Wonko's World | Vox clamantis in Anglia

English Democrats admit committing electoral fraud

April 18, 2013 wonkotsane EDP 4 comments

Steve Uncles, the political brian behind the English Democrats, has admitted that the party have committed electoral fraud in Kent.

Kent County Council and Kent Police are already investigating what were believed to be fraudulent nomination papers backed up by fraudulent entries on the electoral register. A tweet on his English Passport Twitter account confirms that they have submitted fraudulent nomination papers and by extension, that the entries on the electoral register used to verify the fraudulent nominations are also fraudulent.

English Pisspot Electoral Fraud Admission

From Steve Uncles’ Twitter account

Here’s what Kent County Council has to say on the use of assumed names on nomination papers (emphasis mine):

The nomination paper must include the candidate’s full name, with the surname first. The name should be as it is appears on the electoral register. Do not use any title or prefix such as Mr, Mrs, Dr. The format should be: Miller, Andrew John. Commonly used surname(s) and forename(s) are now permitted providing that they are not likely to mislead or confuse electors, and are not obscene or offensive. A candidate can only state a commonly used name on the nomination paper if they actually commonly use a name which is different from their full name as follows: Miller, Andrew John (commonly known as Andy).

The maximum penalty for committing electoral fraud is 6 months in prison.

The Maggie protesters are doing it wrong

April 17, 2013 wonkotsane General 3 comments

Rubbish on the streets of London pre-Thatcher

Progress

Maggie’s funeral was on the telly today while I was cooking my lunch and it occurred to me that these kids protesting about her time in power before they were born are going about it all wrong.

If they really want to make a statement they need to converge on London, pile up bags of rubbish in the street and stop everyone from working for more than 3 days a week. They could maybe spend all their benefits on junk and then take out some payday loans to pay their bills.

That’ll send a clear message to everyone how badly they yearn for a return to the golden age of pre-Thatcher socialist England.

Telford & Wrekin cancel St George’s Day

April 14, 2013 wonkotsane St George, Telford 3 comments

Anyone looking forward to this year’s St George’s Day celebrations in the Town Park is going to be disappointed – it’s been cancelled.

According to Telford & Wrekin Council’s Arts & Culture Service Manager, the number of events the council puts on has been scaled back due to budget constraints and St George’s Day has been cancelled. Instead, they want to start an annual festival in the park during the summer.

The Stone Cross St George’s Day parade in West Brom regularly attracts over 25,000 people who parade through the town and finish up in Dartmouth Park for music, entertainment and a market. The parade attracts people from all over the country and provides an enormous boost to the local economy.

Since the council moved from the civic offices to Addenbrooke House, they don’t even fly our national flag any more and now they’ve decided that our national day isn’t important enough to celebrate. There are six flag poles on the entrance to Ironmasters Way where there the council’s new offices are so there is no shortage of opportunities to fly the flag and if there is money for a summer festival, there is money for St George’s Day.

The Stone Cross St George’s Day parade is organised by local residents and funded from donations after Sandwell Council, like Telford & Wrekin, decided that our national day wasn’t worth celebrating. If that’s the only way our patron saint’s day will be celebrated in Telford & Wrekin then we will have to organise future events ourselves. If you’d like to be involved in organising a St George’s Day event for next year then please get in touch.

RIP Margaret Thatcher

April 8, 2013 wonkotsane General 9 comments

Margaret Thatcher died peacefully this morning after suffering a stroke.

Baroness Thatcher was a controversial character, loved by the right and viciously hated by the left. She started off well but during the later years of her term in office the line between strong leader and stubborn dictator were blurred.

While there will be partying in the streets by left wing politicians and trade unionists, most will be saddened by her death. I grew up in a household that suffered by Thatcher’s later policies and she was certainly far from popular in our family but as time has gone on it is clear that her successors all, without exception, pale in comparison. I would rather endure a decade under Thatcher of old than a year under these LibLabCon cretins.

British government gives 11% of English EU funding to Scotland, Wales & NI

April 2, 2013 wonkotsane Apartheid, Federal Europe, Traitors 3 comments

When David Cameron secured his “historic” reduction of the increase in the EU budget it was on the condition that the UK ended up paying more whilst everyone else’s bill went down.

Thief

One of the mechanisms for making us pay more was a reduction in the amount of our money the EU gives us back as structural funding. Predictably, the British government has found a way to make England feel a disproportionate amount of the pain of the increased membership costs of being in the EU by skimming 11% off the money allocated in the EU budget to England and sharing it out between Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to cushion them from the effects of the reduced structural funding. As the only net contributor to the British Treasury, England is already responsible for paying a disproportionate amount of the cost of being in the EU making it doubly unfair for the hard working English taxpayer.

The Local Government Association have criticised the plans to deprive England of desperately needed structural funding and have predictably called for “devolution” of power and funding to local authorities. The LGA is just one of the organisations that respond to the discrimination against the English with calls for the balkanisation of England and local government reorganisation as a weak and ineffectual English equivalent to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies.

This is yet more proof that the English just can’t trust the British to protect their interests or even just treat them fairly. We need an English Parliament now more than ever.

McKay Commission fails to answer West Lothian Question

March 25, 2013 wonkotsane Apartheid, Constitution, WTF? 7 comments

The McKay Commission on the West Lothian Question has reported today with the conclusion that not addressing the West Lothian Question is unsustainable and that nothing should be changed to address the West Lothian Question.

