The St Trinian's motto was, "Get your blow in first." The British Government's EU Referendum "Stay in" campaign (a.k.a. Project Fear,) has certainly achieved that!

Clive Lavelle of the English Democrats has sent me the text of a letter he recently submitted to the Western Daily Press and Daily Express.  I am not sure if it was published but I reproduce it below.

 

The St Trinian's motto was, "Get your blow in first." The EU referendum  "Stay in" campaign (a.k.a. Project Fear,) backed by the government has certainly achieved that!

 

Project Fear works like this. First, trot out words like "Disaster", "Catastrophe" and "Devastating" as consequences of leaving the EU.

Then, invent scenarios that MAY be Disastrous, Catasprophic or Devastating but don't quantify them. Then, use nine MILLION pounds of taxpayers' money to propogate these notions.

So now, three million people MAY find themselves unemployed if we vote to leave. There MAY be ten years of "Uncertainty" (whatever that is,) if we vote to leave. It goes on.

 

But when the "Stay in" camp is state-sponsored, anyone can be recruited. So we have Bank of England, the American President, the IMF and most bizarre of all, the Catholic Church, all beating the pro-EU drum.

 

And still it goes on. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in separate speeches has claimed that prices and mortgage costs will both rise if we leave, and now, it's "We'll all be £4300 worse off" if we leave.

 

They make it up as they go along. The Disastrous, Catastrophic and Devastating scenarios get more outlandish and absurd with each speech. Hopefully, patriotic English voters will see through all this "Disaster" codswallop and vote on the one certainty.

 

Vote "No" and we control our own destiny, once more. We get our country back.

George Osborne and Liz Truss say Brexit would cause a £36 billion financial black hole and loss of sovereignty. Are they joking?

The Chancellor, George Osborne, predicts Brexit would cost every UK family £4,300 and talks of a £36 billion financial black hole.  The Environment Secretary, Liz Truss, says leaving Europe would mean loss of British sovereignty, lower UK wages, and a fall in consumption and that people will be permanently poorer. 

In view of such dire predictions I expect the Minister of Defence to warn that should Brexit occur our European neighbours are well prepared. The French have their Army ready to defend their ports against boatloads of Brits escaping from financial collapse; an armada of Spanish and French warships will enforce an exclusion zone in the English Channel, U-boats from the Deutsche Marine will blockade our North Sea ports while the Luftwaffe is planning a no fly zone over Heathrow and Gatwick.

 

The European Union will offer no sanctuary should an economic apocalypse sweep the UK.  The British will be shunned as, metaphorically, their island drifts away, isolated and bankrupt, into the Atlantic. 

 

I am only joking of course but I had better be careful as Germany is to allow the potential prosecution of a top comedian who made unsavoury jokes about the Turkish President.  Meanwhile German MEP Martin Sonneborn has apparently demanded a European Directive for jokes – he is joking isn’t he?

 

 

 

Montacute House, an imposing Elizabethan mansion, near Yeovil in South Somerset.

Montacute House, an E shaped Elizabethan mansion house, is in South Somerset 4 miles west of Yeovil on the edge of the village from which it takes its name.  It is well signposted off the A3088 but patience is needed negotiating the narrow streets through the village.  The National Trust has provided ample and convenient car parking only a very short walk from the house.

Montacute was built using local hamstone for Sir Edward Phelips, who was descended from a local family of yeoman farmers.

The West Front of Montacute House.

Maxwell Fraser writes of Montacute in his Somerset (Great Western Railway Company, 1934): "Built between 1580 and 1601 to the plans of John Thorpe, the architect of Longleat, it is an extraordinarily imposing place which is now in the in the possession of the National Trust, and, in 1932, the Princess Royal formally handed the deeds to Viscount Esher who represented the Trust, on behalf of the purchasers."


Montacute House has statues of the Nine Worthies in niches on the piers of the Long Gallery on the upper eastern façade.  Five of the Nine Worthies are visible in this photo.

The house was occupied by the descendants of  Sir Edward until 1911 when financial difficulties made it necessary to let the house.  Lord Curzon of Kedleston, former Viceroy of India, took up residence in 1915 and was one of the last tenants before the National Trust acquired the house.



My visit took place during the second week of April when the tulips were in full bloom around the eastern garden.  The pavilions proved a handy shelter during a heavy shower but I was able to take some photos during a leisurely walk around the grounds.

Tulips in the border of the East Court of Montacute House.

The pretty village of Montacute, where many of the houses are built of hamstone, is well worth exploring.  The folly tower on St Michael's Hill on the western edge of the village looks interesting too.  It was erected by one of the Phelipses, and I plan to climb the hill one day to take in the view.

Farmers march to Downing Street appealing for action over crisis in dairy and livestock farming prices.

Farmers for Action chairman David Handley was quoted in this article by Kate Langston in the Western Morning News of March24, part of which I reproduce below.  He was speaking to farmers and their supporters who took part in a protest march to Downing Street the previous day. 

Westcountry farmers bring London to standstill with march for fair pay.

Amid the sound of air horns and lively chants of “oggy oggy!”, Farmers for Action spelt out their message for the Prime Minister.

Addressing the crowd, chairman David Handley called for a fair, sustainable and transparent future for the agricultural industry.

"Currently, all we are getting from the secretary of state are sound bites and promises of what might happen over the next 25 years,” he said.

“Most farmers want leadership and a strategy which will get them through the next 12 months.

“Not only are we the food producers for this great country of ours, but also the care takers of this wonderful island.

“It is urgent we get some direction from the Government as to the way forward... we ask [David] Cameron: please lead British farming out of its current crisis – the rewards will be immense for us all.”

