Deep-fried Mars Bars and doubles all round
OOH! PROBLEMS on the horizon for Gordon Brown. (Yes, I know he's had a tough week.) A recent reputable poll has 52 per cent of Scots voting in favour of independence. No surprise there.
But wait - it also has 59 per cent of English respondents saying: “Let the Jocks have it. Cut them loose and set them free. Braveheart and doubles all round.” Interesting stuff.
I’ve noticed this increasingly over the past couple of years. There’s a growing resentment on the part of us poor, white, English middle classes that we’re paying through the nose to fund a lifestyle of Celtic luxury for the Jocks and the Welsh. Free shortbread in schools, subsidised peat deliveries for pensioners, deep-fried Mars Bars for benefits claimants … that sort of thing.
Actually, it’s more serious than that. Much more serious. Let’s take university tuition fees, for example. Send your son or daughter to an English institution – or even to Edinburgh – and it’ll soon cost you and them £3,000 a year. The McStoodent sitting at the desk next to them (or, more likely, standing at the bar next to them) will have paid nothing, however wealthy their families might be. Is that fair? I think not.
Then there’s the “National” Health Service, which is patently no such thing. If you suffer from Old Timer’s Disease in this country, you will be denied access to the drug Aricept, which helps half of all sufferers, even though it only costs £2.50 a day. In Scotland, you’ll get it free, no questions asked. If you suffer from bone cancer in this country, you won’t be given the drug Velcade, which cuts the risk of death by 41 per cent in the first year of treatment. In Scotland you will, at a cost of £18,000 for a full cycle of treatment.
If you suffer from a brain tumour in this country, you won’t be given the drug Gliadel, which extends life at a cost of £5,200 a course. In Scotland you will. I could go on. And on. From lung cancer to osteoporosis, from blindness to myelomas, those north of the border are granted free access to life-enhancing and life-prolonging drugs that are denied to the poor bloody English. (In Wales, they don’t even pay prescription charges).
You don’t even have to be ill to suffer from this reverse apartheid. Grow old and weary in Scotland and you will benefit from free nursing care for the elderly. Down here, you’ll be forced to sell your family home to pay for your meals on wheels. Is that fair? I don’t think so.
Even on comparatively mundane matters, we lose out to the Porridge Wogs. You know these new laws NuLabour are planning that will make you pay for every mile you drive? Guess what – they won’t apply north of Carlisle.
So why is this appalling bias such a problem for Gordon Brown? Well, lets have a look at the McMafia who make up our ruling classes. Scotchers in positions of serious power include the Prime Minister himself; the aforementioned Mr Brown; bar room bruiser and Home Secretary John Reid; Lord Charlie “Flatmate” Falconer, Secretary of State; Des Browne, Secretary of State for deploying Our Boys to political advantage; Alistair Darling, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry; Michael “Lickspittle” Martin, Speaker of the House of Commons; and Lord Irvine, former Lord Chancellor and Blah buddy. And Kirsty Young, presenter of Desert Island Discs. I could go on. And on.
In fact there are over 100 Scottish-born MPs in Westminster. More importantly, there’s the notorious West Lothian Question. The Scots have their own Parliament, governing their own affairs. Yet 60 MPs representing Scottish constituencies sit at Westminster, happily voting away on key English policies such as education, health, and law and order without any responsibility or accountability (and often with an eye on the political chance, rather than the moral debate). Is that fair? I don’t think so.
Scotland has brought us many good things: Buckfast Tonic Wine, wee Jimmy Krankie, Carol Smilie and tramps. But the mood amongst the notoriously tolerant and welcoming English is changing. We are tired of being treated as mugs, cud-chewingly content to have our pockets picked by border raiders. If they want independence, so be it. And the sooner the better. Just don’t expect the political opportunists who cling to power like drowning men on a life raft to allow it.
NOW NO-ONE wants mad mullahs running round the streets waving signs demanding that The Pope should be beheaded for daring to insult Islam. But is giving the cops the right to arrest people for carrying “offensive” placards the right way to go about it?
As with all of these things, it’s a matter of judgement. Who decides what is “offensive”? And who do you trust to make that decision on your behalf?
At the moment, it’s the courts and their learned Judges who set down guidance on such matters. But if Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner Tarique Ghaffur has his way, your average, over-tired, over-worked, under-educated bobby on the beat will be making the call.