British government puts Scot in charge of commission deciding whether Scots should vote on English laws

The report says that English-only legislation should be supported by a majority of British MPs representing constituencies in England and that they should pass a resolution saying that they’re not going to do it again.

And that’s it – no ban on British MPs from constituencies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland from voting on laws that are devolved in their own country, nothing to prevent a repeat of the shameful way Scottish MPs voted through foundation hospitals and university tuition fees for England. The procedures of the British House of Commons “should be changes to encourage MPs to follow this approach” (my emphasis).

The report says that instead of requiring a majority of MPs representing constituencies in England to pass a bill affecting England only, they should just publish the voting record of MPs representing constituencies in England alongside the final result.

If a government was seen to have failed to attract the support of a majority of MPs from England [or England and Wales] for business affecting those interests, it would be likely to sustain severe political damage.

This is pie in the sky stuff from the Scotsman the Brits ironically put in charge of this English commission. It was well publicised at the time and has continued to be well publicised that it was British MPs elected in Scotland who imposed tuition fees on English students yet despite all the campaigns and violent protests about them being introduced (and then tripled) there has been no mention of this fact by the campaigners, protesters or the media. In fact, the executive summary of the report also fails to mention these votes, raising the prospect of it happening but then dismissing it by pointing out that the party with a majority in the British Parliament has only had a minority in England twice which is completely irrelevant.

Specifically it raises the possibility that a majority opinion among MPs from England on such laws could be outvoted by a UK-wide majority of all UK MPs. But it is extremely rare for this to happen. Since 1919, only in the short-lived parliaments of 1964–66 and February–October 1974 has the party or coalition forming the UK Government not also enjoyed a majority in England.

The report recognises that “people in England are unhappy about the existing arrangements and support change” but ignores – by cherry picking the surveys it quotes – the fact that the majority of that support for change is for an English Parliament. It goes on to say that British MPs representing constituencies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should not be banned from voting on English matters because that “would create two different classes of MP” completely missing the point that there are already two different classes of MP – those who can vote on domestic affairs in their own constituency and those who can’t, those who can vote on laws for another country where the people affected can’t hold them to account and those who can be held to account by every voter their decisions affect.

The commission report says that the democratic deficit in England as a result of the botched devolution deal that left England out is accidental:

In the absence of change in the way the House of Commons works, the consequence – clearly unintended, but nonetheless important – may be to impede the voicing of any distinctively English concerns, or perceived concerns, that exist on wholly or mainly English matters.

I don’t believe for a moment that the way England is treated as a British colony is accidental and the refusal of the British government to release the minutes of the 1997 Cabinet meetings on devolution makes me all the more suspicious. The spurious excuse for withholding the minutes is that it would undermine the principle of collective decision making but last week Margaret Thatcher’s papers from the Falklands war were published which showed that Ken Clarke – a current member of the Cabinet – opposed kicking the Argentinians out of the Falklands and favoured collaboration with them instead. If those papers don’t undermine the principle of collective decision making then what does?

McKay and his researchers make it very clear that they have sought opinions from all parts of the UK on how England should be government:

Any reforms undertaken to respond to English concerns must therefore be mindful of possible impacts outside England and seek to mitigate such impacts.

In 1997, however, nobody in England was asked for an opinion on how Scotland and Wales should be governed. We weren’t even asked for an opinion on how England should be government and we’ve been refused the right to voice our opinion on it ever since.

The report dismisses an English Parliament within a British federation out of hand, claiming that “the great majority of evidence submitted to [them] was, however, set firmly against the idea of an English Parliament”. This “evidence” was:

There are no precedents of federal systems in which one component makes up over five-sixths of the overall population of a state. There is a wide view that such a big unit would destabilise the state as a whole, both in relation to the three much smaller units in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but also in relation to the federal UK parliament and government, to which an English parliament would be likely to be a powerful rival.

While there is no precedent of a federal system with one constituent part comprising 80% of the population working, there is no precedent of it not working. There is evidence of discrimination or poor treatment of a native population bringing down entire empires though so the commission is shown to be very selective in what “evidence” it considers.

The argument that an English Parliament would somehow dominate a federal British government is a nonsense – in a federal structure the English Parliament would be concerned only with English domestic affairs, the same as the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Northern Irish Assembly are now. If a reserved matter was of such specific national interest that the English Parliament and one or more of the other national parliaments were at loggerheads over it then it is clearly something that should be devolved anyway.

Any federal system requires a delineation of competences, which are usually arbitrated by a supreme court that would be able to overrule the UK parliament, as well as binding the devolved institutions. This would be a radical departure from UK constitutional practice. In this and in other respects, the “massive upheaval in governmental arrangements that would be needed to create a new Parliament for 50 million people” would not appear a proportionate response to the current sense of disadvantage in England.

I fail to see the problem with a constitutional court and in fact proposed this as part of my case for a British confederation – a solution that the McKay commission didn’t consider. The British government (and devolved governments) should be bound by the law. Changing the law to legitimise breaking the law is clearly wrong and a constitutional court should be able to bind a government in its judgements. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Nobody and that’s why our politicians have been able to lie, cheat and thieve their way through their political careers with relative impunity. A constitutional court is an eminently sensible suggestion.

