cannot rely on the Established parties. It has been said ‘you cannot get a cigarette paper between them’, and although ‘Nick’ is doing his usual ‘grandstanding’ by claiming to be putting a brake on the proposals he is part of the State power introducing them and his word, as we all know, is worth nothing.

Action must be taken, we must make our views known to prevent these measures being brought in, but we must turn away from the major parties. New political grass roots voices, such as the English Democrats, are being heard and we should turn to them, to bring political power back to the ordinary people of England.

4th April 2012

Keith Birtwhistle

Islam-ism's first triumphs in England?

George Galloway’s electoral triumph last Thursday in Bradford was not only the widely headlined humiliation of the Ed Miliband, but it is also the second time now that nakedly Islamist politics has triumphed electorally in England.

The first example was the election of Lutfur Rahman as elected Mayor of Tower Hamlets, on an independent Islamist ticket, and now George Galloway’s "Respect" Party triumph which was supported almost entirely by the votes of radicalised Islamist Asian voters.

For anyone that doubts where George Galloway stands it would be worth watching this video of one his performances in East London. (If the link does not work for you, copy and paste this >>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-S7fCWZHvw)

Also see this article in the Guardian reporting him praising Allah for his victory (click here >>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/30/george-galloway-bradford-spring-labour?INTCMP=SRCH ).

Also this excellent article by the Telegraph’s fearless reporter Andrew Gilligan (Click here>>> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9176195/A-runaway-victory-for-George-Galloway-and-all-praise-to-Allah.html).

The rise of successful Islamist electoral politics in England should not only be seen as a threat to the traditional culture of England but also a threat politically to the Labour Establishment, particularly when the Labour Leader is ethnically Jewish and therefore unacceptable to hard-line Islamists.

It is worth reflecting on how other Labour figures will react to these victories. We have already had some inkling of one reaction from Ken Livingstone as you can see from this extract and video from the Daily Telegraph (Click here>>> http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewgilligan/100144946/ken-livingstone-i-will-make-london-a-beacon-of-islam/)


Ken Livingstone also supported Mayor Rahman in his rebellion against the official Labour Party candidate and he and Respect activists helped to get him elected in Tower Hamlets. Ken Livingstone was of course one of the principal architects of the Left’s so called “Rainbow Alliance” (originally of Greens, gays, Islamists, Irish Republicans and politicised ethnic minority groups, together with much of the Far Left). This alliance has increasingly broken down as the tension between Islamists and the others has escalated. The Greens left some time ago. Many of the Gay Rights activists, like Peter Tatchell, have left and now even Jewish voters are leaving in droves, as can be see from this Jewish Chronicle article (Click here>>> http://www.thejc.com/blogs/jessica-elgot/ken-means-i-cant-back-labour )


What does all this mean for the future? The outcome is dependent obviously on a variety of factors, one of which is the huge subsidy to the official Labour Party from institutionalised Trade Unionism. For as long as this continues and remains legal (there are moves afoot to try to limit the amount that Labour can get), the official Labour Party’s future must be fairly well assured. If the funding were to be substantially reduced then we could be fairly sure of a rift developing between those in the Labour Party who still have attachment to English working class culture and those who side with Islamism. The existence of such a rift will in any case create increasing tensions within the Labour Party even while the official Party structure holds.

Whether the rising Islamism of one faction within the Labour Party will lead to a clearer reassertion by another faction of English working class values, as is suggested by Jon Cruddas MP (click here>>> http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2010/08/labour-party-english-england), we have yet to see.

Nevertheless this fault line within the Labour Party leaves it deeply wounded. So the ramifications of George Galloway’s victory are not just the superficial damage to Ed Miliband’s leadership.

What should our reaction be to Labour’s internal ruptures and wounds? Labour, although wounded, is still a big beast and like a primeval hunter we should follow it carefully, give it no rest, harry it when it tries to lick its wounds, keep it separate from the rest of the herd and watch for the opportunity when it is so weakened that we can get close enough to finish it off with our clubs!

In doing so we must always bear in mind the extent to which the rest of the Lib/Lab/Con herd support each other and work hand in glove to keep down any serious threat to their hegemony . We must not let any of their diversion tactics distract us from our quarry (like 50% tax rates, gay marriage or fuel scares). They want to keep a system were the votes of 21.6% of the electorate deliver the appearance and powers of a democratic majority. “Tally ho!” anyone?

A guest blog from one of our Isle of Wight activists

Asset Stripping England
On the 30th March 2012, George Galloway was elected as MP for Bradford North. “Gorgeous George” claimed that people have become disenchanted from Westminster and that is certainly correct. In this country we have three big political parties all very very similar. No matter the subject; they now seem to be as one!
In 1997 a New Labour Government was elected in the United Kingdom, they promised much, and they delivered much, sadly much of it very damaging to England and under the constant mantra of “reform”.
We now know that despite the election result of 2010 where the Liberal Democrats could have decided if the country had a New Labour coalition or a Conservative coalition it really would not have mattered that much, the Tories (and Liberal Democrats) have continued on with ignoring election pledges, while bleating the word “reform” as a catch all for imposing financial cuts that will bring the country to its knees.
The Tory led British Government is totally out of its depth and comfort zone in trying to deal with the legacy of financial mess created by New Labour. Curiously however they seem totally comfortable (and snuggly) within their comfort zone in asset stripping English national institutions and have no compunction in forcing their will using a Parliamentary rule for budgets to trample over the will of the Lords, this is after ignoring any groups “consulted” about various “reforms”.
The British Government have no mandate for selling English public roads or English forests, no mandate for asset stripping the English NHS, and no mandate for imposing (forcing through the upper house) the welfare reform bill. (It is even being suggested that elements of the welfare reform bill may be illegal under the UN charter concerning forced labour, and human rights legislation concerning treatment of people in a humane manner!)
The (English) NHS bill (also forced through the Lords) is another disaster waiting to happen, but why? Why is a Tory led Government happy to impose New Labour policies into a country that had the toughest welfare tests on the planet in 2003? You might ask why they are increasing New Labour’s snooping on the individual as well?
The reality of today’s political situation is clear, no matter who in the “Big Three” parties has “power” all of them are so out of touch they might as well be on Mars. We have just witnessed a Government inspired panic buying of fuel, followed up by a disproportionate use of Westminster time on the subject of Cornish pasties!
While some people have commented that these people are not fit for office, yet when you look closer at what this regime have imposed and intend to impose, you will see that it affects only people in England, the selling off of English public roads, English forests, English prescription charges rates, the English NHS, and yes the (English) welfare reform bill. The Scottish Government along with Scottish GP’s have openly said they will not impose this mess upon the people of Scotland come independence.
The Scots have something we do not, they have a choice. They have the Scottish National Party protecting Scottish interests. England has no one in power willing to acknowledge that England needs protection, fairness and parity as well or even that England exists. You can change that! You can support and vote English Democrats!