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!
All very droll but London has little devolved. I'm happy to be correted but probably less than the old GLC. Thats the point its a glorified county council if that. local mgovernment is not devolution and its certainly not the extra devolution which isa to be granted to Scotland - something which is the whole point of the issue. Having just read the transcript of EdM's pantomime of an interview (any relation BTW?) in the Mail I am frankly appalled at the level of disembling (and I am not talking about AndyM). ''Miliband: ... I tell you what, there isn’t a simple answer to this question. Marr: Yes there is. Miliband: No there isn’t.''
Miliband - 'Where's the electorate?' Audience - 'Its behind you!'
Laughably and with no trace of self awareness he says that English only MPs voting on English matters is complicated and must be taken slowly. No problems for Labour to push through the original half baked proposal which caused the 'complexity'!
@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)
You can throw in individual liberty from oppressive government too if you like. On pretty much any metric, people's lives are clearly better in the capitalist world than they were in the communist world. And people were bright enough to see that. The Iron Curtain had to be built to stop people fleeing from East to West, not the other way around.
@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.
No, communism deliberately and knowingly kills people as deliberate govt policy.
Whereas Capitalism actively attempts to met peoples needs by selling them food, healthcare etc. It is only govt that stops Capitalism working properly. Govt tax forces up the price of food, govt regulations forces up the cost of healthcare but reduces the standard.
What sort of morality does someone have if they knowingly support communism over Capitalism?
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 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.
I agree. My point revolved more around border definition and stability; the number of counties, their names, their borders, and their functions aren't stable over millenial time periods. They're Trigger's Brooms; reinvented every 50-100 years. The existence of concepts such as "Sussex", "Norfolk", etc since 1000 doesn't contradict my point that the names, borders, number and functions of counties of England** aren't stable.
** Ignoring the distinction of England from Wales and Northumberland for the moment
Weren't a lot of the counties mentioned in the Domesday book?
See above
What I'd really like to do is an animated map of "areas used for local administration by local powers" from, say, 500 to 2014. It would wobble like a wobbly thing. But that is for the future: now if you will excuse me, I'm decorating my living room...:-(
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.
There are some good papers in the Journal of the Thoroton Society on the development of county and parish boundaries in late pre- conquest and early post conquest times. Just reading the boundaries can tell you a huge amount about pre-conquest settlement and outside of the cites most of the parish boundaries have been unchanged since they were first created.
Edit.
Sewestern Lane and the offshoot LongHedge Lane which leads up to the Trent by RAF Syerston are generally considered to be pre-Roman in age.
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.
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.
Like the EU learned from the ERM debacle by creating the EMU?
EV4EL is becoming even more of a disaster for Labour than I thought possible... with terms like "English nationalism" being thrown around now theyre coming across as having lost the plot completely in terms of the presentation.
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".
EV4EL is becoming even more of a disaster for Labour than I thought possible... with words like "English nationalism" being thrown around now theyre coming across as having lost the plot completely in terms of the presentation.
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.
Previously I was quite happy for the UK to be governed as a single unit but if others want self-determination without outside interference then I want it as well.
Luckily, that's not true: things like trade and industry, foreign policy, defence, immigration, energy, and of course economic matters are hugely important.
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?
No it wholly, exclusively and completely benefits the English electorate. But of course you don't care about that, only the party politics.
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.
Like the EU learned from the ERM debacle by creating the EMU?
Dunno what debacle you're talking about, there was a local British issue but that was mainly a British thing. The ERM as a whole worked as intended (unlike EMU).
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.
BAE suggested it was a possibility, however Carmichael was saying only a couple of months ago that 'the workers at Rosyth, Govan and Scotstoun need assurances on what the future may hold in an independent Scotland. We can give those as part of the UK and of the fourth largest defence budget in the world.'
Would have been nice to know what those UK assurances actually meant.
