Four years ago Sir Keir Starmer asked Gordon Brown to plan “the biggest ever transfer of political power out of Westminster and into the towns, cities, and nations of the UK.”
This may sound good but it isn’t. Far from ushering in a golden era of democracy it attacks what may be our country’s most precious possession, the ability to hold power to account.
For ironically, people are less interested in local politics than national affairs. The turnout in the 2019 UK General Election was 67.3% but in 2021 that for English local elections was only 35.9%. Partly this may reflect our sense that many key decisions are taken in Westminster; also, the news media tell us more - or opine more - about MPs than about our local representatives.
Yet Starmer’s planned devolution rollout may, perhaps unintentionally, offer the prospect of a proliferation of petty tyrannies inadequately validated by the will of the people.
Take the Mayor of London for example. Sadiq Khan has just begun his third term, on the basis of a 40% turnout and 43.8% of ballots in his favour. His power is founded on just over one in six of registered voters yet he feels entitled to restrict or tax civilian movement in the name of climate change and even tell Londoners how they may speak to their ‘maaates.’ He is in many respects king of 600 square miles of territory and nine million subjects.
And unlike other mayors he cannot easily be deposed, not even by a referendum following petition. His position is rather more secure than that of the Prime Minister.
Speaking of tenure, let us turn to the Welsh Assembly. On 5 June the Senedd leader Vaughan Gething, a ‘close ally of Sir Keir’, lost a vote of no confidence but instead of resigning burst into tears and refused to step down. If James Callaghan had taken the same approach in 1979 this would be a very different world indeed.
For more extreme despotism look at Scotland. The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill introduced in 2020 by the then Justice Minister Humza Yousaf and now in force applies not just to banners and vocal utterances in public but to private conversations in the home and ‘websites, email, blogs, podcasts etc.’ The police can use a warrant to burst into your house; if convicted you may be imprisoned for up to seven years, depending on the category of offence.
Yousaf’s speech introducing this Bill is infamous for his racialist tone. Scotland had nine ancient tribes and there are still some 140 clans, maybe far more; yet all he could see in this diversity was white skin. The fact that 95.4% of Scots identify as white did not lessen his insinuation of being unfairly held down by prejudice. North of the border, let no-one dare suggest otherwise, in any form. Where is Mel Gibson bawling ‘freedom!’ to his fellow Scots when they need him? Alba gu bra!
This is what we face: the spread of high-handed pseudo-democracy like an epidemic of measles.
But Starmer faces a difficulty in pursuing this project, if he insists on so doing. We may hold that an electoral victory for Labour, whatever the margin, is insufficient to authorise such a major constitutional change. This dead rat is not made palatable by throwing it into the manifesto stew, not that any government considers itself irrevocably committed to the whole cauldron of promises it makes in such documents.
The EU issue shows us the way. In the last General Election before accession to the ‘single market’ the 1970 Labour Government’s manifesto said ‘We have applied for membership of the European Economic Community and negotiations are due to start in a few weeks' time’ and the Conservatives’ said ‘We believe that it would be in the long-term interest of the British people for Britain to join the European Economic Community.’ Some choice!
So in we went, under Heath; and when Wilson returned to power in 1974 he felt the need to reconfirm the decision by means of a referendum, held in 1975. The Labour brochure howled that it was all about ‘FOOD and MONEY and JOBS’ (capitalisation sic) and reassured us (‘Fact No. 3’) that ‘The British Parliament in Westminster retains the final right to repeal the Act which took us into the Market on January 1, 1973. Thus our continued membership will depend on the continuing assent of Parliament.’ How could we lose? The Conservative brochure ‘Yes To Europe’ similarly painted the positives for remaining and the fearsome unknowns of leaving.
Yet leave we did at long last, much to everyone’s surprise - that is, everyone who was anyone. It turned out that the lifeboat on the Euranic was more than a courtesy detail.
So, two referenda on an issue where we had the freedom to exercise our choice. Unfortunately Parliament and Whitehall have since acted like a barrister who having received the client’s express instruction has instead colluded with the prosecution against his interests. Can it come as another surprise to find that the people have chosen to dispense with their attorney?
Yet if there is to be a Conservative Party for the future, it is needed now more than ever, when constitutional changes are in prospect that seem intended to be irrevocable. The Starmer/Brown proposals are not about taking power away from Westminster, but from the people. Without our specific approval through a referendum they cannot proceed under any pretence of a mandate.
