.

Dorset is not part of France

2008-04-23T03:14:00.000-07:00

The news reported in today's Telegraph that the EU has continued with its desire to scrub England off the map must be met with some weariness. The story is not news, whatever the Tories say (just in time for St George's of course). For the last few years the Transmanche Region or Arc Manche has been in existence. This does of course not make it any better.

The whole silly thing is just redolent of how the EU works against, rather than with the grain of history.

Back in AD 43 the Roman General Vespasian, later to become Emperor took both Hod and Hambledon Hills before moving on to Maiden Castle and beyond. This quashing of the last serious opposition to the Roman Imperium resulted in England becoming part of the Roman Empire. But even the Romans were not stupid enough to try and administer different sides of the channel as a single entity.

All this is is a bureaucratic attempt to rub out national boundaries. Why? Because the powers that be in Brussels and Whitehall know that the only institution that retains sufficient emotional loyalty against there centralising plans is the Nation State. And thus they hate it.

UKIP Defence Policy launched tonight

2008-04-07T09:55:00.000-07:00

The press launch of UKIP's Defence Policy, "In the National Interest" is taking place tonight at the East India Club. Here is a brief summary of the paper,

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

UKIP's Defence Vision - Executive Summary

Our recommendations:

1. To defend our national interests, maintain the NATO alliance, support our traditional partners. To disentangle our forces from the EU To keep our independence by retaining – always – ultimate command and control over our national forces.

2. To stop trying to buy defence on the cheap. UKIP will spend an extra 1% GDP year on defence – an increase of 40% on current budgets. UKIP believes in establishing a defence budget which will properly sustain Britain's defence commitments. To keep defence costs down by smarter defence procurement, and with more involvement of British industry wherever possible.

3. To increase the Army to at least 125,000 personnel (trained requirement) in order to enable it to cope with its existing deployment and roles. To double the Territorial Army in size from 37,000 to 75,000 soldiers.

4. To restore the Navy to its 2001 strength, with 3 new aircraft carriers (one extra), 4 assault ships, 30 destroyers and frigates, 12 Fleet Submarines, 25 coastal vessels and 50 Merlin helicopters, with around 7,000 extra personnel to 42,000 (2003–41,550). UKIP would guarantee the futures of Plymouth, Portsmouth and Rosyth and not close any of these ports.

5. To increase the Air Force's capabilities by enlarging the tanker fleet, modernising the transport fleet, buying more helicopters and 50 extra JSF aircraft, and increasing RAF personnel to 50,000.

6. To restore many traditional regiments, such as the Black Watch and Staffords, subsumed as battalions of EU-inspired 'super-regional' regiments such as the Royal Welsh, Royal Mercian and Royal Regiment of Scotland, in order to serve in EU battle groups.

7. To renew the Covenant between the Country and those who are asked to risk their lives on its behalf: through better pay, generous compensation for injury, restoration of Crown immunity, private medical and dental care, reinstatement of military hospitals, decent accommodation, an offence of treason for those UK citizens who seriously attack serving personnel, and above all, respect and support.

8. To withdraw our forces from Iraq, in good order, at an early date. To reappraise our operations in Afghanistan to a single mission.

9. To maintain Britain's independent nuclear deterrent with existing Trident submarines, and to replace them with four British built US missile armed
submarines.

10. To retain and increase Army and Territorial Army personnel by pay, free medical and dental care for them and their families, retention 'warrants', school recruitment and other incentives.

I will write a review of it when I have seen the whole thing.

Support the ban

2008-03-28T03:42:00.001-07:00

Every publican in Dorset should support the ban on Alistair Darling.

He and his boss, Gordon Brown are doing so much damage to the licenced trade that only by making it clear to them that we are unhappy can anything be done.

Of course, it is unlikely that someone like Mr Darling would every sully himself by ever entering a pub, but that is not the point. A message needs to go out loud and clear. By increasing taxes, by supporting the smoking ban, by increasing rules and regulations, whether dreamt up in Whitehall or Brussels is not the point. They and their like (and I include you Mr Cameron in this, despite you mentioning this campaign in PMQs this week) are crushing the life out of an industry and a way of being that is close to all our hearts.

People like him bang on about communities and how important they are, but when they see something that cannot control, when the see men and women enjoying t hemselves out of free choice, they move heaven and earth to undermine, tax and regulate it.

