Apparently a lot of the energy price increase are from the Treasurey - Darling

You couldn't make this stuff up. Alistair Darling has just made himself look opportunistic, cynical and stupid all in the same move. ( See Damian Reece in todays DT ).

His "I'm a friend of the consumer" type letter to Ofgen apparently fails to take into account all the tax rises introduced by HM Treasury ! ( As well as getting a fail for basic economics in pretending not to understand that as cost of purchasing gas goes up, so the price charged for it must rise.)

What a chump.

PS He's also been caught today saying the interest rates will fall - so that the end of independence for the MPC then.

What do some Scottish Labour MP have against the English ?

What do some Scottish Labour MP have against the English ?

I ask the question as The Scotsman reports today that some Labour MPs north of Berwick-upon-Tweed are calling for English regional assemblies. ( See here. )

Yet again we have Scottish politicians calculating what must be done to the English for their own political advantage.

Why are they unable to grasp the idea that the English should be able to have the national, legislative and executive forms of government that they choose themselves ?

My guess is because they realise they will lose out through influence and in terms of the tax payer money sent to Scotland once genuine English politics emerges.

MacLabour should remember that they started all this with their unbalanced devolution measures.

PS The whinging about anti-Scottish sentiment is really a bit rich coming from north of the border. The English actually like the Scots. The shock from devolution and the follow up publicity has been the realisation that its not reciprocated. ( See numerous football World cup press articles and the Newsnight car for examples.)

I'll say it again. I like and admire the Scots; I've married one and my children are half Scottish. None of this prevents me from wanting justice for the English nation and wanting to stop the regional balkanisation that the Labour party would like to impose on England.

Incidentally also note what Michael Connarty, the Labour MP for Linlithgow and East Falkirk says:

"One issue which is causing a great deal of unhappiness is the Barnett Formula; we cannot get away from that. In education, the disparity between what some authorities in the south-east of England get and what Scottish authorities get can be as much as £1,500 per pupil."

I hadn't realised it was that bad !

Labour in denial about their act of consitutional vandalism

They still don't get it. I've just read this article reproduced on Labour home from Tribune.

It mentions a number of things - not least calling the West Lothian Question arcane and suggesting that the Conservatives are in league with the SNP to break up the Union. They are still making excuses and denying the impact of there own actions in putting the Union on the road to break up with the Celtic devolved settlements. Their default position is to blame England and the English for not being willing to be mugged by MacLabour and the Celtic Lib Dems.

Now the denial has reached the level that they think they are defending the Union ! Since they believe in so little these days it may just be what their focus groups have told them to say.

( Does anyone remember Labour refusing any significant national celebration of 300 years of the Union of the crowns of England and Scotland ( this is all I could find - I remember the Queen being refused permission to attend some celebrations by Mr Blair )? Or surely you'll remember the street parties they organised for the 200 year anniversary ? No ... We'll Labour were still playing the nationalist card in Scotland and Wales at the time.)

24 hours to save the Union ? That was John Major, New Labour said that creating unbalanced and unjust devolution would strengthen the Union, but then they lied on so much in 1997 ( and kept going ... ).

Any serious debate and attempt to bring justice to England will need all of the people who will in the future be involved in English politics, and that includes the Labour party. And the process must start with a unreserved apology from the Labour party for the cavalier and unprincipled way it damaged the Union for its own political advantage. Once that is out of the way we can get on with building and English political system - inside or outside the Union or EU.

Labour needs to stop its denials about what it has done and smears on other parties and admit it was wrong and ask for forgiveness. Then the rest of us should accept that apology and move on.

After all we have a New Jerusalem to build.

Update See Simon Heffer in Weds Telegraph "The Union of England and Scotland is over".

You need Balls to fib like this ....

Ed Balls is reported as saying the following to a Labour party conference today ( reported by Pravda the faithful BBC ). Labour party members must be brain dead if they can swallow such direct contradictions of the facts of the last month - and indeed last 10 years.

He's beyond parody - here's what the faithful were expected to swallow:

"But for all the sound and fury of the past few weeks, it is still our party that has been setting the policy agenda - not taking the easy, short-term course, not just chasing headlines, but showing how a Labour government will meet the long-term challenges our country faces.

"And I believe that as a party and a government we have shown the strength to deal with difficult times and keep setting the agenda and responding to the concerns of the British people."

Also notice the mention of British - when we know most of the policies of the Brown government only apply to the English whom voted for another party at the last general election.

Lies - deception and spin. New Labour, MacLabour, Gordon Brown and its all Balls.

Peter Hain - another celtic Labour minister who thinks the English don't matter

Just heard Peter Hain, Radio 5 live - just before 7am, managing to trot out today's MacLabour party line on why the English shouldn't be recognised as a nation in our democracy.

Picture shows "Peter" celebrating the plan to introduce law making powers in his native Wales with the Welsh First Minister - something he wants to stop for England !

He uses the daft analogy of the day about cross rail and only London deciding. Quite honestly if cross-rail just affected London I don't see why it shouldn't - but it impacts Berkshire and Essex also - but as an ignorant MacLabour member or perhaps a deliberate misleading minister - they do lie and spin you know - that doesn't matter.

And anyway why doesn't his argument apply to the tram system in Edinburgh ?

Hain then moves on to Labour favourite policy for England - calling it the British regions !

If the English Labour party doesn't stand up for England then it should look north of the border to the Scottish Conservative party to see its future.....

And finally MacLabour should stop putting Scotsmen and Welshmen up as spokespeople to tell the English why they don't exist as a democratic nation.