I'd be interested to hear what you the reader thinks about the current situation with regards to Cornwall, The Orkneys and the Shetlands being recognised as seperate political entities.
I plan to do some research on the topic and gauge what support there is in these places for seperation from England/Scotland and see whether these movements are large or whether it's a small band of individual pushing for seperation.
So let's have your views.....
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
Calamity in the Mayor race
If any of you have caught the BBC this morning you will see the article below:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7366662.stm
It would appear that Matt was concerned over the following:
"Explaining his decision to stop campaigning with less than a week to go before polling day, Mr O'Connor said he had been unhappy with the lack of coverage he was getting from the media. "
Well what did he expect? Honestly I am sure Matt knew exactly the level of support the Beeb where going to give him, hence why he engaged in those stunts.
Moving on he then says:
He told presenter Vanessa Feltz: "We've just had St George's Day and you would just think the one thing a party about England would own would be St George's Day.
With the benefit of hindsight I probably should not have stood for them
Matt O'Connor, former English Democrat candidate
"But I don't think they got any publicity at all and I was effectively sidelined. I think they thought I was going to take over the party or something."
Well as far as I am aware a lot of the English Nationalist movement went to London to protest for an English parliament on St George's Day, I think maybe Matt has misunderstood that the movement is bigger then one man and one party. I also saw the rather inventive EDP St George's Day website, so maybe Matt wasn't aware of it?
Obviously the EDP have released a press statement which you can read below:
http://www.crossofstgeorge.net/news/blog.php
It would seem that from reading this blog, Matt O'Connor had alcohol problems, which is truly a shame. If this turns out to be true it's probably best for the people of London he has pulled out. It's also good for the English Nationalist movement. We need a competent Mayor not a drunkard following in the footsteps of Red Ken with a shot of Whiskey for breakfast.
There could be an upside to this though, maybe people will use Matt's name on the ballot paper as a protest vote, as basically a none of the above.
Regardless of what happens the English movement will always have it's ups and downs, and when you hit the bottom the only way to go is up.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7366662.stm
It would appear that Matt was concerned over the following:
"Explaining his decision to stop campaigning with less than a week to go before polling day, Mr O'Connor said he had been unhappy with the lack of coverage he was getting from the media. "
Well what did he expect? Honestly I am sure Matt knew exactly the level of support the Beeb where going to give him, hence why he engaged in those stunts.
Moving on he then says:
He told presenter Vanessa Feltz: "We've just had St George's Day and you would just think the one thing a party about England would own would be St George's Day.
With the benefit of hindsight I probably should not have stood for them
Matt O'Connor, former English Democrat candidate
"But I don't think they got any publicity at all and I was effectively sidelined. I think they thought I was going to take over the party or something."
Well as far as I am aware a lot of the English Nationalist movement went to London to protest for an English parliament on St George's Day, I think maybe Matt has misunderstood that the movement is bigger then one man and one party. I also saw the rather inventive EDP St George's Day website, so maybe Matt wasn't aware of it?
Obviously the EDP have released a press statement which you can read below:
http://www.crossofstgeorge.net/news/blog.php
It would seem that from reading this blog, Matt O'Connor had alcohol problems, which is truly a shame. If this turns out to be true it's probably best for the people of London he has pulled out. It's also good for the English Nationalist movement. We need a competent Mayor not a drunkard following in the footsteps of Red Ken with a shot of Whiskey for breakfast.
There could be an upside to this though, maybe people will use Matt's name on the ballot paper as a protest vote, as basically a none of the above.
Regardless of what happens the English movement will always have it's ups and downs, and when you hit the bottom the only way to go is up.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
English Tax Reforms
We have discussed briefly how a devolved parliament in England could work with counties, but what about our tax raising powers?
Tax is of course something an independent or devolved parliament should seek to take control of from the British state immediately. Our first task should be a complete revision of the tax system on a scale not seen in the past century.
Our first task would be the abolition of the Income Tax and Corporate Tax. I can already see the socialists wringing their hands and crying "think of the children". We actually I am...
By scrapping our Income Tax and Corporate Tax we would see a massive boost in our economy. Detailing every benefit and how it works is out of scope of this article, but I intend to provide you to some links so you can read up on it more if you are interested.
So yes we would be removing the Income Tax meaning all persons employed in England would receive wages at the end of each month without the government having grabbed a big chunk of it. You are probably wondering how we could afford to do this? Well we would increase the tax on products sold. Essentially VAT would be scrapped and a tax of around 22% placed upon products being sold new. The Inland Revenue would then only have the task of collecting Sales Tax from those who have sold new products. Surely the administrative task of this compared to our current system will save millions in tax payers money alone.
