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Welsh MEP says English should give more money to Wales

March 24, 2013 wonkotsane England, Federal Europe, Labour, Wales 5 comments

But not for equal funding

Welsh Labour MEP, Derek Vaughan, has called for the English to give even more money to Wales to make up for a £400m cut in EU funding agreed by the British.

When the EU budget was “cut”, as well as our contributions going up the amount of money we get back from the EU was also cut. As Wales is a net recipient of EU funding that means that the Welsh lose more funding per capita than the English and it’s this funding reduction agreed by the British government that Derek Vaughan thinks the English should compensate them for.

Wales already gets nearly £1,400 more in per capita public spending than England so Vaughan can sod off. It’s about time the rest of the UK started paying their own bills and stopped leaching off the English taxpayer.

England 1-0 Turkey (U19s)

March 21, 2013 wonkotsane England, Sport No comments

England U19′s played Turkey tonight at AFC Telford United. Turkey played well but they had too many actors and towards the end of the game they got a bit aggressive resulting in a yellow card and chants of “off, off, off” on a few occasions. England played well too and ended up winning 1-0. As a little bonus, you can just see Mrs Sane in the centrefold picture in the match programme from the England -v- Finland U21 game in November last year.

Dear Jim Telfer …

February 2, 2013 wonkotsane England, Scotland, Sport 2 comments

This …

England 38 -v- 18 Scotland

… is why the English team are allowed to be arrogant.

Census reveals rise of Englishness and death of Britishness

December 13, 2012 wonkotsane Britishness, England 11 comments

The 2011 census results have been released and they make for interesting reading. I didn’t take a constructive part in last year’s census (not so much on ideological grounds but because I don’t trust the British government with the information) but it’s interesting reading nonetheless.

England

For the first time, the census allowed us to say if we identified ourselves as English and an overwhelming majority of people did – 37.6m people (67.1% of the respondents) identified themselves as English with 32.4m (57.7%) identifying themselves as solely English.

I have said many times that Britishness is not just in decline but fatally wounded and the census figures bear that out. Only 16.3m people (29.1%) identified themselves as British and just 10.7m people (19.1%) identified themselves as solely British. Even as a dual identity Britishness is dead in the water.

The ethnicity figures are a little worrying – only 59.8% of people in London identify themselves as having British ethnicity. Ignoring the fact that there is no such thing as a British ethnicity, this isn’t a healthy statistic. London is the political and media capital of the UK, the place where policy is formed and in no way does London give a realistic view of the UK which is one of the reasons why so much British government policy makes no sense.

In 2001, 9% of the population identified themselves as immigrants (ie. born outside of the UK). Last year it was 13%. Since 2001, something like 3.8m immigrants moved to England and Wales. When we are so short of jobs and housing already, this level of immigration is simply unsustainable – it’s over 5% of the population.

The census data is supposed to drive British government policy and provision of services – that’s the reason given for compelling every adult in the country by law to complete the census – so it will be interesting to see how the 2011 census results drive policy. The promotion of Britishness clearly has to stop, it’s a minority identity which costs tens (if not hundreds) of millions to promote and British government policy is geared around its exclusive promotion. Most people in England identify themselves as English but this identity is subject to official policies of marginalisation and suppression.

England 1-0 Finland at AFC Telford United

November 14, 2012 wonkotsane England, Sport, Telford No comments

AFC Telford United hosted an England -v- Finland U19′s match last night at the New Buck’s Head. The whole family went along to watch England score a penalty with the last kick of the game to win 1-0.

There was some great play from these youngsters which makes me think there may be hope for the future of the English football team after all!

We were right on the centre line so we had a decent view throughout the game …

The all important penalty in the dying seconds of extra time …

It’s time to abolish Sunday Trading restrictions in England

August 19, 2012 wonkotsane Economy, England 6 comments

God says it’s a sin to buy medicine on a Sunday

Embarrassed at the thought of the world mocking the way we pander to medieval superstitious beliefs by banning shops from opening all day on Sunday in the name of a religion that only 10% of the population actively engage in, the British government relaxed Sunday Trading laws in England and Wales during the London Olympics. Now the debate is open on whether to tighten them back up again.

The last serious attempt to get Sunday Trading laws relaxed in England was back in 2006 when a group of companies, including the big supermarkets, petitioned the Secretary of State for Trade & Industry to relax them so they could open for more than 6 hours on a Sunday. The Secretary of State declined. The Secretary of State had no business making the decision because the Secretary of State was Alistair Darling, the MP for Edinburgh Central, whose own constituents don’t have to put up with the inconvenience of Sunday Trading restrictions because there aren’t any in Scotland.

Scotland is by far a more religious country than England yet they are sensible enough to realise that translating those minority religious views into restrictions on economic activity benefits nobody. It’s a shame that the politicians they inflict on us don’t share that same sensibility but when they’re messing up someone else’s country, I suppose they don’t really care. But if Scotland can dispense with Sunday Trading restrictions despite being a more religious country than England, why should we endure these ridiculous restrictions because of the irrational beliefs of a declining number of adherents of the state religion?

