Irish Money Laundering

Reports the RTE website:

'A 32-year-old chef from Co Cork has been convicted of membership of an illegal organisation by the Special Criminal Court.

'Don Bullman, from Fernwood Crescent in Wilton, was arrested during a garda investigation into IRA money laundering after the 2004 Northern Bank robbery.

'He was found with a washing powder box with over 94,000 Euros inside it, after he was arrested outside Hueston Station in Dublin in February 2005.'

Does anyone else think he got completely the wrong end of the stick when he was told to launder the money?

Blair The Dead Pig

Do you remember the high hopes many in this country had for “New Labour” in 1997. As we turn our faces from the rotting carcass of moral decay and mendacity that is the death of this vile administration ,that early optimism is hard to recall. Look at these quotes on which no comment is really needed.

"Education will be our number one priority";
"we will rebuild the NHS";
"we will help build strong families and strong communities";
"we will be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime";
"we will clean up politics and put the funding of political parties on a proper and accountable basis".
It is almost beyond belief that so much good will , and there was considerable good will, was wasted . I happened to read this poem about the utter deadness of a slaughtered pig which reminded me of that strange thing , time ,passing and this governement. Can it be that this is the same Blair who said those things , who made those promises? His administration has no right to persist, and yet it lies there like the pig , inert and pointless. Remembering what it was all supposed to be for is almost impossible but once ..once it was all going to be Cool Brittannia…..


View of a Pig

The pig lay on a barrow dead.
It weighed, they said, as much as three men.
Its eyes closed, pink white eyelashes.
Its trotters stuck straight out.
Such weight and thick pink bulk
Set in death seemed not just dead.
It was less than lifeless, further off.
It was like a sack of wheat.
I thumped it without feeling remorse.
One feels guilty insulting the dead,
Walking on graves. But this pig
Did not seem able to accuse.
It was too dead. Just so much
A poundage of lard and pork.
Its last dignity had entirely gone.
It was not a figure of fun.
Too dead now to pity.
To remember its life, din, stronghold
Of earthly pleasure as it had been,
Seemed a false effort, and off the point.
Too deadly factual. Its weight
Oppressed me — how could it be moved?
And the trouble of cutting it up!
The gash in its throat was shocking, but not pathetic.

Once I ran at a fair in the noise
To catch a greased piglet
That was faster and nimbler than a cat,
Its squeal was the rending of metal.
Pigs must have hot blood, they feel like ovens.
Their bite is worse than a horse’s —
They chop a half–moon clean out.
They eat cinders, dead cats.
Distinctions and admirations such
As this one was long finished with.

I stared at it a long time.
They were going to scald it,
Scald it and scour it like a doorstep.


...and good riddance say I

We Need Men`s "Ishews"

The end of Marriage has been in the Press all week and Ellee has got a super post up about it specifically on the fairness or otherwise of the current divorce laws. She is on my Blog Roll and I never miss a day , do visit

This was my comment in which I think I have discovered why men get treated so badly in this country

. It is obviously not going to be fair to have prenuptial agreements on an voluntary basis which will leave the husband, generally, in a lottery. Clearly divorce does not happen when the feelings that pertained to the marriage are still current so if there is a decision at that time it will, be sheer luck as to whether it was the right one
I `m not sure there are not two different subjects here . The end of marriage as predicted in the Press this week does not seem to have stopped all of my friends getting married .. It does stop young girls who are hoping to collect the maximum benefits and accommodation even admitting to a relationship.
This single piece of ham fisted benefits and welfarism must be responsible for about as much woe and misery as any ,and Frank Field foresaw all of this before he was ambushed by Gordon Brown and the old Left.
Higher up the income scale there is problem about an imbalance of power in the relationship that is inherently destabilising. The woman can at any time decide she has had enough of the marriage and , once there are children , walk off with an assured income and a family .The man will walk away ruined, with little prospect of restarting life, and separated from the children he , for the most part, will have centered his hopes around. It is no wonder that men are simply refusing to cooperate with this manifest injustice and are not paying the money due .If the courts actually enforced access it would help, but generally the woman eventually starts a new relationship and the children will become part of that supported by the law.
I saw David Cameron’s silly remark about stigmatising fathers, you have to treat fathers fairly for them to accept there is a guilt to be had and at the moment they are treated disgracefully in the divorce courts.

