THE FLETCHER FORUM
Published by the Andrew Fletcher Society,
8 Greenhill Place, Edinburgh EH10 4BR
email: fletcher@emplus.demon.co.uk
March 1996 - Number Five
"Edward can steek my mou wi a word, but truth he canna ding - it will speak on
when he and I are dust, and never will be silenced." Wallace to Edward I of
England, from The Wallace by Sydney Goodsir Smith (1960)
ABOUT THE ANDREW FLETCHER SOCIETY.
The Society takes its inspiration and its name from the great Scottish patriot
and thinker of the eighteenth century, Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun. It is an
independent organisation which exists to stimulate discussion of ideas,
issues and developments affecting the life of the nation. This it does by the
publication of papers and the organisation of meetings and symposia.
Fletcher Forum - Issue 5
Editorial - If we go, they go too !
Losing the Heid - George Rosie
Britspeak
EDITORIAL - IF WE GO, THEY GO TOO!
In discussions of the Tartan Tax, we need to ask: what are we being asked to
pay for? Currently, Scots pay for their share of a UK Government, based in
London, which deals with two main areas of business: internal and external.
If Scottish affairs are devolved, this leaves Westminster with responsibility
only for English affairs and external affairs.
English affairs are obviously none of our business. Our only liability from
then on is for our share of the external affairs budget. This demands that the
management of the external affairs of the UK must be detached from the
internal affairs of England. Any other arrangement is unfair, and the current
preoccupation with whether more or fewer Scottish MPs should be involved
with English affairs is a red herring. In a nutshell, you can't devolve
Scotland without devolving England as well.
Return to index
LOSING THE HEID - by George Rosie
Read to the Andrew Fletcher Society, 6 May 1995
Scottish industry, Scottish commerce and Scottish finance are being steadily
and remorselessly stripped of all power. Why is this happening, what is it
doing to Scotland, and what can we do about it?
The good news is that Scotland is not a poor country - on the contrary, we
have a remarkable number of first-class economic assets of world class,
which have been developed by Scots. The bad news is that we no longer own
them.
As George Rosie points out, this disaster was predicted by Andrew Fletcher in
1707, and it follows inevitably from the lack of any form of protection for
Scottish interests under the present system of government. The most important
question, in many ways, is the last raised by Mr Rosie: what can we do about
it? Proverbially, a Scot does not fight till he sees his own blood. We are
seeing it.
A few years ago Les Wilson of Scottish Television and I made a programme
which we called 'Losing the Heid'. It was not about outbursts of uncontrolled
rage - although there were times when I came pretty close to that - it was
about the way in which Scottish industry, Scottish commerce and Scottish
finance was being steadily but remorselessly stripped of all power. It had
been - it still is - a bad time. In the preceding years company after company
had been taken over and reduced to the status of a branch. Headquarters after
headquarters were closed down and moved furth of Scotland, usually into
England. The Scottish economy, it seemed to us, was quite literally 'losing
the heid'. We made what we thought was a well-researched and telling
programme that pointed out something that should concern us all.
I've got to say that we were wrong. Nobody was interested. Nobody paid the
slightest bit of attention. So far as I can recall, not one newspaper - not
even the Scottish newspapers - even bothered to review the programme. It sank
without trace. The facts that we had dug up went by the board. The
argument went unchallenged. The Scottish economy kept on losing the heid.
And the process went on.
It's still going on, and I'm still worried. In fact, I'm even more worried.
In the spring of 1995 we lost again. The so-called Scottish Lobby failed to
persuade Her Majesty's Government to keep Scottish Nuclear intact. The
Government let it be known - ahead of the official announcement - that
Scottish Nuclear and its English counterpart will be made as one before they
are privatised. Scotland and the Scottish interest is to lose control of yet
another important part of the economy.
We are told that Ian Lang triumphed by persuading the Cabinet that the
headquarters of the new company must be located in Edinburgh. This is good
news - good news, that is, for British Airways and British Midland, because it
means that the Edinburgh-based executives of the new company will spend
most of their time in the air en route to London. Until, that is, they find
that they really must find a headquarters in London. Because, as sure as night
follows day, that is what will happen.
Meanwhile, we hope against hope that the English voter will deliver Tony
Blair and with him our own Parliament, but they'd better hurry, because it a
distinct Scottish polity ever does emerge, any identifiable Scottish economy
may have ceased to exist. There may be little or nothing left. The
politicians in the old High School may find themselves haggling over a
collection of branch factories, regional offices and local distribution
depots which can be whipped away at any time - as we have seen so often over
the past fifteen years. An Assembly or Parliament trying to raise taxes from
a branch-factory economy is not in the strongest of positions. External
ownership imposes some fairly strict limitations.
WHAT HAS BEEN HAPPENING?
