The Act of Union was ratified in the Scottish Parliament on the 16th January 1707.
What will you be doing to celebrate the Act of Union?
Personally, I’ll mark the occassion by calling for the repeal of the Act of Union and the establishment of a federal British government.
A “muslim expert” has called for the NHS to provide a faith-based service.
He calls on the cash-strapped National Health Service to provide better access to prayer facilities, more information on alcohol-based treatments, circumcision of children and guaranteed same-sex medical staff.
The NHS is already short of cash and this is an unncessary and unreasonable demand to make of it. There are plenty of private muslim doctors if it is that much of an issue but there is no reason whatsoever why we should have to provide a special Islamified health service in a non-muslim country.
The European Parliament has a strange system of political groups in place of political parties.
The EPP is probably the best known of these groups in England, being the eurofederalist right wing group that David Cameron pledged to withdraw from when he became leader of the Conservatives but didn’t much to the annoyance of the majority eurosceptic party membership.
The European Parliament rules on creating new groups are that there must be a minimum 19 MEP’s from 5 different countries to form the group. Under these rules, a new far-right group has been created including the French National Front, Austrian Freedom Party, Vlaams Belang, Greater Romania Party, National Union Attack (Bulgarian), Alternativa Sociale (Italian), Fiamma Tricolore (Italy) and Ashley Mote MEP.
The French National Front needs no explanation, nor should National Union Attack. Vlaams Belang are Flemish nationalists – the Belgian equivalent of Plaid Cymru. Alternativa Sociale and Fiamma Tricolore are Italian Facists. The Austrian Freedom Party are neo-Nazi’s and the Greater Romania Party are a xenophobic, homophobic, anti-semetic party.
Ashley Mote is a former UKIP MEP who was booted out after being charged with housing benefit fraud.
The following West Midlands NO! campaign article appeared in the Birmingham Post on 27th December:
If someone were to tell you that the biggest threat to England right now was regionalisation you would probably laugh at them but it’s true and it’s happening right now.
England is infested with regional quango’s – all unelected and all paid for by the taxpayer – yet most people have never heard of them, let alone know what it is that they do with our money.
Test the theory now – ask the next 10 people you have a conversation with what the West Midlands Regional Assembly does. How many said they’d never even heard of the West Midlands Regional Assembly? Probably all of them and it’s hardly surprising.
The only regional quango that publicises itself – or rather what it does – is Advantage West Midlands. AWM is actually the West Midlands Regional Development Agency by another name. Recently, through the local press, the new chairman of AWM asked the people of the West Midlands how they would like them to spend their £10,000,000,000 budget next year. Count the zero’s – that’s £10 billion of taxpayers money given to an unelected regional development agency to spend as they see fit with the proviso that they believe the money is being spent for the good of the region.
Advantage West Midlands is almost unique amongst the regional quango’s in that it comes under the jurisdiction of the Freedom of Information Act which means that, even though we can’t actually do anything about it, we can at least see what it is they’re up to. This isn’t the case for other regional quango’s – the Regional Assembly being the biggest of these – who are immune from the Freedom of Information Act and can operate in complete secrecy.
There are two main drivers behind regionalisation in England. The first is the EU, which has divided every member state into regions. The reasoning behind this is twofold: firstly, the EU is large and diverse and dividing it into regions makes it easier to govern; secondly, replacing national identities with regional identities will make it easier to subsume member states into a European Federation. The second main driver is the difficulty the Labour Party has in maintaining a majority in England. Dividing England into 9 regions, each with its own regional parliament, would mean that adding only 4 of the 9 English regions to Labour’s virtually guaranteed vote in Scotland and Wales would enable the party to govern England with the support of less than half of the country.
Two years ago, John Prescott ordered referenda in each of the 9 English regions on having an elected Regional Assembly. The Regional Assemblies would have limited powers devolved to them from central government and would have taken away some powers from local authorities. The North East region was chosen to hold the first referendum as it was the region thought to have the highest level of support for regional government. The referendum resulted in a 78% no vote – the biggest referendum defeat of any British government in history. However, rather than abandoning the regionalisation project, Mr Prescott merely cancelled the remaining referenda and gave the unelected regional assemblies more powers.
