... thinking of poverty.

David Cornock's blog had an interesting comment today,

Comment No. 45. by  paul80  "Poorer parts of the UK should receive more funding. Makes sense. The UK is a sinlge country after all."

I don't think he is right, "why should a poor part of any country receive government funds because it is poorer than other areas ? "

Two questions, both linked, spring to mind, "who would receive the funding, and, who would decide how it would be used ? "

If, for example, it can be demonstrated that an area has such poor literacy that its inhabitants are unable to attract good, well paid, employment, then government might address educational needs of the area.

If, for example, health issues can be linked to poor sanitation, then government can intervene, much like London of the 19th century.

With this in mind, should Westminster fund various regions of the UK as it does, should Scotland receive more per head than Wales, should Wales receive more per head than the East of England, per head ?

I don't think so, funding should be equal across the UK as a whole, based upon population, but a new approach to funding societies deficiencies wherever they are found.

Better Together ....

.... On 25^th June the Better Together campaign finally launched. In this special newsletter we cover the launch and give a few reflections on it.

As we arrived, outside there was a token Nationalist protest – about a dozen demonstrators had draped out dozens of Scottish Flags at the entrance to the launch as if our flag was a nationalist symbol. 

Obviously they had not read ODN’s article from last week where we firmly established that it was a symbol of a Scotland united within the United Kingdom and not a separatist icon. I doubt they realised the irony but they were in fact flying our flag!

It was quite a different type of launch from the Yes Scotland launch of a few weeks past and rightly so. Perhaps lessons were learned from that and a more realistic approach to starting a campaign on the serious issue of Scotland’s future was adopted – placing this in the hands of the real people of Scotland and not just celebrities and political personalities.

Although the interviews with the representatives of the people of Scotland were a little rehearsed they still came over as genuine. These were ordinary men and women, young and old, from all backgrounds and, like us, they were people who believed passionately that Scotland should remain within the UK. It was good to hear this voiced by the actual people of Scotland rather than just the politicians. 

In our opinion, the shipbuilders from the Clyde were the star attraction. They were suitably blunt when it came to their turn to be interviewed - as only Glaswegians can be. “We fight together, we work together and as the slogan says, we are Better Together”. 

There was no way they wanted to leave the Union! 

The politicians were also there of course, but apart from Alistair Darling’s flagship speech, their presence was much more low key, mingling with the crowd and not intentionally making themselves the stars of the show, although they proved a magnet for the press.

Alistair Darling said in his speech that when Scotland votes in the referendum, we will face a historic choice which will shape our country and our families' futures, not just for the lifespan of a parliament, but for generations to come. 

“Chairing this campaign,” he said, “Is one of the most important things I have ever done in politics - the decision we make is the most important we will make in our lifetime."

He also warned that a vote for independence was like buying Scotland's children a one-way ticket to uncertainty.

Willie Rennie, the Scottish Lib Dem leader gave the closing remarks saying, “Your decision is not really just for you, it's for future generations too - it is a big responsibility to make a decision about what legacy you want to leave for future generations.

“But it is a decision that we will take together - throughout this campaign, you will hear why we are safer, stronger and better together - you will hear from all three parties here today but more importantly you'll hear from individuals like the people here today.

"From every corner and every community in Scotland we will take nothing for granted in the campaign to keep our family together, we will work for every single vote."

Annabel Goldie, the former Conservative leader in Scotland, was a real knockout as an interviewer. She may not have been able to reverse the Tories fortunes here in Scotland, but members and supporters of all political parties have always liked and trusted her. She will be a great asset to this type of campaign where politicians have to reach out in a genuine way to the people of Scotland.

We had opportunity to interact with most of the politicians there, building on previous contacts, and, with some, even grabbing a chat – including Alistair Darling, Johann Lamont, Margaret Curran, Anas Sarwar, Ruth Davidson, David McLetchie, Annabel Goldie and Murdo Fraser. 

Most we know already and have had discussions with about ODN – to agree with both how we could support them and also how they could support us as we reached out at a grass roots level to those who wished to preserve the Union, including many with no real political inclination at all.

Not surprisingly, the SNP have commented already on the launch. The main thrust of Alex Salmond’s response however seems to be that Better Together is a “Tory-led campaign, which is intent on conceding nothing to the people of Scotland.”. 

