When you do come back, Daggs, I'd like to know how the English identity would be broken by being regionalised. What aspects of being English are under threat if this were to happen? USA is split into 50 regions and it has a collective identity, for example. No rush, just posting this in case I forget to ask.
That's the ticket Henry, don't look at anything that may support my case. Just keep your mind closed to what has happened to England.
To save you the trouble of searching around i've copied and pasted this from the ED's website.
..........................................................................................................
Democratic fairness for England is needed, via a referendum on the creation of an English Parliament, Executive and First Minister with at least the same powers as the Scottish Parliament, Executive and First Minister within a federal UK and a reformed Second Chamber at Westminster. There should be fiscal devolution so that the English, Scottish,Welsh and N. Irish parliaments become responsible for financing their own expenditure. This will save the taxpayers of England a substantial amount of money.
We reject the plans for regional assemblies because, among other things, they will promote disunity and conflict within England. The English Democrats will study the future findings of the English Constitutional Convention (ECC), and may accommodate ECC findings within future party policy.
We demand action on the following matters:-
England to be recognised and treated as a unified country.
Scotland and Wales have been recognised as countries and their people given the opportunity to vote in referenda for devolved government. Scotland now has a parliament, and Wales an assembly. In contrast, the people of England have been denied the opportunity to choose an English Parliament. Instead, England is being dismembered into nine Regions. We find this discrimination unacceptable. England should be a political entity with its own parliament and executive.
.........................................................................................................
No doubt there's insufficient facts,stats and argument in that for you.
But it's written by a person more erudite than me and expresses the fears and desires of those who seek to preserve England as a nation state.
You sure you don't want the link to the CEP? It may broaden your mind!
It's the same as what you've been saying already, Daggs.
"disunity and conflict"? Really? How? Almost all of the proposed regions would be called something related to England (eg Southeast England). London and Yorkshire are both clearly English. England is still there. People are still English.
USA, Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy - they all have their identities intact.
If Scotland was split into 9 regions, would you be happy then?
I see the EDs don't care about preserving the Union. That's a legitimate policy, but call a spade a spade.
My question about Plymouth and Sunderland remains.
For Gawd's sake how many times:
I want a Federal UK
I want an English Parliament
I answered your Plymouth/Sunderland question 6hrs ago
I don't want Scotland divided nor Wales
Other countries outside UK are not my concern
I want justice, fairness and Democracy for England
I can't give stats or facts about the effect of breaking England up, because it hasn't happened ...yet.
I believe there is a plan to destroy Englands identity, but it's not spoken about by British politicians. So i can't direct you to the facts and stats, only to other groups who also believe so.
I can't make you support what i support.
I can only hope you will look into the issue elsewhere. Not on a football forum
You will never make me stop fighting for England.
Is that clear enough?
Goodnight
[cite]Posted By: IA[/cite]Regionalisation is a big fear for you. The people of Plymouth and the people of Sunderland - do you think they'd be governed more effectively by one big region including the two cities and everything in between or by smaller regions closer to them that have areas with similar concerns?
In 1974 Sunderland ceased to be in County Durham and became part a Metropolitan County called Tyne and Wear, no one was asked if they wanted it, it was thrust upon us...
Below is a summary of the tense rivalry built up due to the thieving magpies stealing all our cash....
Sunderland residents began paying taxes to a County Council based in Newcastle, and a series of council decisions, such as the development of Newcastle International Airport to the north of Newcastle, left them feeling that they were being forced to contribute toward developments that benefited Newcastle but not Sunderland. In actual fact, the airport has benefited the region as a whole, but at the time of building, its name and location were seen by some in Sunderland as further indication that Newcastle's international profile was growing rapidly, and overshadowing that of its neighbour.
In the late 1980s the Tyne and Wear Development Corporation (TWDC) was established to regenerate the mostly redundant river fronts of Newcastle, North Shields, South Shields and Sunderland. TWDC was given unitary development control including licensing over the four local authority areas and managed central government regeneration funds. The board of TWDC was appointed by Central Government and was based in Newcastle. While the achievements of the Development Corporation in improving the environment for investment on both the Tyne and the Wear are significant there is a debate about how sustainable the project in Sunderland were. TWDC investment provided Newcastle with extensive leisure and tourism facilities including two hotels and a conference centre. Sunderland was given a new business park, a University campus and a heritage attraction the National Glass Centre but with no improved local amenities of infrastructure investment inevitably drifted away to Newcastle. TWDC was dissolved in 1997 but many of its structures and programmes remain in place through legacy bodies.
