English Trade Union Congress calls for the abolition of the House of Lords.

Apparently the English Trade Union Congress will be in their battle bus outside the Houses of Parliament today campaigning to abolish the House of Lords.
  

Eddie Bone, Campaign Director for the English Trade Union Congress, said:

"The House of Lords no longer speaks for the people of England and it threatens to misuse its position to undermine the triggering of Article 50.  This is a provocation which shows that the self-important and unelected House of Lords should be abolished."

I entirely agree, back in August 2014, long before Brexit and the Article 50 furore, I had the following letter published in the Western Daily Press expressing my views on the House of Lords and the need for an English Parliament.

Organisations or individuals campaigning for an English Parliament are always rebuffed by the British political establishment whose members, including those from Scotland and Wales, argue that there are enough politicians already, that it would be too costly and there is no public demand for one. However, if any of those objections are made regarding the unelected and unreformed House of Lords that very same British establishment steadfastly ignores them.

The Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour are forever happy to find a place in the Lords for yet another group of life peers made up of retired MPs, those who have been voted out of office and various party donors and cronies. Moreover, the next batch of appointments to the burgeoning House of Lords will see its members outnumber those in the House of Commons, Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly combined.

The three main parties pay only lip service to any concerns about costs, numbers and lack of public demand or democratic accountability.

Since devolution nearly two thousand politicians, more than one third of them unelected peers, operate at national level in Westminster, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. This political circle is content to have seen itself expand but hypocritically conspires to prevent England from having its own dedicated parliament able to speak with a collective voice for the interests of the English people.

So, good luck and success to Eddie Bone and his fellow campaigners from the English Trade Union Congress.

Campaign for an English Parliament activists advised by police in Stoke that playing Jerusalem and flying the English flag "might cause offence".

Would singing La Marseillaise in France bring about the attendance of the CRS?  I doubt it.  Would flying the Stars and Stripes from your car in the USA prompt a cautioning word from officers from the Highway Patrol?   I don’t think so.

Be that as it may, when activists from the Campaign for an English Parliament played Jerusalem and flew the Cross of St. George in Stoke during the recent parliamentary by election their vehicle was stopped by police who advised that their actions “might cause offence”.

This sort of thing could only happen in England!

For the full story of this astonishing incident visit the CEP website.  The link follows.
https://thecepreview.wordpress.com/2017/02/18/fury-as-police-warn-stoke-campaigner-england-flag-and-jerusalem-hymn-may-offend-locals/

Axbridge in Somerset. A visit to The Lamb Inn, King John's Hunting Lodge and the Church of St.John the Baptist.

The last few weeks of winter have been particularly cold and bleak, not the sort of weather for venturing out to seek a picturesque view.  So when driving back down the A38 on a very chilly day after an unavoidable trip to Bristol I noticed the sign for Axbridge at Shute Shelve Hill and was reminded of a pleasant summer visit there a few years ago.  My wife and I, with some friends, had a very enjoyable lunch sitting outside at the Lamb Inn, a coaching inn dating from 1480, on a corner of Axbridge’s charming medieval square.

The Lamb Inn, Axbridge in Somerset.  A coaching inn dating from 1480. 

In days of old the town was a convenient and favourite base for royal hunting parties ranging over the Royal Forest of Mendip.  Indeed, the Anglo-Saxon King Edmund, brother of Athelstan, nearly met his death riding over Cheddar Gorge while stag-hunting.

Colin Wintle in his Around Historic Somerset and Avon, (Midas Books, 1978) writes this of Axbridge: “Medieval kings, with their passion for hunting, gave Axbridge considerable status, but of all the Norman and subsequent Plantagenet monarchs who came there for sport King John is most remembered.  There in a central position facing the main square is a building traditionally known as King John’s Hunting Lodge – and the site of a similar retreat once occupied by his Saxon predecessors.  The building is an early Tudor merchant’s house.  Now a National Trust property, it contains a museum of local history and archaeology.  The oldest existing building in Axbridge is its noble fifteenth century church with a fine tower, standing on an eminence overlooking the parish.”

King John's Hunting Lodge in Axbridge.

Nestling between the foothills of the Mendips and the Somerset Levels, Axbridge grew from a fortified Saxon burgh and was an important wool producer in the Middle Ages.  It held markets and fairs, had its own mint, and even its own river port in its early days.  Its narrow streets leading to the square were once a challenge to both horse drawn and motorised vehicles, but today there is far less through traffic now that the A371 effectively bypasses the town and speeds tourists from the A38 directly to ever popular Cheddar and its Gorge. 

Signposts direct you to a handy car park not far from the square so one has plenty of time to have meal, visit King John’s Hunting Lodge with its museum and climb the imposing steps leading to the Church of St. John the Baptist.

The Church of St. John the Baptist in Axbridge, Somerset. 

The Defence Logistics Treaty strengthens defence ties between the UK and Japan. Just as well - the Japanese Fleet is twice the size of the Royal Navy.

The UK has just signed with Japan a defence agreement by the name of the Defence Logistics Treaty also known as the Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement.  Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon’s welcome for the treaty included the words: “Japan is an important British ally and this treaty will enable closer joint work on operations and exercises, including sharing equipment, supplies and services. As Global Britain steps up, we will continue to stand alongside our Japanese friends to meet shared interests and challenges.”

Such talk of Japan being a friend and ally has a remarkably similar tone to the words used by Sir Oswald Mosely when, almost 50 years ago, he wrote of Britain’s relationship with Japan in the 1930s.  He stated: “. . . that Japan was not only an old friend but a traditional and remaining ally.”

In the late nineteenth century the Japanese Navy took the Royal Navy as its role model.  Japanese warships were built in British shipyards and naval missions from Britain advised the Japanese on the development of a modern fleet.  In the early twentieth century Vickers built the Kongo, the first of a class of 37,000 ton battlecruisers for the Japanese Navy, in its Barrow-in-Furness shipyard.  Three more of the class were subsequently built in Japan.  The Kongo was to see service in both world wars.

In World War One Japanese naval power enabled British warships to be withdrawn from the Far East and Pacific for service in the North Sea, Atlantic and Mediterranean.  Such cooperation came to an end before World War Two when Japanese colonial ambitions brought confrontation with the USA, Russia and Britain.

Today Japan has one of the largest navies in the world with 4 large helicopter carriers, 17 submarines, 36 destroyers and 6 destroyer escorts.  By contrast the Royal Navy has, excluding the Trident fleet, just 7 submarines of which none are presently on active operations and 19 frigates and destroyers.  Last July there was much adverse comment and speculation when all the Royal Navy’s modern Type 45 destroyers were reported as being in port at the same time.   Furthermore, they face long periods out of action having major modifications to their engines due to them failing when operating in hot climates.

In such circumstances it would seem that a wide ranging defence agreement with Japan could be of great benefit to the UK.  At sea the Japanese obviously have much more to offer us than we can offer them.  Hopefully the Defence Logistics Treaty will lead to greater military collaboration between our two island peoples – especially at sea!