Whether the creation of an English Parliament is considered by politicians and academics to be “proportionate” or not is irrelevant. It is an integral part of the only two workable solutions to the democratic deficit experienced in England that maintains a British union and is what most polls show that most people in England want.

It seems unlikely in the current climate that citizens would favour having more politicians than now, or the costs associated with establishing a new institution.

The “more politicians, more cost” argument about an English Parliament is so discredited that it really shouldn’t have made it into this report containing “expert” evidence and opinion at all. The vast majority of legislation currently passed by the British government is either English-only legislation now or would be under a federal system of government. There is no need for over 650 British MPs with most of their work being the responsibility of another government. Simply taking the number of British MPs representing constituencies in England and applying that number to a devolved English Parliament and redistributing the difference would result in no net increase in politicians but by being a bit more ambitious, the total number of politicians in the British and English parliaments could easily be decreased.

The cost is also a non-argument. Former Tory MP, Chris Gill, wrote a paper on creating a British federation when he was still an MP. The paper proposed turning the House of Commons into an English Parliament and the House of Lords into a federal British Parliament and found that in today’s money, it would save almost half a billion a year.

The report touches on cross-border effects of English legislation and uses that as a reason not to ban British MPs representing constituencies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland from voting on English laws. It fails to examine the existing example of the Scottish government being given jurisdiction over sections of the River Tweed in England and its English tributaries which means English people accused of unauthorised fishing on an English river can be summoned to appear before a Scottish Sheriff in a Scottish court to be tried under Scottish law.

Cross-border effects of English legislation under the British government are also not fully explored. The requirement of all young English people to remain in education until the age of 18 is a perfect example – the British government has passed this law without considering the cross-border effects resulting in there still being unanswered questions as to how people moving from England before finishing their post-16 education will continue to be educated in Scotland and Wales or if Scottish people will be exempted from post-16 education despite the fact that it comes into force this September.

EU legislation is given a brief mention, pointing out that it is applied differently to England than it is in Scotland, Wales and northern Ireland and that there is no differentiation between English and British interests. The report fails to point out that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own representation to the EU.

So, that’s the report in all it’s inglorious mediocrity but what’s wrong with the proposal itself? The proposals put forward by the report won’t actually change change anything in any material way. The standing orders for committees might change but that’s just a framework. Most English people have little interest in how these committees are formed, they’re bothered about the fact that British MPs representing constituencies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland get to vote on English laws and sometimes get to overrule the wishes of the majority of British MPs representing constituencies in England. The McKay commission’s proposals don’t address this at all. It isn’t even the unworkable “English Votes on English Laws” constitutional fudge, it’s a fudge of that fudge and a waste of everyone’s time, money and effort.

There are only three workable solutions to the democratic deficit experienced by England in the British union. The first option and the one that causes the least constitutional upheaval is a federal structure which sees England given a devolved English Parliament with at least the same powers as the Scottish Parliament. The second option is a more ambitious constitutional change, creating a British confederation. The third option is English independence. English Votes on English Laws and any of the variants proposed now or in the past just can’t be made to work. A politician can’t exclusively represent British interests one day and exclusively represent English interests the next. English laws need to be proposed, amended and voted on by politicians elected in England to represent English interests in an English government. English Votes on English Laws would give us British politicians elected in England to represent British interests in the British government making British laws for England. It would be an unworkable mess.

The unwritten brief of the McKay commission was to come up with a way of maintaining the status quo whilst appearing to be addressing the concerns of English people about who gets to make English laws. In this respect, the commission has successfully met its objectives and the British government now has an “independent” report telling them that the answer to the West Lothian Question is to con English people into thinking that they’re doing something about it whilst doing absolutely nothing to address it.

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.

Screw you PC World (and HP)

March 24, 2013 wonkotsane Technology No comments

A fortnight ago I bought a new laptop from PC World in Telford. The processor is a little under-powered but the rest of it is great – 8gb of RAM, 1TB hard disk, big bright screen, etc. but it was a good price so I bought it.

Trust Pilot visitors rate PC World’s service 260th out of 265

But only a fortnight after buying it, it’s developed a problem with the trackpad. After a while it starts to recognise a tap as a right click and moving your finger around the trackpad gets interpreted as all sorts of multi-touch gestures. It’s like having a really wonky old ball mouse connected to the laptop with the cursor bouncing around the screen and sometimes just doing nothing at all.

I Googled for the problem and found that it’s a well known fault with HP Pavillion laptops. There’s a possible fix by removing the device driver for the trackpad and reinstalling it which I tried to no avail so I called PC World’s “Know How” people and was told to return it to the store for a refund or exchange as it was within 21 days. So I went to the store this afternoon to exchange it and … well, let’s just say I’m typing this on the same laptop.

Because HP haven’t recalled the laptop for the fault they want to see it happening in the store before they’ll exchange it. I’ve got to leave it with them for at least 4 hours tomorrow so they can see the problem but as it only happens after a period of use and I can’t see them spending half an hour or more solid playing games or browsing the internet on it they aren’t going to see it happen. I showed them all the reports of the fault on the HP website but that doesn’t matter because “it doesn’t mean it’s happening on yours”.