Combined with scrapping Corporate Tax we will not only encourage businesses to invest as well as stimulate entrepreneurs we will save these people millions in administration.
If anyone thinks a company can be taxed itself you are wrong. Any tax raises against a company are paid for either by:
1.) The consumer through price rises (so essentially you are paying the tax hike).
2.) The employee's through loss of jobs or benefits and pay (so essentially they are paying the tax hike).
3.) The share holders through loss of dividends (so essentially pension plans etc. are paying the tax hike).
When you read about socialists taxing companies they aren't, they are taxing you and me and your neighbours. They are stifling growth and stagnating the market. They are also pushing the richer members of societies as well as companies into storing their wealth off shore in places like the Isle of Mann, Jersey, Switzerland etc.
Can you imagine the benefit of having these companies move their headquarter back to England? Can you imagine the difference of having billions pumped back into the economy as companies move their finances back to England?
Can you imagine the investment we could look at pumping into somewhere like Birmingham and creating a SECOND financial centre in England?
Forget the Scots whinging over North Sea Oil, they can keep the lot, it's a finite resource and no doubt the socialists up there will tax it to death.
So is it possible that a 22% sales tax could replace Income and Corporate Tax and still provide the services we need such as a roads, health etc? Yes it is.
There would have to be massive reform of our social services, benefits system, QUANGOs at the same time. This will be painful to the lazy who think benefit fraud is a way of life, the faux charities leeching of the public, but it will be a blessing to the disabled and ill who want to get out there and live their life like any other Englishman. The money diverted away from the QUANGOs and parasites the Labour government have spawned could be pumped into health care.
We wouldn't even need to replace our NHS with a broken system like the US private health care mess.
This system of taxation would require a lot of research before hand, economic models to be built, and any potential pitfalls investigated before, but the question is... why aren't we doing that?
If you are interested in how, why and when we should implement this system then I recommend you read the following links. I'll also point out we are better off doing it sooner rather then later, as somebody else may pip us to it.
Links:
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer - Fair Tax (US)
http://www.amazon.com/Fair-Tax-Book-Saying-Goodbye/dp/0060875496 - A guide to the US proposed system
http://www.moneyweek.com/file/2803/flat-rate-income-tax---just-wishful-thinking.html - Flat rate income tax proposed for UK.
http://lpuk.org/pages/manifesto/economy/income-tax.php - LPUK guide to income tax.
Tax is of course something an independent or devolved parliament should seek to take control of from the British state immediately. Our first task should be a complete revision of the tax system on a scale not seen in the past century.
Our first task would be the abolition of the Income Tax and Corporate Tax. I can already see the socialists wringing their hands and crying "think of the children". We actually I am...
By scrapping our Income Tax and Corporate Tax we would see a massive boost in our economy. Detailing every benefit and how it works is out of scope of this article, but I intend to provide you to some links so you can read up on it more if you are interested.
So yes we would be removing the Income Tax meaning all persons employed in England would receive wages at the end of each month without the government having grabbed a big chunk of it. You are probably wondering how we could afford to do this? Well we would increase the tax on products sold. Essentially VAT would be scrapped and a tax of around 22% placed upon products being sold new. The Inland Revenue would then only have the task of collecting Sales Tax from those who have sold new products. Surely the administrative task of this compared to our current system will save millions in tax payers money alone.
Combined with scrapping Corporate Tax we will not only encourage businesses to invest as well as stimulate entrepreneurs we will save these people millions in administration.
If anyone thinks a company can be taxed itself you are wrong. Any tax raises against a company are paid for either by:
1.) The consumer through price rises (so essentially you are paying the tax hike).
2.) The employee's through loss of jobs or benefits and pay (so essentially they are paying the tax hike).
3.) The share holders through loss of dividends (so essentially pension plans etc. are paying the tax hike).
When you read about socialists taxing companies they aren't, they are taxing you and me and your neighbours. They are stifling growth and stagnating the market. They are also pushing the richer members of societies as well as companies into storing their wealth off shore in places like the Isle of Mann, Jersey, Switzerland etc.
Can you imagine the benefit of having these companies move their headquarter back to England? Can you imagine the difference of having billions pumped back into the economy as companies move their finances back to England?
Can you imagine the investment we could look at pumping into somewhere like Birmingham and creating a SECOND financial centre in England?
