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If it's good enough for the Scots -It's
good enough for the English.
By
Simon Heffer
Daily Telegraph -November 29-2006
ONE of the more astonishing features of
our politics is the way in which really quite clever and experienced
people fail, from time to time, to see the blindingly obvious.
ONE example is the way in which some of
those around Tony Blair -
and for all I know Mr Blair himself -
have believed, on and off over
the past few years, that it might be possible to stop Gordon Brown
becoming PM. Another was the even more foolish, and much more
widely held fantasy that granting devolution to Scotland would not ,
sooner rather than later lead to a rampant rise of Scottish nationalism.
As the more astute among you will
immediately realize, these two concerns are inextricably linked.
I begin to suspect that the likely
timing of Mr Blair's departure from office in the late spring or early
summer of has been set to cause the most difficulty for his probable
successor. For on May 3, the third elections for the Scottish Parliament
is now governed by a coalition of Labour and the Libdems.
However, the SNP was five points
ahead of Labour in the poll published this week. That this is no flash
in the pan can be judged from how the Scottish Labour conference in Oban
last weekend was dominated by big beasts of the Cabinet, from the Prime
Minister downwards, warning the assembled multitude that waste,
devastation and quite probably complete apocalypse would follow for
Scotland if it elected the SNP.
The SNP reported a further groundswell
of interest as a result of these attacks, and a Labour internal poll
revealed yesterday that the SNP's lead had extended to
8 per cent
So: imagine you are Mr Brown, and you have just become
Prime Minister of the [so-called] United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland.
Imagine, too, that the people of
Scotland have a few weeks earlier, elected an SNP government to rule
them -
a minority government, no doubt, but a
government none the less. You, as Prime Minister of a nation that is
about 85 per cent English, are yourself Scottish. You sit for a Scottish
seat at Westminster.
Your fellow Scots have , however, put
into power a party committed to calling a referendum on whether Scotland
remains part of the [so-called ] United Kingdom.
More than two thirds of the 85 per cent of the
foreigners over whom you rule want (according to a poll just published
by The Sunday Telegraph ) an
ENGLISH PARLIAMENT
And all concerned have the temerity to
do these things despite the fact that you yourself, sensing trouble
ahead, have spent much of the past two or three years making regular
cynical and implausible speeches about"Britishness".
Oh dear!
Please forgive a moment of self-regard,
which I introduce purely (well, almost purely) because it is relevant.
Eight years ago , I wrote a book entitled
'NOR
SHALL MY SWORD: THE REINVENTION OF ENGLAND'
It appeared a couple of months before
the first Scottish elections and it made the following points.
FIRST, that devolution would
lead inevitably to SEPARATISM
.
SECOND, that if the Scots wished to separate from England, there
was nothing we could ,or should, do to stop them (oh!, if only
Gladstone's Irish Home Rule Bill in 1886 had been passed, etc etc)
THIRD,
that this might actually be beneficial to the English taxpayer.
FOURTH, that in any political system the rulers ignore the
rights of majorities at their peril: and that the inevitable consequence
of denying the ENGLISH, the same rights as the SCOTS -a referendum on
their own separateness, and allowing any wish for separateness to be
expressed in an
INDEPENDENT
ENGLISH PARLIAMENT
-would lead to towering resentments.
The way in which this book was received
speaks much of the flavour of those bless enlightened times. It had a
rave review from Alex Salmond, the leader of the SNP.
Michael Portillo, then in the middle of
reinventing himself as a proto-Cameronian, addressed the work in a tone
that suggested the men in white coats would be coming for the author
with a matter of hours.
When I read The Sunday Telegraph
not just that 68 per cent of my fellow English now want their own
ENGLISH PARLIAMENT
-but that 59 per cent would be happy for
Scotland to be fully INDEPENDENT
-I know we will never be able to build
the madhouses fast enough.
It is not hard to see why the English
feel these things.
FIRST, they have had largely
alien rule for the past ten years.
SERVE YOU RIGHT,
-the Scots would say, recalling the Thatcher years, when
they, too, felt occupied. But the Scots sought and received, a
remedy for their alleged sufferings; all the English now want is equal
treatment.
SECOND,
the English have been treated to
the most preposterous justifications of why Scottish MPs should still
vote in the Westminster Parliament on matters that, in Scotland, are
dealt with by the Parliament in Edinburgh.