Now, I could understand PC World taking this stance if I was asking for a refund but I’m asking for an exchange. What possible advantage would I get from asking for a non-faulty two week old laptop to be replaced with exactly the same model? None at all so I’m not happy at being told I have to take the laptop back to the store tomorrow and leave it with them. Even less happy at the suggestion that I would have to give them my password so they could log on to the laptop and at being told not to factory reset the laptop.

I’ve already told them that I’ll be after a refund rather than an exchange now if that’s how hard it is to get a two week old faulty laptop replaced because of a known problem and I certainly won’t be buying a replacement from PC World. The sales person I bought it off in the first place was hostile because she couldn’t sell me a load of crap I didn’t want or need and their after-sales service is crap so PC World can kiss my arse, I’ll go elsewhere.

And as for HP – their support website is appalling. I wanted to do an online chat with someone from HP to get some details of the fault and find out whether they’re going to make companies aware of the fault so other customers don’t have to go through the same crap if their laptop develops the same fault. The website wouldn’t recognise the name of my laptop or the model number so wouldn’t connect me to anyone. The drill down list of devices doesn’t include Pavillion laptops at all and the auto-detection plugin that they ask you to install insists on all other browsers being closed before it will work, even though there was no other browser open and the HP website was the only tab open in Google Chrome. All in all, a disappointing experience for my first HP laptop.

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.

Keep Calm and Crush Wales

March 16, 2013 wonkotsane General 3 comments

First glimpse of the new Pope …

March 13, 2013 wonkotsane Funny No comments

Silly Tilly’s Jackanory Conference Speech

March 13, 2013 wonkotsane EDP, Funny No comments

Robin Tilbrook has posted a copy of his speech from the English Democrats’ party conference in Doncaster last week. This rip-roaring event was attended by as many as 50 people, including the speakers. Quite the political force.

I tried to read the speech properly but I was bored to tears very quickly despite the many humorous attempts to mislead people and jackanory stories. I did manage to skim through it though and a few things jumped out.

The Raving Loonies campaigning in Eastleigh

Such as the UKIP by-election results Tilbrook quotes comparing the English Democrats’ awful by-election results favourably with UKIP’s early by-election results. But his list is a selective list of Scottish by-election results out of a long list of by-elections contested by UKIP in every member state of the UK over the period he refers to. He points out that UKIP have lost to the Monster Raving Loony Party before and he’s correct – four times in 1995 and 1996, on one occasion by none other than Peter Davies – but these were the 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th by-elections UKIP ever contested and the party had only been in existence for 3 years. Eleven years after being formed and the English Democrats are still losing to the Monster Raving Loony Party – they’re currently drawing on the number of times they’ve beaten each other and the Monster Raving Loony Party joke about it on their website. That’s right, the Monster Raving Loony Party are making fun of the English Democrats’ performance in elections. Strange how Tilbrook’s speech didn’t mention the English Democrats getting beaten not just by the Monster Raving Loony Party in Eastleigh but also by the Elvis Loves Pets Party and the Beer, Baccy and a Pint Party.

Then there’s the suggestion that Nigel Farage approached Tilbrook to offer him the deputy leadership of UKIP in exchange for winding up the English Democrats during the 2010 election campaign – a claim he has repeated many times. Lord Pearson was leader of UKIP during the 2010 election campaign, not Nigel Farage.

It’s interesting to see that Peter Davies’ falling out with the party started when he refused to employ an English Democrats activist as a £35k a year assistant. Clearly getting Peter Davies elected was seen as a money-spinning opportunity for the party and noses were put out of joint when that failed to materialise. That Tilbrook then trivialises Davies’ obviously serious concerns about the takeover of the party by racists and extremists is quite telling of the quality of his leadership.

Finally, it’s brilliant to see UKIP Black Ops get another mention by Tilbrook. UKIP Black Ops was invented by Steve Uncles a while back and those of us who are supposed to be part of this apparently secretive operation (so secret that Uncles knows all about it) funded personally by Nigel Farage have great fun taking the piss out of the English Democrats over it.

I’m sure there’s more in there of interest to those that follow the comical performance of the English Democrats but I really couldn’t be bothered to read any more.

Cabinet Office refuse to release minutes of 1997 devolution meetings

March 13, 2013 wonkotsane Climate Change 10 comments

In January I put in a Freedom of Information Request to the Cabinet Office asking for a copy of the minutes and Terms of Reference of the 1997 cabinet meetings on devolution that resulted in Scotland and Wales getting devolved national governments and an agreement that England would be dismembered along EU regional lines with huge glorified county councils begging for scraps under the table.

These minutes have been requested more than once and on every occasion they have been refused. The Information Commissioner has ruled against the Cabinet Office withholding the minutes and been overruled. The Information Commissioner has been to court and obtained a court order instructing the Cabinet Office to release the minutes and it has been vetoed by the Home Secretary. Twice, by Home Secretary’s of different parties. Clearly these minutes are a smoking gun and we have a right to see what’s in them.

Here is the response from the Cabinet Office:

Dear Mr Parr,

Ref: FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT REQUEST

I refer to your request where you asked: “Under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, I am requesting a copy of the minutes of the 1997 Cabinet meetings on devolution. I am also requesting a copy of the Terms of Reference for the cabinet committee headed by Lord Irvine that the minutes relate to and any legal or departmental advice provided to the cabinet in relation to these meetings.”