Originally the tyne and wear metro was not put in sunderland yet the citizens of sunderland were forced to pay taxes to newcastle to build it.One of the biggest arguments regarding council money was over the Tyne and Wear Metro, a mass transit system that covered much of Newcastle and North Tyneside, as well as Gateshead and South Tyneside. The lines only went as far south as Pelaw in Gateshead and up to South Shields; this owed much to the fact that the Metro was commissioned by the original Tyneside Passenger Transport Authority that predated Tyne and Wear County and did not cover Sunderland. When funding for the Metro was transferred to Tyne & Wear County (and therefore included Sunderland), it greatly angered Sunderland residents, whose taxes were partly used to fund the project. It was only in 1998 that a Metro extension into Sunderland was agreed. In 2002, Sunderland was linked to the system; however the line did not hit it off as estimated with the Sunderland people preferring other forms of transport.
In the twenty-first century Newcastle and Tyneside has continued to develop as the administrative capital of the North-East. The area continues to be the focus of national media attention as well as government and private investment. It has become a centre of entertainment, science, culture and art with an international reputation. To a great extent this attention has been enhanced by Newcastle's proximity to the new attractions in Gateshead such as the Sage and Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, leading to the promotion of "NewcastleGateshead" and tyneside as a marketing concept for the rebirth of the region. This golden age for Newcastle has not been matched in Sunderland, which has also undergone a transformation but at a slower-rate and with less national attention.
The sense of injustice is compounded by the fact that Sunderland has a similar population to Newcastle. As of the 2001 census, the populations are very similar. Despite the similarities in population size when comparing Newcastle and Sunderland and subjectively forgetting about the massive Tyne population built around the populous of Newcastle, Sunderland has a much smaller Central Business District and fewer amenities. However, there are many major development sites in Sunderland City Centre but it still has a long way to go before gaining any sort of respect.
Those Geordie basterds bled us dry for years...
So it doesn't matter whether it based upon national boundaries or local boundaries, there's always a set of crooks that see fit to line their own pockets at the expense of others...
[cite]Posted By: Daggs[/cite]For Gawd's sake how many times:
I want a Federal UK
I want an English Parliament
I answered your Plymouth/Sunderland question 6hrs ago
I don't want Scotland divided nor Wales
Other countries outside UK are not my concern
I want justice, fairness and Democracy for England
I can't give stats or facts about the effect of breaking England up, because it hasn't happened ...yet.
I believe there is a plan to destroy Englands identity, but it's not spoken about by British politicians. So i can't direct you to the facts and stats, only to other groups who also believe so.
I can't make you support what i support.
I can only hope you will look into the issue elsewhere. Not on a football forum
You will never make me stop fighting for England.
Is that clear enough?
Goodnight
No. Already have looked at ED stuff and realised that they have no idea what they mean by "English identity", but they want to protect it from imagined foes nonetheless. Thank you, though.
*makes mental note never to engage English Democrats again*
[cite]Posted By: Daggs[/cite]For Gawd's sake how many times:
I want a Federal UK
I want an English Parliament
I answered your Plymouth/Sunderland question 6hrs ago
I don't want Scotland divided nor Wales
Other countries outside UK are not my concern
I want justice, fairness and Democracy for England
I can't give stats or facts about the effect of breaking England up, because it hasn't happened ...yet.
I believe there is a plan to destroy Englands identity, but it's not spoken about by British politicians. So i can't direct you to the facts and stats, only to other groups who also believe so.
I can't make you support what i support.
I can only hope you will look into the issue elsewhere. Not on a football forum
You will never make me stop fighting for England.
Is that clear enough?
Goodnight
No. Already have looked at ED stuff and realised that they have no idea what they mean by "English identity", but they want to protect it from imagined foes nonetheless. Thank you, though.
*makes mental note never to engage English Democrats again*
The same IA,
Like you I'd already looked at the ED site and found very little beyond scare stories of nasty EU people stopping us being English and "they've got one so we should have one".
