Doubtful it's Alexander, though. The body was claimed by Ptolemy and kept in Egypt for a while, before being moved to Rome. I think from there it went missing.
Understandable the locals want it to be Alexander.
And this line bloody annoyed me: "Became king of ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon at age 20"
The argument that a country that has existed as an entity for a thousand years can be broken up into artificial regions decided by a remote committee for reasons of political expedience unrelated to the wishes and loyalties of the population is to ignore the lessons of history and human nature. A technocrat's solution and doomed to failure.
You must really hate the idea of counties...
No because Counties have in the main (aside from Heath's nonsense reforms) been around as long, if not longer, than England. They are an ancient construct that people can and do identify with.
In fact the Heath reforms provide a nice example to my point he abolished some ancient counties (e.g. Rutland) and created false new ones (e.g. Avon). Neither of those examples commanded local support and the changes have since been unwound.
Creating a new region in which are lumped counties that have no obvious connection other than, sometimes, geography and a bureaucrats pen (e.g. the present South East Region) is not a human-scale solution. Milton Keynes really has very little in common with Dover.
The current regions, as used in the Euro elections are a nonsense, but we have the rough outlines of a regional breakdown of England already, from the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of the Heptarchy. Make a few adjustments to account in particular for the rise of London and I think these would be perfectly sensible regions that people could relate to.
Mr. Me, I agree that the ancient kingdoms are based on regions that people could relate to. I especially like the idea of keeping Kent separate (with preferable a big wall built around it). However, in terms of population equivalence, which is a big thing these days, I am not sure it would work.
Also Mr Woolie, gent of this parish, would be up in arms (I suspect literally) if Norwich were to be governed from Winchester.
And Northumbria would get Edinburgh, and Strathclyde most of Cumbria and Glasgow. Leaving Scotland with some beautiful scenery and a few midges ...
City of London, Kent/Essex, Wessex, Cornwall, Mercia, Northumberland, East Anglia with Lindsey either going it alone or the Northern part joining Northumberland and the Southern section (Kestevan basically) joining East Anglia. Simples.
Where would places like Surrey, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire fit in?
The idea of separating out the City of London from the rest of London is madness.
Oh, and breaking up England into the heptarchy would presumably see Wales split into Powys, Gwent etc as separate regions? Or is there going to be a mass hypocrisy where the split only applies to England?
Doubtful it's Alexander, though. The body was claimed by Ptolemy and kept in Egypt for a while, before being moved to Rome. I think from there it went missing.
Understandable the locals want it to be Alexander.
And this line bloody annoyed me: "Became king of ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon at age 20"
No because Counties have in the main (aside from Heath's nonsense reforms) been around as long, if not longer, than England. They are an ancient construct that people can and do identify with.
"Counties" are patches of land where a local power holds sway. They originated with dukes, lords and chieftains, started being formalised around the 15th century(?)* when their extent were defined in Acts of Parliament, then they have been progressively redefined, renamed and renumbered as times worse on and power moved from the nobility to local authorities. Heath's reforms were just the latest in a long line of reorganisations: you have lots of little ones, then a big one, things settle own for a bit then about 50 years later, we go around again.
The popularly-held myth that the counties are ancient and stable is exactly that: popularly held, and a myth. It's so popularly held that I have no chance of dislodging it, but it is still fictional. You could make a case that it is so for the south and south west of England where they are pretty stable (ditto for the Yorkshires: all of them) if you ignore London, but even there you have problems (which county is Bournemouth in? Hampshire? Dorset? What about in 1960?), but the further up you go the more dodgy it gets, and when you get to Scotland, well I just give up.
Pick a set of borders, call them names that are familiar to you, say that they are counties and pretend they've existed since the Romans. It'll work, and every generation has done it for hundreds of years: humans are like that. But they are people putting a shape on history and forcing it to make sense and be stable, when it didn't and wasn't. Mapping the present is hard enough. Mapping the past is a whole other bag of difficult.
*I'm happy to be contradicted on this bit: were some defined in law earlier? "Defined" as in their extent formally noted, that is.
If the SNP can get the backing of most of the 45% who supported independence, they could sweep the board in May 2015.
So it could. Which brings us closer to the topic of the posting, given that SLAB would then be the losers.
I see Eric Joyce MP (ex-SLAB) has written a Graun piece on Labour's prospects. He struck me as being pretty level-headed and sensible in his comments on the Falkirk fiasco, so this is worth a look, especially given Mr Miliband's direct personal involvement:
"In the aftermath of last week’s referendum, Labour is the party with the most to lose. Indemnified by the Scottish no vote, David Cameron has beaten Ukip to the “standing up for England” argument and would no longer be seen as the man who lost Scotland should new, second-tier rights for Scottish MPs lead to eventual independence.
Meanwhile, Labour is in deep trouble. Without dealing with the West Lothian question, Labour MPs and candidates in England will have no answer to the question of why they would support Scots having higher levels of expenditure than those available to poor areas of England, and to those Scots having a say in English-only matters.
In Scotland, before the vote, these asymmetric implications of the vow were understood with great clarity, as they obviously were by the three leaders. Labour has taken the biggest hit because it had been relied on to deliver large Scottish Labour votes to no. In the event, that vote marched towards yes, and more than 40% of Scottish Labour voters chose yes in the end despite the vow being aimed wholly at keeping such voters onside. Unless dramatic measures are taken, and fast, Labour will continue to be punished for the strategic error of neglecting its machinery in Scotland and for taking voters for granted."
Early days yet; Mr @Roger of this parish thinks it will come to nothing; and he may be right - but I have not seen his working.
Mr. Me, better to lose the union than carve England into shitty regional assemblies.
England is not the possession of today's political pygmies, to be cut into little political fiefdoms to benefit this party or that. It's one land, and has been for over a thousand years.
Devolution can lead to disintegration. We've seen that already with Scotland, which very nearly left the UK. Do we want to foster division, and not merely foster it but institutionalise it within England? That is short-sighted and foolish in the extreme. English devolution must be for all England, not meaningless regional assemblies or slapdash city regions. All England must have a Parliament.
English votes for English laws is a reasonable stopgap.
And if the Scots and Welsh and Northern Irish are so offended at the prospect of England having equal standing and the English having the same rights as the Scottish, they're free to stay, or to leave. I'd sooner lose the UK than England, if it came to it.
England is already "divided" into piddling little counties, without it threatening the cohesiveness of the country as a whole.
England can survive a sensible layer of government that creates about ten, roughly Scotland population sized, assemblies.
Socrates is right to worry about the ability of the local press to put the spotlight of scrutiny on this proposed layer of politicians. I don't have an easy answer to that.
If you want to have equal population sizes, why Scotland sized? Why not Northern Ireland sized and split Scotland into three different regions?
"roughly"
How convenient that the population ratios are just rough enough to keep every home nation together in one region except England.
We have a different view on this, but you have a horrible way of behaving as though opposing views to your own are illegitimate.
If you provide an argument I will engage with it. If you provide a snappy post, I will provide one back.
I don't think your views are illegitimate. I just think there's a double standard there that you're trying to hand-wave away.
The argument that a country that has existed as an entity for a thousand years can be broken up into artificial regions decided by a remote committee for reasons of political expedience unrelated to the wishes and loyalties of the population is to ignore the lessons of history and human nature. A technocrat's solution and doomed to failure.
And Northumbria would get Edinburgh, and Strathclyde most of Cumbria and Glasgow. Leaving Scotland with some beautiful scenery and a few midges ...
City of London, Kent/Essex, Wessex, Cornwall, Mercia, Northumberland, East Anglia with Lindsey either going it alone or the Northern part joining Northumberland and the Southern section (Kestevan basically) joining East Anglia. Simples.
Where would places like Surrey, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire fit in?
The idea of separating out the City of London from the rest of London is madness.
City of London = current mayoralty, including the imaginary county of Surrey. Bucks and Herts would fall under Mercian hegemony
Although, to be fair, I couldn't give a toss how the rest are divided up as long as Norfolk, Suffolk, The Isle of Ely and perhaps our friends in Kestevan are run from Norwich.
Mr. Socrates, quite. One Parliament for Scotland, one Parliament for England. Breaking up England for no damned reason is indefensible.
Aside from the fact everything west of the Great Ouse and South of Saffron Waldon is a pile of cack we want nothing to do with.
Edit - in all seriousness, why would an East Anglian want to be lumped in with the corrupt kiddie fiddler deniers of Rochdale, the spivs in the City of London, or the insufferable social climbers of the South Coast?
The argument that a country that has existed as an entity for a thousand years can be broken up into artificial regions decided by a remote committee for reasons of political expedience unrelated to the wishes and loyalties of the population is to ignore the lessons of history and human nature. A technocrat's solution and doomed to failure.
You must really hate the idea of counties...
No because Counties have in the main (aside from Heath's nonsense reforms) been around as long, if not longer, than England. They are an ancient construct that people can and do identify with.
In fact the Heath reforms provide a nice example to my point he abolished some ancient counties (e.g. Rutland) and created false new ones (e.g. Avon). Neither of those examples commanded local support and the changes have since been unwound.
Creating a new region in which are lumped counties that have no obvious connection other than, sometimes, geography and a bureaucrats pen (e.g. the present South East Region) is not a human-scale solution. Milton Keynes really has very little in common with Dover.
The current regions, as used in the Euro elections are a nonsense, but we have the rough outlines of a regional breakdown of England already, from the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of the Heptarchy. Make a few adjustments to account in particular for the rise of London and I think these would be perfectly sensible regions that people could relate to.
