Scottish Independence

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I recently read that the Scottish Nationalist Party are planning to hold a referendum in 2014 on the proposed secession of Scotland from the United Kingdom. The reason they have chosen 2014 is that this is a big year for the Scots being the 700th anniversary of  their victory over the wicked English at the battle of Bannockburn.
It is thought, probably accurately, that nationalistic feelings will be running high and there will be more chance of success for the Nationalists. Fair enough, I don’t suppose it would have made much sense holding the referendum on the anniversary of  defeats such as Neville’s Cross or Flodden Field! Actually, it does provide food for thought though and maybe we should follow their example and hold our own referendum on Europe on the anniversary of the battle of  Waterloo!

One further thought occurs to me about a Scottish referendum. What if the Nationalists are successful and they break away from the union? In the absence of the English who on earth are they going to blame for all their future problems?

In all seriousness, the possibility of the break up of the United Kingdom is not a pleasant one. England formally united with Scotland in 1707 and together with the Welsh and Irish they created one of the largest and most influential empires the world has ever seen. England may well have been the most populous member of the union and the senior partner but nobody can possibly deny the huge input of the Scots, Welsh and Irish in the building of that empire. It was a British Empire not an English one and it could not have been built by the English alone. The British flag, the Union Flag (Jack) is one of the most beautiful and recognizable flags in the world and it represents so much of what is good and great about these Isles. It would be sad if 2014 saw its destruction.

The Way of the World

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This fine New Year’s morning I decided to walk to the local village petrol station store to purchase a newspaper. I picked up my copy from the outside display cabinet and headed inside to pay only to be stopped in my tracks by an employee who came out to tell me that the store didn’t open until 10am; it was then 9.50am.

Of course, she could have taken the money from me (I had the exact change) and could have scanned another copy at her leisure, to keep the accounts tidy, once 10am had arrived. Clearly, that would have been too much trouble for her and so I put the paper back and off I walked to the village newsagents about a half mile away to try again. Here it was a different story because the newsagents, run by an Asian family, had been open since 5am and the cheerful lad behind the counter was more than willing to serve yet another customer.

Quite a good synopsis of the modern world, I felt.

Happy New Year!

Glad Tidings

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What a wonderful time of year this is. People are so nice aren’t they? Complete strangers wishing you glad tidings as drunks stagger out of shop doorways dribbling their beer as they fondly slur “All the best mate” whatever that means! There seems to be so much good cheer and genuine affection amongst humanity that one is tempted to ask why it cannot be like this all the time.

Cynics will say that it’s all artificial and no more than  false bonhomie, and of course man being the selfish creature that he is couldn’t really give a monkeys about the well being of others.  Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps deep down most people are decent and kind but our lives are so complicated and we live it at such a fast pace that for most of the year we rarely open our eyes to see what is going on around us.

Christmas is, of course, first and foremost, a religious festival celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ but we don’t need to be religious nor even practising Christians to care for our fellow man. Is there any reason why we cannot be pleasant to one another all year long? Why should it just be limited to the month of December?

Anyway, it’s just a thought and if anybody is out there reading this, sober or otherwise, I wish you a Very Happy Christmas!

Stocking Up

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How many times have you been asked “Have you got everything in for Christmas”?  Like what, I always wonder? It happens a lot though doesn’t it? Also, what is it about Christmas that causes normally rational folk to behave like sharks in a feeding frenzy? All over the country, at this very moment, there are people rushing up and down the supermarket aisles chucking stuff into their trolleys as though their lives depended upon it.

Little old ladies, as if possessed by demons, are kicking and pushing their way to the front of the queues barging past anybody unfortunate enough to be standing in their way. “Just stocking up for Christmas” they say, as they pile their loaves of bread, turkey breasts, gammon joints and bumper packs of mince pies on to the counter.