Would be nice to have an "English Identity" based on positives and what it is rather than comparing it with what others are or are not.
Daggs, no you didn't answer the question of why national parliaments are better government than regional parliaments and I think that is because you can't.
[cite]Posted By: Daggs[/cite]For Gawd's sake how many times:
I want a Federal UK
I want an English Parliament
I answered your Plymouth/Sunderland question 6hrs ago
I don't want Scotland divided nor Wales
Other countries outside UK are not my concern
I want justice, fairness and Democracy for England
I can't give stats or facts about the effect of breaking England up, because it hasn't happened ...yet.
I believe there is a plan to destroy Englands identity, but it's not spoken about by British politicians. So i can't direct you to the facts and stats, only to other groups who also believe so.
I can't make you support what i support.
I can only hope you will look into the issue elsewhere. Not on a football forum
You will never make me stop fighting for England.
Is that clear enough?
Goodnight
No. Already have looked at ED stuff and realised that they have no idea what they mean by "English identity", but they want to protect it from imagined foes nonetheless. Thank you, though.
*makes mental note never to engage English Democrats again*
The same IA,
Like you I'd already looked at the ED site and found very little beyond scare stories of nasty EU people stopping us being English and "they've got one so we should have one".
Would be nice to have an "English Identity" based on positives and what it is rather than comparing it with what others are or are not.
Daggs, no you didn't answer the question of why national parliaments are better government than regional parliaments and I think that is because you can't.
Speaking from the Australian example, there are certainly a lot of people here who are skeptical about the value that state governments bring (which are essentially regional governments) when you already have a national (federal) government as well as local councils.
How do you split the responsibilities and avoid duplication of roles between the respective levels? How is cash divided up? Who collects the cash and how?
We have a tri-level government here in Oz and the general view is that we are over-governed and that expanded local government and a more regionally focused federal government could provide the same services.
[cite]Posted By: Steve Dowman[/cite]Good to see the cabinet start by taking a pay cut, never heard of such a thing under the working çlass heroes of labour.
[cite]Posted By: Steve Dowman[/cite]Good to see the cabinet start by taking a pay cut, never heard of such a thing under the working çlass heroes of labour.
RedZed outlined some of his local situation regarding Sunderland, etc.
Then there is Plymouth.
Down here in the South West there is resentment that Westminster has no grasp of the regional issues that affect much of the Western half of Devon and throughout Cornwall.
The only city of any size is Plymouth (pop. 250,000), more than 100 miles west of Bristol - yet it is still a further 70 miles to West Cornwall. It does have a tiny airport with a handful of flights per day; the railway skirts Dartmoor and is subject to heavy speed restrictions, which means most trains take 3hrs 30 mins to Paddington, more than 5hours from Penzance.
The motorway finishes at Exeter, nearly 50 miles away.
Most people seem to competely underestimate the distance, let alone travelling time - and don't appreciate the relative isolation of the region.
Plymouth and Cornwall has one of the very lowest income levels in the UK, coupled with amongst the highest house prices (bar London), thanks to the demand for retiring people and huge numbers of holiday homes, which remain empty for much of the year.
The city of Plymouth used to have a huge industrial base, much of it supporting the Naval Dockyard at Devonport - but during the Thatcher years that was decimated throwing huge numbers of people out of work. Nothing was put in its place. It took 20 years for Plymouth to begin to prosper again.
But now like other areas, shops are again empty or boarded up - even the big flagship SW Co-op department store went out of business this week.
Cornwall is in even worse shape, with most of the traditional occupations withered away - farmers going bankrupt, the fishing industry year-on-year being artificially reduced by EU fishing quotas. Local boats are laid up not permitted to work much of the time while big Spanish 'factory' trawlers come in and sweep clean the local fishing grounds.
What about tourism? Well, for those involved it's generally a short season, often weather dependent - of course, now many of those who used to come to Cornwall prefer to go abroad and chase the sunshine.
How is the area going to sustain itself? That's a good question.
The area is crying out for Regional focus.
It won't come from London. The politicians seem to think the West Country starts and finishes at Bristol.
[cite]Posted By: Steve Dowman[/cite]Good to see the cabinet start by taking a pay cut, never heard of such a thing under the working çlass heroes of labour.