A pox on them and all their (non public) houses.

Fitna

2008-03-28T03:41:00.001-07:00

Having been refused by the MSM, and having had his own website taken down by the hosting company, Geert Wilders last night published 'Fitna: The Movie' on LiveLeak.

I would encourage you to watch it, but I cannot pretend that it is nice, or easy viewing. At the very least it should make you think.

The BBC report about it is interesting in what it says and what it does not say. It majors on his paranoia,

"the most stubborn man I've ever met"...
"The presenter remembers walking with Mr Wilders surrounded by six bodyguards to the MP's room, which he likened to a furnished cell at a suburban bank.

Opponents say he is fuelling hate against Muslims From that perspective, he could understand that the politician's mind was focused on the death threats against him".

"He's a little bit crazy because he's giving the impression to some people that he's going to combat Islam," says Mr Rabbae.

"He's a kind of Don Quixote, fighting against things and presenting goals which will never happen."

Like Mr Spruyt, Mohamed Rabbae believes Mr Wilders may have become isolated by the limitations imposed by living with bodyguards".

But it fails to point out that his name was on the piece of paper, stuck on the knife that pierced Theo Van Gough's heart.

it was in November 2004 that Mr Wilders' career dramatically changed with the murder of film-maker Theo van Gogh by a radical Islamist, Mohammed Bouyeri.

Together with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Van Gogh had produced the short film Submission, which featured an actress in see-through clothing with Koranic script on her body.

Although he had no involvement in the film, Mr Wilders was now to have a permanent bodyguard, in common with Ms Hirsi Ali, because of their outspoken views on Islam.

An odd omission, as is the failure of the BBC to link to the film, despite writing an article about it.

No Remote Control

2008-03-11T14:09:00.000-07:00

A new film from UKIP

Part 2

Local UKIP PPC forces reform in Bulgarian Care Homes

2008-03-04T07:38:00.000-08:00

The situation in for children in Bulgarian children's homes for the disabled was brought harrowingly to life in the BBC documentary Bulgaria's Abandoned Children.

When I saw the film I was horrified, I immediately contacted the film's maker, Kate Blewett and invited her to show the film in the Brussels Parliament.

The Bulgarian authorities and Euro-MPs tried everything they could to block the showing, but we persevered and last week the Bulgarian authorities were forced to announce the closure of the Mogilino home. It is British taxpayers money siphoned through the European Commission that is funding the appalling regime in these homes and we have every right to demand that the money is spent well.

Of course the situation was known in Brussels, but rather than deal with it they hushed it up in order that Bulgaria could join the EU. The Tory MEP Geoffrey Van Orden who was responsible for Bulgaria in the Parliament would prefer to add another 8 million to the EU superstate than demand decent living conditions for these children. He should be ashamed.
Kate Blewett's own campaign can be found here

The film screening was co-hosted by Kathy Sinnott MEP, an Irish Independent who is one of the leaders of the Irish No campaign.

Looking forward to next weekend

2008-02-29T03:09:00.000-08:00

First up will be the regular Charlton Marshall First Thursday meetuing of the association. Updates on activities of the party and what we have been doing over in Brussels and at home.

Then on Saturday 8th there is the South Western Counties Conference for UKIP which will be taking place at Exeter University and promises to be a lot of fun.

All who can come along should try.

Black is White.

2008-02-28T00:56:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I published, through the think tank the Bruges Group, a study into the way in which the British Government is dissembling about the costs and purposes of the EU's Galileo satellite system.

If youi are interested you can read the whole paper by clicking on the link above (pdf) or by going here.

Wind Farm update

2008-02-28T00:30:00.000-08:00

Take a look at this, and if you live north of Gillingham just think about it. According to Danish news this is an old model, but gales happen in England too and even the faint possibility of this happening at the Bouton site must give pause for thought.

Hat tip Eursoc

The 'Chicken Run' video

2008-02-25T02:18:00.000-08:00

This YouTube film is of the Chicken protest last week in Strasbourg. It contains impassioned oratory, and high farce - and your correspondent getting rather hot under his suit whilst remonstrating with the Parliament's Head of Security. The point is of course that while those who are pushing through the Constitution use the language of democracy, what they are doing is using the tools of technocratic totalitarianism.