I am writing to advise you that following a search of our paper and electronic records, I have established that the information you requested is held by the Cabinet Office.Some of the information you have requested is exempt under section 21(1) of the Freedom of Information Act. Section 21 exempts information if this information is reasonably accessible to the applicant by other means. Section 21 is an absolute exemption and the Cabinet Office is not required to consider whether the public interest favours disclosure of this information.

The terms of reference for the Ministerial Committee on Devolution to Scotland and Wales and the English Regions (DSWR) were published in Hansard on 9 June 1997. I attach a link:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199798/cmhansrd/vo970609/text/70609w03.htm

The remainder of the information you seek is exempt under section 35(1)(a) and (b) of the Freedom of Information Act. This is a qualified exemption and therefore subject to the public interest test. The information is exempt under section 35(1)(a) and (b), which relates to the formulation or development of government policy, and Ministerial communications. We accept that there is public interest in improving public understanding of the development of Government policy on devolution and the way Cabinet Government operates more generally. We recognise that the decisions Ministers make have a significant impact on the lives of citizens and there is a public interest in this process being transparent. We also recognise that greater transparency makes government more accountable to the electorate and increases trust.

However, there is a countervailing public interest in protecting the constitutional convention of Cabinet collective decision-making. Ministers will reach collective decisions more effectively if they are able to debate questions of policy freely and in confidence. The maintenance of this convention is fundamental to the continued effectiveness of Cabinet government, and its continued existence is therefore manifestly in the public interest.

In relation to the specific documents you have requested, the policy discussions in this area are ongoing and the adverse effect of disclosing these documents now would not be diminished by the fact that the documents date from 1997. The matters discussed at Cabinet are not matters of purely historic interest, but are important matters of current discussion and debate. We therefore conclude that the public interest in withholding the information outweighs the public interest in disclosure.

Once again I have to ask: what have these traitors got to hide?

I am of course appealing to the Information Commissioner and I would ask that anyone else who joined me in requesting the minutes also appeals. We can’t allow these people to continue to hide behind a veil of secrecy when the very existence of our nation is in their hands and negotiations with the Scottish separatists are being conducted in our name.

Nobody knows how raising compulsary education age in England will work

March 11, 2013 wonkotsane Education One comment

I wrote to the British Department for English Education last month about the planned change to school leaving ages in England. In particular I asked what would happen to someone who has already left school in Scotland or Wales moving to England or to someone moving from England to Scotland or Wales at age 16. Their response basically amounts to “we don’t know, we’re hoping something comes up”.

Dear Mr Parr

Thank you for your email of 16 February, about Raising the Participation Age (RPA).

Education policy and law is a devolved matter, and the Department for Education is unaware of any plans the Scottish and Welsh Governments may have for raising the age of compulsory education in those nations.

With regard to the matter you raise, young people who are resident in England will be required to participate but we must be clear that no young people will be barred from taking a job. The requirements of RPA are that a young person engages with education – whether that be full-time (at a school or college), an Apprenticeship, or if taking a full-time job combines that with part-time study or training. The great majority of 16-17 year-olds who do work, do so part-time alongside full-time education and that will completely be unaffected by the RPA legislation.

In the particular scenarios you outline:

– If a young person at age 16 (or 17 from 2015) move to England from Scotland or Wales, they will be under a duty to participate. We believe that it will be beneficial for all young people to continue in education until they are at least 18, and as mentioned this will in no way bar them from getting a job. Under the Welsh school system, the secondary phase ends at 16, with a further 16-18 phase, in the same way as it does in England. In Scotland, young people may finish their further education when they are 17, and in that instance we are considering making an allowance in the law for them to be discharged from their duty to participate if they attain certain qualifications (e.g. three or more Scottish Highers). However, in any event we do not consider it a harmful outcome for a young person to engage with further education.

– If a young person from England moves to Scotland or Wales, this will be a matter for the respective governments of those countries. However, it is our understanding that it will be very likely that a young person in that situation will be able to continue in education in those countries – and have that funded by those governments.

Once again, thank you for writing and I hope this information is helpful.

So someone moving to England from Scotland or Wales in, say, June at age 17 will be required to go to school or find an apprenticeship for a month whilst someone moving from England to Scotland or Wales having not finished their secondary education is likely, possibly, hopefully to be able to finish their education in Scotland and Wales.

The truth is, this change has been poorly thought out and there are still unanswered questions about how it’s going to work despite the changes taking effect this year. There is no agreement with the Scottish or Welsh governments for English people to finish their secondary education if they move, just a hope that they will plug the gap and they still haven’t decided what, if any, exemptions will be put in place for Scottish or Welsh people moving to England.

Irony, perjury and the English Democrats

March 2, 2013 wonkotsane EDP One comment

Those who follow the comical antics of the English Democrats and their bungling solicitor chairman, Robin Tilbrook, will find the latest missive from the great failure deliciously ironic.

English Democrats members have been involved in a planned protest outside Abu Qatada’s house in London which Qatada has got an injunction to stop. The English Democrats are explicitly listed as one of the organisations involved in the planned protests which Tilbrook has got a bit stroppy about.