Mr. Me, I agree that the ancient kingdoms are based on regions that people could relate to. I especially like the idea of keeping Kent separate (with preferable a big wall built around it). However, in terms of population equivalence, which is a big thing these days, I am not sure it would work.
Also Mr Woolie, gent of this parish, would be up in arms (I suspect literally) if Norwich were to be governed from Winchester.
I don't see a need for population equivalence, what's wrong with defining regions according to what local inhabitants regard as appropriate, without too much regard to population. Cornwall, for example, has a reasonable claim to be a region in its own right.
The Heptarchy of course is a bit of a misnomer, there was probably never a time when those seven kingdoms, and only those, existed. When Essex and Kent were still independent, Northumbria was split into Bernicia and Deira, there were independent kingdoms such as Hwicce and Lindsey in what would later be Mercia, and there were still British kingdoms such as Elmet.
Do you think Heywood & Middleton will tell us more about the true level of support??
Possibly. I think the turnout level will be critical for us to make a judgement.
A poster on here, compouter i think, reckons Labour are in turmoil there... But the betting says different albeit a weak betfair market
I laid the 1.09 but fear I am sticking with a dud hand
I suspect that you might have one of those infamous 'good value losers'. Certainly think that it'll be much closer than the betting prices suggest (in fact I would probably have agreed that your 5/2 or whatever it was that you got with ?Quincel was fair to both sides) but it will be really going for it for UKIP to actually get all the way over the line.
Mr. Socrates, quite. One Parliament for Scotland, one Parliament for England. Breaking up England for no damned reason is indefensible.
Aside from the fact everything west of the Great Ouse and South of Saffron Waldon is a pile of cack we want nothing to do with.
Edit - in all seriousness, why would an East Anglian want to be lumped in with the corrupt kiddie fiddler deniers of Rochdale, the spivs in the City of London, or the insufferable social climbers of the South Coast?
Your falling into labours trap,your a Englishman,get use to it ;-)
The argument that a country that has existed as an entity for a thousand years can be broken up into artificial regions decided by a remote committee for reasons of political expedience unrelated to the wishes and loyalties of the population is to ignore the lessons of history and human nature. A technocrat's solution and doomed to failure.
You must really hate the idea of counties...
No because Counties have in the main (aside from Heath's nonsense reforms) been around as long, if not longer, than England. They are an ancient construct that people can and do identify with.
In fact the Heath reforms provide a nice example to my point he abolished some ancient counties (e.g. Rutland) and created false new ones (e.g. Avon). Neither of those examples commanded local support and the changes have since been unwound.
, from the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of the Heptarchy. Make a few adjustments to account in particular for the rise of London and I think these would be perfectly sensible regions that people could relate to.
Mr. Me, I agree that the ancient kingdoms are based on regions that people could relate to. I especially like the idea of keeping Kent separate (with preferable a big wall built around it). However, in terms of population equivalence, which is a big thing these days, I am not sure it would work.
Also Mr Woolie, gent of this parish, would be up in arms (I suspect literally) if Norwich were to be governed from Winchester.
I don't see a need for population equivalence, what's wrong with defining regions according to what local inhabitants regard as appropriate, without too much regard to population. Cornwall, for example, has a reasonable claim to be a region in its own right.
The Heptarchy of course is a bit of a misnomer, there was probably never a time when those seven kingdoms, and only those, existed. When Essex and Kent were still independent, Northumbria was split into Bernicia and Deira, there were independent kingdoms such as Hwicce and Lindsey in what would later be Mercia, and there were still British kingdoms such as Elmet.
London of course was originally part of Essex.
True. You could make an argument for a modern pentarchy. London, Wessex, Mercia, Northumberland and East Anglia, with London taking Essex (the northern part going to East Anglia), Wessex taking Kent . Then you'd need to account for the fourth nation of the mainland - Kernow/Cornwall
Suffice to say that if the Tory Party ever comes to a position where it wants an English Parliament, English First Minister and English Government, then that basically means the break-up of the Union, and I won't support that in a million years. I'd much rather the status quo than that.
Suffice to say, the concept that every other home nation deserves devolution but the English goes against every principle of fairness.
But is it "devolution" when the sheer size of England means that the UK and England are virtually coterminous and synonymous? The point of "devolution" is to ensure those 3 parts of the UK that are completely swamped by England's size and dominance, and who wouldn't otherwise have a voice, are able to run their own affairs on certain devolved issues.
The UK Government should continue to run England's affairs, and that has to happen if the Union is to continue. The anomaly that was never addressed was Scottish MPs voting on matters that affect England only and especially when they cannot vote any longer on such matters as affect Scotland. That is simply solved by EVEL, which could even be done on an informal Parliamentary procedure basis. That addresses the unfairness to England.
Talk of an "English Parliament" and "devolution" to England is folly. Totally unnecessary, pointlessly expensive, and would leave Westminster largely idle and the Union as good as dead.
Mr. Socrates, quite. One Parliament for Scotland, one Parliament for England. Breaking up England for no damned reason is indefensible.
Aside from the fact everything west of the Great Ouse and South of Saffron Waldon is a pile of cack we want nothing to do with.
Edit - in all seriousness, why would an East Anglian want to be lumped in with the corrupt kiddie fiddler deniers of Rochdale, the spivs in the City of London, or the insufferable social climbers of the South Coast?
Your falling into labours trap,your a Englishman,get use to it ;-)
Never. I'm a Norfolkman, from the Kingdom of East Anglia. I'm happy to federate with others of Anglo-Saxon and British stock.
I reckon the way to do English regional government (not sure you should do that, but if you were going to) would be to start with optional pick-and-mix devolution to the counties, then let them merge themselves together save money and to do more stuff. Some of the areas are quite hard to group, but there's no need to do it top-down or all in one go. They may end up evolving into coherent areas capable of taking on a lot of power, in which case cool, but if not, no need to force anybody.
No because Counties have in the main (aside from Heath's nonsense reforms) been around as long, if not longer, than England. They are an ancient construct that people can and do identify with.
In fact the Heath reforms provide a nice example to my point he abolished some ancient counties (e.g. Rutland) and created false new ones (e.g. Avon). Neither of those examples commanded local support and the changes have since been unwound.
, from the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of the Heptarchy. Make a few adjustments to account in particular for the rise of London and I think these would be perfectly sensible regions that people could relate to.
Mr. Me, I agree that the ancient kingdoms are based on regions that people could relate to. I especially like the idea of keeping Kent separate (with preferable a big wall built around it). However, in terms of population equivalence, which is a big thing these days, I am not sure it would work.
Also Mr Woolie, gent of this parish, would be up in arms (I suspect literally) if Norwich were to be governed from Winchester.
I don't see a need for population equivalence, what's wrong with defining regions according to what local inhabitants regard as appropriate, without too much regard to population. Cornwall, for example, has a reasonable claim to be a region in its own right.
The Heptarchy of course is a bit of a misnomer, there was probably never a time when those seven kingdoms, and only those, existed. When Essex and Kent were still independent, Northumbria was split into Bernicia and Deira, there were independent kingdoms such as Hwicce and Lindsey in what would later be Mercia, and there were still British kingdoms such as Elmet.
London of course was originally part of Essex.
True. You could make an argument for a modern pentarchy. London, Wessex, Mercia, Northumberland and East Anglia, with London taking Essex (the northern part going to East Anglia), Wessex taking Kent . Then you'd need to account for the fourth nation of the mainland - Kernow/Cornwall
You still have issues with places like Greater Manchester - where does the Mercia / Northumbria border go - it would plainly be daft to split up Greater Manchester, but that means moving the border South (or North by a greater amount). Similarly Liverpool / the Wirral?
Ball gets a short standing ovation from the Labour faithful of hope rather than expectation.
Perhaps the Scottish referendum has sucked the life out of the start of the conference.
The Labour activists I saw and talked to last time, seem to be very happy, mostly because of the referendum result.
The result I'm sure. But the backwash from the referendum is awful for Labour.
Ed seems determined not only to step into the EVEL mantrap but to revel in having the jaws of the problem bite into Labour English support at the general election.
I hope you're cheering them up and advising them that :
No because Counties have in the main (aside from Heath's nonsense reforms) been around as long, if not longer, than England. They are an ancient construct that people can and do identify with.
In fact the Heath reforms provide a nice example to my point he abolished some ancient counties (e.g. Rutland) and created false new ones (e.g. Avon). Neither of those examples commanded local support and the changes have since been unwound.
, from the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of the Heptarchy. Make a few adjustments to account in particular for the rise of London and I think these would be perfectly sensible regions that people could relate to.
Mr. Me, I agree that the ancient kingdoms are based on regions that people could relate to. I especially like the idea of keeping Kent separate (with preferable a big wall built around it). However, in terms of population equivalence, which is a big thing these days, I am not sure it would work.
Also Mr Woolie, gent of this parish, would be up in arms (I suspect literally) if Norwich were to be governed from Winchester.
I don't see a need for population equivalence, what's wrong with defining regions according to what local inhabitants regard as appropriate, without too much regard to population. Cornwall, for example, has a reasonable claim to be a region in its own right.
The Heptarchy of course is a bit of a misnomer, there was probably never a time when those seven kingdoms, and only those, existed. When Essex and Kent were still independent, Northumbria was split into Bernicia and Deira, there were independent kingdoms such as Hwicce and Lindsey in what would later be Mercia, and there were still British kingdoms such as Elmet.
London of course was originally part of Essex.