The English public’s rejection of regional assemblies and the EU’s insistence on regional government left the British government with a dilemma and the answer was city regions.
The West Midlands will be the first place to have a city region – the Birmingham, Black Country and Coventry City Region. Despite only covering the urban areas of the West Midlands euroregion, the City Region has the potential to have a damaging impact on the whole region. This is because, unlike the Regional Assembly and other region-wide quango’s, the City Region will only concern itself with the urban areas in the West Midlands, sucking jobs, investment and funding out of the rural parts of the region. You might think this won’t affect you in the metropolis that is Birmingham, but ask yourself this: if farms and other local food producers go out of business, how much more expensive is your weekly shopping bill going to be? Are there enough jobs in the cities for these unemployed country folk?
Whilst Birmingham will undoubtedly dominate the City Region, some concessions will have to be made to the other towns and cities involved. Working with other local authorities on mutually beneficial projects is a good thing but what about when something that benefits the rest of the City Region doesn’t benefit Birmingham? Would you be happy to accept something that might cost jobs or investment in Birmingham for the benefit of Solihull or Walsall?
The City Region will fundamentally change the way local government works in the West Midlands yet despite nobody ever having stood for election on a manifesto of creating this City Region, the local authorities involved all claim to have a democratic mandate to do so. Not one of the local authorities involved will hold a referendum and so far none have held public consultations.
The City Region has plans to gain tax raising powers and to become the planning authority for all the local authorities in the City Region. Councillors and “business leaders” from Coventry or Telford could end up casting the deciding vote on whether or not Mr Smith can build a garage in his garden in Aston or whether a school in Edgbaston can build a new classroom.
As is the norm with all regional government, nobody will be elected to the City Region cabinet. The Leader and Chief Executive of each council will be appointed to the City Region executive board and oversight committee respectively. They will be joined by “business leaders” who will also be appointed based on their pro-Labour, pro-EU and pro-regional credentials.
The Minister for Communities and Local Government has expressed concern about the accountability of an unelected City Region and small wonder. Scrutiny of the City Region’s work will be provided by the unelected Regional Assembly and Advantage West Midlands – kind of like the lunatics running the asylum!
Regional government is unelected, undemocratic, unaccountable and unwanted. Millions of pounds of taxpayers money is spent on keeping this vast regional bureaucracy in existence, pitting region against region instead of working together to tackle the real problems facing the country and the West Midlands.
Two Conservative peers – Lord Pearson of Rannoch and Lord Willoughby de Broke – have defected to UKIP.
The two peers are forming a UKIP group in the House of Lords in protest at the lack of “sufficiently Eurosceptic policy” in the Conservative Party. They go on to say that UKIP are the “only party telling the truth” about Europe.
We must keep on scrutinising quango
SIR — I read, with interest, the debate about the proposed Worcestershire unitary authority.
There are, to my knowledge, two county councils in the West Midlands proposing a unitary authority – Worcestershire and Shropshire.
In Shropshire, the proposal is being supported by councillors Pate and Mosley — both are members of the unelected West Midlands Regional Assembly.
In Worcestershire, the proposal is being supported by councillors Lord and Buckley – both are also members of the regional assembly. Co incidence?
Replacing district councils with unitary authorities is perfect for unelected taxpayer-funded regional quangos. It means there are fewer people scrutinising what they do, fewer people to lean on when something needs doing and less money being spent on local government, which partly negates the argument that we don’t need another tier of draining our taxes.
STUART PARR,
West Midlands No!,
Telford.
Comments on West Midlands NO! please.
Jack McConnell, First Minister of North Britain, has promised to give Scotland the best education system in the world by 2020.
He plans to open specialist centres of excellence to push bright pupils and to make it compulsary for all 16 and 17 year olds to be in education, training or a job.
There’s no mention of how he’s going to pay for it though. North Britain currently has an £11.3bn budget deficit which will rise again next year as the Scottish Executive continues to spend, spend, spend and the Chancellor continues to give, give, give. How will it be paid for? By more English taxes of course!
