Campaign for an English Parliament - Shropshire

It is unreasonable to expect the NHS in Shropshire to configure services to suit Welsh people at the expense of people living in Shropshire

2011-01-22T11:49:00.000Z

Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals NHS Trust is currently consulting on the provision of services across the two general hospitals in the county.

Faced with real terms budget cuts from the British government, the Trust has to consolidate services at the two sites as it is no longer possible to fund the same services at both hospitals.

Consultation events are being held all over the county where Shropshire residents can have their say but not only are we in Shropshire being consulted, people in Wales are as well.

The Royal Shrewsbury Hospital is used by people in Wales where it is closer than their nearest Welsh hospital but it is not their hospital. Health is devolved and the Welsh government is responsible for providing health services to Welsh people. Welsh health boards pay English NHS Trusts to provide health services to Welsh people. They are customers of the English NHS, they have no right to make decisions on how we provide our service this side of the border.

Of the eight consultations taking place, three are in Wales. A lot of the arguments against moving services from Shrewsbury to Telford that have been reported from the consultation meetings already held revolve around the inconvenience to patients from Mid Wales. Travelling the extra 10 miles to Telford could be the difference between life and death, they are saying. Well yes, it could but then people from South Shropshire travelling the extra 10 miles to Shrewsbury could be the difference between life and death.

In Shropshire it is the responsibility of Shropshire County PCT, Telford & Wrekin PCT and the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals NHS Trust to provide health services to Shropshire people. In Powys it is the responsibility of the Powys Health Board to provide health services to Powys people. In Shropshire the funding comes from the British government, in Powys it comes from the Welsh government.

That there is a shortage of hospitals in Mid Wales is not in question but it is not the responsibility of English hospitals to fill that hole in health provision. The Welsh government chooses to spend a big chunk of its health budget on free prescriptions and hospital parking rather than a general hospital for Powys. That's their choice. The NHS in Shropshire loses £2m per year treating Welsh patients because the Welsh government won't pay the same rate for treating Welsh patients as the British government pays for treating English patients.

The best thing for Shropshire is, of course, to keep a full range of services at both the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and the Princess Royal Hospital but the British government won't let us have enough of our taxes back to pay for it so services have to be targeted at where they are needed. Telford is the fastest growing town in Shropshire and has by far the largest population of any town in the county - more than twice the size of Shrewsbury and accounting for 35% of the population of the whole county. If services have to be consolidated on one site then the site that can best serve the majority of Salopians is the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford.

If people in Powys are unhappy with the idea of travelling an extra 10 miles to access services in Telford then they can lobby their Welsh Assembly Member for a new hospital of their own. It is unreasonable to expect the NHS in Shropshire to configure services to suit Welsh people at the expense of people living in Shropshire. The Welsh can't have all the benefits of devolution without the responsibilities that go with it.

More on RBS redundancies

2010-10-09T21:18:00.000+01:00

David Wright MP seems to be having problems with his email because it's been several weeks since I emailed him asking for a meeting about RBS' policy of English jobs for Scottish people which has resulted in 500 redundancies in Telford.

Tomorrow I will be hand delivering a letter to his constituency office in Telford asking him again for a meeting to discuss English jobs for Scottish people and how the 500 jobs can be saved from being exported north of the border.

We will be leafleting outside RBS' office in Telford soon to make sure staff there know what's happening to their jobs. Anyone who wants to help hand out leaflets one morning (early!) in the next couple of weeks, please get in touch.

The hypocrisy of David Wright over RBS

2010-09-04T21:42:00.000+01:00

David Wright, the Labour MP for Telford, has demanded a meeting with the Royal Bank of Scotland after the bank announced that it is cutting 500 jobs in Telford as part of the 3,500 job cuts it plans to make in the next year.

David Wright said:

This is a shocking announcement and my thoughts are with the employees of RBS and their families.

The public stumped up the cash to save this bank and this is a kick in the teeth. I am now seeking a meeting with senior RBS management.

If rumours RBS jobs are going abroad are true then it is a disgrace. The bank needs to stop spending millions on sports sponsorship and protect jobs in the UK.

When David Wright says "the public" bailed out RBS, what he means is "the English taxpayer". Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland get more money from the Treasury than they pay in taxes, only the English pay more in taxes than they get back from the British Treasury.

The money that bailed out RBS and all the other Scottish banks was English money and as the only net contributors to the British Treasury, the English will pay back the loans that the British government, under the leadership of a Scottish Prime Minister and Scottish Chancellor, took out to pay the bills.

When the Scottish Chancellor of the British Exchequer bailed out the Halifax Bank of Scotland, he personally intervened to protect jobs in Scotland at the expense of jobs in England. The HBOS head office is, of course, in Edinburgh where Alistair Darling's constituency is.

The Labour government, of which David Wright was a member (assistant whip in the Treasury), supported HBOS' anti-English policy of sacking people in England to protect jobs in Scotland. They also stood by while RBS followed HBOS' lead and cut jobs in England to protect jobs in Scotland.

While RBS is cutting 500 jobs in Telford (and another 3,000 elsewhere in England) they have pledged not to cut any jobs in Scotland. Not only that, but they are actually creating jobs in Greenock and Edinburgh in Scotland.

Is RBS being fair to their workers in Telford, sacking 500 people in the town and another 3,000 people in England so they can increase the number of people they employ in Scotland? I don't think that's very fair and I think David Wright is a hypocrite for complaining about the RBS policy of sacking English people to protect Scottish jobs when his government not only condoned, but actively supported, exactly this policy for Scottish banks.

If anyone should be demanding anything, it's the workers at RBS Credit Management in Telford (some of whom I used to work with in the very same building prior to the RBS takeover of NatWest) who should be demanding that their MP stands up for the country he was elected in, for an enquiry into Alistair Darling's dereliction of his duty and legal obligation as a British Minister to treat all citizens equally and for a judicial review of HBOS and RBS' policy of racial discrimination.

Which Shropshire candidates support an English Parliament?

2010-05-03T21:43:00.000+01:00

Shrewsbury & Atcham
Conservative candidate, Daniel Kawczynski, didn't respond to our enquiry but from past correspondence, supports English Votes on English Laws but opposes an English Parliament.

Green candidate, Alan Whittaker, couldn't be contacted (email address on his website incorrect).

Labour candidate, Jon Tandy, is "very busy and may not have time to respond". He didn't respond.

Lib Dem candidate, Dr Charles West, wants to stop MPs from Scotland, Wales and NI voting on English laws. Doesn't support an English Parliament but says he is open to being convinced.

UKIP candidate, Peter Lewis, believes the current system is unfair but is concerned that an English Parliament would overshadow Westminster and that there would be too much overlap between the two parliaments. Supports abolishing devolved executives and having British MPs form "devolved" parliaments for all four home nations on a part-time basis. Acknowledges that Scots would probably not support this.

BNP candidate, James Whittall, is committed to the principle of an English Parliament and believes that it is unfair that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should have a devolved parliament when England does not.

Impact Party candidate, James Gollins, didn't respond to our email.

Telford
Conservative candidate, Tom Biggins, failed to return calls or respond to emails

Labour candidate, David Wright, didn't respond to our enquiry but from past correspondence, opposes an English Parliament.

Lib Dem candidate, Phil Bennion, supports devolution for England and can see the logic behind an English Parliament although he has concerns that England's size will diminish the union. He suggests an alternative of English and English/Welsh days in the British parliament. Would like the incoming British government to produce a green paper on tidying up UK devolution.

UKIP candidate, Councillor Denis Allen, supports a devolved English Parliament with at least the same powers as the Scottish Parliament.

BNP candidate, Phil Spencer, is committed to the principle of an English Parliament and believes that it is unfair that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should have a devolved parliament when England does not.

North Shropshire
Conservative candidate, Owen Paterson, didn't respond to our enquiry but from past correspondence, supports English Votes on English Laws but opposes an English Parliament.

Green candidate, Steve Boulding, hasn't responded.

Labour candidate, Ian McLaughlan, doesn't support an English Parliament because he doesn't think people want an extra layer of politicians and because of the cost which he believes would be high. He would, however, support select committees of MPs elected in England dealing with English matters.

Lib Dem candidate, Ian Croll, agrees that the English should control their own legislation but doesn't specifically mention an English Parliament.

UKIP candidate, Sandra List, agrees that the current situation is wrong but was on her way to a meeting and couldn't give a longer answer. Says she will provide a longer answer by email (check back for response).

BNP candidate, Phil Reddall, is committed to the principle of an English Parliament and believes that it is unfair that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should have a devolved parliament when England does not.

South Shropshire (Ludlow)
Conservative candidate, Philip Dunne, didn't respond to our enquiry but from past correspondence, supports English Votes on English Laws but opposes an English Parliament.

Green candidate, Jacquie Morrish, hasn't responded.

Labour candidate, Anthony Hunt, hasn't responded.

Lib Dem candidate, Heather Kidd, believes the English need their own representation. Didn't respond to a request to clarify whether this might involve an English Parliament.

UKIP candidate, Chris Gill, supports an English Parliament and made a submission to a Commission into the future of the House of Lords suggesting that it be reformed into a federal British parliament and the House of Commons turned into a devolved English Parliament when he was Conservative MP for South Shropshire.

BNP candidate, Christina Evans, is committed to the principle of an English Parliament and believes that it is unfair that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should have a devolved parliament when England does not.

Monster Raving Loony Party candidate, Alan Powell, didn't respond to our email.

Wrekin
Conservative candidate, Mark Pritchard, didn't respond to our enquiry but from past correspondence, supports English Votes on English Laws but opposes an English Parliament.

Labour candidate, Paul Kalinauskas, supports a devolved English Parliament although he does have some concerns that it might threaten the union. Of the opinion that Westminster is probably irrevocably tainted with distrust and seems remote from voters, unlike the Welsh Assembly.

Lib Dem candidate, Ali Cameron-Daw, hasn't responded.

UKIP candidate, Malcolm Hurst, supports an English Parliament if devolution continues but would prefer to return to one UK government. Points out that under the EU, England does not exist and has been replaced with 9 regions.

BNP candidate, Susan Harwood, is committed to the principle of an English Parliament and believes that it is unfair that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should have a devolved parliament when England does not.

Another poll showing 7 out of 10 want an English Parliament

2010-04-23T07:18:00.002+01:00

Another poll showing 7 out of 10 want an English Parliament

The Campaign for an English Parliament welcomes the findings of the ICM poll commissioned by Power 2010 which confirms that 7 out of 10 people support for an English Parliament.

This result backs up last year’s poll for the Jury Team and the last two independent polls commissioned by the Campaign for an English Parliament, all of which came out with the same figure. The people of England want an English Parliament, it’s a mystery why the British parties go to such great lengths to deny us the same right to self-determination they gave the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish.

Hundreds of thousands of people – perhaps even millions – will celebrate St Georges Day today and over the weekend with local councils, companies, societies and individuals organising fun days and parties. What better way to finish off the St Georges Day celebrations than an announcement from the leaders of the big three parties that they are listening to voters in England and will hold a referendum on creating an English Parliament like they did in Scotland and Wales? They’re all promising change, this is change we want.

To reinforce their message, Power 2010 beamed an English flag with the slogan “Home Rule” onto the side of Westminster Palace tomorrow. The Brits won’t be amused!

What are you doing for St Georges Day?

2010-04-21T21:54:00.002+01:00

CEP: What are you doing for St Georges Day?

St Georges Day 2010 is almost upon us (it’s Friday, in case you didn’t know) and we’re interested in what you’re planning to do to mark the day.

It was St Georges Day that first led me to discover the Campaign for an English Parliament all those years ago. I was looking for St Georges Day events in and around Telford but there weren’t any. The CEP explained why, quite bluntly – the Brits don’t like England. It sparked my interest and lead to me joining the CEP, becoming an avowed English nationalist, joining the CEP and eventually being voted onto the National Council.

A lot’s changed in that time and one of those things is that Telford & Wrekin Council are finally, after years of nagging, marking St Georges Day. They’re doing it on Saturday rather than St Georges Day but at least it means more people can go. That’s where I’ll be on Saturday with my family.

I have the day booked off work on Friday as I do every year (my unofficial St Georges Day public holiday) and I’m taking my wife to my sister’s pub for a St Georges Day lunch (they’re doing traditional English food and beers all week for St Georges Day). On Sunday we’re planning to visit Blists Hill who are doing special St Georges Day events all weekend, starting Friday.

But enough about me! What are you doing for St Georges Day? If you haven’t got anything planned, check out the St George Holiday website and if you know of any events that they don’t know about, let them know.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-24T19:35:00.003Z

Merry Christmas to all our members and supporters.

Facebook locks England fan page

2009-11-08T10:27:00.001Z

Facebook has decided that the England fan page violates its terms and conditions and locked the page so it can't be updated.

It seems that Facebook is happy for companies or political parties to set up pages to advertise themselves but not for an English patriot to set up a page for England which has allowed almost 14k people around the world to declare themselves fans of the greatest country on earth.

Fourteen thousand people can't be wrong Facebook - give us our England page back!

Please join the Facebook group calling for the page to be reinstated.

Shropshire NHS needs to start thinking like a business, not just acting like one

2009-10-27T17:49:00.005Z

Today's meeting of the Shropshire NHS Trust was a bit of a shambles by all accounts - they didn't announce it properly so it wasn't a legal consultation - but the Park Inn in Telford was packed out (over 300 people) despite being held, yet again, during the working day.

Earlier this month I wrote on this blog that it is the Welsh government that needs to sort out the inadequate health provision in Mid Wales, not the NHS here in Shropshire and I stand by that. I suggested that the Welsh government should invest some of their substantial health budget in building a new hospital in Mid Wales so that the Welsh government can discharge its duty to provide adequate health care to Welsh people without unduly impinging on our health services here in Shropshire. Again, I stand by that comment.

However, it occurs to me that there is a better solution. It can be implemented in the next financial year and it will protect and possibly even improve health services in Shropshire. As the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital (RSH) is an integral part of the Welsh government's health provision for Mid Wales, the Welsh government can contribute part of its health budget towards the general running costs of the hospital.

The Welsh government doesn't provide hospital services to Mid Wales, which has a population of about 209,000. Instead it uses the RSH and other English and Welsh hospitals to provide those services. The RSH is the primary hospital for the county of Powys which has a population of approximately 132,000. The population of Shropshire is only around 283,000 (as of 2001). Almost a third of the people in the catchment area for the RSH are the responsibility of the Welsh government. It is only fair, therefore, that the Welsh government should contribute more than a fee per patient treated (at a discounted rate, inexplicably) and should instead contribute a proportionate amount of the actual running costs of the RSH.