I put this favouring of women down to the strange quirk that women vote on women’s issue, whereas, men vote of national issues . Women are more likely to change their vote, and this voting pattern, has slowly turned men into beaten farm animals expected to work and sacrifice but sent down to the knackers yard like dear Old Boxer if it happens to suit the woman.

Boris Peeved With Tabloids Shock Story

Boris, who I love dearly , is furious about the rampant double standards of those dreadful Tabloid Newspapers .His fulminations have been has been sparked by the gold hurled at the QUANTAS flight attendant who indulged in heavy petting , if not diving and bombing ,at 35000ft , with some film star or other. Look at his foaming below.



“They denounce the daily exposure of our children to sexual material; and yet how do they stuff their news pages? They get their ace reporter to fly half way round the world, laden with hundreds of thousands of pounds, and they buy the story of some poor misguided girl who should have known better, and then they quote her in the manner of a Readers' Wives column “

Tut tut tut There is of course some history here back in 20004 this was the Times


BORIS JOHNSON, the Tory MP and editor of The Spectator magazine, was last night sacked as a frontbench spokesman by Michael Howard for lying about his private life.
The move came as details of a four-year affair with Petronella Wyatt, the daughter of the late Lord Wyatt, were revealed by her mother.
Johnson, 40, who became a household name through his appearances on the television show Have I Got News for You, had previously denied any romance. He said last night that he felt as if he had been hit by “an express train” over the allegations.
Speaking from the mansion in St John’s Wood, north London, where she lives with her daughter, Lady Verushka Wyatt disclosed that her daughter had an abortion last month as a result of an affair with Johnson, who is married with four children.
Last night she told The Sunday Times: “In the beginning, the reason she went out with him was because he said he was going to marry her. (Otherwise)Petronella never went out with a married man.”


And all in all it reminds me of the immortal words of Mandy Rice Davies

When the prosecuting counsel pointed out that Lord Astor denied having an affair or having even met her, she replied, "Well, he would, wouldn't he?". ...

I commented

Well I laughed at this in the train this morning . Boris, I wonder at what point was it that you began to notice the terrible hypocrisy of the tabloid Moralisers. Was it a point in time roughly contemporaneous with you being caught with your giant elasticised pantaloons around your ankles. Was it once or twice I cannot recall ? Furthermore as I am myself pure in body and mind I have no reason whosoever not to go on enjoying this feast smug coated delicacies.
I find it entirely acceptable to , on the one hand to enjoy salacious tittle tattle and on the other hand be shocked and mortified that my betters have feet of clay. Did I say feet of clay ? I think I mean underpants of Velcrome equipped with a quick release system and handy draw strings for back window escapeeism.
You poor old Sausage Boris , like an elephant maddened with mosquitoes you plunge and buck at the bloody unfairness of it all but the rule are simple . Don't get caught. Its much the same with drugs as you know so you are still ahead of the game , unless you really are a god awful prig.

Equal Pay ? Why not Equal Play

The Wimbledon Championships will hand women and men equal prize money for the first time at this year's tournament.
The announcement, due at 1100 GMT from the All England Club, brings it into line with other Grand Slams after criticism from officials and players.
Similar to the US and Australian Opens, equal rewards will be offered across the board, from the champions down to the first-round losers in all events.
The French Open only offers the same cheque to the champions.


I `ve got a good idea why don`t they have all the prize money in one pot and then they can all compete on entirely equal terms in one competition. Of course that would mean that in the next one hundred years not a single woman would win anything but it would be fair . Typical , even when it is absurd to suggest otherwise , the notion that men might actually be better at something is prohibited .

Featuring Phillipa

Quick Thought For Political Obsessives

Statistically speaking, on election day, it is more likely that you will be run over on the way to the polling station, then that your vote will count for anything.


Sobering thought isn’t it ,and while I am busy working, I am going to "Feature ", my friend Phillipa`s latest Piece on Fortean Times . As Arthur’s legend puts it , "bringing it to a smaller audience" . She is , I think it is fair to say , a complex character , and here she is writing at her best on subjects she feels passionately about .I do not agree with all of this by the way and argued at length with her.



