Politics 2007 22.06.07

Gordon Brown was facing a bitter battle over Scottish independence last night, as the country's SNP government unveiled controversial plans to leave the Union.

First Minister Alex Salmond insisted 'tectonic plates' were moving in Scotland and that its relationship with the rest of the UK had to change.

But the Government warned the SNP that it was possible for Westminster to take powers back from the Scottish Parliament just as easily as handing it more control.

The three opposition parties in Scotland - Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats - have all joined forces to fight independence.

Despite this, the Prime Minister appears to have bowed to demands for a debate over more powers being devolved to Holyrood, including rights over energy, broadcasting and the freedom to raise taxes.

Any constitutional changes for the Scottish Parliament would also heighten controversy over the role of Scottish MPs at Westminster.

The Prime Minister is facing mounting pressure from the Tories over his reliance on Labour MPs with Scottish seats - such as his own - to force through legislation that applies only in England.

Mr Salmond has insisted he wants voters to be given a referendum on independence by no later than 2010.

Yesterday, he published a White Paper setting out three options for Scotland's future - no change in the current set-up, more powers for Holyrood or full separation.

It also includes the draft wording of the ballot paper for a referendum, which Mr Salmond said would cost about £7million.

But the minority SNP administration at Holyrood, which controls only 47 out of 129 seats, is unlikely to win enough support for the legislation to be passed.+

Independence vote for 'Scots only'

English voters will be given no say over proposals that could end the 300-year-old union with Scotland, the leader of Edinburgh's new nationalist administration said yesterday.

Speaking as he unveiled a White Paper on independence, Alex Salmond, Scotland's First Minister, said only Scots would be given a vote in a referendum on the issue.

British politicians, including Margaret Thatcher, had accepted that the question of self-determination was for the people of Scotland alone to choose, he said.

"The decision when it comes will be a decision for Scots," he added.

Despite opinion polls showing that fewer than 30 per cent of Scots support independence, Mr Salmond refused to concede that his party would lose a vote if it was to be held tomorrow.

There was a difference between an opinion poll and a referendum, he said, although he pledged his party would abide by the result. The SNP hopes to table a bill on a referendum by 2010 and to hold the vote that same year.

However, they face considerable opposition from Holyrood's unionist parties, who outnumber the minority government. In an attempt to build consensus, the paper also laid out the option for a separate question on extra devolved powers for Scotland, rather than independence.

The SNP hopes that option will appeal to the Tories and the Liberal Democrats, who have long argued the need for increased powers.+

Full Telegraph article

We've been neglected and let down say combat troops

The government is failing in its historic duty of care towards frontline troops who put their lives on the line in Iraq and Afghanistan, forces charities and campaigners claim.

There is growing anger in the service community that the Military Covenant, which says soldiers should always be able to expect fair treatment in return for the rights they forgo, is not being upheld.

The newly-founded British Armed Forces Federation, Baff, says that the covenant is "now a dead letter". And in an unprecedented move, the Royal British Legion - widely known for its poppy appeal and welfare work for old soldiers - is to launch a campaign demanding that the government upholds the covenant and provides its armed forces and their families with proper care in return for asking them to risk making "the ultimate sacrifice for their country".

The campaign aims to "address the growing sense of disillusionment among service personnel and veterans about their treatment by the state".

"The Legion believes that our servicemen and women deserve more from their government. By committing themselves to put their lives on the line for their country, they deserve immediate medical treatment and just compensation if they are injured," the organisation says on its website.

Pressure on the government is growing after six men died under enemy fire in one of the bloodiest weeks in Iraq and Afghanistan. It includes:

· The Legion's campaign, to be launched during the autumn party conference season, will highlight medical care, military inquests and iniquities in the compensation system for injured troops;

· The rising toll of the seriously injured, with casualty figures for this year already set to outstrip the whole of 2006;

· Growing concern about the mission purpose in Basra, where soldiers told MPs troops face "nightly suicide missions";

· Soldiers losing faith in their equipment - particularly the Snatch Land Rover, which is extremely vulnerable to roadside bombs

Last year General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the army, warned that the government was in danger of breaking the covenant.