And in a NuLabour world where you can be dragged away and detained for several hours for daring to boo the Prime Minister in public, where you can be arrested and fined £100 for daring to read out a list of the Iraq War dead at the Cenotaph, where you can be beaten about the head with truncheons outside Parliament just because you wear a tweed coat, that’s a dangerous freedom to concede.
I’VE ONLY been to Belfast the once. I spent two solid days sitting in an old-fashioned booth at the Crown Liquor Emporium opposite the Europa Hotel with a dozen or so fellow reprobates, cracking jokes and drinking heavily.
We were supposed to be at a conference. In the end, the organisers offered to bring the speakers over to the pub and have them perform there. When we did drag ourselves away from the black stuff, it was for a posh dinner at Stormont, seat of what passes for government over there.
It was very impressive place, and I have never seen a longer driveway anywhere. (Rumour has it that by the time George Best’s funeral cortege had traveled along it, he’d sobered up.)
Which rather begs the question: How did notorious Loyalist terrorist Michael Stone manage to stroll its entire length armed with guns, knives and explosives, totally undisguised, before storming his way into the building? It beggars belief. It’s not as if he isn’t well-known.
It’s a bit like Osama bin Laden tagging onto the procession at the state opening of Parliament and then nipping from behind Black Rod to chuck purple powder bombs around the chamber. Oh …
NOT VERY shocking research reveals that women utter 13,000 words a day while men get by on a mere 7,000. Mrs B. claims that this is because we don’t listen and they therefore have to repeat everything they say.
To which I replied: “Pardon, love. Can you say that again?” And then ran.
O The views of Mr Beelzebub are purely personal and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Editor or staff of this website, of anyone who's had their office Christmas party turned into a "Winterval" celebration, of anyone who can explain why, in the 21st century, it took the electricity board 11 hours to get my power supply back on today, or anyone who doesn't think that they've taken the publicity stunts for Casino Royale a bit too far. Radioactive Russians indeed. The next thing you'll know, Rudolph the Reed-nosed Reindeer will have been hauled in for questioning.
posted by BarryBeelzebub @ 10:42 AM
24 Comments:
The jockoes will get independence just as soon as the North Sea Oil runs out.
Pip, pip!
Get back to interfering with ponies.
Absolutely top hole this week Baz, and it reflects waht a huge majority of English folk are saying about their feckless cousins north of the border. Let them have their independence, the Welsh and the N.Irish too, and lets have a truly English parliament. It's a sad state of affairs and a dreadful legacy for Bliar to contemplate..........along with Iraq, Afghanistan, cuddling up to the daftest bugger that ever made it to the White House, the Council Tax increases and so on and so on.
If interested [and you should be]go to www.thecep.org.uk for more info on an English Parliament.
Oi Sullen Voe - you must be terminal!!!!
He heh only us two will work that one out!
My experience of Scotland, when I was up there recently, wasn't that they're all gloating over the money they get off the "southron". Anyone with any socialist leanings has to admire some of what they're trying to do.
The Scottish education system, health system, and lots of other things shame their English counterparts. The Scottish parliament- whilst far from perfect, makes the English counterpart look more like a dog show, and just as corrupt. In Scotland, there is a nod towards trying to curb the worst excesses of the City, and to re-distribute wealth (even if a lot of it is English wealth). You can't blame them for taking the cash with both hands.
The prime difference is that the English waste money hand over fist, they fail utterly to seize opportunities and fail ever to listen to their people. In Scotland, I got a real feeling of a sense of purpose that real change can be affected. The difference is, too, that the Scots are not apathetic like the English. Money alone cannot affect real change.
If the daily propaganda is to be believed, England is a very wealthy country. Yet, that wealth continues to be distributed upwards, or wasted on the most feckless in society. Which is often the same thing.
It's been my belief for most of my life that the Scottish versus English (or, indeed, English vs Welsh or Irish) was rarely about pure nationalism, but about class. Time and again, the Aristocracy and ruling classes of both countries have stuck together, sold out their subjects, because, at the end of the day, an Aristocratic Scot has more in common with his English counterpart than with the Scottish poor. Likewise the English.
I don't agree that Scottish MPs should have a say in purely English matters, but, at the moment, Westminster is the seat of government for the UK, not just England. Scottish independence would surely call that into question.
