England Erased Revisited

Ana the Imp has set me off. (see Ana the Imp Here)

Back in the dark days of 2002, John Prescott was planning to "regionalise" England as some sort of final solution to the West Lothian problem.

Some earnest chap wrote in and complained about the fact that he had no opportunity of expressing himself as English on the Census form. Just about every other ethic/cultural/national was there to be chosen from except English.

Luckily a copy of the 1984 style reply is still around. See link - (Prescotts reply courtesy English Ed)

But I thought I would share the following little gem from this reply directly with you. (I don't see why I should be the only one with boiling blood pressure.)

[quote]
Firstly, I assume you are referring to the census form that has no facility for stating English nationality.This is because there is no such nationality as English as laid down by various acts of parliament and accession.
[unquote]

But don't stop there. Read all of it. Then think how lucky we are we still have a country at all.

2 comments:

Byrnsweord said...

This is an absolutely astonishing revelation. Roll forward eight years and Labour are wringing their hands about how to 'win back England', as if its suddenly a priority (and a nation) again.

England to Labour is nothing other than a political pawn.

Bill (Transcriber) said...

Absolutely Brynesword. I first came across this letter some years ago on (I think) the EDP site but the link has fallen into disuse. I put up a post on http://crossofstgeorge.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=2 and luckily English Ed came up trumps.

We really must hang on to all this stuff dating from when they thought they were actually going to kill off England. It is too important to lose.