I wonder, do they know something I don’t? Are the shops going to be closed for the next three weeks? Maybe arctic blizzards will descend on Christmas Eve and paralyse the nation until the beginning of February? Ah yes, that must be it!

A Shaky Coalition

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Like Europe itself the Coalition appears to be crumbling with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, openly opposing the Prime Minister’s use of his veto last Friday and declining to take his place in the House of Commons yesterday.  It is difficult to see how the Coalition can survive where there is disagreement over something as vital as our country’s relationship with Europe and our membership of the European Union.

On Friday, the Prime Minister, in exercising his country’s veto, made it clear that he does not favour any further integration with Europe and any further erosion of UK sovereignty. In this, as repeated polls have shown, he has the backing of the majority of the country. Most of us can see what Europe is about and can see how it is falling apart. By refusing to embark upon the next stage of the journey towards full European integration David Cameron was refusing a boarding pass for the Titanic. To some that may have appeared a surprising refusal but one that will inevitably be vindicated in the fullness of time.

As this blog has stated on more than one occasion, we were deceived about Europe from the very outset and that deception has continued through and been compounded by various governments of both majority political parties. The 1975 referendum asked us whether we wanted  membership of the European Economic Community (also known, rather innocently, as the Common Market). Most of us voted yes because the idea of a mutually beneficial European trading bloc was, and still is, a good idea.

We were never asked about political union and if we had been we would have delivered a resounding no. If the government were to give us a referendum now this would become abundantly clear. Put in a nutshell, this is what the whole European crisis is about. We were deceived, we don’t want to be part of a United States of Europe and we either want to get out completely or revert to the simple trading bloc that we agreed to in the first place.

We can only hope that David Cameron and his party Grandees realise this and that he can carry his party with him. As for the Liberal Democrats, we have to be grateful that their alliance prevented a further Labour government, but if they cannot allow the Conservatives to rule effectively then maybe the Coalition should be broken up, in spite of the agreement to serve a full term. Those advising the Prime Minister should listen closely to the views of the British people and look at the results of opinion polls. Judge their time right in the calling of a general  election and the Conservatives could achieve a convincing victory and then feel free to govern safe in the knowledge that the majority of the country are behind them.

Europe No More?

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Yesterday was a very important day for the United Kingdom and our Prime Minister is to be applauded for his courage and honesty in refusing to vote along with the rest of Europe and kowtow to the wishes of  Germany’s Merkel and France’s Sarkozy.


To have voted with them would have put in place measures that would seriously weaken and damage the interests of the United Kingdom both economically and politically and, as he said before the European showdown, David Cameron would not sign any agreement unless it was in his country’s interests. In defending those interests the Prime Minister may well have isolated himself and his country within Europe but it is a price worth paying. The fact that his was a lone voice is irrelevant since, as we all know, the majority view is not always the  right view.

We have no duty to sacrifice ourselves on the altar of European unity. The European Union is undemocratic, grossly inefficient, overly-bureaucratic and corrupt and its eventual collapse is inevitable. It is our Prime Minister’s duty to ensure that the United Kingdom is in the best possible position to weather the ensuing storm and yesterday was a positive step towards fulfilling that duty.

Keep it Real

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In the midst of the escalating European crisis the English tabloids still found time today to trumpet the glorious news that Wayne Rooney’s three match ban at the start of the Euro Nations football tournament in June next year has been reduced, on appeal, to two matches enabling the nation to breathe a collective sigh of relief. I’m sure that we can all now sleep more easily at night knowing that the world is not such a bad place after all!


Personally, I don’t know what all the fuss is about since on the rare occasions that we actually qualify for these tournaments (you will no doubt recall our failure to qualify for the last tournament in 2008) we hardly cover ourselves in glory and often fail to get past the group stages. Still, I’m sure that the irrepressible Wayne will enjoy our final match against the co-hosts, Ukraine before the team returns home to a period of national mourning.