He claimed that Alistair Darling was operating as the frontman for a Tory-led campaign. 

In our opinion, Alistair Darling is no one’s front man as evidenced by his willingness stand up for his views to Gordon Brown in the last Labour government. Hopefully the people of Scotland will see through Alex Salmond’s claim. 

In fact Alex Salmond actually had nothing positive to say about Independence anywhere in his rebuttal to Better Together - only negative comments - which seemed a little ironic as in the past he has often accused the pro-Union campaign of being excessively negative.

I think the most interesting observation on the launch however came from one ODN supporter we dispatched down to Haymarket station early Monday morning, to pick up one of the leaflets being distributed at Scottish stations, as a prelude to the launch. As he approached he saw no sign of leaflets being clutched or even being read by commuters streaming from the station. Indeed he wondered if the information he had got had been wrong. However it was not wrong and a leaflet was soon in his hands although it had obviously not been of much interest to the other commuters.

This does point to a general indifference in the population at large. We suspect that it’s not that they don’t care about the future of Scotland or really want to split from the rest of the UK - but this is no longer exciting new news and the campaign still has a further two and a bit years to run – time enough in most people’s plans to get involved later – if it looks like being a close call. 

It’s very easy to forget this as we mingle and chat to other passionate Unionists involved in the campaign and who want the real push to start now and keep going at a frantic pace til 2014. 

That strategy just won’t work. 

Indeed, if we expect others to share this passion we may be disappointed. The reality is that we are in this for the long haul and the campaign to save the Union must in fact be a long term campaign that is carefully and strategically thought out. 

We cannot sprint for 100m and then expect to have enough stamina to win the much longer and more strength sapping 15,000m

The positive thing however is that with the launch of Better Together a balance has been restored and at ODN we welcome this.

For too long – even before the launch of the Yes Scotland campaign – the SNP have made the debate on Scotland’s future a one horse race. There was no other voice of any consequence!

But there is now a powerful and credible counter to this. We are indeed “Better Together”

At One Dynamic Nation we are committed to working together in partnership with Better Together and will keep you posted on developments and where you can help.

We issued a press release on the day of the launch where we pledged the following:-

“To demonstrate our support and to keep actively representing our own followers, many of whom we hope will also be actively involved in the united Better Together campaign and to avoid duplication of effort, we propose:-

• · To work with Better Together as a partner contributing to a united campaign in defending the Union.
• · To offer advice, knowledge, expertise, experience and resource to Better Together.
• · To support Better Together in a public way including promoting this organisation on our web site and in any material we generate including our weekly newsletter.
• · To continue to represent those who have no particular political affiliation or who do not wish to be publically associated with an organisation that is a political initiative and to represent their interests
• · To work at grass roots level and continue to grow by promoting the Union and gathering support for it at this level primarily through social media, word of mouth and our weekly newsletter which now has a credible and steadily increasing circulation.
• · To work with Better Together on research projects, coordinating efforts, so that resource is not duplicated.”

We would also encourage you to join Better Together at their website:-

http://www.bettertogether.net/

 A message for Wales too, "Better Together" ......

John Davey wrote "What England ...

...means to me.  via gmail

Jerusalem. Warm Beer. Cricket. I’ve seen,drunk and heard them all and – well, they don’t do anything for me really. Except cricket, which I played from the age of five. And I like the rather violent, post West Indies version of the game than the allegedly gentle, more ‘English’ game beforehand. Does that make me unEnglish ? I think not. I consider myself to be a patriotic Englishman. One thing I’ve never felt since I was very, very young is British.

I am from Cumbria, from a windswept town with substantial scots and irish communities. The England of my youth is an England of wind, strong tea, the bookies, of sports and working mens’ clubs. You won’t find it commemorated in any musical works of the heavyweight patriots : Shakespeare, I expect, had little to say on the subject of the anglo-scots dialects and their almost complete incomprehensibility.

I’ve also lived in London, where I’ve spent a lot of time. London is a global city, a city that has an uneasy relationship with it’s host nation in may ways. But England isn’t unique in having a cosmopolitan capital. My experiences in London – including close relationships with people of all races, colours, beliefs – I also consider fully part of “my England” too.

