Posts Tagged ‘English Parliament’
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.
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.
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.
‘English’ Conservatives?
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on September 8th, 2007
We’re bored to death of this, but I’ll harp on regardless. There is no such thing as the English Conservative party because, as with everything else in the UK, England is the default if you don’t mention Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. I think that’s a bad thing, but I don’t see it changing realistically.
But maybe it’s not that bad when you see crazy things like this:
Stifle the laughs, please.
Poor Scots, high house prices, high Council tax, too few dentists? Imagine, dear Scots, how you would be without the Barnet formula money!
Actually, they’d probably be better off because higher state spending doesn’t equate to higher quality services as the NHS vs. German Health Provision comparison should now show.
Cameron gets tough?
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on August 29th, 2007
According to the right-wing press and (oddly) the BBC News Website, Cameron’s returning to logic-land and has now, in the space of two days, championed the proper Conservative ideals of lower immigration and tough action on crime.
The two years of near-silence on the subject has made one slightly cynical, but that he sees that he needs to talk about these issues is gratifying. Let’s hope, when or if he gets power on our behalf, he acts as he’s talking.
As I say to people when talking about these and other issues: It seems so obvious if you don’t allow the status quo to muddy your thinking. It is entirely moot how things are today, it is what we want them to be that matters and if the barriers to achieving that are significant, all the more worthy is the effort.
England and the English Parliament Issue
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on July 29th, 2007
Richard Littlejohn on the Prime Minister with no mandate (link now dead).
Brown’s flag rules will not apply to Scotland. Goodness only knows what the reaction to Brown would be if he imposed the imperial Union flag on the Scottish people…
The Taxpayer’s Alliance has described England’s treatment by the United Kingdom as Fiscal apartheid (link now dead).
Adur Telephones, SEERA and Policy and Strategy
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on July 24th, 2007
First, a warning. Adur Council’s telephones stopped working at 4pm this evening. While this is rectified, it is my duty to give you the out of hours Duty Supervisor’s number: 07713 889 128.
Last night’s meeting
Second, at last night’s meeting some more things were said that I didn’t really cover in my post because I was a bit of a hurry. As I’ve said many times recently, one of the items under discussion was key to a merger of services with Worthing and the accompanying savings in salaries which we must find because of the Labour Government’s swingeing cuts to grants and increases in demands on local Councils.
Members of the public are so infrequently in attendance that it is necessary to mention them when they are. Last night former-Councillor Peter Berry was in attendance. He had some questions to ask about the merger and, I quote, said that the Councils were “creating a staff surplus by reorganising the workload”. This, apparently, was supposed to be a negative criticism of the Councils plans whereas, in fact, it was a ringing endorsement of our policy. As a service organisation (as all Councils are) salaries and staff costs are the vast majority of our funding need. So to create staff surpluses is to create savings. To say that we are doing that by reorganising the workload is to say that we are creating efficiencies.
Many people criticise the NHS and other government bodies for ‘having too many chiefs and not enough Indians’; how wonderful then, that I can report that our Council is doing exactly what that adage criticises: reducing the number of managers by sharing managers between the two authorities! It’s really gratifying and a genuine good news story.
SEERA
In my last post I criticised the now dying SEERA for claiming that SEEDA was an unelected quango and I celebrated our Prime Minister’s decision to erase Regional Assemblies.
But I was, not unusually, being naively optimistic. SEERA is, for its faults, at least partially democratic in that some of its membership is Councillors from across the Region. SEERA, because of that, was becoming a thorn in the side of the central government and was likely to refuse to accept the house-building proposals that Gordon Brown recently announced. This would have been [in a fake posh voice] damned inconvenient, what! So in an act of sheer arrogance he decided to give it to the South East England Development Agency instead and close the troublesome assembly which was more and more likely to try to embarass him.
Far from being a positive step for democracy in England it is yet another attack on the democratic will of the people in this area who overwhelmingly do not support the ruling party. As the Tories came to regret using Scotland as a test bed, Labour will hopefully regret pushing the English — and especially those of us in the south — around.
Tonight’s Policy and Strategy Committee…
… was great, what more need be said? Well, actually, it would be nice to have some members of the public at the next one!
If you don’t like your Council tax rises, if you wonder how that hair-brained plan came to fruition, if you watch Newsnight or Question Time (or both!), if you enjoy debate or if you care about your local community then come along. It is really entertaining (normally) and it gives a real insight into how and why decisions are made.
