A Patriotic Standard Bearer now in still waters but with his loyal legacy speaking in volumes for him.

 

*

 

Whatever the subject matter with which the

 

Columnist Simon Heffer

 

is concerned we know we shall see the wood for the trees.

 

But the earlier signs are that subjects which were a boon to millions of viewers who loved their country ENGLAND and its INDEPENDENCE may no longer be on the menu because the ‘brothers’ have a different view of the future if any of

 

ENGLAND. 

 

We hope we are amiss in our deliberations –time will tell.

 

In the meantime we will turn to a few extracts from the 1999 publication of Simon Heffer’s stirring thought provoking

 

‘NOR SHALL MY SWORD’

 

-Reinvention of England

 

 

(An English Comedy)

 

The 1997 result in England, which gave Labour the rare achievement of a majority in that country alone, was something of a freak.

 

Labour is unpleasantly aware of this [1997], and it explains some of the party’s hostility to SEPARATISM.

 

The Conservatives did unusually abominably for various reasons.  Fundamentally they were considered to be

Insufficiently Conservative –

 

Insufficiently PRINCIPLED

 

 –by many of their natural supporters.  They had a recent history of division and WEAK LEADERSHIP [as NOW in MAY 2006]

 

Their senior practitioners were deeply unpopular with the electorate; worse, some had become figures of fun [As in 2006]

 

The party had acquired a reputation for venality, sexual and financial aberration, incompetence and dishonesty.

 

It was not that an unusual number of people voted Labour:  IT WAS that so few could bring themselves to vote Conservative.

 

Although some studies have shown that there were substantial direct crossovers of former Conservative supporters voting Labour, the slump in the turnout compared with the 1992 election – down from 76.5 per cent to 71.6 per cent – suggested there was a high level of abstentions, presumably of Conservative supporters who would vote for their ‘own’ party but could not commit the ultimate treachery of voting Labour.

 

There was also the best part of a million voters, again presumably Conservative, who voted either for the Referendum Party or the

 UK Independence Party,

 

 on the grounds of the Conservatives being insufficiently sceptical about the benefits of the single European currency, or in many cases because of that party’s complete failure to admit the issue of CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE that was, and is, at stake in this matter.

 

All these factors allowed the Labour party, on a share of the vote only slightly larger than won the Conservatives 336 seats in 1992, to win 418 seats in 1997.

 

However hard they try (and it is not entirely clear that the party has thoroughly mended its ways), the Conservatives look little better now, two years after that disaster, than they did when going down to defeat.

 

However part of the reason why Labour has been so rigidly disciplined since its victory, attracting accusations of CONTROL freakery, has been its incipient belief that the Conservatives simply cannot win so few seats next time, and Labour is going to have to fight to hold every one of the unusual gains it made in 1997.

 

Although Labour is no longer a SOCIALIST party – and the flavour of politics is more reminiscent of that during the Liberal-Conservative conflict of the Edwardian era than anything seen since –there is no reason to suspect, at this stage, that the electoral map of ENGLAND has changed permanently.

[Well!  if the ‘Abolition of Parliament Bill’ is passed in 2006 –it may be.]

 

Labour’s worst fear must be that there will be a reversion to type, and that the norm in ENGLAND, even with WALES still represented in the ENGLISH parliament and dominated by Labour, would be more or less permanent Conservative administration once England were decoupled from SCOTLAND.

 

[Well! -We now have the long discussed WEST LOTHIAN question being raised yet again quite rightly about WHY Scottish or even Welsh MP’s should vote on ENGLISH matters when English MP’s have to keep their noses OUT of Theirs?]

 

If the Labour party gets itself into a mess as a result of its commitment to DEVOLUTION, it needs to ask itself:

 

What did we expect would happen?

 

The establishment of little pockets of government, whether in Scotland or in Wales, was what was meant by ‘devolution’.

 

Labour, unfortunately, never realised what sort of governing those little pockets would aspire to do.

