AN ENGLISH PARLIAMENT AT LAST? 06/17/2010
 Following the recent general election, the Conservatives could cleverly engineer a situation which would eventually allow them to achieve two things – form a comfortable majority government, and make some massive public spending savings without upsetting their core English vote. How can they do this? By biting the bullet and accepting they will never have a mandate to rule in Scotland. There are now two democratic deficits in the “United” Kingdom: the perennial one of England being the only home nation that does not have its own parliament, and now the blatant Labour/Tory split between Scotland and England. The Conservatives returned only one MP in Scotland, while Labour won an outright majority with 41 of the available 59 seats. Bad times are coming to Britain, the chickens of 13 years of continuous Labour misrule, plus the effects of the capitalist generated recession are about to come home to roost in the form of massive cuts, tax hikes and redundancies. One thing is worth remembering however – ALL the main parties, support the capitalist system which dragged us into recession and which allows multinational corporations and banks to dictate to national government. ERA believes the United Kingdom is dead in all but name anyway – how can you call it political union, when the three smallest nations have their own parliaments or assemblies, while the largest one, England, does not? Westminster is the BRITISH government, and allows Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish. MP's to vote on matters affecting only England – a classic example is the third runway at Heathrow, deeply unpopular in south east England, but pushed through anyway by Labour dragging their Celtic MP's down to vote for it. How could the Tories achieve the aim of an English parliament? By being patient and not entering into coalition with the Lib Dems. The Lib Dem's only other option is to work with Labour, who are already discredited in the eyes of the English public, so to work with them is to be tainted by association. Once the IMF come in and enforce the inevitable spending cuts and tax increases that have to be implemented – of which England will bear the brunt - who will the electorate blame? The Lab/Lib Dem government! It would not surprise us if another election has to be called within a year – if the coalition breaks down, Britain would be ungovernable, and a new mandate would have to be secured. If the Tories stood on a ticket of cutting England loose from Labour-dominated and state subsidised Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, they would easily secure enough seats in England to have an absolute majority in the British parliament at Westminster. An English only government would do away with the Barnett formula, which is an English taxpayer funded, British government subsidy to the celtic nations for everyone who lives there – how do you think the Scots can afford free care homes for their elderly? Free prescriptions? Free university education? The Scots constantly remind us that North Sea oil revenue should go straight to Scotland – but who foots the massive unemployment benefit bill in Scottish, mostly Labour, constituencies, or the massive public sector employment wage bill in Scotland? The English taxpayer. We would be quite happy for Scotland to keep their oil revenue, if it meant they used it to pay for all the good stuff listed above, that the English can only dream about having. The oil will run out one day, as things stand the subsidy never will. By formally breaking up the Union, a new English government would only be concerned with England. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland would once again be separate self governing nations, and more importantly, self financing. A “Council of the Isles” could be convened once a month to discuss issues that affect inter-nation issues, other than that England would have little need to concern itself with the internal affairs of our celtic neighbours. We could say be patient Mr Cameron – another six or twelve months in opposition, and the prize will be there for the taking and you can deliver fairness to the people of England with the first steps towards a new independent English nation. However in reality, just as the leopard never changes its spots, we suspect Cameron’s Conservative & Unionist Party will not take the final plunge and dissolve this dis-United Kingdom. In any case, independence is just one step towards liberating the people of England. The other is delivering political and economic systems that inspire our nation, and which offer opportunity, aspiration and fairness. Sadly neither Mr. Cameron’s Tories nor any of the other political parties offer such a package. For that you have to turn to the English Radicals. Add Comment ANIMAL FARM 1984 & ANIMAL FARM BRITAIN 2010 06/17/2010
 In the same week that the British government announced they are to raise the retirement age from 65 to 66 in 2024, and again in 2034 to 67, a newly released survey stated that a majority of over 50's interviewed want to carry on working past the present retirement age. All well and good, until you dig a little deeper and find out the survey of 1500 people was carried out by the Equality and Human Rights Commission – a government funded Quango, in the pockets of said government! What an amazing coincidence – the very week the government tells us we must work until we drop, up pops a government funded survey which says: “yes, the peasants think so, too!” What the headline does not tell you, is that many of those interviewed cannot afford to retire, due to economic circumstances. By all means, scrap the law which says you MUST retire at 65: but do not keep moving the state pension goalposts, forcing workers to slave into their twilight years when eight million adults in Britain - that’s one in five – are, for whatever reason, NOT in work – or “economically inactive”. The English Radicals believe that our forebears fought too long and hard for a reasonable retirement age, to let this herd of political imbeciles take it from us. We are having to work longer because they are squandering our pension fund on foreign wars, propping up the EU, and paying eight million people to sit at home, while my 69 year old father in law still gets up at four a.m. five days a week, to work in a supermarket bakery. Projected income tax revenue for 2010 (£140 