The NHS in England is no longer run as a public service, it is run as a business and the NHS in Shropshire is in effect providing an outsourced health service to the Welsh government. Any outsourcing business that didn't either charge their client a share of the capital cost of running a shared service or a usage charge at an inflated price to recover a share of the capital costs would soon be out of business and deservedly so. If the NHS in Shropshire is going to act like an outsourcing business then it needs to start thinking like one.

The second attempt at today's consultation will be taking place at the Park Inn in Telford at 1pm this coming Monday. I hope to be there to put this argument across to the representatives of the Shropshire NHS.

CEP Protest in Smethwick

2009-10-09T21:57:00.001+01:00

Members of the Campaign for an English Parliament (CEP) in Shropshire and the West Midlands attended the inaugural meeting of the grandly-titled but pointlessly ineffectual Regional Grand Committee for the West Midlands last night (8th October) to protest at its existence.

Like the vast majority of English people, the Campaign for an English Parliament opposes the damaging regionalisation of England and instead believes that England should be run by an English Parliament.

CEP members held up a 12ft banner and waved placards as MPs arrived at Sandwell College Campus at Smethwick. Several passing motorists stopped to read the placards and many of them stuck up their thumbs and honked their horns in support.

Despite the Conservatives saying that they would boycott these regional grand committees and pledging, in their party conference this week, to unravel Labour's regionalisation, seven opposition MPs turned up to the meeting. Had they not attended, the Labour MPs that attended would have failed to meet the minimum number required for the meeting to go ahead.

These regional grand committees are Gordon Brown's preferred form of government for England and are supposed to be Labour's answer to the national parliament and assembly they created in Scotland and Wales. British ministers have described them as bringing democracy closer to the people. To think that the people of England will accept this sham as the future of their country is an insult.

Letters in Shropshire Star

2009-10-07T22:38:00.000+01:00

I had a letter published in the Shropshire Star the other day:

Easy way of saving NHS cash in England

With all the talk of cutting services at the Princess Royal Hospital, it is worth bearing in mind a few things. Firstly, the English NHS has been underspending for the last few years by a considerable amount.
Spending on the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish NHS has increased considerably. Secondly, the Welsh government refuses to pay the going rate to English hospitals for treating Welsh patients - something that costs the NHS in Shropshire approximately £2m per year.
Thirdly, the Welsh are terrible payers - Oswestry hospital threatened to refuse to treate patients from Powys earlier this year because they wouldn't pay their bills. A hospital in Bristol actually went as far as cancelling surgery for Welsh patients this year for the same reason.
The Welsh get free prescriptions and free hospital car parking yet we in England still subsidise their health service thanks to the Barnett Formula.
Why do our MPs allow £20bn a year flow over the border to subsidise spending in the rest of the UK? Shropshire's hospitals could raise well over £2m a year by charging Welsh health boards the amount for treating their patients and penalising for overdue payments.
Stuart Parr
Telford

Tonight they printed a reply from another reader ...

Rules for English are unfair

I agree with Stuart Parr's letter (Shropshire Star, October 2). We English are very unfairly treated under the Barnett formula to the advantage of the other countries in the so-called United Kingdom.
Over the last few years this has become the "dis-united kingdom". He asks why our MPs allow this disparity and all I can do is point out again that our Government is heavily Scottish-dominated. The other countries in the UK all have their own assemblies, but not the English.
The Scottish-dominated government will not even stop the Scottish, Welsh and Ulster MPs from voting on English-only matters in Westminster.
All this is very unfair to the English and even Barnett has stated so, but with the majority of English MPs being Conservative our current government is not going to change anything,
We can only hope to achieve parity after the next election and have our own parliament, or better still get rid of the other money-wasting and expense claiming assemblies.
Graham Burns
Newport

Agree with every word right up until the second half of the last sentence.

Tories won't be boycotting regional grand committee after all

2009-10-06T20:35:00.004+01:00

The Tories and the Lib Dems both pledged to boycott Gordon Brown's regional grand committees so I called the offices of the five Shropshire MPs over the last couple of days to ask if they would be attending the regional grand committee in Smethwick on Thursday.

Daniel Kawczynski will definitely not be attending the meeting, approves of the Tory boycott and opposes regionalisation.
Owen Paterson is giving a speech to the Tory Party conference and won't be attending the committee.
Mark Pritchard's secretary in his constituency office doesn't have access to his diary and his Westminster office has yet to reply to an email.
David Wright has yet to return my call (although he has been sending me Twitter messages all day).
Philip Dunne will be attending the committee as he has been instructed to attend by the party whip.

Tory Party conference follower and English Parliament supporting blogger, Man in a Shed, put the following update on Twitter today:

Abolishing Labour's regional government gets the loudest clap so far

How much applause would the announcement have got if the delegates knew that the whips were ordering their shadow cabinet members to attend regional grand committees despite a public pledge to boycott them?

Down with this sort of thing

2009-10-06T19:23:00.002+01:00

On Thursday members of Shropshire Branch will be at the Campaign for an English Parliament’s protest at the pantomime that is the regional grand committee for the West Midlands euroregion.

The regional grand committee for the east of England euroregion was a complete farce – hardly any MPs turned up to the meeting (not enough for a quorum so they couldn’t discuss anything on the agenda) and they spent 30 minutes of the 50 minute meeting debating whether to put the PA system on. The whole thing cost the taxpayer nearly £2m, the meeting in the West Midlands euroregion will also cost roughly the same amount.

This is El Gordo’s vision for the future governance of England but it’s certainly not mine. The protest will be at 6:30pm on Thursday the 8th of October at the Sandwell College campus in Smethwick.

It's not our job to fix the Welsh government's bad decisions

2009-10-05T08:40:00.005+01:00

The NHS in Shropshire is proposing to cut A&E and acute paediatric services in Telford's Princess Royal Hospital to save money.

David Wright, the MP for the Telford constituency, has launched a "Say no to Shrewsbury" campaign calling for cuts to be made at Shrewsbury rather than Telford which has prompted Daniel Kawczynski, the MP for the Shrewsbury & Atcham constituency, to campaign for the cuts to be made at Telford instead. Daniel Kawczynski has even tried to enlist the help of Rhoddri Morgan, the First Minister of Wales, because patients from Mid Wales would be inconvenienced by cuts to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

The suggestion that one hospital can cope with all A&E and acute paediatric referrals is ridiculous in itself but to suggest that they should be centralised in Shrewsbury when Telford has the largest and fastest growing population in the county is unbelievable.

What is best for Shropshire is for the services to stay at both hospitals or for a new hostpial to be built between Shrewsbury and Telford. But if there is a requirement to centralise services then they should be centralised in Telford, not in Shrewsbury.

The problem with this suggestion, though, is that it inconveniences patients from Mid Wales who don't have a local Welsh hospital. The NHS in Shropshire has cited this as a reason to keep services in Shrewsbury and the Daniel Kawczynski MP has also used it as an excuse to keep services at the hospital in his constituency.

And this is the problem with so-called English MPs - they aren't English MPs at all, they are British MPs. On balance, taking into account the interests of patients from Mid Wales, it makes most sense to keep services at Shrewsbury and it is the interests of those Welsh patients that Daniel Kawczynski is taking into account and using as leverage to save services at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

But the people of Shrewsbury & Atcham elected Daniel to represent their interests, not the interests of Welsh people. In Wales they elect Welsh Assembly Members to deal with health as it's a devolved area and it is the Welsh government that has a responsibility to provide adequate health care in Wales, not the British government and not the NHS in Shropshire.

I'm not suggesting for a moment that someone from outside of Shropshire should be refused treatment at any of our Shropshire hospitals but there is a difference between treating someone from another English county, whose health provision is the responsibility of the same government that our own is in Shropshire and treating someone from another country whose health provision is the responsibility of another government - one that, crucially, is funded separately to the English NHS and given more money from the British Treasury to provide services.

This isn't a case of sour grapes or being anti-Welsh, it's simply that the provision of health services to Welsh people is the responsibility of the Welsh government and if services do need to be cut in Shropshire then those cuts should be made in such a way that it provides the least detriment to the people of Shropshire. If it leaves the Welsh with worse health provision then I'm afraid it is up to the Welsh people to petition the Welsh government to invest some of their health budget in building a hospital in Mid Wales.

The Welsh people asked for their own government and they got it. They have to live with the consequences of that decision and one of those consequences is that they can't keep relying on the English to pick up the pieces when their government makes the wrong decision. Not investing in health care in Mid Wales was a bad decision but fixing the consequences of that bad decision is up to the Welsh government, not the NHS in Shropshire.

Telford & Wrekin to fly English flag from all council offices

2009-10-01T12:46:00.002+01:00

Telford & Wrekin Council voted last night to fly the Cross of St George outside all of their offices.

This is a very welcome move and leads the way for other, less patriotic local authorities in England.

The British establishment doesn't allow us to have many symbols of our nation because it undermines the Britification project. Our national flag is the most important symbol of our nation and the English people and Telford & Wrekin Council is to be congratulated on this move.

Shropshire Star: It's not too late to hear out English nationalists

2009-09-18T19:01:00.003+01:00

It's been a while since I wrote a letter to the Shropshire Star. This one was published in tonight's Shropshire Star ...

It's not too late to hear out English nationalists
It's a little late for John Denham to be worrying about the emergence of white supremacists in England when he has served in a British government that has deliberately ignored moderate English nationalists for the last decade.

The effect of which has been the emergence of groups like the English and Welsh Defence League.

I have no interest in ethnic nationalism. But I really must point out that independent observers have said that the violence at the English and Welsh Defence League protests in Birmingham has been largely instigated by the thugs from Unite Against Fascism.

If the Government had spent the decade listening to the reasonable demands of ordinary people who want equal rights for English people instead of marginalising them, there would be no reason for white supremacist groups to exist.

We would have an English Parliament and English politicians elected by English people defending English interests, instead of anglophobic British nationalists at Westminster treating us like serfs.

John Denham and his colleagues have only themselves to blame for the emergence of racists like the English and Welsh Defence League because they are a product of their anti-English policies.

It's not too late for the Government to engage with moderate English nationalists like the Campaign for an English Parliament and promote an inclusive English civic nationalism, but I suspect they will be too busy navel gazing to realise it.

Stuart Parr
Telford

Welsh patients pushed down waiting list at Shropshire hospital

2009-09-18T08:55:00.003+01:00

I was told last night on very good authority that the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt hospital in Gobowen (also known as Oswestry Opthopaedic) is bumping English patients up the waiting lists in protest at the Welsh government's refusal to pay the going rate for treatment.

The three main hospitals in Shropshire all lose money treating Welsh patients because the Welsh government doesn't pay the same amount for treatments as the British government does. More Welsh patients have to be treated to achieve the same income as they would receive if treating only English patients.

Added to this is the problem of the Welsh not paying their bills on time which resulted in at least two hospitals - Oswestry here in Shropshire and one in Bristol - threatening to refuse treatment to Welsh patients if they didn't hand over the cash.

An English patient's recent conversation with a consultant at Oswestry went something like ...

Patient: So when am I likely to get my operation?
Consultant: Probably around November unless you live in Wales
Patient: Why, what difference would it make if I lived in
Wales?
Consultant: Well, with all the free prescriptions and free parking
they get and they don't pay us us enough for treatment, Welsh patients get
pushed down the waiting list

I'm not sure if this is official hospital policy or an unofficial protest by consultants but I expect it will annoy the Welsh immensely, especially given the number of letters recently in the Shropshire Star trying to defend the special treatment the Welsh are getting (including putting Welsh signs in Oswestry hospital). There is a simple solution if the Welsh do start getting shirty over being pushed down the waiting lists - they could spend some of the multi-billion pound annual subsidy they get from the English taxpayer building some of their own hospitals.

A startling discovery?

2009-08-22T21:06:00.003+01:00

Phillip Dunne, the Tory MP for Ludlow in Shropshire, is demanding that the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) come clean about plans to revalue houses in England for council tax.

Mr Dunne has "discovered" that the VOA has been training up valuers and has been covertly inspecting and cataloguing properties in England for valuation purposes. Presumably he doesn't have a subscription to the Torygraph because they made a big thing of it back in 2007 and it was old news then.

The VOA is part of HM Revenue & Customs which is itself a part of the Treasury, the government department run by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and yep, you've guess it, the VOA has no involvement in valuations in Alistair Darling's constituency. The VOA only operates in England and Wales and although a revaluation of Welsh homes has already taken place, the Welsh government uses public money to subsidise council tax bills, effectively capping them.

So, will Mr Dunne be drawing any of this to the attention of his constituents? Will he point out the unfairness of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, elected in Scotland, running the VOA even though the people affected by the decisions taken by the VOA can't hold him to account for his department's actions through the ballot box? Will he be drawing attention to the fact that the Welsh government is using English money to subsidise Welsh council tax bills while the British government sits back and watches English council tax demands increase by 3 or 4 times the rate of inflation? Will he point out to his constituents that an English Parliament would have the same ability to cushion English council tax payers from the increasing demands of public expenditure in the same was the Welsh government does now for Welsh council tax payers?

Perhaps he's changed his mind in the four years since he told CEP Shropshire chairman, Edward Higginbottom, that he prefered the unworkable English Votes on English Laws proposal his party has put forward than the English Parliament that the majority of English people want but I doubt it. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas after all.

Shropshire Star Letters

2009-04-29T19:39:00.003+01:00

These two letters were in the Shropshire Star in the last few days:

Promote St George
As a patriotic English-woman and a proud Shrewsbury resident, I feel it's about time that my local council and the rest of the politically-correct establishment did more to promote England's patron saint.

The council uses taxpayers' money to promote multi-culturalism but does nothing to mark St George's day. This anti-English bias is an absolute disgrace.

Helen Foulkes
Shrewsbury

I'm English and proud
Isn't it strange how this year it's no longer racist to celebrate St Georges Day?

It couldn't possibly be because the main political parties are scared that they have pushed the English people too far, making them second class citizens in their own country?

All of a sudden the likes of Gordon Brown are saying it's OK to be English again, but we still have the usual rhetorical clap trap in the media.

Why are the English the only race who have to justify who they are? Why are we made to feel guilty about our culture and heritage?

Mike Amos
Shrewsbury

Happy St Georges Day

2009-04-23T09:15:00.001+01:00

Happy St Georges Day

Sandwell St Georges Day Parade

2009-03-28T11:29:00.001Z

Stone Cross St George Association, organisers of the Sandwell St Georges Day parade, have sent the following message to supporters …

Apologies for not giving much news of late but we’ve been working behind the scenes to try and move things forward.

