Robin Tilbrook,Chairman of the English Democrats,heeds his own advice to report an anti-English "hate crime".

Robin Tilbrook, Chairman of the English Democrats, recently posted on his blog an article in which he gave advice on reporting to the police any so-called “hate-crimes” perpetrated against anyone English.  It appears he has taken his own advice and reported Nicholas Boyle, a Cambridge University professor, to the police for calling the English the “lager louts of Europe”.  Professor Boyle made the comment, and others in similar vein, in an article for New European bemoaning the fact that 17 million English voted for Brexit.

Incidentally, if I was Welsh I would not be entirely happy for Wales to be described as an “English appendage” when Professor Boyle states: “The pattern of voting showed up a colossal divergence between England, with its Welsh appendage, on the one hand, and Scotland and Northern Ireland on the other.” 

Robin Tilbrook’s action over Professor Boyle was reported and commented on by the Daily Mail and Daily Express. 
For further details of the complaint to the police and for a link to the article in question I suggest a visit to Robin Tilbrook’s blog.

Here is a link:

http://robintilbrook.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/cambridge-professor-nicholas-boyle-has.html

In the neighbouring County of Devonshire, near Broadclyst, is Killerton House.

Killerton House near Broadclyst in Devonshire in the autumn of 2014.

For me, a visit to Killerton House in Devonshire involves a very pleasant drive over the Blackdown Hills towards Cullompton to pick up the B3181 (the old A38) and head south.  Killerton is well signposted and only a short distance west from the main road.  If you reach Broadclyst you will have gone a couple of miles too far!  The car park is within what appears to be an old walled garden: I have always found parking there easy and convenient.

Strangely enough I have never actually been inside Killerton House or even had a cup of tea in the restaurant or café.  I always seem to spend the entire visit wandering around the gardens and park taking advantage of the many well-sited benches to rest or enjoy the bucolic views of the estate and beyond. 

Darrell Bates states in his The Companion Guide to Devon and Cornwall (Collins, 1976):  “The present mansion is eighteenth century, and was the home of the Acland family but the house and its fine garden of shrubs and trees and the splendid park are now in the hands of the National Trust.  Although Killerton garden has some truly magnificent rhododendrons, azaleas and magnolias, and many exotic trees, none surpass the magnificence of the domestic oaks and beeches in the park.”

An ancient tree on the Killerton House estate.

Sir Richard Thomas Dyke Acland, fifteenth baronet (1906-1990)*, gave the 6,400 acre Killerton Estate, together with the even larger 12,000 acre Holnicote Estate in West Somerset, to the National Trust in 1944.  He advocated the public ownership of land and obviously practised what he preached.

Sir Richard was a left wing, liberal, socialist who had an interesting and varied career in Parliament spanning twenty years.  He was elected as Liberal MP for Barnstable in 1935 but broke with Liberals in 1942 to help found the Common Wealth Party.  By 1945 the Party had won 4 seats in by-elections but lost them all in the general election of that year.  In 1947 he won, as a Labour Party candidate, the by-election for Gravesend and returned to the House of Commons but resigned his seat in 1955 in protest against the Party’s support of the British Nuclear Deterrent.  He subsequently helped to form the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Always a stalwart protector of Devonshire’s countryside and traditions, including stag-hunting – an unusual stance for someone with such “left wing” views - he died at his home in Broadclyst on November 24 1990.

Sources

*A. F. Thompson, ‘Acland, Sir Richard Thomas Dyke, fifteenth baronet (1906–1990)’, rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/39848, accessed 28 Jan 2017]

Hate crimes against the English. Robin Tilbrook, Chairman of the English Democrats, offers some advice.

Robin Tilbrook, Chairman of the English Democrats, offers some advice to those English who have had hate crimes perpetrated against them. 
I quote below, from his blog, a couple of paragraphs on anti-English so-called "hate crimes":

"These always ought to be reported. If a police officer shows any reluctance to accept it as a “hate crime” then a complaint should be made against the officer concerned. The complaint should be taken as far as it can up the Police Forces' complaints system so that it gets into the records that a lot of the “hate crime” is perpetrated against the English rather than by them.

