The new Black....

It's just amazing, isn't it? How some problems are nowhere last week, last month, last year, last century - but everywhere today? How suddenly, a collective penny drops, and the self appointed fuss-pots and meddlers go into overdrive on blue-sky thinkingisms.

I of course refer to the English Question - the question that cannot be solved - and until recently, the question that could not even be mentioned in respectable circles without accusations of rampant insanity and terminal knuckle-dragging. "What, you're an English Nationalist and you believe in a parliament for England?... Isn't that 'a bit racist' and something to do with the BNP?"

And all of a sudden, in spite of the routine blankage that has gone on for years, the English Question is now the must have accessory, the new political handbag on the arm of Posh Rifkind and the great new 'EQ-Plan' lose pounds' wonder-diet all rolled into one. The English Question is now hot to trot, legitimate, and fully credo'd for discussion because the Tories have now decided it is 'OK' to do so.

And as per usual, it's a Scot who is doing the proposals. As per usual, it is the man residing in the safest blue rinse territory in the country - and by definition living in a microcosm of priviledge and exclusivity who feels he has the legitimacy to speak on behalf of fifty million of the disenfranchised. As per usual his solution is designed to supposedly accommodate the unique conglomeration that is England. As per usual, the solution is a three legged camel and is an insult to fag packet backs everywhere. Not for us, a bog standard model of democracy - we are supposed to embrace the 'Democracy-Lite' Grand Committee model of Rifkind's comb-overed imagination.

And there's the rub. Rifkind's proposals have nothing to do with democracy and the bringing of government back to be the servant of the people where it rightfully belongs. It has everything to do with the preservation of the status quo - and a cynical attempt to dampen down rising English ire. The reason we have arrived at this ill-thought through solution is apparently because of England. England, the complicated. England, the ungovernable (except by know-all Scots). England, the enigma, the troublemaker wrapped in a sheath of amorphous blobbage - a country that cannot, by definition have the gift of national democracy bestowed upon it.

It's a sort of Gordian Knot connundrum of the 21st Century. An insurmountable problem so complicated as to render Britain's finest brains stuck in 'thick as pig shit' mode. Our Gordian Knot - a tangled web of non-democracy, intrigue, lies, evasion and disinterest seems to be ravelling away before our very eyes as politicians everywhere decide that the English Question might, just might require some sort of an answer - and then fail to put forward the only simple solution available in favour of complex formulae based on the price of gold, the phases of the Moon and how often cows fart out the tune of the national anthem....

So how to solve our democratic Gordian Knot? How do we address the desire of 65% of English people for a parliament for England against the snivelling self-serving opportunism of our craven politicians? Back in antiquity, the problem of the Gordian Knot, which had taxed the finest Greek minds for years was solved by a charismatic leader called Alexander the Great who had a bit of an attitude to 'problems'. In a fury, he chopped it off with his sword and chucked it away.

Job done.

And that should serve as a warning to our leaders. The longer they delay the inevitable, the more the people of England will fret, fester and steam - and the more radical will be their demands. We're now less inclined to try and pick our way through the alleged knotty problem of English democracy in favour of Alexander's more final solution. Our sword is about to hit the knot as our sense of persecution grows by the day. Now people are not just demanding a parliament for England - they are beginning to demand complete independence. A federal solution, once seen as far sighted is now increasingly being rated as 'not enough'...

The people in the dock for this appalling state of affairs are our collective political class and their hair-brained schemes at 'do-it-yourself democracy'. It is they who have ruined our relationship with the other home countries, it is they who have bought them off with democratic overload and public service hush money. It is they who have played fast and loose with the union for the price of political advantage and pimpage.

No Grand Committee, no EVoEL, no 2-for-1 deal, no dynamic parish council, no money-back guarantee, no appointed quango, no regional assemblies. We demand a parliament for England - a contract of national democratic obligation between the English electorate and our English politicians - nothing, absolutely nothing less will do.

The lack of English Democratic recognition is not a trend or a fashion accessory - it is a damnable disgrace - and a shameful indictment of political skullduggery and cynical manipulation by the political classes ever eager to keep what they have - at all costs.