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.
Sky has been told that it may lose its exclusive rights deals with 6 film companies which allows it to show new films first to introduce more competition and give consumers more choice.
This is, of course, what they said about directory enquiries. Before the replacement of the 192 service with 118 number, it cost 50p for a directory enquiries search and it was free from BT phone boxes. Now it’ll now cost you at least £1.75 assuming you can do the whole thing from start to finish in less than a minute.
It’s what they said about deregulating the energy markets and all this competition has led to is increasing bills and consumers being ripped off.
At the moment you have a choice if you want to watch new films when they’re released for TV broadcasting – you can subscribe to Sky Movies or use Sky Box Office or you can wait a few months until they end up on one of the network channels. Ok, you have no choice but to pay Sky for the privilege of watching the film but you’re not tied into subscribing to Sky TV – you can get Sky Movies on Virgin Media and BT Vision.
The truth is, it’s not consumers that need more choice, it’s Sky’s competitors. More competition often does mean better value for consumers but in this case it means more unnecessary cost and less choice for consumers. If Sky, Virgin and BT are all allowed to “share” the exclusive deals then consumers who want to watch all new films as soon as they’re released for TV viewing would have to subscribe to Sky, Virgin and BT Vision. If nobody is allowed to sign exclusive deals with film companies then the film companies lose the money they get from Sky which means they have less money to spend on making and distributing films.
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!
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.
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!
The English Defence League are coming to Telford next weekend to protest in Wellington, motivated by the (alleged) muslim paedophile gang currently standing trail for grooming teenage girls.
Labour councillors have come out in opposition to the march and are getting behind Councillor Mike Ion’s campaign to deny the EDL their right to peaceful protest on the basis that he doesn’t agree with them, rather than concerns about them causing trouble. Councillor Ion does, however, express concerns about violence erupting if fascist left wing thugs like UAF come out to hold their usual violent counter-protests. Councillor Ion’s campaign has even attracted the support of the new leader of Telford & Wrekin Council, Kuldip Singh Sahota which doesn’t bode well for the next four years.
Now Shropshire & Telford Trades Union Council has organised a “unity” counter-protest to celebrate multiculturalism which will be held in another part of Wellington at the same time. Most members of the vicious left wing fascist group, UAF, are union activists as well and will undoubtedly be out in force in Wellington to incite violence.
I have three questions about this counter-protest:
The EDL have a legal right to peaceful protest – it’s in the Human Rights Act. Similarly, union members, UAF, Socialist Workers Party and other left wing fascists have a right to peacefully protest against them. But trades unions? If it’s not in their constitution then the organisers of the protest are acting ultra vires and are leaving themselves open to prosecution from any union member who opposes their action.
What an organ head
A Scottish doctor, Dr Sue Rabbitt Roff, has suggested that English university students should sell one of their kidneys to pay for their tuition fees!
Roff has written on the British Medical Journal website in favour of the right to sell your organs for profit and suggested that those wishing to sell a kidney should receive the national average salary of £28,000 which they might like to use to pay university fees.
Alternatively, we could stop Scottish MPs imposing racist tuition fees on English students by creating an English Parliament so they can’t vote n things that are non of their business. Slightly less extreme than selling your kidney to subsidise free university education in Scotland.
The British government’s ePetitions site has gone live today and failed spectacularly. Even this late in the day it’s still crashing more often than not as it’s not been scaled adequately for the feeding frenzy that was inevitable for its launch. Should have hosted it in a cloud with some other online services that have an annual peak later on in the year and used the latent capacity.
Sorry, should have posted a geek alert.
I’ve signed a few petitions tonight. Obviously I think they’re all important in one way or another otherwise I wouldn’t have signed them but these are my top three so please sign them too!
The reasons why we should have a referendum on membership of the EU are obvious. We’ve given away our sovereignty, our wealth and our resources to the EU. The sooner we’re out of it the better.
The reasons for an English Parliament are similarly obvious. It is a travesty that English still doesn’t have a government of its own and a national insult. England is the last colony of the British Empire, we need to throw off the British yoke and start running our own country for our own benefit.