The economy is on the rocks at the moment and anything that can give it a boost should be welcomed. We need drastic tax cuts and people spending money to create jobs. The drastic tax cuts aren’t going to come under Labour or the Tories because all either of them know how to do is spend more and more of our money but abolishing Sunday Trading restrictions is just about compatible with today’s Tories, even if they have all but abandoned their conservative principles.

On average, those of us who still have jobs are working longer hours to pay for those that don’t, bailing out the €uro, Indian space missions, etc. so we have to do more things at the weekend. If we want to do our weekly shopping at 9pm on Sunday then why shouldn’t we be able to? If we need a pharmacy at 3 o’clock on Sunday morning, why should we have to drive 30 miles to find one of the increasingly small number of independent pharmacies that haven’t been snapped up by big chains that don’t have to comply with Sunday Trading restrictions? Why can we go for a bagel at McDonalds at 8 o’clock on Sunday morning but can’t go to Tesco’s and buy a packet of bagels to make our own? This ridiculous rule about observing the Jewish religious law of observing the Sabbath has no place in England in 2012 and it’s time to consign Sunday Trading restrictions to the history books they came out of.

Labour’s legacy of bankrupt hospitals and PFI loan sharks

June 26, 2012 wonkotsane England, Health 2 comments

Back in 2003, six years after the people of Scotland voted to have their own devolved parliament, the Health & Social Care Bill came before the British Parliament. This bill would introduce, amongst other things, foundation hospital trusts in England.

Insolvency Service Logo The bill was passed into law as the Health & Social Care (Community Health & Standards) Act 2003 despite a majority of British MPs elected in England voting against it thanks to the votes of British MPs elected in Scotland where health and social care is devolved. The Health & Social Care Bill is one of two laws passed by the British Parliament since 1997 affecting England only where the matter is devolved in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that would have failed had only MPs elected in England voted on it. The other one is, of course, tuition fees which were introduced in England with the Higher Education Act 2004.

So, fast forward 9 years since having had foundation hospitals foisted upon us by MPs who we can’t hold to account and the first one has gone bankrupt whilst six others are apparently on the brink. South London Healthcare NHS Trust is to be put into administration after racking up £69m of PFI debts and with a projected operating loss of between £30m-£75m per year for the next five years. Six other foundation hospital trusts are also in dire straits financially according to the Telegraph.

So that’s seven foundation hospital trusts that we didn’t want but were forced to have by Labour’s Scottish MPs on the verge of insolvency thanks to massive debts run up under PFI schemes that we didn’t want but were forced to have by Labour’s Scottish Chancellor. Can anyone explain how Labour has been leading the opinion polls for most of the year? Oh yeah, the Tories and Lib Dems are equally useless when it comes to public finances, the NHS and the democratic process.

Ed Miliband says the “E” word

June 7, 2012 wonkotsane England, Labour 3 comments

Ed Miliband has broken with decades of tradition and spoken positively about English identity and even mentioning an English Parliament. Ok, he dismissed it out of hand because he says there isn’t support for one but he’s the first LibLabCon leader to follow UKIP’s lead and take the subject seriously.

Labour has been struggling in England in recent years, despite a revival thanks to the ineptitude of the ConDems and has been navel gazing for some time trying to figure why the country they milked for over a decade to buy votes in Scotland and Wales might not be so keen on voting for them. It has recently occurred to them that describing English people as “a race not worth saving” and suggesting that people describing themselves as English is worrying and is about race, not culture unlike Britishness might be a contributing factor to their unpopularity.

While Ed Miliband is now apparently comfortable with us describing ourselves as English (as long as we say we’re British as well) he isn’t happy with the idea of an English Parliament. He says that an English Parliament means more politicians and that there isn’t support for an English Parliament so instead we should make do with more powers for local authorities.

Where to start? The “more politicians” myth is as good a place as any. There are 650 British MPs, 117 of which are elected in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland where they have less than half the workload of an MP elected in England because their devolved representatives have more responsibility in their constituencies than they do. If an English Parliament takes away most of the British Parliament’s work, why on earth would we keep all 650 British MPs? The number of British MPs could easily be halved and it’s a pretty damning indictment of the British political class that the thought of reducing their number doesn’t even cross their minds.

As for there being no support for an English Parliament – what he means is there is no support for an English Parliament in his own party. An Ipsos Mori/British Futures poll in January found that 52% want an English Parliament. An ICM/Power 2010 poll last year found that 68% want an English Parliament. A YouGov/Jury Team poll in 2009 found that 58% want an English Parliament. A Populus/The Times poll in 2009 found that 41% want an English Parliament. An ICM/Telegraph poll in 2007 found that 45% want an English Parliament or to ban MPs not elected in England from voting on English matters. An ICM/CEP poll in 2007 found that 67% want an English Parliament. A YouGov/Sunday Times poll in 2007 found that 72% want an English Parliament. There are more but that’s enough to make the point – all of them show a majority in favour of an English Parliament.

His suggestion that giving local authorities in England more power would be equivalent to the Scottish Parliament or Welsh Assembly is frankly insulting. A town council could never compete with a national government and it certainly couldn’t represent the local population and businesses on the internationals stage. It’s a ridiculous suggestion and a half baked idea motivated by political greed, not a desire to do what’s right by the English.

