Posts Tagged ‘England’
A Perfect Coalition
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on May 12th, 2010
The coalition agreement on the Liberal Democrat website is a masterpiece.
For a Liberal Democrat, it delivers key, sensible and important policies including those on taxation, pensions, civil liberties, electoral reform (including an elected, proportional, House of Lords, fixed term parliaments and alternative vote and the West Lothian question) and, most amazingly, the environment (go Chris Huhne!)
For Conservatives, on the left of the party, it delivers policies that they may well have sympathised with and ensures that fairness is central to the way the country runs.
I cannot overstate how pleased I am with the agreement (which is a short and very readable document) and I am excited about how this will continue.
This is all national politics, however. Locally, I shall fight the ruling Adur Conservatives hard — we need to move on from this tired administration and improve the service that our excellent and loyal officers are asked to provide.
10 Downing Street on Scotophilia
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on March 31st, 2009
The government have responded naively to a petition on the 10 Downing Street website.
England lose, Spain win
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on February 11th, 2009
There may be only seven teams better than England at football in the world aside from Spain, but one thing is for certain, Spain are better than England.
I didn’t wait until the end to see if ITV could lose the picture again, and show adverts, but I’m sure they are not as good at showing football as Sky, Setanta or the BBC.
Scottish homes safer than English ones
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on February 7th, 2009
A good man (let me know if you’d like to be credited) has pointed out this story about Scottish help for people struggling with their mortgages.
As always the treatment of the Scots by their Parliament is better than the treatment by the British of the English. There’s probably a financial reason that this couldn’t be promised across the whole UK and that financial reason is known as the Barnett Formula. This formula means that a proportion of all taxes paid in England goes to the sole benefit of people in the UK not living in England.
The UK is wobbling. The British Parliament in London doesn’t want you to know about this wobble, but the political structures in place currently should be clear enough evidence if any were needed. Why else would money be being spent in the non-English parts of the Union if not to placate their separatist ways?
But, you may say, Scotland is vastly rural and sparsely populated, they need more money spent per head in order to pay for all the open space. Perhaps, but the amount spent in all areas is more than is spent in England. And English spending is decided, in any case, by Scottish MPs whose own affairs are handled by members of the Scottish Parliament, so who should the English complain to?
Well bitter experience has taught me and many others like me that British MPs whether representing English constituencies or not, pretend not to understand the problem. The situation, as they see it (I assume), is better for them as it keeps them in the driving seat.
The Conservatives, it must be accepted, do have a policy in place (English Votes on English Matters) but it is so full of holes that it will not work, and if it works in any way, it won’t work for the English voters.
Unionists tell me that Scotland does not want independence, but I think it quickly would if the bribe it was receiving from (no-more-wealthy) English tax payers was stopped. It is time English MPs listened to the English electorate and accepted that we do not like being governed in a non-equal way.
England — a nation it’s official
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on January 12th, 2009
Well this is clearly absolute nonsense.
I’ve lost some of my motivation to resolve the ‘English problem’ because I have realised when talking to normal people that there are more important things in their priority lists (like high taxes and, for them, other perceived ills).
But when the government refuses to answer the question put forward in a perfectly reasonable petition it is asking for my ire.
Consider this sentence from their response: “People in the UK share common citizenship rights, which express in political, legal and social terms what it means to be from the UK.”
Since when exactly? Since 1998 Scottish and Welsh citizens have gained immeasurably in the form of free (read: paid for by English tax payers) prescriptions, free bus travel (genuinely free, unlike the Whitehall imposed version in England which comes out of English Council tax payer’s pockets, the Scottish version is paid for by the Barnet formula), free nursing home care and free university education to name the key items.
See their response here.
Train or car (no dilemma)
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on February 9th, 2008
I would really like to have given a few more updates this week, but I really don’t have enough time!
So just a quick note: I am going into town later to do some shopping. I am literally a two minute walk from the railway station and, for all my differences of opinion with left-wing environmentalists, I do care about the ability of this planet to support humanity. I therefore decided to get the train in.