GOOD NEWS…

The date of the parade WILL be the 19th April. Assembling in Westminster Road from 9:45am

Sandwell Council have allowed the fair to remain open on the Sunday and have given us permission to have a stage erected in the park so we can address the crowd of people. Obviously there will not be as much in the park as in previous years but a week ago we had nothing in going on in the park!

BAD NEWS…

Some of the expenses for the parade are really high, Chris Kelly from Keltruck has very kindly offered to pay ‘the difference’ for the parade but as it stands at the moment we have very little in the way of donations from anywhere else! PLEASE try and help us financially, even if you could send a cheque for £1, All 3,400 of you all on this list will go a long way paying off just the insurance!

£1 will give you a mention on our website, £10 will give you a yearly membership, £100 a lifetime membership.

PLEASE HELP!!

For more details, go to the Stone Cross St George Association website.

St Georges Day in Telford

2009-03-19T19:58:00.003Z

UKIP Telford & Wrekin

Celebrating St Georges Day

on the evening of the 23rd April

at

The Telford White House Hotel
Watling Street
Wellington
Telford
TF1 2NJ

Tickets £12.50 each

Arrival 7.00 – 7.15 Meal 7.30pm

Ends around 10.30pm

Brass Band

Meal
Fish & Chips and Mushy Peas
Apple Pie

This is the time to sing along let your hair down and have fun.

More importantly Fly the Flag

Please forward a cheque payable:

UKIP Telford & Wrekin
c/o Holly Cottage
30 The Fields
Kynnersley
Telford
Shropshire
TF6 6ED

Please note: this is not a CEP event and the CEP doesn't support any political party

Shropshire man falls foul of the Nationality Lottery

2009-03-13T19:41:00.003Z

A Shropshire man has fallen foul of the nationality lottery after Telford & Wrekin NHS Trust refused to treat him with Lucentis to try and save his sight.

Allan Farley has punctate inner choroidopathy and two consultants have told him that Lucentis will help to save the sight in his right eye. He is already blind in his left.

But the NHS Trust, acting on guidelines issued by the increasingly inaccurately named National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), have refused to fund a course of Lucentis. Honestly, someone really should complain to Trading Standards - they are neither "national" nor "nice".

Two years worth of Lucentis will cost about £18k, pocket money compared to the cost of paying benefits and providing services to a blind man and his family for the next 50 or 60 years. If you'll excuse the pun, the decision is more than a little short sighted.

Mr Farley says he's being refused Lucentis because of the cost. Yes, it's an expensive drug and the NHS Trust probably doesn't have £18k stuffed down the back of the Chief Exec's sofa to pay for it but finding the money for the drug is a secondary issue and the NHS Trust does have the money if it wants to spend it.

The real reason why Mr Farley is being refused Lucentis is because he lives in England. If he lived in Scotland he would have been treated by now and the sight of his left eye might have been saved. The Scottish Medical Consortium - the equivalent body to NICE north of the border - allows Lucentis to be provided on the NHS in Scotland, along with a host of other drugs such as cancer and alzheimers treatments that are unavailable to English people.

Shropshire MPs complaining about unfair treatment of the English

2009-03-12T20:21:00.004Z

The following story graced the front page of Wednesday night's Shropshire Star:

MP's bid for equal rights at factories
Workers at a Japanese car part factory in Shropshire are not receiving the same state aid in the current economic climate as their Welsh counterparts, an MP has claimed.

Shimizu UK has operations in Hortonwood, Telford, and Welshpool.

However, while its Welsh staff receive taxpayer-funded subsidies for their earnings and efforts to boost their skills - those at the English site do not.

Mark Pritchard, The Wrekin MP, whose constituency includes Hortonwood, today demanded a fair deal and similar assistance for his constituents as well.

The Tory MP raised the issue with Welsh Secretary Paul Murphy in the Commons.

He said: "The Secretary of State will know that Shimizu - a fone Japanese company - has a factory in Welshpool and also in Hortonwood in my constituency.

"But the difference is, on the Welsh side of the border they receive taxpayer subsidies for wages and training.

"That is good news obviously for people in jobs in Wales, but what about the people of Shropshire and my constituentsm who would like to see a similar subsidy from the regional develpment agency?"

Mr Murphy said there were "plenty" of schemes to turn to for assistance, including Train 2 Gain.

He said: "There are plenty of schemes - it is important that you make your constituents aware of them."

The irony is, the Conservatives today announced that they will abolish all the regional quangos if they win the next election, including the regional development agencies.

Today I wrote the following to the four Conservative MP's in Shropshire (there's no point writing to the Labour MP, David Wright, any more as he rarely replies and when he does it's usually spin or he answers a question you haven't asked) as follows:

Dear MP,

Yesterday, Mark Pritchard had the following exchange with the British Secretary for State for Wales:
Mark Pritchard: What discussions he has had with ministerial colleagues and the Welsh Assembly Government on schemes to assist businesses in Wales during the economic downturn. [261330]

The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Paul Murphy): I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer that I gave the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mark Williams).

Mark Pritchard: I am delighted to have given the Secretary of State more time to think about his answer. He knows that Shimizu, a fine Japanese company, has factories in Welshpool and in Hortonwood in my constituency. The difference is that, on the Welsh side of the border, it receives taxpayer subsidies for wages and training. That is good news; we want people in jobs in Wales, but what about the people of Shropshire and my constituents, who would like a similar subsidy from the regional development agency?

Mr. Murphy: As the hon. Gentleman knows, one great benefit of devolution is that we can have several schemes to help businesses in Wales that might not be available in England. However, there are also effective schemes across the border in England, such as Train to Gain, the help that the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform gives small and medium-sized enterprises, and the Department for Work and Pensions schemes. There are plenty of schemes—it is important that the hon. Gentleman makes his constituents aware of them.
This raises an important point and one that is going to get more focus, especially as the economic situation worsens.

Last week Daniel was quoted quite justifiably complaining about the £2m per year cost of treating Welsh patients at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital. Co-incidentally, I received a letter from the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital that same week confirming that the new kidney cancer wonder drug that the Welsh government have approved for NHS use could be given to a Welsh patient in the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital whilst an English patient would be refused it. Is this another benefit of devolution? It is for the Welsh.

As the economy gets worse, the Scottish and Welsh governments are spending more of their subsidy on propping up their businesses. There is no equivalent focus on English businesses from the British government, the focus is on UK-wide measures.

The Bank of England has magicked a few billion pounds out of thin air and used it to buy assets off British banks so that they will have enough capital to start lending again. The Royal Bank of Scotland has pledged £1.7bn to start offering mortgages - but only in Scotland. RBS is a Scottish bank first and foremost, they're only British when they need rescuing from bankruptcy. The same applies to HBOS - both RBS and HBOS pledged to sacrifice jobs in England to save them in Scotland.

I'm afraid the regional development agencies (which David Cameron says he will abolish) just won't cut it when it comes to addressing the democratic deficit in England or providing support to the English economy. An unelected regional quango with a few million pounds of funding pales in comparison to the national governments of Scotland and Wales with multi-billion pound budgets, the ability to pass its own legislation and directly elected politicians elected to represent the interests of the people that elected them.

What England needs and what England wants is an English government with English politicians elected by English people to represent English interests. We don't need a Prime Minister and Chancellor elected in Scotland, unaccountable to English voters and having signed the Scottish Claim of Right, pledging to put the interests of Scotland first and foremost in all their acts and deliberations. We don't need MPs elected in Scotland, unaccountable to English voters, casting the deciding votes on devolved subjects such as university top-up fees, foundation hospitals and the new runway at Heathrow.

Before you give the usual speech about how we're stronger together than apart and our shared values, ask yourself what the union is doing for your constituents right now. Billions of pounds is being spent on Scotland and Wales at the expense of England. Legislation that only affects England is being passed by Scottish MPs that have no right to vote on the same matters in their own constituencies. Scottish and Welsh businesses are not only benefitting from the British government's UK-wide efforts to combat the recession but they are also benefitting from their own government's efforts. You are already seeing - and questioning - the benefits to Scottish and Welsh people from having their own devolved governments. Why would you want to deny those same benefits to your own constituents?

The case for an English Parliament is growing stronger as every day goes by and support for it is increasing year on year. It is no longer a subject for academics and political anoraks, it is a mainstream subject talked about in pubs, workplaces and schools. Are you going to stand on the Welsh border like a modern-day Canute and demand that the tide of change turns back or are you going to accept that things are going to change whether you want them to or not? England is being failed and you can do something about it - support the Campaign for an English Parliament while there is still an England to support.

I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you personally and discuss this further.

Stuart Parr

When I got home tonight and picked up the paper, Daniel Kawczynski was on the front page again, this time in a similar vein to Mark Pritchard last night. How am I supposed to keep up!

Pleading for the future
Fifteen firms appeal to MP for help to survive
Up to 15 Shrewsbury businesses have approached their MP in a desperate bit to avoid folding because of problems with their banks, it has been claimed.

Shrewsbury MP Daniel Kawczynski said he had faced the "extraordinary" situation of being asked by companies to pleasd with bank bosses to allow mre time for payments to be made and stave off unreasonable demands.

He said that Wrekin was not the only company to have faced sever pressure from the banks and has called for the government to do more to help firms in trouble.

"I am currently involved in negotiation with banks with regard to 15 Shrewsbury firms who are having difficultues with their banks," he added.

"These companies have asked me personally to get involved and I am writing to banks and arranging for Shrwsbury businesses to meet with their bank managers.

"It is quite an extraordinary situation when local firms are asking for the suppor of their MP to stop them going to the wall."

The Tory MP said that since the recession took hol, he has been approached by an increasing number of businesses who are suffering because of a decline in demand whilst struggling to access credit.

A Meet the Buyer event is being held for businesses in the construction industry, which will take place on March 27 at the Shirehall.

The Chamber of Commerce will offer a presentation and short interview slots explaining how contracting and procurement services are arranged by Shropshire Council.

The reference to "Wrekin" is Wrekin Construction, a local construction company that has just gone bust with the loss of around 1,100 direct and indirect jobs. Despite having £40m of orders on its books for this year and enough money coming to them to pay their £2.8m overdraft off by the end of the week, the Royal Bank of Scotland refused to give them a few days extra to pay it. The Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform - an English department of the British government - will now have to pay £5m in redundancy payments because the company is in administration. Yet in the same week, RBS pledges to spend £1.7bn on loaning new mortgages in Scotland - as is usually the case: Scottish first, British second.

MP tells of Welsh woe

2009-03-01T11:14:00.000Z

This article appeared in the Shropshire Star the other day ...

MP tells of Welsh woe

Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski has professed that he loves Wales, but he had plenty of complaints about the principality during a debate in the House of Commons.

The Shrewsbury & Atcham MP questioned Wales’s role in health services in Shropshire, flooding, tuberculosis in cattle, and “unfair and uncompetitive” grants to businesses given by the Welsh Assembly.

“The Welsh Assembly creates huge difficulties for English border towns,” he told MPs.

Mr Kawczynski said the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital was losing £2 million a year as a result of the way the assembly paid for treatment across the border.

“We have patients coming from Wales to the hospital who get life-saving medication to which my constituents in Shrewsbury are not entitled,” he told the Commons.

“I have to fight tooth and nail to secure life-saving treatments for my constituents that people from Wales get automatically in our hospital.

“That causes huge frustration and anger and divides our two communities.”

The Conservative MP said 40,000 cows had to be killed in England last year as a result of bovine TB.

“It is such a shame that there is not more co-operation between our parliament here in London and the Welsh Assembly over the issue, which transcends our borders,” he said.

“There should be far more co-operation in dealing with such major issues.”

Mr Kawczynski said flooding caused “tremendous misery” along the length of the River Severn with Shrewsbury flooding repeatedly.

“The way to resolve the problem is not to have little barriers in each town, but to have a wet washland scheme across the border in Wales,” he said.

“This would flood a large piece of agricultural land, which would become a marsh in the summer, encouraging wildlife, and a lake in winter.”

The Conservative MP said it was unacceptable that a Government minister had intervened to block the idea.

By London Editor John Hipwood

The Shropshire branch of the CEP has been plugging away at all five of the county's MPs, including Daniel. He is nominally supportive of some form of better representation for England and, having sat on a devolution committee, is quite aware of the discrimination England faces.

Co-incidently, I received an email from the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust which covers the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford, the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital in Shrewsbury and the Robert Jones & Agnes Hunt in Oswestry. Prompted by an announcement by the Welsh Government that Welsh patients would be entitled to a new kidney cancer wonder-drug free of charge on the NHS, I had asked them ...

Will Welsh patients treated in the RSH also get these drugs paid for by the Welsh Assembly? Will it be possible for an English and Welsh patient being treated at the RSH for the same thing and for the English patient to be refused the drugs that the Welsh patient will be getting?

The reply was long-winded but, in a nutshell, the answer was "yes". The question is, what does Daniel propose to do about it? The Tory policy of English Pauses for English Clauses won't resolve the issue, only an English Parliament will by putting English health priorities in the hands of politicians elected to represent English interests.

Click the icon below to view a copy of the letter from the NHS Trust.

Shropshire Star: Campaign for fairer treatment of English

2009-03-01T08:26:00.003Z

Derek Armstrong has done it again!

Campaign for fair treatment of English
Householders in Scotland will have their council tax bills frozen until 2012 in a £210 million deal funded by English taxpayers.

Nationalist leaders of Scotland's parliament in Edinburgh have pledged to keep council taxes unchanged after scrapping plans for a controversial local income tax.

This latest example of UK "apartheid" means that by the time of the London Olympics, Scottish families will be paying the same amount of council tax as they were in 2007, whereas English council tax bills are set to rise be almost £50 next year for an average property to plug a £2.5 billion black hole in local authority finances caused by the economic downturn.

This decision will fuel resentment south of the border over the way Scotland's devolved government uses subsidies from the treasury to offer sweeterers denied to most of the rest of the UK.

The Scots already get free eye care and dental check-ups, free access to cancer drugs and free care homes for the elderly - now they will get council tax priveleges as well, at English tax payers' expense.

Anyone who feels angry at this might consider joining the CEP (Campaign for an English Parliament).

The CEP is a non-political organisation that is working for an English Parliament so that the people living in England can at least have a political institution that fights for our interests.

Our telephone number is 07071 220234, which is not a mobile number.

Our website address is: http://www.thecep.org.uk/wordpress/

Derek Armstrong
Broseley

Shropshire Star: England is denied EU aid benefit by Labour

2009-02-08T17:57:00.004Z

This excellent letter appeared in the Shropshire Star on Saturday:

England is denied EU aid benefit by Labour
The Labour Government is denying England a windfall from the European Union yet it is making sure that Wales, Scotland and Ulster benefit.