billion) is now less than the amount required to fund benefit payments (£165 billion), according to figures taken from the Daily Telegraph, 26/06/09. If we still had a manufacturing industry, a coal mining industry, and the various other businesses lost that used to provide employment before slave wage economies swamped our markets with cheap goods, and put our people out of work, those revenue and spending figures would be reversed. It seems to us that New Labour have taken the books “Animal Farm” and “1984” as instruction manuals, instead of the warnings our radical forerunner George Orwell intended them to be. In Animal Farm, the Pigs are quite happy for the other animals to work themselves to death, as long as they and their supporters can keep their own pampered lifestyles. When elderly men and women are having to work past 65, and a million able bodied young NEETS (Not in Employment, Education or Training) are sat idle either through lack of work or incentive, then something is very wrong. As for 1984? The UK has more CCTV cameras per head of population than anywhere else in the world. You can be imprisoned for 42 days without even being charged. You face fines for your wheely bin lid not being closed. Motorists fined for blowing their nose while stationary in traffic jams. Council officials can enter your home without a warrant. Your children monitored at school for racist or homophobic remarks. You now cannot legally photograph a policeman or government building. British police forces are looking to buy the same robot spy planes as used by the CIA in Afghanistan to attack tribal wedding parties – sorry, the Taliban. England, a free country? Not until we chase these Piggies off the Farm, it ain't! click here to return to the home page & website menu AFTER THE ELECTION?? 06/17/2010
 What will happen after the forthcoming General Election? England will still be locked within the three party system, it will still be dictated to by the EU, it will still be economically steered by failed economic systems that entrap the people instead of allowing ordinary folk opportunity and fairness. To put it simply in five years time absolutely nothing will have changed! Therefore is it not time to think out of the box and look beyond the tribal ritual of the three main parties and beyond the corrupt and failed systems nearly all other political parties promote. When we look at the dreadful state our country is in, with its dire economic and social problems as well as the surrendering of our sovereignty to Europe, now, probably more than at any other time in our history, there is a need for the election of a radical but not extreme alternative to deal with our country’s woes. There is a desperate need to help build a party that fills this void on the political landscape, and offer the electorate a radical yet non-extremist alternative. The only party offering a true alternative is the English Radical Alliance (ERA). We are in favour of withdrawal from the EU but we are an insular thinking party as our critics may claim. If anything those that favour our membership of the EU are insular thinking in excluding much of the economic and trading opportunities beyond Europe. ERA would retain trading links and co-operation with Europe as well as recreating links with the commonwealth and other countries in the free world. But more importantly we would help rebuild the English economy, English industry and protect it from unfair foreign competition. Our vision of rebuilding English industry is not based on the capitalist principle of selling the workforce of England to mass multinational corporations. Our vision is based on the Distributist principle of helping to fund and teaching our people to create businesses, to encourage co-operatives and to secure jobs in England for the people of England. That means bringing to an end the open door policy of companies being allowed to relocate abroad and the influx of cheap foreign labour to our shores. ERA also seeks independence for England. Since devolution to the other home nations the UK has slowly began to disintegrate. Some of you may remember the famous Tory party posters of the 1979 general election stating ‘Labour isn’t working’ and showing a long line of unemployed people. We could easily display similar posters claiming ‘The UK isn’t working’ and show a long line of English taxpayers money going to fund the Scots Parliament and Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies. Once again, though we seek an independent England, we are not an insular thinking party. We are not anti-Scottish, anti-Wesh, anti-Irish. Out of the remnants of the UK, four proud and independent home nations shall emerge and become part of a Council of the Isles. This will provide independence, trade and co-operation between the home nations, yet contain none of the financial unfairness and social inequalities of the present UK. Beyond the tribal ritual of the three main parties there are others, the Green Party, UKIP, Liberal Party, English Democrats and the BNP being the main players, plus a few socialist parties. Yet each of these parties either favours our continued membership of the EU and eventual demise into part of a European superstate, or supports the continuation of the UK with its financial unfairness and second class treatment of English citizens. Only ERA offers radical but not extreme policies, a new economic philosophy, the immediate withdrawal from the EU and the only solution to the unfairness of the present dis-United Kingdom. In the forthcoming General Election, because we are a young party we are concentrating our efforts on just one constituency – that being Liverpool Wavertree. However the time has come to build our radical party for the whole nation! CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO HOME PAGE & WEBSITE MENU TORIES ON THE ROPES 06/17/2010
