MP tells of Welsh woe
This article appeared in the Shropshire Star the other day …
MP tells of Welsh woe
Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski has professed that he loves Wales, but he had plenty of complaints about the principality during a debate in the House of Commons.
The Shrewsbury & Atcham MP questioned Wales’s role in health services in Shropshire, flooding, tuberculosis in cattle, and “unfair and uncompetitive” grants to businesses given by the Welsh Assembly.
“The Welsh Assembly creates huge difficulties for English border towns,” he told MPs.
Mr Kawczynski said the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital was losing £2 million a year as a result of the way the assembly paid for treatment across the border.
“We have patients coming from Wales to the hospital who get life-saving medication to which my constituents in Shrewsbury are not entitled,” he told the Commons.
“I have to fight tooth and nail to secure life-saving treatments for my constituents that people from Wales get automatically in our hospital.
“That causes huge frustration and anger and divides our two communities.”
The Conservative MP said 40,000 cows had to be killed in England last year as a result of bovine TB.
“It is such a shame that there is not more co-operation between our parliament here in London and the Welsh Assembly over the issue, which transcends our borders,” he said.
“There should be far more co-operation in dealing with such major issues.”
Mr Kawczynski said flooding caused “tremendous misery” along the length of the River Severn with Shrewsbury flooding repeatedly.
“The way to resolve the problem is not to have little barriers in each town, but to have a wet washland scheme across the border in Wales,” he said.
“This would flood a large piece of agricultural land, which would become a marsh in the summer, encouraging wildlife, and a lake in winter.”
The Conservative MP said it was unacceptable that a Government minister had intervened to block the idea.
By London Editor John Hipwood
The Shropshire branch of the CEP has been plugging away at all five of the county’s MPs, including Daniel. He is nominally supportive of some form of better representation for England and, having sat on a devolution committee, is quite aware of the discrimination England faces.
Co-incidently, I received an email from the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust which covers the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford, the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital in Shrewsbury and the Robert Jones & Agnes Hunt in Oswestry. Prompted by an announcement by the Welsh Government that Welsh patients would be entitled to a new kidney cancer wonder-drug free of charge on the NHS, I had asked them …
Will Welsh patients treated in the RSH also get these drugs paid for by the Welsh Assembly? Will it be possible for an English and Welsh patient being treated at the RSH for the same thing and for the English patient to be refused the drugs that the Welsh patient will be getting?
The reply was long-winded but, in a nutshell, the answer was “yes”. The question is, what does Daniel propose to do about it? The Tory policy of English Pauses for English Clauses won’t resolve the issue, only an English Parliament will by putting English health priorities in the hands of politicians elected to represent English interests.
Click the icon below to view a copy of the letter from the NHS Trust.
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The failure of English constituency MPs to grasp the nettle of devolution and demand for England the same rights-and funding-for the people of England as that granted to the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland demonstrates their craven subjugation to the policy of their respective British Political Parties, which, unlike their dealings with Scotland and Wales, have no English divisions and no English manifesto.
March 1st, 2009 at 4:04 pmIt’s silly for the English MP’s to get worked up about devolution. It’s here to stay, there is no going back to the past. And the Scottish and Welsh parliaments will only get stronger as time passes.
The English complain that we have a say over our own affairs and yet Scottish and Welsh politicians can decide on matters that are only relevant to England. That is fair point, and to be honest quite indefensible and morally wrong.
So the obvious answer is to have a devolved English Parliament, then everyone should be happy. I cannot understand why people would have objections to it, other than it would be too costly to build a new parliament building. One possible solution to that would be to use Mondays and Tuesdays in House of Commons for England-only matters and rest of the week for UK wide matters.
I wish the Campaign for an English Parliament all the best. Because present system just makes the English second class in their own nation. Ant it’s wrong.
March 3rd, 2009 at 4:00 pmToo costly to build ANOTHER new parliament building? Why? Oh it’s fine, we’ll just spend half a billion on a new parliament building…just like the scots did. Oh I am sorry, I meant £414 million.
Scheduled to open in 2001, it did so in 2004, more than three years late with an estimated final cost of £414m, many times higher than initial estimates of £10m and £40m. A major public inquiry into the handling of the construction, chaired by the former Lord Advocate, Peter Fraser, was established in 2003. The inquiry concluded in September 2004 and criticised the management of the whole project from the realisation of cost increases down to the way in which major design changes were implemented.