And here lies my problem. Where do I fit in to the ‘green and pleasant land’ ? It’s always been a source of some mystery to me. If I see references to the “essential” England (actually its usually “quintessential”) I see kings, warm beer, cricket on village greens, cucumber sandwiches, all drowned in Elgar (the worst bits). What I don’t see is a place to fit me in, unless it means being some kind of servant to the real English..

There seem to be two types of observations about national identity. One is modestly reliable – given to inaccuracies only by virtue of generalisations – and the other is synthetic, and usually less informative altogether.

Broadly speaking the former is about habits, and day-to-day, bread and butter behaviour. The English drink tea : the Italians are good cooks, and so on. Although hardly universal laws, there is a significant element of truth to them, objectively evident when people are travelling. Inasmuch as they possess what might be termed moral content, these are generally restricted to matters of taste.
There is then also a tradition of trying to go beyond the observation of habit and into the realm of what you might term the spiritual and philosophical components of identity. There is a great tradition of this – in European culture at least. It was evident that, from the moment of the creation of nationalism and nation states in the late 18th/early 19th century, some felt the need to spiritualise ethnicity – to make it nothing short of a metaphysical fact.

I can’t help thinking that such a quest is and always has been a complete waste of time. It is an intellectual endeavour that – at best , is of dubious value, and at worst has created some of the most astonishing nonsense ever written. Take, for example, all the volkische theories that the Germans immersed themselves in after unification in 1870.

These theories were an attempt to embellish, in semi-theological terms, the fact of German nationality. It was all completely pointless. German ethnicity was never really a problem. Germans never really doubted the fact that they were German. Germans were from the area of the Germany, spoke German and followed what might be termed German day to habits. Most importantly, (thanks to Napoleon), most Germans thought of themselves as German, and not something else.

You would think that would be sufficient, but for some it clearly wasn’t. A complete edifice of monstrous nonsense was constructed to show how the Germans were not just people who were good with machines and drank beer, but were born to be masters of men. You’ve heard it. The Germans were endowed with noble characteristics, naturally,that were unique to them…. Germans were not like ‘Western’ europeans, but more ‘Eastern’ (whatever that meant – it seemed to be a reason for not having elections )– and they believed in ‘freedom’ of course, much moreso than anybody else. As usual. And they were even physically different to everybody else, a unique race, the Aryans, a race threatened by Jews (in fact, astoundingly, one of the first proponents of this theory was a lunatic Englishman, Houston Stewart Chamberlain).

This nonsense surely reached it apotheosis when the Germans, according to Himmler, were descended from a race of Himalayan Giants. 70 years previously such nonsense would have been been the kind of belief reserved to small groups of people on the fringes of sanity. After a few decades of volkische nonsense, it all made sense.

And here we come back to our green and pleasant land. Is English nationalism making a similar error ? In recent times there has been an extended search for ‘Englishness’. It’s come about, one assumes, from the rise of so-called “celtic” nationalisms and the transfer of real rights to the celtic nations, with no such privileges for the English. There is also a need to consider the possibility that there could be – in the none too distant future – a ‘Britain’ that consists pretty much only of England. So at least one of the reasons for the pursuit of Englishness, it would appear, seems to be the need to meet a particular political challenge.

But what of this search ? What form is it taking ? Well, so far, it seems to be all literary. And at this stage, it is not extravagant in scope, fortunately. In fact it seems to be a kind of quest for a verbal bottle in which to neatly contain ‘Englishness’. But is this pursuit a sensible one ? Indeed is it of any value at all ?

Well, I think in one sense there is no doubt that the English are like the Germans. The English suffer no doubts as to their English ethnicity. They don’t confuse themselves for anybody else.I think that this is true for all white English, and for most second and third generation immigrants the only doubt is the extent to which they identify with their parents and grandparents. The identity of most 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants – at least in my experience – is nonetheless English first.
To which we should say – I think – that that should be enough for a progressive, English Nationalist response to England’s problems. Like the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish, the English are the victims of ‘Britain’ too. Victims of its backwardness, its inherent dislike of popular democracy, and all the destructive intellectual inheritance of a huge empire obtained and maintained for the most part by the use, or the threat of, prodigious and sustained levels of extreme violence.