Published as an army doctrine the covenant states that: "Soldiers will be called upon to make personal sacrifices - including the ultimate sacrifice - in the service of the nation. In putting the needs of the nation and the army before their own, they forgo some of the rights enjoyed by those outside the armed forces. In return, British soldiers must always be able to expect fair treatment, to be valued and respected as individuals, and that they (and their families) will be sustained and rewarded by commensurate terms and conditions of service."+

Full Guardian article Special report The military

CAMERON MUST RALLY ENGLISH IN REVOLT AGAINST SCOTS PERKS

HOW LONG, I wonder, will the English continue to tolerate the fiction that they are an equal partner in a United Kingdom?

Since it was elected in 1997, Labour’s policy has been to create a blatantly Disunited Kingdom. It has wrenched the UK apart through devolution, a deeply cynical move aimed at keeping happy the five million Scots without whose votes there would never be another Labour government.

Devolution and a Scottish parliament mean that Scots are able to enjoy the best of all worlds. Because England pours billions of pounds in subsidies into Scotland every year, Scots enjoy privileged treatment in hospitals, schools and universities denied to the English.

In 2006, spending on public services in Scotland was about £1,500 per head more than in England. Drugs, including some cancer drugs and one aimed at combating wet age-related macular degeneration, which is a leading cause of blindness, are available to Scottish patients. Yet, at present, these same drugs are denied to the English on the grounds of cost.

In a bizarre, Labour-created situation, English taxpayers are paying to make available for Scottish patients drugs that are denied to the English.

The extent of Labour’s cynicism was highlighted when Tony Blair had to rely on the votes of Scottish MPs to push through the introduction of £3,000-a-year fees at English universities. Yet from 2009, Scottish university students will pay nothing.+

Sensational Poll Results for SNP

SNP Business Manager Angus Robertson MP has commented on the sensational poll in the Daily Mail by Progressive Scottish Opinion which puts the SNP at 48% to 32% for Labour and also shows 40% of the public are satisfied with the new SNP Government with only 12% unfavourable.

"These are sensational figures, showing SNP support up 15 points since the election - and clearly there is no 'Brown bounce' in Scotland. The poll underlines the success of the SNP government in delivering our programme for the first 100 days at a pace that has left the opposition parties gasping, and unable to keep up.

English Democrats
London Black Cabbies Champion

August 2007

London Mayoral Candidate, Garry Bushell, is committed to championing the cause of London Icons, the London Black Cabbies, a group who have been under attack by Ken Livingstone, ever since his election on 4 May 2000.

Recently interviewed for “The Badge” London Cabbie Trade Newspaper, Garry Bushell committed to up hold the interests of London Cabbie and scrap all Positive Discrimination initiatives that Ken Livingstone is currently trying to push through, as well has the wasteful emission control systems, that Mayor Livingstone is foolishly trying to rush through.

Cabbie Grant Davis & Vice-Chairman of the The London Cab Drivers Club, confirmed that Garry Bushell represented the “sensible” approach to dealing with London, and already had Grant’s vote.

English Democrats are currently in the process of selecting their London Assembly Candidates, and it is highly likely that London Cabbies will be well represented in the list of Candidates.

Garry Bushell has been nominated by the English Democrats as their Mayoral Candidate for the May 2008 Elections, his selection as Candidate will be confirmed at the English Democrats Annual Conference on 15 September 2007.

ENDS

Press Enquiries

Steven Uncles

London Elects 2008 – Campaign Manager

Mobile: 07931 390029

Tel: 0870 062 4555

London@EngDem.org

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to require that any Minister of the Crown, or member of the Westminster Union Parliament, who has signed the Scottish Claim of Right be asked to renounce their pledge which requires that in all their actions and deliberations the interests of the Scottish people shall be paramount. More details

Press Release –

Whole of UKIP Dorset Branch Defects to the English Democrats

1st August 2007

The Chairman of UKIP’s former West Dorset Branch, Keith Hansford, is pleased to announce that he and most of his Branch are coming over to The English Democrats, which is the leading Political Party campaigning for the fair treatment of England.