The fall in the value of the pound has increased the value of euro-denominated EU grants by a fifth and the European Commission has offered a six-month extension to its December 2008 deadline to all countries for unused funds as part of a 200 billion euro (£178 billion) economic stimulus package.

Labour took up the option for Scotland, Wales and Ulster, but rejected it for England. Only recently Brown and his ministers held their cabinet meeting in Liverpool to demonstrate solidarity with the people of Merseyside in the midst of the recession.

However, in 1989 he signed the Scottish Claim of Right, in which he pledged "to make the interests of Scotland paramount" in everything he said and did.

As Prime Minister we rightly expect him to show and even-handed attitude towards all the nations of the UK.

Anyone who feels angry at this anti-English action might consider joining the Campaign for an English Parliament. Our number is 07071 220234, which is not a mobile number. Our website address is http://www.thecep.org.uk/wordpress/

While Wales and Ulster have their own assemblies and Scotland has its own parliament, England has no such parliament or assembly. Labour cares for the UK's Celtic nations, while treating England with contempt.

Derek Armstrong
CEP Member
Shropshire Branch

Derek has set the bar high - not only did he get across a very valid point on the blatant discrimination the English suffer at the hands of the British government, he also got the CEP phone number and website address in the letter as well!

Shropshire Hotel ignores St George

2009-01-24T15:43:00.002Z

The Wroxeter Hotel is advertising its diary of events for the first four months of 2009.

Amongst the events are Burns Night and St Patricks Day celebrations but conspicuous in its absence is any celebration of St Georges Day.

Those who know their history might see a certain amount of irony in a hotel that owes its success to the Romans ignoring St George.

Morris Dancing!

2008-10-05T19:05:00.002+01:00

My long-suffering wife dispatched me with to Ironbridge today with my 3 boys.

I got a passport allowing unlimited access to all the Ironbridge museums for the bargain price of £24 through my employer not long ago. We've certainly made full use of the passport since getting it - we've been to Blists Hill a couple of times and Enginuity about 5 times.

Enginuity is brilliant but there's only so many times you can go to the same place and play with the same stuff so we went for a look around the Tile Museum and then went to the Ironbridge for a look round the toll house. That's when we came across these guys:

I've lived no more than 10 minutes away from Ironbridge my whole life and didn't even know there was a morris dancing group in Ironbridge! These lot are called the Iron Men and Severn Gilders. It was really nice to see some traditional English public entertainment - even the obligatory 5 million Japanese tourists that frequent Ironbridge every weekend (ok, there were actually about 10) found it most entertaining.

Here are some pictures and the original 3gp video file which is much better quality than the YouTube version above ...

CEP rally - 18th October at Shrewsbury

2008-10-04T22:20:00.003+01:00

The Shropshire branch of the CEP is holding a rally on Saturday the 18th of October in Shrewsbury.

We'll be meeting somewhere central - probably Pride Hill or near the hideous Market Hall - at around 10am and hand out leaflets.

The theme of the rally will be the NHS. Just over the border in Wales they have free prescriptions and free hospital parking. The Welsh government doesn't even pay the going rate for their treatment in English hospitals, costing the hospitals in Shrewsbury, Oswestry & Telford over £1m per year in lost revenues. In Scotland they will all be entitled to free prescriptions from April next year and in Northern Ireland prescriptions will be only £3 next year and free for all from 2010.

Please get in touch for more details.

Shropshire Star: Kind of PM to think of England

2008-10-01T21:33:00.001+01:00

The following letter was published in tonight’s Shropshire Star. Unfortunately, whilst editing it they took out “in England” from the end of the first line which makes the whole letter ambiguous.

Kind of PM to think of England
How kind of Gordon Brown, the MP for Kikcaldy and Cowdenbeath in Scotland, to find some loose change down the back of the sofa to pay for free prescriptions for cancer patients.

I remember when my own mother was recovering from cancer the last thing she needed was the worry of how to pay for prescriptions when she was unable to work.

However, when considering Mr Brown’s generosity, it should be remembered that in Wales nobody has paid for a prescription for nearly two years now.

And any of Gordon Brown’s constituents in Scotland suffering from long-term of permanent illnesses haven’t paid for prescriptions for some time. Already 92 per cent of prescriptions dispensed in Scotland are free of charge.

Stuart Parr
Telford

Press Release: Gordon Brown ready to sacrifice HBOS jobs in England

2008-09-22T09:34:00.002+01:00

Gordon Brown ready to sacrifice HBOS jobs in England to carry out his 1989 pledge to Scotland
‘The real face of Gordon Brown has at last been exposed. As the financial crisis bites deeper and deeper and jobs are threatened in their thousands both in Scotland and England by the imminent Lloyds takeover of HBOS, his declared support for Britain has been shown to be very second place indeed. What really matters to Brown is not Britain but just one part of it. What matters to him is Scotland first and foremost. And if ever there has been a reason for England to have its own parliament which will defend its people, it is now.’ That was the warning and the call issued to Campaign for an English Parliament members in Shropshire by Stuart Parr, member of the CEP National Council.

‘The UK Prime Minister Mr Gordon Brown MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath in Fifeshire is now carrying out the pledge he made on March 31sat 1989 when he signed the ‘Scottish Claim of Right’ drawn up by the Scottish Constitutional Convention together with 132 other Scottish MPs and MEPs including Michael Martin the Speaker of the House of Commons.’That Claim of Right read as follows: “We, gathered as the Scottish Constitutional Convention, do hereby acknowledge the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs, and do hereby declare and pledge that in all our actions and deliberations their interests will be paramount”.
‘Gordon Brown has been the engine driving the Lloyds takover of HBOS” stated Mr Parr. ‘No one can blame him for that. However, what the Times online has reported today is that page one of the formal takeover document promises that “the management focus is to keep jobs in Scotland; and there is no such
reassurance about England”. Not even about Halifax itself, the birthplace of the Halifax Building Society which employs thousands of English men and women. ‘How little Brown cares for England! How else can anyone possibly explain that clause in the takeover document?’ asked Mr Parr. ‘And how unacceptable it is coming from the UK Prime Minister. The interests of just one of the nations that make up the UK should not be paramount to him, should not come first and foremost. Not even to a UK Prime Minister whose future will be decided by the bye-election soon to be held in the Glenrothes constituency next door to his own. Such narrow politiking should not enter into a takeover document of the immense UK-wide importance of the Lloyds-HBOS merger.
‘Clearly England now needs its own Parliament, its own Government and its own First Minister to defend the legitimate interests of its people and restore balance to the Union. England simply cannot trust the UK Government as it stands..Britain is failing England’.

Shropshire Star: New flag pointless

2008-09-12T14:47:00.000+01:00

This was published in the Shropshire Star last night, rather amateurishly edited:

New flag pointless
It’s a shame readers have been unable to see John Yates’s [sic] proposed new British flag. Mr Yates has spent 30 years agonising over the exclusion from Wales that he hasn’t noticed most Welsh people don’t consider themselves British any more.

Redesigning the flag when the union is unlikely to see out the next decade is a bit like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

Cheshire town votes to join Wales

2008-04-24T22:08:00.004+01:00

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

2008-04-24T19:34:00.005+01:00

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

2008-04-18T07:36:00.001+01:00

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

2008-04-07T09:04:00.001+01:00

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

2008-04-06T14:32:00.002+01:00

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

2008-04-05T01:01:00.001+01:00

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

Shropshire & Telford NHS Trust loses £2m per year treating Welsh patients

2008-03-18T23:30:00.001Z

The following letter has been sent to the press in the West Midlands and Shropshire MPs:

Tom Taylor, Chief Executive of the Shrewsbury & Telford NHS Trust, has confirmed what the Shropshire branch of the Campaign for an English Parliament has been saying for the last couple of years – that treating Welsh patients in Shropshire hospitals is costing millions of pounds that could be spent treating English patients.

Mr Taylor says that treating Welsh patients in the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford is costing the Trust £2m per year because of differences in funding and targets.

The Campaign for an English Parliament doesn’t have a problem with Welsh patients being treated in English hospitals but the NHS Trusts involved have a responsibility to ensure that in treating patients from another country they don’t compromise the treatment of patients living in England. It isn’t unreasonable to expect the Welsh government to pay the going rate for medical treatment in England, especially when in some cases they are entitled to medication in English hospitals that English patients aren’t allowed simply because they are Welsh. Who says the world had seen the end of apartheid when white rule ended in South Africa?

The differences in medical treatment are a result of the botched devolution settlement introduced by Labour in 1997 which gave Scotland and Wales their own governments to handle domestic affairs but left the same English affairs in the hands of British MPs representing all four home nations.

Mr Taylor said that it would be much easier for the Trust if the “English Parliament” made Wales pay the going rate and said “this can only be resolved through the financial allocations between the Government of England and the devolved Welsh Assembly”. The fact that Mr Taylor believes there is an “English Parliament” or a “Government in England” to represent English interests when England hasn’t had a government for over 300 years shows a disturbing lack of understanding of the reason why his hospitals are losing so much money every year. Like most of us in England, Mr Taylor and the Shropshire & Telford NHS Trust would be benefit enormously from the creation of an English Parliament to represent the interests of English people like the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly do for Scottish and Welsh people.

Stuart Parr
Shropshire Branch
Campaign for an English Parliament

Shropshire Star: Concern grows on 'health apartheid'

2008-03-14T19:16:00.003Z

The following article appears in tonight's Shropshire Star:

Concern grows on 'health apartheid'
A member of a Shropshire political group has criticised the "health apartheid" of the NHS, which he claims is responsible for county patients receiving poorer services that those in Scotland and Wales.

Stuart Parr, of the Shropshire branch of the Campaign for an English Parliament, says people who live in the county are being discriminated against and claims that it is even tantamount to a form of racism.

He has written to all five Shropshire MP's asking for support for a fairer system.

It comes as Shrewsbury MP Daniel Kawczynski has written to the Health Minister asking for hospital trusts to be banned from charging Blue Badge holders.

Mr Parr's letter refers to the announcement by the Welsh Assembly Government that Welsh hospital parking charges will end, while patients in England will pay.

Letter to Shropshire MPs re Health Apartheid

2008-03-07T22:28:00.002Z

Dear MP,

I am writing to you on behalf of the Campaign for an English Parliament’s members in Shropshire, some of whom are constituents of yours.

There have been three examples of NHS apartheid this week:

The Welsh Assembly has announced that it is abolishing parking charges at all Welsh hospitals. In Scotland hospital parking charges are capped at £3 per day but only 6% of hospitals charge. In Northern Ireland, only 20% of hospitals charge for parking. In England, 92% of hospitals charge for parking and a significant number of hospitals are netting in excess of £1m per year in parking charges.
An inhaler has been developed that is absorbed into the body much easier than current mainstream inhalers which will help the estimated three quarters of asthmatics who don’t have the lung capacity to take inhalers properly to get their medication more effectively. The Scottish Medical Consortium has approved the inhaler for use on the NHS free of charge. The inhaler is not available in England with the laughably named National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE – ironic isn’t it?) promising a decision some time later in the year.
Prescription charges are rising once again at around five times the rate of inflation. But only in England. In Wales all prescriptions are free of charge. In Scotland 93% are dispensed free of charge and prescription charges for the remaining 7% are capped at £5.

The superior health service experienced in Wales and Scotland is only possible because they have their own devolved government looking after their interests and ever-increasing multi-billion pound subsidies from the English taxpayer courtesy of successive Scottish Chancellors. Do you think that your constituents in England deserve the same health service that the rest of the UK experiences or do you think that they deserve to continue paying more and more for an inferior health service whilst continuing to subsidise the superior service enjoyed by the rest of the UK? What do you intend to do to highlight the racial discrimination in the provision of health services in the UK that discriminates against the English majority?

Stuart Parr
Campaign for an English Parliament
Shropshire Branch

St Georges Day Concert

2008-02-26T21:09:00.002Z

Despite the borough ignoring St Georges Day, Hadley Parish Council are holding a St Georges Day concert.

Details are as follows:

Hadley Methodist Church, 7.30pm, Saturday, 26th April.

Featuring:
Shropshire Male Chorus,(formerly GKN Sankey MVC)
Wrekin & Telford Choral Society
Brass Roots
Michael Davey (Organ)

Among the dignatories will be
The Mayor of Telford & Wrekin (Councillor Miles Hoskins)
The Mayor of Wellington (Councillor Denis Allen)
Mr. Mark Pritchard M.P. who will give a very short talk on St. George
A representative of Hadley & Leegomery Parish Council

The evening will open with the National Anthem and conclude at approx. 9.30pm with Jerusalem.

Tickets £4.00, or 3 for £10.00
Free Programme

This event is growing in popularity and tickets will be available on the door. Pre-booking can be arranged by telephoning Pat Smart on 01952 254809

Telford won't be marking St Georges Day

2008-02-19T16:54:00.002Z

Telford & Wrekin have confirmed that they will not be marking St Georges Day again this year.

I spoke to them today to find out what they were planning after hearing a couple of councillors at the recent Telford & Wrekin Question Time event saying how pleased they were to be marking Chinese New Year and Holocaust Day assuming, somewhat naïvely, that they would be extending the same courtesy to the 95 or so percent of the population of the borough that's English.

But no, there will be no borough-wide events. The only event they know of is Hadley Parish Council's annual St Georges Day dinner which will be attended by the mayor. Which isn't really good enough is it?

I was told that because Telford is a multi-national town they would have to celebrate every patron saint to keep everybody happy but as I pointed out, there are only four patron saints in the UK and as we're in England there's only one that matters. I also pointed out that regardless of whether they are white, black or asian, most people living in Telford will consider themselves English.

I've asked for my comments to be passed on to the Leader, Andrew Eade, but I may pre-empt it with a phone call this evening. It's a little disappointing after Andrew got off to such a good start by taking down the EU flag and replacing it with the Cross of St George when he took over as leader last year.

English children to get unique ID number

2008-02-14T07:32:00.000Z

The British government plans to allocate every 14 year old child in England a unique ID number which could be tied to the national ID database and will be used to provide access to school records for potential employers and the state.

The Education & Skills Bill - which only applies to England, not the whole of the UK as the press are reporting - will introduce the “Learning Number” which will be the key to a national database of state CVs for every child in England. The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills - one of No Mandate Brown’s made up government departments - said “It is just a way of making life easier for learners and employers. It is something we think will help people looking for work”. What a load of rubbish. It is a way of introducing 14 year old children to the concept of being numbered and monitored for the rest of their lives and the state taking control of their identity.

The same spokesman also said the database will be “cast-iron in terms of integrity” whilst the Information Commissioner said “We have provided advice and assistance to help ensure that this system is watertight and secure - but no system is immune to human error and breaches can and do occur”.