But if it isn’t enough – which I doubt – what of the efforts to turn Englishness into a metaphysical fact ? Have these made any headway into finding what to put in the bottle ?

Well, for one I don’t think that they have. The problem is that a lot of the prevalent dogmas of British nationalism have been overlaid onto English nationalism.

Take, for instance, the human geography, the older stereotypes of the English. The “English race” of Mr Kipling (and his exceedingly well written fantasies) and others. Variations of this idealisation abound, to this day. Listen to an old Tory MP and he will bring the “English Race” to life every time the EU is mentioned. It’s a defiant people, a jolly people, a “freedom-loving” people. They hate politicians and humbug, love their monarch and think nothing of dying “for what’s right”. A martial theme dominates the imagery almost continually. In fact it’s a knee-jerk reaction : speak of the ‘Britons’ , or the ‘English race’ and within a matter of seconds you are reaching for the shield, the gun, or – more typically – the dignified death far from home, smashed to pieces by asian metal implements with barely a murmur of discontent. In this myth, identity is – in effect – synonymous with military utility. A useful tool for an empire based upon violence. There are therefore no women involved in this particular group of myths of course, with two exceptions – Boadicea (the ‘warrior’ Queen), and , I would suggest, Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady herself.

It’s a fantasy race. No such people exist, and never did. But the tradition of synthesizing English identities to suit the political objectives of Britain and its increasingly dated structures is an ongoing task. The Victorians invented a useful volkische toolkit or two themselves.

Freedom and death imagery still abounds today – unsurprising given the number of wars that Britain gets involved in. As some poor working class Scot or Northern Englishman gets blown to pieces in some Afghanistan hellhole for no reason whatsoever, a newsreader will always reassure us, via a proxy spokesman, that the reason his young body was turned into a pulped and broken mass was because of ‘freedom’.

Freedom. The ‘F’ word. Its use has become perhaps even more prevalent in recent years, a word unilaterally hijacked by neoliberal economics. Its usage is surely now so widespread and common – common to all nationalities, all political beliefs – that it long ago lost any real meaning. Yet there are still some who think “freedom” represents the “essence” of being English.

Are the English “freedom-loving” ? Well, as I have perhaps just implied, I don’t think “freedom-loving” means that much. Its certainly less objectively true than a statement like ‘the English like getting drunk’, a statement of indeniable veracity. But there are a plethora of nations who would utter the same words. “Freedom” for some of them though, can have a more concrete meaning : the freedom of a nation to determine its own future.

Take, say, the current target of Britain’s grim collection of sunset imperial projects, Afghanistan. Their great national claim is that they chose to be free and poor, rather than rich and occupied. It’s a claim that has some merit : they’ve been occupied by the three biggest empires the world has seen in the last 150 years, and they’ve seem them all off. They could of course have cooperated with their richer invaders but chose not to : they chose independence instead.

Contrast that with England’s actual history. England is physically isolated in a position of no great strategic significance. It has thus found foreign occupation far less of a problem to contend with. It doesn’t actually know what loss of freedom is , in that sense. On the other hand, England (as part of Britain) has had few qualms about depriving other nations – huge quantities of other nations – of their right to determine their own affairs.

In fact one might rightly say that that England (as Britain), as far as issues related to ‘freedom’ (in its simplest meaning) are concerned, is most definitely not only not freedom-loving, but actually freedom-obstructing – even freedom-hating. Whatever one might say about how the English may live their own lives in some kind of freedom, the historical record is clear : the English have not been keen on other people’s freedom at all.

But read any piece about ‘Englishness’ and the F-word will surely make an appearance, like the literary muzak it is.

The ‘English Race’, and its variants, and all the connotations of ‘Freedom-loving’ are two ways I think that English volkische-type theories just don’t help. They sketch a picture of the people of England that not only isn’t true, it has a barely disguised political purpose.