Cameron's "reduced" pay will be £206,766 : £142,500 + MPs’ salary of £64,766.
How is that a cut ?
it is a cut as his salary (along with the rest of the cabinet) is lower than it was previously for these roles. It is not that difficult to understand, even for the economically illiterate. It is not a cut based on their current, yours or anyone elses salary, or your perceptions of what they should be paid. But a cut on what the previous incumbents 'earned' for these roles.
[cite]Posted By: Steve Dowman[/cite]Good to see the cabinet start by taking a pay cut, never heard of such a thing under the working çlass heroes of labour.
Cameron's "reduced" pay will be£206,766: £142,500 + MPs’ salary of £64,766.
How is that a cut ?
it is a cut as his salary (along with the rest of the cabinet) is lower than it was previously for these roles. It is not that difficult to understand, even for the economically illiterate. It is not a cut based on their current, yours or anyone elses salary, or your perceptions of what they should be paid. But a cut on what the previous incumbents 'earned' for these roles.
Well, the previous incumbent, had he been returned Office, would have 'earned' a total of £198,661 for that role - having declined the 8% parliamentary pay rise for the current year (2010/11).
Cameron accepted that 8% rise, then cut it by 5% (to much Tory press whooping & spin), giving him a nett 3% pay rise (roughly). So we're paying over £8K a year MORE for Cameron that we would if Brown had still been PM.
"It is not that difficult to understand, even for the economically illiterate."
Interesting. I used the two cities just as examples of places that are far apart, but RedZed and Oggy Red have given interesting accounts of where both cities stand now. Sunderland seems to be a very good case example against regionalisation, while Plymouth seems to be a good argument for regional government. I guess there's no right or wrong answer, but I can't see how either place would be better governed by an English parliament, since they're so far apart, their problems are very different, and they remain small enough cities within England.
OA, I don't know how it works in Australia, but if there was any federalisation in the UK, I'd hope that that would make the federal parliament and government smaller. They'd have fewer jobs to do (treasury, defence and foreign secretary, for example), and the coordinating could be done across several portfolios at once (eg why have an education secretary when you could have one minister making sure that a few other things handed to regional governments are ticking over along with education). Funding is an issue, but the cost of regional government should be largely covered by reducing Westminster. There are issues with how much money is given to different regions/countries, but I'd hope that wouldn't be an 'us v them' issue.
Cameron married Samantha Gwendoline Sheffield, the daughter of Sir Reginald Adrian Berkeley Sheffield, 8th Baronet and Annabel Lucy Veronica Jones (now the Viscountess Astor)...... you might call thgis the landed gentry......
Ironically he is related to Ms H Harman....... In May 2009, it was reported that Cameron is related to Harriet Harman, now Leader of the Opposition and leader of the Labour Party, through her aunt's marriage to his great-uncle.
Should be a nice 'cosy time' in Paliament...... If Harriett get's 'nasty' and 'upperty' ( she has a predisposal to this type of thing) he can send his 'mummy ' around to give her a jolly good ticking off, and remind her that she is litttle more than a jumped up 'pantry maid' married to that dreadful 'Jack' who cannot be trusted with the petty cash....... see below....... Dromey was caught up in a further financial scandal in 2007 as he was responsible for party finances, which included more than £630,000 in illegal donations from David Abrahams. Dromey again claimed to know nothing of the donations, with critics wondering why he hadn't examined the issue more closely [3][4] His wife, Harriet Harman was also caught up in the affair, as her staff had solicited and accepted illegal donations totalling £5,000.[5] As a result of the affair, there was growing concern about the fitness of Dromey to act as treasurer and Mark McDonald challenged Dromey for the position at re-election. McDonald argued that more transparency was needed though he was unsuccessful Of course it was all a dreadful 'mix up', the poor man was 'confussed', beetween right and wrong..... Politicians 'don't you just love em'!.
The biggest embarrasment for Labour about Dromey is that he has been parachuted into two constituencies , both flying in the face of the controversial 'all females shortlists' advocated by his wife.
[cite]Posted By: Thommo[/cite]The biggest embarrasment for Labour about Dromey is that he has been parachuted into two constituencies , both flying in the face of the controversial 'all females shortlists' advocated by his wife.