Just like HMRC losing the details of 25 million recipients, just like the MOD officer losing a laptop containing secret data, just like all the other recent admissions of data loss by British government departments - the data will be vulnerable to inaccuracy, loss and fraud. Your identity isn’t like a bank account - it can’t be changed if it falls into the wrong hands - your identity is unique and identity theft will cause you problems for the rest of your life in Liebour’s database state.

The state stealing the identity of our children has surely got to be a breach of their Human Rights.

CEP Conference 2008

2008-02-13T07:49:00.001Z

Press Release: England outraged by Scottish attempt to grab English territory

2008-02-11T12:17:00.000Z

http://www.politics.co.uk/press-releases/cep-england-outraged-by-scottish-attempt-grab-english-territory-$1200908.htm

CEP: England outraged by Scottish attempt to grab English territory
Monday, 11 Feb 2008 08:33

The members of the Campaign for an English Parliament will resist with might and main the attempt being made by the Scottish Nationalist Party to grab Berwick on Tweed which has been part of England since the 13th century - over 700 years- and make it part of Scotland.

Scottish Nationalist Member of the Scottish Parliament Chrstine Grahame supported by fellow SNP members is lodging a vote in the Scottish Parliament in support of this land-grab.

Already the Scottish Parliament has claimed rights over all English rivers such as the River Till in Northumberland which flow into the River Tweed, even though the Tweed is the boundary river between the two nations of England and Scotland and belongs to neither. And the Scottish Parliament has been able to move southwards the boundary between England and Scotland which till devolution has always run along the very centre of the Solway Firth. To date the United Kingdom Government with its Scottish Prime Minister and Scottish Chancellor of the Exchequer has done nothing to stop these successive land grabs.

"The Scots are stirring up a hornets' nest of real trouble within the United Kingdom with these policies. And we will take them on," stated Scilla Cullen, Chairman of the Campaign. "The people of England will not put up with any more of it. Already Wales has been given the English county of Monmouthshire and even a part of the city of Chester in what is the county of Cheshire. It is already intolerable that devolution for Scotland has granted it huge benefits denied to England such as free university education, free personal care for the elderly, free prescriptions, as much as £1500 more spent on each Scot per annum than on any person in England and access to cancer drugs not obtainable in England. What the Scots are doing is sowing the seeds of real anger and dissension within the Union. They are sowing the wind. If they try to grab Berwick, it will be the Union that will reap the whirwind'

End of press release.

Ahern & Brown push NI to take on more devolution

2008-02-11T07:12:00.000Z

No Mandate Brown and Bertie Ahern have urged the Stormont Assembly to complete the devolution process in Northern Ireland by taking on police and justice even though the DUP isn't keen on taking on those powers.

Talk about taking the piss! Northern Ireland is being pushed into accepting more devolution that it doesn't want while England is being refused any form of devolution that doesn't involve abolishing our country and replacing it with regional pseudo-parliaments.

I just sent this to the Taoiseach Press Office:

To whom it may concern,

Mr Ahern has issued a joint statement with the British Prime Minister,
Gordon Brown, urging the Northern Ireland Assembly to take on more devolved
powers in the areas of policing and justice despite the DUP and others being
reluctant to take on those powers.

As Mr Ahern is taking such a keen interest in devolution in the UK, could
he please encourage Mr Brown when next they meet to extend devolution to England
as well? We are 85% of the population of the UK yet we have no form of
devolved government in England. MPs elected in Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland – such as Mr Brown – vote on issues that are devolved in their
own constituencies yet MPs elected in England cannot vote on those same issues
in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Does Mr Ahern think this situation is fair on the people of England and
does he think it appropriate to press the Northern Irish government to "complete
the devolution process" in Northern Ireland whilst England remains the only
nation in Europe that doesn’t have direct political representation?

Kind Regards,

Stuart Parr
Campaign for an English Parliament

CEP: England victimised yet again by United Kingdom government

2008-01-28T11:08:00.000Z

CEP: England victimised yet again by United Kingdom government

The Council tax in England will be going up in April by just under 5%, more than twice the limit on pay increases being imposed by the Union Government. The average Council Tax bill in England will go up by £115 per month. Meanwhile in Scotland the proposal of the Scottish Parliament under its Scottish National Party leadership is to freeze council tax, and for that the overwhelming majority of Scottish councils are fully in support.
The injustice to England since devolution just goes on and on. In addition to having itself acknowledged under the Union Government as a distinct nation enjoying Home Rule Scotland now enjoys free eye care, free dental check-ups, free access to cancer drugs, and free personal care free travel countryside for the elderly. With a Scottish Prime Minister and a Scottish Chancellor of the Exechequer Scotland is getting benefits denied to England,while it is the English taxpayer who is paying for them.
The injustice does not stop there. Despite the council tax increase local services are being cut back. The Union Government under Brown and Darling, while making more and more demands up local councils even as the cost of existing services and the council’s wage bill increase, is not increasing central government subsidy in line with increased costs.
‘Little wonder a recent Yougov poll found that the Council tax is the most unpopular tax of all. ‘67% of people in England resent it more than any other’.', says Veronica Newman, secretary of the Campaign for an English Parliament. ‘The way England is being victimised just has to stop. The people of England cannot just be expected to pay for the benefits of devolution which Scotland is getting while getting none of them themselves and no parliament of their own either. The people of England should be able to decide for themselves how their money is to be spent. It’s time England had a patriotic government with patriotic MPs just as Scotland has.’

MPs on English prison officer discrimination

2008-01-22T07:36:00.000Z

I wrote to our five Shropshire MPs a fortnight ago asking the following question:

Dear MP,

You have all had correspondence from the Shropshire branch of the Campaign for an English Parliament and from myself personally in the past.

The Shropshire branch of the CEP has a blog at http://cepshropshire.blogspot.com and I intend to write to all the Shropshire MPs on behalf of our members from time to time when notable examples of anti-English discrimination come to light for comment which I will then post on the aforementioned blog. Obviously, if no response is forthcoming then I will have to note that fact on the blog.

How about we start with today’s announcement that MPs have voted overwhelmingly to remove the right of English and Welsh prison officers to strike on the same day that the Scottish Executive announced that it had no intention whatsoever to remove the same right from Scottish prison officers. Could you please tell me how you voted, whether you brought up the fact that English prison officers are being discriminated against and what your opinion is on the discrimination.

Stuart Parr
CEP Shropshire

Mark Pritchard replied very quickly with the following:

There is a democratic deficit at present. This has to change. It is the Labour government who have brought this about - not the Conservative Party. The Conservative Party is committed to the Union - and that is why David Cameron MP is right to examine the issue of establishing an English Grand Committee - allowing English Mps to vote on those matters that effect English constituencies only. Creating an English Parliament would be costly, would create a new layer of politicians and civil servants, and would fracture the Union even further.
Mark Pritchard MP

Daniel Kawczynski replied with the following:

Stuart

This vote was a very difficult decision for me. I was not going to vote to remove the right of English and Welsh prison officers to strike. I believe in peoples' rights and am against the State being able to curtail peoples rights and liberties. Being able to strike is an important right. I changed my mind at the last minute as colleagues convinced me that the ramifications on society from a prolonged strike of prison wardens would be dire. The Labour government only gave them the right a few years ago as a ban had been in place for a long time. They now decided to change that legislation and re-introduce the ban.

Let me have your thoughts on this if you would please. I am raising the West Lothian Question a lot as are my colleagues. The scandal of the ever growing differences between the two of us is unsustainable.

Daniel

Philip Dunne, Owen Patterson and David Wright all failed to respond.

England excluded from the affairs of the union

2008-01-16T09:15:00.000Z

CEP Press Release: Tuesday, 15 Jan 2008

Today January 15th behind closed doors in a room in Portcullis House in Westminster in London, England’s capital, six of Scotland’s MPs and MSPs will meet to decide what further powers to give to the Scottish Parliament. England, which makes up 80% of the Union population, has 550 of its 650 MPs and contributes 85% of its wealth, is being totally excluded from the discussions. No English MP is invited. This will be their second meeting, the first was in November of last year

The Scottish Six are: Des Browne Labour MP for Kilmarnock and Loudoun and (part-time) Secretary of State for Scotland, Alistair Carmichael Lib-Dem MP for Orkney and Shetlands, David Mundell Conservative MP for Dumfrieshire, Clydesdale and Tweesdale, Wendy Alexander Labour MSP for Paisley South, Annabel Goldie Conservative MSP for the West of Scotland and Nicol Stephen Lib-Den MSP for Aberdeen South.

They are meeting in a state of intense inter-party anxiety. One thing unites them, their opposition to the Scottish National Party. The latest You-Gov poll for the Scottish Daily Express has put the SNP nine points ahead of labour in the constituency vote, and of course streets ahead of the Lib-Dem and the Tory parties. They meet under the banner of defence of the Union. Their principal concern however is the survival of their parties in Scotland.

In 1997 the Labour Party led by Scottish MPs Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, Donald Dewar, Robin Cook and Des Browne was convinced that a devolved Scottish Parliament would kill off the SNP for good. It did not. The Scottish First Minister is Alex Salmond. They believed that giving to Scotland complete power over all its internal affairs such as health and education would stop the rise of Scottish nationalism in its tracks. It achieved the exact opposite. They believed that keeping the power of Scottish MPs in the Union Parliament to legislate in every single matter for England while excluding English MPs from any say in Scotland’s internal affairs would go unnoticed by the English people. But the last ten years of devolution has dramatically witnessed the biggest rise in English patriotism ever. In addition the resentment of the English people against the rampant injustice inflicted by the 1997 legislation upon them is now filling every MP’s postbag. 58% of English people want Scotland to go independent, 72% want their own separate English Parliament.

The Scottish Six are meeting behind closed doors, no English representation allowed, to decide what extra powers to give to the Scottish Parliament to keep the SNP at bay. What lessons they might have learned over the past ten years are their business. What is England’s business however is the knowledge that these Scottish MPs think they can play fast and loose with United Kingdom constitutional matters without consultation with England which is 80% of the Union. What is England’s business is the sheer brass of these Scottish MPs giving even more powers to Scotland and even less say for England in Scottish matters while keeping for themselves the right to legislate for England in every single thing.

‘The next ten years,’ says Mrs Scilla Cullen, Chairman of the Campaign for an English Parliament, ‘will see all this put right. The constitution of the United Kingdom cannot be made to serve just the interests of Scotland’.

Shropshire Star: The root of the problem should be addressed

2008-01-08T20:43:00.000Z

This was in tonight's Shropshire Star ...

The root of the problem should be addressed
Daniel Kawczynski is right to be concerned about the funding of schools in Shropshire but fails to address the root cause of the problem.
On the 11th December in Parliament he said “Coleham primary school in Shrewsbury receives, on average, £711 less per pupil than the national average”. Is this £711 less than the English national average or the UK national average?
English schools are already at a disadvantage because the British government doesn’t spend as much on education in England as the Scottish Parliament does north of the border. The Scottish Parliament can afford to spend more because of the £11.3bn annual subsidy it gets from the English taxpayer under the Barnett Formula.
What the Scottish Parliament has done for Scotland in the last few years has shown the indisputable benefit of having a devolved national government – something a succession of Scottish ministers (including Gordon Brown) have continued to deny
to the English.
Gordon Brown promised to make health and education his priority when he was appointed as Prime Minister. Not only is he doing a terrible job of it but he has nothing to do with health and education in Scotland where he was elected because it’s the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament.
If Mr Kawczynski wants to solve the problem of poor education funding he should first address the cause of this and many other problems in England – the lack of an English Parliament.
Stuart Parr
Campaign for an English Parliament

NHS Constitution

2008-01-01T19:25:00.000Z

Read this then read the letter I just sent to my turncoat Liebour MP.

Dear David,

Your Prime Minister has somehow, against all the odds, managed to make me
even more annoyed today than he has since he was appointed as your
leader.

I was pretty incensed when he announced that his priorities as Prime
Minister would be the English education system, the English health system and
the English housing system even though he has no mandate over any of them.
Today I see that in return for the health system that we are paying for through
our taxes, your Prime Minister has decided that we must have
“responsibilities”. But only in England.

The medical treatment which the English will be entitled to will still
be inferior to the medical treatment his own Scottish constituents are entitled
to and they will continue to receive their superior service without the
“responsibilities” that the English must have.

David, YOU have a responsibility. Your responsibility is to your
constituents, NOT your party. Gordon Brown was not given a mandate by his
Scottish constituents to tell English people what they must do to receive
medical treatment. I assume you do understand that none of your Prime
Minister’s proclamations on health, education, housing, etc. affect his own
constituents - he has no more right to tell your constituents what medical
treatment they can and can’t receive than you have to tell his constituents what
medical treatment they can and can’t receive.

I cannot adequately express in polite terms how disappointed I am that you
condone this unconstitutional, undemocratic and immoral system of
apartheid. How can you continue to support your party when it is doing
everything it can to maintain the system that allows the Scottish ruling
elite to make decisions in your constituency when neither they, nor you, can
make the same decisions in their constituency?

If you play a part in breaking our health, education
and housing systems I can - and will - vote for someone else who won’t
do the same. Gordon Brown’s constituents won’t care what he does to the
English NHS or schools - they’re more likely to vote for him if they can see
that he’s screwing the English over!

Poll after poll has shown that English people are fed up with your Scottish
MPs interfering in English-only legislation. Poll after poll has shown
that English people want their own government like the one your party gave to
Scotland. It’s time you started doing your job David - represent your
constituents, not your party.

Stuart

Merry Christmas

2007-12-24T17:11:00.000Z

We would like to wish our readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Lembit Opik given English housing portfolio

2007-12-24T12:08:00.000Z

Lembit Opik, the Lib Dem MP for neighbouring Montgomeryshire, has been given the housing portfolio in the Lib Dems new shadow cabinet.

Housing is, of course, a devolved matter and Mr Opik therefore has no say over housing in his own constituency.

Why have the Lib Dems given a Welsh MP responsibility for English housing?

No Mandate, No Foundation Hospitals

2007-12-24T12:00:00.000Z

The Shrewsbury & Telford Hospital NHS Trust is applying for Foundation Hospital status.

Since their inception Foundation Hospitals have consistently underachived and failed to bring the benefits promised to patients.

It is worth remembering that the Foundation Hospitals Bill was rejected by a majority of MPs elected in England and was passed only with the votes of Labour MPs elected in Scotland. The Scottish Parliament subsequently rejected a bill that would have created Foundation Hospitals north of the border.