The “village green” of Olde England is no different. Look at the totems of conventional Englishness, as delivered within the British idiom. Warm beer, cricket, cucumber sandwiches. Country houses, roses, and the gently rolling hills. You know the picture. Where are you ? Leeds ? Exeter ? Croxteth, Liverpool ? Probably not. The chances are you are in the Home Counties, just outside London, the home of the traditional merchant classes of the Empire. Come to the real England. It’s here, in the opulence of Hertfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire that the real England exists. It’s the England of literature, of cheery youths in private schools, great weddings between fine houses, where leaders of men are born, and where Prime Ministers meet monarchs in great occasions of state.

Is there a myth identity so ruthlessly hijacked by one, tiny, geographical and social subset as England ? It seems difficult to think of a theft quite so grand. But as a reflection of the actual power structure of England, it’s pretty accurate. England may look nothing like the England of myth, but when it comes to the people who control it, it looks a bit more like their backyards : financiers and merchants, and their offspring and relatives in the civil service and legislature.

The physical England of myth is therefore also a political myth : power lies with the people who own the village green, and don’t forget it. Urban types can arrive ‘on the staff’ only – no Birmingham accents allowed. It’s a fantastically exclusive, fantastically destructive myth, and one that no sensible understanding of England can permit to be accepted.

I believe that England needs rescuing. We need to move away from Britain, to abolish the whole British edifice. We need a modern state with a written constitution. We don’t need a multi-national state either, as they don’t work. Scotland, Wales and Ireland must go their own way. Otherwise, the English regions will suffer – Scotland and Wales can send diplomatic emissaries to London, making Lancastrians and Yorkshiremen instantly less important. It’s grossly unfair.

And that process of rescuing England might start with making England mean something a bit more to the people who live there. In my opinion that doesn’t start with a search for “Englishness” : rather it starts with an abolition of the quest for “Englishness”.

England needs rescuing. It needs rescuing from British self-serving myths. It needs to be reclaimed by the people who actually live there, not the myth-makers who control it. One of the ways of doing that is to resist the temptation to “define”, to seek the “quintessential” England. If you do, you’ll end up trivialising a great and complex people into trite, politically motivated banalities. There isn’t a “quintessential” England. We are a vast and complex people. England has a heady mix of a great tradition of scholarship and highbrow excellence, and at the same time is best known throughout the world for its very lowbrow achievements in music and television. You can’t put that in a bottle. It has a wide mix of physical and human geographies, of which the Birmingham accent is as integral as any other. Sum that complexity up in a quick and chirpy paragraph?

Why ?

A commitment to a democratic England means a commitment to the Birmingham accent : more than anything, it means a commitment to abolishing the word “quintessential”, and all the nonsense that flows from it.

J B Davey

... so does Wales go its own way, or might we become once again "England & Wales" ?

A better flag for Wales...

... and the Union.

Blue could disappear from the Union Jack if Scotland becomes independent, writes Jason Allardyce in today's Sunday Times ....

An adviser on heraldry to the royal household said he personally found it hard to envisage the flag continuing in its current form, given that the colours represent Britain’s constituent parts. It means the flag, created in 1606 on the orders of King James I of England — James VI of Scotland — to mark the union of the crowns, could lose the diagonal white cross of St Andrew with its blue background.
Clive Cheesman, Richmond Herald at the College of Arms, said: “The story of the make-up of the Union flag is so well known that it would be difficult to plough on with it if Scotland were to sever [ties] completely with the UK.”

The flag combines the crosses of the three countries united under one sovereign — England and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, although since 1921 only Northern Ireland has been part of the UK.
Neither the Welsh cross of St David nor the Welsh dragon appears because Wales was already legally incorporated into England when the flag was created. Welsh Labour MP Ian Lucas has lobbied for the red dragon to be included.

Lord Forsyth, the Conservative former Scottish secretary of state, said last week’s diamond jubilee celebrations might be “the last time we . . . see red, white and blue on the Mall”.

Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister, decreed that the royal standard of Scotland, rather than the Union Jack, should fly over Scottish government buildings during the jubilee weekend.

In England the government is ...

... championing choice for the citizens.

Minister for Government Policy Oliver Letwin said:

The one size fits all provision of the past, where people got what they were given unless they were wealthy enough to opt out is consigned to history. In a mature democracy such as ours, people must be given the right to choose the services they want and who to provide them. They should have open access to information so they can make informed decisions and be able to take control of their own lives.