It did not recognise what hopes would be fuelled by such measures of self-rule as it was, in its radical constitution breaking, prepared to grant.

 

Labour seemed to make the breaking-up of the United Kingdom an implicit goal of its entire constitutional policy.

 

Almost everybody outside the Labour party came to realise this but, surprisingly almost no one inside it.

 

Indeed, it has been a consistent theme of the first two years of the administration that it has not been able to see, or will not see, the logical conclusions to which its attempts to change the CONSTITUTION

inexorably lead.

The pursuit of devolution, like the equally ill-judged fascination for proportional representation that has become a commensurate obsession for a few members of the Labour party, can in the end have only one outcome: the prevention of Labour exercising any meaningful power.

 

[Well this is exactly what many wish to see in 2006 and the other main parties are also losing their general appeal. If

PR –Proportional Representation

-had been the order of the day in 2003 it is most unlikely there would have been an

IRAQ WAR.

 

If PR-Proportional Representation had been around in 1992 it is most unlikely that the Maastricht Treaty would have been passed which opened the door to a

 

United States of Europe. 

 

But these are of course only ‘IF’S’]

 

*

In conceiving its obsession with constitutional reform, Labour was apparently saying, we no longer want to be bothered to have to govern anywhere serious, where real power resides and where real influence can be had in the world; we would rather do things on a smaller scale.

 

In the hubris the party experienced not just after its election victory in 1997, but in the couple of years beforehand as it coasted towards triumph, it became forgetful of reality.

 

It knew it would govern Britain, but it could not see that it had spewed out promises of devolution here, or of electoral reform there, that it was helping to ensure it could not govern in that way in definitely.

 

As a political force, it was signing its own death warrant by being so free with its promises of reform.

 

This insouciance might have been understandable to an extent if Labour had felt it could rely upon having the

 

Government of ENGLAND

 

-as a consolation prize, but it cannot.

 

Indeed, the very notion that there might one day, soon, have to be something called ‘the government of England, was never dreamt of in Labour’s philosophy.

 

[As in 2006 when members of the New Labour Government admitted they had no intention of giving England its own Parliament as it might bully Scotland and Wales.  Though these same neighbours are happy to have the extra funding particularly in Scotland with full-care for the elderly, no doubt this may increase the number of pensioners crossing the northern border to find homes which will be safe from being plundered by local authorities as they are in parts of England, together with other perks which are enjoyed at English taxpayers expense.

 

What is so pathetic is the wishy-washy attitude of MP’s of English Constituencies in not pursuing with much more vigour the interests of

 

ENGLAND.

 

But then on £285,000 a year the majority of them are happy to toe the line whatever the gross injustice to

 

ENGLAND.]

 

*

The honour of forming such a government, [of England] should it become necessary, would in normal circumstances fall to the Conservative party.  At almost every General Election this century [written in 1997] the Conservatives have had a majority of seats in England.

 

However, this was not so in 1997, and unlikely to be so until the Conservative party can bring itself to do something other than an impersonation of a pantomime horse with a head at either end.

 

JUST HOW SOON NORMAL SERVICE WILL BE RESUMED IN THAT PARTY IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO SAY.

 

All the signs are that [also in 2006] whatever certain self-deluded leading Conservatives might think, the general public [again in 2006 as recent polls suggest] still feel that the PARTY is an ABORTION, its policies [What policies we ask in 2006]

 INCOHERENT and its PERSONNEL REPELLENT.

It is hard to conceive of the level of incompetence and dishonesty the present Labour Government would have to accomplish before even the most broad-minded of floating voters would wish to place his trust in the Conservatives [As again in 2006]

 

There are various policies, attitudes and wheezes that the Conservatives could try in the hope of rebuilding themselves in the affections of the English people.

 

YET, as one might expect the Conservatives have been predictably slow to see the opportunity with which their present catastrophe in Scotland has presented them.