Cameron IS NuLab?
Could you get a cigarette paper betweeen the approaches of Cameron and NuLab to the recent report on children? Today, I understand that DC has advocated tax breaks to make fathers stay with their families as absent fathers are the reason for all the ills in society apparently? Well, makes a change from blaming women. Quite how forcing a man to stay in a miserable household they don't want to be in is going to help is beyond me. If it's a feckless father then the extra money will end up being spent on alcohol or drugs or something other than the child. Just forcing people to live in the same space does not happiness make. Neither does it make a good parent.

Where does this fluffy idea of fathers come from? Hark back to the Victorian era? Where 'childhood' was invented and children were very definately seen and not heard. Even as recent as my own childhood (say nothing) it was the norm for the mother to rear the children and the father to come home after work and the children to be quiet and not bother him. Given that women worked and children played outside, you could pretty much live until a teenager before having a conversation with your father. Rich kids who had nannies and went to private school didn't see 'daddy' much at all. Hang on, aren't they the ones running the country right now? Yup.

They did alright. Look at history and the posh model and you will see that fathers aren't essential. People have overcome some pretty awful mothers too. So what was different then? The social structure was such that children were subject to discipline. I think employment plays a part in that children would see a future, have a direction, an expectation. The decline in manufacturing and the restructuring of the welfare/housing system does not help (neither does immigration) Also they had activities and those were more freely available and spontaneous than is possible now. The law is such that now, doing anything with children is seen as dangerous for the good people and continues to attract the bad. Once again this government has reacted to a genuine concern stupidly, making the problem worse.

There was discipline in schools, backed up by discipline in the home (which is near impossible now) and discipline by policemen on the streets (again, totally impossible).

Single mothers are nothing new. There were many many men killed in the Great War and so a great many 'single' mothers. Ah, but there's the difference? You're not really talking of a generation of people sadly widowed are you? You're talking of a generation of feckless parents of both sexes, led by the nose to this end from the onset of puberty by stupid State interference. Educated into sex and drugs and rock and roll by NuLab. Don't work, there is none, take a computer course and spend your time downloading 'gangsta rap'. The only activities after school are drug dealers? There's no police presence and no boxing clubs or boys clubs (remember those?) What role models are there?

The worst child in ASBO terms I heard about recently lived near Wolverhampton. Quite young, about 12 years old I think. The only child of a single dad, whom he lived with, who was unemployed and had bugger all to do all day but be a father to his son. When his son was out and about doing all this vandalism, where was his dad? His father and his girlfriend said that people were too hard on the lad and he was just being boisterous.

Boisterous eh? Just goes to show that when 'daddy' does live at home he's not necessarily any bloody use!

The Conservative government will NOT stop the sex ed programme in schools.

In fact they have, as yet, shown no sign of doing anything genuinely constructive. And I honestly think it will be another victory for Labour if Bliar holds off long enough for a new leader to seem a shiny new hope for Britain. And that, my friends, will be a very very sad day indeed.


AND THIS WAS A COMMENT OF MINE

I have re read and I think what you are saying is that other social developments are to blame for social problems we have and that single motherhood is not in itself a worthy target. I`m not so sure you can have it all ways It is not necessary to suggest that all fathers are paragons of virtue to have an opinion that a father and mother would generally be a better bet for the child . I will admit that finding evidence for this will be next to impossible given the impossibility of establishing a class neutral sample but still it is something we see around us . We should therefore be setting policies in place to encourage this desirable state and least stop the state taking over the role of the father usually with his money.
Your conclusion , in that there are any , seem to tend the way of all silly feminist thought which is that men are an unfortunate encumbrance to the happy home there , if anything , to get drunk and be abusive.