Reinstating the hereditary peers is something I’ve written about several times. I have always believed it was a regressive step to abolish hereditary peers and the fact the the House of Lords is now full to bursting with politically appointed peers as reward for donations and services rendered backs that belief up. Only hereditary peers can give us the randomness and independence of though that is needed in government.
If any of these petitions reach 100,000 signatures then it will be debated in the House of Commons. 100,000 sounds like a lot but the road pricing petition started by Peter Roberts on the old Downing Street petitions website got almost a million signatures and according to the bods that ran that service, the petition did actually get well over 1m signatures but the site couldn’t cope with the demand and they weren’t all counted. 100,000 signatures is a lot for a petition but it’s not a number that can be dismissed easily.
Of course a debate doesn’t mean a change of policy and one MP (I forget who it was and where I read it) said that MPs should “lead on policy” not listen to what the people want. One thing’s for sure – if they don’t already want to change policy a 100,000 signature online petition certainly isn’t going to make them!
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?
An Indian woman who came to live in England on a Malawian passport is fighting the British government’s refusal to allow her husband and children the right to come and live with her here.
One of the very few restrictions the ConDems have put on immigration is that immigrants from outside the EU must have a basic command of the English language before they’re allowed to move here (immigrants from EU countries can continue to refuse to learn English, hampering integration with society and putting an unnecessary burden on the state).
Vali Chapti refuses to learn to speak English but still wants to come and live in England with his wife. He says that because he’ll be living in Leicester, he doesn’t need to speak English because there are enough people there who speak Gujurati. He and his wife claim that refusing to allow him to move here is a breach of their human rights to marriage and family and said that if they don’t win their appeal they will take the case to “a higher court – the European Court of Human Rights”. Rashida Chapti is being helped by Leicester Labour Councillor, Mian Mayat, who is her “interpretor and advisor”.
I won’t get sidetracked on a rant about how the EU courts have primacy over our own but there is no doubt that the EU Court of Human Rights will rule against the British government. Vali and Rashida Chapti do have a right to live together as a married couple and as a family with their seven children but they don’t have a right to do that in England. Rashida Chapti can leave England and live with her husband and children in India any time she likes, the British government is not preventing her from being with her family.
Immigration is out of control and damaging society and the economy. We don’t have enough jobs and houses to go around the people already living here, let alone the people who want to move here. We don’t have enough money to provide translation services or benefits for people who are unemployable because they don’t speak English. Racial and religious segregation – the result of multiculturalism – is damaging to society, causing social and economic problems and stirring up racial tensions. We need a freeze on economic immigration and then a points-based system applied to all prospective immigrants (including from the EU) to ensure that people moving here have skills that we need, have a home to move into, have the means to support themselves and speak English.
Former Labour MP and convicted fraudster, Jim Devine, has been released from prison after serving just a quarter of his sentence.
Thief
Devine stole over £8k of taxpayers money by submitting fake invoices and was banged up for 16 months ago for it. Releasing him after only 4 months and tagging him is a disgrace but seems to be the the way these thieving MPs are going to be treated. David Chaytor and Eric Illsley have both been released after serving a quarter or less of their sentences for stealing from the taxpayer.
MPs have the lives of millions of people in their hands. They are in a unique position of power and trust and any abuse of that power or trust should be punished severely and without mercy. Devine, Chaytor, Illsley and the other MPs and Peers who’ve been convicted of stealing from the taxpayer should have received longer sentences and they should have been forced to serve the full amount. No time off for good behaviour, no release under licence.
And when they were released from prison they should have been forced to carry out community service in every deprived neighbourhood in the country so they can give something back to the people living below the poverty line that they forced into paying tax on threat of imprisonment who they then stole from.
ConDems: Tough on crime, tough on the consequences of crime.
Here are some letters I’ve had printed in the Shropshire Star recently (italics are bits they edited out before printing) …
English are not to blame for turbines
For the last few weeks there have been a couple of letters a week complaining about the proposed new wind turbines to be erected in Wales “for the English”. The suggestion is that windmills shouldn’t be built in Wales for the benefit of “the English” and that “the English” shouldn’t have any input in planning decisions concerning them.