Equally no opportunity should be lost to insist that you are “English” on ethnic monitoring forms rather than permitting yourself to be put down as “British” which is a legally invalid category and therefore waives your rights and your community’s rights under the Equality Act.

I could of course give many other examples of where we need to make sure that we do pull our weight, but I am sure you get the point! But don’t be put off by any official discouragement!" 

Here is a link to the full article on Robin Tilbrook's blog.
http://robintilbrook.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/fight-good-fight-with-all-thy-might.html

Colonel John Chard VC, who led the defence of Rorke's Drift during the Zulu War of 1879, at rest in a Somerset churchyard in the village of Hatch Beauchamp.

Today is the anniversary of the action during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 in which John Chard, then a Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers, led the successful defence of Rorke’s Drift.  Earlier on the 22nd a Zulu army had overwhelmed and all but annihilated a British force of around 1,500 at nearby Isandlwana before moving against the mission station at Rorke’s Drift and its 130 defenders. The Zulus attacked in the late afternoon and the fighting continued overnight.

What connection has John Rouse Merriott Chard with Somerset?

He is buried in the churchyard of St. John the Baptist Church in the village of Hatch Beauchamp around 5 miles south-east of Taunton.  While still serving in the British Army, having attained the rank of Colonel, he was diagnosed with cancer of the tongue - he was a life-long pipe smoker - and spent his final weeks staying with his brother who was the Rector at Hatch Beauchamp.  Unmarried, he died on November 1st 1897 just short of his fiftieth birthday.

Another connection with Somerset is that Chard was present at the final defeat of the Zulus at Ulundi, on July 4th, a battle in which the Somerset Light Infantry played a prominent role.  My great-grandfather, a regular soldier in the Somerset Light Infantry, also took part at Ulundi.

Colonel John Chard VC has an impressive marble tomb in the churchyard of St. John the Baptist Church and also a memorial window in the south chancel.

Garden villages. The Conservatives enthusiastically redefine the meaning of the word "village".

Since Theresa May became Home Secretary back in 2010 the Conservative pledge to reduce annual net immigration to “the tens of thousands” has never been kept. 

As a result of this failure of policy it is little wonder that Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU, recently predicted that due to high levels of immigration the UK will become Europe’s most populous country by 2050. 

There will obviously be a need for new homes in the medium and long term but, to help ease the immediate housing shortage the government proposes that 14 garden villages and 3 garden towns should be created. 

However, the new communities announced so far will all be built in an already overcrowded England.  Where are the plans for such communities in less densely populated Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland? 

Be that as it may, it seems rather odd that the so-called garden villages will vary in size from 1,500 to 10,000 properties. Those numbers suggest some pretty big villages! 

England’s green and pleasant land is to be bulldozed and built upon to accommodate Britain’s burgeoning population.  Meanwhile, the Conservatives are enthusiastically redefining the meaning of the word “village”. 

I submitted the above post as letter to the Western Daily Press and was pleased to see it published unedited on January 18 under the title "Tory redefinition of the English village".  It was also published, slightly edited, in the letters column of the Western Morning News on January 25. 

Bank of England reconsiders gloomy Brexit forecast.

After reconsidering the Bank of England’s gloomy forecast for the aftermath of a vote for Brexit the Bank’s senior economist has now opined that the economy has held up better than predicted "almost as though the referendum had not taken place".  Even Mark Carney has said the scale of risks surrounding Brexit has gone down.  

As the New Year begins the UK is the world’s fifth largest economy, car sales are at an all-time high, the stock market is reaching record levels, the unemployment rate is the lowest since 2005, and the Government can afford to give away over £12 billion a year in foreign aid. 

Following the vote for Brexit, this country is once more able to steer an independent course and with the economy in such fine fettle a rosy future is on the horizon.

Update. January 15.