I’m not over-selling it. Really.
No, really.
SEERA Ironic?
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on July 24th, 2007
SEERA says the following in their most recent propaganda email:
Ministers are transferring strategic planning powers to Regional Development Agencies – unelected quangos – to by-pass councils’ opposition to excessive growth in South East house-building rates.
Do they not see the irony of pointing out the unelected-quangoness of SEEDA when SEERA itself is an unelected quango?
Gordon Brown has done well by England by announcing the abolition of Regional Assemblies, now it is time for their replacement to be an English Parliament.
The State of English Politics
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on July 17th, 2007
Adur District Council and Worthing Borough Council are embarking on a pioneering method of governance which will involve our two Councils sharing one Officer Management structure and sharing the provision of services between the two.
The process was initiated when Worthing’s Council was run by the LibDems and is continuing now that the people of Worthing have seen fit to give the Tories a go. So it should be plain-sailing. We should be finding it easy — two Conservative Councils working together. And it is and we are.
But it’s new to me — in Adur we have one LibDem and two Independents. The LibDem has never spoken at Full Council and the Independents are reasonable people who vote according to their beliefs; normally with the ruling Conservative administration. What’s new for me is having an opposition.
Tonight’s meeting was the first Joint Committee of the two Councils that wasn’t the cabinet of Worthing and the Policy Committee of Adur (SEMS). And because of political balances requirements, it was the first committee I’ve had which had an opposition present and able to vote. Tonight’s meeting was on the Redundancy Policy.
The reason I am telling you all this, other than for general interest, is to point out a couple of odd things:
- This isn’t political point-scoring, but the LibDems really didn’t seem to understand the Officers’ report
- Worse, when it was obvious they’d missed the point of it, they didn’t ask for clarification from the presenting Officer
- Worse still, when it came to voting on the Recommendations, the LibDems voted against or abstained despite having, apparently, no objections to the subject matter and having mooted no alternatives during debate
One has to wonder why they bothered? Their number are too few to change the result without winning the argument, but they didn’t bother to tell the Conservatives what their apparently better idea was. I suspect, though this is me being cynical, they just want to be able to say they were against it if the merger of services goes belly up and redundancy payments are more expensive than we expect, but in whose interest is that?
This and another incident recently at Adur make me ask, out loud now: Do people really know what they are voting for?
I am more worried now than I was last year that I was elected unopposed. It shows a complete apathy on the part of every person in Buckingham Ward who does not normally vote Conservative. But there are other cases where I am sure Councillors would not be returned if their record was scrutinised or if a single member of the public attended a Full Council or Committee meeting.
My concerns over the ademocratic nature of devolution (which has deliberately excluded England),the EU and other issues are going to fall on deaf ears all the time people are voting, year in, year out, for Councillors who don’t work for the people or who are not up to the job. The position of Councillor is similar to the management board of a reasonably large company — we have the Directors reporting to us and we make the important strategic decisions as well as setting policies for the Directors and their reports to act upon. And yet the people who are most affected by Councillors actions are apathetic. They allow sub-standard democracy.
So this is a call to the people: pay attention and watch your Councillors, MP, MEPs and AM (Wales/Northern Ireland) or MSP (Scotland) — it is very, very important.
I may have mentioned this after last Thursday’s meeting but I think it’s worth mentioning as this post is turning into a rant: A member of the public asked what the Council was doing about the proposed closure of two of West Sussex’s three Accident and Emergency facilities. The question was asked in an accusatory way as if all the work on KWASH was being done by someone else. The question was asked as if by being Councillors we weren’t already doing our civic duty to some extent and as if, maybe, it would be helpful if the people did a little more themselves.
That’s unfair: amazing numbers turned out to encircle the two Hospitals with protestors, but it was Councillors and our, apparently tireless MP, who were doing the work there too. It’s such an important issue but I have not been contacted by a single constituent about it — not one.
Say Ahhhh
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on July 16th, 2007
If you are Scottish then when you say that you may well not be paying. In fact if you’re at school in Scotland you will shortly be receiving free dental check-ups paid for by the English and Welsh tax payers.
If England had a Parliament at all and if Wales had a full Parliament (rather than an impotent Assembly) then the imbalanced treatment of the English and Welsh would be more acceptable as we would have a democratic say in whether we wanted to spend our tax on the same facilities for ourselves. But as we don’t, this is yet more ademocratic tax-theft by Mr Broon.