A sobering thought for decent Englishmen is that the loss of Scottish voters in a general election would surely decrease severely any support for a left of centre party. We'd be doomed to a future of essentially one party (Tory and Neo-Tory) politics.
Anyone with a truly suspicious mind must be wondering: what's in it for Blair and his cronies? WHY are they so keen to offload Scotland? Because they believe in freedom and self determination? Surely not....
black dog:
Anyone with a truly suspicious mind must be wondering: what's in it for Blair and his cronies?
don't trust the bastards - it'll only make it easier to impose English regions as required by their masters in Brussels. Don't think voting against it'll make any difference.
You're right, Riddler. "Divide and conquer" is what they're up to. I certainly don't trust them for a minute.
Aye I've got a terminal oilness.
Interfering with ponies? Where the hell do you think all the Scotchmen come from?
Bazza is conspicuous by his absence regarding MP's pay demands... or did his blood pressure really get too much when he heard?
As for Scottish, Welsh and NI independence, a total waste of time and money: I voted against the "Senedd" (and the vast majority didn't even bother to vote, yet the Assembly was formed because it got just over half the votes of the 40% who did bother...)
I don`t think Wee Jimmy has sussed it out yet, that Shetlanders, Like Orkadians do not consider themselves Scottish. . . and by the way if the oil belongs to anyone its us Pony Fiddlers, not the Porridge Wogs, the Sheep Shaggers of the West, or the English kiddy fiddlers.
Oh Happy Days
Scotland is massively subsidised by the English taxpayer. Public spending, £1,503 per Scot above the English average, is financed by hardworking families in the home counties. Alone, Scotland would stagger into economic depression and collapse.
One recent calculation estimates that just 163,000 Scottish taxpayers, from a population of 5m, make any net contribution to the British exchequer. The rest receive more than they pay out in reliefs, subsidies and benefits.
Yes Mike, but I ask you: would England complain if it were vice versa, or the EU decided to get generous? I think not.
The Home Counties are also relatively privileged, and are far from the only English who are hard working. They may "work hard" but they are also better paid. Most decent people would work hard if they got decent pay. They may resent paying their (higher, because of their income) taxes, but better high taxes and high income that low wages and lower tax.
I don't blame the Scots- we'd do the same, given a chance.
I wouldn't. Spongeing off your one's neighbours is not the English way.
But going in, subjugating them and helping oneself to the spoils .. now yer talking!
Britain's language, culture, legal system and political tradition have been the greatest single force for good in shaping the modern world. It's a simple as that. We're not perfect, true. To paraphrase Churchill's comment about democracy, Britain has the worst history of any country in the world, apart from all the others.
Am I right in thinking that you are opposed to independence for Scotland, Mike? Or, indeed, Wales?
The point is, most Scots appear to want independence. They may well be misguided, because they have no idea where Scotland's apparent ability to stand on it's own two feet comes from, i.e English money. They may also believe that this money would continue to flow across the border, or they may believe that the EU will take England's place as a cash cow. They did for Ireland, after all.
"British" hardly seems to matter anymore. Even the English have taken to describing themselves as "English", as opposed to "British", like they would have done 20 years ago. Look at any major English sporting event even 15 years ago, there was a sea of Union flags, now we mainly see St.George crosses.
This is merely a reaction to general Celtic hostility- the 80's and 90's saw a general increase in Celtic nationalism.
I agree generally with your comment that British culture has done more to shape the world than any other. Unfortunately, large chunks of our culture have been hijacked and subverted by the USA- that, in my opinion, is our most telling legacy. Not a good one, on the whole.
Many times, historians have commented that Britain has never had a "proper" revolution. That, largely, was because of pragmatism on behalf of the ruling classes, and guts on behalf of the "subjects". If, for example, our monarchy had followed the French trend of absolute monarchy, we'd have had a revolution. It is this pragmatism that prevented that, and sadly, in my opinion, that pragmatism has gone from politics- replaced by cynical careerism, false idealism and opportunism.
The "Old Britain" I grew up in was a far better place in that ordinary people weren't so easy to fool, and there was a nod towards traditional British values such as fair play, inventiveness, and resolution. In a world of soundbites, there's no room for such an approach, thus proving that in this society, democracy doesn't work. But what's the alternative? As you say, (in other words), the best of a flawed history.