Comments
Bye...........beer calling
Oh! RHETORIC
To save you the trouble of searching around i've copied and pasted this from the ED's website.
..........................................................................................................
Democratic fairness for England is needed, via a referendum on the creation of an English Parliament, Executive and First Minister with at least the same powers as the Scottish Parliament, Executive and First Minister within a federal UK and a reformed Second Chamber at Westminster. There should be fiscal devolution so that the English, Scottish,Welsh and N. Irish parliaments become responsible for financing their own expenditure. This will save the taxpayers of England a substantial amount of money.
We reject the plans for regional assemblies because, among other things, they will promote disunity and conflict within England. The English Democrats will study the future findings of the English Constitutional Convention (ECC), and may accommodate ECC findings within future party policy.
We demand action on the following matters:-
England to be recognised and treated as a unified country.
Scotland and Wales have been recognised as countries and their people given the opportunity to vote in referenda for devolved government. Scotland now has a parliament, and Wales an assembly. In contrast, the people of England have been denied the opportunity to choose an English Parliament. Instead, England is being dismembered into nine Regions. We find this discrimination unacceptable. England should be a political entity with its own parliament and executive.
.........................................................................................................
No doubt there's insufficient facts,stats and argument in that for you.
But it's written by a person more erudite than me and expresses the fears and desires of those who seek to preserve England as a nation state.
You sure you don't want the link to the CEP? It may broaden your mind!
"disunity and conflict"? Really? How? Almost all of the proposed regions would be called something related to England (eg Southeast England). London and Yorkshire are both clearly English. England is still there. People are still English.
USA, Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy - they all have their identities intact.
If Scotland was split into 9 regions, would you be happy then?
I see the EDs don't care about preserving the Union. That's a legitimate policy, but call a spade a spade.
My question about Plymouth and Sunderland remains.
I want a Federal UK
I want an English Parliament
I answered your Plymouth/Sunderland question 6hrs ago
I don't want Scotland divided nor Wales
Other countries outside UK are not my concern
I want justice, fairness and Democracy for England
I can't give stats or facts about the effect of breaking England up, because it hasn't happened ...yet.
I believe there is a plan to destroy Englands identity, but it's not spoken about by British politicians. So i can't direct you to the facts and stats, only to other groups who also believe so.
I can't make you support what i support.
I can only hope you will look into the issue elsewhere. Not on a football forum
You will never make me stop fighting for England.
Is that clear enough?
Goodnight
Below is a summary of the tense rivalry built up due to the thieving magpies stealing all our cash....
Those Geordie basterds bled us dry for years...
So it doesn't matter whether it based upon national boundaries or local boundaries, there's always a set of crooks that see fit to line their own pockets at the expense of others...
No. Already have looked at ED stuff and realised that they have no idea what they mean by "English identity", but they want to protect it from imagined foes nonetheless. Thank you, though.
*makes mental note never to engage English Democrats again*
Thanks for that, RedZed. Those Geordies...
The same IA,
Like you I'd already looked at the ED site and found very little beyond scare stories of nasty EU people stopping us being English and "they've got one so we should have one".
Would be nice to have an "English Identity" based on positives and what it is rather than comparing it with what others are or are not.
Daggs, no you didn't answer the question of why national parliaments are better government than regional parliaments and I think that is because you can't.
Speaking from the Australian example, there are certainly a lot of people here who are skeptical about the value that state governments bring (which are essentially regional governments) when you already have a national (federal) government as well as local councils.
How do you split the responsibilities and avoid duplication of roles between the respective levels? How is cash divided up? Who collects the cash and how?
We have a tri-level government here in Oz and the general view is that we are over-governed and that expanded local government and a more regionally focused federal government could provide the same services.
(http://www.parliament.uk/about/faqs/house-of-commons-faqs/members-faq-page2)
Cameron's "reduced" pay will be £206,766 : £142,500 + MPs’ salary of £64,766.
How is that a cut ?
Steve Waggott wouldn't get out of bed for that.
;-)
Then there is Plymouth.
Down here in the South West there is resentment that Westminster has no grasp of the regional issues that affect much of the Western half of Devon and throughout Cornwall.
