Cheshire town votes to join Wales

Presumably inspired by Berwick on Tweed, residents of Audlem in Cheshire have staged their own poll on whether to become part of Wales.

The main reason seems to be the free prescriptions they would be getting if they were just over the border in Wales.

The poll was tongue in cheek but there was one rather worrying suggestion - that they should opt to join Shropshire instead and that the whole of Shropshire should join Wales. A disturbing thought I'm sure you'll agree but we do have two of the qualifications for being handed to Wales - like Monmouthshire, we are on the border and like Monmouthshire we have lots of Welsh place names - so we'd better keep an eye on our MPs to make sure they aren't being bought and sold for English Welsh English gold!

The Audlem Online website has a debate on the poll with some interesting comments already, including one resident saying that the English are trying to steal Monmouthshire. I felt it my duty to point out that it can't be stealing if you're merely taking back what is rightfully yours.

English hospitals refuse to treat Welsh

A row has erupted over Welsh patients being treated in English hospitals thanks to North Bristol NHS Trust.

Back in July 2006 Oswestry Hospital threatened to stop accepting Welsh patients because Powys Local Health Board wasn't paying its bills. An agreement was reached to prevent it happening at Oswestry but now North Bristol is having the same problem only this time the situation hasn't been resolved amicably and Welsh patients are no longer being admitted to their hospitals.

The Western Mail (a Welsh newspaper) suggests that the "row over NHS access is frankly ridiculous" and that North Bristol should continue to treat Welsh patients that they're not being paid to treat despite having a statutory obligation to ensure that they remain financially viable. The example of Shrewsbury & Telford NHS Trust continuing to treat Welsh patients despite an annual cost of £2m to do so is cited as an example: "If it can be made to work in Mid Wales and Telford and Shrewsbury, North Bristol NHS Trust needs to provide a pretty compelling case as to why it can’t work there".

What happened in Shropshire clearly wasn't a one-off but the question now has to be how many times this has happened in the past and whether this is going to keep on happening in the future. The English taxpayer already subsidises the superior Welsh health service, English hospitals treat Welsh patients at a reduced cost to their Local Health Board and now it looks like English hospitals are treating Welsh patients for free because Welsh Local Health Boards aren't paying their bills.

I have phoned the reporter who wrote this story and explained that it's not fair that English NHS Trusts should be expected to make concessions when the English already subsidise the Welsh NHS and when English hospitals are providing services to Welsh patients at reduced prices. She said she hadn't thought about it in that way and agreed that it wasn't fair and that she would do some more investigation into cross-border health services.

Shropshire Star: Pensioners in England missing out

This was in tonight’s Shropshire Star …

Pensioners in England missing out

On April 1 a new scheme came into force to allow pensioners to have free off-peak travel around England. Previously they were entitled to only off-peak travel within their local authority.

Pensioners in Scotland and Wales have been entitled to free public transport at any time in their own country for years. In Northern Ireland they get free transport in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

English pensioners don’t have the same rights as Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish pensioners because there is no English government for English people.

CEP stands up for English university students

Press Release: CEP stands up for English university students while the NUS lets them down

The CEP carries on with its opposition to the Government’s policy of discrimination against English university students.

The Campaign for an English Parliamen has deplored the decision of the National Union of Students last week to end its opposition to the tuition and top-up fees which are being imposed upon English university students.

‘We want every English student to know’, stated Mrs Scilla Cullen, Chairman of the CEP, ‘that the Campaign for an English Parliament will not stop campaigning against the fees New Labour has inflicted on English students while sparing Scottish and Welsh students. English students are being hit with immense debts while Scottish students are not.

In England university students have to pay £3145 each year of their university life. Students loans then have to be repaid at 4.8% interest rates after graduation.
Welsh students don’t have anything like the fee burden English students have.Their fees are only £1255 pa.’

However, in Scotland university students have no fees to pay. What’s more, the Scottish parliament has also made grants up to £2510 available to Scottish students coming from families on low incomes, which are not available in England. To make the discrimination even worse English students at Scottish have to pay their fees, while EU students do not; and Scottish students, and indeed Isle of Man students, at English unviersities pay no fees. What is quite grotesque about the whole situation is that, at the same time as the Scottish Parliament was legislatiing to relieve its students of fees, the vote in the UK Parliament to impose top-up fees on English students was carried only by the Scottish MPs in Westminister voting for them to give New Labour its majority in the vote in the House.The majority of English MPs voted against them.

‘The only way forward out of this discrimination’ says Mrs Cullen, ‘is for England to have its own parliament just as Scotland has. The UK government is just seeing England, which provides 85% of its whole tax revenue, as a milch cow from which Scotland and Wales benefit at the expense of the people of England. All the MPs who have imposed these fees upon English students got their university education completely free. The injustice to England is grotesque; and it is time that of the 660 Westminster MPs the 550 who are English start to stand up for their country. England should matter as much to them as Scotland does to the Scottish MPs both at Westminster and Edinburgh. They should stand up for their constituents. I can assure English students that is what an English Parliament will do.’

All students are invited to the CEP National Conference taking place at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, Holborn London on Saturday April 26th from 10:30 to 4:30. It is free and open to everyone.

St Georges Day Concert in Telford

I had a call from Councillor Pat Smart today offering me a pair of tickets for the Hadley & Leegomery St Georges Day concert.

Unfortunately, I had to decline as it's on the 26th and I will be in London at the CEP Conference.

If you can't make it to the CEP Conference on the 26th but would still like to celebrate St Georges Day, you might like to attend the concert in Telford instead.

Details are here.

Letter: Shropshire Star

This has been printed in the Shropshire Star ...

Who does Gordon Brown think he is trying to make public buildings in England fly the British flag?

Which flag flies from public buildings in his constituency in Scotland? Certainly not the “butchers apron”.

The Prime Minister is currently in his own country supporting the Leader of the Scottish Labour Party (there’s isn’t an English Labour Party of course) at their spring gathering. She intends to lead Labour to victory in the Scottish Parliament – the Parliament that Gordon Brown helped to create in 1997 and the English equivalent of which he actively conspires to deny us.

There are only a handful of buildings in Scotland that Gordon Brown can force to fly the British flag because most public buildings are the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament. However, in England he can – and will – force public buildings to fly whatever flag he chooses to drape himself in to try and cover up the fact he has no mandate in England.

I live in England and I fly the English flag all year round. I no longer consider myself British at all – the British nationalist Labour Party have demonstrated quite clearly that it is only the Celts that matter in this union, not the English.

When the Conservatives took control of Telford & Wrekin Council they replaced the flag of the EU with the English flag. I hope the take advantage of the new relaxed flag flying rules to remove the British flag and replace it with our own national flag, the Cross of St George.

Stuart Parr
Shropshire Branch
Campaign for an English Parliament