Devolution is not a matter of life or death. Oh wait, IT IS!

My blogs are often light hearted, but here is a story that demonstrates the extent of this Government’s discrimination against England and how a lack of an English Parliament really can be a "life or death" matter.

Englishman Jack Hose has paid National Insurance (at the same rate as those in Scotland) for fifty years. He now has cancer and was sent home by the Royal Bournemouth Hospital "to die”. He then discovered a cocktail of drugs (including Cetuximab) that has managed to stabilise his condition.

Guess what? The drug Cetuximab is not available on “the NHS” according to the Sunday Times. Guess what else? It is freely available to the likes of Brown, in Scotland… well thank God for that!!

The odious slimeball that is the ENGLISH Health Secretary, Alan Johnson, had the breathtaking, blood pressure soaring, homicidal inducing gaul to say this victim shouldn’t be allowed to PAY FOR IT HIMSELF because it would create a “two tier NHS”.

WELL Mr. GOVERNMENT “WE ARE LISTENING” MINISTER …A TWO TIER SYSTEM WOULD BE AN IMPROVEMENT ON THE FOUR TIER ONE YOU’VE CREATED! By the way, guess which nation has the bottom tier (in terms of spending?) ...of course, England!

Please write to Johnson and the Times. For some reason I’ve never been able to leave comments on the Times pages (anyone know why?), but please leave your comments there.

"Now I don't think you wanted to do that, did you?”

It is possible to bury bad news on a day full of bad news. This is a day full of bad news for Gordon Brown (right), so I would like to record this little nugget that may have passed him, and most of us, by.

Firstly, a little background on the workings of our illustrious leader…

Gordon Brown is not a Unionist. Gordon Brown is a Scottish partisan who has recently embraced the union in order to prevent (divert) the majority of Britons from threatening the privileged status that he himself has organised for his fellow countrymen. Brown has ensured, and continues to ensure, that Scotland’s interests are “paramount” in all his “actions and deeds” as he solemnly swore he would do, when he signed the Scottish Claim of Right in 1988.

The Plan
Brown was a major architect of the devolution settlement. It was designed to promote and protect two things dear to his heart, 1 Scotland and 2 the Labour Party. His design was to put Scotland beyond the reach of the Tories and take the wind out of the nationalists’ sails, thus making Scotland forever Labour. Hurrah!

This is why power was devolved to the Celtic (Labour) nations when national division made little sense. However, the national settlement could not be extended to England (no English Parliament for you laddie) so he planned to carve out other Labour strongholds on a regional level who could also be given assemblies too. These Assemblies would have less power than the Scottish Parliament thereby neutering England AND the Tories by putting vast areas of the UK beyond their reach. The man’s a genius!!

The Result
What a politician! What a Machiavellian giant who would forever be remembered across the centuries as the man who saved the Tories in Scotland! (Huh? surely saved Scotland FROM the Tories??). No! Read that again... Gordon Brown is the man who saved the Tories in Scotland!

It's true! According to Angus McLeod of the Times, the Tories were a spent force in Scotland by the 1990s, but “…the Scottish Tories have been left thanking God for devolution ever since. That, and probably that alone, has saved them from complete decline in Scotland.”

Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together? As Oscar Wilde once said, (referring to the death of Little Nell in Dickens’ Old Curiosity Shop) “you would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh”.

If this is your epitaph Gordon, I recommend you take another look at the Crewe and Nantwich bi-election results, just to cheer yourself up a bit.

Brown Knows!

Sometimes, campaigning for a cause that lacks the backing of any major political party or national newspaper, feels like flicking grains of rice at a bulldozer that’s about to squash us into oblivion.

But other-times, you get a chink of light that shows it actually does some good. A sign that all our letters, blogging, lobbying and arguing in cyber space actually does get through to those in power. One such time was yesterday when Gordon Brown said “There is also an English lobby for a separate English parliament.”

He used it in the context that giving England what he has granted his fellow countrymen would somehow be damaging to the Union. (This is the Union that he himself has destabilised more than any other person in history and the same Union that an English Parliament would actually serve to save.) Anyway, as Jack Straw should have said (according to Secret Person) “I am wholly in favour of an English parliament. If you stay on the current route, there would be little advantage seen by those in England for maintaining the Union, because the argument would be, what exactly is in it for us?”

Well said secret person, but let’s just bask for a moment in the knowledge that we’ve managed to pierce Brown’s ivory tower… "An English lobby for a separate English Parliament!"

Does he mean us? I think he does, you know? He knows! Brown knows!

Give us a Poll Straw!

Jack Straw (left) has once more stated that an English Parliament would destroy the Union. He told the Justice Committee:…

…an English parliament would be a disaster …blah, blah…Wales and Scotland would demand independence …blah, blah… EVoEL would effectively create an English parliament …blah, blah… current arrangements are to the advantage of every section of the UK …blah, blah… no serious sentiment” in England for an English parliament …blah, blah, ad nauseum

I could nail every one of the above falsehoods, but we’ve been here before and it would make little difference. Straw himself knows these statements are false, so there’s little point stating why.

How do we know this? Well, here is a handy ‘cut out and keep’ guide to referenda, their constitutional value and use by the Labour Party…

1. Labour are the only party to use them
2. Labour only use them if they are sure people will vote in accordance with Labour policy
3. The result is then used to suppresses opposition (inside and outside the party) because “the people have spoken”
4. Labour don’t have to implement the result if it doesn’t agree with “2” above

So, here are some examples of this policy in action…

1975: UK join the EEC?...
Labour policy = Yes: Result = Yes = THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN!

1979: Devolution?...
Labour policy = Yes: Result = No = "ay? sorry, I'm sure this isn't what you meant, so we'll ask again later"

1997: Devolution?...
Labour policy = Yes: Result = Yes =THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN!

2004: Regionalisation?
Labour policy =Yes : result = No = "don't be silly! We know what you meant, we'll give it to you anyway (who the bloody hell decided to ask the people to speak on this one? Prescott, you make me sick!)

2007: Lisbon Treaty?
Labour policy = Yes: Expected Result = No = "Don’t anyone dare suggest we ask these plebs what they think, because THEY DON'T!"

2008: Scottish Independence?
Labour policy = No: Expected Result = No, er Yes, er...: therefore “Bring it on!, er no, leave it, ooh, er!"

One sunny day: English Parliament?
Labour policy = No: Expected result = Yes = "Don’t ask these plebs what they think! (unless they're Scottish, in which case keep asking)

So, this is how we know Straw’s doesn't believe what he is saying! If he did think there is “no serious sentiment for an English Parliament”, we’d have a vote tomorrow!