New Facebook Group

2008-02-24T07:15:00.000-08:00

A new Facebook Group has been set up.
Gawain Towler for North Dorset

Pop along there, take part and tell your friends. The UK Independence Party is here in North Dorset and has every intention of building our prescence and effectiveness. The people of the Constituency deserve nothing less.

Busy week

2008-02-24T05:58:00.000-08:00

This week has been spent chasing around the Strasbourg Parliament, doing everything in my power to undermine the institution. To that end I was able to start the entire story of the misuse of funds by Euro-MPs,

Robert Galvin, who is head of unit, internal audit and is based in Luxembourg.

Well informed rumours are suggesting that the silence surrounding this report is well warranted. One comment from a senior official has been passed on to me, "the reason that we cannot make this report open to the public is that we want people to vote in the 2009 (european) elections".
That of course could be Chinese whispers but my scource is normally pretty accurate.

From what I can guess the activities of some Members of the European Parliament will make the Conway affair look like pretty small beer.

This story was picked in almost every media organisation in the following few days, as can be seen here and here.

Elsewhere I demonstrated in the Parliament against the Parliament's vote in favour as reported in today's Sunday Telegraph,

EU Parliament votes not to take any notice of the people's wishes

There were surreal scenes in Strasbourg last Wednesday as the European Parliament prepared to ratify the Lisbon Treaty by a huge majority. (It says something for the reverence in which we hold that parliament that not a single British national newspaper bothered to report the fact.)

Dressed in yellow chicken suits, three protestors against the refusal of EU governments to allow referendums on the treaty were chased round the corridors and up and down the staircases of the futuristic building by 15 burly security men trying to arrest them.

When Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party and one of the 50 MEPs of different parties who have been leading the pro-referendum campaign, was summoned to this fracas, he was interviewed by a television crew.

Pointing out that no officials had intervened last month when the parliament was invaded by anti-GM Greens dressed as bananas, he asked why it was only pro-democracy protestors who had to be silenced?

At the end of the interview, Anne-Margrete Wachmeister, head of the parliament's audio-visual unit, gave orders that Mr Farage' s comments must not be broadcast.

Overhearing this, Shirin Wheeler, presenter of the World Service's Record programme (and daughter of the distinguished BBC correspondent Charles Wheeler) intervened to say that, unless this order was withdrawn, the BBC would withdraw its parliamentary coverage from both Strasbourg and Brussels. The official backed down.

Meanwhile in the chamber itself the battle continued. When it was proposed that the parliament "would respect the result of the Irish referendum", the only one to be allowed on the treaty, only 129 MEPs (including one Tory, Nirj Deva) supported it, while 499 (including four Tories) voted that the wishes of the Irish people should not be respected. But what if they vote in favour of the treaty? It is good to know that our democracy is in such reliable hands.

In the picture I am the chicken on the right.

I also revealed that Tories had failed to vote in favour of a referendum, and some had even refused to support an amendment that caled for respecting the result of the Irish referendum.

Dorset lags behind in wealth

2008-02-13T03:44:00.000-08:00

Figures released yesterday put Dorset just three percent above the EU average for income. This is a pretty poor show when you consider that countries such as Poland and Bulgaria are included in the figures.

Virtually the only other parts of the UK with worse figures are Devon and Cornwall who are below the average. We discover this at a time when Dorset's services are being cut because the Labour government believe that just because it is beautiful it must therefore be rich.

It is a disgrace that the fire service and policing are being cut in Dorset in order that resources can be transferred to other areas in the country that are significantly better off. The cuts are just prejudice from the government that wants to shore up its own support base while treating rural England and Dorset in particular with contempt.

Of course if we were not subsidising the EU to the tune of £138.6 million per day net then the county and the country would be far wealthier.

February Meeting: Charlton Marshall

2008-02-11T07:30:00.000-08:00

The North Dorset UKIP Association met as it always does on the first Thursday of the month at the Charlton Arms in Charlton Marshall.

It was good to see so many from outside the Constituency there. Discussion centred on the days extraordinary news that the Government's own lawyer had informed a court that "manifesto pledges are not subject to legitimate expectation".

The court case was one taken by a Brighton member of UKIP, Stuart Bower who was attempting to claim breach of contract against the Government for failing to uphold its manifesto commitment to hold a referendum into the European Constitution/Treaty.