Happy St George’s Day

April 23, 2012 wonkotsane England 2 comments

When will someone make the case for the union?

January 18, 2012 wonkotsane Britishness, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales 7 comments

So, I suppose it’s about time I blogged about the Scottish independence referendum as it’s been in the news for a week or so.

Basically, this is the story so far:

Alex Salmond has been dicking about for a few years saying they’re going to hold a referendum on Scottish independence but keeps putting it off because a) they won’t vote for independence and b) the longer he threatens it, the more he can screw out of the Brits at our expense.

Salmond knows that the Scots won’t vote for independence so he’s come up with a great wheeze: devolution max. Devolution max is almost, but not quite, a confederation between Scotland and “Britain”. The Scottish government would be almost on a par with the British government, Salmond and Cameron would meet each other as equals rather than provincial administrator and imperial overlord.

Cameron got fed up with Salmond dicking about and told him he’s got to have his referendum sooner rather than later and he can’t offer devolution max, just a yes/no to independence. Salmond told the media London was dictating to Scotland; Cameron said he wasn’t dictating, he was merely telling the Scottish government what they can and can’t do in a dictatorial manner (I’ve paraphrased slightly).

At some point the British government decided that after years of indecision, an independence referendum held by the Scottish government would be illegal. Nobody has offered an opinion as to what they would do if Salmond held his referendum and ended up as Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Scotland – the thing about a unilateral declaration of independence is that it’s, well, unilateral. Salmond retaliated by saying he’d order the Scottish police not to man polling stations if the ballot papers didn’t have his options on them (yes, he can do that but technically the British Home Secretary trumps the Scottish First Minister which would make for an interesting pissing contest wouldn’t it?).

The brief posturing is over with no clear winner and now the two sides are setting out their stalls. The Brits are making the case for the union to the Scots, humming Rule Britannia whilst Britishly tearfully extolling the British virtues of the British union and good old British Britishness in British Britain and British Scotland. Some of them are suggesting wrecking manoeuvres such as giving people in England a vote on Scottish independence as well, although they seem to have gone quiet since Survation (an up-and-coming polling company with a very good record so far on political polls) found that more people in England want to see Scotland declare independence than Scots.

The Scottish nationalists are doing what they usually do – confusing England with “Britain”, throwing some random numbers on paper to show they’re subsidising England and … well, that’s about it but even so the Survation poll says that Salmond is quite comprehensively winning the “referendum war”.

Unsurprisingly and true to form for the Brits, virtually nobody is thinking about England in all this. The Labour MP for Torfaen in Wales, Paul Murphy, has called for the balkanisation of England by resurrecting Prescott’s rejected local government reorganisation with regional assemblies but that’s about as far as it goes. Other than that it’s been Scotland, Scotland, Scotland as if the future of the UK and the relationships between the member states in it are the exclusive domain of the Scots.

I don’t want a vote on Scottish independence because it’s Scotland’s business but if Scotland has a referendum then a referendum should also be held on English independence, Welsh independence and Northern Irish independence. If the union is to continue then it should be because most of the people in all four member states want it to, not because 4 million voters in Scotland say so.

I would love to hear the British nationalists making the case for the union to England like they are for Scotland. I would love to hear them explain why we should stay in a union where we have no voice, where £20bn of our taxes are taken from us on threat of imprisonment and given to the other three member states of the UK to spend on things that we can’t afford, where politicians elected in another country are allowed to introduce and vote on laws that only apply to England when they can’t even vote on the same things in the country they were elected in and where we are generally robbed, put upon and despised. I’d love to hear them make the case for that union because right now all I’m hearing is Scotland, Scotland, Scotland when quite frankly I couldn’t give a damn whether they stay or go.

The celtic dog has been wagging the English tail for too long and it has to stop. The British establishment is full of people who are, quite frankly, irrationally fanatical about Scotland. They are 5m people (and falling), we are 51m and increasing. They spend the money, we foot the bill. They have an inferiority complex, we have to make ourselves subservient to them to make them feel better. The obsession is with what the Scots want, forgetting that actually it’s England that would make or break the union.

So what’s the answer? It’s quite simple …

Hold the referendum in Scotland with the three options – independence, current level of devolution or “devolution max”. At the same time, hold a referendum in England, Wales and Northern Ireland offering the same choices (“current level of devolution” in England being what the Scots have now). This will result in an English Parliament being created. Take out the unconstitutional, unworkable English Votes on English Laws fudge (there’s no point trying to implement something that can’t work, it’s just wasting time and money) and support for devolution in England is overwhelming. This may result in assymetry as it’s not guaranteed that all four member states of the UK will vote for devolution max (I’m thinking of NI here) but it would be through choice, not because the British government is prejudiced against one country.

This raises the spectre of one or more member states of the UK voting for independence. Scotland is probably less likely to vote for independence than England despite the overt nationalism north of the border. Of the four member states of the UK, only England pays its own way and only England would thrive outside of the union. Despite the protestations of some Scots, they do extremely well out of the union whilst England does extremely badly out of it. If one or more member states vote for independence then the British government should be prepared with a firm plan for a British confederation. I won’t dwell on the virtues of a confederation, just follow the link.