In the latest abuse of our Nation’s “generosity” to illegal immigrants, following Mr Abu Qatada’s cost to the taxpayer rising to over an estimated £1m, his wife and family have been seeking an injunction, on the back of legal aid, to prevent any protesters from appearing outside their new taxpayer funded house in Stanmore, North London.

In the midst of suing all and sundry who might be contemplating protesting, the English Democrats and I surprisingly found ourselves included in the list of Defendants, despite never having expressed any intention to take part in any demonstration!

That is of course not the remit of a political party standing in elections and not a sensible approach for a political party to take.
That does not mean of course that the English Democrats would not morally support well-behaved and lawful demonstrations against Abu Qatada’s abuse of our welfare benefit system. It is English Democrats’ policy that non-citizens should not be entitled to any welfare benefits at all. We do also seek the immediate deportation of all illegal immigrants.

Having made our position crystal clear in various letters and also in a witness statement, which I reproduce below, even Labour supporting Bindmans solicitors who were acting for the Qatadas rushed to remove all mention of me and the English Democrats from the proceedings.

On Thursday I was in the High Court of Justice in the Strand before Mr Justice Silber and the Order was made removing us from these proceedings and also dropping all claims against us.

Here is my witness statement. What do you think?
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE CASE NO. HQ13X00479
QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION
BETWEEN

THE WIFE AND CHILDREN OF OMAR OTHMAN
Applicants/
Claimants

and

(1) THE ENGLISH NATIONAL RESISTANCE (by its
representative Paul Golding, Paul Pitt,
James Dowson and Andrew McBride)
(2) BRITAIN FIRST (by its representatives Britannia Campaigning Limited,
Paul Golding, Andrew McBride and James Dowson
(3) THE ENGLISH DEFENCE LEAGUE (by its representatives Kevin Carrol, Trevor Kelway and Joel Titus)
(4) THE SOUTH EAST ALLIANCE (by its representative Paul Pitt)
(5) THE ENGLISH DEMOCRATS (by its representative
Robin Tilbrook)
(6) PERSONS UNKNOWN WHO ARE INTENDING TO ASSEMBLE OUTSIDE THE HOME OF CLAIMANTS INCLUDING INDIVIDUALS ASSOCIATED WITH “MARCH FOR ENGLAND”
Respondents/
Defendants

___________________________

WITNESS STATEMENT
___________________________
I, Robin Charles William Tilbrook, of Quires Green, Willingale, Ongar, Essex, CM5 0QP, will say as follows:-

1. I am the Principal of Tilbrook’s Solicitors and Chairman of the English Democrats.

2. I would state, for the record, that neither I, nor the English Democrats, have ever organised or attended a demonstration at or near the Applicants’ house. Nor do I believe that any member of the English Democrats have ever attended any such demonstrations. So, with the greatest of respect, the chronicle of misbehaviour that the Applicants’ Solicitors affectingly relate cannot properly be laid at either my or the English Democrats’ door.

3. Further I have never had nor expressed any intention of attending any such demonstration nor have I or the English Democrats given any indication of any intent to do so.

4. I would also confirm that the English Democrats do not engage in street protests as a general rule, except to small media orientated events on issues such as prescription charges. The English Democrats are more involved in the ‘West Lothian’ question and the English Constitutional questions arising from devolution. Neither I nor the English Democrats have ever taken part in any protest relating to Islamists, such as Abu Qatada.

5. I would also point out that I confirmed the substance of what I am saying in this Witness Statement in writing in correspondence to Bindmans prior to them issuing any proceedings or applying for an Injunction. I am a Solicitor and Officer of the Court and so I do think, with the greatest of respect to them, they should have taken me at my word, especially given that the “evidence” which they offered against me and the English Democrats is ridiculously flimsy and comes from a third party website which does not even expressly state that either I or the English Democrats are involved in the new organisation or more pertinently the protest itself.

6. My primary involvement at the meeting reported in that email was a guest speaker on the topic of Englishness and, in particular, the rise in English National Identity which has been demonstrated in the results of the 2011 Census which shows that over 60% (more than 32 million people) within England have self-identified their national identity as being “English Only”.

7. I do naturally support the rights of people to protest and I do support those protests being done in an orderly and civilised manner, which I understand is the intention of the English National Resistance. That support fairly obviously does not give rise to any presumption that I or the English Democrats are somehow members of the organisation; any more than the comments of senior establishment politicians in Parliament criticising Abu Qatada could be taken to imply anything similar from them!

8. I am aware that Labour strategists have identified the English Democrats as a threat to them and that is particularly so, not only after our victories over them in the Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council Mayoralty, but also our very good performance throughout South Yorkshire in the Police Commissioner elections in which we came second to the Labour candidate whilst winning the vast majority of all the second preference votes as well. I suspect that the sole reason for drawing me and the English Democrats into this matter was Bindmans’ Labour supporting agenda, rather than any proper legal basis. I regard that the whole way that the Injunction has been approached as being fundamentally a politically motivated abuse of process and, indeed, no doubt also of the taxpayers’ contribution through legal aid/public funding.

Statement of Truth

I believe that the facts in this Witness Statement are true.

Signed …………………………………….. Dated……………………………..

Robin Charles William Tilbrook

Just read point 3 of Tilbrook’s statement again:

3. Further I have never had nor expressed any intention of attending any such demonstration nor have I or the English Democrats given any indication of any intent to do so.