Tuesday, July 02, 2024
Sunday, June 30, 2024
SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: Election special, the cynic's guide!
The Bonzo Dog Band - No Matter Who You Vote For The Government Always Gets In (lyrics)
Monty Python’s Election Night Special
Neil Innes - Lie Down and Be Counted, Innes Book of Records
This is from Neil Oliver's YouTube channel posted earlier this week in which he desribes the slow process of his 'political awakening' from being a trusting and somewhat naive or even gullible citizen and realising that he and we can no longer trust or believe our politicians nor any of our institutions such as the NHS or the Post Office (as we have seen recently) and how those same politicians can only be regarded as our 'enemy' who wish us harm.
Neil Oliver: Buckle up - more psyops are coming your way!
I agree with Neil Oliver but my own awakening began much earlier, more than 50 years ago:
It was in the early Seventies and I was in a small department store in town when another customer came in with what appeared to be his 'entourage' his minions or hangers-on. This new customer had a very loud voice and all I could hear from him was "I thought I came across very well" From this I surmised that he had just come from the BBC studios which were just a short walk away. He was dressed not flamboyantly but, shall we say, unusually. He had a long Crombie style overcoat with a large astrakhan collar and a hat to match. And large bristling unruly sideburns. "I thought I came across very well" he kept on saying as if to reassure himself. I later found out that he was Rhodes Boyson MP. My first encounter with a real live politician. I was not impressed.
My second encounter with an MP was many years later. I was coming out of my local newsagent with a clutch of Sunday newspapers and I saw somebody getting out of a taxi by the bus stop and I thought "That looks like our local MP" and indeed it was our MP. He then started walking and I followed on after him, not out of curiosity but because he was heading in the general direction of my house. "I wonder where he is going and why did he not get out of the taxi at his destination?" Very strange behaviour. He proceeded along the main road and followed it round a long bend and then it dawned on me... This was Remembrance Sunday and he was heading for our local British Legion Club. From there he would lead the parade of ex-servicemen, Scouts, Guides etc to the local Church for the service of Remembrance. Seeing such sly behaviour from my local MP. I was not impressed. Boyson was Conservative and my local MP, now retired, was Labour.
There have been other more direct encounters with local Labour Councillors in more recent years and they were even less impressive than the aforementioned MPs. In fact it is my opinion they are the most mean spirited and spiteful characters I have had the misfortune to meet!
Well, that's my opinion. You may agree or disagree as you choose.
"We Are About To Elect A Government Nobody Wants."
- Dr David Starkey speaking earlier this month:
Friday, June 28, 2024
FRIDAY MUSIC: Colm Mac an Iomaire, by JD
"In a crowded field of outstanding Irish fiddle players and interpreters of traditional music Colm Mac Con Iomaire is unique. His voice is unmistakably his own and his music bears distinctive creative hallmarks which have as much to do with his personality and character as with his impressive technical mastery, musical authority and exquisitely expressive playing."
– Nuala O’Connor
Colm Mac an Iomaire - The Minbar of Saladin | Dorn San Aer do Rónán
Colm Mac Con Iomaire - The Finnish Line | #Courage2020
Colm Mac Con Iomaire ⚏ Bláth (Flower)
Emer's dream
Colm & Darrach Mac Con Iomaire & Frank Tate - 'Frailach' & gan anim
Just out of interest, has anyone ever seen a left handed fiddle/violin player? Or viola, cello, double bass?
Tuesday, June 25, 2024
'Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!'
Julian Assange has walked out of Belmarsh prison.
A lawyer has said it is a 'win-win'...
You may remember 'Catch-22':
-------------------------------
In that case, we'll just have to send you home. Of course, there's one catch.
Yeah? What's that?
We will issue orders sending you back to the States and there's one thing you have to do for us in return.
What would that be?
Like us.
Like you?
Like us. You'll be surprised how easy it is once you begin.
-------------------------------
http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/c/catch-22-script-transcript-heller.html
Friday, June 21, 2024
FRIDAY MUSIC: The Basque Country (Euskadi) by JD
Continuing the 'tour' of the northern Spanish regions along the coast of the Bay of Biscay and their distinctive traditions. The Basque Country (Euskadi) is an autonomous community in northern Spain with strong cultural traditions, a celebrated cuisine and a distinct language that pre-dates the Romance languages.