The only city of any size is Plymouth (pop. 250,000), more than 100 miles west of Bristol - yet it is still a further 70 miles to West Cornwall. It does have a tiny airport with a handful of flights per day; the railway skirts Dartmoor and is subject to heavy speed restrictions, which means most trains take 3hrs 30 mins to Paddington, more than 5hours from Penzance.
The motorway finishes at Exeter, nearly 50 miles away.
Most people seem to competely underestimate the distance, let alone travelling time - and don't appreciate the relative isolation of the region.
Plymouth and Cornwall has one of the very lowest income levels in the UK, coupled with amongst the highest house prices (bar London), thanks to the demand for retiring people and huge numbers of holiday homes, which remain empty for much of the year.
The city of Plymouth used to have a huge industrial base, much of it supporting the Naval Dockyard at Devonport - but during the Thatcher years that was decimated throwing huge numbers of people out of work. Nothing was put in its place. It took 20 years for Plymouth to begin to prosper again.
But now like other areas, shops are again empty or boarded up - even the big flagship SW Co-op department store went out of business this week.
Cornwall is in even worse shape, with most of the traditional occupations withered away - farmers going bankrupt, the fishing industry year-on-year being artificially reduced by EU fishing quotas. Local boats are laid up not permitted to work much of the time while big Spanish 'factory' trawlers come in and sweep clean the local fishing grounds.
What about tourism? Well, for those involved it's generally a short season, often weather dependent - of course, now many of those who used to come to Cornwall prefer to go abroad and chase the sunshine.
How is the area going to sustain itself? That's a good question.
The area is crying out for Regional focus.
It won't come from London. The politicians seem to think the West Country starts and finishes at Bristol.
it is a cut as his salary (along with the rest of the cabinet) is lower than it was previously for these roles. It is not that difficult to understand, even for the economically illiterate. It is not a cut based on their current, yours or anyone elses salary, or your perceptions of what they should be paid. But a cut on what the previous incumbents 'earned' for these roles.
Well, the previous incumbent, had he been returned Office, would have 'earned' a total of £198,661 for that role - having declined the 8% parliamentary pay rise for the current year (2010/11).
Cameron accepted that 8% rise, then cut it by 5% (to much Tory press whooping & spin), giving him a nett 3% pay rise (roughly). So we're paying over £8K a year MORE for Cameron that we would if Brown had still been PM.
"It is not that difficult to understand, even for the economically illiterate."
indeed....
Anyway Cameron and Clegg are massively well off, they could comfortably do it for nowt.
OA, I don't know how it works in Australia, but if there was any federalisation in the UK, I'd hope that that would make the federal parliament and government smaller. They'd have fewer jobs to do (treasury, defence and foreign secretary, for example), and the coordinating could be done across several portfolios at once (eg why have an education secretary when you could have one minister making sure that a few other things handed to regional governments are ticking over along with education). Funding is an issue, but the cost of regional government should be largely covered by reducing Westminster. There are issues with how much money is given to different regions/countries, but I'd hope that wouldn't be an 'us v them' issue.
Ironically he is related to Ms H Harman....... In May 2009, it was reported that Cameron is related to Harriet Harman, now Leader of the Opposition and leader of the Labour Party, through her aunt's marriage to his great-uncle.
Should be a nice 'cosy time' in Paliament...... If Harriett get's 'nasty' and 'upperty' ( she has a predisposal to this type of thing) he can send his 'mummy ' around to give her a jolly good ticking off, and remind her that she is litttle more than a jumped up 'pantry maid' married to that dreadful 'Jack' who cannot be trusted with the petty cash.......
see below.......
Dromey was caught up in a further financial scandal in 2007 as he was responsible for party finances, which included more than £630,000 in illegal donations from David Abrahams. Dromey again claimed to know nothing of the donations, with critics wondering why he hadn't examined the issue more closely [3][4] His wife, Harriet Harman was also caught up in the affair, as her staff had solicited and accepted illegal donations totalling £5,000.[5]
As a result of the affair, there was growing concern about the fitness of Dromey to act as treasurer and Mark McDonald challenged Dromey for the position at re-election. McDonald argued that more transparency was needed though he was unsuccessful
Of course it was all a dreadful 'mix up', the poor man was 'confussed', beetween right and wrong..... Politicians 'don't you just love em'!.
Still best to keep it in the family!
He who pays the piper..