True. You could make an argument for a modern pentarchy. London, Wessex, Mercia, Northumberland and East Anglia, with London taking Essex (the northern part going to East Anglia), Wessex taking Kent . Then you'd need to account for the fourth nation of the mainland - Kernow/Cornwall
You still have issues with places like Greater Manchester - where does the Mercia / Northumbria border go - it would plainly be daft to split up Greater Manchester, but that means moving the border South (or North by a greater amount). Similarly Liverpool / the Wirral?
Lansachire (traditional) and Cumberland/Westmoreland) were, IIRC never part of either Mercia or Northumbria.
How would Scotland react if Dave and Nick deliver devoplus/max with Labour opposition and leave EV4EL until after the election? Would Scottish voters turn their backs on Labour?
Scotland would be pleased, England would be furious as would the rest of the Tory party and Labour will still get in and refuse to ever deal with EV4EL or the lopsided boundaries (in fact they'd gerrymander even more, perhaps giving more power to cities and not the suburbs).
If Cameron agrees to that then he deserved to be blasted off into space.
Can't see why EVEL can't be voted on before May 2015 (surely it will), separately from the Scottish proposals being agreed and passed before next May, as they must following The Vow. If EVEL passes, job done for Dave. If it doesn't, Dave fights for a majority Tory Government to bring "justice to England", and points his finger at the guilty parties - presumably Ed.
If England shrugs its shoulders and Ed wins an overall majority anyway, and EVEL dies, then so be it. England will have spoken.
But the Tories will have neutralised the threat of UKIP and other associated English Nationalist rabbles ganging up on the Tories in GE2015.
Cameron simply cannot be seen as the "blocker" of more powers to Scotland. He's finished if he doesn;t deliver, the Tories are finished, and the Union is finished.
Interesting that the Wales first minister wants the powers promised to Scotland to also come to Wales.
Ed may not just have the West Lothian question in 2015 to deal with, but the West Swansea question, too.
English votes for English measure doesn;t get rid of 40 labour MPs from English measures, it gets rid of close to 70.
Plus other left leaning lib votes...
But do the Welsh want these powers handed to assembly. It's all very well the First Minister saying it, but there's been no referendum and Plaid are hardly the SNP.
No because Counties have in the main (aside from Heath's nonsense reforms) been around as long, if not longer, than England. They are an ancient construct that people can and do identify with.
"Counties" are patches of land where a local power holds sway. They originated with dukes, lords and chieftains, started being formalised around the 15th century(?)* when their extent were defined in Acts of Parliament, then they have been progressively redefined, renamed and renumbered as times worse on and power moved from the nobility to local authorities. Heath's reforms were just the latest in a long line of reorganisations: you have lots of little ones, then a big one, things settle own for a bit then about 50 years later, we go around again.
The popularly-held myth that the counties are ancient and stable is exactly that: popularly held, and a myth. It's so popularly held that I have no chance of dislodging it, but it is still fictional. You could make a case that it is so for the south and south west of England where they are pretty stable (ditto for the Yorkshires: all of them) if you ignore London, but even there you have problems (which county is Bournemouth in? Hampshire? Dorset? What about in 1960?), but the further up you go the more dodgy it gets, and when you get to Scotland, well I just give up.
Pick a set of borders, call them names that are familiar to you, say that they are counties and pretend they've existed since the Romans. It'll work, and every generation has done it for hundreds of years: humans are like that. But they are people putting a shape on history and forcing it to make sense and be stable, when it didn't and wasn't. Mapping the present is hard enough. Mapping the past is a whole other bag of difficult.
*I'm happy to be contradicted on this bit: were some defined in law earlier? "Defined" as in their extent formally noted, that is.
You would have to look on a county by county basis but Nottinghamshire has been a county defined by law since at least 1568 prior to which it was unified with Derbyshire. Even the modern districts go back to the Saxon wapentakes.
If the SNP can get the backing of most of the 45% who supported independence, they could sweep the board in May 2015.
So it could. Which brings us closer to the topic of the posting, given that SLAB would then be the losers.
I see Eric Joyce MP (ex-SLAB) has written a Graun piece on Labour's prospects. He struck me as being pretty level-headed and sensible in his comments on the Falkirk fiasco, so this is worth a look, especially given Mr Miliband's direct personal involvement:
"In the aftermath of last week’s referendum, Labour is the party with the most to lose. Indemnified by the Scottish no vote, David Cameron has beaten Ukip to the “standing up for England” argument and would no longer be seen as the man who lost Scotland should new, second-tier rights for Scottish MPs lead to eventual independence.
Meanwhile, Labour is in deep trouble. Without dealing with the West Lothian question, Labour MPs and candidates in England will have no answer to the question of why they would support Scots having higher levels of expenditure than those available to poor areas of England, and to those Scots having a say in English-only matters.
In Scotland, before the vote, these asymmetric implications of the vow were understood with great clarity, as they obviously were by the three leaders. Labour has taken the biggest hit because it had been relied on to deliver large Scottish Labour votes to no. In the event, that vote marched towards yes, and more than 40% of Scottish Labour voters chose yes in the end despite the vow being aimed wholly at keeping such voters onside. Unless dramatic measures are taken, and fast, Labour will continue to be punished for the strategic error of neglecting its machinery in Scotland and for taking voters for granted."
Early days yet; Mr @Roger of this parish thinks it will come to nothing; and he may be right - but I have not seen his working.
Yes. I think Labour do have potentially a very great deal to lose. The Conservatives were universally for No. The SNP and Lib Dems were largely for Yes and No respectively. But, Labour were more evenly split.
And, if you're a Yes voter who wants the other parties to make good on their commitment to more devolution, it makes sense to vote SNP.
No because Counties have in the main (aside from Heath's nonsense reforms) been around as long, if not longer, than England. They are an ancient construct that people can and do identify with.
In fact the Heath reforms provide a nice example to my point he abolished some ancient counties (e.g. Rutland) and created false new ones (e.g. Avon). Neither of those examples commanded local support and the changes have since been unwound.
, from the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of the Heptarchy. Make a few adjustments to account in particular for the rise of London and I think these would be perfectly sensible regions that people could relate to.
Mr. Me, I agree that the ancient kingdoms are based on regions that people could relate to. I especially like the idea of keeping Kent separate (with preferable a big wall built around it). However, in terms of population equivalence, which is a big thing these days, I am not sure it would work.
Also Mr Woolie, gent of this parish, would be up in arms (I suspect literally) if Norwich were to be governed from Winchester.
I don't see a need for population equivalence, what's wrong with defining regions according to what local inhabitants regard as appropriate, without too much regard to population. Cornwall, for example, has a reasonable claim to be a region in its own right.
The Heptarchy of course is a bit of a misnomer, there was probably never a time when those seven kingdoms, and only those, existed. When Essex and Kent were still independent, Northumbria was split into Bernicia and Deira, there were independent kingdoms such as Hwicce and Lindsey in what would later be Mercia, and there were still British kingdoms such as Elmet.
London of course was originally part of Essex.
True. You could make an argument for a modern pentarchy. London, Wessex, Mercia, Northumberland and East Anglia, with London taking Essex (the northern part going to East Anglia), Wessex taking Kent . Then you'd need to account for the fourth nation of the mainland - Kernow/Cornwall
You still have issues with places like Greater Manchester - where does the Mercia / Northumbria border go - it would plainly be daft to split up Greater Manchester, but that means moving the border South (or North by a greater amount). Similarly Liverpool / the Wirral?
You would. But, as an East Anglian with a clearly definable historical border, I'd say that's their problem :-p
Edit - let's simplify. East Anglia Flat cap and whippet land Stupid social climber/Masters of the puniverse land
Ball gets a short standing ovation from the Labour faithful of hope rather than expectation.
Perhaps the Scottish referendum has sucked the life out of the start of the conference.
The Labour activists I saw and talked to last time, seem to be very happy, mostly because of the referendum result.
The result I'm sure. But the backwash from the referendum is awful for Labour.
Ed seems determined not only to step into the EVEL mantrap but to revel in having the jaws of the problem bite into Labour English support at the general election.
I hope you're cheering them up and advising them that :
Ed Miliband Will Never Be Prime Minister.
I'm encouraging them all to take up The Sun's bacon buttie challenge.
They've loved it when I reminded them that the polling shows that Ed Miliband is the worst Leader of the Opposition since Michael Foot.
How would Scotland react if Dave and Nick deliver devoplus/max with Labour opposition and leave EV4EL until after the election? Would Scottish voters turn their backs on Labour?
Scotland would be pleased, England would be furious as would the rest of the Tory party and Labour will still get in and refuse to ever deal with EV4EL or the lopsided boundaries (in fact they'd gerrymander even more, perhaps giving more power to cities and not the suburbs).
If Cameron agrees to that then he deserved to be blasted off into space.
Can't see why EVEL can't be voted on before May 2015 (surely it will), separately from the Scottish proposals being agreed and passed before next May, as they must following The Vow. If EVEL passes, job done for Dave. If it doesn't, Dave fights for a majority Tory Government to bring "justice to England", and points his finger at the guilty parties - presumably Ed.
If England shrugs its shoulders and Ed wins an overall majority anyway, and EVEL dies, then so be it. England will have spoken.
But the Tories will have neutralised the threat of UKIP and other associated English Nationalist rabbles ganging up on the Tories in GE2015.
Cameron simply cannot be seen as the "blocker" of more powers to Scotland. He's finished if he doesn;t deliver, the Tories are finished, and the Union is finished.
I do pretty much agree with that. He can't be seen as blocking the Scottish powers.
