English Question

Recently I suggested that you should all write to the Labour leadership candidates to ask for their position on St George's Day. Naturally I don't ask people to do anything that I don't do myself; so here's the first reply I received back:

Thank you for your recent email asking for my views on St. Georges Day, and for your kind words of support. I apologise for the short delay in responding. You ask if I am in favour of state funding for an official St. Georges Day celebration and making St. Georges Day a public holiday in England.

I think it is right to recognise the importance of St. Georges Day, what it means to the history of England, and for the values that England represents. I think it’s also the case that we've been very reluctant to talk about England or ‘Englishness’ and to recognise the real and growing interest in English identity. In my view, the expression of national identity is something that can unite us rather than divide us. As we see today, the flag of St George is a unifying symbol for England in its bid to win the World Cup in South Africa.

Whilst I agree in principle with the free expression of an English identity, I have practical concerns about the economic cost of formalising this as a public holiday. It’s not a bad idea but there are economic implications that have to be taken into account such as the costs to thousands of businesses and the public sector in time off or extra pay for working on a holiday.

Ultimately I believe there should be wider public debate on this issue. From my perspective, I would have to be convinced that the cost would be acceptable in relation to the benefits.

I hope this answers your questions. Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.

Best wishes,

Ed Balls

I emailed each of the candidates with the following.

Dear _____,

Today's Guardian carries the extraordinary claim from John Denham that Gordon Brown vetoed plans for a state-funded celebration of St George's Day because he feared a 'counter-reaction' from Scotland.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jun/09/labour-john-denham-rebuil...

I am writing to each of the Labour Party leadership candidates to ask for their views on St George's Day. Please can you tell me whether you are in favour of:

a) State funding of official St George's Day celebrations, and;
b) A national holiday in England* on St George's Day?

*The Labour Party in Scotland supported a national holiday in Scotland for St Andrew's Day.

Good luck on your leadership campaign.

Best regards,

...I agree with the message of the latest BNP leaflet (or the first page of it at least).

Politicians of England take note, if you don't speak for and to England then other people will. Don't just fly the flag of England for 'the duration of the World Cup', fly the Cross of St George all year around and from every public building in England.

And yes, St George's Day ought to be a public holiday.

I just posted this table to the CEP blog.

No prizes for guessing the only country at the World Cup without its own government, national public holiday and national anthem. Still, so long as people can attach plastic flags to their cars I suppose all is well and good.

I emailed the English Liberal Democrats to ask what their position was on St George's Day.

Dear English Liberal Democrats,

The Welsh Liberal Democrats are working to ensure that St Davids Day is made a national holiday in Wales. Could you tell me if the English Liberal Democrats have a policy on St George's Day or whether the English Lib Dems are working to ensure that St George's Day is made a national holiday in England?

Sadly the reply was entirely predictable.

I have asked Geoff Payne for an answer on this. He is the English Party's elected representative on the Federal Policy Committee.

This is his reply :

"The English Liberal Democrats confer its policy making functions on the Federal Party. Therefore, the policy of the party in England is made by the Federal Conference. Some motions have federal applicability whilst others are marked 'England only'. I know of no policy that deals with St. George's Day that has been passed by conference and I have to say that I know of no campaign either."

The British Government has granted its gracious permission to fly the Cross of St George. In what other country would it be necessary for a Government minister to inform the civil service that they are allowed to fly the national flag?

So, just 48 hours to the kick-off in South Africa, and there is mounting excitement within the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, where minister John Penrose has said that government buildings can fly the St George's flag on England match days.

Yes, that does appear to be a government information film, sadly without Charlie the cat.

The Coalition Government has suffered its first defeat.

In an obscure procedural move, peers backed a motion that blocked the second reading of the Local Government Bill....

The bill was to block the creation of planned new unitary authorities in Norwich, Exeter, Ipswich and elsewhere....

Peers backed Lord Howarth's motion by 154 to 150.

Yes, that's Baron Howarth of Newport, former MP for Newport in the County of Gwent, blocking a Government bill on English unitary authorities. Of course, it must be pointed out that the Lords is not territorial, so Lord Howarth does not represent the people of Newport, and so therefore he has as much right to vote on English issues as any Lord whose peerage is gazetted to a location in England.

This will change when the Lords becomes elected and the Upper West Lothian Question comes into effect.