Speaking today in Bridport, West Dorset, Keith said, "I am certain that the English Democrats' general policies and democratic call for an English Parliament will prove popular with Dorset’s electors from all previous political persuasions. Our policies can be found on our website www.englishdemocrats.org.uk or please contact us by post at:- PO Box 1066, Norwich, NR14 6ZJ; or by telephone:- 08700624555."

Keith added: "Politics should not start in Westminster or Whitehall and cascade down to “the masses”! It should start in the lanes and high streets of England and by us listening to all the people of England and trying politically to make happen what is best for them, their families and their way of life."

Robin Tilbrook of Essex, the English Democrats' Chairman, said:-
"I am delighted to welcome Keith Hansford and almost the whole of UKIP’s membership in West Dorset into our democratic and patriotic party. The English Democrats are now making real progress in getting England's interests politically onto centre stage and I look forward to our standing in the rumoured October General Election to help us to force the other parties to take England's future seriously."

Mike Blundell of Bristol, the English Democrats' South West of England Chairman said:-
"We shall be forming a new Branch of the English Democrats in Dorset which will help support our existing enthusiastic members and act as a focal point for new ones.
At this time we plan to contest 5 or 6 seats at the next General election in the South West, for which some candidates have already been identified. All this is good news for our party in the South West and for the many people of the South West of England who will now have the opportunity to vote for and support a patriotic English Party."

Christine Constable of Norwich, the English Democrats' Vice-Chairman added:-
"The English have for far too long been treated as second class citizens within the Union, our right to a functioning democracy is just as important as the rights given to Scotland and Wales. The English Democrats are winning the argument up and down the country".
All three of the main parties continue to fail to recognise the rights of the people of England to have a national identity, an English Parliament and a secure national border. It is gratifying to note that those who really wish to represent England now understand that the only way to deliver democracy for England is to join the English Democrats, Keith Hansford and the West Dorset Branch have made that decision and we warmly welcome them all into our rapidly growing ranks."+

Of the mainland UK nations, only the Scots allowed to choose their national emblem rather than the Union Flag.

Under the government’s plan to fly the UK flag on public buildings, the Scots have quite rightly secured an opt out. The Scots who are justifiably proud of their national emblem, will be allowed to choose the Saltire in preference to the UK’s Union Flag. There are just 18 ‘special days’ when they must fly the UK emblem instead.

Earlier in the year Gordon Brown talking about the celebration of Britishness said "The union flag should be a British symbol of unity around our values ... and we should assert that the union flag is for tolerance and inclusion." He wants the ‘national’ flag used to increase a sense of Britishness by flying it every day on Government buildings and eventually police stations and hospitals across the UK.

SNP leader Alex Salmond has said, Britishness "went bust long ago" in Scotland. A spokesperson for the SNP said Justice Secretary Jack Straw, (the English have a propensity for violence), agreed that there are different considerations in Scotland than there are in England, and the policy to fly the UK flag would not apply. He agreed that the issue of flags is best left for us to decide.

There is no news of a similar opt out for the English and the Cross of St George. Will Jack Straw, (the English have a propensity for violence) grant the English the same right of opt out?+

Metro

Racism is widely recognised in Britain as a moral evil. That being so, it must also be said that anti-English racism is a moral evil, and not the less evil for being

practiced in England itself. The flag of St George is not a racist flag. It is the ancient flag of England. It is the flag carried to victory in battle by Edward of Windsor at Crecy and Neville's Cross in 1346, and at Poitiers in 1356 and at Najera in 1367 by his eldest son, Edward of Woodstock. It is the flag carried to victory by Henry of Monmouth, the son of the Lancastrian usurper to the English throne, Henry of Bolingbroke, at Agincourt in 1415. It is the flag of the Church of England and is flying, or ought to be flying, today at Tewkesbury Abbey.