Not so. The absence of father figures from estates and schools has been “catastrophic” for white working class boys and part of the difference between them and there far better socio economic equivalents is exactly that Asians and Chinese families , for example have retained a nuclear family and are ascending . Educational results and crime figures for these fatherless groups , whites and Afro Caribbean are staggeringly worse that for others in exactly the same social circumstances. Of course you are right to say that the fact that the single mother is generally contributing so little to the community or the treasury takes a further framework of value away. True , you cannot hide this from children and she will tend to be treated as the child she has chosen to remain by young males. Quite clearly a woman who lives as a serf will command little authority and in any case the link between action and reward has been fatally broken .Does one blame the actual women for allowing herself to get into this circumstance . Partly yes . My wife as you know came from a very poor part of London and was the daughter of a single mother who came to Islington to get a Council flat. However she did not do this deliberately and the fact her marriage had failed was not because the intention that it should work was never there .More than this, she was prepared to work FULL TIME and leave Marian in what were inadequate care facilities. It is my opinion than while today a lot more help would be available that lesson ,that if you make problems with your own mistakes you pay for them, was more important in her life than any number of state crèches . Now it is to easy to sit around saying oh dear I can’t be head of the BBC I there will get no job at all. Additionally , by far the largest group are those who actively chose this way of life. Remember this , they are not only resented by men . They are also fiercely resented by the many other young women who are obliged to live with their parents work full time and
Make endless sacrifice to while they watch there efforts squandered on the most feckless of the community living a far better life in every way
It is certain that men are just as bad but they do not happen to have this choice
I know you are always on the side of single mothers but you take it more personally than is useful. You are one single mother , not all of them . You do not speak for them all a lot of what you say is sensible but what you do not discuss is what w the taxpayer should or should not be paying for . To actually be paying to undermine socially useful structures like the nuclear family is an outrage and unless you are suggesting that policy should be set to further undermine the family I `m not clear where this sort of special pleading takes us

Priorities

In view of drinking commitments both tonight and tomorrow night nothing to see here until the weekend .

MOVE ALONG MOVE ALONG

Dullest Lunch Ever Recorded ?

"There's now a posse of us bloggers with book deals with a secret forum - and over the last few months we have happily procrastinated by sending emails round, encouraged each other, shared whinges and victories and tips for writer's block and deadline hell. A few weeks ago we all went out to lunch and some of us carried on until the evening."

( Rachel North London)

Astonishingly I was not invited .Just think of that all of those tedious media creeps gathered in one place .... What an opportunity... I wonder who belongs to this clandestine society of the dishonest blogger. I look forward to seeing the roll of shame published. I only ask that they should be pursued with pitch forks and burning torches through the night until they leave this land and never return .....but noone ever listens to me.


DALE - I was suprised to see him in the Telgraph this morning . It was a pretty vanilla flavoured article but on refelection there wasn`t much more he could do with it . Its a dull story .I do think he might have put a bit more effort into the title though." Keep The Champagne on Ice" ..that really is " as old as the quills ".
Still , good to see Iain doing well no doubt the next one will have a bit more personality to it

Quick One

On the Chinese written language, the ideograph that stands for "trouble" represents two women under one roof.


I`m saying nuffin

Race and The English

Race and English Nationalism

As some may know ,my family is of mixed race, and I can’t say this would have occurred to me as an issue, but ,lovely soft skinned and delicately scented David Allen , mentioned the dislocation of ethnic minorities, and, looking at the paper today, it has cropped up again, in an article by Martin Beckford.

More Blacks and Asians see Themselves as British

“ More black and Asian people regard themselves as British than whites, a survey has found ….the study also discovers that fewer people in general see themselves as British ,as they identify with England , Scotland, Wales or Ireland.
The Institute for Public Policy Research , a left wing think tank, found fifty-one percent of ethnic minority respondents describe themselves as British, compared with twenty-nine percent of white people..”
In 1996 , fifty-two percent called themselves British out of preference and the report concludes .
“ Britain’s identity crisis looks set to continue and the implications for community cohesion look clear.” Looking back over the past week or two, the last really impassioned defence I can find for the Union was mounted by none other than ,( new best friend) ,Trevor Phillips , who has so delighted me by irritating world record cab fare holder Ken Livingstone. This is his much improved recent track record

Trevor Phillips

“After supporting multiculturalism for many years, Phillips is now one of its most outspoken mainstream critics. He expressed fears that multiculturalism could cause Britain to "sleepwalk towards segregation" and has argued for school selection to be amended to prevent segregation in British schools.
In 2006 he was appointed the head of a new organisation known as the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights,”

Trevor Philips on Britain … ( abridged version)