Forget the Scots whinging over North Sea Oil, they can keep the lot, it's a finite resource and no doubt the socialists up there will tax it to death.
So is it possible that a 22% sales tax could replace Income and Corporate Tax and still provide the services we need such as a roads, health etc? Yes it is.
There would have to be massive reform of our social services, benefits system, QUANGOs at the same time. This will be painful to the lazy who think benefit fraud is a way of life, the faux charities leeching of the public, but it will be a blessing to the disabled and ill who want to get out there and live their life like any other Englishman. The money diverted away from the QUANGOs and parasites the Labour government have spawned could be pumped into health care.
We wouldn't even need to replace our NHS with a broken system like the US private health care mess.
This system of taxation would require a lot of research before hand, economic models to be built, and any potential pitfalls investigated before, but the question is... why aren't we doing that?
If you are interested in how, why and when we should implement this system then I recommend you read the following links. I'll also point out we are better off doing it sooner rather then later, as somebody else may pip us to it.
Links:
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer - Fair Tax (US)
http://www.amazon.com/Fair-Tax-Book-Saying-Goodbye/dp/0060875496 - A guide to the US proposed system
http://www.moneyweek.com/file/2803/flat-rate-income-tax---just-wishful-thinking.html - Flat rate income tax proposed for UK.
http://lpuk.org/pages/manifesto/economy/income-tax.php - LPUK guide to income tax.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
The battle for Mayor online....
Did anyone else recieve the Saint George's Day email with the below link in it (I included it in my earlier post as well).....
http://www.saintgeorgesday.org
It would appear the English Democrats have taken their campaign to the web for the upcoming election and released a cartoon for St George's Day.
This makes me wonder if we are going to see much of the battle for Mayor take place online, much like Ron Paul's campaign in the US?
The English Democrats aren't the only party to start using animation to promote their message, the Green Party designed the whole of their party political broadcast in a Flash animation style format which can obviously easily be transferred into a web medium.
The advance of web campaigning I believe is going to make it very difficult in future for polling agencies to really get an idea of who will vote for what!
http://www.saintgeorgesday.org
It would appear the English Democrats have taken their campaign to the web for the upcoming election and released a cartoon for St George's Day.
This makes me wonder if we are going to see much of the battle for Mayor take place online, much like Ron Paul's campaign in the US?
The English Democrats aren't the only party to start using animation to promote their message, the Green Party designed the whole of their party political broadcast in a Flash animation style format which can obviously easily be transferred into a web medium.
The advance of web campaigning I believe is going to make it very difficult in future for polling agencies to really get an idea of who will vote for what!
Happy St George's Day
Yes April 23rd has come around again. I spent the day last year in London celebrating, and this year I'm also going to be toasting England and having a jolly good time of it as I have the day off work.
Here are some fun St George's Day sites I've been emailed for you to have a chuckle at:
http://www.saintgeorgesday.org
http://www.stgeorgesday.com/home
http://www.celebratestgeorgesday.com/
Have a great day everybody.
Here are some fun St George's Day sites I've been emailed for you to have a chuckle at:
http://www.saintgeorgesday.org
http://www.stgeorgesday.com/home
http://www.celebratestgeorgesday.com/
Have a great day everybody.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Vision of a post British England and it's counties
Our shire based system stretches back well over a thousand years, maybe in an independent England it's time to recognise them again.
Scrap regional assemblies, return to the "county" system
I believe in an independent Kingdom of England our first task would be to dismantle the regional assemblies and the apparatus that has sprung up around them. These various bodies suck hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers money in and return very little. They are thoroughly un-democratic and do not meet the needs of the people.
Our first step in an English parliament would be to return England back to it's traditional "county" structure.
There has already been some attempt by vigilante groups to enforce the traditional counties, Wikipedia details the direct action here.
So I use the term "county" in the loosest possible term, why you ask? Well although the word county was introduced by the Normans to cover the old Anglo-Saxon shire system as well as Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that where merged into England e.g. Sussex and Kent, we still use the term and apply it to areas of England which aren't strictly counties in the Norman sense of the word. From now on when I refer to county or counties I am meaning all subdivisions of England to make things easier.
So an independent England should be looking to re-instate the various ancient recognised boundary systems given to us by our Anglo-Saxon and Norse/Danish forebears each with their rights and privileges.
So in the case of shires - Hertfordshire, Berkshire etc. and in the case of old kingdom marked boundaries - Essex, Sussex and re-instating Middlesex etc.