The independence of one member state would raise some interesting challenges when it comes to the inheritance of treaties. For instance, who would keep the UK’s seat on the UN Security Council? If Scotland declared independence then “Britain” would probably still exist for a short time and once it fell apart, England would naturally be the successor state. But if England declared independence and Scotland didn’t, “Britain” wouldn’t last any longer but Scotland would naturally be the successor state. Salmond wants to demilitarise Scotland and on the international stage Scotland is a non-entity (“Scotland, isn’t that in England?” – you get the picture) – the UN isn’t going to have a bunch of whining skirt wearing with delusions of grandeur on the UN Security Council.

EU membership is another question that needs considering. Scotland is the most europhile member state of the UK, it would probably want to remain a member. The EU would want to keep England to pay the bills. New countries joining the EU have to agree to join the €uro – Scotland might not be too fussed about joining the €uro but England? It’s unthinkable.

What about the British Overseas Territories? Who will inherit those? If a confederation can successfully be created then problem solved. If not, it’s open for negotiation – they may opt for independence, they may choose their own “protector” to pay fealty to.

The Vienna Convention on Succession of States in Respect of Treaties says that it’s basically up to succeeding states to decide who takes on what treaties with the assumption that if no agreement is made, all the treaties currently in force will apply to all successor states. That means that the default position is that all member states of the UK declaring independence would remain members of the EU, UN, NATO and party to all the other treaties the UK has signed up to since 1978 unless they agree to divvy them up. Contrary to what British politicians say, independence of any of the member states of the UK does not necessarily mean losing the memberships of international bodies the UK currently holds.

None of the perceived problems are insurmountable so what reason is there for the union to continue? This is the case the British unionists have to make to all of us, not just the Scots and this is precisely what won’t happen. The British are so obsessed with what the Scots want that they won’t see what’s happening under their noses until it’s too late.

British government launches Commission into avoiding answering the WLQ

September 8, 2011 wonkotsane England One comment

The British government has finally got round to launching the Commission on the West Lothian Question that it promised over a year ago but why do we need an expensive commission to state the obvious?

Is it not plainly obvious that it is wrong that the MP for Thomas Telford’s constituency of Dumfries & Galloway in Scotland can vote on health, education, environment, etc. in Telford but neither the MP for Dumfries & Galloway, nor the MP for Telford can vote on the same things in Scotland?

There is clearly a problem – there are 532 MPs elected in England but 551 MPs voted on changes to the English NHS this week and 629 voted on tuition fees in English universities last year. Tuition fees are only charged in English universities because enough MPs elected in Scotland voted for them to overturn the narrow majority of MPs elected in England who said no.

There is clearly a desire to deal with the problem – opinion polls consistently show 7 out of 10 people want to stop MPs elected in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland from voting on English laws, either by way of restricting voting rights or by creating an English Parliament.

There is clearly a solution – Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have had devolved governments for over a decade and they have certainly seen the benefits while England has picked up the bill.

So if there is a problem, the desire to put it right and a ready-made solution, what exactly is the purpose of this commission? The answer lies in the call by Ministers for Harriet Baldwin MP to withdraw her private members’ bill that would force the British government to specify which country a bill applies to now that the commission has been established.

The commission hasn’t been set up to find a solution to the institutional discrimination against the English, it’s been set up to find an excuse not to create an English Parliament. If the British government has been diligently identifying English-only laws while the commission is looking for excuses, they can’t use the usual one that it’s impossible to disentangle English laws from British.

Daily Mail poll shows 72% support for English independence

August 31, 2011 wonkotsane England 3 comments

You won’t see much about this in the press or on TV but yesterday’s poll of the day in the Daily Mail asked Are you in favour of independence for England?

Obviously an online poll of this sort isn’t a scientific poll because to be considered to be a representative poll it would need to have weighting applied to account for differences in social banding, geography, age, etc., but even applying weighting wouldn’t turn 71% in favour to a majority in opposition.

100,000 voices for England

August 29, 2011 wonkotsane England 6 comments

A gentle reminder that the petition to get the need for an English Parliament debated in the British Parliament is still about 97k short of its target.

Opinion polls show that 7 out of 10 people support the creation of an English Parliament so what are you waiting for? Sign the petition and spread the word!

The British have lost Wales

August 29, 2011 wonkotsane Britishness, England, Wales 4 comments

There is a misguided belief in “Britain” amongst the political classes, a belief that below the surface there is a common British identity that unites us all and will stave off the forces of celtic nationalism. Their obsession with celtic nationalism and indifference to English nationalism will come back to bite them in the arse but that’s a different topic.

I’ve just got back from a fortnight’s holiday – the first week was spent in Somerset and the second week in Ceredigion (or Cardiganshire as it used to be called). There was an abundance of English flags in Somerset (Burnham-on-Sea to be exact) but not to the exclusion of the British flag, just a lot more St George’s Crosses than the butchers apron. Wales was different though (at least the part of Wales we stayed in) – the only British flag I saw was, ironically, outside the Welsh Assembly building in Aberystwyth where it occupied one of the “other” flag poles to the side of the Welsh flag, the other “other” pole sporting the ring of stars logo of the EU.