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
What about unemployment payments? What about lost revenue in coropration tax (as profits would be spent on wages). What about increased inflation and its knock on effect on welfare and pension payments? Just another Labour free lunch policy. The money has to come from somewhere - ultimately all our pockets one way or another.
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.
I genuinely do not understand how anyone can, once their partisan blinkers are removed, argue with that. It's ludicrous, laughable and delusional behaviour.
It also has the benefit of being so simple to understand that 99% of non-blinkered people won't be taken in by the self-serving, dissembling bullshit trying to persuade them otherwise.
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...
How many more times are employers going to cry wolf over the affordibility of the minimum wage? Happens every time. Always ends up with more jobs created. Funny how firms cant afford a few pence extra per hour for workers but can increase Boardroom pay at well over inflation every year.
EV4EL is becoming even more of a disaster for Labour than I thought possible... with words like "English nationalism" being thrown around now theyre coming across as having lost the plot completely in terms of the presentation.
Why do you think EV4EL is a disaster for Lab?
It's allowed the Tories to occupy the wildly popular "constitutional reform that purely coincidentally helps my party" territory that has been such a huge electoral success for the LibDems over the years.
What I'd really like to do is an animated map of "areas used for local administration by local powers" from, say, 500 to 2014. It would wobble like a wobbly thing. But that is for the future: now if you will excuse me, I'm decorating my living room...:-(
You wouldn't get anything from much before the mid to late 9th century at the earliest. Nucleated village settlement is only really existed since the late 9th century and was crucial in the development of the parish and county system which incorporated the wapentakes to form the intermediate districts.
There is some evidence that some of the parishes were based on pre-existing Romano-British estates (Southwell in Nottinghamshire is a good example of this with an early charter roughly matching the RB villa estate.)
But the development of counties as administrative units based on the amalgamation of early wapentakes is a late Saxon/early Norman creation and there has not been that much tinkering with them as far as we can tell until the modern era.
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.
Like the EU learned from the ERM debacle by creating the EMU?
Dunno what debacle you're talking about, there was a local British issue but that was mainly a British thing. The ERM as a whole worked as intended (unlike EMU).
I thought Britain was considered an integral part of the EU back then?
What I'd really like to do is an animated map of "areas used for local administration by local powers" from, say, 500 to 2014. It would wobble like a wobbly thing. But that is for the future: now if you will excuse me, I'm decorating my living room...:-(
You wouldn't get anything from much before the mid to late 9th century at the earliest. Nucleated village settlement is only really existed since the late 9th century and was crucial in the development of the parish and county system which incorporated the wapentakes to form the intermediate districts.
There is some evidence that some of the parishes were based on pre-existing Romano-British estates (Southwell in Nottinghamshire is a good example of this with an early charter roughly matching the RB villa estate.)
But the development of counties as administrative units based on the amalgamation of early wapentakes is a late Saxon/early Norman creation and there has not been that much tinkering with them as far as we can tell until the modern era.
There appear (at least according to Wikipedia) to have been Kings of Essex from the early (ish) 6th C.
UKIP are going to go into the next election being able to say they're the only party which will offer an English parliament.
Really?
"People of England. Nigel Farage is the only party leader offering to spend hundreds of millions of pounds a year, perhaps more, in setting up another layer of government and bureaucracy, and this one's a biggie - not just an assembly for 5m Scots, but another layer of government for the whole of England. Imagine having the luxury of an MP to send to the UK Parliament in London and another to the English Parliament in London. Think about all those leaflets through the door! You're crying out for more politicians - well, Nigel's the man to give them to you. Do you look longingly at those sexy new assemblies in Cardiff Bay and Edinburgh, and think "why can't England spend £400m on its own brand new massively over-budget parliament building"? - well now's your chance of having one of your own!"
Is that what UKIP are going to be treating us to in the campaign?
What I'd really like to do is an animated map of "areas used for local administration by local powers" from, say, 500 to 2014. It would wobble like a wobbly thing. But that is for the future: now if you will excuse me, I'm decorating my living room...:-(
You wouldn't get anything from much before the mid to late 9th century at the earliest. Nucleated village settlement is only really existed since the late 9th century and was crucial in the development of the parish and county system which incorporated the wapentakes to form the intermediate districts.