Shropshire Star: Battle for fairness on matters of treatment

2007-08-29T21:03:00.000+01:00

This letter was in last night’s Shropshire Star …

Battle for fairness on matters of treatment
I must say that I became quite emotional when I heard that my constituent,
Mrs Jeannie Evans, of Frankwell, had finally been allowed the vital drug Avastin
which will save her life.
At first she was told that this would not be
possible and so she approached me.

We found out that this drug is being given to Welsh patients who come to
Shrewsbury for treatment but is not available for Shropshire people. This
outrageous situation had to be challenged.

The government has given huge powers to the Welsh Assembly, which they
created, and they have different health guidelines to us in England. This
has led to the difference in the treatment between the two countries in what
people can recieve in terms of treatment.

I was so angry about what was happening that I wrote a letter to the Prime
Minister and demanded that he look into theis gross injustice which he has
helped create, and sort it out so that citizens on both sides of the border are
treated equally.

I contacted the local Primary Care Trust and I am very pleased that they,
on appeal, finally decided to give my constituent the treatment she
requires.

I will continue to fight this gross cross border injustice until my
constituents get health care parity with the Welsh. Until such time, if
other constituents find themselves in a similar position they should please get
in touch with my office.

Let me have the details and I will be pleased to look into the situation
and do what I can to help.

Daniel Kawczynski
Shrewsbury

This is good news - I have written to the Shropshire Star before on this same subject when Herceptin was the drug being refused. Finally, Daniel has realised what is happening and is taking steps to bring it to the attention of the general public but he still supports the ridiculous English Votes on English Matters proposal the Tories have cooked up rather than an English Parliament which is the only way to stop this kind of thing happening.

Daniel, if you read this then please do what is right for your constituents and support the Campaign for an English Parliament.

Gordon Brown must drop his Claim

2007-06-20T13:21:00.000+01:00

NEWS RELEASE

Wednesday 20th June 2007For immediate release

Gordon Brown must drop his Claim

“How can Gordon Brown, who took this oath, become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom?”
When Gordon Brown was an ordinary Scottish MP he signed the declaration of the “Scottish Claim of Right”. This document was a public oath committing those who took it to put the interests of the people of Scotland before all other considerations.

Now Gordon Brown is to become Prime Minister for the whole of the United Kingdom, the Campaign for an English Parliament is calling on Gordon Brown to publicly declare that he will not put the interests of any one part of the United Kingdom above any other part of the United Kingdom.

The Claim of Right, signed by Gordon Brown in 1988, read:

We, gathered as the Scottish Constitutional Convention, do hereby acknowledge
the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government
best suited to their needs, and do hereby declare and pledge that in all our
actions and deliberations their interests shall be paramount.

CEP Chairman, Scilla Cullen, said, “There is another nation within the UK- that of England. Will Gordon Brown extend to its people the right of self-determination that he espoused for his own nation when he signed the Scottish Claim of Right?”

CEP Vice Chairman, Tom Waterhouse, said, “The Claim of Right was a public oath, and those who took it pledged to put the interests of the Scottish people before all others. How can Gordon Brown, who took this oath, become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom? He must declare that he will put the interests of the whole of the UK before those of Scotland”.

National Council, Campaign for an English Parliament

Contact: cep-mediaunit@thecep.org.uk

CEP at West Mid Show

2007-06-19T17:03:00.001+01:00

The Campaign for an English Parliament will have a stand at the Shropshire & West Mid Show at Shrewsbury this weekend.

Shropshire Star: Brown has no place as our PM

2007-05-28T19:49:00.000+01:00

Brown has no place as our PM
Many people would agree with me that Gordon Brown has no mandate to govern England.

He hasn't contested an election as leader of the Labour Party and potential Prime Minister for a start - so much for his pledge to restore trust in democracy.

However, there is a more important reason why Gordon Brown has no mandate to govern England.

According to the Labour propaganda unit, Gordon Brown's domestic policies consist of health, education, housing and planning - none of which he has been given a mandate for by any part of the electorate.

In Scotland, "domestic" issues such as health, education, transport, the environment, housing and planning have all been made the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament.

Gordon Brown wasn't elected to the Scottish Parliament, so he has no say in those matters in his own constituency and his constituents didn't elect him for these policies.

As far as I am concerned, when Gordon Brown takes office this summer, England will be without a legitimate leader and Government

Stuart Parr
Brookside

Help needed at West Mid Show

2007-05-14T10:34:00.000+01:00

Hi members,

Are any of you able to help out on the CEP stand at the West Mid Show held in June - if so please contact John Stanhope on 01902 630110.

Shropshire man given cancer treatment for free

2007-05-02T21:35:00.000+01:00

A Shropshire pensioner who has been paying £3,000 per month for life saving cancer treatment that is free of charge on the NHS in Scotland will now receive his treatment free of charge from his Primary Care Trust (PCT).

John Green from Bridgnorth has been paying for Sorafenib Nexaval out of his own pocket because the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (National = England, of course, not the UK) hasn't approved the drug meaning that PCTs in England don't have to provide the drug when it's needed. In Scotland, the drug is available on free on the NHS because the Scottish government has an £11.3bn subsidy from the English taxpayer to spend on whatever they want.

Happy St Georges Day

2007-04-23T12:27:00.000+01:00

Shropshire Star: Scotland benefits while we pay out

2007-04-15T10:45:00.000+01:00

Scotland benefits while we pay out

On April 1st the cost of prescriptions in England went up to £6.85 per
item. On the same day in Wales the charges were abolished.

In Scotland 92% of prescriptions are dispensed free of charge and MSPs only
narrowly rejected a bill to abolish them completely in 2005. It is only a
matter of time before they are abolished north of the border.

In Scotland pensioners are entitled to free public transport throughout the
country at all times and Northern Irish pensioners have just been given the
right to travel on public transport throughout Ulster and the Republic of
Ireland free of charge at any time.

In Scotland the elderly are entitled to free personal care in the care home
of their choice without having to go through means testing or selling their
homes.

In Scotland cancer sufferers get the newest and most expensive
treatments. The same applies to those suffering from dementia.

In England the same drugs are refused because the cost of the treatment is
more than the value the English NHS puts on a life.

In England we will shortly be required to pay to have a satellite spy box
fitted to our cars and pay per mile to drive on our roads. The same law
won’t apply to Scotland and Wales so they will be able to drive in England was
well as in their own countries without paying the road pricing tax.

The transport minister was elected in Scotland yet his department doesn’t
have a say in what happens to transport in Scotland.

Taking into account the above and the many other services our neighbours
receive it would be understandable for an Englishman to feel left out but there
is no need because we get something that our neighbours don’t - the
bill.

Stuart Parr
Telford

The Lord Kingsland replies

2007-04-09T10:54:00.000+01:00

Dear Mr Higginbottom

'Thank you very much indeed for your letter of 25th March 2007 raising, essentially, the West Lothian question.

Although no final decisions have been made in the Conservative Party about our approach to the inequities that are inherent in the existence of Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish legislatures, I am reasonably confident that the solution the Party will adopt is likely to be in the form of an English Legislative Committee within the UK Parliament at Westminster. This Committee would take decisions for England on those matters that are devolved to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and would comprise Members solely from English constituencies.

With best wishes.

Mark Pritchard MP replies

2007-04-09T10:47:00.000+01:00

ROAD PRICING AND DEMOCRACY IN THE UNITED KINGDOM Thank you for both your letters.
As you are probably aware, I was a sponsor of an Early Day Motion on road pricing and that EDM makes my position clear.
On funding for English counties and local authorities, I agree that the current Government has manipulated the Barnett Formula to strengthen its own heartlands, not only in Scotland and Wales, but also in some parts of the north of England. I agree there needs to be a review of how the funding formula is agreed.

As you are also probably aware, the Conservative Party is likely to publish in its manifesto that English law should be voted on by English MPs, perhaps by having a special English sitting day within the existing Westminster Parliament. Clearly the details of any such policy will be announced prior to the next election. I think this would deal with many of the democratic deficit points that you quite rightly raise.

Yours sincerely,

Owen Paterson MP replies

2007-04-09T10:45:00.000+01:00

29th March 2007
Thank you for your letters of 20th March. I have made my position on these issues clear. As you know, there is a parliamentary convention which prevents me from taking on the case of another MP's constituent. You need to make your representations through Daniel Kawczynski.

Daniel Kawcznski MP replies

2007-04-09T10:43:00.000+01:00

Dear Edward,

Thank you for writing again on the matter of an English Parliament, and for your kind words towards my family, we are indeed settling in very well to life here in Shrewsbury. / Shawbury

As for the points you raise there are many discrepancies in taxation, for example if looking at the amounts taxed and spent London gets the worse deal in the UK having almost £1 billion less spent there than it gives in tax. The Barnett formula although unfair on paper was established to account for the extra costs of the diverse and rural populations of Scotland and Wales, but also at the time there relative poverty. This does now need to be looked at again.

However it is not related to tax at all but to spending. The additional costs on prescriptions in England, despite being grossly unfair does not naturally equate to more money for Wales but rather fill the black hole created by Gordon Brown and Patricia Hewitt in the English NHS.

As to the idea of an English Parliament, I cannot support the idea of this being totally separate; the extravagant costs involved make the idea prohibitive, as should have been the Scottish Parliament. If the devolved matters to Scotland and Wales where to be debated in an English Parliament this would, or I believe should, be the same as the English members of the UK Parliament. First because it saves on the expense of further, unwanted elections, and secondly would stop another two hundred or more politicians in London, or elsewhere at the tax payer's expense. This is a similar argument as used against an elected second chamber. Furthermore it would probably be established under proportional representation which due to its nature and the nature of English politics would permanently favour a Liberal Labour alliance.

Aspects of Government would be I agree more complicated. Theoretically devolved departments such as Health, Education and Transport would have to be appointed by the Premier of the English Chamber, as opposed to the Prime Minister who would be for the UK as a whole. This I believe would be a compromise between a totally new Chamber and proper equal devolved government.

Thank you once again for continuing this debate with me.

MEP's response to EU Democracy Requirements

2007-03-29T14:04:00.000+01:00

Dear Mr Higgenbottom,

Thank you for your letter of 25th March regarding the campaign for an English Parliament and I reply on behalf of the three Conservative MEPs for the West Midlands as I cover the Shropshire area for the team.

As to your comments regarding that citizens of Member Countries should be able to participate in the political decision making process on an equal basis you are correct. However this is an issue which can only be resolved by the Westminster Parliament and, to my knowledge is being widely discussed.

As it is Westminster MPs who would make any decision by a vote in Parliament I have forwarded your letter to Daniel Kawczynski MP who is the Member for Shrewsbury and I am sure he will be in contact with you on the issues you raise.
Yours sincerely,

Philip Bradbourn OBE MEP

MP's response to EU Democracy Requirements

2007-03-29T14:02:00.000+01:00

Dear Mr Higginbottom,
Further to your previous letter I am also pleased to write to you over the matter of devolution and the West Lothian Questions.
I have asked many times in the House why it is that Scottish MP's can vote on English matters and not vice versa. This is indeed democratically unfair. I support whole heartedly the calls for English votes on English matters.

I also have concern at present over the number of Ministers from Scottish constituencies who are in charge of ministries that only have jurisdiction over English constituents. This too is grossly unfair, and may get worse under a Scottish Prime Minister.
However such hypothesis will be answered if and when Mr Brown moves into Number 10. What is sure however is there is unlikely to be any change whilst he is in control, and the government relies on the Scottish members for its majority over English law.
I assure you that I take every opportunity to raise this matter I in the House, or via questions.
Daniel Kawczynski MP

MP's response to Barnett

2007-03-29T14:01:00.000+01:00

Dear Mr Higginbottom,

I would like to take this opportunity to respond to your letter on March 20th regarding the Barnett Formula, and how it may affect the potential subsidising of Welsh and Scottish constituents.

My understanding of the Barnett Formula is that it relates to spending and not taxation directly. As such any extra monies raised will be returned to the treasury, who will then decide where best to allocate the funds. The Barnett Formula only comes into effect when these additional funds are allocated from the treasury for spending within England, when this occurs some extra money is also released to its Welsh and Scottish counterparts in order to maintain the same standard of service.

However, I can understand, and share your concerns over the issue, The Barrett Formula is certainly one aspect of government policy I would like to see re-examined in order to try and establish a fairer system.

Also to address your concerns over potential road pricing I would like to assure you that I am opposed to the idea, as I believe it may harm our constituency.

Thank you for taking the time to let me know of your concerns, I hope that this letter has managed to allay some of your fears.

Regards,
Daniel Kawczynski MP

EU Democracy Regulations

2007-03-29T13:59:00.000+01:00

Daniel Kawczynski MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA

Dear Daniel,

It is my understanding that one of the criteria for European Union membership is that all citizens of a member country should be able to participate in the political decision making process on an equal basis.

If I am correct in this understanding then this is manifestly not the case in the United Kingdom. People in England only elect one law-making representative – to Westminster – who deals with all issues. The people of Scotland however get to elect two representatives to deal with the same matters – one to Westminster and one to Holyrood. This means that England is underrepresented. Conversely, it could be argued that the people of Scotland are being adversely treated – they are being ‘fobbed off’ with most issues being dealt with by an inferior and subordinate parliament – a case of getting the “monkey” not the “organ grinder”.

Either way, the people of England and Scotland are not being treated equally.

Worse is yet to come. It looks likely that Gordon Brown will become Prime Minister of the UK. He is of course only elected by his Scottish constituents to represent them in Westminster on matters such as national taxation, defence, foreign affairs etc. He has no mandate from them (or anyone else) to deal with health, education etc but the bulk of the PM’s job is to oversee such issues in England.

This is hardly equitable treatment. It is a form of apartheid, a person with no electoral mandate governing a majority of the people. If the people of England were black this would incur the wrath of the United Nations, let alone many others.

The Conservative Party seems to me to have decided to sit on its hands, allowing the current iniquitous situation to continue. I believe the Party thinks that by the next election it and Dave Cameron will be popular and Gordon Brown and Labour won’t. But, “There’s many a slip ’twixt cup and lip.”

Any self-respecting representative of the people of England should not be merely “letting sleeping dogs lie” but should be doing their utmost to redress the situation by one means or another rather than being complicit in the continuation of a travesty of democratic inequality. After all, article three of the Acts of Union 1707 also requires “one and the same parliament”.

Perhaps you will be good enough to advise me whether my understanding of the EU’s democratic requirement is correct.

If it is, perhaps you can advise me what you and your Party are doing to redress the situation and to “report” the UK to the appropriate “authorities or court”.