On the other hand, what does he have to lose North of the Border...
How would Scotland react if Dave and Nick deliver devoplus/max with Labour opposition and leave EV4EL until after the election? Would Scottish voters turn their backs on Labour?
Scotland would be pleased, England would be furious as would the rest of the Tory party and Labour will still get in and refuse to ever deal with EV4EL or the lopsided boundaries (in fact they'd gerrymander even more, perhaps giving more power to cities and not the suburbs).
If Cameron agrees to that then he deserved to be blasted off into space.
Can't see why EVEL can't be voted on before May 2015 (surely it will), separately from the Scottish proposals being agreed and passed before next May, as they must following The Vow. If EVEL passes, job done for Dave. If it doesn't, Dave fights for a majority Tory Government to bring "justice to England", and points his finger at the guilty parties - presumably Ed.
If England shrugs its shoulders and Ed wins an overall majority anyway, and EVEL dies, then so be it. England will have spoken.
But the Tories will have neutralised the threat of UKIP and other associated English Nationalist rabbles ganging up on the Tories in GE2015.
Cameron simply cannot be seen as the "blocker" of more powers to Scotland. He's finished if he doesn;t deliver, the Tories are finished, and the Union is finished.
Scottish and Welsh Labour and Lib Dem MPs will vote down EV4EL if it is separated from the Scottish bill. Ludicrous I know.
They need to be combined.
If Cameron allows this it will show he's learned nothing from when he allowed the AV referendum and the equalised boundaries to be separated. The Lib Dems and Labour won't honour their half of the bargain.
But is it "devolution" when the sheer size of England means that the UK and England are virtually coterminous and synonymous? The point of "devolution" is to ensure those 3 parts of the UK that are completely swamped by England's size and dominance, and who wouldn't otherwise have a voice, are able to run their own affairs on certain devolved issues.
They would still be able to influence their own affairs. In fact, the three smaller nations would feel more confidence in a UK government if it wasn't constantly on rocky ground from being defeated in EV4EL votes.
The UK Government should continue to run England's affairs, and that has to happen if the Union is to continue.
Asserting this a dozen times does not make it true. You have not provided one compelling argument why an English parliament sorting out healthcare imperils the union.
The anomaly that was never addressed was Scottish MPs voting on matters that affect England only and especially when they cannot vote any longer on such matters as affect Scotland. That is simply solved by EVEL, which could even be done on an informal Parliamentary procedure basis. That addresses the unfairness to England.
This only sorts half the problem however. It would rightly stop England being subject to new legislation that she doesn't want. However, it would do nothing to stop non-legislative action in England being taken by ministers getting in on the back of Scottish and Welsh MPs. And it also means domestic legislation desired by England could also be blocked by a UK government that does not have an English majority.
Talk of an "English Parliament" and "devolution" to England is folly. Totally unnecessary, pointlessly expensive, and would leave Westminster largely idle and the Union as good as dead.
It is not unnecessary. As I have mentioned, it allows England to have the same control of its destiny as the other home nations, and it also means the UK government would be on more stable ground. It would not be much more expensive, as the bureaucracies for things like education and health would just be moved to a lower level. As for the Union, well the Scots just voted in large numbers for all its benefits despite the fact they have devolution. There is no reason that the English would not want it to continue for the sake of defence, foreign affairs, national infrastructure and macroeconomics among other issues.
"Counties" are patches of land where a local power holds sway. They originated with dukes, lords and chieftains, started being formalised around the 15th century(?)* when their extent were defined in Acts of Parliament, then they have been progressively redefined, renamed and renumbered as times worse on and power moved from the nobility to local authorities. Heath's reforms were just the latest in a long line of reorganisations: you have lots of little ones, then a big one, things settle own for a bit then about 50 years later, we go around again.
The popularly-held myth that the counties are ancient and stable is exactly that: popularly held, and a myth. It's so popularly held that I have no chance of dislodging it, but it is still fictional. You could make a case that it is so for the south and south west of England where they are pretty stable (ditto for the Yorkshires: all of them) if you ignore London, but even there you have problems (which county is Bournemouth in? Hampshire? Dorset? What about in 1960?), but the further up you go the more dodgy it gets, and when you get to Scotland, well I just give up.
Pick a set of borders, call them names that are familiar to you, say that they are counties and pretend they've existed since the Romans. It'll work, and every generation has done it for hundreds of years: humans are like that. But they are people putting a shape on history and forcing it to make sense and be stable, when it didn't and wasn't. Mapping the present is hard enough. Mapping the past is a whole other bag of difficult.
*I'm happy to be contradicted on this bit: were some defined in law earlier? "Defined" as in their extent formally noted, that is.
I don't think anyone has suggested anything about the Romans, though they had their local government boundaries too. The shires have really been in existence as an Anglo-Saxon construction and most pre-date the Conquest. The William the Bastard did stick his own imprint on the local government structure of his new Kingdom.
You ask if some Shires were formally defined prior to the 15th century. Well, yes, they were certainly from the Conquest because of the feudal system. Everyone who held land knew who they held it from.
To be sure there have been boundary changes and reorganisations. That of 1880 seems to be the first big one, before that things had been very settled for hundreds of years.
However, when it comes to contemporary politics where the county boundaries of, say, Sussex were in 1500 is neither here nor there. They will not have changed very much but the key thing is that there was a Sussex, not only in 1500 but also in 1000. There was not a South East Region.
Suffice to say that if the Tory Party ever comes to a position where it wants an English Parliament, English First Minister and English Government, then that basically means the break-up of the Union, and I won't support that in a million years. I'd much rather the status quo than that.
Suffice to say, the concept that every other home nation deserves devolution but the English goes against every principle of fairness.
But is it "devolution" when the sheer size of England means that the UK and England are virtually coterminous and synonymous? The point of "devolution" is to ensure those 3 parts of the UK that are completely swamped by England's size and dominance, and who wouldn't otherwise have a voice, are able to run their own affairs on certain devolved issues.
The UK Government should continue to run England's affairs, and that has to happen if the Union is to continue. The anomaly that was never addressed was Scottish MPs voting on matters that affect England only and especially when they cannot vote any longer on such matters as affect Scotland. That is simply solved by EVEL, which could even be done on an informal Parliamentary procedure basis. That addresses the unfairness to England.
Talk of an "English Parliament" and "devolution" to England is folly. Totally unnecessary, pointlessly expensive, and would leave Westminster largely idle and the Union as good as dead.
We don't often agree Bob but in this case I think you are absolutely right. It is the simplest, cheapest and fairest solution and should be embraced by all the parties (I don't for a minute hold with this idea that it would give an inbuilt advantage to the Tories as the electorate rapidly adapts to the changing nature of the balance and votes accordingly.)
No because Counties have in the main (aside from Heath's nonsense reforms) been around as long, if not longer, than England. They are an ancient construct that people can and do identify with.
"Counties" are patches of land where a local power holds sway. They originated with dukes, lords and chieftains, started being formalised around the 15th century(?)* when their extent were defined in Acts of Parliament, then they have been progressively redefined, renamed and renumbered as times worse on and power moved from the nobility to local authorities. Heath's reforms were just the latest in a long line of reorganisations: you have lots of little ones, then a big one, things settle own for a bit then about 50 years later, we go around again.
The popularly-held myth that the counties are ancient and stable is exactly that: popularly held, and a myth. It's so popularly held that I have no chance of dislodging it, but it is still fictional. You could make a case that it is so for the south and south west of England where they are pretty stable (ditto for the Yorkshires: all of them) if you ignore London, but even there you have problems (which county is Bournemouth in? Hampshire? Dorset? What about in 1960?), but the further up you go the more dodgy it gets, and when you get to Scotland, well I just give up.
Pick a set of borders, call them names that are familiar to you, say that they are counties and pretend they've existed since the Romans. It'll work, and every generation has done it for hundreds of years: humans are like that. But they are people putting a shape on history and forcing it to make sense and be stable, when it didn't and wasn't. Mapping the present is hard enough. Mapping the past is a whole other bag of difficult.
*I'm happy to be contradicted on this bit: were some defined in law earlier? "Defined" as in their extent formally noted, that is.
Norfolk, the country of the North Angles, unchanged since ca 600AD
Mr. Socrates, quite. One Parliament for Scotland, one Parliament for England. Breaking up England for no damned reason is indefensible.
Aside from the fact everything west of the Great Ouse and South of Saffron Waldon is a pile of cack we want nothing to do with.
Edit - in all seriousness, why would an East Anglian want to be lumped in with the corrupt kiddie fiddler deniers of Rochdale, the spivs in the City of London, or the insufferable social climbers of the South Coast?
Your falling into labours trap,your a Englishman,get use to it ;-)
Never. I'm a Norfolkman, from the Kingdom of East Anglia. I'm happy to federate with others of Anglo-Saxon and British stock.
Scottish and Welsh Labour and Lib Dem MPs will vote down EV4EL if it is separated from the Scottish bill. Ludicrous I know.
...
The Lib Dems and Labour won't honour their half of the bargain.
Fine. Let them be seen to be blocking it and showing contempt for their electorate. If they are that stupid that close to an election then they deserve the storm that will be coming their way.
No because Counties have in the main (aside from Heath's nonsense reforms) been around as long, if not longer, than England. They are an ancient construct that people can and do identify with.
"Counties" are patches of land where a local power holds sway. They originated with dukes, lords and chieftains, started being formalised around the 15th century(?)* when their extent were defined in Acts of Parliament, then they have been progressively redefined, renamed and renumbered as times worse on and power moved from the nobility to local authorities. Heath's reforms were just the latest in a long line of reorganisations: you have lots of little ones, then a big one, things settle own for a bit then about 50 years later, we go around again.