 Amazing as it may seem, the corpse of New Labour has risen from the dead, and is within a whisker of the Tories in the opinion polls. What was thought to be unthinkable a few short weeks ago is now a very real possibility: Labour may win enough seats to be the largest party, post general election. Being of a cynical nature, the English Radical Alliance wonders whether the Tories have deliberately eased off the pressure on Labour for this very reason. The government that comes to power later this year will inherit record debt and a collapsing currency – is that the kind of job offer YOU would take on? If the second and third placed parties – in this instance, Conservatives and Lib Dems – voted together, it is pretty apparent that Labour would be stymied at every turn, they would be in office but not in power. At some point, and with a rapidly crumbling economy (because the bad news isn’t all over yet folks!), Labour's position would become untenable, Gordon Brown would be dragged away frothing at the mouth - no change there, then - and another general election would have to be held. Labour is already on the ropes financially, whereas the Tories always seem to be able to find money from somewhere. A second general election within a year would just about see off an already weakened Labour party, leaving just the Tories and the Lib Dems. I'm sure that's a scenario they would both be happy with. Interesting times we live in.Whichever of the main parties gains the keys to Number 10 the result will still be the same. Cutbacks! Lack of investment! Lack of support for initiatives from the people of England! Multi-national businesses pulling the strings and more champagne on the career politician’s gravy train! Place the Tories under the microscope and they will be found wanting. Life in Tory England will mean people having to take pay cuts, and threatened with public service cuts and redundancies. Ordinary people, young and old facing hardship, whilst the Tory hierarchy run by rich Public School boys and their party funded by billionaires will be lapping up the luxuries in their ivory towers away from the real world.England does not just need another party in Number 10 – it needs a party that’s going to deliver a new system. In the English Radical Alliance we are building that party. CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO HOME PAGE & WEBSITE MENU DAWNING OF A NEW ERA 06/17/2010
 What will happen after the forthcoming General Election? England will still be locked within the three party system, it will still be dictated to by the EU, it will still be economically steered by failed economic systems that entrap the people instead of allowing ordinary folk opportunity and fairness. To put it simply in five years time absolutely nothing will have changed!Therefore is it not time to think out of the box and look beyond the tribal ritual of the three main parties and beyond the corrupt and failed systems nearly all other political parties promote.When we look at the dreadful state our country is in, with its dire economic and social problems as well as the surrendering of our sovereignty to Europe, now, probably more than at any other time in our history, there is a need for the election of a radical but not extreme alternative to deal with our country’s woes. There is a desperate need to help build a party that fills this void on the political landscape, and offer the electorate a radical yet non-extremist alternative. The only party offering a true alternative is the English Radical Alliance (ERA).We are in favour of withdrawal from the EU but we are an insular thinking party as our critics may claim. If anything those that favour our membership of the EU are insular thinking in excluding much of the economic and trading opportunities beyond Europe. ERA would retain trading links and co-operation with Europe as well as recreating links with the commonwealth and other countries in the free world. But more importantly we would help rebuild the English economy, English industry and protect it from unfair foreign competition. Our vision of rebuilding English industry is not based on the capitalist principle of selling the workforce of England to mass multinational corporations. Our vision is based on the Distributist principle of helping to fund and teaching our people to create businesses, to encourage co-operatives and to secure jobs in England for the people of England. That means bringing to an end the open door policy of companies being allowed to relocate abroad and the influx of cheap foreign labour to our shores.ERA also seeks independence for England. Since devolution to the other home nations the UK has slowly began to disintegrate. Some of you may remember the famous Tory party posters of the 1979 general election stating ‘Labour isn’t working’ and showing a long line of unemployed people. We could easily display similar posters claiming ‘The UK isn’t working’ and show a long line of English taxpayers money going to fund the Scots Parliament and Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies.Once again, though we seek an independent England, we are not an insular thinking party. We are not anti-Scottish, anti-Wesh, anti-Irish. Out of the remnants of the UK, four proud and independent home nations shall emerge and become part of a Council of the Isles. This will provide independence, trade and co-operation between the home nations, yet contain none of the financial unfairness and social inequalities of the present UK.Beyond the tribal ritual of the three main parties there are others, the Green Party, UKIP, Liberal Party, English Democrats and the BNP being the main players, plus a few socialist parties. Yet each of these parties either favours our continued membership of the EU and eventual demise into part of a European superstate, or supports the continuation of the UK with its financial unfairness and second class treatment of English citizens. Only ERA offers radical but not extreme policies, a new economic philosophy, the immediate withdrawal from the EU and the only solution to the unfairness of the present dis-United Kingdom. In the forthcoming General Election, because we are a young party we are concentrating our efforts on just one constituency – that being Liverpool Wavertree. However the time has come to build our radical party for the whole nation! CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO HOME PAGE & WEBSITE MENU  MAJOR PARTIES LINE UP TO MAKE CUTS Labour, Tories and Liberal Democrats, they’re all raring to get stuck into making cuts, each competing over the where and the how, but glossing over what these cuts mean and, more importantly, why they are needed. What do they really mean by cuts? They mean sacking tens of thousands of public service workers, and so adding to the public debts via social security payments and loss of tax revenue, and adding to everyone’s problems by reducing services in hospitals, schools, council services