Not long ago, we had public consultations on the proposed reconfiguring of services at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Princess Royal Hospital. Of the seven consultations held, three were in Wales and the Shropshire Star letters page was full of letters from “the Welsh” complaining about how the proposed changes would be to their detriment.
Talk about double standards. I agree that wind turbines are a blight on the landscape and certainly wouldn’t want them in my back yard. It’s a shame so many of them blight the Welsh landscape as well but if “the Welsh” want someone to blame, it’s not “the English”, it’s their own government.
The Welsh Assembly is committed to onshore wind farms and it is the Welsh Assembly that makes strategic planning decisions in Wales. It’s not “the English” they should be complaining to, it’s “the Welsh”.
Wind turbines are the most inefficient and expensive form of renewable electricity, requiring vast amounts of taxpayers money to make them financially viable for the operators. Windmills are so expensive and ineffectual that operators can’t make back the cost of building and running them before they reach the end of their life.
We should all oppose the construction of windmills not for their unsightliness or because they’re being built to power another country but because they are a gross waste of taxpayers money and the justification for building them – global warming – is nothing more than a scam. Even NASA is predicting a period of global cooling because of a decline in sunspot activity (something the “scientists” who make millions from the global warming scam claim has no significant impact on the climate).
Councillor Stuart Parr
UKIP
Brookside
We must not deny the right to protest
I read with disbelief that Councillor Mike Ion is calling for the Home Secretary to ban a proposed march by the English Defence League in Wellington on the day of AFC Telford United’s first match of the season.
Here is a man who apparently cares so deeply about democracy that he went to the effort and expense of standing for election to the council but then starts a campaign to deny EDL members their right to peaceful protest – one of the cornerstones of modern democracy!
The 19th century author, Evelyn Hall, wrote “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”. We may not agree with the EDL but that is not an excuse to deny them their rights.
Mike Ion and the other Labour councillors that are supporting his fascist campaign should hang their heads in shame. I believe in free speech and democracy and that sometimes means having to hear and accept things that you don’t agree with. Banning people from expressing contrary views is something you associate with repressive regimes in places like China or Burma, not England.
The EDL should be allowed to hold a peaceful protest in Wellington and if Unite Against Fascism wish to hold a peaceful counter-protest then of course they should be free to do the same. Personally, I despise the UAF thugs that drag these protest marches into violence but I certainly wouldn’t want them to be banned from protesting.
If Councillor Ion is successful in banning the EDL from marching in Telford not because of a risk of serious public disorder but because he disagrees with them, this will set a dangerous precedent. Who would be next? Would I be banned from criticising the EU because my views are contrary to those of the LibLabCon?
I would urge anyone who opposes the EDL to simply ignore them on the day rather than support an undemocratic, unconstitutional ban on their right to peaceful protest.
Councillor Stuart Parr
UKIP
Brookside
Dismayed by figures on child poverty
Like Councillor Davies (21/06), I am dismayed by the child poverty figures produced by the “End Child Poverty” campaign.
In my ward (Brookside) the figures show that 38% of children are living in poverty.
I disagree to some extent with the methodology the group uses. Poverty is defined by the group as a household income of 60% less than UK middle income of almost £26,000 but an average middle income in Telford is around £19,000. Rent/mortgage payments are taken off household income even though most households with an income of just £10,000 would receive housing benefit. The figures are also “adjusted” in an unspecified way as the only available data is 3 years old.
That doesn’t mean the figures don’t have any value – they may not be an accurate measure of poverty in Telford & Wrekin but they are a useful indicator of relative poverty in the borough and the fact that Brookside is in the top 5 most deprived wards in Telford & Wrekin only makes the borough council’s refusal to press ahead with much-needed generation on our estate all the more indefinsible.
The best way to tackle poverty is not with handouts but with jobs and support. Brookside desperately needs some serious investment to create jobs and provide support to people who want to get off benefits and start working.