Whilst everybody has known for many years that you cannot trust the paper these promises are printed upon it takes things to a new level of arrogance when the Government announce it in a court of law.

Other things discussed include the latest leafleting campaign and the North Dorset pub Survey... more of which later.

Bourton Wind Farm meeting

2008-02-11T06:34:00.000-08:00

UKIP North Dorset Constituency Chairman John Baxter and I turned up on Friday to the public meeting about the Silton wind farm proposals at Bourton School.

A very impressive turn out, and not the first. There must have been between 250-300 at Bourton and on Wednesday evening a similar number turned up in Milton on Stour.

Given that the first anybody knew about the proposal was a couple of weeks ago when some people were approached to affix noise monitors on their buildings. Of course nobody was told why, but after asking the question it had become clear. Ecotricity (or Eco trickery as it was dubbed at the meeting to load applause were back).

In 2003 the firm, wholly owned by the former traveller Dale Vince, had lost its attempt to put two turbines up in Cucklington a mere couple of miles away. Now they were back with a vengeance.
They want 6 and they are to be as tall as Salisbury cathedral. And they have been clever, by moving to Silton from Cucklington they cross the county border from Somerset to Dorset and therefore opponents will have to start all over again. Of course the fact he is trying to build 6 goes against his own beliefs. Here he is interviewed in the Guardian,

"We only deal in small projects of two to three turbines and ensure the local community are comfortable with the scheme".

But his attitude to local people is better explained when he says,

"You can't be in wind without having problems with planning. On-shore schemes are in the hands of local councillors, who don't read the details of applications, don't understand government policies and cave in to local pressure groups,"

What does he mean by this, who are these disreputable local pressure groups that he dismisses? The local people of course.

The meeting was addressed by Campbell Dunford, Chairman of the Renewable Energy Foundation, who was involved in the successful Save the Vale campaign. Mr Dunford gave a very good overview of the utter inappropriateness of wind energy and the way in which it is the most inefficient and highly subsidised form of energy yet online.
As he put it wind farms are a form of "Socialist post-imperial grandeur... There is little point making a sacrifice which is absolutely futile".

Building wind farms in the light of all the meteorological and economic evidence is as much use as putting, "go-faster stripes on the side of my car".

Quite.

Gillingham Town Council will be discussing the 'scoping' document for this proposal tonight. UKIP North Dorset will report on further developments.

Local UKIP oppose new wind farm

2008-02-05T05:44:00.000-08:00

Gawain Towler, the UK Independence Party PPC for North Dorset today gave his full support to the Save the Vale campaign against the planned new wind farm between Milton on Stour and Bourton.

"Ecotricity just don't know when to give up. Wind farms are inefficient, massively subsidised and devastating to the local landscape", he said. "To have six massive turbines marching over the Vale would create enormous disturbance and for what? Turbines in general produce less than a third of the energy they claim due to the simple fact that the wind does not blow in the right way the right speed or at all for a majority of the time. Traditional electricity generation has to be maintained in order to cover for it".

"Worse still are the contemptuous comments from Ecotricity Director Dale Vince" said Mr Towler."He obviously doesn't give a damn about local people. The way he dismisses their concerns is disgraceful. He demands that they be less selfish. Maybe he shouldn't be so greedy to pick up public subsidy".

Mr Vince said "This is about climate change. We have to accept that we need to make some kind of change and we have to accept that we can either make a positive change or we’ll get a negative one by default.

"People have to be less selfish. It is the nature of the beast that we have to make wind energy in the countryside – where some people are lucky enough to live."

Commenting on the potential impact to local tourism, Mr Vince added: "Evidence actually shows that wind turbines don’t degrade tourism, they enhance it because people like the way they look.

"There won’t be a noise issue. Noise is an objective thing that can be measured and controlled."

Noise may be measurable, but that won't help the people who live and work underneath it.

There will be a public meeting about these plans at Bouton School this Friday 8th February at 7pm.
Photo taken by Don Brownlow

Why not send them to Runnymead?

2008-02-04T14:27:00.000-08:00

News that the Government are going to send two pupils from every six form on a trip to Aushwitz just shows how skewed our education system has become.

Coming fast on the heels of calls to take pride in our own history out of the classroom this just shows the goverenment at it's shallow worst.