But what’s this on the English Democrats website?

Did someone say “perjury”?

This statement in point 5 is also amusing:

I am a Solicitor and Officer of the Court and so I do think, with the greatest of respect to them, they should have taken me at my word, especially given that the “evidence” which they offered against me and the English Democrats is ridiculously flimsy and comes from a third party website which does not even expressly state that either I or the English Democrats are involved in the new organisation or more pertinently the protest itself.

Tilbrook dragged me in front of a High Court judge last year on an entirely baseless accusation of libel. Despite being a “solicitor and officer of the court” he was clearly too stupid to understand that decades of legal precedent were against him and would listen to me, my solicitor or my barrister when they told him that he had no case. He persisted, bungled his way through a brief hearing and was told by the judge exactly what he had already been told – that there was no case to answer. I wouldn’t take Tilbrook at his word if he said night follows day, let alone something like this. I’m surprised he hasn’t threatened to sue Abu Qatada or his solicitors.

Finally, point 8 is the most ironic one of all:

8. I am aware that Labour strategists have identified the English Democrats as a threat to them and that is particularly so, not only after our victories over them in the Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council Mayoralty, but also our very good performance throughout South Yorkshire in the Police Commissioner elections in which we came second to the Labour candidate whilst winning the vast majority of all the second preference votes as well. I suspect that the sole reason for drawing me and the English Democrats into this matter was Bindmans’ Labour supporting agenda, rather than any proper legal basis. I regard that the whole way that the Injunction has been approached as being fundamentally a politically motivated abuse of process and, indeed, no doubt also of the taxpayers’ contribution through legal aid/public funding.

Tilbrook was fixated on his belief that my solicitor was a UKIP supporter and that this had some relevance to the case. My solicitor repeatedly told him that he wasn’t a UKIP supporter and that his political beliefs were of no relevance and none of his business anyway. His vexatious case against me was entirely politically motivated and his case, such as it was, was all about the English Democrats rather than himself. His sole reason for pursuing me was because I am a UKIP supporter, because he sees me as the main reason so many good English Democrat activists left his party for UKIP (I was largely responsible for UKIP declaring its support for an English Parliament) and because I have never backed down from exposing the thuggery and racism in the English Democrats in the face of threats, abuse and defamation from their senior members. And how amusing that Tilbrook is still crowing about the English Democrats somehow winning the Doncaster mayoral elections even though Mayor Peter Davies has left the party because of its links to racists and fascists.

I hope Abu Qatada’s solicitors don’t want any money out of Tilbrook, I’m still waiting for my legal costs to be paid over 8 months after he lost his court case.

EDF suing eco-terrorists for £5m

February 21, 2013 wonkotsane Climate Change, Come the revolution 2 comments

French electricity company EDF is suing 21 eco-terrorists who shut down one of their power plants for a week last year. The 21 activists from “No Dash for Gas” have been convicted of aggravated trespass.

The eco-terrorists are complaining that it’s not fair for a number of reasons which can largely be summed up as “EDF can afford the £5m loss” and “the police helped EDF”. Naturally the extremist Green MP, Caroline Lucas, is supporting the “No Dash for Gas” eco-terrorists.

Let’s have a look at some of the things they say …

The amount of the claim represents just 0.3% of EDF’s annual UK profits, which rose by 7.5% this year to £1.7 billion.

Whether the company can afford to lose the money or not is irrelevant. They have an obligation to make as much money for their shareholders as they can whilst staying within the law. If a group of eco-terrorists shaves £5m off their profits by engaging in criminal activities then they don’t have much choice but to try and recoup some of those losses. It’s not just EDF that stand to lose from the £5m cost of closing their plant down for a week either – the pension funds that earn money from investing in EDF will also lose out, hitting pensioners in their pockets. It’s not just big business that loses out when big business loses money.

This is the first time an energy company has attempted such a claim, and campaigners say it represents the opening of a new front against peaceful direct action protesters

This is nothing to do with peaceful direct action protesters, it’s targeting eco-terrorists who committed criminal trespass and shut down a power station for a week costing the owner of the power station £5m. Any peaceful direct action protester who stays within the law has nothing to worry about.

Sixteen campaigners occupied two chimneys at West Burton for a week in October 2012, stopping nearly 20,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions

That might be impressive if it was proven that CO2 causes changes to climate cycles which it doesn’t. Quite the opposite in fact. But regardless of whether you believe in the global warming claptrap this lot do, producing CO2 isn’t an illegal act so you can’t use it as a necessity defence.

The campaigners believe that Nottinghamshire Police’s support for the civil claim is part of a larger strategy to crack down on environmental protest, as evidenced by the use of extremely onerous bail conditions on the activists after their arrest. They were not allowed to associate with each other and most were subject to home curfews from 9pm to 7am.

What the eco-terrorists did is terrorism according to the Terrorism Act 2000 and they were treated no worse than any other terrorist suspect.

In another incident, Counter Terrorism Command officers visited an activist at her home to ‘remind’ her of her bail conditions and caution her against going within 50 metres of E.ON’s Grain Island Power Station.

Counter-terrorism police visit terrorist suspect to remind her she’s not allowed near a potential terrorist target. Well there’s a shocker.