An Illiberal Democrat councillor at Bridgnorth suggests that Bridgnorth District Council’s decision to defer a second vote on a unitary authority for Shropshire whilst the chairman of the council was on holiday (the chairman had cast the deciding no vote last time) was of dubious legality because it was a common law from 1895.
Said councillor has been well and truly fisked on West Midlands NO!.
No mention of English people in our anthem
I read the letter by Mr R Dunn, of Telford, regarding the national anthem and the monarchy. Surely he ought to get his facts right before putting pen to paper.
I would point out the anthem he refers to is a German anthem. It was chosen by a German monarchy (Saxe-Coburg Gotha) who acquired the English throne. The lyrics were designed to consolidate and strengthen their hold on the English throne and the English people. You will notice that it’s all about praising the monarch. The English people and the English country get no mention.
The Welsh national anthem is all about Wales, the Welsh language and the Welsh people.
When the Germans took over the English throne they could not speak a single word of English. They felt vulnerable and threatened. Do you not think that it is a shame to fool the English people?
Tom Williams, Telford
The unelected Scottish Lord Chancellor of England, Charlie Falconer, is backing Gordon Brown for Prime Minister.
So far only two MP’s have been mooted as replacements from Bliar – Gordon Brown and John Reid, both of which are Scots and have constituencies in Scotland.
I may regret this but I’m getting Mrs Sane into blogging. :s
She’s obsessed with reality TV so she’s started blogging about it with Reality Show Zone.
Source: BBC News
Breaking news this one, literally just been posted on the BBC News website.
A British muslim who chanted “bomb, bomb, bomb Denmark, bomb, bomb, bomb USA” has been convicted on charges of soliciting murder and uses words likely to stir up racial hatred.
About bloody time – these new illiberal laws supposedly targetting terrorists but, in reality, mainly shits on the majority of law abiding citizens were completely unnecessary because incitement to murder is already a crime. Not only is it a crime but it is a relevant piece of legislation and one that can be used successfully to convict those who want to cause harm to us or incite others to do so.
I’ve made my views known on many occassions on electing the Lords and the disaster that this will prove to be for democracy in this country.
One of the main reasons why an elected upper house would be a disaster is because it would expose the House of Lords to the party politics that plagues the House of Commons where the party comes before constituents and principles.
Rather than electing the House of Lords, if we are to have an extra election then I suggest we elect the Prime Minister.
As much as it pains me to say it, the Americans actually do elections better than we do. In the US, the only thing stopping an independent becoming President (the closest office to that of Prime Minister here) is the fact that 95% of American people wouldn’t vote for anyone who isn’t a Republican or Democrat.
In the UK, it is impossible for an independent to be Prime Minister. Ok, technically it’s possible – the Queen asks the leader of the party that wins the majority of seats in the election to form a government. The leader then takes the office of Prime Minister although this is only convention – there is nothing stopping the leader of the party appointing someone else as Prime Minister. Similarly, it is only convention that says that the Queen asks the leader of the majority party to form a government – there is nothing legally stopping the Queen from asking any other MP from forming a government. But lets be honest, it’s not going to happen any more than the Queen is going to sack Tony Bliar, dissolve Parliament, call a general election and refuse to give royal ascent to the next illiberal piece of legislation the Labour Stazi foist on us.
The House of Lords is subject to the whims of Parliament. Should a peer – hereditary or not – act out of turn they can be barred from the upper house and/or stripped of their peerage by Parliament. To whose whim is the Prime Minister subject? The Queen can sack him but she won’t. His party could sack him but they won’t. A vote of no confidence could be called but Labour still has a majority in the House of Commons so the vote would be doomed to failure and the party would still hold power.
No, the only answer is to hold elections to the office of Prime Minister. This is the only way that any person eligible to stand for Parliament can become the leader of this country instead of restricting the position only to those who sell their souls to a political party.
EU Serf has an article on why the EU is unreformable.
The main crux of the argument is that the European Federation is political, will do whatever it can to perpetuate its own existence and that, in a nutshell, they want something that we don’t.