In Wales we remain stuck in the past ..........

.......... where even after death your wishes go with you to the grave, poor government !

Scottish independence and Welsh devolution ...

... is the future, and it's written in stone.

Scotland joined with England and Wales at the behest of Scots politics, joined by a shared the Royal House of Stuart ( James VI of Scotland / James I of England (and Wales) ) ...

... the Union of the Crowns in 1603, when King James VI of Scotland inherited the English throne from his double first cousin twice removed, Queen Elizabeth I. Although described as a Union of Crowns, until 1707 there were in fact two separate Crowns resting on the same head (as opposed to the implied creation of a single Crown and a single Kingdom, exemplified by the later Kingdom of Great Britain) .

... until a hundred years later when the Act of Union was agreed between both parliaments (England and Scotland).  This second Act of Union negotiated by those with particular fiscal interests not representing the popular view which was against the proposed union, a view that has simmered for centuries that has now emerged as the representative view of a possible 40% and growing.

In Wales things were quite different, Whereas Scotland were joined as a nation originally under the rule of  Kenneth MacAlpin (known Kenneth I) king of the Picts and, according to national myth, first king of Scots, in Wales there never was a single unifying leader of any significant period of time, we remained tribal until the day of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth ( Llywelyn Fawr (the Great) ), who was sole ruler of Gwynedd by 1200 and by his death in 1240 was effectively ruler of much of Wales, but not all, he was opposed not just by the English but by other local leaders, he was opposed by the psyche of Wales.

Wales became was assimilated into England, the local rulers looked to London and realised it would be good, not for the people, but for the leadership, it is doubtful that the people looked beyond their local leadership for answers to their impoverished needs, Wales was poor, poor because of geography, whereas in large areas of England agriculture was easy, in Wales it was difficult to prosper.  Eventually Wales did prosper from its agriculture, existing adjacent to England it serviced the markets east of Offa's Dyke with stock for finishing in England.  It was the beginning of its assimilation into that country that would become known as Great Britain, its local leadership embraced the English court, whilst the little people took advantage of the economics of internal trade.

Why the potted history, it provides a clue as to why Scotland must go ( tomorrow or the next day it's irrelevant, go they must ), it's because they were never really a part of Great Britain, Independence is the future, whereas Wales is happy in its relationship within Britain.

To sum up, Scotland is wired to cooperate with its own identifiable culture, whilst Wales is wired through centuries of cooperation, internal migrations, and shared political ideals to the dominant culture that is multi-cultural Britain.

If I might recommend a book to be borrowed (or bought) it is "Wired for Culture" by Mark Pagel, it doesn't give all the answers, but gives clues as to where politics of "Britannia" might go.

This is why nationalist politics in Wales is a declining non-event, we see cooperation as the best way forward, this is why having strong links with Westminster will further this road map for a secure and prosperous future, Britannia needs the radical thoughts of Wales, Scotland will always be a thorn in the head of our great country, let them be neighbours without their meddlesome politics.

In Wales politics owes it to the electorate to become pragmatic in its quest for prosperity.

... if you want wind power, then dam the countryside !

... a call to build a series of dams to store power from wind farms could see parts of national parks being submerged, writes Jonathan Leake of the Sunday Times £link.

Britain’s last remaining wildernesses could be hit by a network of huge hydroelectric schemes, designed to store green energy from wind farms when power is plentiful, and release it when the wind fails, under proposals from a government scientist

The schemes, which would see dams built in mountainous regions of Wales and Scotland, are being proposed by Professor David MacKay, chief scientist at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

Speaking at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IME) last week, he suggested that several such “pumped storage” systems could be built around Snowdonia in Wales and up to 13 in Scotland. Most of the energy generated would be supplied to England.
The idea will infuriate environmentalists. MacKay has suggested some of the schemes could be built in national parks such as Loch Lomond.

The proposal’s attraction, however, is that it is a well-proven technology. Britain has four pumped storage systems, of which the best known is at Dinorwig, in Snowdonia.
It works by pumping 247m cubic feet of water from one reservoir into a second, 1,600ft higher up. When demand surges, this is released to generate hydroelectric power.