There is some evidence that some of the parishes were based on pre-existing Romano-British estates (Southwell in Nottinghamshire is a good example of this with an early charter roughly matching the RB villa estate.)
But the development of counties as administrative units based on the amalgamation of early wapentakes is a late Saxon/early Norman creation and there has not been that much tinkering with them as far as we can tell until the modern era.
There appear (at least according to Wikipedia) to have been Kings of Essex from the early (ish) 6th C.
Essex was a Kingdom and not a county. The post-conquest boundaries of Essex as a county bear little resemblance to the area covered by the Kingdom of the East Saxons in the early post-Roman period.
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.
Lancaster's a dump, sadly.
Have the seat of power in the biggest city, Manchester. Would also pee the Scousers off. :-)
Otherwise, all sounds good, particularly re the spiritual home of Lancastrian football!
I have long seen no reason why Lancashire shouldn't operate as its own Royal Duchy as part of England and the UK. The Duke of Lancaster might enjoy having to spend time here as well as in Buck House, Norfolk and drizzly Balmoral! Plenty of decent properties up in the Ribble Valley, and she has reputedly said it's her favourite part of her Kingdom to which she would like to "retire"...!
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.
Lancaster's a dump, sadly.
Have the seat of power in the biggest city, Manchester. Would also pee the Scousers off. :-)
Otherwise, all sounds good, particularly re the spiritual home of Lancastrian football!
I have long seen no reason why Lancashire shouldn't operate as its own Royal Duchy as part of England and the UK. The Duke of Lancaster might enjoy having to spend time here as well as in Buck House, Norfolk and drizzly Balmoral! Plenty of decent properties up in the Ribble Valley, and she has reputedly said it's her favourite part of her Kingdom to which she would like to "retire"...!
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.
Lancaster's a dump, sadly.
Have the seat of power in the biggest city, Manchester. Would also pee the Scousers off. :-)
Otherwise, all sounds good, particularly re the spiritual home of Lancastrian football!
I have long seen no reason why Lancashire shouldn't operate as its own Royal Duchy as part of England and the UK. The Duke of Lancaster might enjoy having to spend time here as well as in Buck House, Norfolk and drizzly Balmoral! Plenty of decent properties up in the Ribble Valley, and she has reputedly said it's her favourite part of her Kingdom to which she would like to "retire"...!
As a proud Lancastrian when I felt brave enough I used to remain seated during the loyal toast. When everyone else had sat down I'd get up and toast the "The Duke of Lancaster".
If you are in Lancashire itself the correct form is to toast "Our Duke" -
Comments
local mgovernment is not devolution and its certainly not the extra devolution which isa to be granted to Scotland - something which is the whole point of the issue.
Having just read the transcript of EdM's pantomime of an interview (any relation BTW?) in the Mail I am frankly appalled at the level of disembling (and I am not talking about AndyM).
''Miliband: ... I tell you what, there isn’t a simple answer to this question.
Marr: Yes there is.
Miliband: No there isn’t.''
Miliband - 'Where's the electorate?'
Audience - 'Its behind you!'
Laughably and with no trace of self awareness he says that English only MPs voting on English matters is complicated and must be taken slowly. No problems for Labour to push through the original half baked proposal which caused the 'complexity'!
Whereas Capitalism actively attempts to met peoples needs by selling them food, healthcare etc. It is only govt that stops Capitalism working properly. Govt tax forces up the price of food, govt regulations forces up the cost of healthcare but reduces the standard.
What sort of morality does someone have if they knowingly support communism over Capitalism?
I agree. My point revolved more around border definition and stability; the number of counties, their names, their borders, and their functions aren't stable over millenial time periods. They're Trigger's Brooms; reinvented every 50-100 years. The existence of concepts such as "Sussex", "Norfolk", etc since 1000 doesn't contradict my point that the names, borders, number and functions of counties of England** aren't stable.