The police are meant to be working in the public interest, not acting as EDF’s private police force. If I wanted to sue EDF over their pollution or their price hikes, would you expect the police to deliver the legal papers to EDF on my behalf, or hand over the names and addresses of their top executives? Somehow, I don’t think so.

Perhaps if the EDF executives were suspected of terrorist offences and they’d cost you £5m they might.

The Committee also point out that a greater reliance on gas would increase household bills by up to six times more than a shift to renewable energy

Windmills are the most expensive form of electricity production we have and cost the taxpayer billions in subsidies to only produce enough electricity to power a large town. It is the “green” electricity industry that is bumping up bills and all because some self-proclaimed “experts” have concocted some bullshit stories, repeatedly proven to be inaccurate, about global warming to access millions of pounds of government grants.

The case is reminiscent of the record-breaking “McLibel” case, when the fast food chain McDonalds sued two activists from North London from 1990-1997

No, it’s really not. That was a libel case for a leaflet that was ruled to have made largely unfounded claims against a fast food chain that lost McDonalds such a little amount of business that they would probably have struggled to quantify it while this is a criminal act of terrorism that shut down a power plant and cost the operator £5m.

How are school leaving age changes in England going to work?

February 16, 2013 wonkotsane Education 2 comments

I’ve just fired off this email to the British Department for English Education. It follows on from a previous missive I sent to them on the subject back in 2007.

Some time ago I wrote to you asking how the change to school leaving ages in England was going work.

In particular I’m interested to know what a Welsh or Scottish person who leaves school at 16 and moves to England is going to do about the fact that they’ve finished their secondary education but would be required to complete a further year or two of secondary education in England because they’re only 16. A Welsh or Scottish person of 16 or 17 years of age will effectively be barred from taking a job in England when the change comes into force.

There is also the reverse situation where a 16 year old moves from England to Wales or Scotland and there is nowhere to complete their secondary education.

The response I got from you didn’t offer any explanation as to how these situations would be handled but merely expressed a hope that Wales and Scotland would follow the British government’s lead and raise the age for mandatory secondary education to match that in England. Clearly this isn’t going to happen otherwise it would have been announced by now so please can you explain how these scenarios will be handled in future?

Lord Adonis proposes regional government in England again

February 16, 2013 wonkotsane Labour, Lib Dems, Regions, Traitors 4 comments

Unelected Labour peer, Lord Adonis, is spearheading yet another campaign for the destruction of England by regionalisation.

78% of people don’t want regional government you say? I honestly don’t give a shit.

The Labour Party always refer to the deceitful referendum on the common market held in 1975, which nobody currently under the age of 56 was able to take part in, as giving legitimacy to our continued membership of the EU despite the majority of the population being opposed to it. Yet the referendum on regional government held in the north east of England by his party just 8 and a half years ago which resulted in a 78% “no” vote can apparently be safely ignored.

Adonis is producing a report for Nick Clegg – another Deputy Prime Minister that wants to destroy England – on the economy of north east of England and wants regional governments in England with control over major budgets. His vision is for a return of the unelected regional assemblies and regional development agencies that we’ve only just got rid of. It’s a kick in the teeth for democracy and if he’s successful, another major broken promise from the British government.

Local authorities can work together perfectly well without an unaccountable, undemocratic regional quango taking powers and money away from elected representatives. Local government is a devolved matter, the British government has no moral or democratic mandate to ride roughshod over our democratic wishes and dismantle our system of local government to suit their own political ambitions. Labour is already behind a campaign for a regional parliament for the north of England and this renewed interest in “devolution” to regional quangos is a regionalist trojan horse. The fact that it’s an unelected peer trying to dismantle our country makes it even more unacceptable.

NFU launches Buy British campaign in England

February 15, 2013 wonkotsane Britishness 2 comments

Only applies to England

The NFU launched a “Buy British” campaign today to promote “British” food.

Funnily enough, there is no mention of the campaign on the NFU Cymru website or the NFU Scotland website where they are encouraging people to buy Welsh and Scottish respectively. The NFU England website … doesn’t exist because there is no such thing as NFU England.

The NFU is just another of those racist organisations that has Scottish, Welsh (often Northern Irish) and British arms. I wouldn’t make a conscious effort to buy “British” anyway because if it’s not English it’s foreign but if there was some campaign that I was inclined to back I certainly wouldn’t do it if the organisation urging me to back it denied the existence of my country.

So fuck you NFU and shove your “Buy British” campaign up your arse.

Two governments gives Scotland “the best of both worlds”

February 10, 2013 wonkotsane BBC, Britishness, Come the revolution 2 comments

I read this, got angry, used some traditional Anglo-Saxon words and then sent the following email to Cowardly Cameron …

I see in the news today that you believe that Scotland having 2 government’s is “the best of both worlds” and that because Scotland has its own devolved government they can make decisions needed “to meet the specific needs of Scotland”.

Can you please explain why you feel that England doesn’t deserve the best of both worlds and why England shouldn’t have its own government to meet the specific needs of England?

You are putting so much effort into making the case for the British union in Scotland that you’re forgetting that the 85% of the population lives in England where we have no self-government, where MPs elected in a different country make our laws and where the case for being part of the British union has never been weaker.

I urge you to end the institutional discrimination against the English and give us the devolved English Parliament that 7 out of 10 English people want.

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