The best protection against the possibility of another holocaust must be and understanding of who we are. Sending children who do not understand the growth of Liberty in our country on horror tourism to the gas chambers of the Shoah gets us nowhere. I cannot believe that there is a single six-former studying history who has not studied the rise of the Nazis. The growth of National and International Socialism is littered by examples of the destruction of individual liberties.

What we in the UK can be proud of is that we stood out against the Nazis with the Empire, almost alone. It was our belief in freedom, a belief nutured by an understanding of our own history that gave us the confidence to oppose the great totalitarain regiemes of the 20th Century.

So I am calling for the Government to start concentrating on those landmarks of freedom; Runymead, Tamworth, St Peter's Fields, Tolpuddle and others, rather than chasing after some collective guilt of which we are not guilty.

Tory MEP's hypocrisy laid bare

2008-02-03T11:17:00.000-08:00

If you read this,

Sir - Britain's patio heaters, which some MEPs want to ban, produce around 22,200 tonnes of CO? a year (report, January 31).This is only 2,000 tonnes more than the European parliament is estimated to emit unnecessarily travelling from Brussels to Strasbourg every month.
Perhaps if the European parliament wants to improve energy efficiency, we should begin by ending this pointless monthly waste.
Richard Ashworth MEP (Con), Brussels

You would no doubt come the conclusion that I did. That is that Mr Ashworth voted against this daft proposal.

However you would be wrong, becuse if you go to the Roll Call Vote results for the Hall report (pg 54) you would find that Mr Ashworth, along with most of his Conservative and all of his Labour and Liberal Democrat colleagues voted in favour of the report, and thus voted in favour of banning patio heaters.

Incidentally the Conservative Whip on this report was at sixes and sevens, Callanan, Deva and Sturdy voted against Syed Kemal abstained and a few failed to register to vote. Most peculiar.

My guess is that he wrote the letter to the Telegraph, failed to read his voting list, or at least failed to understand it, went down to the chamber and voted as he was told.

Update

Chris Booker has picked this up in today's Sunday Telegraph,

Tory MEP is hoist with his own canard
When smoking was banned in English pubs last July, many landlords realised that the only way to keep a good many of their customers was to install patio heaters.
As the Irish discovered when they introduced a smoking ban, the only pubs that didn't lose business were those that bought heaters, allowing smokers to continue their wicked habit in relative comfort outside. English publicans accordingly spent £85 million following suit.
But then up jumped Friends of the Earth to demand that, since these heaters give off carbon dioxide, they too should be banned. This naturally made a huge impression on the greenie Lib Dems, with the eventual result that last Thursday one of their MEPs moved a motion in the European Parliament calling on Brussels to ban patio heaters.
So imbued are MEPS with a priggish desire to save the planet that 526 voted for the ban, with only 26 against.
In a letter in next day's Daily Telegraph, a Tory MEP, Richard Ashworth, pointed out that the amount of carbon dioxide saved by banning patio heaters in the EU was only slightly less than the amount emitted every year by MEPs themselves, as they engage in the laborious farce of transferring the entire European Parliament every month from Brussels to Strasbourg. Apart from the car, train and plane journeys of the MEPs, this involves a convoy of some 60 trucks trundling 100 miles between the two cities and back again, loaded with trunks-full of parliamentary papers.
Mr Ashworth will doubtless have won plaudits from Telegraph readers reading his letter over the marmalade, for such a telling comment.
But any who then bothered to examine the list of those 526 MEPs who supported this absurd ban might have been surprised to see among them the name of Mr Ashworth.

Reverse Corn Law: Prepare for massive price hikes

2007-12-30T14:07:00.000-08:00

This evening the FT has flagged up a story that I hope gets the prominance that it deserves, but some how I doubt it.

China will tax grain exporters
China is to introduce taxes on grain exports in the latest attempt to rein in food-driven inflation that reached an 11-year high in November.

Exporters of 57 types of grain, including wheat, rice, corn and soya beans, will have to pay temporary taxes of between 5 and 25 per cent, the country’s Ministry of Finance said on Sunday.

Now I don't want to panic anybody but that is quite an extraordinary act. Think about it for a moment, we in the European Union are currently subsidising the Common Agricultural Policy to the tune of dozens of billions a year, meanwhile China is introducing export taxes on grain... of up to 25%. Now the Chinese don't do things by accident, and I suspect that though they claim this move to be temporary, so was the income tax, in 1799.