Yours sincerely,

dward Higginbottom
Co-ordinator, Shropshire Branch of the Campaign for an English Parliament

Barnett Formula & Prescriptions

2007-03-29T13:56:00.000+01:00

Daniel Kawczynski MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA

Dear Daniel,

I am writing to all of Shropshire’s Members of Parliament on behalf of CEP’s local membership.

As you will be aware, NHS prescription charges will be raised in England as from 1st April whilst they will be abolished in Wales.

As I understand the Barnett Formula it will mean that this increase of tax levied on the patients of England will automatically result in a proportion of the extra monies being ‘hived off’ to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Neither Scotland nor Wales appear to need this extra money as they already have a better funded NHS than England does.

Likewise, the Government is toying with the idea of introducing a ‘road pricing’ tax. The Scottish Parliament and the Welsh National Assembly have however indicated that they would not introduce this system.

As I understand the Barnett Formula it will mean that this new tax levied on the motorists of England will automatically result in a proportion of the extra monies being ‘hived off’ to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Neither Scotland nor Wales appear to need this extra money as they have no intention of introducing ‘road pricing’.

Can you confirm that your understanding of the Barnett Formula is the same as mine?

If my assumption about the Barnett Formula is correct, I cannot see how any self-respecting MP representing an English constituency can countenance this manifestly unjust situation. Perhaps you can advise me and my fellow members of your and your Party’s position on the issue.

Suprise! Mr Blair

2007-02-01T17:23:00.000Z

Our illustrious leader, Tony Bliar, visited Telford today at short notice.

Happily, CEP Shropshire was tipped off and myself and another member - Derek Armstrong - greeted him with a 30ft banner saying "English Parliament Now".

No pictures unfortunately as we missed the Shropshire Star photographer but Bliar certainly couldn't have missed the banner.

I want my money back!

2006-11-10T15:52:00.000Z

Figures from UK Treasury:

">Click here for more details.

Letter: Shropshire Star

2006-09-16T21:16:00.000+01:00

Change to voting will not affect the nation

Gordon Brown kicked off his leadership campaign with a speech on Britishness in Scotland, the least British part of the UK.

In his speech he said: “The SNP want Scotland separate from the UK and want to force Scotland to choose between Scotland and Britain”.

On the Tories he said: “The Conservatives want English votes for English laws and want the English to choose between England and Britain”.

On the former he is correct and I personally wish the SNP the best of luck. The sooner England loses the financial, social and political liability that is Scotland the better. We could spend the £11.3bn annual subsidy on cancer treatments in England instead.

On the latter, however, he is way off the mark. The Tories are merely trying to find a way of stopping MPs elected in Scotland - such as Gordon Brown - from voting on matters that only affect England. As Gordon Brown can do next to nothing that affects his own constituency in Scotland, banning him from interfering in English affairs would leave him with next to nothing to do.

English votes on English legislation is a fatally flawed idea but at least the Tories are recognising that there is a problem.

Contrary to Gordon Brown and Labour’s assertions, banning MPs not elected in England from voting on English legislation or even establishing an English Parliament, will not lead to the break-up of the union. Giving Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland their own devolved governments hasn’t lead to the break-up of the UK so there is little reason to believe that merely evening the political inbalance in England would.

Stuart Parr
Telford

letters to shropshire newspapers

2006-09-09T19:45:00.000+01:00

I am proud to be English even though that may be a politically incorrect thing to say. I used to be proud being British, but that was taken away in 1997 when Tony Blair and his crew set out to make me a third class citizen within the UK.

Despite being the oldest unified country in Europe with more than a thousand years of continuous history, as far a Westminster and Brussels are concerned, England does not exist. The Encyclopaedia Britannica says: ‘Despite the political, economic, and cultural legacy that has secured the perpetuation of its name, England no longer officially exists as a governmental or political unit unlike Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.’

When Gordon (please let me be prime minister) Brown is pontificating about ‘the nations and regions of Britain’ he is using Labour speak for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (as the nations) plus the Euro regions that cover the area once known as England. Labour has no love for England, its most ardent support have always come from Scotland, Wales and the immigrant communities, that’s presumably why they have let 500,000 more in during the last twelve months or so. Scotland, incidentally, only has about 1% of the UK’s immigrants despite having more than 30% of the land surface.

You might think that the Conservatives would champion equitable treatment for England, after all 94% of their votes in the 2005 General Election came from here, but no. They are, for reasons best known to themselves, obsessed with ‘preserving’ the Union at all costs, even if that means perpetuating apartheid against the people in England.
Annabel Goldie, leader of the Tories in Scotland, said at the beginning of September: ‘David Cameron and I will deliver the Parliament and the policies which Scotland needs, and its people deserve.’ But evidently ‘Dave’ has no similar plans for the downtrodden suckers of England who are bled dry to give our fellow ‘British’ citizens a better lifestyle.
It’s not just Herceptin where England’s peoples get third best; there are other cancer drugs too that are not available here in this part of the UK. Our NHS, education, public transport, treatment of the elderly and more, are grossly under-funded when compared to the rest of the UK.
A MORI poll published on 8th July 2006 showed 41% of those living in England were in favour of an English Parliament. Wales got its Assembly with only 25% of its voters saying ‘yes’, Scotland its parliament with 46% of its electors saying ‘yes’.
We in the Campaign for an English Parliament are not party political, we are simply trying our best to rouse the people of England to stand up for themselves and their country. Join us before it’s too late.
Yours sincerely,

Edward Higginbottom
Co-ordinator, Shropshire Branch of the Campaign for an English Parliament

Letter: Shropshire Star

2006-08-13T21:17:00.000+01:00

City Region is a blatant affront to democracy

Since the West Midlands City Region was announced, the Shropshire Star may as well be an extension of Telford & Wrekin Council’s propaganda department.
On August 4 the Star published what I assume was a barely edited press release saying the West Midlands City Region (which doesn’t exist yet) has been given £5m to fight unemployment.

I am prepared to assume this poor reporting is down to the fact that the City Region proposal is veiled in secrecy.

No matter how many “benefits” Telford & Wrekin Council, the Regional Assembly or the other local authorities involved quote, the fact remains that yet another unelected regional government, paid for by the taxpayer, is an affront to democracy,

Far too many decisions are already taken at regional level by unelected bureaucrats appointed to do the bidding of the British government and the EU.

MPs oppose an elected English Parliament on the basis it is “another layer of government”. But why do they never seem to have the same problem with the huge unelected regional bureaucracy foisted on the English people against their will?

I don’t want Telford & Wrekin Council to give away powers and responsibilities to an unelected regional government in Birmingham.

And why is the council refusing to hold public consultation or a referendum to let the public decide?

And Keith Austin would support the City Region — he would get a seat on its ruling cabinet if it went ahead.

The City Region will mean more bureaucracy and red tape and see democracy moved further away from people. “Benefits” must be paid for by somebody and this will mean higher taxes and more cost-cutting.

Speak to your councillor and MP and demand they press for a referendum. Nobody has been elected on a manifesto of turning Telford into a suburb of Birmingham.

Stuart Parr, Telford

Letter: Shropshire Star

2006-07-21T16:09:00.000+01:00

Voting bid will assist case for parliament

The Conservatives have adopted English Votes on English Laws (EVoEL) as one of their key policies. EVoEL, whilst doomed to failure for many reasons, is an important proposal.
The Conservatives are the first of the main political parties to acknowledge that there is something wrong with MPs representing constituencies in Scotland and Wales voting on matters that only affect England.

The Conservatives’ answer is to ban MPs not elected in England from taking part in votes on bills that only affect England.

They would have the Spe-aker of the House (currently a Labour MP with a Scottish constituency) certify that a bill only affected England and from then on only MPs elected in England would be able to take part in the vote.

Sounds like a perfect solution right? Wrong.

Scotland and Wales are both heavily subsidised by the English taxpayer and anything in England that costs money will reduce the amount of money available to subsidise them.

Scottish and Welsh MPs have already realised that they will therefore be able to claim an interest in any so-called English bill, rendering the EVoEL concept completely useless.

Labour is clearly concerned at the thought of not being able to use Scottish MPs to vote through legislation in England.

Despite EVoEL being unworkable, I sincerely hope the the Conservatives manage to get it through. Once they have accepted that it is wrong for foreign MPs to vote on English laws and EVoEL has failed, they will have no choice but to adopt a policy supporting an English parliament.

Stuart Parr, Telford

Letters: Shropshire Star

2006-06-28T22:52:00.000+01:00

In last nights Shropshire Star:

It's time the English had a say

For nine years we have had a Scotsman as our Prime Minster who appointed another Scot as Chancellor, whose action waa to take £5 billion from the income of the pension funds which were the envy of the world. He has repeated this each succeeding year since.

He has destroyed the pensions of the English, Prime Minster Blair has filled the moot important posts of Government with Scots. What a mess they have made things. He promised all sorts of benefits but they were only words, effective action was missing.

With his targets he made the National Health Service over reach itself and it's now in debt to the tune of over a billion pounds. Instead of using the funds available to save the NHS he gave several billion pounds to the European Union. Education is in a bad way, hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers have flooded into the country, violent crime has risen, violent foreign criminals have been allowed to escape.

The only chance the Labour Party has of being elected is for the English Members of Parliament to get together and select an English MP to oppose Blair in his attempt to install Brown as the new Prime Minister. The new English Prime Minister can then remove the Scottish mafia. They could not make a worse job and they could ensure that English money stayed in England. By English, I do not include Prescott.

We must return England to the English by means of an English Parliament.

E Barlow Telford

... and in tonight's ...

Scots and Welsh not at fault for vote result

There appears to be a growing campaign levelled at the Welsh and Scottish.

I originally thought it might be created by the bigots who have had to stop racist remarks against the Muslim and other societies.

So whose fault is it that the Scots in particular are laughing at the English for voting into Government a bunch of Scots who are able to vent their dislike, if not hatred, of the English by having the powers given to them by English voters by voting legislation that they would not dare to vote in north of the border?

As a Welshman who has lived in England for the greater part of my life and served for years in the armed forces, I often question the percentage of voting for self assemblies for Scotland and Wales, especially the Welsh vote, which split the country down the middle than across the middle.

I also object to criticism of so-called subsidies Wales receives. The critics appear to forget we pay taxes like everyone else. I would suggest there are fewer benefit scroungers in Wales percentage wise than in England.

One thing I will agree with. England should be ruled by Englishmen/ women, but historically it never has, having been subjected to Roman, Norman, Welsh, German and New Scots rule for 2,000 years. I suggest that at the next General Election you give your vote to an English candidate.

Name and address supplied

Can anyone point me in the direction of a campaign against North British and West British people? I certainly don't know of one.

Letter: Shropshire Star

2006-06-21T22:42:00.000+01:00

World Cup uncovers very deep divisions

The World Cup is responsible for much of the flag waving throughout England but the flags first started popping up just before St George's Day.

The press are divided on their reporting of flag waving — the "highbrow" newspapers see it as something to rise above whilst the tabloids can see pound signs in front of their eyes by supporting England.

The cross of St George is often incorrectly associated with racist groups like the BNP. At the moment, the English flag is correctly associated with racism — racism against English people. Last week the Chief Constable of North Wales warned English people not to drive in Wales with English flags on their cars. He said it was disrespectful and could lead to racism and violence.

An Englishman who moved to Scotland five years ago to care for a disabled friend has had his windows smashed for daring to hang an English flag in his window. The First Minister of Scotland has followed the lead of most of his fellow Scots and is supporting Trinidad and Tobago.

Two chain stores in Aberystwyth had their shop fronts vandalised for supporting England. The words "Aber isn't in England" was sprayed on their windows.

This racist and juvenile behaviour is an indicator of exactly how fractured the so called "United" Kingdom really is. If our neighbours hate us that much, then why don’t they do us all a favour and declare independence? Lets see how long they last without multi-billion pound subsidies from the English taxpayer.

Stuart Parr
Telford

letter in Express & Star

2006-06-16T14:22:00.000+01:00

We're ruled by ScotlandJun 16, 2006

The local government elections held in England on May 4 are now near forgotten. Labour did badly, more out of people turning away from them rather than the electors being inspired by the Conservatives.

As a consequence of this slap in the face, Tony Blair had a knee-jerk reshuffle and promoted a couple more Scots into the Cabinet thereby reinforcing his Scottish Raj over England. He sees nothing wrong in this for he, like his fellow Labourites, give every impression of hating England and all things English.

Of late, several members of the government, Gordon Brown in particular, have been running around England persuading everyone it is great to be British. No such efforts are however being undertaken in Scotland or Wales. This is simply to persuade us that the obviously Scottish Gordon is the right man to be Prime Minister. Unfortunately for him a recent opinion poll showed that 55 per cent of the English people did not want an MP from Scotland running the country, post devolution.

So now, it is hinted that "Britishness" lessons will be taught in English schools. In Scotland and Wales it will now be up to the devolved administrations whether that happens there - do not hold your breath.Gordon Brown says he will be rooting for England in the World Cup. If England makes it to the final you can bet your bottom dollar that he and his fellow Scot, Tony Blair, will get tickets and, ironically, will be cheering on the team of the country they have done their utmost to denigrate and destroy.

Edward Higginbottom, Shropshire Branch of the Campaign for an English Parliament, Shrewsbury.

English Parliament in the hands of the SNP

2006-05-18T10:20:00.000+01:00

Letter printed in Glasgow Herald 18th May

Many of your correspondents quite rightly point out that there are many more "English" MPs in Westminster than Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish ones, and therefore they could create an English parliament whenever they like. Technically, that is true, but as everyone knows, MPs invariably follow party lines.

Labour does not want an EP as its devolution system is, in its eyes, perfect and, if one were created, it might break up the Union, putting many of its top people out of a job. The

Conservatives, for reasons best known to themselves, are also obsessed about preserving the Union and do not want to do anything that might lose them their "fingertip" presence in Scotland.

The LibDems, to be fair, might well support the idea, but then anything that gives them the faintest whiff of power appeals. Their long-standing policy, however, has been to integrate fully the UK into the Euro superstate as assorted regions.

Although the SNP and Plaid Cymru are seen as nationalists, any similar party pursuing similar aims in England would have many people squealing "racists", a word some of your readers have already used.

Therefore, the creation of an English Parliament is, ironically, probably in the hands of the SNP. If it does well in May 2007, then the Scottish-led Labour government in Westminster will be left facing stark choices which naively it thought would never occur under its devolution settlement.

Letter: Shropshire Star

2006-05-16T21:21:00.000+01:00

Growing Scottish influence on cabinet

I had the misfortune to see Labour's party election broadcast the day before the local elections.

The broadcast talked about how well Britain was doing under Labour and finished with the strapline "Britain is moving forward - vote Labour".