Can’t argue with it really. The main problem with the concept of the European Federation is that popular and enduring unions are between parties that have something in common. Eastern Europe is different to Western Europe. Northern Europe is different to Southern Europe. The UK is all on its own being different to the rest of the continent. Half of Europe uses Napoleonic Law, the other half doesn’t. The UK has a legal system that doesn’t fit in with the rest of the continent. Eastern Europe is poor, Western Europe is relatively wealthy. Northern Europe has a different work ethic to Southern Europe. But most importantly, there is no single European identity that binds the member states of the federation together. The USA is equally as diverse as Europe but they have a national identity to bind the states together. The European Federation doesn’t have this, nor will it ever have one – there’s too much history, too many disagreements and too much diversity.
With the ascension at midnight of Bulgaria and Romania, the European Federation buildings in Brussels must be getting a bit full.
Maybe it’s time we helped them out and vacated some office space. All we need to do is repeal the European Communities Act and they can have the UK’s offices.
Membership of the European Federation is going to be more expensive than ever now that England is required to subsidise another two bankrupt eastern European states and the European Federation wants to impose direct taxation on citizens.
The Islamists trying to overthrow the vaguely legitimate Somali government have lost their last stronghold thanks to Ethiopian troops.
The Somali government have offered talks with the Islamists but they refuse to talk until the Ethiopians have left the country.
It’s early days yet – the Somali government is weak and the African Union are reluctant to help out but for the time being at least, another country has escaped Islamification.
The minimum age for buying cigarettes and tobacco products is to rise to 18 from October this year.
The new age limit will only apply to England and Wales and will bring England and Wales into line with the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia who also have a minimum age of 18.
Increasing the minimum legal age for smoking is a good idea, as is the smoking ban. However, what is really needed is a full smoking ban. Bugger the arguments about the amount of taxes coming from the sale of tobacco products and how the NHS would fall apart without them – smokers are a drain on the NHS and to be perfectly honest, I don’t trust the pro-smoking pressure groups’ assertions to the contrary and more than I believe the unionist argument that England will be devastated by the loss of north sea oil and gas when Scotland declares independence.
As a full smoking ban is unlikely to take place, how about putting a vegetable dye in cigarettes so the smoke they produce comes out brown? That would have two positive effects – firstly, it would stop fags from being seen as “cool” by kids and secondly, it would easily identify people smoking foreign fags (most of which will have been smuggled into the country) because they won’t be producing dirty brown smoke.
The voting has concluded and all that remains is to announce the winner of the 2006 Twat of the Year award.
In total, 389 votes have been cast with the top 4 (Tony Bliar, John Prescott, Gordon Brown and David Cameron) accounting for 80% of the votes between them. The top 4 all held the top spot at some point in the voting although Cameron’s eventual drop to 4th place can probably be attributed to Iain Dale posting a link to the poll.
Anyway, enough vague speculation and on to the matter in hand. The final standings are as follows:
| Tony Bliar | 86 (22%) | |
| John Prescott | 80 (21%) | |
| Gordon Brown | 79 (20%) | |
| David Cameron | 67 (17%) | |
| Charlie Falconer | 24 (6%) | |
| Ian Bliar | 20 (5%) | |
| Minge Campbell | 12 (3%) | |
| Geoff Hoon | 9 (2%) | |
| Peter Hain | 7 (2%) | |
| AA Gill | 5 (1%) |
I must say, I’m surprised that last years winner, AA Gill, ended up at the bottom of the list but it shows just how bad the others have been to have ended up with more votes than the man who called the English a cancer and wrote an article in the Times explaining exactly why he hates the English people.
So, on to the winner – our glorious overlord, Traitor Blair. Still clinging on to power by his fingertips, working on his legacy whilst keeping the seat warm for his celtic successor, he hasn’t been too busy to really piss off the majority of the population.
Tony, nobody likes you, nobody wants you. You are the 2006 Twat of the Year.
Update: a certificate can be viewed here which has been sent to the traitor via this email to fax address.