With grain prices in the UK doubling in the last 12 months, and their being a global shortage of food, expect that food inflation over the next year to leap. Of course this won't just affect the price of bread and risotto. The largest cost in chicken, pig and cattle is fodder. Beer will go up even more.

As the Telegraph points out today,

This will be a global trend... but higher food costs too. In 2007, wheat prices doubled - with the price of other crops like cocoa and coffee also jumping.
Next year, the growing - and increasingly wealthy populations of the developing world will keep global food demand rising. Global supplies - hit by more droughts, floods and the increased use of land for bio-fuel production - will struggle to keep up.
That's why, in 2008, high food prices will replace expensive oil as the bogeyman of Western consumers and central bankers. Because food accounts for a large portion of disposable incomes, escalating food prices will seriously dent consumer confidence next year, while preventing deep base rate cuts.

What does the the EU do? As Chris Booker states today, many of these problems are either caused or exacerbated by the European Union; a schlorotic conception which has an elderly system designed to deal with the like of Pharoh's dream of seven fat years, but utterly unprepared for his nightmare of seven years of fallow.

People often tell me that the European Union is irrelevant to their lives. If t is in part responsible for a doubling of basic fod prices and the consumer crisis that this will bring about then maybe, just maybe peoiple might begin to notice how big an issue it is.

Imagine a single mother living on an estate on benefits. With just one child she is spending upwards of 30% of her weekly income on food. If that price doubles in the next twelve month what on earth will she do? Is the country at all prepared for the hike in taxes required to deal with this situation. All those on low incomes, pensioners, the unemployed, school leavers, the disbled, imigrants, those living on the minimum wage.

The thought is terrifying. Funily enough Gordo failed to mention this in his New Year message.

Odd that.

Book Review: “The Origins of English Individualism”, Alan MacFarlane

2007-12-30T13:22:00.000-08:00

I bought this book, mainly due to seeing it too often referenced by authors I admire (James Bennett being a case in point). And despite its relative antiquity (it was written in 1978) it is still a draft of intellectual cold, still water. Essentially in this book Professor MacFarlane attempted to swim against 150 years of received opinion about the development of the distinctive political and social milieu of England (and yes it is about England rather than the United Kingdom or Britain that he writes).

He had been drawn to this by his previous work on witchcraft in which he noted that in England witches were remarkably different to their continental cousins (In England covens and cannibalism were virtual absent, as was intense sexuality and a hatred of the newly wealthy, instead English witches were individualistic, decorous and essentially targeted their wrath against those who were a drag on society). If witches were so different then it surely suggests that society itself was different?

The traditional view of English history is of the long, slow progress of freedom, from a past of feudalism and an omnipresent peasantry though some strange sublimation by which England created a form of freedom from which derived the industrial revolution, the rule of law and the greatest empire the world had ever seen and then on to a socialist society (Marx). Before the Civil War and the rise of Protestantism (Weber) Britain was analogous to the rest of Europe in that it was a traditional peasant society. By this was meant that all, bar the aristocracy and some in the few small towns, lived in family groups. Land was synonymous with family and was held not by an individual as property but as a group familial holding. Many generations lived in the same homestead and all worked the family property; people neither left, sold nor transferred their land except in extremis. Wage labour was almost unheard of. In this it was much like France and Germany of the 17th/ 18th Century and like Russia and Eastern Europe in the pre Communist period. More importantly it was similar to India, Africa and China of modern days.

This similarity of modern peasant societies makes the study of the England’s development extremely important as policy makers should be able to extrapolate from our experience. This should allow the rapid development of those unhappy parts of the world by following policy short cuts and ironing out the mistakes made in England.

MacFarlane’s work however seems to fatally undermine this thesis. By extensive research in legal documents, church records, diaries and so on, he comprehensively rebukes the traditional idea that, “The past is a foreign country, people do things differently there”. Indeed he claims that whereas this might be true for the rest of the world the people of England were remarkably similar to us today in their way of life.