The Basque Autonomous Community (7,234 km²) consists of three provinces, specifically designated "historical territories":
Álava (capital: Vitoria-Gasteiz)
Biscay (capital: Bilbao)
Gipuzkoa (capital: Donostia-San Sebastián)
The Chartered Community of Navarre (10,391 km²)[12] is a single-province autonomous community. Its name refers to the charters, the Fueros of Navarre. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 states that Navarre may become a part of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country if it is so decided by its people and institutions (the Disposicion transitoria cuarta or "Fourth Transitory Provision").
ERRE ZENITUZTEN (Xabi Solano) - Bizkargi Dantza Elkartea
Basque Dances (Dantza zati bat Idiazabalen - Euskal Herriko dantzak)
HUNTZA- Buruz Behera (Official video)
POTTOKA
Huntza - Aldapan Gora (Bideoklip ofiziala - Official video)
"Ikusi Mendizaleak" - Basque Patriotic Song
There is a lot more that could be said about how different it is from the usual stereotypical image of Spain. It is very very green for example and did you know it has the world's first transporter bridge built in 1893 - https://youtu.be/WVtWf4NrNnY
I spent three months working there in 1985 and loved it!
Sunday, June 16, 2024
Are MPs up to the job?
Until July 5 we’re enjoying a blessed holiday from Westminster prodnosing - no Covid-era gaggles of MPs in meeting rooms giggling ‘Whatever can we make them do next?’
Actually, for some of that time they had interim arrangements that let them WFH. Insofar as they worked at all - nono, that’s not fair: many are grafters; but here is an extract from a 2007 study of MPs’ hours and expenses:
Actually, for some of that time they had interim arrangements that let them WFH. Insofar as they worked at all - nono, that’s not fair: many are grafters; but here is an extract from a 2007 study of MPs’ hours and expenses:
Who managed to get their Westminster hours down to four? Timothy Ferriss’ ‘4 Hour Workweek’ book also came out in 2007 but clearly there was at least one clever-clogs politician who had already cracked it. Was it the same one who held no surgeries?
Maybe it’s to do with the Party system. Vote the way you’re told (and even then, only if the division looks to be close) and otherwise you’re free to write books, hold down a handful of directorships and so on. You’ll have constituency workers to deal with all the rats-and-drains stuff if you can’t be bothered.
A safe seat, that’s the thing. Where I live I could vote for the man in the moon but I’m going to get a Labour MP, even now, I’d put money on it. The only time that changed in recent history was in 2010 when people were fed up to the back teeth with the Blair/Brown disaster and turned to the LibDems rather then have a Tory. It was also the one and only time I was visited by a couple of the candidates; the LibDem’s owlish face exuded contempt when I told him my hot-button issue was the EU, while the Labourite’s companion stifled a smirk at her apparatchik’s ignorance when he tried to tell me that the 1975 referendum had settled the issue of national sovereignty.
This time there’s a possibility that George Galloway’s Workers Party candidate could split the Labour vote here somewhat though many of our aspirant Asians are not so exercised about Gaza; but the Conservative support could split even more significantly, between those scared back into the fold by what Peter Hitchens has publicised about Starmer’s plan to perma-ruin what’s left of the Constitution, and those who now hate the Tory Party’s guts and want it dead and buried after fourteen treacherous and incompetent years.
Electoral Calculus is currently (14 June) predicting 461 seats for Labour, 23 more than Blair’s historic 1997 landslide. Yet whatever the margin, if the Reds do get in they will still have a legitimation problem: as with EU membership, constituency-based voting is not adequate to authorise what Starmer (with Gordon ‘that bigoted woman’ Brown) is planning to do to us. The voting system is so skewed that it cannot possibly be a fair representation of the settled will of the people on monumentally important matters; we must have a clear, thorough and unbiased discussion of such proposals. Not that we’ll get it… yet.
Nor do our leaders themselves always take the trouble to do the spadework. You may remember our then Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd on the day of the Maastricht Treaty (7 Feb 1992): ‘Now we’ve signed it, we had better read it.’ He might have been joking, but I doubt it. Perhaps it is typical of the posh Etonian work ethic: painstaking work is what you hire other, little men to do.