 

Without having to make any agonising decisions to this effect, they are magically already an English party.  The unhappy reasons for this need not be dwelt upon.  They are in the past. What is important –and sadly, this still has not happened. –is for the Conservatives to recognise that in this respect at least, there is no turning back the clock.

 

It may well be that in fifty or one hundred years’ time the Scots will love the Conservative party.

 

It may well be that there will, one day, be another Act of Union [This has been and is the aim of the EDP since 1994 of a Family of Independent Nation States] and that England and Scotland will realise that, for all sorts of reasons, they belong together, and by mutual consent they once more come together.

 

Until and unless that day comes, there is no point the Conservatives fantasising about it’s having an important role in Scotland and Wales. If it wishes to maximise its potential as a party interested in, and perhaps even one day again exercising, power, then its foremost priority must be to establish itself as an English nationalist party.

 

It is felt dangerous in politics to be right too soon. The politician’s graveyard is full of people who argued, thirty years ago, about the merits of what was then called denationalisation, or what even a Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer now admires as monetarism.

 

YET on the question of English sensibilities, it is probably not too soon for the Conservatives to be right.

They should have recognised that there IS a CONSTITUENCY in ENGLAND of ENGLISH who have heard loud and clear what the Scots have to say to them.

 

They might not all have heard it couched in the fierce language of Trainspotting, but they are given to understand that in the eyes and hearts of many of the Scottish people, the English have served their, mainly economic, purpose.  Any political party that says to the English ‘Look, we shall take notice of these realities, and be ready to advance to the English people a range of policies that will benefit their interests in the event of Scotland becoming INDEPENDENT’, could well, quite soon, find it has had that most elusive of political assets: the ‘ the ‘big idea’.

 

Having been completely wiped out, in parliamentary terms in Scotland and Wales, the Conservatives ought by now to have received the message loud and clear. However, like so many English males, they simply do not know when to take NO for an answer.

 

Have they, bless them, looked at the opinion polls conducted in Scotland since their debacle on 1 MAY 1997, and noticed how their hitherto pathetic level of support is still bumping along the bottom? [It is still the case in 2006]

 

Have they not worked out, despite their cynical attempts to make the Scottish Conservative Party as a separate an entity as possible since 1997 that few in Scotland appear to be taken in?

 

Perhaps once the Conservatives succeed in getting some representation in the Edinburgh parliament – which thanks to an absence of a first-past –the-post system for Scottish elections, even they should do –then they will have a platform from which to convince us that the Scottish Conservatism are not quite the same thing.

 

[Where is the JUSTICE in ENGLISH politics if there is a NO FIRST-PAST-THE - POST SYSTEM in the Parliament of SCOTLAND but still rules in ENGLAND?  We have argued for some years now that PR-Proportional Representation should be the RULE for every voter in the UK.

 

The main parties in the Westminster Parliament wish to retain the present unjust system because it gives them the power which they do not wish to share with other parties who’s policies they have no interest in airing in the Senate of the NATION.

 

At the May 4 –Local Elections in 2006 give the main parties a wide berth and vote for the small parties who represent the majority of the voters denied a hearing in their Parliament.]

 

To continue:

 

That distinction might in turn, win them more adherents north of the border, especially if Scotland has a broadly socialist hegemony in control of it that drives those more liberal electors who do not wish to emigrate to England to look for an alternative.

 

However, Conservatives in both England and Scotland need to accept that this means of making Conservatism popular once more in Scotland entails recognition that these are two separate countries, with two separate political and social cultures.

 

It means the Conservative party acknowledging that it should let its people in Scotland develop their policies entirely free of control from the party in England, and therefore owning up to the realities of the separatist movement.

 

Having tailored Conservatism to Scottish needs, and therefore ceased worrying about how to reconcile predominantly English Conservative values with the milder version that would be likely to appeal to many Scots, the separate English party could then quite easily direst itself to the cause of encouraging support in England.