The popularly-held myth that the counties are ancient and stable is exactly that: popularly held, and a myth. It's so popularly held that I have no chance of dislodging it, but it is still fictional. You could make a case that it is so for the south and south west of England where they are pretty stable (ditto for the Yorkshires: all of them) if you ignore London, but even there you have problems (which county is Bournemouth in? Hampshire? Dorset? What about in 1960?), but the further up you go the more dodgy it gets, and when you get to Scotland, well I just give up.
Pick a set of borders, call them names that are familiar to you, say that they are counties and pretend they've existed since the Romans. It'll work, and every generation has done it for hundreds of years: humans are like that. But they are people putting a shape on history and forcing it to make sense and be stable, when it didn't and wasn't. Mapping the present is hard enough. Mapping the past is a whole other bag of difficult.
*I'm happy to be contradicted on this bit: were some defined in law earlier? "Defined" as in their extent formally noted, that is.
You would have to look on a county by county basis but Nottinghamshire has been a county defined by law since at least 1568 prior to which it was unified with Derbyshire. Even the modern districts go back to the Saxon wapentakes.
Tish and pish.
EVEL should be solved by creating a Greater Empire of Rutland with parliament sitting in Oakham Castle and all English members bringing their "Horseshoe of Office" on signing the "Roll of Rutland".
Not more of Labour banging on about butchering England. Have they not learnt any lessons from butchering and nearly destroying the Union for their own malevolent self-serving purposes? Labour cannot be trusted with this nation's political system just as they cannot be trusted with its economy.
I'm off I cannot be doing with the vile socialist corruption
No because Counties have in the main (aside from Heath's nonsense reforms) been around as long, if not longer, than England. They are an ancient construct that people can and do identify with.
"Counties" are patches of land where a local power holds sway. They originated with dukes, lords and chieftains, started being formalised around the 15th century(?)* when their extent were defined in Acts of Parliament, then they have been progressively redefined, renamed and renumbered as times worse on and power moved from the nobility to local authorities. Heath's reforms were just the latest in a long line of reorganisations: you have lots of little ones, then a big one, things settle own for a bit then about 50 years later, we go around again.
The popularly-held myth that the counties are ancient and stable is exactly that: popularly held, and a myth. It's so popularly held that I have no chance of dislodging it, but it is still fictional. You could make a case that it is so for the south and south west of England where they are pretty stable (ditto for the Yorkshires: all of them) if you ignore London, but even there you have problems (which county is Bournemouth in? Hampshire? Dorset? What about in 1960?), but the further up you go the more dodgy it gets, and when you get to Scotland, well I just give up.
Pick a set of borders, call them names that are familiar to you, say that they are counties and pretend they've existed since the Romans. It'll work, and every generation has done it for hundreds of years: humans are like that. But they are people putting a shape on history and forcing it to make sense and be stable, when it didn't and wasn't. Mapping the present is hard enough. Mapping the past is a whole other bag of difficult.
*I'm happy to be contradicted on this bit: were some defined in law earlier? "Defined" as in their extent formally noted, that is.
Norfolk, the country of the North Angles, unchanged since ca 600AD
Another term of labour should see the end of that ;-)
Ball gets a short standing ovation from the Labour faithful of hope rather than expectation.
Perhaps the Scottish referendum has sucked the life out of the start of the conference.
The Labour activists I saw and talked to last time, seem to be very happy, mostly because of the referendum result.
The result I'm sure. But the backwash from the referendum is awful for Labour.
Ed seems determined not only to step into the EVEL mantrap but to revel in having the jaws of the problem bite into Labour English support at the general election.
I hope you're cheering them up and advising them that :
Ed Miliband Will Never Be Prime Minister.
I'm encouraging them all to take up The Sun's bacon buttie challenge.
They've loved it when I reminded them that the polling shows that Ed Miliband is the worst Leader of the Opposition since Michael Foot.
I don't think anyone has suggested anything about the Romans, though they had their local government boundaries too. The shires have really been in existence as an Anglo-Saxon construction and most pre-date the Conquest. The William the Bastard did stick his own imprint on the local government structure of his new Kingdom.
You ask if some Shires were formally defined prior to the 15th century. Well, yes, they were certainly from the Conquest because of the feudal system. Everyone who held land knew who they held it from.
To be sure there have been boundary changes and reorganisations. That of 1880 seems to be the first big one, before that things had been very settled for hundreds of years.
However, when it comes to contemporary politics where the county boundaries of, say, Sussex were in 1500 is neither here nor there. They will not have changed very much but the key thing is that there was a Sussex, not only in 1500 but also in 1000. There was not a South East Region.
A lot of counties were physically divided from each other by what were known as 'county banks' or 'county dykes' Some still exist as earthworks - for example between Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire and excavations have shown them to date back to the pre -conquest period.
In other cases such as between Lincolnshire and Leicestershire major Roman roads or pre-Saxon tracks were used to define county boundaries. Sewerstern Lane on the boundary between Lincolnshire and Leicestershire/Nottinghamshire is a good example of this.
The UK party that could attract the biggest % of current Labour supporters is the Lib Dems. To achieve that they would have to focus more on attacking Labour's image than the Conservatives. However, the LDs strategy for the past 4 years has been to primarily attack the image of the Conservatives. This has rebounded on the LDs by tarnishing their own image as untrustworthy partners. Meanwhile the LD 2010 voters have stuck with Labour as they see no reason to leave Labour and return to the LDs. If only the LDs understood that they should have spent more time on nurturing the image of coalitions as a good thing. But it is too late as the damage has been done.
The Lib Dems should never have entered a a full coalition with the Conservatives, or at least not on the terms that they did. They should have been supply and confidence partners at most.
Lib Dems had ben saying for 30+ years how wonderful; coalitions would be for the country... They could hardly walk away after espousing that.... well maybe after the tuition fee pledge!
They walked away from an offered coalition with the SNP in 2007, with hindsight perhaps one of their most momentous and self-harming recent decisions. If they had taken it up, no SLD implosion, 2011 SNP majority, referendum etc.
Apparently the Scottish Lib Dems were willing to be coalition partners but it was nixed from London. An odd maneuver for a supposedly federal party.
Sunny Hundal @sunny_hundal · 3 mins Ed Miliband tells me his big conf speech tomorrow (last before election) will be a broad brush on what a future Labour gov't will be like.
Sky has a headline: 'Balls to freeze child benfit to balance books'.
This will apparently save 400m over the course of a parliament.
Only slight gap I can see in this plan is that the deficit is still 100bn per year.
It's also tricksey
Balls is currently proposing extending the Tory freeze by 1 year.
So £160m of those savings are already in the budget deficit forecasts.
Effectively he's promising to save £80m p.a for 3 years. Useful, but only incremental.
More intereting was the minimum wage announcement (even if the increase is only 4% pa). They claimed - haven't seen the math - that it would save the government hundreds of £m in welfare payments
Balls has just promised to scrap PCCs if Labour form the next government. Would the Rotherham scandal have gone on as long and affected as many victims if there had been a PCC for the area, who needed to be re-elected? There would have been a clear person to complain to, over the heads of police and council social services. Presumably, there was a Policing Partnership or similar, which no-one had heard of, and no-one complained to. Fat load of good that did.
Socrates - I don't think you're actually arguing for "devolution" for England. You are arguing for a federal structure to replace the existing UK, with "Home Rule" in each of the 4 home nations, and those 4 nations pooling some degree of sovereignty for certain affairs like Defence.
A federal UK of 4 self-governing nations is an option, but a rather dramatic one, and I think the whole of the UK would need a referendum on that.
I think it may be time to declare Lancashire as independent. We will have our old historic borders and thrive on shale gas. Capital city - Lancaster, chosen football capital - Burnley. We will utilise the Lancashire pound. Sorted.
Suffice to say that if the Tory Party ever comes to a position where it wants an English Parliament, English First Minister and English Government, then that basically means the break-up of the Union, and I won't support that in a million years. I'd much rather the status quo than that.
Suffice to say, the concept that every other home nation deserves devolution but the English goes against every principle of fairness.
But is it "devolution" when the sheer size of England means that the UK and England are virtually coterminous and synonymous? The point of "devolution" is to ensure those 3 parts of the UK that are completely swamped by England's size and dominance, and who wouldn't otherwise have a voice, are able to run their own affairs on certain devolved issues.
The UK Government should continue to run England's affairs, and that has to happen if the Union is to continue. The anomaly that was never addressed was Scottish MPs voting on matters that affect England only and especially when they cannot vote any longer on such matters as affect Scotland. That is simply solved by EVEL, which could even be done on an informal Parliamentary procedure basis. That addresses the unfairness to England.
Talk of an "English Parliament" and "devolution" to England is folly. Totally unnecessary, pointlessly expensive, and would leave Westminster largely idle and the Union as good as dead.
We don't often agree Bob but in this case I think you are absolutely right. It is the simplest, cheapest and fairest solution and should be embraced by all the parties (I don't for a minute hold with this idea that it would give an inbuilt advantage to the Tories as the electorate rapidly adapts to the changing nature of the balance and votes accordingly.)
But in this situation a single chamber, elected in a single set of elections, would have two balancing points: one with the distributed weight of the UK, and one with the distributed weight of England. That will likely lead to centre-right dominance of the English committee and a centre-left dominance at the UK level.