The Scottish Office decided to procure the construction work under a “construction management contract”, rather than under a Private Finance Initiative, in order to speed construction, without properly evaluating the financial risks of doing so, and – in a decision that Fraser stated “beggars belief” – without asking Ministers to approve it. This was one of the two most flawed decisions which the report singled out, the other was the insistence on a rigid programme. Officials decided that rapid delivery of the new building was to be the priority.
The original budget of £40m was grossly exceeded to the tune of £300m, a figure that, according to the then Scottish Tory leader David McLetchie, “could have delivered 83 primary schools, 25 secondary schools or three brand new hospitals.”
AND THEY’RE STILL WASTING YOUR MONEY FOLKS!
Published Date: 02 March 2009 By Ian Swanson
SCOTTISH Parliament bosses are spending £223,000 of taxpayers’ money to build a “triangular roundabout” as a security measure outside the Holyrood building.
The concrete construction in front of the entrance to the underground car park in Holyrood Road is intended to prevent a terrorist attack on the parliament.
This comes on top of a bill of more than £250,000 for a new system of traffic lights and pop-up barriers to control entry to the car park.
SPENDING SPREE BY SCOTTISH POLITICIANS
In the past year alone Scottish mp’s have spent…
• £94,000 on plugging leaks.
• £8,000 to rewire lights.
• £20,000 to treat wooden slats.
• An “undisclosed amount” for revarnishing and replacing the oak canopy over the public entrance.
• An “unspecified amount” to fit extra under-floor radiators.
• £20,000 on a giant granite “Public Entrance” sign.
• £250,000 on barriers, traffic lights and a swipe-card system at the car park.
• £56,000 revamping the exhibition in the foyer.
• £50,000 for mini-aerials to boost mobile phone reception.
• Thousands of pounds are due to be spent on gates and turnstiles at the Queensberry House and Canongate entrances.
OF COURSE I AM MISSING THE POINT WHICH IS WHY DO THE ENGLISH EVEN NEED TO HAVE A DEBATE ON WHETHER THEY WILL HAVE THEIR OWN PARLIAMENT BUILDING? THE SCOTS AND WELSH DIDN’T!
March 4th, 2009 at 8:14 am“OF COURSE I AM MISSING THE POINT WHICH IS WHY DO THE ENGLISH EVEN NEED TO HAVE A DEBATE ON WHETHER THEY WILL HAVE THEIR OWN PARLIAMENT BUILDING? THE SCOTS AND WELSH DIDN’T!”
But we Welsh and Scots did have a debate and a say on our building and everything else back in 1997 with a referendum. And the people voted YES.
March 4th, 2009 at 11:58 am“Debate”? There was no debate on what buildings to use. People in Scotland went to the polls to vote on the creation of a Scottish parliament. Two questions were asked in the devolution referendum: whether there should be a Scottish parliament, and whether it should have the power to vary the basic rate of income tax by 3 percent. Nobody asked, “should there be a referendum?” Nobody said, “why do we need another expensive building when we already have a perfectly adequate building?” Nobody stuck their nose in and said, it’s “Too costly to build ANOTHER new parliament building!” So, there was no debate.
The turnout at the referendum was 60% of the electorate. 40% didn’t even bother to take it seriously and of the people who did vote, 26% disagreed that there should be a Scottish Parliament.
As for the welsh, 50.3% voted yes, 49.75 voted no.
Anyway, the whole point of this website is to highlight the need for the English nation to have their own parliament again, and the evil injustices that result from not having their own parliament.. So, I guess I will try to highlight it now.
The West Lothian question
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=west+lothian+question&btnG=Search
Devolution is not a matter of life or death. Oh wait, IT IS!
Here is a story that demonstrates the extent of this Government’s discrimination against England and how a lack of an English Parliament really can be a “life or death” matter.
Englishman Jack Hose has paid National Insurance (at the same rate as those in Scotland) for fifty years. He now has cancer and was sent home by the Royal Bournemouth Hospital “to die”. He then discovered a cocktail of drugs (including Cetuximab) that has managed to stabilise his condition.
Guess what? The drug Cetuximab is not available on “the NHS” according to the Sunday Times. Guess what else? It is freely available to the likes of Brown, in Scotland…
but not in England! See what idiot Jack Straw says below.
Jack Straw new labour
“The current arrangements are to the advantage of every section of the United Kingdom.” Not if you live in England. You cannot get cancer drugs that everyone else can get BECAUSE you live in England. How is it an advantage?