The key drivers of English exceptionalism were he says, the method of inheritance the transferability of property, the large pool of wage labour and the nuclear family. All this is allied to a level of equality before the law and a level of litigation almost American in its scope. Marriage was late, and indeed often not at all with women having all rights to property (a big difference to the Continent). Indeed it seems that instead of the traditional Weberian idea that Protestantism increased individual rights as it concentrated in an individual relationship with God had the counter intuitive results as it strengthened male power.

The book is full of apposite quotations from the documents but I shall include just the one here, about a chap called John Thedrich, described by Professor Zvi Razi as a, “typical wealthy Halesown peasant”,

“He inherited from his father a yardland holding or more yet in fourteen land transactions he purchased and leased at least another yardland. He leased for life a holding of half a yardland or more and another smaller holding for a year. He also leased three meadows for his livestock. In 1314 he acquired from the lord a plot of wasteland to enlarge his barn and in 1320 he bought a parcel of land from his neighbour to extend his courtyard. In 1320 and 1321 he exchanged land with four villagers in order to consolidate his lands into one block. He had sub-tenants and at least two living in servants. During the peak periods he used to employ several extra labourers. He and his wife were amerced forty-three times for selling ale against the assize... He sued villages for various debts...He was amerced eight times for assault and shedding blood. John Thedrich had between 1294 and 1337 at least 196 court appearances and the fines and amercements which he paid during the time amounted to £2-10.3.” (the average annual wage at the time being £5-1.0 approx).

The key point here is that this activity is inconceivable in a traditional peasant society, where land being sacrosanct and virtually inviolable. Not only that, from his court appearances we can see that he is not a million miles away from modern England beyond merely his financial transactions. Another point to make clear is this is all happening decades before the Black Death that is often claimed to have created the circumstances by which the feudal locks of peasants to specific land were forced.

The problem that MacFarlane has however is that before 1200 documentary evidence becomes sparse, thus though he is able to show to his own and this reviewer’s satisfaction that England had an entirely different societal dispensation from the Continent after this time he fails in his stated aim of defining the ‘Origins of English Individualism’. He can neither point to its start, no can he define where those origins came from.

As he himself writes in his postscript ,

“I have my own suspicions as to where those ‘origins’ were in time and space and
they are similar to those of Montesquieu”.

Montesquieu’s thoughts in ‘The Spirit of the Laws’ were these,

In perusing the admirable treatise of Tacitus On the manners of the Germans we find it is from that nation that the English have borrowed their idea of political governance. This beautiful system was invented first in the woods”. Nor was it merely the political system that was ‘borrowed,’ but also, he suggested, the land law and inheritance system. Crucial here was the fact that, as Montesquieu observed, the Germanic system as described by Tacitus was one of absolute individual property; there was no group which owned the land, and hence no idea that the family and the resources were inextricably linked. In his description of the Salic law he stresses that it ‘had not in view a preference for one sex to the other, much less had it a regard to the perpetuity of a family, a name, or the transmission of land. These things did not enter the heads of the Germans...’ Montesquieu was clearly not in a position to show how the English could have come to take over this or other aspects of this ‘beautiful system.’ It is sufficient for our purposes here that this enormously wideranging mind should have realised that England was different from every Continental country in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and to have believed this difference had very old roots.

Of course this book has its enemies, after all he was targeting almost the entire historical establishment of the time, but its thesis seems more convincing than the idea that the essential Englishness that created the industrial revolution (and yes I know that that is now a contentious phrase as it was more gradual than previously thought – a conclusion that fits MacFarlane’s ideas rather well) was either some great fluke, or indeed that it popped up fully formed like Athena from Zeus’s head.

Or maybe Edmund Grindal, Bishop of London in 1559 was right all along when he said that “God is an Englishman”.

British Vision: Observation and Imagination in British Art, MSK Ghent

2007-12-30T12:54:00.000-08:00

How long would it take you to visit almost every provincial art gallery in Britain in order to see the cream of work from our Islands? About a fortnight. That is if you jump onto Eurostar and get yourselves to Ghent to see what must be the most complete and eye opening exhibition in recent years before it closes on the 13th January.

Robert Hoozee, the director of the Museum Voor Schone Kunsten has scoured 63 UK and 14 foreign galleries and museums in putting together what is, in the opinion of your correspondent the most complete and staggering collection of British works assembled in living memory.