Yesterday John Denham addressed the Fabians on the question of how Labour should speak to England.

Denham revealed that Gordon Brown vetoed his proposal for state funding of a St George's Day celebration.

The shadow communities secretary also discloses that shortly before the election Downing Street vetoed his plans for state funding for an official St George's Day celebration of Englishness. No 10 told Denham it feared there would be a counter-reaction in Scotland.

Seriously? Are we really expected to believe that! Why would the Scots object to the Government funding a celebration of England's national day?

The answer is that the Scots wouldn't object to state funding of St George's Day. The 'counter-reaction' from Scotland that Gordon Brown fears is a heightening of the perception that the UK Government is the government of England. Brown is fearful of distancing the Scots further from Westminster by acting in England's national interest, even when acting in England's national interest does not in any way harm Scotland. It is a political problem that stems from the fact that England has no government of its own. The fact that the UK Government cannot act in England's interests without worrying about what the Scots will make of it tells you a lot about the unsatisfactory governance of England.

At least we now know why Gordon Brown refused to participate in any public debate on St George's Day.

I ask you all to write to the Labour leadership candidates to ask them whether they support a national holiday in England on St George's Day.

Today sees the first plenary session of the Joint Ministerial Committee, with representatives from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland travelling down to Westminster to meet with their British counterparts to discuss where the axe should fall on public services:

The economy is expected to dominate talks between Prime Minister David Cameron and the leaders of the devolved administrations.

The Tory leader will chair the first plenary session of the joint ministerial committee (JMC) which brings together the heads of all the UK nations.

Not quite all the UK nations. England won't be represented.

There will be smart arses who say that England is represented by UK ministers, or by the UK Government as a whole, but that is a downright lie. The Government represents the United Kingdom in its entirety, not parts of it. Nick Clegg, who attends the JMC talks, is only a minister because the Tory party could not command a majority across the UK despite the fact that it won the majority of seats in England. Yet Clegg will have a ministerial say on English domestic matters. Danny Alexander, Nick Clegg's axe-weilding Scottish Chief Secretary to the Treasury, will not be attending the meeting, but he - constitutionally no less a representative of England than Cameron or Clegg - will slash England's public spending despite being elected outside England and possessing no direct democratic mandate from the people whose lives his cuts may ruin.

If the UK Government truly represented England's interests then they would lose no time in scrapping the Barnett Formula in favour of something transparent and fair, which is the only way of making the spending cuts open, responsible and fair.

I want to make sure we go about the urgent task of cutting our deficit in a way that is open, responsible and fair.

I want this government to carry out Britain's unavoidable deficit reduction plan in a way that strengthens and unites the country.

I have said before that as we deal with the debt crisis we must take the whole country with us - and I mean it. - David Cameron, 7th June 2010

Baroness Hollis of Heigham:

Given that the Barnett formula funds on the basis of population and not need, it is profoundly unfair to overfund Scotland by the extent of £4bn to £5bn a year while requiring underfunded local authorities in the rest of the country to make further savage cuts as their contribution to reducing the deficit.

Read the Lords debate here.

The BBC reports that Nick Clegg will be in charge of 'considering' the West Lothian Question.

He will also be in charge of considering the "West Lothian question" - the longstanding anomaly which sees Scottish MPs voting on matters affecting England, but not vice versa.

The letter that I recently received from Nick Clegg's office tends to suggest that Clegg favours mitigating the West Lothian Question rather than answering it.

We recognise that devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland poses difficult questions for the governance of England within the Union. I think it’s important to be honest about the fact that it is difficult to find an immediate solution. The idea of ‘English votes for English laws’ is extremely complicated to implement – particularly because many laws actually extend to England only in some parts, while covering other parts of the UK in other areas. Given the fact that changes in spending on English services which would be devolved in the rest of the UK directly affect the devolved administration’s budgets, it is also often the case that ‘English’ legislation actually will affect devolved issues outside of England.

We believe that we can only really deal with this question by looking at it as part of the wider political system. We need to do more, first of all, to give more power to people locally in England – so that they, too, have more control over their own affairs rather than being micromanaged from Whitehall. We want to give local communities real power over their health services and policing, through fairly elected local health boards and police authorities – as well as freeing the hands of local councils, removing power from Westminster and Whitehall. Ultimately, we want to move towards a federal United Kingdom – devolving power within England further and thus resolving this question.