Flags aren’t the only symbol of nationhood and cultural independence of course and this is where the Welsh have the English at an advantage: the Welsh language. People in the street, in cafés and shops spoke Welsh to each other. Not just old people who grew up in a time when Welsh communities were often isolated and the Welsh language survived simply because they weren’t exposed to English, it was people my age and most importantly, young people. Welsh kids sitting in cafés with their family quite easily swapped and changed between English and Welsh depending on who they were talking to without hesitation and they are the ones who will decide what the de facto first language of Wales is in a decade or so.

Road signs are an indication of the change in the status of the Welsh language. Dual-language signs were permitted in 1965, a national roll-out started in 1972 and until relatively recently they have generally been in the form of English road signs with Welsh translations. The opposite is now true in most of Wales – the road signs are in Welsh with English translations. English speakers are accommodated alongside Welsh rather than the other way round such as you might find in arab countries where the latinised version place names are included underneath the arabic.

English being the lingua franca of international trade and diplomacy has many advantages on the world stage but at home it takes away one of the most obvious things that unites a people and sets them apart from their neighbours. If England had a unique language of its own in everyday use – pockets of Old English speakers, perhaps, that could be used as a starting point – then the English identity would be a lot stronger than it is now and we wouldn’t be facing problems such as the threat from Britification and the public’s willingness to accept institutional discrimination as the price of the union.

Wales, like Scotland, has been lost by the British. The symbols of British cultural imperialism that you see in England just don’t exist in the celtic nations. The companies and political parties investing in Britishness are limiting themselves to an increasingly narrow section of English society who still believe in Britain. Support for English devolution is consistently falling just shy of the 70% mark whilst support for English independence has jumped to 36% in a Comres poll published in July this year. A TNS-BMRB opinion poll published in June this year showed that support for Scottish independence has risen to 37% (51% in people under 24) and in Wales the most recent opinion poll I can find is 2007 which shows support for independence at just 12%. Support for devolution in Scotland was 70% in a 2009 Populus poll, the Welsh referendum on extending devolution this year was 64.5% and the last poll I’ve seen in England was 67%. Support for devolution in England is higher than in Wales and almost as high as Scotland. But the independence figure is the one that is most interesting – almost as many English people support English independence as Scots do for Scotland (and significantly more than support Welsh independence) but the rate at which support for independence is increasing in England far outstrips any increase in support that Scotland has ever seen.

Companies have already realised that Britain is a toxic brand in Scotland and Wales which is why you will rarely find anything overtly British in shops and supermarkets outside of England. The same goes for political parties – there is not a single -England arm of any UK political party but they all have -Scotland and -Wales arms. Charities and non-profit organisations are the same – there is an Age Scotland, Age Cymru and Age UK; there is a British Medical Association (BMA) Scotland, BMA Wales and plain old “the BMA” for England. What they have failed to notice is the increasing irrelevance and even opposition to “Brand Britain” in England and that will cost them dearly in the very near future.

The union could still have a place in our future, albeit in a significantly different form to the current union but it will only survive the next few years if it is reconfigured on the basis of fairness, equality and respect for all the people of these four nations. There is a small (and I mean small – a couple of years at the most) window of opportunity for the British to save their union but they will need to put their imperial past behind them and start thinking the unthinkable: most of “Britain” isn’t British any more.

Report says English kids should study maths to 18

August 8, 2011 wonkotsane Education, England, Propaganda 2 comments

A report by Carol Voderman for the British government says that almost half of English children are leaving school at 16 without managing a C or better in their maths GCSE’s and they should all study maths until they are 18.

The report also says that 300,000 16 year old English students leave school every year without a good enough understanding of maths to function in everyday life.

Firstly, the motivation for commissioning this report: the British government intends to force English children to stay at school until they are 18 by 2013. The report gives the “evidence” required to justify the requirement to send your children to school for another two years. There will be more reports like this as 2013 gets closer to show that the British government are doing the “right thing”.

Secondly, the reason why English kids are getting such poor results: inadequate funding and a lack of grammar schools. The British government spends significantly less on education in England than the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish. I’ve not heard any mention of problems with numeracy in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland so presumably the extra funding they get from English taxes has resulted in a better education.

I’ll concentrate more on the lack of a functioning grammar school system as I’ve done the funding thing to death on this blog over the years. It’s an indisputable fact that some people are thinkers and some people are doers. Some people’s brains are wired for academic education and some are wired for vocational education. The two tier education system that we used to have with grammar schools catered for this difference by filtering out the children that were capable of an academic education and sending them to grammar schools and sending those that weren’t capable of a purely (or primarily) academic education to comprehensive schools where they could get a well-rounded education.

There is no shame in the grammar school system – you get the type of education you need, rather than everyone getting the same type of education regardless of suitability. It’s not surprising that half of all English children are leaving school without a C in their maths GCSE’s, some kids are just never going to get algebra, geometry, statistics, etc. They need a vocation education with education by practical example rather than pure theory. When the national grammar school system was in place, it gave opportunities to many academically gifted children from deprived backgrounds who would otherwise have seen their talent wasted.