Perhaps if we want to see what it truly means to be British, we should ask hard-working, Indians, Eastern Europeans, Chinese and Filipinos……...
Vietnamese and Eastern European families arrive barely speaking English; within two years, their children are rising to the top of the class and qualifying for our best universities….
.Modern Britishness does not define you by your colour, your ancestry or your tribe; but rather it asks you to treat fellow citizens with respect and fairness, to share basic rules of conduct and to contribute to our common good……..
He wants measures to actively foster this inclusiveness
1)Over the past twelve months, English classes have been quietly disappearing from local colleges, to the despair of new migrants and their employers.
2) efforts to bring young people of different backgrounds together – say English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish — in voluntary, cultural or sporting activities.
3)a major drive to encourage initiatives such as summer camps for teenagers
4)citizenship ceremonies

Why it is that Trevor Phillips feels Englishness is so much less likely to be inclusive than Britishness.? Why would you not use the phrase Black -English ? You see I think there is fault line here ,and while I applaud to some extent, what he tries to do , essentially ,he is still denying the that the England is a country in the sense that others are.

What is Englishness and Where has it Gone ?

What do we want ? Larry the lamb, knee length bathing trunks, steam engines , foxtrots and all male cricket clubs. Probably not . I locate the heart of it in institutions like Common Law, our Literature music and customs. All old cultures are under threat from globalisation and the media . The land loses its personal face and the English have begun to feel they are noone and they live nowhere special. They also seem to hate themselves……

Prescribed Ethnicity

In 1999 during selections to the European Parliament 78 year old George Staunton was putting up UKIP posters in Liverpool . On a derelict wall he painted the words “Don’t forget the 1945 war” and “Free speech for England “ . He was arrested by the Merseyside police and charged with “Racially aggravated damage”. Racially ,was on account of the gratuitous reference to England, a country for whom the defendant had fought a war. Pubs have refused to extend opening hours for St . Georges day because it would be provocative and jingoistic. To be English has become to be a “little Englander” a small mean and embarrassing thing . A blot , as Trevor Phillips implies, on the bland vision of “Britishness “in which uniquely , England , and English ethnicity, is abolished.
As we well know ,to Europe, England does not even exist. The official map of the European union, issued by the European commission of Brussels ,which divides the continent into regions ,makes absolutely no mention of England . It would be a vast deal easier to drop Nelson from the curriculum than Nelson Mandella but this seems to concern no-one ..until recently .

The English Wake Up

We are waking from a long sleep, and remembering without triumphalism, the value and distinctive nature of our own history . Is this is a dangerous Pandora’s box , I see the worry but I hope not . Tolerance has always been a leading motif ,but the fact that this country is England ,and the dominant culture in it is that of the English, cannot go on being treated as a shameful secret.

Back to Race.

I know why Trevor Phillips and others fear English ethnicity. It is because he is more comfortable to give us no identity at all in order that others can maintain theirs. “Racism “will be bandied about as it always is ,but it is to do with culture and a real commitment to the “home” ,you live in. Britain is not a country ,it is a political unit . It is something you can join ,and leave ,to whatever extent you like , with full entitlements. “England” ,on the other hand , is a country , a thing made of love, time ,and a thousand bonds of affection .It is not enough for those who come here to tolerate it . This is not racist it is asking for a real joining over the years , not simply ”Parking up “. For some communities it may be a challenge ,but in the context of our reasonable ness I trust we will find a new accommodation.



“English Nationalism is not a question of race, it is a question of being proud of our way of life (ethnicity), our heritage and our culture and about loyalty and a sense of community. All races are welcome as members.”

( English National Party Manifesto)

..and I would want top be a bit more plural than that…just to be on the safe side !!

Dull Husband in the South ( of London)

Oh god I’m so depressed . Absolutely everyone in the whole world is fighting through a blizzard of publishing quids except me . There`s Wife in the North , now rich well connected writer in the North , but never mind . There’s … well one is far to many and what gets me is that some mysterious ingredient called ,“ the quality of the writing “, is the catnip in the garden. As far as I can tell this “quality of writing “, consists of over blown similes and being sad every now and then . So fighting through a haze of anti biotics I don’t see why I shouldn’t have a go . The core material is a bit weak granted, but I soldier on regardless.