** Ignoring the distinction of England from Wales and Northumberland for the moment See above See above
What I'd really like to do is an animated map of "areas used for local administration by local powers" from, say, 500 to 2014. It would wobble like a wobbly thing. But that is for the future: now if you will excuse me, I'm decorating my living room...:-(
Edit.
Sewestern Lane and the offshoot LongHedge Lane which leads up to the Trent by RAF Syerston are generally considered to be pre-Roman in age.
Russia was to all intents a dictatorship, run for the privileged few. Capitalism in it's more extreme forms becomes the same.
BAE suggested it was a possibility, however Carmichael was saying only a couple of months ago that 'the workers at Rosyth, Govan and Scotstoun need assurances on what the future may hold in an independent Scotland. We can give those as part of the UK and of the fourth largest defence budget in the world.'
Would have been nice to know what those UK assurances actually meant.
Just another Labour free lunch policy. The money has to come from somewhere - ultimately all our pockets one way or another.
It also has the benefit of being so simple to understand that 99% of non-blinkered people won't be taken in by the self-serving, dissembling bullshit trying to persuade them otherwise.
There is some evidence that some of the parishes were based on pre-existing Romano-British estates (Southwell in Nottinghamshire is a good example of this with an early charter roughly matching the RB villa estate.)
But the development of counties as administrative units based on the amalgamation of early wapentakes is a late Saxon/early Norman creation and there has not been that much tinkering with them as far as we can tell until the modern era.
Jeremy Cliffe @JeremyCliffe
Ha! Govt statement from Nov warns against rushed answer to English question, says it shld be "thorough & rigorous": https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/264086/8749.pdf
How about 'EM (not) for PM?'
Personally I think Miliband is one bacon sandwich short of a picnic.
"People of England. Nigel Farage is the only party leader offering to spend hundreds of millions of pounds a year, perhaps more, in setting up another layer of government and bureaucracy, and this one's a biggie - not just an assembly for 5m Scots, but another layer of government for the whole of England. Imagine having the luxury of an MP to send to the UK Parliament in London and another to the English Parliament in London. Think about all those leaflets through the door! You're crying out for more politicians - well, Nigel's the man to give them to you. Do you look longingly at those sexy new assemblies in Cardiff Bay and Edinburgh, and think "why can't England spend £400m on its own brand new massively over-budget parliament building"? - well now's your chance of having one of your own!"
Is that what UKIP are going to be treating us to in the campaign?
Hope so!
http://linkis.com/wp.me/pn0CW
Have the seat of power in the biggest city, Manchester. Would also pee the Scousers off. :-)
Otherwise, all sounds good, particularly re the spiritual home of Lancastrian football!
I have long seen no reason why Lancashire shouldn't operate as its own Royal Duchy as part of England and the UK. The Duke of Lancaster might enjoy having to spend time here as well as in Buck House, Norfolk and drizzly Balmoral! Plenty of decent properties up in the Ribble Valley, and she has reputedly said it's her favourite part of her Kingdom to which she would like to "retire"...!
http://www.lancashirelife.co.uk/people/lord_shuttleworth_the_monarch_s_red_rose_guardian_1_1570154
Have the seat of power in the biggest city, Manchester. Would also pee the Scousers off. :-)
Otherwise, all sounds good, particularly re the spiritual home of Lancastrian football!
I have long seen no reason why Lancashire shouldn't operate as its own Royal Duchy as part of England and the UK. The Duke of Lancaster might enjoy having to spend time here as well as in Buck House, Norfolk and drizzly Balmoral! Plenty of decent properties up in the Ribble Valley, and she has reputedly said it's her favourite part of her Kingdom to which she would like to "retire"...!
http://www.lancashirelife.co.uk/people/lord_shuttleworth_the_monarch_s_red_rose_guardian_1_1570154
If you are in Lancashire itself the correct form is to toast "Our Duke" -