To ban the flag of England in England is not 'silly', as it has been described. It is sinister, subversive, xenophobic, and racist. And British politicians, such as the Scottish Gordon Brown, ought to be vigilant on behalf of the rights of the English whom he chooses to regard as his fellow British citizens. I wait for some comment from our inept Prime Minister on the banning of the wearing of a St George's Cross bandana by a dustman, Matthew Carter (born in Barbados) on his rounds in Burnley, Lancashire. Those who have objected to his doing so ought to be prosecuted under the Race Relations Act, I congeratulate Mr Carter on showing respect to his fellow English citizens. But it is time (with much of England under water through the hopeless ineptitude of a criminally foolish British government) for the English to be less accommodatingly stupid in the defence of ther vital national interests.

The responsibility for the unfair treatment meted out to the English in this constructed state the UKs (United Kingdoms), lies with the British Parliament, not the Scottish people.

GORDON CONTINUES SCOTTISH CASH COMMITMENT

By Kerry Gill

GORDON Brown yesterday vowed to keep public spending in Scotland at its present level despite squeals from English regions.

The Prime Minister has refused to bow to demands that he alter the controversial funding arrangement.

Anger at what the English see as a favourable deal for Scots has intensified over recent months, particularly as people south of the Border realise that there are often greater benefits to living here.

Initiative such as free care for the elderly, and Alex Salmond's intention to abolish tuition fees for Scots, EU and Northern Irish students - but not for English students - has rankled in the corridors of Westminster.

Improved services available in Scotland also include extra cancer drugs on the NHS.

But Mr Brown yesterday refused to countenance any overhaul of funding for Scotland.

"There are always difficult choices in public expenditure about where resources go," he said, but claimed the current system had "lasted for more than 30, maybe 40 years now."

Mr Brown signalled his support for the controversial Barnett Formula, blamed by many critics for higher state spending in Scotland compared with England.

Last year, spending per head on public services was £6,762 in England, but £7,597 in Scotland. In fact, the best funded region of the UK is Northern Ireland which gets £8,216 a year for services.

And London, if taken in isolation, gets a whopping £8,404 per head, considerably more per head than the Scots.

The Prime Minister said: "It is a formula that is well tested and tried, it has been used by Governments of all political colours and I believe that will be the basis on which the public spending settlement will be signed.

"And when I talk about difficult choices in public spending, I mean in every area, whether it's transport, or the environment or social security, there are choices that have to be made."

His remarks indicated the formula will continue after by the Government's forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review, a three-year public spending plan from the Treasury due this autumn.

He added: "There are things that we will deal with in the spending review."

But his vow fuelled anger that English taxpayers are suffering a raw deal.

Blair Gibbs, Campaign Director of the TaxPayers' Alliance said: "Gordon Brown might want to pretend that everything is fine and dandy but English taxpayers know the truth. "Spending decisions made in Edinburgh are creating a big divide between what public services are available north of the border, and what their compatriots in England receive for the same taxes."

He added: "If this unfairness is not addressed soon, it will only strengthen calls to break up the Union which is not something that most people - including Mr Brown - want."

But Mr Brown insisted that he wanted to work closely with Mr Salmond - and the first ministers of Wales and Northern Ireland - "to make sure the United Kingdom is not only prosperous but is also sustainable, and
we get the benefit of the United Kingdom going to all the people of the United Kingdom.

"Obviously there are difficult decisions to be made in relation to the resources in each of the individual parts of the United Kingdom.

"But where the whole of the United Kingdom benefits from co-operation, we're working together to make sure we get the best deal for everyone."+

For me the real legacy of Blair lies in the permanent altering of the physical constitution of the English people. In this month’s Prospect Magazine Robert Colls explores this:

Leicester, where I live now, is ready to become the first majority Asian city in Europe. It will not be the last. Immigration into English cities has reached record levels and continues unabated. In the last three or four years, Leicester has taken more than 10,000 Somalis, and Poles are the latest wave. For a long time, you were not supposed to notice this. Or talk about it. But now demographers refer to the “third demographic transition,” where, if current trends continue, national ancestry will be “radically and permanently altered by high levels of immigration…"+