Last week’s meeting was private but MacKay has also set out his ideas in print, where he said the new schemes should be much bigger than Dinorwig. “We are interested in making much bigger storage systems . . . We have to imagine creating roughly 12 new sites, each storing 100 gigawatt hours — roughly 10 times the energy stored in Dinorwig,” he said.
Why might Britain need so many new dams? The answer lies partly in the unreliability of wind but also in the scale of Britain’s commitment to green energy. The government has said that by 2030 Britain should have about 8,000 wind turbines with a maximum power output of about 10 gigawatts — roughly an eighth of what the country currently needs at any one time.

The problem is that if wind becomes such a big part of Britain’s power supply, it will have to be backed up for times when winds fail. One answer would be to keep lots of fossil fuel power stations on standby. However, a much greener and perhaps cheaper alternative would be to store energy from low-carbon sources, such as wind or nuclear power, when they are producing a surplus, in pumped storage systems.

In the latest edition of his book Sustainable Energy, Without the Hot Air, MacKay says: “Certainly, we could build several more sites like Dinorwig alone.”

In Scotland he suggests that a huge scheme could be built using Loch Sloy and Loch Lomond, which are already linked by a hydroelectric power system. This would involve raising Sloy’s existing dam by 130ft. He suggests the mountains could easily provide 10 sites for similar projects.

MacKay also proposes even more ambitious schemes. One would see dams constructed across the mouths of “hanging valleys” around Britain’s sea cliffs. These could then be filled with seawater. Another would see a huge chamber constructed three-quarters of a mile beneath London, with water generating power as it pours in from a ground-level reservoir then being pumped out when power is in surplus.

Tim Fox, head of energy and environment at the IME, said MacKay was forcing Ed Davey, the energy secretary, to confront uncomfortable issues surrounding the green energy agenda. “There has been a step change in the DECC understanding of engineering since MacKay arrived,” he said.

Craig Dyke, strategy development manager at National Grid, said the demand for power would increase sharply by 2030 under government plans to replace most petrol and diesel cars with electric ones by 2025, and to heat buildings with low-carbon electricity rather than gas. “We are going to see the demand for power varying a lot more than it does now, so energy storage systems will be important,” he said.

The idea that parts of Britain’s remaining countryside should be sacrificed to Britain’s power industry angers environmentalists. Helen McDade, head of policy at the John Muir Trust, which campaigns to protect Britain’s last wildernesses, said: “These new dams would just be storage systems for wind energy, which is itself inefficient and highly subsidised. This agenda is driven by energy companies who have become subsidy junkies.”

 I guess if we want to be green, this is as good a way as any, begs the question "why not build them instead of using turbines, a prettier solution".

From Santa Monica, a treat, from Y Teifi of the separatist ...

... agenda a cup of vinegar for all those who might cheer for Britain and the British, but first the treat ...

Huckleberry's whole-wheat apple butter cake,  total time: 2 hours, 20 minutes, servings: 16 to 20
Adapted from Huckleberry Bakery & Café

Ingredients ...

Cooked apples

2 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 pounds apples (about 3 large), peeled and cut into large chunks (about 4 cups)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt 

In a large sauté pan, melt the butter over medium heat. Stir in the apples, then the sugar and salt, tossing to coat completely. Cook, stirring often, until the apples are just softened, about 6 minutes. Remove from heat and spread out the apples on a rimmed baking sheet to stop the cooking process. Set aside to cool.

Cake assembly

2 lightly packed cups (7 ounces) almond meal
1 cup (4.5 ounces) whole-wheat flour
3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon (3.5 ounces) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon (2.5 ounces) cornmeal
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 pound butter
2 1/4 cups (1 pound) sugar, plus 3 tablespoons, divided
8 eggs
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
Cooked apples

Method

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 10-by-3-inch round cake pan and line bottom with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, sift together the almond meal, whole-wheat flour, all-purpose flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl using an electric mixer, beat the butter until softened. With the mixer going, beat in 1 pound sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until combined, then beat in the vanilla.
4. Beat in the dry ingredients, a spoonful at a time, just until incorporated. Be careful not to over-mix.
5. Fold in the cooked apples by hand. Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake pan and sprinkle over the remaining 3 tablespoons sugar.
6. Bake the cake in the center of the oven until the cake is risen and a rich golden brown on top, springs back when touched, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 11/2 hours. Check the cake after 1 hour; if it browns too quickly, loosely tent the top with a piece of foil.
7. Remove the cake to a rack. Cool for 15 minutes before removing the cake.