My opinion is to let the Scots have their independence, which rather smacks of the rat leaving the sinking ship. 5th biggest economy in the world? I just don't see it, apart from the vapour of debt and borrowing. My main concern is what we do about England. A return to those British values you mentioned might be a good start.
Black Dog, the current situation can't continue, though it would be a shame to see the end of the Union. As you allude to. what has changed is English confidence. The Union was nearly 100 years old when Nelson flew his 'England expects ' message. Victorians used 'England' when they meant Britain, and everyone understood what they meant, and why they said it.
The Union endured - as long as England had self-belief. Sadly that English self-belief was just one of the things what went down the tubes during the cultural revolution. Hence the Scottish parliament, which merely made the Scotch more demanding. On balance I'd prefer Scotland to become less dependent on English money and for the Union to endure. I think this will happen, simply because I don't see what benefits there are for Scotland in independence. BTW, North Sea oil production is expected to fall two thirds by 2020.
"large chunks of our culture have been hijacked and subverted by the USA" I'm not sure what you mean there. If you mean rap music and Hollywood tripe I'd agree. Although it's ironic that the areas of the US that also loathe rap and Hollywood, are the States which vote Bush - and we also loathe those States.
I agree in principle, but I think that English confidence has taken such a knock precisely because of a tendency to slavishly follow US ideas- everything from foreign policy, to corporate bullshit, political correctness, over-liberalism, education ideas, crime and punishment, the cult of the "consumer", (just as it was stupid to see people as mere "producers" in Communist countries, it is also stupid to see them merely as "consumers", too), and yes, as you rightly say, US junk culture. And, most importantly in my opinion, a culture of blame, where we're all to be wrapped in cotton wool in case we get hurt and sue someone.
If Brunel, Telford and co. had been faced with today's society, we'd still be living in caves. Safe ones, mind you.
The crux of the problem is the Americanised democracy we live in. All policies HAVE to be short term, to quickly yield fruit (if we're lucky), preferably within 4 years. Image has replaced substance, and there's little room for integrity. And despite 40+ years of preaching equality of opportunity, most of our PM's were (and are) Oxbridge educated, and whilst they may have come from a more humble background, nevertheless, by the time they've been through the system, they're no longer representative of their background. Look at John Prescott as a prime example.
The other extreme, people like Derek Hatton and Ken Livingstone, are crooks and zealots of absolutely the wrong sort. There's no common sense anymore, and it's plain that politicians KNOW that the mass of the electorate are easily swayed, and have been taught to appreciate soundbites and image more than reason and common sense. "Question Time" is a prime example of this, and shows like "The Politics Show" are heavily London-centric, and give the impression that there are no politics outside of Westminster.
And whatever happened to Consensus politics? Dissenters- even those with a just cause- are damned as "rebels". Not healthy.
Yes, I do dislike many elements of US popular culture, but only because they are indicative of a wider, more prevalent disease, where traditional British attributes are scorned and turned on their head. Good manners are now a sign of weakness, honesty is a mug's game, and image is all.
The working class used to aspire to what the middle class had, (not just materially, but culture-wise, too), and the middle class wanted what the upper class had. Not anymore. Give a 1970's working class man a BMW, and he'd really look after it. Do that now, and he'd chav it up in no time at all. My point being, the middle classes did set an example by being "decent" and the working classes, by and large, were "decent" enough to want to follow this example. Not now: the middle class are largely without graces, and the lower class (many of them won't work) has evolved it's own US-aping culture.
The old ways had their faults, but the key thing that I remember is that no-one wanted to be thought of as a reprehensible idle, crooked bastard. Now, it's no big deal.
Keep pumping that oil, McNumbnuts.
What you guys south of the border miss is the fact that we up here used to have a load of manufacturing industry that was cynically asset stripped in the early 80's. Major companies like Unilever had incentives to shift their manufacturing south, mainly because it was clear that overall it would be an electoral plus for the incumbent government.
Now I'm far from a leftie but you can see where a lot of people are coming from - they had secure jobs for decades then the rug was pulled out from under them.
The result of killing off the industry is that there's much less money being made and more subsidy is required. So a short term political fix turns into a long term drain in cash from South to North.