The purpose of the exhibition is to show how the exceptionalism/individualism in the English character that created the industrial revolution had an echo in the art produced there. As Hoozee puts is his fine introduction to the lavish catalogue,

“At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Voltaire was already full of praise for the climate of freedom he encountered in England. With respect to religion, he wrote in 1726 that ‘England is properly the country of sectarists...An Englishman, as one to whom Liberty is natural may go to heaven his own way’. Until well into the ninetieth century, artists and critics were fascinated by the specific circumstances under which art in Great Britain was able to thrive. One of these, Théophile Thoré wrote in 1863,
“Self-Government is complete in English Art, just as it is in all the institutions and all the customs of this proud people, where individuality asserts itself. It is this that lacking in French artists, who almost always obey some higher authority, tradition or prejudice”.

He claims, with some justification that in Britain art followed a distinctive path from that on the Continent, charmingly he describes it as ‘marginal’, which has as its mainstay the empirical experience of reality and otherwise wild flights of fancy and the visionary.

As one wanders through the gallery, through the 14 rooms over 300 works in all media, barring conceptual and video (oh what a shame) dating between 17 and 1950 at every stage and around every corner lies the shock of recognition. Work after work that has lodged in the mind over the years lies there to see.

The empirical tradition is exemplified by Joseph Wright of Derby whose magnificent rationalist alterpiece ‘A philosopher lecturing on the Orrery’ takes the high drama of religious work and places it firmly in the world of a questing for scientific knowledge. It was painted in 1766 and has to be seen in the context of works by Fragonard to see what a radical departure had been taken in England.

Add this to Bill Brandt’s photography, Richard Dadd, that photograph of Brunel, Gainsborough, Turner, Constable, Stanley Spencer, Lowry, Freud, Stubbs, the original Alice in Wonderland, Mad Martin, Ruskin, Epstein... you get the picture.

If you live in Belgium you have no excuse, go now, today. If you live in the UK, well get a move on.

Project Pygmalion

2007-12-30T12:28:00.000-08:00

Another day, another Government IT project. This latest one is brewing up in the Cabinet Office and is supposed to be a system by which the online services across government are handled. 18 companies are already signed up to provide the service. This worries me as they claim to have a userbase (read database) of 10 million who have logged onto Government Gateway websites. The key details mentioned by the Government in the tenders is that the firms should be, and here comes the scary part,

"specialists in areas such as security and identity assurance".

You will understand my concern immediately. When I took a look at the bidder briefing for the first time I began to understand why the whole scheme is named "Project Pygmalion" which seems a pretty odd name for it when one considers either the Greek original, Shavian or indeed 'My Fair Lady' version of the tale. Man falls in love with his own creation. Artifice is preferable to reality.

The project is being run by the EDT (E-Delivery Team) which operates out of the Cabinet office and aims to support,

the Transformation Government activities.

Whatever the hell they are.

The key point to this is that another IT project is speeding to fruition, an IT project that is supposed to be able to manage a database with 10 million people and businesses details involved, that is anybody who has tried to get government services online, benefits and so on. The level of personal details required in such transactions is colossal.

Shall we lay a bet that this one snarls up as well?

Bald men and combs

2007-11-09T06:08:00.000-08:00

I have just received by a tortuous route a UKIP press release that deserves a little more air,

UKIP and the inheritance squabbleCalm down dears, it's only a policy. Instead of this unseemly tiff over whofirst thought of scrapping Inheritance Tax, just take a deep breath and let ussolve it for you. It wasn't either of you. It was us.
Yes, we admit it. As long ago as October of last year when David Miliband was still in short trousers, we came up with the idea to take millions of people out of the inheritance tax trap. We released it as part of our flat tax policy and we sent it to lots of nice journalists who could tell the nice people all about it.It was such a good idea, that the big boys pinched it.
While we know that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and we are flattered, it's a little undignified to squabble over who stole it first. If you need any more ideas, please don't hesitate to contact UKIP, available in any decent policy store.
Ends
Note to editors, please feel free to ignore this UKIP policy all over again.

Whilst we in UKIP are delighted that yet again our policies are being taken up, it would be nice once in a while to get the credit where it is due

Candid talk 19 07 10

2007-10-19T07:24:00.000-07:00

Pondering the Constitutional Treaty signing in Lisbon last night

What was that Gordon?

2007-10-19T06:22:00.000-07:00