 

The [Conservative] party seems to shy away from English nationalism for the usual reasons- the distant sound of jackboots, imaginings of bonkers theories of racial superiority, and all that other nonsense.  Only a few nutters in England identify with their country in that sort of way, and there is no need to appeal to them.

 

*

 

[Well! the situation in May 2006 with the BNP now on the march with their hopes of increasing their seats on councils around the country has shown that when the voter is ignored for so long on so many important issues –then the only course open to them is to support the party capable of speaking for THEM.

 

 Many of the ISSUES have been conservative issues of long standing which have been thrown aside in order they say to appeal to the voter at large. What IDIOTS the Conservative leaders have been and still are in 2006 with their sugary policies, which many now find most sickening to hear about, and no wonder in sheer desperation are thousands of potential members now intent of giving then a bloody nose by voting for the

 

BNP. ]

 

To continue:

 

What the English Conservative party needs to do is to judge those policies that the English like, and which are commensurate with the basic tenets of Toryism, and give them to the English.

 

In the past, that could only be done at the risk of offending those parts of the kingdom where a different political and social culture obtained, notably Scotland.  Now, if only the Conservatives had the

 

Foresight

 

Boldness

 

Imagination

 

-to restructure themselves in the light of the realities, that risk need no longer be there.

 

The Conservatives have done it before.

 

Thatcherism was a creed that naturally had more appeal for the English than to the Scots. [The connection with France over the centuries has cemented their philosophy]  Although, in reality, there were only marginal differences between the affluence of Scotland and that of England, there was a love of statism and welfarism in Scotland that made the Thatcherite message inherently unpalatable to many Scots.

 

We have already noted the paradox inherent in this, that the message was essentially one invented by one of the greatest Scotsmen of all, Adam Smith, 225 years ago.

 

Perhaps it Smith had been alive to enunciate his message of free markets and their link with personal liberty, to speak to his fellow countrymen in tones they recognised and understood, there would not have been a problem.

 

Regrettably, he was not; and it is hard to imagine three people more antipathetic to the Scots than Mrs Thatcher herself, Sir Geoffrey Howe and Nigel Lawson, who were the three ministers who undertook most of the articulation of the gospel of Thatcherism to the World…

 

*          *

 

Since we live in a parliamentary democracy – though one in which the whore of the referendum is all too often these days plying her trade –the people who give voice to the notion of the reinvention of England ought best to be a political party.

 

If, suddenly, England is left on her own after the end of the affair with Scotland, someone is going to have to be in charge of the project of convincing the English that this is not the end of the world, that there is life after the repeal or abrogation of the Act of Union.

 

However, adept that party has become at reversals of PRINCIPLE, such a message would look odd coming from Labour –even though English INDEPENDENCE, if it comes about, would be entirely their fault.  Since the Conservatives now find themselves de facto the party of England, and since after any normal election they ought to expect to command a majority of English seats, they are the best placed to have first stab at masterminding the project.

 

It remains, however, a slow and painful process to persuade them to realise this.  If they display incompetence and lack of decisiveness on this of all issues, then the English people are unlikely to be especially forgiving.

 

In short, making a mess of this situation, and failing to articulate the true wishes of the ENGLISH people at what would be a time of trial and uncertainty, could ensure that they do not govern again for a generation. [What a prophecy this has proved since 1997]

 

 

[Just a reminder this was written in 1999 and we all know what a waste of time the so-called Conservative party has turned out to be in 2006]

 

We hope the voters on May4-2006 will support the smaller parties in order to show their true feelings of the dominance of the main parties at local level and at  Westminster.

 

*          *

 

[We leave off the continuation of ‘an English Comedy’ for a future time - but for a copy of the publication

 

NOR SHALL MY SWORD

 

(The Reinvention of England)

*

 

Weidenfield & Nicolson

The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

Orion House

5 Upper St Martin’s lane

London

WC2H 9EA

 

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[Font altered-bolding & underlining used –comments in brackets]

MAY/06