No change with Populus...apart from UKIP down as noted by TSE
Latest Populus VI: Lab 37 (+1), Con 33 (+1), LD 9 (=), UKIP 12 (-3), Oth 8 (=)
Tory EV4EL bounce.
Removing Scottish and Welsh MPs helps get rid of 76 Labour MPs at the expense of 9 Tory ones.
Why not extend the logic into the capital - which itself has many devolved powers?
That does for another 44 Labour MPs. Admittedly the Tory hit is higher, but think about it for a bit: 120 Labour MPs vaquished to just 37 Tory MPs! What's not to like?
Then if I were Tory I'd eye up Liverpool and Manchester as cities which don't like Tories do their own thing. Pretty soon the Labour Party will have close to zero MPs!
I don't think anyone has suggested anything about the Romans, though they had their local government boundaries too. The shires have really been in existence as an Anglo-Saxon construction and most pre-date the Conquest. The William the Bastard did stick his own imprint on the local government structure of his new Kingdom.
You ask if some Shires were formally defined prior to the 15th century. Well, yes, they were certainly from the Conquest because of the feudal system. Everyone who held land knew who they held it from.
To be sure there have been boundary changes and reorganisations. That of 1880 seems to be the first big one, before that things had been very settled for hundreds of years.
However, when it comes to contemporary politics where the county boundaries of, say, Sussex were in 1500 is neither here nor there. They will not have changed very much but the key thing is that there was a Sussex, not only in 1500 but also in 1000. There was not a South East Region.
A lot of counties were physically divided from each other by what were known as 'county banks' or 'county dykes' Some still exist as earthworks - for example between Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire and excavations have shown them to date back to the pre -conquest period.
In other cases such as between Lincolnshire and Leicestershire major Roman roads or pre-Saxon tracks were used to define county boundaries. Sewerstern Lane on the boundary between Lincolnshire and Leicestershire/Nottinghamshire is a good example of this.
And a few years ago was a bu**er to walk down due to four-wheel drives churning up the track.
Thanks. I'd noticed the lane followed the county border for a fair few miles, but hadn't made the connection, and did not know the route was that old.
NavyLookout @NavyLookout 4 hrs BAE yard at Govan likely to be closed. All complex warships for the Royal Navy will be built on a single site in future - strategic folly
Scottish and Welsh Labour and Lib Dem MPs will vote down EV4EL if it is separated from the Scottish bill. Ludicrous I know.
...
The Lib Dems and Labour won't honour their half of the bargain.
Fine. Let them be seen to be blocking it and showing contempt for their electorate. If they are that stupid that close to an election then they deserve the storm that will be coming their way.
We'll be furious, but I don't think the general public will. Half of them will be pleased it screws the Tories anyway.
Labour will muddy the waters enough so that it appears there is blame all around and will promise some action when they get in, which will just turn out to be some watered down rubbish that doesn't mean anything. The promises about PR and English regions will suddenly disappear when they aren't needed to stop the Tories in.
You'd think the English might have been up in arms about Labour getting a clear majority in England in 2005 despite polling less votes, but no one actually cared in the slightest.
The only chance the Tories have of getting it through is tying the devomax proposals to EV4EL. If they don't then they are completely and utterly stupid. Again.
I don't think anyone has suggested anything about the Romans, though they had their local government boundaries too. The shires have really been in existence as an Anglo-Saxon construction and most pre-date the Conquest. The William the Bastard did stick his own imprint on the local government structure of his new Kingdom.
You ask if some Shires were formally defined prior to the 15th century. Well, yes, they were certainly from the Conquest because of the feudal system. Everyone who held land knew who they held it from.
To be sure there have been boundary changes and reorganisations. That of 1880 seems to be the first big one, before that things had been very settled for hundreds of years.
However, when it comes to contemporary politics where the county boundaries of, say, Sussex were in 1500 is neither here nor there. They will not have changed very much but the key thing is that there was a Sussex, not only in 1500 but also in 1000. There was not a South East Region.
A lot of counties were physically divided from each other by what were known as 'county banks' or 'county dykes' Some still exist as earthworks - for example between Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire and excavations have shown them to date back to the pre -conquest period.
In other cases such as between Lincolnshire and Leicestershire major Roman roads or pre-Saxon tracks were used to define county boundaries. Sewerstern Lane on the boundary between Lincolnshire and Leicestershire/Nottinghamshire is a good example of this.
From memory the boundary between Warwickshire and Staffordshire was put through the middle of Tamworth by the West Saxon kings of England to make the town much less important than it had been when it was the home of the Mercian court.
But is it "devolution" when the sheer size of England means that the UK and England are virtually coterminous and synonymous?
How would you like it if all the other UK countries could dabble in Scotland's affairs but Scotland had no way to prevent it?
Why is such a solution unacceptable for Scotland and acceptable for England?
Because Scotland only makes up 5m of the UK's 63m population. England has over 50m. For 300 years, the organs of Government in this country have by and large operated to govern England, with Scotland, Wales and NI getting whatever was deemed right for England. Only in recent years have we conceded that Wales, Scotland and NI have slightly different needs and priorities. So we devolved them some more powers over their own affairs.
"Devolution for England" is basically saying "England - aka the UK - is going to delegate some powers to England". It's daft and would result in pointless duplication, and little of "UK wide" concern left for the rump UK administration..
No change with Populus...apart from UKIP down as noted by TSE
Latest Populus VI: Lab 37 (+1), Con 33 (+1), LD 9 (=), UKIP 12 (-3), Oth 8 (=)
Tory EV4EL bounce.
Removing Scottish and Welsh MPs helps get rid of 76 Labour MPs at the expense of 9 Tory ones.
Why not extend the logic into the capital - which itself has many devolved powers?
That does for another 44 Labour MPs. Admittedly the Tory hit is higher, but think about it for a bit: 120 Labour MPs vaquished to just 37 Tory MPs! What's not to like?
Then if I were Tory I'd eye up Liverpool and Manchester as cities which don't like Tories do their own thing. Pretty soon the Labour Party will have close to zero MPs!
The Tories are only responding to places where Labour has given devolution to areas that vote left-wing.
No change with Populus...apart from UKIP down as noted by TSE
Latest Populus VI: Lab 37 (+1), Con 33 (+1), LD 9 (=), UKIP 12 (-3), Oth 8 (=)
Tory EV4EL bounce.
Removing Scottish and Welsh MPs helps get rid of 76 Labour MPs at the expense of 9 Tory ones.
Why not extend the logic into the capital - which itself has many devolved powers?
That does for another 44 Labour MPs. Admittedly the Tory hit is higher, but think about it for a bit: 120 Labour MPs vaquished to just 37 Tory MPs! What's not to like?
Then if I were Tory I'd eye up Liverpool and Manchester as cities which don't like Tories do their own thing. Pretty soon the Labour Party will have close to zero MPs!
Good man.
A finer proposal than any we've heard from the Labour Conference. Well done.
Socrates - I don't think you're actually arguing for "devolution" for England. You are arguing for a federal structure to replace the existing UK, with "Home Rule" in each of the 4 home nations, and those 4 nations pooling some degree of sovereignty for certain affairs like Defence.
A federal UK of 4 self-governing nations is an option, but a rather dramatic one, and I think the whole of the UK would need a referendum on that.
As I understand it, the only difference between devolution to an English parliament and a federal UK is that the former would mean sovereignty would remain at the UK level. I have a preference for the former, but practically it wouldn't make much difference.
Sky has a headline: 'Balls to freeze child benfit to balance books'.
This will apparently save 400m over the course of a parliament.
Only slight gap I can see in this plan is that the deficit is still 100bn per year.
It's also tricksey
Balls is currently proposing extending the Tory freeze by 1 year.
So £160m of those savings are already in the budget deficit forecasts.
Effectively he's promising to save £80m p.a for 3 years. Useful, but only incremental.
More intereting was the minimum wage announcement (even if the increase is only 4% pa). They claimed - haven't seen the math - that it would save the government hundreds of £m in welfare payments
only if those employers can afford to swallow the additional costs.. Its likely some jobs are not that economically viable at £7 an hour... The question is, is the decrease in working tax credits more than the increase in unemployment costs...
@HurstLlama Can Neo Capitalism evolve?, according to it's adherents it is the pinnacle of thought, and the panacea for all ills. Same thing with the communist dictatorships. Dogma trumps reality.
The difference being of cause that capitalism doesn't result in multiple millions of deaths as deliberate policey.
What sort of morality must a person have that doesn't think Capitalism is better than communism for human health etc.
NavyLookout @NavyLookout 4 hrs BAE yard at Govan likely to be closed. All complex warships for the Royal Navy will be built on a single site in future - strategic folly
I thought that had been announced a while back, at the same time it had been announced that Portsmouth shipbuilding was ending? Don't BAE want to build a super-shed at Scotstoun instead?
And as they're only a couple of miles apart, it's one site already from a strategic point of view, especially as neither site (if they had both been kept) would have been capable of building the ships.
Socrates - I don't think you're actually arguing for "devolution" for England. You are arguing for a federal structure to replace the existing UK, with "Home Rule" in each of the 4 home nations, and those 4 nations pooling some degree of sovereignty for certain affairs like Defence.
A federal UK of 4 self-governing nations is an option, but a rather dramatic one, and I think the whole of the UK would need a referendum on that.
Also this strikes me as a feature not a bug, but since the UK is going to be left doing things that are already duplicated at EU level, it seems like it'll be a matter of time before one of the UK member states decides to cut out the middleman.
