An anthem for England...

This is my favourite hymn played on my favourite instrument, the Dobro guitar. It is by Ronnie Wood when he was in the Faces - he apparently secretly recorded it and shoved it on the end of the Faces album, 'Long Player'.

I first heard the track years ago when I was a student in the '70's. Since then, it has been one of my very favourite tracks.

When my Dad died in 2005, I wanted to have it playing when his coffin was brought into the Crematorium. Unfortunately, the rest of the family out voted me and went for 'Abide with me' instead.

I've shoved up a few pics to support it - but it is the music, the arrangement, the understated passion I love.

God bless England.

Where is Eric Heffer when you need him?

Eric splits the Conference scene - again......

Watching the Labour Party Conference on the box this week is a bit like watching the occupants of an ants nest. Everyone knows what to do and how to do it. Everyone claps in the right places, laughs at crap jokes from dullard speakers and ecstacises over the most boring of speeches... They even gave Tory defector, Quentin Davies a standing ovation for God's sake. Not a trace of the Awkward Squad of old, not a trace of that tricky resolution tabled to conference delegates and union block votes, no heckling - and certainly no hint of anyone getting 'Wolfganged'...

What would Eric Heffer have made of it all?

Red Eric - an MP from the Socialist satellite of the Liverpool Soviet and his ilk made Labour Conferences of old just superb TV to watch. Hardly a resolution went by without Big Eric, dressed in his trademark light yellow suits, storming out of conference, closely followed by fellow collectivists, Ian Mikardo and Renee Short. If you were lucky, mullet-headed Degsy Hatton and Tony Mulhearn, his co-founder of the Scouse People's Liberation Army would pop up offering to give Dennis Healey a Kirkby Kiss.... And TUC boss, Vic Feather could always be counted on to threaten the immediate walk out of a million workers if the Polaris missile resolution went through... Somewhere along the line, 358 year old Manny Shinwell would be wheeled onto centre stage so that everyone could applaud the oldest MP who ever lived...

And over on the top table, in a haze of smoke sat Harold Wilson, Ray Gunther, Barbara Castle and the rest, puffing away for all they were worth. If it wasn't a pipe, it was Capstan Full Strength - no one had heard of Health and Safety then. Brylcreem, National Health Specs, rolled up sleeves and loosened collars were the fashion statements of the day.... Michael Foot could always be relied on to wear his brand spanking new duffle coat at Conference - and George Brown would drink the free bars dry - and then go on the telly to proclaim that workers of the world should untie.....

It was exciting, it was spontaneous and it was passionate - it was 'must see TV'. In those days it was the Tory Conference which was stage-managed and the Liberal Conference which was uber irrelevant...

But those days have well gone, sharp suits and PR bods infest the floor - and as a consequence it's a boring as a Leonard Cohen gig.

Give me Militant Tendency any day over Brown-nosing tendency.

Beowulf Uncensored Internet Trailer

Hollywood plunders even more English culture...

The epic Anglo Saxon tale of Beowulf is the latest bit of Blighty-culture to be given the American studio makeover treatment. Due for release in November, this computer rendered epic stars Angelina Jolie as Grendel's Mum and Ray 'have a bit of that, you slag' Winstone as Beowulf himself....... Amazing, an English actor actually playing an English hero, whatever next?.....

And who knows, the script might be more than just OK seeing that ace writer and uber blogger, Neil Gaiman has penned the script.....

Being a CGI production, I notice that Mr Winstone's famously flabby sludge-gut has been airbrushed out of existence - to be replaced by a six pack as good as Peter Andre's in his really crap singing days. No prizes for guessing which attributes of Ms Jolie have been enhanced - eat your heart out, Jessica Rabbit, 'twin torpedoes' has just entered the building.....

But what I want to know is how a drop dead gorgeous babe like Grendel's mum could have given birth to the horror show that is the plug ugly Grendel? I mean, Grendel's old man must have been a right old prune - right at the back of the queue when they were giving out faces, I reckon.

So, who was he?

Hmmm, I wonder whether Ms Jolie has ever been on the lash in Hull - I hear no woman is safe from the attentions of the local MP there...

Gordon Brown's latest big idea...

Our beloved leader has announced a
grand competition to come up with a slogan to suitably sum up the You Kay and everything we apparently uniquely stand for. You know the kind of stuff they are talking about - 'tolerance', 'fairness', 'Simon Cowell' and 'the ability to queue'.....