As I have said, there is a struggle over Englishness. The opposition to Englishness finding political expression in anything like the way Scottishness and Welshness have been given political recognition and expression is widespread among the UK Establishment. The three main political parties emphatically all oppose an English Parliament. Labour because it needs the votes of Scottish and Welsh MP, thinks an English Parliament will be Tory dominated, and because influential elements within it harbour an ingrained hostility towards England, The Tories because they think an EP will mean the termination of the Union and they still harbour futile illusions about having a future in Scotland. The LDs because they are still led by unionist Scots such as Menzies Campbell who have not yet been able to adjust mentally to the broader requirements of the 1998 devolution legislation. The LD younger English MPs, who are the Party’s future, have still to make their mark. And of course, for all Scottish MPs the present situation in which their responsibilities for their Scottish constituencies have been enormously reduced and transferred to MSPs while they still draw the same full pay as an English MP and still can be ministers for England is the best of all possible worlds. The BBC does not want it an English Parliament either. It has organised itself in ‘nations and regions’, Scotland and Wales being the ‘nations’, not England. There is a BBC Scotland and a BBC Wales but no BBC England. For the BBC England is just a conglomeration of ‘regions’, its distinct identity as a nation not recognised.+

BROWN'S REPUBLICAN DREAM IS A BETRAYAL OF THE PEOPLE

On the day he became Prime Minister he went to Buckingham Palace to announce his plans to downgrade her powers.

Who asked him to do that? It wasn’t in Labour’s manifesto and the vast majority of British voters have no dispute with the monarchy.

The Government, which sprang this change on the Queen, claims that we can only become a proper democracy if she is sidelined. Jack Straw says our Royal Family should become a Scandinavian-style monarchy. In future, there’ll be no Queen’s Speech in Parliament and Royal Prerogative powers will pass to ministers. There could even be a new national anthem.+

The responsibility for the unfair treatment meted out to the English in this constructed state the UKs (United Kingdoms), lies with the British Parliament, not the Scottish people.

SCOTLAND'S £60BN GIFT FROM BROWN

GORDON Brown has handed Scotland almost £60billion more public money than England over the past 10 years.

Every year since 1997, Scotland has received an extra £5.7billion to share among a population a tenth the size of England’s, research has revealed.

Last year public spending per head in Scotland was £8,623 per head, while England received just £7,121.

It amounts to £57billion more than Scotland would have received if it had been given the same funding per head as England – equivalent to an extra 18p on the basic rate of income tax for one year.

If the money was spent on England, it could pay for:

The entire annual budget for English schools and universities

Another 238 hospitals

An extra 1.5 million police officers

Two million extra prison places

Holding the Olympic Games six times over.

Instead, the money has subsidised benefits that are only available north of the border.

They include free education for Scottish students at Scottish universities, while English students attending the same universities pay up to £3,000 a year.

Older people receive free long-term care north of the border, while those in England are forced to sell their homes to pay for it. +

WILL BROWN REALLY TAKE ON TODAY'S BIG ISSUES?

By Jason Groves, Political Correspondent

HE is the most centralising figure in the most centralising Government Britain has seen for decades.

So when Gordon Brown stood up to announce a package reforms designed to give power back to the people, constitutional of it was hard not to chuckle.

This, after all, is the man whose blizzard of central targets has destroyed autonomy in the public services; the former Chancellor who refused to tell even the Cabinet what was in his Budgets; and the Prime Minister who seized control of No10 without a single vote being cast.

None of that disqualifies him from wanting to make Government “a better servant of the people”, to use his own words. But it does mean we are going to take some convincing.

Mr Brown’s reform package contains some good ideas. It is right to strip the Attorney General of the power to interfere with individual prosecutions – why should a Labour politician decide whether there are charges in the cash for honours affair, for example?

Parliament greater say over senior public give to right also is It appointments. Allowing the public to trigger some debates in Parliament is an interesting idea, as is giving 16-year-olds the vote. And it is obviously right that MPs should have a say on whether Britain goes to war.