Now back to the motivation for commissioning this report: building the back story for the increase in the school leaving age in England in two years time. When this first came up I questioned how it would work and who would pay for it …

Will boarding schools be required to provide married quarters for childhood sweathearts who decide to get married at 16 or will the minimum age for getting married be increased to make sure you don’t end up with married couples spending double Science arguing about who’s cooking the dinner when they get home from school and why they have to have the mother-in-law round for Sunday dinner that weekend? What about couples who decide to start a family at 16? It’s perfectly legal – will schools start providing crêche facilities? Who will pay for them? Will 16 year old girls be entitled to maternity leave from school? What about the benefits that will be paid out to these people who have a family at 16 but can’t work because they have to go to school until they’re 18? Ok, so most 16 year old parents would rather laze around on benefits rather than get a job but not all of them do. Upping the age you can get married to 18 won’t work either. You need your parents consent to get married at 16 or 17 in England now but there’s nothing to stop you going to Scotland and getting married at 16 without your parents permission because the law is different there.

Add to that the question of what will happen to families moving between England and Scotland or England and Wales. Will a Scottish or Welsh 16 year old who has already left school at home moving to England be required to re-enter school? Will 16 year old English kids be able to move to Scotland or Wales and leave the education system entirely without qualifications and without completing their basic education? Will English kids be able to go straight from secondary school in England to university in Scotland or Wales, bypassing sixth form/college or will they have to study for another two years (at whose expense?) before they can go to university? Will Scottish and Welsh kids be able to go to university in England two years earlier than their English counterparts?

I have tried to put these questions to the British Department of English Education but the contact page on their website is broken. I’ll let you know if I get an answer!

Iain Stewart MP’s argument against an English Parliament

August 4, 2011 wonkotsane England 3 comments

On the 11th of February this year, Iain Stewart MP (the carpetbagging Scottish MP for Milton Keynes South) spoke on the Territorial Extent Bill – a welcome but ultimately doomed attempt to force the British government to specify the territorial extent of an Bill that gets published.

In his speech he acknowledges the need to do something about the West Lothian Question and sums up the problem pretty well. He also sums up the three “perfect” solutions pretty well – abolishing devolution, replacing devolved bodies with Grand Committees of British MPs based on the country they were elected in and a devolved English Parliament.

So far so good but what’s this you say Iain?

One option would be to have a separate English Parliament with the same powers as the Scottish Parliament. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington said, and as others have argued, the difficulty with that is that England would represent more than 80% of the population and more than 80% of the gross domestic product in one unit. I cannot think of a stable modern democracy with an advanced economy where there is such an overwhelming dominant part in a federation. Any other country with a federal system contains two or more big states that balance each other out. For example, Canada contains Ontario and Quebec, and Germany contains Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia. If England were to be a separate entity in a federal system, the arrangement would have too much of an imbalance.

That old chestnut. A few people have said that they can’t think of a stable modern democracy with an advanced economy where this is such an overwhelming dominant part of the federation. Can anyone think of an unstable country with one? Or any country of any description? It’s never been tried so there is no evidence that it can’t work. In 1497 no country had ever had an empire that covered one third of the globe and belonging to a country that is, relatively speaking, tiny. Yet by the 18th century that’s what had happened with the British Empire. Britain’s voice should have been drowned out by the likes of Canada, India and Australia – massive countries with huge populations – yet a succession of British monarchs reigned over one third of the planet and still today the Privy Council the final court of appeal for some former colonies.

The size of England compared to Scotland, Wales and NI is a moot point. English politicians would legislate for England, Welsh politicians for Wales, Scottish politicians for Scotland, Northern Irish politicians for Northern Ireland and British politicians for Britain. England need have no more influence than it has now in the British Parliament. As seen with English university tuition fees and English foundation hospitals, the Scots are more than capable of swinging the vote in Westminster. The English Parliament, as clearly defined as the Scottish Parliament and Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies, would be solely concerned with legislating for England on devolved matters. It wouldn’t have the authority to pass laws in Scotland, Wales, NI or for the whole UK.

If the English Parliament proved to be as effective at lobbying the British government for English interests as the Scottish Parliament has been for the last decade at lobbying for Scottish interests then that is a welcome development but it’s hard to see what reserved matters would directly affect English, Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish interests to the extent that their governments would feel the need to lobby the British government over them and if national interests were so divergent on that subject then it should be devolved anyway.

The simple fact of the matter is that over a decade of devolution has resulted in a decrease in support for independence in Scotland and Wales whilst during the corresponding period, support for English independence has increased to 36% from only 1 or 2%. In other words, devolution has reversed the increasing support for Scottish independence whilst a lack of devolution in England has started a trend of phenomenal growth in support of English independence. Clearly the way to save the union is to devolve power to an English government. If MPs are uncomfortable with making the decision on which form that government should take then they could at least support the very reasonable solution of allowing the English people to decide for themselves in a referendum. After all, if the Welsh and Scots are capable of deciding what the best form of government is for their countries, surely we English are equally capable of making the same decision?