He wants to make people 'proud' to be British again - and is inviting the whole nation to start sucking on their pencils and compose a suitable strapline that will sum up our great nation (yawn) ..

According to the press release, 'every school and public building in the country will be emblazoned with a new "national motto" under Gordon Brown's drive to encourage patriotism and Britishness'......

Call me cynical. but I bet, up there in SNP HQ, (Brown-Baiting Division), they are, even now writing their very own Scottish slogan. That of course will mean the Welsh will want their very own slogan..... ditto, Northern Ireland.

So no guesses as to where the new 'Britain is fab, cos we are, innit' slogan will be rolled out.....

Anyway, as this is a national competition, I thought I should chuck my tuppenny's worth into Gordon's hat...

'Britain - the new name for the English regions'

Part of the Union?

English Democrats AGM and 'In My Heart' conference

Have finally got over the extravaganza that was the English Democrats AGM last weekend at the Leicester Hilton. It was organised by Midlander, David Lane, who did an absolutely superb job - the whole thing ran like clockwork... I helped him out a bit with some of the graphics, backdrops and theming of the event, plus a couple of videos - but the 'In my heart' concept and logo was David's idea.... The effort he put in was just collossal. Well done David.

What really struck me was the quality of the Speakers. Truly excellent. Angus MacNeil, the SNP MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar turned up, had a coffee with us and then delivered a good speech on Scotland's relationship with England - and the ultimate certainty of our own Parliament. I had a lot of respect for him anyway, as it was he who researched the case of Maundy Gregory and the sale of peerages in the 1920's - and reckoned he could get Levy and Blair for doing the same....

The fact that the whole 'Cash for Honours' investigation failed to commit anyone for trial, I think said more about our Establishment and the special priviledges its members enjoy compared to the rest of us than it did regarding the quality of the case that was submitted to the DPP.....

A special mention should go to Ed Abrams, public speaker par excellence. He did a speech about the Justice for England march on May 1st. Earlier in the day, during a coffee break, Ed wandered over to me and asked if he thought it would be a good idea if at the end of his speech he should shout out the march chant.... "What do we want? Justice for England! When do we want it? NOW! What do we want? An English Parliament! When do we want it? NOW"....

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Pity, I had forgotten just how close my seat in the hall was to one of the 4 foot high speakers. (about 2 yards away, actually).....

I met up with a few fellow patriots - Julien from We are the English, David Wildgoose from the Campaign for an English Parliament, Marcus Stafford from The England Society, Nathan Poole from English Yoof and a couple of speakers from the Steadfast charity....

Intelligent argument was also supplied by Liberal Party Chair Steve Radford, Colin Copus, Senior Lecturer of Local Politics at Brum Uni' and Derek Clark, Ukipper MEP.

The word over coffee was whether there was going to be an election in October.... I hope there isn't, I really do... The prospect of another 5 years of Labour, courtesy of the English voter, of another all new, bright, shiny Tory leader and of Ming telling us he will be doing the job into his nineties really does fill me with utter despair.

Citizens’ juries... More jobs for the quangonistas, commooonitee leadas and the self obsessed..

Hmmm, ‘Citizens’ Juries’ – Gordon Brown’s big new idea to get decision-making down with the people will, I predict, crash and burn as surely as all of the other big ideas that New Labour has bought from the Blue Sky Thinking ‘R’ Us shop.
Gordon Brown said CJs would be rolled out “across the country” – so obviously, obvee-bloody-losely, ’right across the country’ means just England, again.

I’m not against the idea of the common man or woman gathering to decide issues of local and national consequence – but it isn’t a new concept, the Anglo Saxons had them over a thousand years ago. And you just know that their CJ model would have been free of the politics and the spin that accompanies every single decision from New Labour – Citizen’s Juries being no exception.

It’ll just be more talking-shop opportunities for all those local busy bods that so blight our control freaked society. More excessive expense claims, more MBEing, more hot air and more guest appearances on BBC community TV programmes. The usual suspects will vent their spleens, present their recommendations to government - and be totally ignored.

A quick scan of the BBC’s CJ Q’n’A page confirms my worst fears.....

What exactly is a citizens' jury?
A citizens' jury is a group of between 12 and 20 people, chosen to represent the communities from which they come. According to ministers, they will be chosen independently and will not be experts on the topic under discussion, nor members of interest groups. They will be asked to look at real issues, in the same way as a jury does in a courtroom. The idea is to give ordinary people a bigger role in democratic decision making.