The Kingdom of England also included duchies. The two duchies are the Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall. Duchy status should be recognised correctly, and the inhabitants of such areas given a choice on how the Crown should be continued to recognised in said areas with regards to property rights etc.
If counties chose to rename districts within themselves back to their original names such Richmondshire within Yorkshire etc. this should be up to the local people to decide.
By handing the power back from Westminster to the counties and recognising the various powers they where granted over time, we are handing back local democracy to the people.
When doing this we would allow the people to choose how their county was governed, this could allow the substitution of county councils for in the case of Cornwall the Stannary parliament, or in the case of Peterborough recognising it as a Soke and granting it the powers it once held.
So why all this concern over the ancient county system, I'm sure many are thinking, "but it's all in the past" and" not relevant to today" and "things well, change".
Yes things do change, but as often has been the case these changes are forced upon people, laws are ignored and parts of our cultural heritage are lost in the process. People may ask, well does it matter if it's called a county or a duchy... try telling a Cornishman they live in a shire and try telling a Geordie Newcastle isn't part of Northumberland (it may not be under government legislation, but it used to be and for many older folk still is).
How much of our Anglo-Saxon heritage has been lost in places such as East Anglia as the dialects of Norfolk and Suffolk are slowly killed off and they are pushed into an "East of England" euro region?
England does not need artificial boundaries created by bureaucrats in offices far away from the people their decisions effect. Our boundaries have been created through time and are representative of the true diversity of England, not the forced multi-cultural and Euro-British diversity of Westminster.
So what would the revised county system involve? This system would be part of the independent parliament of England's set up. Essentially the new Westminster would be responsible for the matters which the British government handles for England. The new English parliament would then hand back any power to the counties, shires, sokes and duchies that had been removed from them by the British government.
Ideally we would see a situation where in England there was no such thing as licensing hours for pubs as an example. County councils would be responsible for licensing premises and if they deemed it necessary issuing zones where pubs could only stay open to 11:30 if this was in the interest of the local people. Since ideally the county, parish and town council system will be made up of locals, these people are far more likely to understand local issues then a government in London, especially a cabinet in London dominated by MP's from devolved countries.
County councils will also be responsible for local heritage initiatives, history, some areas of education i.e. local English customs, culture and preservation of tradition, control over planning and also the types of buildings and the material that housing firms can use in some cases.
This would prevent the current situation where Westminster forces housing quotas and Eco-Towns on some areas of the country, where they are not wanted. It could also selectively force building firms to use local materials such as flint, stone, wood and slate rather then building identi-kit Lego houses which can damage the scenic nature of an area. This could be achieved through zoning as well. The English parliament along with the county councils should also enforce existing green belt legislation.
County councils could also implement strategies in their areas on second home ownership and property taxes. One thing we have learnt is that one size does not fit all, and the British governments attempts at forcing through legislation that effects the whole of England can have adverse effects on some counties and not on others.
The ability for county councils in places such as Norfolk and Westmorland to limit second home ownership or tax it at high levels could help to cut down the number of empty holiday homes that have priced locals out of the market.
The English government would also be duty bound to remove the vast layers of legislation implemented by Labour. Much of this effects peoples liberties and freedoms and squashes peoples rights. I believe the best way to do this is for the English parliament to be at heart of returning power to the electorate through local county level electable bodies which report back to the English parliament through a combination of ways, including MP's.
Could the above address such issues as:
1.) Resentment in Westmorland at holiday homes,
2.) Prevent Norfolk fishermen being priced out of the North Norfolk coast
3.) Address the calls for Cornwalls recognition as a duchy and trading the county council for a Stannary parliament
4.) Give the people of Middlesex their county back
5.) Hand local planning issue back to the people
6.) Prevent situation like the Monmouthshire and Berwick debacle happening again
I believe so.
Whether Cornwall in the future would chose to separate from England would obviously be down to a democratic means to decide, I would hope they didn't and recognition of their unique history, like the unique history of every county, duchy and shire within a unified England should be guaranteed.
Scrap regional assemblies, return to the "county" system
I believe in an independent Kingdom of England our first task would be to dismantle the regional assemblies and the apparatus that has sprung up around them. These various bodies suck hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers money in and return very little. They are thoroughly un-democratic and do not meet the needs of the people.
Our first step in an English parliament would be to return England back to it's traditional "county" structure.
There has already been some attempt by vigilante groups to enforce the traditional counties, Wikipedia details the direct action here.