Racist fees result in fewer Scottish university applications from England

July 11, 2011 wonkotsane Apartheid, Education, England, Racism, Scotland 23 comments

SCOTTISH universities have received 5,000 fewer applications from students south of the Border wanting to take their degrees in Scotland amid claims that the recession and uncertainty over fees are causing undergraduates to stay closer to home.

That’s the Scotsman’s theory on why Scottish universities are seeing a drop in the number of English students looking to study in Scottish universities.

Nationality Lottery It’s not the recession or uncertainty over fees that’s the problem, it’s the racial discrimination and high costs. I appreciate that this will come as a shock to a lot of Scots and the BBC but English people haven’t been going to Scottish universities because they’re better, they’ve been going because the degrees are easier (4 years instead of 3) and because they’re cheaper. Or they have been until the Scottish government decided to introduce racial discrimination into the Scottish education system by charging English students up to £9,000 per year for a degree in Scotland while every other “EU citizen” gets free university education largely thanks to EU laws.

If you have the choice of paying £9,000 a year for 3 years for a degree in England (thanks to tuition fees imposed on England by MPs elected in Scotland) or £9,000 a year for 4 years for the same degree with an extra year of expenses and you have to live in a hostile country where half the population hates you because of where you were born, which would you choose?

With a bit of luck Scottish universities will start running out of money soon now they’ve bitten the hand that feeds them because according to the Scottish Education Secretary an influx of Scottish students studying in English universities would bankrupt the country as the Scottish government pays the tuition fees of Scots in English universities as well.

Good luck to the English students challenging this racial discrimination in the courts.

The case for a British Confederation

May 23, 2011 wonkotsane Britain, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales 23 comments

Yesterday I explained that I don’t want a vote on Scottish independence and predicted how Alex Salmond would approach “independence” for Scotland.

If I am right about my prediction of what form Scottish “independence” will take is right – ie. a confederation – then that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The ideal way to govern the UK is with a confederation where the home nations voluntarily pool resources and responsibility for matters that they choose to co-operate on such as defence and foreign affairs. This differs from federation or the current system of devolution in place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in that the powers the confederal government has are passed up from the countries that are part of it rather than being passed down from a federal government. It’s an important differentiation because it means the members of the confederation retain their independence and sovereignty within parameters agreed by those members rather than being told what independence and sovereignty they are allowed from the centre. But such a confederation would have to be between England, Scotland, Wales and perhaps Northern Ireland, not between Scotland and “Britain”.

This isn’t just idle conjecture on my part, I have been giving the idea of a confederation thought for some time now. Here’s how I see it working:

An elected confederal “senate” would replace the House of Lords dealing with defence, foreign affairs and whatever else is handed up to the confederal government and an independent English Parliament would govern England as a sovereign nation within the confederation. Scotland and Wales would similarly be governed as sovereign nations by their own government.

Northern Ireland is a bit of an oddity and might not choose to take part in a confederal government in the same way. Clearly unification with the Republic is not the answer – it would alienate and antagonise at least half the population and it’s not in the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement – so why not give Northern Ireland the same status as the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man and make it a Crown Dependency, governing itself as it does now with the confederal government responsible for its defence and jointly for foreign affairs as it is for the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man?

The confederation would be the legal successor to the union, taking over the UK’s seat on the UN, NATO, the EU and any other organisation the UK is a member of unless the members agree that one of their number should become the successor state instead such as Scotland taking over the UK’s membership of the EU as the most europhile nation in the UK. It would also mean that the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories (Falklands, Bermuda, etc.) would work in the same way and could even become members of the confederation on equal terms to England, Scotland and Wales.

The confederal government could be funded by subscription from its members or by direct taxation. A customs union and Shengen-type agreement would maintain the free movement of goods and people. A confederal government would need very few politicians, perhaps even being made up of appointees from the national governments and the national governments should be unicameral, resulting in a net reductions of politicians.

A confederation also neatly sidesteps the issue of a federation being unconstitutional under English law. One of the key properties of a federation is that the existence of the devolved legislatures are protected by law in perpetuity. Under the English constitution, no British Parliament may bind its successor making it impossible to legislate in this way. A new English Parliament for an independent England wouldn’t need an Act of the British Parliament to protect its existence, nor would it need an Act of the English Parliament to do so as its existence would be implicit in the fact that England would be an independent, sovereign nation voluntarily delegating powers to a “British Confederation”. The English and Scottish Crowns can remain united in a personal union as they did before the 1707 Act of Union and the Queen can remain Head of State either through being Head of State of the confederation or the members in their own right.

The members of the confederation would be free to pursue their own economic policies, raising or lowering taxes, increasing or decreasing spending. Scotland can become the socialist republic it strives to be, England can continue down the road of free market enlightenment. Scotland can go nuclear-free, England can keep the lights on.

One of the criticisms of supporters of an English Parliament is that they never come up with anything other than a nebulous idea about self-government. In the case of the Campaign for an English Parliament that’s deliberate because, to paraphrase the Scottish Claim of Right, they quite rightly say that it’s for the people of England to determine the best form of government for themselves. Well I’m a person of England and I think this is the best form of government for my country. Discuss.