How many MPs read and understand the Bills on which they vote? How many listen to the debates? Look at the empty green benches when Andrew Bridgen delivered unwelcome news on Covid issues: our supposed representatives were careful to ‘shun the frumious bandersnatch’; lots of Jabber when it suits them, but no Wocky when it matters.
Maybe Parliament has forgotten the discipline of power. We have only been free of the EU since 31 January 2020 - just over four years. For 47 years Westminster increasingly delegated its responsibilities to Brussels; and under the Blair project domestic control was passed over to regional assemblies, new mayorships, secondary legislation (which Parliament struggles to supervise) and a host of ‘quasi NGO’ bodies. The latter are headed by a privileged class of nibblers-and-sippers overseeing such success stories as water companies and the Post Office; they seem largely above failure and hop about like a mob of quangaroos.
We have to repatriate power, not just from the EU, the ECHR, the ICJ and so forth but also from all the national loci into which government has dissipated its vital energies.
That is not going to happen in 2024. We have to plan not so much for the seemingly unstoppable incoming administration as for the one after it. It is like the 1660 Restoration after Cromwell, who not only killed the King but destroyed the royal regalia, dismissed the Parliament whose army he had led, and instituted an oppressive, joyless ideological reign that divided the country into ten regions each run by a major-general. We had to stitch the two halves of kingly rule together after eleven years of the Interregnum; that is how radical (or counter-radical) we were forced to be.
Those who love our country and the democracy enshrined in Parliament must now diligently toil to make themselves fit for power, against the time when freedom becomes again a possibility.
Maybe it’s to do with the Party system. Vote the way you’re told (and even then, only if the division looks to be close) and otherwise you’re free to write books, hold down a handful of directorships and so on. You’ll have constituency workers to deal with all the rats-and-drains stuff if you can’t be bothered.
A safe seat, that’s the thing. Where I live I could vote for the man in the moon but I’m going to get a Labour MP, even now, I’d put money on it. The only time that changed in recent history was in 2010 when people were fed up to the back teeth with the Blair/Brown disaster and turned to the LibDems rather then have a Tory. It was also the one and only time I was visited by a couple of the candidates; the LibDem’s owlish face exuded contempt when I told him my hot-button issue was the EU, while the Labourite’s companion stifled a smirk at her apparatchik’s ignorance when he tried to tell me that the 1975 referendum had settled the issue of national sovereignty.
This time there’s a possibility that George Galloway’s Workers Party candidate could split the Labour vote here somewhat though many of our aspirant Asians are not so exercised about Gaza; but the Conservative support could split even more significantly, between those scared back into the fold by what Peter Hitchens has publicised about Starmer’s plan to perma-ruin what’s left of the Constitution, and those who now hate the Tory Party’s guts and want it dead and buried after fourteen treacherous and incompetent years.
Electoral Calculus is currently (14 June) predicting 461 seats for Labour, 23 more than Blair’s historic 1997 landslide. Yet whatever the margin, if the Reds do get in they will still have a legitimation problem: as with EU membership, constituency-based voting is not adequate to authorise what Starmer (with Gordon ‘that bigoted woman’ Brown) is planning to do to us. The voting system is so skewed that it cannot possibly be a fair representation of the settled will of the people on monumentally important matters; we must have a clear, thorough and unbiased discussion of such proposals. Not that we’ll get it… yet.
Nor do our leaders themselves always take the trouble to do the spadework. You may remember our then Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd on the day of the Maastricht Treaty (7 Feb 1992): ‘Now we’ve signed it, we had better read it.’ He might have been joking, but I doubt it. Perhaps it is typical of the posh Etonian work ethic: painstaking work is what you hire other, little men to do.
How many MPs read and understand the Bills on which they vote? How many listen to the debates? Look at the empty green benches when Andrew Bridgen delivered unwelcome news on Covid issues: our supposed representatives were careful to ‘shun the frumious bandersnatch’; lots of Jabber when it suits them, but no Wocky when it matters.
Maybe Parliament has forgotten the discipline of power. We have only been free of the EU since 31 January 2020 - just over four years. For 47 years Westminster increasingly delegated its responsibilities to Brussels; and under the Blair project domestic control was passed over to regional assemblies, new mayorships, secondary legislation (which Parliament struggles to supervise) and a host of ‘quasi NGO’ bodies. The latter are headed by a privileged class of nibblers-and-sippers overseeing such success stories as water companies and the Post Office; they seem largely above failure and hop about like a mob of quangaroos.
