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.

English Railways and English Taxes

It was enchanting to hear that our Scottish cousins, particularly those in the SNP are keen to get a high speed rail link extended into Scotland. (See BBC Article Here)

Evidently such a link would reduce the journey time between London and Edinburgh to three hours. Although, to me, this seems rather counter-intuitive. Why would Scottish Nationalists wish to be closer to London?

But never mind.

One day soon, as many Scots desire, Scotland may become an independent country.

Maybe then the non country of England will also get its own parliament. Strange as it may seem, this English parliament would be primarily concerned with English issues. Including English infrastructure projects and English taxes.

Of course the Scottish parliament would in turn be responsible for Scottish infrastructure projects and Scottish taxes.

Anyway should this all happen, I hope that tradition will dictate that we, the grubby despised Little Englanders will extend the hand of friendship and camaraderie to our noble Scottish cousins.

Yes! We will help build the rail link all the way up to Edinburgh.

Immediately after the cheque has cleared.