Other changes were more confused. It’s all very well to talk about the need for Lords reform but in his very first act Mr Brown appointed five new Labour peers, suggesting he isn’t terribly serious about giving up Prime Ministerial patronage.

And, as we reveal elsewhere today, Mr Brown’s changes to the Ministerial Code have actually increased the politicisation of the civil service. Many of the other changes proposed by the Prime Minister are trivial – does it really matter who nominates the Poet Laureate or whether general elections are held on a Thursday?

Mr Brown can talk all he likes about handing power back to the people but if he fails to give those people a say over a new EU treaty that is a constitution in all but name, then it will be meaningless.

It’s no good the Prime Minister setting up “citizens’ juries” to decide local parking policies if he is going to push through major changes from Brussels in a whipped vote in the Commons.

If referendums are good enough to decide whether Torquay should have an elected mayor then they are good enough to decide whether 40 or more new powers should be handed to Brussels.

The Scottish problem is even bigger and, in Mr Brown’s case, more personal. Scotland’s subsidy junkies have enjoyed huge, ill-deserved cash injections from England for decades.+

Full article; http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/12778/Will-Brown-really-take-on-today

Don't blame the police or the intelligence service, this is a mess made by politicians. I felt like retching when Gordon Brown sauntered on camera to announce that the safety of the British people was paramount.

Here is a man who for the past ten years has been one of the two most prominent members of a government which has turned Britain into a playground for jihadists.

Labour tore up border controls, allowing a mass influx of Islamist psychopaths from all over the globe. Radical preachers and terrorist recruiting sergeants were encouraged to settle here. They were fed and watered, handed benefits, council houses and free cars.

Two years after 9/11, Captain Hook was still given a police guard to peddle his message of hatred and murder on the streets of Finsbury Park. Omar Bakri was safely tucked up in free accommodation in Edmonton and driving a brand new people carrier paid for by the mug British taxpayer.

These were but two among tens of thousands of Muslims living among us who make no secret that they hate Western society and intend to establish an Islamic state in Britain. Yet Gordon Brown's government wasn't interested.

Those of us who had the audacity to question the folly of allowing Islamic radicalism to foment in this country in the name of 'diversity' and 'multiculturalism' were smeared as 'racists'.

Background checks on those coming here were somewhere between cursory and non-existent. It turns out that almost all the members of the terror cell involved in the weekend's failed attacks were doctors.

Why the hell are we importing newly-qualified doctors from Iraq when we're training thousands of home-grown medical students for the dole queue?+

Garry Bushell has been nominated to stand as a candidate for the English Democrats in next year's London Mayoral elections.

The television presenter, radio show host, journalist, author, and musician, Garry Bushell, has been formally nominated for selection to stand as the London Mayoral candidate for the English Democrats by the Party's London Area Organising Committee.

Garry Bushell said, “It concerns me that London, my home and the capital city of my country, England, suffers from such levels of crime, grime, pollution and poverty, and it angers me that so much of London’s tax revenues are siphoned off to pay for better public services in Scotland and Wales when there is so much to be done here. London and Londoners have been ignored or taken for granted for too long by the established political parties. I want to speak up for London and the people of London. I will no doubt conduct the campaign with a smile on my face but no one should doubt my sincerity or that I am serious about London, serious about Londoners, serious about standing for Mayor of London, and serious about winning the election”.

Garry Bushell currently presents a weekly talk show on TalkSport (8pm Sundays) and a monthly Punk and Ska podcast show on Total Rock, and is the Daily Star on Sunday’s TV critic.

An award winning journalist (“Critic of the Year 2007”) Garry Bushell has written for Sounds magazine, The Sun, The Evening Standard, The Daily Mirror, The People and the Daily Star on Sunday, and appeared regularly on television including his own ITV series Bushell on the Box. A prolific writer, Gary co-authored Cockney Reject (about the punk band Cockney Reject), Dance Craze – the 2-Tone story, and a biography of Iron Maiden, Running Free. And his new book, Your Generation – British Youth Cults 1976 – 1985, will be published this summer.