and government departments. But of course those in power, and their business friends won’t be affected by any of that, will they? More importantly they forget to mention the reason why these cuts have to be made. In the past twelve months the government has transferred a massive amount of taxpayers money to the banks, most of whom are based overseas and whose debts are also overseas. Many of those banks have rewarded the taxpayer by sacking thousands of their workers and forcing the public to pick up the bill in benefits payments, and increasing the interest rates on loans and mortgages. Since the present financial crisis hit us, over a million people have joined the unemployment lists, and now, thanks to the proposed cuts in public services, many more are now set to join them. But these cuts are not only immoral, they are also unnecessary. Instead of cutting funds to hospitals and schools why not cut our subsidies to the European Union? Instead of cuts to the emergency services why not cut our subsidies to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? Instead of pumping more money into the banks why not use that money to create jobs (and taxpayers) in our dwindling manufacturing industries. For let us never forget the irony in all of this, that the people who claimed that subsidising peoples’ jobs was not on, are the same people who clambered to subsidise the bankers. It’s time they stopped conning the people of England into financing the millionaire lifestyles of Mandelson's and Cameron’s friends and, instead, defended the jobs and services of this country, before we become a Third World banana republic? CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO HOME PAGE & WEBSITE MENU  SNOW WAY TO RUN A COUNTRY On Tuesday 5th January many towns and cities in the country ground to a halt, people were stranded in the workplace because there were no buses; car journeys that normally took ten minutes, became rally events of three or four hours; schools and public buildings closed (for ‘elf and safety of course!), and supermarket shelves emptied of basic food supplies. By Wednesday many people were discovering ‘the community’ and, more particularly, they discovered that they had a butchers, grocers and newsagents just around the corner from where they lived. Shock, horror! And all this time we didn’t know, we thought life meant ASDA or Tesco or Waitrose (fill in as applicable..........). In some local areas the big bus companies immediately cancelled all services, leaving their ‘customers’ stranded at their places of work, or unable to get to hospital appointments (yet, interestingly, many of the smaller operators provided at least a skeleton service). And all because of a few inches of snow! But worse was to follow, by the weekend of the 9th/10th grit supplies were running low and central government had taken over from the phoney regional government in controlling its distribution to local authorities across the country. Imagine that, Gordon Brown controlling our grit, could things get much worse? Well, the Government Office for the North West, a Soviet-inspired, and unelected, EU body, was accused of diverting Merseyside’s grit supply to Manchester and therefore Liverpool council had to ‘borrow’ grit from Wirral council, so when the regional Soviet fouls things up obviously it’s time for the central Soviet to take over. What the present winter event has surely taught us is that there should, in future, be more emphasis on local networks and less on centralised planning. If local government had more control over raising its own funds then it would have more control over purchasing supplies of grit salt, and snowploughs, and where and when to deploy them, after all the local authority tends to know more about the vulnerability of specific areas and communities and can plan accordingly. And councils could then liaise with community groups and residents associations to protect the elderly and vulnerable, supplying them with shovels and supplies of salt as required. Similarly, if there were better incentives for people to use local shops (by taxing the superstores according to product lines and forcing them to charge for parking as part of carbon tax) then the sense of community spirit people have just discovered recently (no doubt there will be articles about this by the ‘professional middle class’ journalists in the Times!) would be engendered all year around. And with this sense of community would come more enthusiasm for joining with neighbours to clear side roads and pavements, supported by well-run community/residents associations freed from ‘elf and safety Gestapo. Transport should also come under local authority control so that services can be delivered to the workplace and local hospital, and ensure smooth running during these so-called winter events. The same with gas and energy supplies, once run by the local borough (and at a profit they ploughed into public transport), these too can be de-centralised to local authorities or combinations thereof. Where will the money come from for all of this, I can hear you all say? Well, look at the obscene profits now being made by energy companies. Look at the obscene subsidies we now pay to the bus and train companies (they pocket the profits, we pick up their debts, just like the banks). Why isn’t that money being ploughed into local services, instead of buying luxury homes in the Caribbean for their directors? But, and most important of all, we must get back to encouraging local food supplies, as we’ve already outlined elsewhere on this website, so that our local shops are kept supplied, without the need for haulage across the country, or worse, imports that make us vulnerable to the vagaries of prices and supplies. We hear all the major political parties witter on about the environment, and about localism, yet none are willing to put their money where their mouth is and really tackle the problems that we face by getting rid of their Soviet-style central planning and getting back to the traditional English way of doing things – locally. Let us turn things on their head and start at the local level for taxation, government, business, banking, services, and then link that to a local network of farming/fishing and food supplies, encouraging smallholdings and allotments in our towns. This is the radical idea whose time has come and from a radical English movement that is ready to challenge