Bearing in mind that these were the English local elections, I wonder how many people were left wondering what Labour were planning to do for England and how many votes they lost as a result of Labour's continued denial of the existence of our country.

Can you imagine what would happen to Labour's all important majority in Scotland and Wales if they used the word "Britain" in a local electon broadcast there?

The cabinet reshuffle that follwed Labour's humiliating loses at the local election had both positive and negative sides.

The positives were the sacking of Chalres Clarke and John Prescott being stripped of all his powers. These two men were possibly the biggest threat to freedom and democracy in this country.

On the downside, there are now 5 MP's with Scottish constituencies in top ministerial positions running departments that are rarely permitted to do anything that affects their own constituents.

This is a clear message from Tony Blair - if England can't be trusted to vote Labour then he will have to bring in people we can't vote out of office. There are only two ways to get anywhere in this Labour government - you either have to be incompetent or Scottish.

Stuart Parr
Telford

Scottophobia

2006-05-16T10:57:00.000+01:00

Letters pubished by the Glasgow Herald

The Herald is almost unique in the Scottish press in that it not only understands the discrimination against England as a result of devolution but, unlike the cowardly "English" press, it actually dares to report it. But your editorial, Scottophobia lives on today (May 15), certainly falls short of your usual balanced reporting.The opposition by English people to a Scottish MP becoming prime minister is nothing to do with a phobia or even dislike of the Scots. It is simply the case that, since devolution, Westminster now spends roughly 80% of its time dealing solely with England. It is not unreasonable for the people of England, representing 85% of the population of the (dis)United Kingdom, to want somebody who is accountable to the English electorate as prime minister.Were Gordon Brown to become the British prime minister, he would have a free rein over England but would be almost incapable of introducing any legislation that would affect his own constituents. He would be safe in the knowledge that no matter how unpopular a piece of legislation was, nobody in England could vote him out of office as he is elected in Scotland. Westminster has become largely irrelevant in Scotland since devolution so the diehard Labour constituents, most of whom would vote for a chimpanzee if it wore a red rosette, are very unlikely to vote him out based on what he has done to the auld enemy south of the border.I have no problem with a Scottish MP becoming prime minister of the UK once a fully-devolved government, with at least the same powers as the Scottish Parliament, has been introduced in England. Until this happens, increasing numbers of English people will refuse to submit to minority rule by unaccountable Scottish politicians.

Stuart Parr, Telford, Shropshire.

THE growth in Scottophobia was inevitable. The idea of devolution might have been to strengthen the Union, but only fools could have thought that a manifestly inequitable system, that Labour created, could possibly achieve that aim. Gordon Brown or John Reid have every constitutional right to be prime minister but neither will have any electoral mandate for the bulk of that job. Post-devolution, the duties have changed dramatically. Besides going on lots of holidays and prancing about the world saying how they are going to save it, the PM's main function is to oversee the administration of England.Brown/Reid are, however, elected to Westminster to represent their constituents on non-devolved matters. So they have no mandate from either Scottish or English electors to deal with things like health, education, law and order, etc. That is why they should not be PM of the UK until England has a devolved parliament of its own. Constitutionally, there is no reason why an English MP representing an English constituency should not be secretary of state for Scotland, but if any such person were appointed there would be a big protest from Scotland.

Edward Higginbottom, Rea Bank, Weir Road, Hanwood, Shrewsbury.

Letter: Shropshire Star

2006-05-12T19:03:00.000+01:00

City proposal will mean more tax

I wonder how many residents of Telford know anything about the West Midlands city region that Michael Frater has sold us to?

It took me about a month, many phone calls and e-mails and I ended up speaking to Birmingham City Council but I finally managed to get some information on the proposal.

I didn’t get a copy of the proposal as that is to be kept secret for the next few months, presumably so that members of the public can’t give their councillors reasons to object to it.

The city region, Messrs Frater and Austin tell us, will bring us economic benefits and help us attract investment.

The blueprint for city regions produced by the UK government suggests that city regions will be able to levy business taxes. Extra taxation will encourage investment in Telford?

The economic benefits will be in the form of extra money from the UK government and EU in return for complying with regional policy.

This is nothing short of bribery and, in the case of the EU, they are bribing us with our own money!

The city region will mean higher taxes, less democracy and accountability, move more control of our daily lives away from our own democratically elected local representatives to unelected regionalists in Birmingham and the “economic benefits” are little more than bribes paid out of our own pockets.

Stuart Parr, Telford

Shropshire Star: Fiasco sparks farmer suicide fears

2006-05-06T10:14:00.000+01:00

This was in the Shropshire Star a few days ago. Since this story, Margaret Beckett has been promoted to the Foreign Office as reward for her incompetence in charge of DEFRA.

Debt-ridden farmers across Shropshire have contemplated suicide as the only escape from the government’s single payment fiasco, it was revealed today.

The Rural Stress Network, founded during the foot and mouth crisis in 2001, said financial pressures were intolerable for farmers who have been waiting months for subsidies.

Many were battling with banks over sky-high charges. Others had no money to feed their families, while “three or four” in the last week said they had thought about suicide.

The Single Payment Scheme, which provides support payments to farmers for the environmental work they carry out, has descended into chaos with 70 per cent of claimants still unpaid. Now it could take until November to clear the backlog.

Helen Williams, for the Rural Stress Network, said many farmers were on the edge.

Tories take control of Shrewsbury & Atcham

2006-05-06T10:09:00.000+01:00

Labour's humiliating defeat at the English local elections included losing control of Shrewsbury & Atcham, previously a Labour safe seat.

Job Cuts at Shropshire Hospitals

2006-05-04T08:14:00.000+01:00

Nurses and medical staff were protesting outside the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital yesterday over 300 job cuts at the hospital and its sister site, the Princess Royal in Telford.

This is the same Royal Shrewsbury Hospital that is giving Welsh women the breast cancer drug Herceptin for free and is charging £43k per course of treatment for English patients.

Shropshire's contribution to the subsidy of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is in the region of £100m per year but the only way anyone can come up with of plugging a £31m budget deficit is to cut jobs and services. I've got a suggestion - stop subsidising the rest of the UK so that they can have free presecriptions, free dental and eye care, expensive drugs, etc. and spend our own taxes on ourselves.

Letter to Shropshire Newspapers

2006-05-03T14:28:00.000+01:00

Some people in Monmouthshire are evidently up in arms as they have to pay £6.65 NHS prescription charges. They are registered with a doctor in Herefordshire, if however they were with one in Wales they would only be paying £3. From 2007 prescription charges are due to be abolished in Wales.

In Scotland, eye and dental check-ups will also be free next year.

You might ask yourself how this can be. Well, we no longer have one NHS we have separate ones, for Scotland, for Wales, for England. England of course gets the basic service, the Celtic regions the enhanced. What is even better for them is that it is English taxpayers who are providing the massive subsidies to finance them.

This is not likely to change as there is no one standing up for England. We are governed by a UK parliament that’s filled with MPs from the Scottish orientated Labour Party, the Scottish led LibDems and Conservatives who appear to be terrified of upsetting the Scots in case they get the sulks and break up the Union.

And, by the way, there are a couple of new breast cancer drugs that will be available in Scotland. England’s Scottish government however apparently has no plan to provide them to English patients.

Letter to Glasgow herald

2006-05-03T14:27:00.000+01:00

Ian Macwhirter’s article (May 3rd) was very interesting. However, I do not agree with him when he says: ‘no sign of Middle England is unhappy with the devolution settlement, or that it wants its own separate parliament. All evidence is that English people feel no animosity towards Scots.’

Well, there are plenty of rumblings. As he is no doubt aware, in democracies the majority are usually silent, its minorities who agitate and thereby get their way. We in England are basically law abiding and are probably the most tolerant people on Earth so we rarely give a public display of our true feelings. Be assured, animosity towards every public office seemingly being filled by Scots is growing down here south of the border, we are just too polite to take to the streets.

Labour has managed to get away with their con-trick on the English, in part, because of our adherence to the rule of law and, in part, because a surprisingly high proportion of the people still do not realise that Tony Blair is Scottish. The dour, miserable, Gordon Brown is however patently Scottish, Menzies Campbell obviously a Scot, so expect the antipathy to grow if they, God forbid, end up running the UK as neither has any mandate to administer England.

Happy St Georges Day

2006-04-23T08:13:00.000+01:00

Letter: Northern Echo

2006-04-22T11:11:00.000+01:00

ST GEORGE'S DAY

PAUL RIVERS is opposed to celebrations to mark St George's Day (HAS, Apr 20), which takes place tomorrow. I wonder why?

Could it be anything to do with St George's Day being an expression of our English nationality, what with him being a campaigner for a regional assembly and all? Oh yes, he forgot to mention that in his letter, didn't he?

Perhaps Mr Rivers would prefer a National European Region Day or a Regional Patron Saint instead?

It wasn't so long ago that people who conspired against England were branded traitors. Now, they are usually called pro-Europeans or politicians.

Stuart Parr, Telford, Shropshire.

Herceptin

2006-04-20T22:13:00.000+01:00

Still don't know what to say about this. Shropshire PCT has refused to provide Herceptin to Shropshire women despite a court ruling recently that refusing the drug for some women and not others was unlawful.

I just can't get my head around how, when North British and West British women (the latter in a Shropshire Hospital), can have Herceptin free of charge and English woman can't. This is racism but nobody seems to want to do anything about it. I emailed the CRE a while ago to complain about it and heard nothing - not even an acknowledgement.

One of the MP's in Shropshire has written to the Health Secretary asking who exactly runs the health service in this country because the Health Secretary has told PCT's not to deny the drug on the grounds of cost and they continue to do so.

No Herceptin for Shropshire

2006-04-19T22:49:00.000+01:00

Shropshire PCT has decided against giving Shropshire women Herceptin but Welsh women will still be allowed to receive it for free at Shropshire's Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

It's too late in the day for a long commentary so check back tomorrow for something more meaningful.

Letter in the Glasgow Herald (not mine)

2006-04-19T11:31:00.000+01:00

Parliament problems
Iain Mann's righteous indignation (April 18) seems to have caused the existence of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly to slip his mind. English MPs are already debarred from voting on all matters affecting only Scotland and most matters affecting only Wales. I don't know how Edward Higginbottom feels about it, but if he can stop Scottish MPs voting on English matters, so far as I am concerned he has a deal.
James Matthews, Flat 31, Highgate Edge, London.

English Farmers face bankruptcy over late subsidy payments

2006-04-18T21:44:00.000+01:00

English farmers face bankruptcy over the late payment of subsidies from the Rural Payments Agency.

The UK government decided that the method of payment for English farmers should change to a complicated mathmatical sum and ordered a new computer system. Which has failed. Unsurprising really as the UK government seem incapable of getting a computer system right.

Being a devolved matter in Scotland and Wales, farmers outside of England received their subsidies in the same way they have for years without delay or major cock-ups. The farmers who will really be suffering are the ones on the borders such as Shropshire where half the farmers at their local market will have had their subsidies 6 months ago while they are racking up huge debts trying to keep afloat until the subsidies finally get paid.

Letter to Glasgow Herald

2006-04-18T18:24:00.000+01:00

Dear Sir,

My thanks to the Herald for publishing my two recent letters and to those people who have responded adding to the debate about the future, if any, of the United Kingdom.

I believe the UK achieved great things in the last 300 years and, despite flaws, it gave the world far more positive benefits than any other ‘Imperial’ power has in the last 1000 years. I am happy with the idea of Devolution but only if it is equitably applied. If you are a good parent, you do not give one child a slice of cake, two a few crumbs and the fourth sent empty away from the table, without that leading to family problems.

Iain Mann (18th April) brings up the usual Scottish chestnut about Margaret Thatcher. Well, before 1999 there was one and the same UK Parliament and, in a democracy, you have to accept the wishes of the majority are paramount, like it or not. Just as the people of the Highlands and Islands have to accept that a Scottish Parliament will impose the wishes of the Lowlands.

He is incorrect in saying English MPs have a vote on bills relating solely to Scottish matters. Scottish matters are devolved to Edinburgh where there are no English representatives. However, Scottish MPs in the UK Parliament do have a vote on solely English matters.

Allan Johnston (18th April) claims the English took Scotland to war in Iraq, but how did they manage that? There is no English Parliament to make such a decision.

Donnie MacNeill (18th April) complains about receiving ‘housekeeping money’, how lucky you are, I wish England was so generously financed. Under the Barnet Formula, Scotland received 10% of the Great Britain spend (I use GB deliberately) but only has 9% of the population. That means Scotland receives £8 billion more funding than it would if it was financed to the same level as England – and yes, I have taken North Sea Oil Tax into account on the assumption it is all Scottish – which of course it would not be if Scotland were independent as the southern oil fields would be in English waters.

The current hotchpotch Devolutionary system is not the fault of the people of Scotland, it was simply created by New Labour for their principal benefit and a minority of Scottish people voted for it, but then that’s one of the quirks of democracy for you.

Letter: The Herald (CEP Shropshire)

2006-04-17T13:18:00.000+01:00

Letter in The Herald

To serve the UK

Like most of the population, Dot Jessiman is mistaken (April 12). The Westminster parliament is not the English parliament but that of the UK.

Those elected to it are there to serve the interests of the UK, not England.

It is clear from the speech by Lord Falconer (the Scottish lord chancellor of England) on March 10 that Scotland was "given" a parliament simply because Labour was terrified of losing votes to the SNP, and wanted somewhere to govern if/when it lost control of the UK parliament.

The Scots already control spending in England in the shape of Gordon Brown.

He is elected by a Scottish constituency; his responsibilities - UK tax-raising and spending in England. Scotland, however, is fortunate spending is controlled by the Scottish Parliament (which Scottish people elect) and it is not controlled by Westminster.

Edward Higginbottom, Rea Bank, Weir Road, Hanwood, Shrewsbury

Letter: Shropshire Star

2006-04-14T20:27:00.000+01:00

England deserves the same

Democracy may have been invented in ancient Greece but it was the English who spread it around the world.

The legal systems of half the developed world are baaed on English common law. the Magna Carta, Bill of Rights and Habeas Corpus.

All these achievements have been sidelined by New Labour, the most dangerous thing to happen to the English since the bubonic plague.

The other day the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer (a Scottish Labour quisling), told a conference in London that the English don't want their own parliament and that we will never get one.

He had no such objections when he promoted the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly 10 years ago and it is as a direct result of this half-baked, undemocratic devolution settlement that we find the English fighting for equal rights.

The BBC ran a poll on their website asking whether England should have its own parliament. Aa I write, over 72 per cent of people have voted yes.

ITV Teletext carried out a phone poll asking the same question - the result was 95 percent in favour.

Stuart Parr
Telford