A musician and manager, Garry still plays in The Gonads, a Ska-punk and Oi band, and manages the radical New York City punk band Maninblack, having in the past managed The Blood and the Cockney Rejects, and discovered Twisted Sister.

Robin Tilbrook, National Chairman of the English Democrats said, “I am delighted that Garry Bushell has overwhelmingly been nominated for selection as the Party’s candidate for London Mayor. Garry is a Londoner through and through. He is a witty and thoughtful man with a passion for both his country and her capital city. I know Garry is genuinely ‘Serious about London’”.

Garry Bushell, the son of a London fireman, was born in Woolwich, South East London, on May 13th 1955 (he is a life-long supporter of Charlton Athletic) and attended Charlton Manor School and Colfe’s Grammar School. On leaving school he worked as a messenger for Shell and later for the London Fire Brigade before attending North East London Polytechnic and the London College of Printing.

In addition to nominating Garry Bushell for selection as their Mayoral candidate the English Democrats will be fielding a full set of candidates for the London Assembly elections in May 2008.

The English Democrats are campaigning for the establishment of a Parliament, Government and First Minister for England; the development of a more free and democratic country, including the introduction of a wide-ranging Bill of Rights founded on traditional English Civil Liberties; the re-institution of the traditional English county as the basis for local government; and the abolition of the Barnett Formula for deciding the regional allocation of public spending in the UK and its replacement by a fairer system that retains government revenue derived from England’s taxpayers to be spent in England.+

£7BN TAX BRIBE TO SCOTS

By Jason Groves

TONY Blair has admitted using billions of pounds from English taxpayers to bribe the Scots to remain in the United Kingdom.

He said a formula which allows the Scots to spend far more on schools and hospitals without raising taxes was “a small price to pay” for a united Britain.

Public spending north of the border is 21 per cent higher than in England. That equals £1,500 more per person and adds up to over £7billion a year – equivalent to an extra 2p on income tax.

Scotland has recently scrapped prescription charges and now plans to cut primary school classes to just 18. Scots also get free university tuition and personal care for the elderly is also free.

Patients with Alzheimer’s disease and the most common cause of blindness get free medicines that have been ruled too expensive for English patients, condemning about 20,000 in England to losing their sight each year.

Scotland’s good fortune dates back almost 30 years to the complex Barnett Formula, set up as a one-year measure but still used to calculate public spending.

Tory MP Sir George Young, said: “I think the Prime Minister greatly underestimates the growing resentment in England about the situation. He has miscalculated this one badly.

“It cannot go on – it is completely unbalanced and, I suspect, unsustainable.”

But Mr Blair has insisted: “If we want to keep the UK together, the Barnett Formula is a small price to pay for that, even though I understand why it causes concern in parts of England.+

FAMILIES PAY £350 A YEAR TO FUND PERKS FOR SCOTS

EVERY English family is paying an average of over £350 a year for taxpayer-funded services and perks only available in Scotland.

A Daily Express analysis has revealed that the Scots receive more than £7.5billion in extra public spending every year.

That money is on top of what they would receive if Government spending was the same in Scotland as in England. The tax bonanza from south of the border is now being poured into a host of free services in Scotland – from cancer drugs to university tuition – that are not available in England.

Many hard-pressed English taxpayers will be infuriated by news of how much money they are paying to Scotland for services they are not allowed to receive.

Scotland is guaranteed to get an over-large share of national public spending by a Government accounting rule know as the Barnett Formula.

It was established as a bribe the last time there was serious separatist agitation in Scotland, in the late 1970s. Last year, spending per head on public services was £6,762 in England but £8,265 in Scotland. That means each Scots enjoys an extra £1,473 in public spending – which multiplied by Scotland’s 5.11million population amounts to £7.52billion.

Wales benefits from a similar arrangement, allowing all prescriptions to made free in the Principality earlier this year.
Blair Gibbs of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “Most people are content to let Scotland choose its own course, but the English won’t tolerate Scottish freeloading.”

He added: “You can’t go your own way if you don’t pay your own way.”+

Trouble for Gordon Brown as Scots look to go solo