the major parties and offer the people an alternative way of life, not just an alternative party to vote for. CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO HOME PAGE & WEBSITE MENU   ROYAL MAIL NOT FOR SALE SAYS ERA The English Radical Alliance pledges its support for all those campaigning to prevent the privatisation of the Royal Mail postal service. The party believes current so called 'modernisation' proposals are in reality a means to privatising Royal Mail and would lead to poorer postal delivery services for households and businesses. Later deliveries and proposed additional charges for early morning deliveries would have a detrimental effect on the economy and small businesses inparticular. English Radical opinion is that this is sheer economic madness and is yet another government and EU inspired initiative that will only see large coprporate businesses benefit at the expense of small businesses, households and the postal workers themselves. ERA beleives the Royal Mail is a postal SERVICE, a service to the nation and not designed to make a profit. This is something that has been forgotten in this one size fits all, big is best corporate capitalist inspired world. Being a postal service, English Radicals are of the opinion that the best service possible should be provided. This would mean re-instating early morning and possibly second deliveries. Whilst it is agreed the Royal Mail is a national service, ERA would like to see a return to more locally managed service and would investigate ways of reopening local sorting officers adjacent to Post Offices to deal with second deliveries. Though this may be an expensive option it is felt by distributing the pay structure and positions from the present fat cat national management to local services and the delivery workforce this can be achieved. What cannot be accepted is our postal service becoming yet another statistic on the table of English companies being sold off to foreign investors and asset strippers. Sadly this is exactly what will happen if nothing is done about it! CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO HOME PAGE & WEBSITE MENU REAL APOLOGIES PLEASE 06/16/2010
 The British government, through its mouthpiece Mike O'Brien (Health Minister – no, I'd never heard of him either) is apologising to the victims of Thalidomide for the pain and suffering caused to them by its prescription to their mothers fifty years ago. This is shortly after the British government apologising for the slave trade of over 200 years ago – what's next? The Bubonic Plague? The Crusades? The Norman conquest? Quite apart from the lesson that governments and the medical profession are often mistaken in their judgements about the safety of drugs and “terror diseases” like Swine Flu, the English Radicals ask: why apologise for something you HAVEN'T done, when there are a hundred things you SHOULD apologise for? For instance: The thousands of British, Iraqi and Afghan dead, as a result of our devotion to America and their desire to control Iraqi oil and the Afghan poppy crop? The thousands of English “A” level students who won't get a University place next year, because the British government would sooner fund war in Afghanistan than education? Our continued membership of the EU, when the majority of English people want out? Labour’s refusal to have referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, an election manifesto pledge? The scandalous taxation on private pensions, while the cost of taxpayer-funded public sector pensions is going through the roof? The 88 year old English war hero Spitfire pilot John Mejor, forced to sell his home and make his elderly wife homeless, to pay for his medical care? The Mosedale family returning to their Tottenham home to find it full of Romanian “asylum” seekers, who have a “tenancy agreement” from a scam merchant, and so cannot be evicted? The fishermen of England, who watch European super trawlers steal their catch every day and ship it straight to Europe? The coal miners of England, who, unarmed, were forced to face police cavalry to try and save their industry after Scargill and Thatcher decided to have a class war? The car makers of England, watching their factories being dismantled and shipped to China? The steel makers of England, as they watch their Teesside steel mill mothballed? The people of England are facing the same fate as the American Indian – a proud, brave race forced into reservations (council estates) their buffalo (jobs) all gone, with only “fire water” (coke and smack) to dull the pain of their existence, with little prospect of breaking the cycle of despair. That's why we are radicals: we can see the problems, and we have the answers. ARE YOU BRAVE ENOUGH TO FOLLOW US?  ONE STAR THAT WILL BE SHINING THIS CHRISTMAS The English Radicals would like to offer their congratulations and best wishes to the new owners of the Star Inn in Broughton, Greater Manchester – the local community who scraped together £80,000 to buy it off the brewery at auction. No mean feat in these difficult times, but they are not the first to do this. That honour goes to the Old Crown pub in Cumbria, which was bought by a consortium of local residents in 2003, and is still thriving today. This is exactly the type of effort which we, as Distributists, applaud: the Star may have closed for good, like so many others up and down England, but the locals who use it now own it, and it will presumably be a “free house” – meaning they can buy their beer cheaply from competitive local sources, instead of being forced to buy ale from a “tied” mega brewery, often at inflated prices. Although pubs are probably ideal for this type of community buyout, we hope to see this practice expand to fund other types of business - because businesses generate employment, which we need desperately now our jobs are being outsourced to the slave labour economies abroad. The English Radicals believe that every pub and bar should, by law, be a free house, and we would like nothing better than to see every local pub community owned, and supplied by local breweries, with the global breweries that once owned them forced to compete in the “free” market, instead of running the cosy scam that forces pub managers to buy only their products. A toast to the Star Inn, and may they always prosper. CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO HOME PAGE & WEBSITE MENU  ALL WE WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS THE RIGHT EQUIPMENT......... Eight years on from their original deployment and the UK’s armed forces in Afghanistan have just been informed that £150 million will be made available to provide extra funding to combat improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. Happy Xmas guys, and Gordon Brown is sorry that after all this time as Chancellor and Prime Minister he didn’t realise that you had to defuse a lot of bombs out there! Nor did he realise that you needed helicopters to get about, because the roads were full of IEDs; nor did he realise that the snatch Land Rovers you have were a tad vulnerable to both bombs and bullets. But you are getting proper armoured vehicles now, even if they don’t like the sand too much. Sad really, when you hear how our armed forces are sent to war without the right equipment; pathetic, even, when you hear that UK generals have been cadging lifts from US Army helicopters, but disgusting when you hear that British soldiers are buying their own body armour and other vital equipment on Ebay. So, Mr Brown, where has all the money allocated to fight the war gone? And, lest we forget, this is not a recent event, for one of the very first British casualties in Iraq in 2003 died because he had given somebody else his body armour due to shortages! How treacherous is it for a government to despatch men and women to war but not provide them with the equipment necessary to fight that war in the safest and most efficient manner? For that is what this is, treachery of the highest order. Politicians and their banker friends rewarding themselves with mega-bonuses, repairing their moats and their clock towers, fiddling whatever cash they can out of the taxpayer and then denying the funds needed to support our services in the face of a vicious and deadly enemy. Moreover, an enemy that this same Establishment has told us it is vital to take on and defeat to make our streets safe. Yet history teaches us that this betrayal of our armed forces is nothing new. In the First World War there were often supply problems and in one famous incident the artillery that should have been sent to the men who had secured a beachhead at Gallipoli ended up in Egypt. So those men were stuck on the beach, under heavy enemy artillery fire and without the means to respond. In more recent times the first soldiers deployed onto the streets of Northern Ireland waited years to get the proper riot equipment and had to resort to using bin lids and shoving copies of ‘National Geographic’ magazine down their trousers to combat stone-throwing youths. Whilst the Task Force that was sent to the Falklands found that the warships melted when struck with missiles, and even the humble army boot disintegrated when it made contact with the Falklands mud, British soldiers ended up robbing the boots of dead Argentinian soldiers in order to finish their forced march across the island. The English Radical Alliance does not think that our soldiers should be deployed anywhere in the World except in England to defend our streets and our shores, but whilst our troops are on active service, as they are today, they should be provided with the necessary personal and tactical equipment to do the job. To do otherwise is not only undermining the military campaign, it is also a crime! .............AND A DECENT ROOF OVER OUR HEADS Having denied the men in the frontline the proper equipment to do their job, the Ministry of Defence is trying to further undermine their morale by delaying improvements to services’ accommodation in order to help the department save money. In a recent letter from the head of the Army, Sir David Richards, it was announced that there will have to be a 10% cut in capital building programmes in order to help plug the £1.5 billion deficit in the MOD budget and this can only be achieved by postponing promised repairs to barracks and married quarters. Thousands of soldiers currently live in damp, poorly maintained barracks that have leaking roofs, broken windows, faulty heating and blocked lavatories. Just what kind of people inhabit the MOD? These are the same people who took disabled soldiers to Court to reduce their compensation for wounds received on active duty and yet who awarded themselves massive bonuses recently, no doubt from the savings on providing body armour and helicopters to soldiers in Afghanistan. No wonder Gordon Brown wants to send even more soldiers to Afghanistan, that’s less who will need a roof over their head in this country. So, when the General Election comes along and you are thinking about where to place your cross, please remember just how the Labour Party and gutless politicians in the other parties treated the people who they sent out to fight its illegal wars. CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO HOME PAGE & WEBSITE MENU  MORE JOBS GO TO THE LANDS OF CHEAP LABOUR England's last remaining piano manufacturer - Kemble, based at Bletchley near Milton Keynes - has now closed with the loss of more than 90 jobs. Its parent company, Yamaha, is moving production to the land of cheap labour in the Far East. The company which has been owned by Yamaha since the mid 1980's claim the marketplace for mid-range pianos has come under increasing pressure, and in order to improve their long term competitiveness, the best solution is to fully utilise their manufacturing capacity in other locations! In simple terms close down the company here in England and relocate abroad where labour is cheap and working conditions much poorer! In 1986 when Yamaha first became involved with what was then a family owned company, workers felt the Japanese multinational were their saviours. Yet this action has proved that Yamaha and the entire capitalist system cannot be trusted and that Kemble is just one of a long line of companies who are relocating to the lands of cheap labour at the expense of the workforce here in England. English Radicals have a very dim view of such action and an even dimmer view of the lack of action by the British government. ERA believes when a company relocates to the lands of cheap labour, its workforce should be paid a lump sum equivalent one years wages on top of any redundancy pay. This would give the workforce a real financial cushion and the opportunity to start their own business if they wish. In addition to this ERA believes that the workforce should be given the opportunity to buy the business at a reduced rate and to run it as a co-operative. Only ERA offer policies that provide greater job security for the workers of England, reducing the fear at cheap foreign labour taking their jobs, and at the same time offering real opportunity. CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO HOME PAGE & WEBSITE MENU DO NO HARM 06/16/2010