... and then we have the cup of vinegar, the vitriolic Y Teifi writing at Wales Home, read it a different day to eating the apple cake lest you lose your appetite.



In response ...... Y Teifi, let’s be clear about this, my "Britishness" is not a disguise for Englishness, it sits comfortably with my Welshness, neither is it a condition for debate as it is a very personal attribute that I hold dear, it belongs to me.  My wife on the other hand finds her "Britishness" sits well with her "Englishness" and her adopted "Welshness".

When Alex Salmond said "the rocks will melt with the sun" ...

... many British taxpayers missed the context, he continued, "before he would bring in tuition fees for Scots."

He could have added, let the England and Northern Ireland and Wales pick up the tab, and if students from these countries that subsidise our Universities wish to come to our universities, they can pay through the nose; but if you come from outwith the UK, Salmond will subsidise your education through the largess of the taxpayers of England and Northern Ireland and Wales.

In Wales, or more to the point, "of Wales", Peter Hain is bumping his gums again, but rather than being concerned with his Neath constituency and Wales he is worried about the future face of "British Politics" where the Labour Party might never be able to govern again, "good news week" for many observers.

It is the call for an "English Parliament", or at least a Parliament that MP's from devolved regions would not vote on issues that were devolved, it seems fair to me but Hain thinks otherwise, he sees the issue as the thin end of the wedge, the eve of destruction for the Union.  Where has he been these last 10 years or more, the Union as he knows it is well and truly over, it has been for a decade.

From Jamaica an interesting proposition, "... most islanders believe the country would have been better off if it had remained a British colony."  In Wales the nationalists consider our relationship within the United Kingdom to be colonial, bullshit of course, ours is an artificial divide, the only way fourth division politics can achieve any semblance of power, parish councillors who would govern our lives ...... except for sport, Wales does grow exceedingly good sportsmen and women at times.

And over the pond that is the Atlantic, the good people of Canada have come to love the monarchy ... whilst in Wales, well I written about it before, a sad world ...

... and my walking stick, well it's not a sexy as  Beyoncé, and not as useful as a Sheleighly, the Celtic word for a club or type of hand weapon, referred to in Ireland lore as the mighty protector “ ...

Bill, Bahrain or Montreal, a question of ...

... ethics or a forlorn gesture.

I don't know anyone in Bahrain, yet the Formula 1 teams and drivers seem old friends.

It's all about freedoms, freedom of association and freedom of speech to name but two, the people of Bahrain are denied these freedoms, yet the FIA who enjoy these freedoms are not prepared as yet to acknowledge the people of Bahrain should also be able to protest injustices.

So this weekend I will sit out the race and watch "Chariots of Fire", sometimes we have to become principled, I cannot get it out of my head the Bahrain authorities put on trial the medics who treated people injured by the state to warn others of the futility of opposing the state.


Closer to home, Bill asked the question ...

"I think though that we need something better than the self serving elitist Westminster bureaucracy we currently have, and England really must have some form of identifiable government, and not just a vacuum like present.

Wales, with its assembly, seems to have taken an interesting turn of late. Could they lead the way?

But what should the format be? I don't know. But I'm open to suggestions."

Bill has opened our political Pandora's box just a little, just a chink, he questions the vacuum that exists in British politics, a vacuum that is home to 50 million plus voices that have no sound, where can Bill get his voice heard above the drone that is the Westminster hive of inactivity ; this same 50 million people who pay the lions share of revenue raised by government, who asks where is England in the great equation we call Britain and British.

I am on record as saying that no individual should expect more than the next person, yet we have a set of circumstances where Scotland receives the lion share of revenue per head of population, some argue that NI has a greater share, but that particular province needs additional help in the fight against terrorism and the effects of terrorism over many decades, although some expenditure goes towards certain people I remember adorning wanted posters .....

So in terms of Bill or Bahrain, Bahrain is a monster of morality, whilst Bill is the monster yet to come in Britain, "who speaks for England", not many I think.....