VoteEnglish.org

[Mick Mac]

Posh English chap suggesting all English people should vote for him.

Apparently Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are taking everyone's money.

The English get a raw deal.

Vote for the English Democrats.........

Could these people be worse than the BNP?

[ruffers]

Well they managed to look even more amateurish.

[????]

They've got a point though

[Mick Mac]

You will probably edit that to a point "." in the morning. You're not talking any sense tonight, I'll put that down to St Georges day.

[????]

Can I borrow that yellow dress of yours tomorrow?

[Mick Mac]

You might have misunderstood the significance of the day Quids.

Its St Georges day - Not St Georgeous Day - you don't have to dress up.

Anyway - Sean will be back from his StGeorges day celebrations soon - you can have one of his dresses.

[Huguenot]

Ha! That site was hilarious!

Their agenda stems from feelings of gross inadequacy, and their delivery comes across like a purple faced child squealing in a supermarket aisle because they can't have the pretty-coloured box.

[Acid Casual]

???? Wrote:

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> They've got a point though

They don't. England/Britain is no different from any other county - Its capital essentially subsidises the rest of the country (or wherever the financial centre of that respective country is)

Moving on, the ad was also littered with really basic inaccuracies. "Scotland get a national holiday for their Saint's day, so should we." Well, that's not true in any way you pillock. You'd think you'd think they'd check these things out before spouting.

[Brendan]

The glory of the empire. Wales steals English money. Devolve from the parasites and no surrender to the IRA. God save the queen etc...

Happy St Georges day.

[woofmarkthedog]

"????"s

You, Brum & Sean get hungry last night..?

"Slags..."

W**F

[Loz]

They don't. England/Britain is no different from any other county - Its capital essentially subsidises the rest of the country (or wherever the financial centre of that respective country is)

Not Australia. WA and QLD mining is bankrolling the country. Canberra is unproductive (in most senses of the word) and Sydney is like high maintenance dolly bird of a girlfriend. Looks pretty, but is generally useless.

[????]

See also Rome

[Huguenot]

See loads of places.

In the US the bankrollers are California, Texas, New York and Florida in that order. DC is a tiny fraction of those.

Beijing offers very little, you'd need to look at the SARs of Shanghai, Hong Kong and Shenzhen.

It doesn't get away from the fact that wealth generation is usually polarised and less wealthy areas are subsidised. The subsidies are generally supported because either it's convenient or it prevents social breakdown that may impact upon prospects for further wealth generation.

Myopic types often think they can keep the wealth and drop the subsidies - then they can't understand why it's all gone wrong.

[Jeremy]

To be fair, he did say "or wherever the financial centre of that respective country is". There are plenty of countries where the administrative capital is not the financial/commercial hub.

[Huguenot]

Sorry, you're quite right.

I was just musing that being a capital didn't necessarily mean the imposition of centralised social controls through economic power.

[Brendan]

Not all economies are based around a centralised financial services industry either.

[Jeremy]

I don't really understand the complaints of England being a "cash-cow" for the rest of Britain. There are plenty of poor areas in England too. However you draw the borders, there will always be a need for redistribution.

[katie1997]

Brendan Wrote:

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> Not all economies are based around a centralised

> financial services industry either.

So true - as well as the capital's financial sector, the whole of the UK receives substantial revenue from the Oil & Gas sector (North Sea oil and gas fields, including waters spanning both Scotland and England btw).

[Magpie]

Well the issue is really whether England should be the only country in the United Kingdom without its own elected body, and where legislation which affects only the English can be pushed through parliament by Welsh and Scottish MPs.

[????]

BIGOT....oh, hang on a minute

[Huguenot]

I think people may be getting the wrong end on this one!

In the areas that a devolved government does have oversight, then effectively UK parliament only has oversight over what's left anyway. That means in England.

In those decisions there are 533 English MPs, 40 Welsh, 59 Scottish and 19 Morther Irish.

Given the huge disparity in influence, and the fact that devolution is not the same under the same terms in each country, there's no justification for the enormouse expense of running a second UK parliament.

Since most of the proponents of this position are 'small government Tories' then they are either too confused to see this, or just being disingenuous with a hidden agenda.

If we're running scared of those 118 'foreign' MPs, with their blue faces and scary voices, then we're not really the big strong English people we think we are. A bit weedy really.

If in the other hand you're talking about complete devolution in the face of what is clearly a more globalised world where the winning countries in the resource battle are billion citizen trading blocks, then you must be daft - letting petty rivalries ruin your nation.

[Magpie]

The Labour Government has relied on its Scottish MPs on occasions to force through legislation in the house of commons that only affects England - this at the minimum is slightly unfair given there is no reciprocity. Now imagine the situation where the Conservatives have an outright majority of seats (not just votes as happend last time round) in England but not a majority government due to Scottish and Welsh seats held by Labour. It soon becomes a mess constitutionally. The Scots and Welsh moaned throughout the 1980's of being governed by London, it doesn't seem unreasonable for similar moans to be made by the English when the reverse is the case.

In any case the number of Scottish and Welsh seats (not sure about NI but probably applies there too) is disproportionate to their respective populations. Hence a neat solution could reduce the number of seats in these countries, and hence minimise their ability to influence policy on England-only matters.

[Huguenot]

Interesting economic data on this debate (of which VoteEnglish is not worthy, but still)

'Gross Value Added per Capita' is a measurement of productivity. It's the difference of what comes out of a region economically, compared with the resources it consumes:

(this figure is the amount of value added annually in pounds per person)

1 Greater London, Eng 26 192

2 South East England 21 514

3 East of England 19 599

4 Scotland 17 789

5 South West England 17 467

6 East Midlands, England 16 982

7 West Midlands, England 16 583

8 North West England 16 234

9 Yorkshire / Humber, Eng 15 968

10 North East England 15 177

11 Northern Ireland 15 175

12 Wales 14 396

This would appear that before we think about kicking Scotland out, we'd be far better off kicking the West, the Midlands and the North out....

[Magpie]

To be fair I think its more the fact that the scots want to leave than vice versa . . . .

I have seen similar stats on government spending per capita by region - think NI is first, but the amount spent on Scotland, Wales and the poorer parts of the UK - Cornwall, North East etc is pretty similar. However, on average Scotland gets more per capita than England. This is not a problem where there is one country and one parliament - Ie UK pre devolution. It becomes a cause of irritation to some once devolution happens.