We have to repatriate power, not just from the EU, the ECHR, the ICJ and so forth but also from all the national loci into which government has dissipated its vital energies.
That is not going to happen in 2024. We have to plan not so much for the seemingly unstoppable incoming administration as for the one after it. It is like the 1660 Restoration after Cromwell, who not only killed the King but destroyed the royal regalia, dismissed the Parliament whose army he had led, and instituted an oppressive, joyless ideological reign that divided the country into ten regions each run by a major-general. We had to stitch the two halves of kingly rule together after eleven years of the Interregnum; that is how radical (or counter-radical) we were forced to be.
Those who love our country and the democracy enshrined in Parliament must now diligently toil to make themselves fit for power, against the time when freedom becomes again a possibility.
Friday, June 14, 2024
FRIDAY MUSIC: Bartók and Smetana, by JD
Music from Eastern Europe by Bartok and Smetana; orchestral interpretations of their country's folk music traditions:
Béla Bartók ( 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hungary's greatest composers. Through his collection and analytical study of folk music, he was one of the founders of comparative musicology, which later became known as ethnomusicology.
Bartok's own compositions are not atonal but they are not exactly melodic and are not easy to listen to. They are part of the twentieth century fad of appealing to the intellect instead of the emotions; for the head instead of the heart. Far more interesting are his collecting of 'ethnic' folk music and transcibing these for orchestra and a selection of these follow -
In an article on the influence of peasant music on modern music, Béla Bartók once declared: ‘The right type of peasant music is most varied and perfect in its forms. Its expressive power is astonishing, and at the same time it is devoid of all sentimentality and superfluous ornaments... A composer in search of new ways cannot be led by a better master.’
For Bartók, the ‘right type’ of music was not the sophisticated urban style of the gypsies, which Brahms and Liszt had mistaken for genuine Hungarian folk music, but the less refined traditional melodies that had been passed down through the generations in rural communities.
https://www.classical-music.com/features/composers/bela-bartok
Muzsikás: Bartók: Romanian Folk Dances / with Danubia Orchestra
Víkingur Ólafsson – Bartók: 3 Hungarian Folksongs from the Csìk, Sz. 35a
Bedřich Smetana ( 2 March 1824 – 12 May 1884) was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style that became closely identified with his people's aspirations to a cultural and political "revival". He has been regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music.
Smetana (1824–1884) created a new musical identity for the Czechs, inspired by popular legends, history and countryside. Now Smetana is recognised as the vital force in establishing Bohemian music around the globe - and not even his successor Dvorak made his homeland such an indelible part of his musical style.
Vltava contains Smetana's most famous tune. It is an adaptation of the melody La Mantovana, attributed to the Italian Renaissance tenor Giuseppe Cenci,[9] which, in a borrowed Romanian form, was also the basis for the Israeli national anthem Hatikvah. The tune also appears in an old Czech folk song, Kočka leze dírou ("The Cat Crawls Through the Hole"); Hanns Eisler used it for his "Song of the Moldau [de]"; and Stan Getz performed it as "Dear Old Stockholm" (possibly through another derivative of the original tune, "Ack Värmeland du sköna"). Horst Jankowski played a syncopated version of the tune on his easy listening hit, "A Walk in the Black Forest."
Smetana: Vltava (The Moldau) - Stunning Performance
0:29 The cold spring (clarinets): the two brooks meet and form the Vltava.
1:11 Vltava: the main theme.
3:15 Hunters' horns: the river passes through a forest hunt.
4:10 Polka: a village wedding dance by the river.
5:49 Rusalka: beautiful water nymphs in old Czech legends, bathing in the river by the moonlight amid the ruins of ancient castles. Muted strings, flutes, harps and horns. Calm yet mysterious.
9:04 Return to the main theme
10:03 Our river enters the raging St. John Rapids. Stormy and turbulent.
11:19 Main theme recap. Having cleared the rapids, now in a bright and cheerful major key.
11:45 Vyšehrad theme: the Vltava salutes the great castle, seat of the Czech nation. Cymbals. Goosebumps.
12:41 The music slowly fades away as our river says farewell and flows on into the distance, as it always has since time immemorial.
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