The demonstration comes as low prices for meat and dairy products continue to put pressure on the agricultural sector. It saw hundreds of farmers from across Devon, Cornwall and the rest of the UK walk through Trafalgar Square and down Whitehall to Downing Street, where they presented a letter to Number 10.

Whatever response the farmers expected I doubt it was that which came from Public Health England as noted in this letter in the Western Daily Press (April 6).

No wonder farmers are turning to solar.

Last month Westcountry farmers joined their allies from across the nation in London to protest directly to the Prime Minister over the ongoing crisis in dairy and livestock farming.  Whether or not Mr Cameron took heed there was certainly a quick response from Public Health England, an agency of the Government, which announced that people should halve the amount of dairy foods they eat.  I suspect protesting farmers were incredulous on hearing such a proclamation.  Such “help” from the government is hardly likely to encourage dairy and livestock farmers to stay in business. 

Little wonder that solar farms seem to be popping up all over Somerset as farmers and landowners seek an alternative income.  Who can blame those who find harvesting the sunshine more profitable than working the land?   I suspect the English weather, although sometimes unkind, will provide a more reliable form of help than any given by indifferent London centric British politicians.

S.W.
English Democrats, Somerset

As I wrote in my previous blog post on RAF Culmhead, disused airfields seem particularly good places to erect solar farms but they do appear to be springing up all over the countryside.  The photo below shows solar panels alongside the A303 in South Somerset.

Solar panels alongside the eastbound carriageway of the A303 in South Somerset.

RAF Culmhead on the Blackdown Hills in Somerset. Where once the wings of Polish Hurricanes were bathed in sunshine there are now solar panels.

RAF Culmhead in Somerset is one of three wartime airfields built amongst the Blackdown Hills; the other two, RAF Dunkeswell and RAF Upottery, are in Devonshire.  Culmhead, high on a plateaux 4.5 miles east of the Wellington Monument, opened in August 1941 as a standard three runway fighter airfield for the defence of Bristol and Exeter.

Remains of the control tower at RAF Culmhead.

The first occupants were 316 and 302 Squadrons of No.2 Polish Wing equipped with Hurricanes.  Both squadrons had left by December 1941 by which time another Polish Squadron, 306, moved in flying Spitfires.  The Poles stayed at Culmhead until June 1942 when they were replaced by Czech Squadrons.

Initially known as RAF Churchstanton, the airfield was renamed Culmhead on 22nd December 1943 to avoid confusion with RAF Church Fenton in Yorkshire.  

After the Czechs came further RAF and FAA Fighter Squadrons, among them the 24th Naval Fighter Wing, consisting of 887 and 894 Squadrons with their Seafires.  The naval pilots flew 400 sorties from Culmhead during 3 weeks in April and May of 1944.  Operations over the English Channel and Northern France included escorting convoys, shipping strikes and fighter sweeps. The Wing eventually joining HMS INDEFATIGABLE in July.

Of special interest is that 616 Squadron, the first to be equipped with the Meteor jet fighter, was based at the airfield before becoming operational from Manston in July 1944 intercepting German flying bombs with its new jets.

RAF Culmhead closed in August 1946 and later became home to a radio listening station during the Cold War.

It is currently a business park.  From January 2014 a 30 acre solar farm, one of the many to have sprung up all over Somerset, began generating 7MW on the site - an excellent use for a disused airfield.

A commemorative stone erected by the Airfields of Britain Conservation Trust in the business park car park.

 

Solar panels in the north east corner of the airfield.

Update 20th May 2021.

I visited the airfield yesterday and noted that since my last visit two very interesting information boards detailing its history have been erected near the commemorative stone.  Well worth a visit and read!

Tata Steel's entire UK business up for sale. A Press Release from the Campaign for an English Parliament.

 

It seems that the government's policy of maintaining high energy costs, along with the dumping of Chinese steel on the world market, has made the UK steel industry unprofitable.  Incredibly the British Government is successfully leading opposition to the European Union's attempt to raise tariffs against cheap Chinese steel.  

David Cameron's spokeswoman said the G20 meeting in China in September could be a good forum to discuss issues concerning the global steel industry.  Next September indeed!  I doubt Tata Steel will still be propping up their loss making UK business in 5 months time.  Has the Prime Minister no sense of urgency?  

In such circumstances does the British Government want the UK steel industry to survive at all?  For whose benefit are we being governed?  Certainly not English steel workers as the following press release from the Campaign for an English Parliament points out.

Where is the English First Minister fighting to protect English Steel workers' jobs?

 

Tata Steel has confirmed it intends to sell its entire steel operations in the UK, putting the jobs of about 15,000 workers at risk. The UK Prime Minster, Cameron stated “We are not ruling anything out. I don’t believe nationalisation is the right answer, what we want to do is secure a long-term future for Port Talbot and for other steel plants in the UK.”

 

But who is speaking for England? It definitely isn’t Cameron as he mentioned Port Talbot, the Welsh Steel Works by name. We also have a Welsh government wanting to broker deals to save Port Talbot. The First Minster for Wales, Carwyn Jones has publicly stated the Welsh Government will support "any viable option" to secure the steel industry's future in Wales.

 

So where is the English government fighting to protect the English Steel industry? The answer is that no one is specifically allocated to speak on behalf of English Steel workers. How much longer are the people of England going to be denied their rightful voice?

 

Eddie Bone, Campaign Director for the Campaign for an English Parliament stated:

 

“English Steel workers are disadvantaged because they only have the UK government speaking for them and that government is made up of Welsh and Scottish MPs. The Welsh and Scottish steel workers have a clear advantage over English steel workers as they have First Ministers raising their concerns.The UK can no longer say it treats its citizens and workers equally, English workers urgently need an English First Minister”.