So I use the term "county" in the loosest possible term, why you ask? Well although the word county was introduced by the Normans to cover the old Anglo-Saxon shire system as well as Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that where merged into England e.g. Sussex and Kent, we still use the term and apply it to areas of England which aren't strictly counties in the Norman sense of the word. From now on when I refer to county or counties I am meaning all subdivisions of England to make things easier.
So an independent England should be looking to re-instate the various ancient recognised boundary systems given to us by our Anglo-Saxon and Norse/Danish forebears each with their rights and privileges.
So in the case of shires - Hertfordshire, Berkshire etc. and in the case of old kingdom marked boundaries - Essex, Sussex and re-instating Middlesex etc.
The Kingdom of England also included duchies. The two duchies are the Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall. Duchy status should be recognised correctly, and the inhabitants of such areas given a choice on how the Crown should be continued to recognised in said areas with regards to property rights etc.
If counties chose to rename districts within themselves back to their original names such Richmondshire within Yorkshire etc. this should be up to the local people to decide.
By handing the power back from Westminster to the counties and recognising the various powers they where granted over time, we are handing back local democracy to the people.
When doing this we would allow the people to choose how their county was governed, this could allow the substitution of county councils for in the case of Cornwall the Stannary parliament, or in the case of Peterborough recognising it as a Soke and granting it the powers it once held.
So why all this concern over the ancient county system, I'm sure many are thinking, "but it's all in the past" and" not relevant to today" and "things well, change".
Yes things do change, but as often has been the case these changes are forced upon people, laws are ignored and parts of our cultural heritage are lost in the process. People may ask, well does it matter if it's called a county or a duchy... try telling a Cornishman they live in a shire and try telling a Geordie Newcastle isn't part of Northumberland (it may not be under government legislation, but it used to be and for many older folk still is).
How much of our Anglo-Saxon heritage has been lost in places such as East Anglia as the dialects of Norfolk and Suffolk are slowly killed off and they are pushed into an "East of England" euro region?
England does not need artificial boundaries created by bureaucrats in offices far away from the people their decisions effect. Our boundaries have been created through time and are representative of the true diversity of England, not the forced multi-cultural and Euro-British diversity of Westminster.
So what would the revised county system involve? This system would be part of the independent parliament of England's set up. Essentially the new Westminster would be responsible for the matters which the British government handles for England. The new English parliament would then hand back any power to the counties, shires, sokes and duchies that had been removed from them by the British government.
Ideally we would see a situation where in England there was no such thing as licensing hours for pubs as an example. County councils would be responsible for licensing premises and if they deemed it necessary issuing zones where pubs could only stay open to 11:30 if this was in the interest of the local people. Since ideally the county, parish and town council system will be made up of locals, these people are far more likely to understand local issues then a government in London, especially a cabinet in London dominated by MP's from devolved countries.
County councils will also be responsible for local heritage initiatives, history, some areas of education i.e. local English customs, culture and preservation of tradition, control over planning and also the types of buildings and the material that housing firms can use in some cases.
This would prevent the current situation where Westminster forces housing quotas and Eco-Towns on some areas of the country, where they are not wanted. It could also selectively force building firms to use local materials such as flint, stone, wood and slate rather then building identi-kit Lego houses which can damage the scenic nature of an area. This could be achieved through zoning as well. The English parliament along with the county councils should also enforce existing green belt legislation.
County councils could also implement strategies in their areas on second home ownership and property taxes. One thing we have learnt is that one size does not fit all, and the British governments attempts at forcing through legislation that effects the whole of England can have adverse effects on some counties and not on others.
The ability for county councils in places such as Norfolk and Westmorland to limit second home ownership or tax it at high levels could help to cut down the number of empty holiday homes that have priced locals out of the market.
The English government would also be duty bound to remove the vast layers of legislation implemented by Labour. Much of this effects peoples liberties and freedoms and squashes peoples rights. I believe the best way to do this is for the English parliament to be at heart of returning power to the electorate through local county level electable bodies which report back to the English parliament through a combination of ways, including MP's.
Could the above address such issues as:
1.) Resentment in Westmorland at holiday homes,
2.) Prevent Norfolk fishermen being priced out of the North Norfolk coast
3.) Address the calls for Cornwalls recognition as a duchy and trading the county council for a Stannary parliament
4.) Give the people of Middlesex their county back
5.) Hand local planning issue back to the people
6.) Prevent situation like the Monmouthshire and Berwick debacle happening again
I believe so.
Whether Cornwall in the future would chose to separate from England would obviously be down to a democratic means to decide, I would hope they didn't and recognition of their unique history, like the unique history of every county, duchy and shire within a unified England should be guaranteed.
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