Scottish and Welsh Labour and Lib Dem MPs will vote down EV4EL if it is separated from the Scottish bill. Ludicrous I know.
...
The Lib Dems and Labour won't honour their half of the bargain.
Fine. Let them be seen to be blocking it and showing contempt for their electorate. If they are that stupid that close to an election then they deserve the storm that will be coming their way.
Labour will muddy the waters enough so that it appears there is blame all around and will promise some action when they get in, which will just turn out to be some watered down rubbish that doesn't mean anything. .
By "watered down" you mean not caving in to some half baked proposal that wholly, exclusively and completely benefits the Tories?
The irony with BenM's suggestion is that if Ed Miliband's suggestion for more power for the big cities goes through, the EV4EL proposal could actually lead to such a situation. Far better for Labour just to have an English parliament. While they would be dealing with a centre-right electorate, it would be on friendlier domestic issues like health and education rather than macroeconomics and defence.
NavyLookout @NavyLookout 4 hrs BAE yard at Govan likely to be closed. All complex warships for the Royal Navy will be built on a single site in future - strategic folly
You missed this tweet:
There would be NO future for warship building in Glasgow in indy Scot. My point is RN needs more than just Scotstoun yard.
Socrates - I don't think you're actually arguing for "devolution" for England. You are arguing for a federal structure to replace the existing UK, with "Home Rule" in each of the 4 home nations, and those 4 nations pooling some degree of sovereignty for certain affairs like Defence.
A federal UK of 4 self-governing nations is an option, but a rather dramatic one, and I think the whole of the UK would need a referendum on that.
Also this strikes me as a feature not a bug, but since the UK is going to be left doing things that are already duplicated at EU level, it seems like it'll be a matter of time before one of the UK member states decides to cut out the middleman.
Given that the biggest areas likely to be reserved for the UK level would be defence and macroeconomics, why on Earth would any of the nations prefer the EU to do that? The response to the debt crisis and the Libya/Ukraine scenarios shows that the EU is fantastically shit at both.
@Gaius "The difference being of cause that capitalism doesn't result in multiple millions of deaths as deliberate policey." No, it causes untold millions of deaths through it's blind indifference.
The UK party that could attract the biggest % of current Labour supporters is the Lib Dems. To achieve that they would have to focus more on attacking Labour's image than the Conservatives. However, the LDs strategy for the past 4 years has been to primarily attack the image of the Conservatives. This has rebounded on the LDs by tarnishing their own image as untrustworthy partners. Meanwhile the LD 2010 voters have stuck with Labour as they see no reason to leave Labour and return to the LDs. If only the LDs understood that they should have spent more time on nurturing the image of coalitions as a good thing. But it is too late as the damage has been done.
The Lib Dems should never have entered a a full coalition with the Conservatives, or at least not on the terms that they did. They should have been supply and confidence partners at most.
Lib Dems had ben saying for 30+ years how wonderful; coalitions would be for the country... They could hardly walk away after espousing that.... well maybe after the tuition fee pledge!
They walked away from an offered coalition with the SNP in 2007, with hindsight perhaps one of their most momentous and self-harming recent decisions. If they had taken it up, no SLD implosion, 2011 SNP majority, referendum etc.
Apparently the Scottish Lib Dems were willing to be coalition partners but it was nixed from London. An odd maneuver for a supposedly federal party.
Of course it may have been a cunning plan to reach the explosion of home rule/federalism we're experiencing.
But is it "devolution" when the sheer size of England means that the UK and England are virtually coterminous and synonymous?
How would you like it if all the other UK countries could dabble in Scotland's affairs but Scotland had no way to prevent it?
Why is such a solution unacceptable for Scotland and acceptable for England?
Because Scotland only makes up 5m of the UK's 63m population. England has over 50m.
So there is an upper limit to the right of self-determination? Above that limit it is OK for others to decide outcomes even if it is none of their business?
"Devolution for England" is basically saying "England - aka the UK - is going to delegate some powers to England". It's daft and would result in pointless duplication, and little of "UK wide" concern left for the rump UK administration..
No, it does not have to be that way. Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England could be given control over everything in their countries except Foreign Affairs, International Development and Defence which would remain at the UK level. Budgets would be devolved down and each country is given autonomy to spend it as it sees fit within EU constraints.
Frankly, it is none of Scotland's business how England spends English money inside English borders and vice versa. It has to be devolution for all or devolution for none. Anything else is simply unfair.
@Gaius "The difference being of cause that capitalism doesn't result in multiple millions of deaths as deliberate policey." No, it causes untold millions of deaths through it's blind indifference.
Which is why the capitalist world saw far better extensions of human life and far lower child mortality than the socialist bloc, or than the feudalist system that existed in the Middle Ages.
Scottish and Welsh Labour and Lib Dem MPs will vote down EV4EL if it is separated from the Scottish bill. Ludicrous I know.
...
The Lib Dems and Labour won't honour their half of the bargain.
Fine. Let them be seen to be blocking it and showing contempt for their electorate. If they are that stupid that close to an election then they deserve the storm that will be coming their way.
Labour will muddy the waters enough so that it appears there is blame all around and will promise some action when they get in, which will just turn out to be some watered down rubbish that doesn't mean anything. .
By "watered down" you mean not caving in to some half baked proposal that wholly, exclusively and completely benefits the Tories?
It doesn't just benefit the Tories. It benefits the English by preventing Scottish MPs voting on English matters when English MPs cannot do the same in Scotland.
That you are unable to even see this shows that you view things completely through the prism of partizan Labour politics.
Frigate factory plan gets the go-ahead SHIPYARD bosses are going ahead with plans to build a state- of-the-art frigate factory on the Clyde after the country rejected independence.
Work on the construction of a hi-tech facility costing more than £200million is to go out to tender in a few months' time in the hope Glasgow will be chosen to build a new warship fleet.
Defence giant BAE Systems has stayed silent on the future of its shipyards at Scotstoun and Govan in the run-up to the independence referendum..
But on the day Scotland rejected independence BAE issued a statement.
It read: "We welcome the decision by the Scottish people to remain within the United Kingdom.
"Continued union provides a stable footing and more certain future for our people, businesses and future investments in Scotland."
Socrates - I don't think you're actually arguing for "devolution" for England. You are arguing for a federal structure to replace the existing UK, with "Home Rule" in each of the 4 home nations, and those 4 nations pooling some degree of sovereignty for certain affairs like Defence.
A federal UK of 4 self-governing nations is an option, but a rather dramatic one, and I think the whole of the UK would need a referendum on that.
Also this strikes me as a feature not a bug, but since the UK is going to be left doing things that are already duplicated at EU level, it seems like it'll be a matter of time before one of the UK member states decides to cut out the middleman.
Given that the biggest areas likely to be reserved for the UK level would be defence and macroeconomics, why on Earth would any of the nations prefer the EU to do that? The response to the debt crisis and the Libya/Ukraine scenarios shows that the EU is fantastically shit at both.
They're fantastically shit at both at the moment, but they'll learn.
But is it "devolution" when the sheer size of England means that the UK and England are virtually coterminous and synonymous?
How would you like it if all the other UK countries could dabble in Scotland's affairs but Scotland had no way to prevent it?
Why is such a solution unacceptable for Scotland and acceptable for England?
Because Scotland only makes up 5m of the UK's 63m population. England has over 50m.
So there is an upper limit to the right of self-determination? Above that limit it is OK for others to decide outcomes even if it is none of their business?
"Devolution for England" is basically saying "England - aka the UK - is going to delegate some powers to England". It's daft and would result in pointless duplication, and little of "UK wide" concern left for the rump UK administration..
No, it does not have to be that way. Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England could be given control over everything in their countries except Foreign Affairs, International Development and Defence which would remain at the UK level. Budgets would be devolved down and each country is given autonomy to spend it as it sees fit within EU constraints.
Frankly, it is none of Scotland's business how England spends English money inside English borders and vice versa. It has to be devolution for all or devolution for none. Anything else is simply unfair.
It seems like a very odd argument to say "we can't devolve powers that only affect England to an English parliament, as otherwise there wouldn't be anything for the UK to do." If that were true, there doesn't seem much point in the union anyway. Luckily, that's not true: things like trade and industry, foreign policy, defence, immigration, energy, and of course economic matters are hugely important.
@Socrates You can define "quality of life" in monetary terms/ length? Nice and simple then, except of course that people know it is far more complex than that. (well, most people)
Comments
Neo Capitalism, is the belief that market forces will always find the best solution to a countries, or a populations needs.
The idea of separating out the City of London from the rest of London is madness.
The popularly-held myth that the counties are ancient and stable is exactly that: popularly held, and a myth. It's so popularly held that I have no chance of dislodging it, but it is still fictional. You could make a case that it is so for the south and south west of England where they are pretty stable (ditto for the Yorkshires: all of them) if you ignore London, but even there you have problems (which county is Bournemouth in? Hampshire? Dorset? What about in 1960?), but the further up you go the more dodgy it gets, and when you get to Scotland, well I just give up.
Pick a set of borders, call them names that are familiar to you, say that they are counties and pretend they've existed since the Romans. It'll work, and every generation has done it for hundreds of years: humans are like that. But they are people putting a shape on history and forcing it to make sense and be stable, when it didn't and wasn't. Mapping the present is hard enough. Mapping the past is a whole other bag of difficult.
*I'm happy to be contradicted on this bit: were some defined in law earlier? "Defined" as in their extent formally noted, that is.
Do you think Heywood & Middleton will tell us more about the true level of support??