I don’t want a vote on Scottish independence

May 22, 2011 wonkotsane Britain, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales One comment

So it’s a couple of weeks since the SNP romped home to a comprehensive victory in the Scottish Parliament elections and there’s still no sign of an independence referendum but there is still plenty of talk about what the “independence” will be and who should have a vote.

So I sez "Aye, give us a coupla billion and we wunnae hold the referendum". I didnae expect him tae do it!

Scotland will never be independent, even if it leaves this union because the SNP intends Scotland to be a member of the EU, leaving a union it has a disproportionate amount of control over for a union in which it will be a tiny irrelevant voice. But that’s a decision for the Scots to make and if they choose to take that path then more fool them.

Alex Salmond has already been talking down independence and suggesting what will be, in all but name, a confederation of Scotland and “Britain” in which Scotland remains in a union voluntarily and on their own terms with “Britain”. Presumably he has looked at Dubai’s bailout of Abu Dhabi and decided to hedge his bets.

Lots of people are demanding a vote in Scotland’s independence referendum, arguing that if the union is to be dissolved then it’s not just the Scots who should be able to vote on it. I disagree for two very good reasons:

Firstly, whether Scotland decides to declare independence or not is Scotland’s business – a declaration of independence is an affirmation of sovereignty and you can’t affirm your sovereignty by asking for someone else’s permission. The UK or “Britain” isn’t a country, it’s a union of countries and if one of them decides it no longer wants to be in that union, it’s nobody’s decision but their own.

Secondly, Scottish independence won’t mean the end of the union, the Brits will keep “Britain” going for as long as possible in a sad parody of its former self like Serbia federating with Montenegro and calling itself Yugoslavia not because the Serbian people identified themselves as Yugoslavian but because the Serbian political class that dominated Yugoslavia refused to accept the reality of post-Yugoslav Serbia. The same will happen in England – the British political class will refuse to accept the reality that they have put Scotland on such a high pedestal that the union will seem irrelevant without them and will do whatever it takes to keep “Britain” in existence that little bit longer.

To ensure that Scotland stays in some form of union with “Britain”, the Scots will be comprehensively bribed. The union started with England paying Scotland’s national debt and a bribe on top to be shared amongst the Scottish people which was promptly stolen by Scotland’s great and good and the end of the union will similarly marked by a Scottish cash bonanza at the expense of the English taxpayer.

The day after the SNP won the Scottish election, David Cameron gave Scotland a £2bn bung for no other reason than Alex Salmond had won the election. This is the first of many bribes from the British government and it won’t just be handing over billions on pounds of English money, it will be political concessions as well – more independence, a greater say in what happens in England, more Scottish representation at Westminster, more Scots in key British cabinet positions, more British (English) government departments located in Scotland, more “respect” for Scotland. The divorce settlement will cost England dearly if it is negotiated between the Brits and the Scots.

I don’t want a vote on Scottish independence (although I would vote yes if I did) because it’s none of my business as an Englishman living in England. I am agnostic about the union – if the union survives or if England stays in it or not is something I won’t lose any sleep over but if the union survives and if England stays in it then it has to be on equal terms with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland with an English Parliament and fiscal autonomy, just the same as Scotland. But if the terms of the union – and England’s relationship with the other members – are to be fundamentally renegotiated then that renegotiation has to be done between England and the rest of the UK, not “Britain”.

The British can’t be relied up to represent English interests, we must have an English government to negotiate on our behalf.

Union? What union?

April 29, 2011 wonkotsane Britishness, Bullshit, England 2 comments

Ok, the wedding is over and done with and we’ve got our new princess.

Watching the wedding made me feel quite happy really – I love the royals and I’m sure William and Kate will turn more than a few borderline republicans into monarchists. The run-up to the wedding has been absolutely horrendous though – days of inane chatter, clueless hypothesising and utter bollocks from people trying to imply they have some inside knowledge of the wedding because they know the Middleton’s gardener’s milkman’s postman’s next door neighbour.

The big downside of the royal wedding, though, is the proliferation of the union flag and people declaring their pride in being “British”.

The resurgence of the English flag over the last few years has been great. Passing rows of houses with English flags in their gardens and hanging out of their windows is a gratifying sight but the last few days has seen English flags taken down and replaced with the flag of our imperial masters. Even St George’s Day has been largely ignored by shops who decked out their stores with red, white and blue bunting weeks ago. There is a very real danger that people will fly the BNP flag now that they have bought them instead of the Cross of St George, putting back the cause of progressive English nationalism by years.

And as for this ridiculous pride in being “British” – how does that work? How can English people – the citizens of the last colony of the British empire – feel any pride in a non-country that has failed to build an inclusive national identity in over 300 years of existence?

The so-called “United” Kingdom is anything but. The union between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has been superficial from day one and we are no more united now than we were in 1707. This union of four nations has five governments, five flags, four languages, four constitutions, three legal systems, two judiciaries and two royal families – Prince William will be King William V of England and William III of Scotland. “British” is a three century old failed experiment in social engineering that is as irrelevant now as it was before the Act of Union.

I used to describe myself as English first and British second. Now I’m just English. And isn’t it time we had a Prince of England? A much better title for Prince William that Duke of Cambridge!

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