I submitted the post above as a letter to the Western Daily Press and am pleased to see it will be published on January 16 with the title “A rosy future after our Brexit vote”.
Since writing my original post I came across a Daily Telegraph article, “Five signs this week that the UK economy is thriving post Brexit”, by Sam Dean.  He mentions, as I did, the levels of the stock market and Mark Carney’s recent comments but, he also notes that industrial production rose by 2.1 per cent in November compared to October while consumer spending on debit and credit cards rose by 2.6 per cent last year.  As for housebuilding he reports that: Barrett’s profits are up and completions outside London are at their highest for nine years; Taylor Wimpey states that trading is “robust”; Persimmon’s revenue and sales have jumped. 

It seems there are even more reasons to be confident about our post Brexit economy.

Labour MP Chuka Umunna proposes regional migration scheme. Idea is "raving mad" says Eddie Bone of The Campaign for an English Parliament.

It appears that Labour MP Chuka Umunna, as chairman of an all-party group of MPs reporting on social integration, has proposed “regional immigration quotas”.  This proposal has appeared shortly after Eurostat announced that due to high levels of immigration the UK will become Europe’s most populous country by 2050.  Could it be that our little island home, and England in particular, is getting a bit overcrowded?   

In response to Mr Umunna’s proposal Eddie Bone of The Campaign for an English Parliament has been reported by the Daily Express (January 5) as calling the idea “raving mad”.  Mr Bone was quoted as saying: “For England, he suggests different immigration policies for different parts of the country. What an utterly mad idea! Chuka has completely 'chucked out' the concept of England as a nation because England wants to come out of the EU.”  Quite right Mr Bone! 

The British political establishment in general and the Labour Party in particular want to see English nationhood suppressed and the English nation broken into “regions”.  This is a perfect example of the long proven policy of “divide and rule”, a policy well practiced by British politicians during the days of “Empire”.  Now, with the Empire long gone and Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland having their own governments or assemblies, the British political establishment has only one “colony” left to justify its existence – England!

The Church of St. Mary the Virgin in the South Somerset village of Isle Abbotts. The monarch of the Levels.

For the last of this series of Christmas posts on churches I thought I would visit the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Isle Abbotts in South Somerset.  It seemed an appropriate finale as Simon Jenkins, in his England’s Thousand Best Churches (Penguin Books, 2009), states: “Isle Abbotts is the monarch of the Somerset Levels.”   He also includes it in his list of the Top Hundred.

I took the B3168 north from Ilminster and, after crossing the A303, turned off left at Old Way Gate onto Cad Road and followed the signposts to Ilton.  Heading north out of Ilton I passed the Royal Naval Air Station at Merryfield and was soon driving along some very narrow, muddy, icy lanes toward the village of Isle Abbotts. 

I parked in a lane 50 yards from the Church.  It was a clear bright winter’s day but, although it was noon, the sun had not thawed the ice on the shaded puddles; it was still nearly half an inch thick from the previous night’s heavy frost.

Edward Hutton in his Highways & Byways in Somerset (Macmillan & Co., 1912) wrote of St. Mary the Virgin: “Isle Abbots I could not miss, for its beautiful double-windowed church tower, though small, is one of the finest in Somerset . . . The beauty of the tower among the trees is extraordinary; its details are exquisite and then it has this major advantage that nearly all its niches retain their figures, and these are numerous.”*

The Church of St. Mary the Virgin in the South Somerset village of Isle Abbotts.

Only one mile to the east of Isle Abbotts, across the River Isle, is the village of Isle Brewers which I visited last summer.  Its parish church of All Saints is a complete contrast to St. Mary the Virgin but is pretty enough in its own way.

A summer view of the parish church of All Saints in Isle Brewers, South Somerset.

In his Somerset (Great Western Railway Company) 1934, Maxwell Fraser writes of the two neighbouring churches: “Isle Brewers- its name is a corruption of the De Bruyeres who once owned the manor- is a little village whose church, rebuilt in 1861 but retaining a Norman font, is completely overshadowed by the splendid church of Isle Abbots, once the property of the Abbots of Muchelney.”*

*Note the older spelling of “Abbots” used by Hutton and Fraser.