I see Eric Joyce MP (ex-SLAB) has written a Graun piece on Labour's prospects. He struck me as being pretty level-headed and sensible in his comments on the Falkirk fiasco, so this is worth a look, especially given Mr Miliband's direct personal involvement:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/22/labour-scottish-referendum-devolution-general-election-scotland
"In the aftermath of last week’s referendum, Labour is the party with the most to lose. Indemnified by the Scottish no vote, David Cameron has beaten Ukip to the “standing up for England” argument and would no longer be seen as the man who lost Scotland should new, second-tier rights for Scottish MPs lead to eventual independence.
Meanwhile, Labour is in deep trouble. Without dealing with the West Lothian question, Labour MPs and candidates in England will have no answer to the question of why they would support Scots having higher levels of expenditure than those available to poor areas of England, and to those Scots having a say in English-only matters.
In Scotland, before the vote, these asymmetric implications of the vow were understood with great clarity, as they obviously were by the three leaders. Labour has taken the biggest hit because it had been relied on to deliver large Scottish Labour votes to no. In the event, that vote marched towards yes, and more than 40% of Scottish Labour voters chose yes in the end despite the vow being aimed wholly at keeping such voters onside. Unless dramatic measures are taken, and fast, Labour will continue to be punished for the strategic error of neglecting its machinery in Scotland and for taking voters for granted."
Early days yet; Mr @Roger of this parish thinks it will come to nothing; and he may be right - but I have not seen his working.
I don't think your views are illegitimate. I just think there's a double standard there that you're trying to hand-wave away.
Perhaps the Scottish referendum has sucked the life out of the start of the conference.
Edit - in all seriousness, why would an East Anglian want to be lumped in with the corrupt kiddie fiddler deniers of Rochdale, the spivs in the City of London, or the insufferable social climbers of the South Coast?
I laid the 1.09 but fear I am sticking with a dud hand
The Heptarchy of course is a bit of a misnomer, there was probably never a time when those seven kingdoms, and only those, existed. When Essex and Kent were still independent, Northumbria was split into Bernicia and Deira, there were independent kingdoms such as Hwicce and Lindsey in what would later be Mercia, and there were still British kingdoms such as Elmet.
London of course was originally part of Essex.
He's the antithesis of Stuart Dickson.
The UK Government should continue to run England's affairs, and that has to happen if the Union is to continue. The anomaly that was never addressed was Scottish MPs voting on matters that affect England only and especially when they cannot vote any longer on such matters as affect Scotland. That is simply solved by EVEL, which could even be done on an informal Parliamentary procedure basis. That addresses the unfairness to England.
Talk of an "English Parliament" and "devolution" to England is folly. Totally unnecessary, pointlessly expensive, and would leave Westminster largely idle and the Union as good as dead.
Ed may not just have the West Lothian question in 2015 to deal with, but the West Swansea question, too.
English votes for English measure doesn;t get rid of 40 labour MPs from English measures, it gets rid of close to 70.
Plus other left leaning lib votes...
Ed seems determined not only to step into the EVEL mantrap but to revel in having the jaws of the problem bite into Labour English support at the general election.
I hope you're cheering them up and advising them that :
Ed Miliband Will Never Be Prime Minister.
If England shrugs its shoulders and Ed wins an overall majority anyway, and EVEL dies, then so be it. England will have spoken.
But the Tories will have neutralised the threat of UKIP and other associated English Nationalist rabbles ganging up on the Tories in GE2015.
Cameron simply cannot be seen as the "blocker" of more powers to Scotland. He's finished if he doesn;t deliver, the Tories are finished, and the Union is finished.
And, if you're a Yes voter who wants the other parties to make good on their commitment to more devolution, it makes sense to vote SNP.
Edit - let's simplify.
East Anglia
Flat cap and whippet land
Stupid social climber/Masters of the puniverse land
They've loved it when I reminded them that the polling shows that Ed Miliband is the worst Leader of the Opposition since Michael Foot.
On the other hand, what does he have to lose North of the Border...
They need to be combined.
If Cameron allows this it will show he's learned nothing from when he allowed the AV referendum and the equalised boundaries to be separated. The Lib Dems and Labour won't honour their half of the bargain.
You ask if some Shires were formally defined prior to the 15th century. Well, yes, they were certainly from the Conquest because of the feudal system. Everyone who held land knew who they held it from.
To be sure there have been boundary changes and reorganisations. That of 1880 seems to be the first big one, before that things had been very settled for hundreds of years.
However, when it comes to contemporary politics where the county boundaries of, say, Sussex were in 1500 is neither here nor there. They will not have changed very much but the key thing is that there was a Sussex, not only in 1500 but also in 1000. There was not a South East Region.
Any hope of a Scottish Tory resurgence materialising on the ground post the indy ref?
a) Vote Labour in May 2015
b) Vote Labour in May 2015 if "The Vow" is not delivered?
The Tories can only lose 1 MP at the worst so there is not a lot of downside for them.
EVEL should be solved by creating a Greater Empire of Rutland with parliament sitting in Oakham Castle and all English members bringing their "Horseshoe of Office" on signing the "Roll of Rutland".
Sorted.
I'm off I cannot be doing with the vile socialist corruption
But remember they wouldn't be able to vote on English matters (probably)!
In other cases such as between Lincolnshire and Leicestershire major Roman roads or pre-Saxon tracks were used to define county boundaries. Sewerstern Lane on the boundary between Lincolnshire and Leicestershire/Nottinghamshire is a good example of this.
Ed Miliband tells me his big conf speech tomorrow (last before election) will be a broad brush on what a future Labour gov't will be like.
8 months from a GE and it's still 'broad bush'
Wow that blank piece of paper is still going...
Balls is currently proposing extending the Tory freeze by 1 year.
So £160m of those savings are already in the budget deficit forecasts.
Effectively he's promising to save £80m p.a for 3 years. Useful, but only incremental.
More intereting was the minimum wage announcement (even if the increase is only 4% pa). They claimed - haven't seen the math - that it would save the government hundreds of £m in welfare payments
Why is such a solution unacceptable for Scotland and acceptable for England?
Would the Rotherham scandal have gone on as long and affected as many victims if there had been a PCC for the area, who needed to be re-elected? There would have been a clear person to complain to, over the heads of police and council social services.
Presumably, there was a Policing Partnership or similar, which no-one had heard of, and no-one complained to. Fat load of good that did.
A federal UK of 4 self-governing nations is an option, but a rather dramatic one, and I think the whole of the UK would need a referendum on that.
Removing Scottish and Welsh MPs helps get rid of 76 Labour MPs at the expense of 9 Tory ones.
Why not extend the logic into the capital - which itself has many devolved powers?
That does for another 44 Labour MPs. Admittedly the Tory hit is higher, but think about it for a bit: 120 Labour MPs vaquished to just 37 Tory MPs! What's not to like?
Then if I were Tory I'd eye up Liverpool and Manchester as cities which don't like Tories do their own thing. Pretty soon the Labour Party will have close to zero MPs!
Thanks. I'd noticed the lane followed the county border for a fair few miles, but hadn't made the connection, and did not know the route was that old.
NavyLookout @NavyLookout 4 hrs
BAE yard at Govan likely to be closed. All complex warships for the Royal Navy will be built on a single site in future - strategic folly
Labour will muddy the waters enough so that it appears there is blame all around and will promise some action when they get in, which will just turn out to be some watered down rubbish that doesn't mean anything. The promises about PR and English regions will suddenly disappear when they aren't needed to stop the Tories in.
You'd think the English might have been up in arms about Labour getting a clear majority in England in 2005 despite polling less votes, but no one actually cared in the slightest.
The only chance the Tories have of getting it through is tying the devomax proposals to EV4EL. If they don't then they are completely and utterly stupid. Again.
"Devolution for England" is basically saying "England - aka the UK - is going to delegate some powers to England". It's daft and would result in pointless duplication, and little of "UK wide" concern left for the rump UK administration..
A finer proposal than any we've heard from the Labour Conference. Well done.
What sort of morality must a person have that doesn't think Capitalism is better than communism for human health etc.
And as they're only a couple of miles apart, it's one site already from a strategic point of view, especially as neither site (if they had both been kept) would have been capable of building the ships.
There would be NO future for warship building in Glasgow in indy Scot. My point is RN needs more than just Scotstoun yard.
"The difference being of cause that capitalism doesn't result in multiple millions of deaths as deliberate policey."
No, it causes untold millions of deaths through it's blind indifference.
Or not.
Frankly, it is none of Scotland's business how England spends English money inside English borders and vice versa. It has to be devolution for all or devolution for none. Anything else is simply unfair.
That you are unable to even see this shows that you view things completely through the prism of partizan Labour politics.
Frigate factory plan gets the go-ahead
SHIPYARD bosses are going ahead with plans to build a state- of-the-art frigate factory on the Clyde after the country rejected independence.
Work on the construction of a hi-tech facility costing more than £200million is to go out to tender in a few months' time in the hope Glasgow will be chosen to build a new warship fleet.
Defence giant BAE Systems has stayed silent on the future of its shipyards at Scotstoun and Govan in the run-up to the independence referendum..
But on the day Scotland rejected independence BAE issued a statement.
It read: "We welcome the decision by the Scottish people to remain within the United Kingdom.
"Continued union provides a stable footing and more certain future for our people, businesses and future investments in Scotland."
http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/frigate-factory-plan-gets-the-go-ahead-181304n.25375629
You can define "quality of life" in monetary terms/ length?
Nice and simple then, except of course that people know it is far more complex than that.
(well, most people)