Foundation hospitals and top-up fees are
only on the statute book because of the help the Government received
from Scottish MPs with no interest in the matter.
No Wonder, with a much smaller
majority now than when those measures went through, Labour is desperate
to retain this lobby-fodder.
Increasingly, though, in a era when we
are all feeling grotesquely overtaxed, there is the question of money.
Sixty per cent of those questioned in
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH poll resented the far higher per capita
public spending in Scotland compared with England.
The revenue powers of the Scottish
Parliament do not have to be used to fund handsome new capital projects
in Scotland -
not least their extravagant new
Parliament building - [Just a reminder that we were first told that it
would cost approx. £41,000,000 but ended up at
£400,000,000
-at least.
When our NICE (not really very
nice!) refuses to agree for essential medicines at a cost in one
case of £2.50 a week and many other instances which are denying life
saving treatment it is no wonder there is so much great anger at the
increased subsidy in Scotland.]
-while the English taxpayer is
standing by to have his pocket picked.
As an article on this subject in this
month's Prospect points out, per capita spending is 30 per
cent higher in Scotland, but the GDP per capita is five per cent lower.
Despite this Herculean level of bribery of the Scottish voter, growth
rates simply do not improve.
It is a glowing, and ghastly , example
of the evils of the
SUBSIDY CULTURE
And, quite clearly, not only is it not
doing the
ENGLISH
-taxpayer any good, it is also not
doing the
SCOTS
any
long - term good either.
Scotland is on its way to sovietisation
The amount of GDP spent in the public
sector, at 50 per cent, is 10 per cent higher than in the [so-called]
United Kingdom as a whole.
£11 Billion
more is spent in Scotland than is
raised in revenue there.
The SNP says this takes no account of
the oil revenues. BUT, should Scotland ever become INDEPENDENT, there
will have to be an interesting discussion about the nature of
territorial waters, and the origins of the money used to develop the
oilfields.
There might also be a DEBATE about
whether Shetland, in the event of independence, would want to be part of
[sovietised] Scotland, or would prefer to remain a dependency of
England, or would like to revert to being a part of NORWAY.
So far, all the decision -making in
these matters has been placed on the Scots.
THAT HAS TO STOP!
The English deserve their referendum,
too, on whether they wish to remain in any sort of UNION with Scotland.
If they can have their
OWN
PARLIAMENT
WHY shouldn't ENGLAND
[WE all know about Lord Falconer's comment that he
wouldn't like England to have her own PARLIAMENT as it would BULLY
Scotland. The soon he and his tartan hangers-on depart England on the
high-road back to Scotland the better it will be for those who live on
this side of the border.]
If [Scotland] wishes to separate, then
why should the ENGLISH subsidise them?
Above all, why should the rights of the
English majority be aggressively denied?
I know this is horrid for Gordon brown,
who , like Napoleon, or Stalin, or Hitler, aspires to come to a distant
province or satellite STATE and take over the
MOTHER COUNTRY.
BUT he and his friends started this process: It is a
shame, given how very brilliant we are always told he is, that he wasn't
clever enough to realise how we might finish what he had started.
* *
*
[Font altered-bolding & underlining used-comments in
brackets]
*
[The tragedy was that Gordon Brown put the his ardour for
a united party above personal ambition whereas if he had moved earlier
onto the backbenches in opposition to Iraq and fought to rectify the
great injustices to the English people he would have succeeded as the
leader of the ENGLISH PEOPLE
whatever his ancestry.
He held on to the vision of 'Britishness' when to support
such an IDEAL was an affront to the English who could see clearly that
they were being denied their just rights whereas he and his
numerous countrymen around him were gathering up their emoluments and at
the same time to enslave the English in an European State with the proud
name of ENGLAND eradicated from their homeland. If for once Mr
Brown had put himself into to the mindset of an Englishman he would have
realised the great wrong and as the man we all know he would have
righted the wrong.]
IN ORDER TO HONOUR OUR NORTHERN NEIGHBOURS AND OUR
UNDERSTANDING OF THEIR WISH FOR INDEPENDENCE SOMETHING THE MAJORITY OF
THE ENGLISH UNDERSTAND WE STATE HERE
FROM THE
Arbroath Manifesto
sent by the
Nobles and Commons of Scotland
to the
Pope
in
1320
'We fight not for glory nor for
wealth nor for honour but for the freedom which no good man will
surrender but with his life.'