With the latest announcement of funding from the borough council, Woodside will have had £70m spent on regeneration whilst Brookside has had nothing – in fact, £2m of the £4m set aside for regeneration for Brookside was pillaged by the previous administration to pay for regeneration in Sutton Hill!
The owners of the businesses in the Brookside local centre have done their best to make the precinct more appealing to residents but with an open-ended promise of regeneration they aren’t going to make any serious investment when the whole thing could be knocked down within a couple of years. We need a commitment to regeneration from the borough council with timelines so the residents of Brookside can hold the council to account if it doesn’t happen and so that those people that want to invest in Brookside can make plans for the future.
Cllr Stuart Parr (UKIP)
Brookside
Electorate following habits of parents
David Burton is incorrect in his response to Simon Rogers’ letter claiming last year’s general election was a referendum on our membership of the EU.
The general election was no more a referendum on the EU or UKIP than it was on foreign policy, the environment, devolution or any other subject that motivates the electorate at any other time.
Generations of voters have put their cross next to one of the europhile parties for no other reason than their parents voted for Labour, the Lib Dems or the Conservatives and last year they did exactly the same thing.
The vast majority of people want to free our country from the tyranny of the European Empire but the British government won’t listen.
The electorate are lied to, conned and stolen from by politicians from the LibLabcon but most people still vote for them.
Why would they listen if they know they can rely on the votes of people they cheat and deceive? Kick them in the ballot box and they might start listening.
And while I’m on the subject of elections, can I remind the Shropshire Star that the Lib Dem, Liz Lynne, is not “the MEP for Shropshire” as she is routinely described?
She is just one of six MEPs – three Conservative, two UKIP and one Lib Dem – elected in the West Midlands euroregion in 2009. None of the West Midlands MEPs (including Liz Lynee who is based in Stratford-upon-Avon) is based in the county which shows what a farce the EU’s regionalisation of England is.
Councillor Stuart Parr
(UKIP)
Brookside
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.
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 British government is graciously allowing the proles in England and Wales to vote for police commissioners.
We want the vote on the EU Constitution/Lisbon Treaty that we were promised and we get a vote on changing the voting system from one undemocratic system to another, marginally less undemocratic system. We want a vote on devolved government for England and we get a vote on who fills out the race and faith diversity forms in our local police force.
Electoral and constitutional reform is worth bugger all unless it actually makes a change to peoples’ lives (for the better of course) and it’s something people actually want.
Kia Abdullah, a Guardian columnist, has apologised for making fun of the death of three teenagers in a coach crash in Thailand.
The three boys – all educated at a state school – were taking a gap year and ended up in Thailand where they were involved in a bus crash that killed them instantly.
The well paid, wealthy left wing class warrior said:
Is it really awful that I don’t feel any sympathy for anyone killed on a gap year?
Erm, yes.
I actually smiled when I saw that they had double-barrelled surnames. Sociopath?
Sociopath? “Another name for psychopath […] a person with an antisocial personality disorder”. Erm, yes again. Actually, combined with that natural hatred for society that seems part and parcel of being a Guardian writer I would say misanthropist is a more accurate description. Or just “hateful bitch”, possibly.
Kia Abdullah is just another left wing hack turned out of the hateful Guardian mould. They’re all toy soldiers in the war against society. Anyone who criticises someone from an ethnic minority is a racist. Anyone who criticises a religion other than Christianity is a fascist. Anyone who thinks we should stop giving half our income to the state to pay for cheerleader development officers, diversity co-ordinators or simply just paying people not to work is an evil right wing baby-eating capitalist. Anyone who thinks everyone should be treated equally rather than encouraging a culture of “positive discrimination” for any perceived minority is a sexist/racist/disablist/other -ist.
The Guardian is a hate-filled communist rag that I wouldn’t wipe my arse on and their writers are equally beyond redemption. The tax-dodging Guardian is a rag for prehistoric trade unionists, champagne socialists, angry students and rich people with pictures of Ché Guevara on their walls who feel guilty about having lots of money but don’t feel guilty enough to give it away. In other words, the ideal home for misanthropists and sociopaths like Kia Abdullah, Polly Toynbee and all the other horrible left wing hypocrites.