 Do No Harm' - the words that Dr Ubani did not adhere to when on his first out-of-hours GP cover in England. By his own admission Dr Ubani, who had only arrived in England the day before the death of David Gray, has admitted that fatigue led to Mr Grays death. In 2008 Dr Ubani had given 70-year-old David Gray 20 times the recommended amount of diamorphine to treat pain in his kidneys. Dr Ubani had been given an induction pack containing advice that it would almost never be appropriate to give doses of diamorphine higher than 30mg. An expert in out-of-hours services, Dr Mark Reynolds, told the inquest into David Grays death “I believe this tragedy was ultimately caused by the differences in training and experience of Dr Ubani to that of Doctors in England”. It seems Dr Ubani never bothered to consult his induction pack. A top-level report claims NHS trusts in England have been failing to carry out proper checks on GPs brought in to provide out-of-hours cover The top level report also stated that there are many challenges faced by foreign doctors who fly in to do night and weekend cover, such as seeing patients they are not familiar with or proper access to their medical records, and that doctors from within the EU are not having their clinical skills or their competence in English assessed because of EU laws. Meanwhile doctors from outside the EU have to sit an exam set by the General Medical Council There are unacceptable variations in the standard of out-of-hours care offered by Primary Care Trusts (PCT's) around England who are responsible for the services. PCT's buy in the services from private firms, GP co-operatives and in-house teams. Most of these providers do not assess the clinical skills of the staff they employ. The majority had a very lazy approach when assessing clinical staff. They did not use clinical scenarios when interviewing foreign doctors some didn’t even request references or if they did any that were not returned were not pursued for a reason why. Doctor Ellie Cannon works for a English inner-city out-of-hours co-operative personally welcomed the scrutiny that is now been given to the out-of-hours service in England since the tragic death of David Gray. Dr Cannon said that compassion and sense had been replaced with performance and targets and meeting those targets are one of the reasons why people in England have to put up with being treated by foreign doctors at night and weekends. The new GP contract brought in by the British government for GP's in England is a target driven contract. Shifts are paid by the hour, calls must be answered within a certain time frame and most worrying of all, doctors have a number of visits they have to undertake in a six hour shift. Each shift is not measured by quality but quantity and they have to prove they are performing well or the PCT contracts are taken away, so they have to fill all out-of-hour shifts. This means getting doctors from outside England, even if it means getting doctors who find English difficult to speak let alone understand, even if it means losing a patient along the way, not to worry it’s only the people in England who are suffering under this system and to a British government the people of England don’t matter at all. BACK TO HOME PAGE & WEBSITE MENU  SAVING THE PLANET NEEDN'T BE SO TAXING How hypocritical are the world’s leaders that gathered in Copenhagen to discuss climate change? They fly to Copenhagen in practically half empty aircraft, use large gas guzzling limousines to travel around and no doubt consume vast amounts of food that has clocked up thousands of food miles. So much for really caring about the environment! The English Radical Alliance believes that in the technological age in which we now live, this, and many other international conferences, could be carried out by video conferencing. This would be more environmentally friendly and allow politicians to stay in their own country should an emergency occur there. However the world’s leaders would then have to do without the substantial perks attending international conferences bring! We are not going to enter the climate change slanging match which currently exists. The evidence states that global warming is a natural phenomenon and history shows the Vikings were on the move from Scandinavia in the 9th & 10th centuries because rising sea levels were flooding their agricultural heartlands. At the same time evidence also shows that that mankind has had some impact upon climate change. The English Radical Alliance distances itself from this argument. We want a cleaner and greener world and our own environmental policies and unequaled investment in research and development into green technology would deliver this and create an eco-friendly industrial revolution for England. We could then export this technology across the world, which would be good for the English economy and beneficial to the future of the planet. This is common sense. Compare this to the hypocrisy of the government and the other parties. How eco-friendly is it to allow the privatised train companies to price people out of carriages and back into cars? How eco-friendly is it to allow large supermarket chains such as Tesco and Asda to destroy local shops? How eco-friendly is it to talk about the environment and creating jobs in new technologies and then support globalisation and flooding the English market with imported products manufactured using severe environmentally damaging forms of production? How eco-friendly is it to look at our emissions and think the best way of lowering these is to ship endless tons of plastic across the world to China where it is burnt, thus keeping our emissions lower but still polluting the atmosphere? The words spoken and promises made at Copenhagen by our politicians are cheap, the taxes we will all have to pay as a result of it will not be so cheap! Many of those that generally do care about the environment often turn to the Green Party. Yet the Greens are also a party of eco-hypocrites with policies that seem to