Perhaps I’m being unduly pessimistic since, if the tabloids are to be believed, England is still a major force in world football and the Sky (sorry Premier) League is “the best in the world”. Really, when was the last time an English club won the European Cup or Champions League as it is called these days? A brief inspection of the records reveals that England fall well behind Italy and Spain to name but two other national leagues in the pantheon of European winners. We hardly covered ourselves in glory this week either with both Manchester clubs (currently leading the” best league in the world”) being unceremoniously dumped out of the competition in the preliminary group stage.

So, putting aside all this English bluster, arrogance and the one-eyed bleatings of the tabloids do England actually have a chance? Well, clearly, our players are not on a par with those of the big European powerhouses – can anybody name any English players equal to, say, Silva (Manchester City and Spain) or Van Persie (Arsenal and Holland). No, not really.

The best service that we and our press can offer our national football team is to remove completely the weight of expectation and just tell them to give it their best shot in the hope that maybe with a bit of organisation, a lot of hard work and a large slice of luck they can prove us all wrong – just like those world-beaters Greece did in 2004! There’s always hope.

Grow Up!

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Can you believe all the fuss over Jeremy Clarkson’s suggestion that public sector strikers be shot? Can you believe that people have actually demanded that the BBC sack him and demanded too that he is denounced by “his friend” the Prime Minister?
Why? It is surely obvious to all but the most feeble-minded (of course, therein lies the answer) that the man was cracking a joke, a silly, perhaps crass, joke but a joke nonetheless. Have we really come to the stage where we take ourselves so seriously that we cannot laugh anymore or cannot treat public utterances the way they were meant to be treated. Are we so contaminated by political correctness and so full of righteous indignation that we cannot let these things pass any longer? A sense of perspective is needed here, Clarkson was joking and that’s all there is to it. Get over it and concentrate instead on resisting those who really do wish us and our society harm. Believe me, there are plenty of them out there and they really are completely deserving of our full attention and concern.

Strikes

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This country like most of the world is in the grip of the worst financial crisis in living memory and a crisis that, showing no sign of abating, could well prove to be the worst in the history of the West. It seems that all economists and politicians, irrespective of their allegiances, agree that we will all have to continue to tighten our belts and take some pretty serious medicine if the country is to have any chance of pulling through.
Many in the private sector have experienced loss of business, loss of income and a general fall in living standards. Perhaps most worrying of all, they have seen their pension policies, upon which they have planned their retirement after years of hard work, dramatically collapse in value so that many of those policies are virtually worthless. The public sector are out on strike today because they don’t like what is happening in the world and they don’t like what is happening to their pension policies.

Let’s face it, none of us like what is happening in the world but we have no choice in the matter. We simply have to endure it and hope that we can all pull through as unscathed as possible. The public sector (unlike the private) are striking because they can. They are also striking because they are misguided and because they believe, erroneously, that they should be immune to what is happening to the rest of us. They need to join the real world. Times are hard and we have to adjust accordingly. Striking will only make matters worse.

English Rugby Union Crisis

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The fallout from England’s disastrous world cup campaign last month and the farcical power struggle in the national governing body, the RFU, continue to feature prominently on the sports pages of our national press.
Many respected gentlemen inside and outside the sport have offered their views on how to create a fully functional and effective governing body and how to create a functional, effective and, most importantly of all, a winning national side.

As a layman I can’t improve  upon what these worthies have put forward but it occurs to me that if all or at least some of the following words and phrases can become imprinted in the collective mindset then we could begin to make progress.

Words like (and in no particular order) – honesty, humility, dignity, honour, decency, trust, loyalty, respect, integrity, grace, belief, responsibility, duty, maturity, enthusiasm, leadership, strength, strength of character, passion, self-control, tolerance, flexibility, organisation, commitment, hard work, professionalism and of course, at least as far as the players are concerned talent, flair, wit, intelligence, creativity, vision and imagination.

In summary, a bit of class, both on and off the pitch, would not go amiss.