Here's a better idea - if a strategic decision had been made to actively locate businesses outside the south east, there would be a far more even distribution of income across the country. You wouldn't be paying half a million for some shitbox mid terrace villa about the size of my garage.
However in the end up, the biggest problem we face across the UK as a whole is that up feckless unemployed (or unemployable) layabouts who's lifestyle is supported by the rest of us who actually work for a living and pay taxes. It's entirely possible to spend your entire life on benefits and never work a day. For that I blame the insiduous leftie approach for the last 2-3 decades where they tell people that nothing is their fault, it's just their social situation that's the problem, so here fill in this Invalidity Benefit claim form and sit back.
And finally, the last time I wandered past a telly with Jeremy Fucking Kyle on it it didn't look like the Scots had cornered the market of rat-faced losers knocking up a steady stream of fat slappers in tracksuits.
Good post, Anonymous. I agree, but I DID know that the Thatcher, Major and Blair governments asset stripped and destroyed most of the north, and that includes the north of England, too. They certainly buggered up where I come from, and now they're doing it to the farmers, too.
Not enough people seem to realise what far reaching effect you get when mass industries are killed off in favour of....nothing. Not just poverty and hopelessness (I left school in 1980, a bad time), but it destroys whole communities simply because they used to work together, and hence there WAS a community. Where I come from, they used to produce glass. Car windscreens, windows, drinking glasses- if it was made out of glass, it was made in one of the many factories. It's all pretty much gone now, but at one time, everyone knew someone who worked at, say, Pilkingtons or United Glass.
Conversely, businesses were discouraged from setting up in coal mining areas, to prevent miners from finding alternatives to mining.
The scum underclass? Well, I'm not yer Politically correct type, either, but their parent's generation have been let down, and this is merely the result. This is a jack that's going to be all but impossible to put back into the box.
And, let's face it, when the middle class (which in some areas, means anyone with a job, a legal car and SKY TV), are encouraged to be as money grabbing as they are, it's perhaps inevitable that the underclass should take a "fuck you" attitude. It's not right, but it is understandable to an extent. For my own part, I was brought up with that peculiar old-fashioned working class pride that means that "I may be poor, but I'm working for it". Not so the new underclass, who have taken some middle class attitudes to heart and are intent on grabbing what they can. The solution is a moral change in all walks of life, and I think this will be inevitable, simply because of environmental, economic and social pressures. How long can the UK be propped up by personal debt? How- as you say- can current house prices be justified and sustained, when the average house price is more than 4 x the average wage?
Personally, I have far more sympathy with Scotland than with the South of England. My experience is more like the average Scotsman's: government policy since 1066: obliterate the north to appease the south.
Good to see a considered and eloquent post, rather than one line name calling which too often prevails.
Public school educated Tony Benn closed more pits than Thatcher ever did - FACT. Why does the grammar school girl always carry the can?
This blog is attracting too many pinkoes, Baz!
The point isn't pit closures, it's the FACT that other industries were discouraged from setting up in coal mining areas and the FACT that nothing was done to supply an alternative once them pits were closed. Go to south Wales, and it's still pretty much the same in many areas.
Have you ever worked down a coal mine? I have, and I for one aren't sorry to see them go, if only alternatives were available. No-one in their right mind would want to work down a coal mine, hence they made sure there was no real choice. Every little Englander who believes that speaking up for ex-mining areas is communism should be made to go down a coal mine.
Labour- including the 1970's lot- have sold the working class down the river just as much as the Tories. By the time they're "ready for office", they've become poachers turned gamekeepers, i.e they are a part of the (conservative) establishment and have vested interests.
Thatcher gets it because she actually made a virtue out of social and economic destruction of some areas to enrich others. You don't "save" 1/2 of a country by destroying the other half. Otherwise, I agree: Blair etc are absolutely no better or even any different.
We don't call them "pinkoes" in the UK, we leave that to the likes of Honest Joe McCarthy. We aren't a state of the US yet.
Wanting a fair deal for everyone willing to work is in no way, shape or form "communism" or "socialism".
Is Barry Missing - perhaps he was a prostitute from Ipswich?
Sullum Voe not sullen voe. Became Europe's biggest oil terminal in the 70's. Watched the film Sullen Voe last night. Small island, middle of the north sea, prison colony, with all the inmates working down a coal mine !
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