want us to do everything short of returning to the Stone Age in order to save the planet. However the Greens are reluctant to tackle many of the social problems that contribute to damaging the environment and believe in uncontrolled mass immigration! How green is it to want England to be swamped with more car driving immigrants with more of our green and pleasant land being buried beneath bricks and mortar to house them? The answer not very green at all! As mentioned earlier the English Radical Alliance has a practical, common sense approach to saving the planet. Regrettably all the other parties do not share our common sense approach. They look at climate change and just see it as another way of raising taxes from an already heavily burdened taxpayer. The English Radical Alliance are not hypocrites. We will not bury our heads and ignore climate change like others and we will not make impossible and unnecessary sacrifices as the Greens would like us to do. We oppose globalisation, as this is driving many English companies, particularly in small manufacturing industries, out of business and at the same time increasing pollutants into our atmosphere. We favour economic protectionism and support for local economies. This would give preference to home produced and often local goods. The English Radical Alliance does not favour taxation as a way to a greener and cleaner land. After all where have these green taxes been spent? Probably on bailing out a bank and paying bonuses to failed financial executives or lavish fittings for MP’s residences. We favour investment in green technology, making England the world leader in this new field. Under Labour we have merely dipped our toes in the water of this emerging industry and under the Tories it would be no different. With this toe dipping approach we shall forever be a follower and not a leader, and we shall continue to import goods and technology from abroad at the cost of English jobs. If England was to invest in the research, development and production of green technology, the technology of tomorrow, this would herald a new industrial revolution for our country. It would create jobs and business opportunities and at the same time contribute to the greener and cleaner world we all want without taxpayers having to pay the burden. The other parties only talk about the environment. Only the English Radical Alliance has the green policies and will to deliver. BACK TO HOME PAGE & WEBSITE MENU  NEW LABOUR SURRENDERS TO BNP Amidst all of the headlines surrounding the appearance of BNP’s Nick Griffin on the BBC’s Question Time, the one subject that was overlooked was the way in which the Labour Party, under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, has been complicit in creating the monster that is the BNP, firstly by abandoning the white, working class citizens of the urban estates and, secondly, by allowing uncontrolled, and often illegal, immigration into England over the past ten years. For decades the Labour Party took its grassroots working class electorate for granted; how many of us have heard the old saying that ‘you could stick a red rosette on a poodle and it would get elected around here’? (And how true, look at Tony Blair!). Think about how the chattering classes love to praise MPs such as Frank Field for his ‘radical mind’ but whose Birkenhead constituency remains one of the poorest in Europe. There is no coincidence in linking poverty with the presence of a Labour candidate in Parliament (and one who is probably ripping off the taxpayer while he, or she, is there), these people believe that they don’t have to perform to get elected, just wear a red rosette. Sadly for Labour that attitude has now got Labour in bother, they’ve been rumbled, and to such an extent that now a party that once met every April 20th to pay homage to their dead Fuhrer is actually ousting Gordon Brown’s shambles of a party from its heartlands. Yes, that’s how badly the Labour Party has let down its core voters, the people who once relied upon the party to take their part and stand up for their concerns. But then this is the Labour Party that denies cancer drugs to patients and forces the disabled to look for work, whilst pouring billions of pounds into propping-up the bankers. This is the Labour Party that takes the country to war, illegally, but then fails to provide the servicemen and women with modern protective vehicles and equipment, argues about the amount of compensation they get when they’re wounded, and condemns their families to live in squalid housing. And, above all, this is the Labour Party whose leading members employ illegal immigrants as servants and yet think this is nothing worse than a traffic fine, or hire porn films at the taxpayers expense. For twelve years the Labour Party has been on a quest to attract Tory voters, believing all of that time that it could take its working class vote for granted. It’s far easier to offer low taxes to people in return for quick votes than actually deal with the real problems of the NHS, unemployment, crime, and environmental concerns, all of which cost money. Yes, low taxes so that people have more money to pay for cheap goods that are made overseas by child-labour, whilst our NHS, police and public transport system is starved of investment. But, of course, only those at the poorer end of society use the NHS and public transport, and the same people are the ones who are abandoned to high-crime council estates, or lawless city centres, policed by CCTV and Crimewatch. Far worse than any previous Tory regime, Labour is guilty of creating an unbalanced society where the rich get richer, and the poor have no hope of bettering themselves, except by crime, winning the lottery, or appearing on X-Factor. And it is this culture of despair that has opened the way for the BNP. The English Radical Alliance believe that the Labour Party is dead, and that the advent of Cameron’s Tory regime will create the groundswell for social and political upheaval. The BNP has nothing but negative values to offer the people of England, and we expect their bubble to burst in the coming years. ERA offers a radical alternative and we will step forward in the near future to show that we are the Party of England. CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO HOME PAGE & WEBSITE MENU  | ArchivesApril 2012 CategoriesAll |
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