Once again I have to defend myself against the de facto leader of the English Democrats, Steve Uncles.
Some time ago Uncles wrote a letter to Sinn Féin offering to change English Democrats policy (that’s how policies are made in the EDP – Steve Uncles comes up with some batshit idea and hey presto it’s policy) to one of kicking Northern Ireland out of the UK and forcing them into unification with the Republic of Ireland in return for a bribe from Sinn Féin for his bankrupt party.
Naturally, Sinn Féin ignored him as he and his party are both non-entities and even convicted terrorists have some standards when it comes to dealing with lowlifes.
But as part of his fascist campaign against Northern Ireland, Uncles started a Facebook page called “Campaign to get Northern Ireland out of the UK”. I wanted to make sure everyone who came across it knew who was behind the page so I posted the following comment on the wall of the page:
This page is the work of Steve Uncles of the English Democrats who wrote to Sinn Féin offering to adopt a policy of uniting NI with the Republic of Ireland in return for them bankrolling his party. There’s not a lot Uncles won’t do to get his £26,241 back from the party which isn’t surprising given that they are so heavily in debt and still got beaten by the Monster Raving Loony Party not long ago.
Steve Uncles doesn’t speak for England, most English people wouldn’t force a nation of 2m people to join another country against their will in return for a bribe from the political wing of a terrorist organisation.
As users of Facebook will know, before you can post a comment on the wall of a page you have to “like” it. Which I did for as long as it took me to post the comment and then I immediately clicked the “unlike” link and removed myself from the page, leaving the comment exposing this terrorist-appeasing lowlife on the wall.
Predictably, the comment was soon taken off the wall of the Facebook page by Uncles but in order to try and damage my reputation, he has taken a screenshot of his status update showing me “liking” the page so I could post the comment and posted it on his English Passport blog without telling people that I only did it to post the above comment on the wall which he has deleted and telling them that I support his fascist campaign.
And of course he has mentioned the fact that I am in UKIP (which he tried to defect to this year but was knocked back) and the Campaign for an English Parliament (which he got thrown out of this year for bringing the campaign into disrepute) to try and damage their reputations with his lies as well.
Here is the comment I posted in response to Uncles’ libel on his English Passport blog which he still hasn’t approved (and probably never will because he’s a dishonest little turd):
And here is a screenshot of the wall of the Victims of Steve Uncles page on Facebook posted straight after I commented on Uncles’ page:
So will Steve Uncles, the lying, fascist, terrorist-appeasing lowlife failure be man enough to admit that he has deliberately mislead people and libelled me? A complaint has been made to WordPress about the libel Steve Uncles has made in contravention of their Terms of Service and an email will be sent off to his attack poodle, the ineffectual “technically” leader of the English Democrats (and practising solicitor) Robin Tilbrook who I assume is Uncles’ personal solicitor as he is the one who makes all the threats and complaints against anyone who criticises the terrorist-appeaser nowadays.
Update:
Not content with libelling me, the terrorist sympathiser is now impersonating me rather than publishing my comments exposing his deception. This is the best thing about terrorist sympathising scum like Steve Uncles – give them enough rope and they’ll hang themselves. I think you’re going to need a better solicitor than Robin for this one Steve. He couldn’t even manage to win a racial discrimination case for his own party when the bank admitted to racially discriminating against you, I don’t fancy his chances of getting you off this one!
I’m away on a training course this week and staying in a rather nice two-bedroom apartment in an old manor house-type thing (I think it might be Edwardian judging by the windows) on the bank of the Thames with a colleague.
The place is covered with wi-fi which is pretty essential if you’re away from home even if it is barely faster than dial-up. But dial-up would have been an improvement over the broadband last night and today.