But then I was reminded that I have to go over to Ditchling tonight — I may have time to come back but I may not. Once again the lack of a genuinely available public transport system has caused me to burn unnecessary carbon. It is the responsibility of all of us to do what we can to protect the environment, but some of “all” of us have more capabilities to do that. Central government needs to make strong, clear policy announcements on public transport, and especially the railways, in the South East generally, and in the countryside specifically.
There are clearly not enough tracks between Brighton and London (fast trains must go sufficiently after a so-called slow-train that it does not catch the other train up — how pointless is that?) and there are absolutely no tracks (or buses in most cases) between rural towns and villages in Sussex.
NHS – best of British
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on December 15th, 2007
[Cameron] held up the NHS as a “best of British” institution: “created by a Welshman and benefiting from the skills of doctors trained in the great medical schools of Scotland.”
… and financed by the poor of England to the benefit of the poor and wealthy of Scotland.
Project Decisions
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on December 5th, 2007
Last night the Policy and Strategy Committee of Adur District Council (ADC) had to make some tough funding decisions.
If you find your favourite project has been dropped or had its funding cut, write to the Prime Minister and copy in your local Councillor and explain that the burdens on Council Tax in the south of England imposed by central government are making life unreasonably difficult for Councils, for tax payers and for those who rely on assistance from the local Council.
The minutes of the meeting will show which projects did not make the cut and which projects have had their funding modified (reduced). In the meantime, you can see the choices we had to make in Annex 2 (the last page) of Agenda Item 5 of the meeting on 4 December 2007: Policy and Strategy reports and minutes
Non-news month
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on November 27th, 2007
November has been a month of non-news.
Over the last few weeks we’ve been subject to so-called scandal after so-called scandal and yet none of them much matters. People don’t care, for example, whether a wealthy man gave a lot of money to Labour, only whether he sought to gain influence by doing so. To my mind, giving the money through friends suggests that no influence was so sought.
The same is true of Ian Lucas’ request to have a debate about a Welsh component to a revised Union flag. I suspect not a single academic child has grown up and not asked the same question. The absence of a Welsh flag can be explained by a little studying of history, but it still seems odd that it has not been added in retrospect.
Again, though, the Welsh flag issue is not the one that the MP for Wrexham ought to be worried about. What about Welsh people having to suffer the indignity of being represented by an Assembly which has lesser powers than the Scottish Parliament? Why do the Scots deserve preferential treatment?
And while we’re talking about constitutional settlements, what has happened to devolution for England? The Campaign for an English Parliament has been complaining for nearly ten years, the Labour party has been threatening to break England up for more than ten years and yet the BBC give news-time to a minor issue like what the flag looks like.
I completely agree, as I said, that the Union flag is an anomaly, but surely the bigger anomalies ought to be cleared up first — let’s give Wales and England the parliaments they deserve, and let’s cut the British parliament down to size (given it’s purely federal role after the institution of the Welsh and English parliaments).
It’s not by mistake that the Welsh calls for an Assembly upgrade are so largely ignored, though. The turkey chicken-politician isn’t likely to vote for Christmas Winterval unless the people who vote for them make them feel they have to.
I prefer rugby
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on November 22nd, 2007
And this latest return to form for the English football team will probably bolster take-up of rugby among school children and those aspiring to be stars. I have rarely commented about football on this blog but I feel that it is only too appropriate right now.
First, I think the commentary was wholly unfair when it came to David Beckham. Commentators and pundits all said that Crouch was the only player on form, but I believe Beckham, when he came on eventually, was outstanding.
Second, I must share with you this exclusive scoop from Southern Counties Radio just now. They know the name of the next England coach. Obviously it needs to be a safe pair of hands, someone the English can rely upon. Most of all it needs to be someone we can trust and someone who rarely makes a wrong move.
That is why it will be Alistair Darling.