I walked to the tube station , like a nifty little speedboat zipping into cut sapphire Aegean inlets . I picked up the paper and the news danced and sang with the Technicolor joy of a young Dick van Dyke. I looked at a grubby old bag lady ,( didn’t really shhh ..), and her face was a blossom falling from the Cherry tree in our house one spring . When I got to work I perused a Liability Policy which called like a Venetian courtesan’s scent caught by her entrapped lover on the bridge of sighs and goodness I felt a bit sad…..
I sat feeling sorry for myself and my soul skittered through the whispered aspens like a prayer. Oh blimey I realised I forgot my packed lunch.. But in such a strange enchanted day , a golden day , I made do with a Kit Kat from the machine……not bad not bad

Honest I can do it with a perforated edge if you prefer ? No takers ? Blast !. Not even a fiver? Ok Ok…….

Ha I prefer the griitty reality of being hard up anyway

England`s Future Decided in Scotland

“Shortly after the defeated Jacobite army withdrew from the battlefield on Drumossie Moor, the Duke of Cumberland rode into Inverness clutching a drawn sword to show he was the victor. It was a gesture full of menace for Highland people. The battle was over, but the killing was not.The roads into the town from the east were scattered with the bodies of men, women and children cut down at random by his advancing dragoons, while on the battlefield, parties of infantry, encouraged by their officers, covered themselves in blood as they ranged the ground stabbing or hacking to death any enemy wounded who caught their attention.
The day after the battle, patrols were sent back to the area and found and butchered 70 more injured Jacobites. And on the day after that, another 72 were discovered and executed, 32 of them being deliberately burnt alive as they sheltered in a barn at Leanach “

That was the battle of Culloden and while things have clamed down a bit this ancient battle line is now re drawn and ascrucial for Gordon Brown as it is for the hopes of the English right.

New Labour are seriously scared about the upcoming Scottish local elections on May the 3rd. We can tell this from the cavalcades of heavy weights that have been dispatched to the chilly land o` the Jocks recently to plead the Unionist cause. Alec Salmonella welcomed ( boomerang) Blair`s attention as his best weapon post Iraq but the Prez rarely blinks and he is busy assuring the Glasgow Herald that for countries the size of England and Scotland (?) to separate was “regressive and old fashioned”. He does however concede that these elections are” huge and fundamentally important “, but has to be careful . Something the Labour position can be seen from his description of the SNP as an “£8 bn. Betting slip” , what about the other £12bn?He is quick to remind us down here that “England also benefit from the Union” and must not overly criticise the devolved settlement by implication, “We must not just point ou the disasters of independence” .I have though for some time that the most pivotal shift in British politics was that of the English from Unionists to Nationalists and for Labour it brings a horrifying prospect of the end of Socialism under the first past the post system. For us , the English , there is much to hope for . The means to decide our own destiny in Europe , the freedom to settle the social ills that Celtic powered socialism have wrought upon us , a fiscal bonanza and more important than all of this the chance to rediscover a pride in our heritage as free Englishmen and women. I am going to try to do a survey of where we are now and then look forward to the prize on offer. As ever the forces of established interest are ranged against the people’s wishes but the cracks are now so wide that they cannot , simply cannot , be papered over indefinitely .I may well have to go and rest in the scented garden of Miss Smack by the time I`ve finished but duty calls .

Counting up the money

The current English taxpayer’s subsidy to the Scottish Exchequer is some £20 billion per year and growing, which approximately equates to over £1,000 per English taxpayer. Public spending in Scotland is now 23%, (Government spending of £5,271 per head in Scotland), above the English average. In Northern Ireland the figure is 39%, (£5,939 per head), and 18%, (£5,052 per head), in Wales. This compares with a figure of £4,283 for England. If the subsidies to all parts of the United Kingdom were taken into account it is likely that each English taxpayer is paying £3,000 each year to subsidise the other parts of the former United Kingdom. If the subsidy to the European Union was taken into account, that figure would rise to over £4000 every year.
We know of course that the SNP have convinced the Scottish that without the encumbrance the English they will be like either Norway( Oil ) or failing that the EU will bal them out like Eire. The oil point revenue is highly questionable, especially as the Shetlands may well pull out .I have no doubt that behind all the misty moors and tartan waffle this is the real calculation going on. The fact that Scottish people live such poor lives despite huge subsidy shows how worthless dead state money is to the economy and we have to fair . There is also dim sense that they cannot go on living like serfs and must take control of their destiny . I think they are quite right