He also said there was “no serious sentiment” in England for an English parliament. Maybe the liar should take another look at these polls.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6264823.stm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1535193/Britain-wants-UK-break-up%2C-poll-shows.html
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23375965-details/Poll+reveals+6+in+10+English+voters+back+Scottish+independence/article.do
Here is yet another reason for having an English parliament. We would not let this happen.
“The future of Scotland’s shipyards was placed on a firm footing yesterday after work destined for England was transferred to the Clyde.”
Anyway, I would be interested to hear your views on these matters and, in particular, how a Scottish parliament and welsh assembly can be justified and yet an English parliament with similar powers cannot.
March 6th, 2009 at 6:34 pmDear M. Anderson,
You are not listening.. We DO agree in Scotland and Wales that England should have parity with Scotland, Wales and N.I.
Many of the posts to this website highlight this. So calm down just a little bit!..
As for the £40m it is now known that this was not what the parliament was estimated to cost at all, but this figure was pushed by Donald Dewer (Labour), to get the agreement needed to get the building started.
It’s like the £1500 banded about for the Barnett Formula – do you really believe this government spin?.. I can assure you that no one in Scotland does – its treated as an insulting joke.
March 8th, 2009 at 7:14 pmDalriada. Oh I see, the £1500 per capita spending advantage which according to the Treasury Public Expenditure Survey is enjoyed by Scotland is just government spin. Well the Scots may believe that – after all it doesn’t fit their world view – but no one else does. Actually not quite all Scots either. Alex Salmond wants to keep the formula until Scotland has either fiscal or complete independence, rather than go onto a needs-based formula. He is an astute man with Scotland’s interests at heart.
March 8th, 2009 at 10:06 pmJames,
Yes I do think it is government spin – and it was originally aimed at Scotland to tell us how well we are doing out of the Union, trouble is we just dont buy it. This figure came about at the same time as the “Scotland could not manage on its own”, now no longer a Tory or Labour line post devolution. It’s now “Well yes you could, but look at the strength through the Union”. Now of course it is picked up in other countries as a “fact”.
The £1,500 figure holds as much water as the line from Labour that every family would be £400 (might have been more), worse off if we voted in an SNP Administration. I remember Tony Blair in his last few days continuing to spout the line in Scotland.
It was a complete joke and Labour soon dropped it when they found out they were making fools of themselves.
I know I wont convince you, but the £1,500 story is for Scotland one with a fairy at the front. No I dont mean Alistair Darling.
March 9th, 2009 at 7:38 pmYou are right. I am entirely unconvinced. The £1500 figure comes from Treasury civil servants and the comparable figure can be traced back year on year. I will believe them ahead of self-interested Scottish nationalist anecdote any day. You are also right that it has been used to try to convince the Scots to remain in the Union. No surprise or contradiction there. It has been maintained as an attempt to buy Scottish loyalty to the Union, so why wouldn’t Unionist politicians refer to it?
The “£400 loss” was spin, but that came from politicians.
March 9th, 2009 at 8:41 pmFrom the document that Mr Matthews refers to , these are the 06/07 figures for public expenditure per head
North East 7,892.00
North West 7,756.00
Yorkshire and Humberside 7,111.00
East Midlands 6,468.00
West Midlands 7,090.00
Eastern 6,177.00
London 8,550.00
South East 6,165.00
South West 6,513.00
England 7,076.00
Scotland 8,544.00
Wales 8,172.00
Northern Ireland 8,990.00
UK identifiable expenditure 7,308.00
Table 9.4
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/11(1).pdf
So Scotland got £1468 more per head than England – England of course has 49 million heads and Scotland 5 million .
5 million heads in London got £4 less than the Scottish heads .
Is it fair ?
March 9th, 2009 at 9:11 pmDoes it really matter ?
Comparing London and Scotland is like comparing apples with pears – one is a city, one is a country. And if I was pressed for an opinion on the £4 per head difference between London and Scotland then I’d point out that that’s £20m and yes, it does matter.
March 9th, 2009 at 10:03 pmMcfeagle. As I have previously pointed out, it is no more reasonable to compare London with Scotland than to compare the South East of England with Scotland.The attribution of funds between English regions is not determined by a fixed formula in the way that expenditure in Scotland is and the whole of the UK Parliament gets to vote on how funds are used in England. The only fair comparison is between nations – and yes, as we are increasingly divergent nations, of course it matters.
March 9th, 2009 at 10:15 pmIs it fair ?
Well, I think that it might be , if you change the name away from Barnet and accept that some areas of the UK do have differing needs and that those needs will cost more, then a difference in subsidies is fair. If you can accept that the NE of England needs more subsidies than the SE of England – is that ‘fair’? . As for trying to compare England & Scotland as countries, 49 million pop against a 5 million pop, sounds like an 18 stone man having a go at a 9 stone man to me . Forget London ( I hate cities ), compare the NE of England with Scotland and it still costs more to run public services in Scotland.