*
NOVEMBER/06
*
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THE PEOPLE HAVE
SPOKEN-IS THE EU COMMISSION LISTENING?
*
Ditch the EU
TREATY after IRISH REJECTION
SAY VOTERS
by
Daniel
Martin
Political
Reporter
[Daily Mail-Wednesday, June
18,2008]
MORE THAN HALF of voters believe Britain should
drop the controversial European Treaty in the wake of its
rejection in last week's
IRISH REFERENDUM'
The poll comes as the Tories launch a last-ditch
bid in the
HOUSE of LORDS
today to delay the
RATIFICATION OF
THE TREATY.
And
10,000 people
have signed a
PETITION
on the
DOWNING STREET-
WEBSITE
within the past few days
JUNE16-2008
, calling on the
GOVERNMENT
NOT TO RATIFY THE BILL
[WHY DON'T YOU?]
Downing Street
website is
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Abandon-Lisbon/
*
JUNE 18-2008
|
*
*
13th October,2007
So You Want Out
Of The EU
THEN WHY NOT SIGN THE
RENUNCIATION of EU CITIZENSHIP
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Optout
Details from petition creator
With the signing of the Maastricht
Treaty the people of Britain were given
DUAL CITIZENSHIP
-both
EUROPEAN and BRITISH
The extra tier of citizenship was
thrust upon the people without their consent -and in many cases
knowledge.
The PEOPLE of GREAT BRITAIN should be
allowed the option of opting out of the EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP if they so
wish. The GOVERNMENT will then be able to provide those who have opted
out with
BRITISH DOCUMENTATION
-only such as British (not EU)
passports, driving licences and other national documents.
EU laws will also NOT APPLY to those who
HAVE OPTED OUT OF EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP
[PETITION OPEN UNTIL
OCTOBER 08]
*
*
www.thewestminsternews.co.uk
*
www.speakout.co.uk
*
Daniel Hannan - Forming an OPPOSITION
to the EU
www.telegraph.co.uk.blogs
*
GORDON BROWN WANTS TRUST-BUT WHY WON'T
HE TRUST YOU?
HELL ON EARTH IN IRAQ
*
67% want powers back from
EU-ICM poll-June 21-2007-95%
of British people want a
REFERENDUM
*
PETITION
FOR A
REFERENDUM
SIGN TODAY ON LINE
telegraph.co.uk/eureferendum
*
July 18-2007
ALSO
JOIN THE 10 DOWNING STREET PROTEST
Readers can add their support to the growing clamour for a REFERENDUM
on the '"REFORM TREATY" by signing up to a 10 Downing Street 0n-line
petition
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/EU-treaty-NON/
The Petition reads as follows:
"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to
guarantee that the British people will be permitted a binding REFERENDUM
on any and all attempts to resurrect the EU " CONSTITUTION" (and any or
all of its content) regardless of nomenclature."
Deadline for the PETITION is 31st
January,2008
Eurofacts 27th July 2007.
*
'The Spirit
of England'
by
Winston
Churchill
In London on St.George's Day -1953
*
VOTE
-2007
TO
LEAVE
THE
EUROPEAN
UNION
WITH THE ONLY PARTY WITH A MANDATE
TO SET YOU
FREE
THE
UK
INDEPENDENCE PARTY
www.ukip.org
THE QUESTION THAT THE
VOTER MUST ANSWER
‘DO
YOU WISH TO BE GOVERNED BY YOUR OWN PEOPLE, LAW AND CUSTOM OR BY THE
CORRUPT ,EXPENSIVE UNACCOUNTABLE AND CORRUPT ALIEN BUSYBODY BRUSSELS’
-SIMPLE IS IT NOT?
TO RECLAIM YOUR DEMOCRACY DON'T VOTE
FOR THE TRIPARTITE PARTIES IN WESTMINSTER
BUT
SMALL PARTIES THAT SPEAK THEIR MINDS
WITHOUT SPIN AND LIES.
*
ONLY
PRO-PORTIONAL
REPRESENTATION
WILL
BRING
DEMOCRACY
BACK
TO
THE
ENGLISH
PEOPLE
*
SCOTLAND
-ITS PARLIAMENT -WALES-ITS
ASSEMBLY-ENGLAND-STILL
AWAITS ITS PARLIAMENT-WHY?
*
Home
Rule
for
Scotland
WHY
NOT
HOME
RULE
for
ENGLAND
*
[All underlined words have a
separate bulletin
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