(Yeah, but I bet that big woman with the big flowery dresses and the big flowery head gear – the one who runs a kids refuge in London will be on loads of them).

Can people apply to take part on a jury?
According to the prime minister's official spokesman, the selection process will be decided by individual government departments and the organisers of the specific event. However, the idea is that those involved are genuinely representative of their communities.

(Cronies, cronies, cronies, cronies, cronies, cronies, cronies, cronies, cronies, cronies, busy-bodies and that big woman with the big flowery dresses and big flowery head gear...)

What subjects will be under discussion?
Children on Thursday and crime and communities will be the topic for another jury next week, followed by nine simultaneous juries - one for each region - on the NHS. There will also be a nationwide set of juries held on one day to debate issues including: crime and immigration, education, health and transport.

(So, ‘Nine simultaneous juries – one for each region’. Looks like these CJs will be a nice little lifeboat for all those local big-noises that are about to get the boot from the floundering SS Regional Assemblies gravy boat.)

How would they work?
The juries will spend a day, or several days, considering the chosen subject. They will be given facts and figures that have been independently verified and will hear "evidence" from a range of experts. Jurors will then discuss the issues among themselves before reaching a conclusion. Their decisions will be used to help advise ministers on policy.

(And ministers will actually take any notice of their recommendations?).

I’ll give Citizens’ Juries a year, tops - before they are quietly kicked into the long grass and forgotten about – unfortunately, the people like the big woman with the big flowery dresses and the big flowery head gear, will not.

Andrew Marr, the jug eared Scottish prat who wasted 30 minutes of radio time.

God almighty I never thought so many clichés could be shovelled into half an hour of prime time radio. But Andrew Marr’s latest offering, Unmasking the English on Radio 4 really did achieve the impossible. And what’s worse, there are another 3 programmes to go!

Marr was aided by his panel of self-opinionated bigotry in his objective (and objectionable) task of finding out what Englishness was all about. As this programme was an exercise in national disrespect it was a gimme that the Scottish racist and food critic AA (I hate the English) Gill would be on. As this was the BBC, it was also a nailed on cert that multiculturism would have a representative. It did in the form of Anita Anand (first generation British Asian journo). The place of the token indigenous English bloke was obviously filled by an upper class twit famed for his blue blazer, floppy hankie and for using the word ‘ghastly’ a lot. Peter York self-styled style snob with a Prince Charles hair cut and a sneering countenance hewn from a vein of 24 carat Prussian arrogance got the job. (Narrowly beating art critic Brian Sewell and ginger cad, James Hewitt).

And so it went. Andrew declared being English was all about ‘Fat Les’ – it isn’t. Fat Les, Keith Allen was born in Swansea – and the persona of Fat Les is a crude pastiche of football caricature cynically concocted to sell records.

Anita said that being English is all about tolerance, stiff upper lippyness, irony and being rubbish at sport. As if to prove it, the back-room boys at the BBC stereotypical bullshit workshop had compiled a tape of heroic sporting failures... Gareth Southgate’s penalty miss, being spanked by the Aussies at cricket, etc, etc.

Someone piped in that the reason for the English trait of self deprecation was a ruse to hide an innate feeling of superiority..... Everyone else chin rubbed and metaphorically nodded in agreement.

Andrew rolled out a couple of typical English people to sum the whole nation up..... No, not Dick Van Dyke’s excellent and incisive portrayal of a poor cockney chim-chimmering chimney sweep in Mary Poppins. Not Kevin Cosner’s ever so real portrayal of folk hero, Robin Hood – “Goddammit! We have to rescue our bro', Little Jan from the clutches of that asshole, the Sheriff of Nattingham”.... Not even Audrey Hepburn’s remarkable performance as Eliza Dolittle in My Fair Lady (she was born within the sound of the bells of Brussels Town Hall, you know). No, apparently, yer typical English persona can be summed up by Miss Marple, Agatha Christies amateur sleuth and bumbling buffering Tory, Boris Johnson....(Stands back in stereotypical gobsmacked amazement! I mean they must have spent, ooh, at least fifteen bob on the research, eh?)

York sneered, Anand smugged, Gill hated, and criticised the BBC coffee and curly sandwiches - and Marr kept on telling us how not English he was. “No really, I’m as Scottish as a deep fried Mars bar, Jimmy”...

Robbie Burns versus William Shakespeare it wasn’t.

It wasn’t even the Krankies up against the Telly Tubbies. It was complacent, ill informed radio trash – but as it was all about dissing the English,it was perfectly legitimate, wasn't it?....