Does it matter ?
Yes it does – England should have it’s own parliament , I have no problem at all with that. But if you use the same conditions imposed by the UK parliament onto the Scottish parliament then after the initial flush of enthusiasm , the English parliament is going to want more powers, in the same way that is happening in Scotland now . IE the UK Parliament allocates funds to the English parliament.
The devolution set up that we have at present is half cocked and is more or less guaranteed to create friction. Which I believe was the plan all along .
Incidentally ( and this may upset some ) , its a nice change to see the English as pee’d off at Gordo as the Scots were pee’d off at Maggie. We had to put up with her for years, youv’e only had Gordo for a wee while
March 9th, 2009 at 11:24 pmComparing a country to a city is British tactic to justify higher expenditure in Scotland and is wrong.
March 10th, 2009 at 7:41 amHow does a smaller population justify more money per head?
However much the memory of Mrs Thatcher irritates you. She was elected by the British to govern Britain. Things are somewhat different since Blair/1997.
Magen Davide Hume said…
“I am just trying to get some sort or objectivity into this debate. The author or this article is making an assertion that the Scots are racist yet the only evidence presented is an incident in Port Seton (which is a complete dump) and some anecdote from a tartan tat shop in Edinburgh. Unless there is quantifiable data to back up these claims then the whole debate descends into an exchange of emotion and goes nowhere”
“Quantifiable data”? Ha! ha! The scots never need any “data” to attack the English; (In my opinion, the scots act like the English are guilty no matter what, and despite the fact that no English person alive today was alive when a lot of animosity was occuring, i.e. during the wars between England and Scotland) Anyway, why should the English need any evidence to do the same? You are being hypocritical. What else is new? The English are fighting fire with fire. There does not seem to be anything wrong with this concept when the scots are employing it so why should there be anything wrong with it when the English use it?
Obviously, this all started with the battle of Brunanburh in 937 You know when the Norse, scots and Irish attacked the Angles (English) and got a right good hammering for their trouble. Maybe it started when the Saxons were invited over by the taffs to fight the Picts. Anyway, it has gone on from there. I really think you’re wasting your time trying to make up some red herring in the scots defence. There is no defence. We are culturally different from one another, i.e. we think and act differently. So what? In my opinion, most true English folk would not think it “funny”, “hilarious”, or “a real good joke jimmy” to support the team that was playing against scotland, but who cares, if you think it makes you look good that’s up to you. You lot have insecurity “issues” ha! ha!
“No it does not make it okay that racially aggravated crimes are infrequent. All attacks or this kind are wrong and I condemn them absolutely. That does not alter the fact that physical attacks on English people are a tiny fraction of racially aggravated crimes”
Either it’s wrong or it isn’t wrong! You cannot say “no, it isn’t okay”; then say…”but it’s only a few” thereby implying that it really doesn’t matter. It matters ‘cos Scots and English folks should not be fighting each other.
“I’m not sure about the wheelchair incident” Yeah, I thought you might type that. So here is the link.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/5101184.stm
“yes you are right about the seven year old child. That makes three serious assaults on English people in three years. With around 400,000 English people living in Scotland that makes the probability of being seriously assaulted because you are English in one year about 0.00025%”
Three “incidents” in three years?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/7022424.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/north_east/5139054.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/south_of_scotland/5094262.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/5063592.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/5058132.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/north_east/5116434.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/north_east/7826264.stm
http://spectator.org/archives/2006/07/21/losing-scotland
“…In Linwood, Renfrewshire, scotland two England supporters aged 19 and 36 were hospitalized after being beaten up by Scots when they toasted England’s victory over Trinidad and Tobago.
When these incidents were reported in the press, readers’ letters revealed many similar happenings, such as: “I am a serving soldier and I and many other English families in our area are sick of being targetted by your yobs…targetting parked cars with English flags, ripping down English flags from houses…” A former Royal Air Force man wrote: “The last time I was [in Scotland] I was openly insulted and will not return.”