The signal strength was fine but the connection to the outside world was dropping every few minutes so I went to the site office to report it. As I walked into the office I saw someone vaguely techy looking standing in the doorway to a broom cupboard filled with servers, switches and wi-fi routers. Ah-ha, I thought, they’ve got someone on the case already. But no, he wasn’t a techy at all and was, in fact, merely holding the door open so that the electric fan that they’d stood in there pointing at the rack could do its job of cooling the cupboard down!
It’s been a rather toasty, globally warmed 30 degrees celsius down here in Surrey and it appears that the broom cupboard they are using as a server room is not only unventilated but doesn’t have aircon either. By the time I got back to the apartment the internet seemed to be behaving so they either threw a web monkey at it in super-quick time or their wi-fi router doesn’t run well when it’s hot enough to fry and egg on it and the fan was doing the job.
Either way, I’m connected to the outside world again and I’ll appreciate my 20mbit broadband at home a little bit more when I get back.
The British government have announced a £2.2m funding package for the BBC Arabic service after the BBC announced it was closing it as part of its cost-cutting measures.
Apparently the “valuable work” it does in the Middle East is more valuable than, say, the cost of 100 life saving courses of the breast cancer treatment, Herceptin, for English women who are left to die because the “National” Institute for Clinical Excellence thinks £20k is too high a price to save an English life. Or providing free university tuition for a year for 222 English students who have been priced out of university education by the British government’s English university tuition fees.
Members of the NUT and ATL teachers’ unions are going on strike next week over proposals to make changes to their taxpayer-subsidised gold-plated pensions.
The Hutton Report recommends raising the retirement age, paying less out and requiring more in contributions and it is this suggestion that public sector workers should feel some of the pain as the rest of the population that has driven the unions into a frenzy.
Over the last decade, teachers’ pay has increased above inflation, they get three times as many paid holidays as most other professions and have generous public sector pensions for relatively small contributions. Meanwhile, in the private sector over the past few years we’ve seen unemployment go through the roof, pay frozen or even cut and pensions pillaged by the British Treasury to pay for, amongst other things, public sector pensions.
It’s not just teachers that are being incredibly selfish over public sector cutbacks though, it’s the public sector as a whole. Lots of public sector unions are proposing strikes to try and protect their privileged taxpayer-funded terms and conditions. Only this week a UNISON rep was on the radio saying that Shropshire Council workers were going on strike over cutbacks t0 their perks saying “we’re not asking for anything that nobody else has got”. This was moments after explaining that two of the things they were striking over were guaranteed payrises and being paid a mileage allowance to drive to and from work. How many people in the private sector get guaranteed payrises just for turning up and not getting sacked or paid by the mile to drive to work in a morning?
Because of the strikes next week, one of my kids won’t be allowed to go to school because his teacher is going on strike (the only one in the school). That I don’t mind but another one is supposed to be doing his two link days at secondary school next week as he starts secondary school in September. His link days have been cancelled, not even postponed. He will go to secondary school in September not knowing his teachers, who is in his class, where his classroom will be or any of the other things they learn on these two days. And all because some teachers don’t like the idea of having to pay for their own damn pensions.
The British Olympic Committee have caused outrage in Scotland and Wales by lying in a press release announcing the FA’s (or the English FA as they should more accurately be known) unilateral decision to field an English football team as “Team GB” in the Olympics.
The BOA has claimed that an “historic agreement” has been reached to allow players from all four home nations to play in a GB football team but the Scottish and Welsh FAs have both released statements saying they have been part of no such agreements and they will not take part in “Team GB”.
There is very little support for a “Team GB” football team in the Olympics. Support is pretty much restricted to British politicians in England, the English FA, the BOA and FIFA. The corrupt President of FIFA, Sepp Blatter, has said on more than one occasion that there should only be one football team in the UK. The fan associations of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all opposed to the idea of a “Team GB” football team, the Scottish FA is opposed to the idea of a “Team GB” football team, the Welsh FA is opposed to the idea of a “Team GB” football team, the Northern Irish FA is opposed to the idea of a “Team GB” football team. Which event has had the most unsold tickets for the 2012 Olympics? Yep, football – nobody wants to see an English football team running round the pitch with union flags on their shirts.