That Famous Question

Tam Dalyell, the Labour MP for West-Lothian asked it, and its still the neatest way to put the problem ‘Why should the representative from West Lothian (or any other Scottish constituency, for that matter) be able to sit in the Westminster Parliament and vote on parochial matters affecting the English, when the English members who sat in the same parliament (are) entirely unable to vote on parochial matters affecting the Scots, for those matters (are) now to be considered by Scotland’s own parliament?’
The House of Commons currently has 659 members with only 529 parliamentary seats allocated to England. While England does not have a national assembly, on really democratic principles, England should have greater representation than the devolved nations, but should certainly at worst should not have lesser representation.
In fact the system discriminates heavily against England and although England represents c. 86.3% of the population of the former United Kingdom and accordingly England should therefore have 569 seats in the House of Commons, while in reality, it is 40 seats short of its minimum proper representation. At present nearly 20% of the seats in the House of Commons have been allocated to c. 13.8% of the population of the former United Kingdom. This means that the devolved parts of the United Kingdom, in addition to having their own assembly, are nearly 50% over represented in Westminster. Whereas on any fair answer to the West-Lothian question they should be substantially under-represented at Westminster.

We talk nowadays about the “democratic deficits “ but it is worth reminding ourselves to what extent we are mistreated in England . As each new problem . Fees ., Road tax and so on crops up the problem will open up like a raw wound . It is clear we cannot stop where we are .

The Nation that was Britain

Thomas Carlyle writing from his home in Dumfriesshire competed his address with “ North Britain?”, and in the Victorian period the English and most Scots completely bought into the idea of British one nation . There were destinies to be found abroad . A white man’s burden to pick up and great commercial opportunities for the Scots both in London and in the empire.”. We can see that the English used this ruse to dominate the “Nation” by the premierships of Macmillan, Home Roseberry, Campbell Bannerman, Balfour and the Ulster Scot Bonar law .Britain” itself was an invention dug up from pre Roman times to give some sense wholeness to the politically expediency of the union of two countries 300 years ago Gordon brown was prominent in the cabinet that sought to diffuse nationalism in Scotland with an act of constitutional vandalism without equal the current devolved parliaments. The Liberal Democrats were his partners in cynical manoeuvring and we mustn’t forget that their strength has great ties with the outlying Celtic regions and the attitude of Ming will be crucial to the future in Scotland if there is to be a pro independence coalition as there may well be .

WALES

Welsh National Assembly achieved a very dubious mandate (c 25%) from a tiny majority of voters in a poorly attended referendum, Should the Welsh prefer to be independent I would hope that such independence was "independence under the Crown" at least, thus maintaining our historical association with the people of Wales The position of Monmouthshire in this context is anomalous, as historically it had been part of England until recent boundary re-organisation and may require special treatment Historically, since Medieval times, Wales has been an integral part of England .On the basis that the Welsh National Assembly is dissolved and Wales is represented in parliament and subsidised on a principle of absolute equality with England I personally would like to continue to be connected with the principality. The very different relationship between the countries should not at least be conflated into one out of bureaucratic convenience.



Where we are now

The latest ICM poll put support for independence in Scotland at 52% and this is the really important news .“68% of the English support the idea of having a parliament for ourselves.” So we must turn away from staring balefully at Hadrian’s wall and look at ourselves and what has happened to us .. What has happened is this . Britain was never more than an extension of England for us and the speed with which all that affection has disappeared is because it has quite easily settled on its true home “England “. It may well be that eventually it is from England the break will come especially if Labour seek to impose its legislative will on England with a programme entirely reliant on the fifty or so seats they have in the their client state. The position elect orally is tricky . The SNP have 33% a lead over Labour on 31%. The Lib Dems may well hold the balance of power but they are wedded to the Nationalist cause and cannot act entirely for the cynical good of the Westminster Party . Ming is currently standing firm but this is a fractious and fast moving position . The local elections if they are bad for the labour Party will be the proof that it “Can” be done. For the Liberal Democrats to sit on the fence will be commensurately more difficult . Personally I see the idea of ruling England with Scottish votes becoming the crow bar between the counties but the process could be a lot quicker.

Well that’s enough or today I think . Tomorrow its.

1 False reasons for the Union
2 Britain is no nationality (answering Trevor Phillips )
3 What is Englishness
4 The forbidding of Englishness


I appreciate that this is not exactly fresh and minty stuff but I hope it will be a good summary as we approach the Local elections.