Leading London journalist Stephen Glover wrote: “An Englishman living in Scotland displayed the St. George’s flag outside his house by way of identifying with England’s World Cup team. His windows were smashed. The same man says that abuse was also hurled at him when he went to his local shop wearing an England strip….Whenever I visit Scotland, I am amazed at how self-preoccupied the country has become…I mourn for my disintegrating country. ”
http://mydigest.wordpress.com/2009/02/18/gerry-rafferty-phoned-his-spokesperson-paul-charles-two-weeks-ago-reports-daily-echo-bournemouth-today-ultimate-guitar-website-says-the-great-singer-is-in-bournemouth-missing-person-stephen-hadley/
“Daily Record (the Scottish version of Daily Mirror of London) reported a Cheltenham, English lady (22) who moved to Gourdon having a night out in Aberdeen was punched by a creep who thinks of himself as a Scot, but is an ignorant asshole, as he grunted “Go back to England!”
The lady’s eye has two nerves severed and her sight is permanently degraded. The focus-control muscle is unserviceable. The traitor to Scotland who dishonoured his nation by his vile action is in his late 20s or early 30s and his fellow thug was wearing a blue shirt. CCTV is being studied.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/7924480.stm
So, like I have already said, three incidents in three years (according to you that is) makes it okay? Either it is okay or it isn’t okay. Which one do you think is correct. Okay or not okay?
http://www.squandertwo.net/blog/2006/06/flying-off-handle.htm
“When Braveheart was released, there were more violent attacks on students in St Andrews (where I was studying at the time) in the first six weeks of term than in the entire previous year. (And there were a lot in the previous year, because Scots travel over from Dundee to St Andrews especially to beat the shit out of anyone who looks like they might be English or who answers a question in the wrong accent.) Someone staggered into the Union with blood pouring down their face pretty much every night. We all had to be very careful about walking around in public, and it was a bad idea to go out after dark.”
And what relevance does the maritime border have to this debate?
“JuanKerr” wrote:
“Over the past few years westminster has allready staarted ring fencing our oil. They have partitioned 6000 miles of north sea as Englands territory and built an oil terminal and pipe line in newcastle to bypass scottish refineries should strife come”
I do believe it was a scotsman who made sure the poll tax was fact in scotland.
March 16th, 2009 at 6:16 amRe “Comment by “Mr M Anderson” ”
I’m not quite sure which thread that your on ? If Any.
One of my mates reckons that Scots are like the Klingons in StarTrek – I guess that we means that we sound coarse and are barbarians or he mean something entirely different
March 16th, 2009 at 3:18 pmdaggs
March 16th, 2009 at 4:37 pmthatcher was voted in by the english to govern britain
whats the diffrence with blair? dont get it?
Didn’t read it properly did you Clyde?
SINCE Blair 1997?
In Thatchers time the British people voted for a British government for Britain;
March 16th, 2009 at 7:55 pmSince Blair the people of Britain vote for a British government for England, for 70% of all legislation.
daggs
see where your coming from but(theres always a but) a general election people are voting for a british government…thatcher had 3 mps up here then there where none but she still governed
March 16th, 2009 at 8:55 pmbritain
Daggs – a logical argument but but very much skewed to fit the need for an English parliament.
You don’t need it to argue for an English parliament
.
I my experience the Scots detest Mrs Thatcher, for her policies and the systematic erosion of Scottish ( and English ) industry.
Did you know that there was a referendum for devolution in 1979 ? Did you know that after the mayhem of that referendum , that one of the first acts of the Thatcher government was to repeal the Scotland Act.
Im not a labour supporter, youv’e probably worked out my party of choice, although Labour won the General Elections of 1979, 1983, 1987 and 1992 in Scotland, the party lost each time in the rest of the UK and Scotland was governed by a Conservative government who had hardly enough MPs to appoint as Scottish Ministers, between 1979 and 1997.
It really didnt matter who we voted for, what we got was seen as a “British” govt that was really an govt that we didnt vote for and didnt want.
Sorry if I seem a bit nuts about this, it’s because Im passionate about it and saw family and friends losing jobs, towns and villages dying because of the daft policies .
Have a look at
http://www.alba.org.uk/referenda/devo.html
for the figures
Cheers
March 16th, 2009 at 9:01 pm“Daggs – a logical argument but but very much skewed to fit the need for an English parliament”
I wasn’t trying to make it fit. If i was i wouldn’t have skewed my own percentages (i hope)
What i should have said is; British people vote for a British Gov. for England, for 100% of all legislation. But only 30% of legislation applicable to Scotland. The other 70% being the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament.
We here could make the same complaint about having a Labour government foisted on us, when England votes majority Tory in General Elections.
March 16th, 2009 at 9:13 pmI know what you mean but hopefully some of noobs might catch on and it might help them reach their goals.
December 14th, 2009 at 4:05 pm