In the past ten years or so the haemorrhage of corporate power and influence
out of Scotland has been prodigious. Many of Scotland's biggest, best and
most eminent companies - the House of Fraser, Anderson Strathclyde, The
Distillers Company, Arthur Bell, Britoil, British Caledonian, Loganair - have
slipped into non-Scottish (usually English) ownership. The takeover and
merger zeal - some would say 'mania' - of the 1980s boosted - some would
say 'exacerbated' - a process which had been going on since the end of World
War I, and which owes as much to old-time Socialist enthusiasms as it does to
unbridled capitalism. And which - to some extent at least - accounts for the
unconscionable nervousness of corporate Scotland about any constitutional
change. If your bosses in London, New York, Frankfurt or even further afield
are fretting over the future of a country about which they know little or
nothing, their unease is guaranteed to make their Scottish managers want to
hang on to the status quo like grim death. Better the devil you know.
Just before the last General Election I talked to the Managing Director of a
Glasgow company which is now the subsidiary of an English corporation. He
told me, and I quote: "I'm getting telephone calls from London twice a day
demanding to know what is going on up here. My Board's grasp of Scottish
politics is non-existent. They seem to think that Charlie Gray of Strathclyde
Regional Council is Enver Hoxha re-incarnate, and that Home Rule means
Tirana on the Clyde. It's daft, but there you are." Yes indeed. Here we are.
And in a way it's hard not to feel some sympathy for the corporate bosses,
wherever they are. Harassed by see-sawing interest rates, beleaguered by
recession, beset by uncertainty, besieged by nervous shareholders, fearful
about predators, anxious about the implications of the Single European
Market, any constitutional change inside Britain, such as a Parliament in
Edinburgh, or anywhere else for that matter, is the last thing they need. So
perhaps it is hardly surprising that the main boards in London or Houston or
Tokyo are inclined to lean on their Scottish managers to do whatever they can
do to preserve the status quo.
And the fact is, whether we like it or not, there are more and more such non-
Scottish boards presiding over Scottish companies. The extent to which the
economy of Scotland is now owned, and therefore controlled, outside of
Scotland is only beginning to emerge. Firm statistics are notoriously hard to
come by, but a study by Glasgow University academics, Ivan Turok and
Ranald Richardson, suggests that in the takeover-happy 1980s, almost 250
independent Scottish companies were digested by outside predators. Most of
the raiders came from London and the south-east of England.
In a paper published by the David Hume Institute, Sir Gerald Elliot, one-time
Chief Executive Officer of the Christian Salvesen Group, calculated that
between 1985 and 1987, Scotland lost control of more than twenty per cent of
its listed industrial companies. Twenty per cent in three years.
Management consultant Denis Henry has spent years compiling a database of
major Scottish industrial companies. In 1974 there were 150 on his list.
Twenty years later there were just over 70. He makes an interesting point.
"It used to be the weak sisters and the lame ducks that went", he said. "Not
any more. In recent years we've seen some of the best performers in the
Scottish economy, firms like Anderson Strathclyde and Arthur Bell, being
taken over. And that is very bad news for Scotland and the Scottish
economy."
No sector has been immune. Engineering firms which have slipped out of
control include Anderson Strathclyde, Thor Ceramics, John Brown
Engineering, Barr & Stroud, Shanks & Co, The North British Steel Group,
Carron Phoenix, Bruntons of Musselburgh, Eadie Brothers, and many others.
The list is long.
Among the textile companies which have gone the same way are Coats
Patons, Don Brothers Buist, J & J Crombie, Dundee Textiles, John Laing of
Hawick. Most of Scotland's paper, board and timber companies have been
snapped up: Thomas Tait, Caberboard, Culter Guardbridge, William
Somerville, Brownlees.
More recently we've seen Scotland's biggest home-grown grocery chain, the
William Low Group, go the same way. The business was sold to Tesco, the
family firm of that (how shall I say?) renowned Thatcherite, Lady Shirley
Porter of the Westminster City Council. Lady Porter's gain was Dundee's
loss. Hundreds of head office jobs went down the tubes.
It is also worth reminding ourselves that less than twenty-five per cent of the
Scotch whisky industry, our pride and joy on the world stage, is now owned in
Scotland. The rest is owned in London, the USA, Canada, France, Spain, and
Japan. Let's remind ourselves that powerful chunks of the Scottish media -
the Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday, the Edinburgh Evening News, the
Aberdeen Press and Journal, the Evening Express - are owned in Canada via
Watford. Scotland's biggest-selling tabloids, the Daily Record and the
Sunday Mail, are part of the London-based Mirror Group. BBC Scotland -
as has been made very plain in recent years - has always been a satrapy of
London. Hardly a programme of any real substance, for radio or television,
can be made without budget approval from London.
High profile institutions like the Gleneagles Hotel, the Turnberry Hotel, the
Old Course Hotel in St Andrews, are all owned a long way from Caledonia
stern and wild.
THE NEW COLONIALISM
One operation that particularly intrigues me is that quintessential Scottish
firm, Highland Spring. You've seen the bottles on most supermarket shelves,
mineral water, both fizzy and flat, piped out of the ground at Blackford near
Auchterarder in Perthshire and bottled on the spot. Decked out with pictures
of bens and glens. What could be more Scottish? It's bogus, of course. The
company is owned by Arab interests through a corporate body set up in
Liechtenstein. The main shareholder is a one-time Arab diplomat,
Mohammed Al Tajir.
Now, what Mr Al Tajir and his associates have done is very interesting. They
bought the land around Auchterarder and with it the water under the land.
Having acquired our natural resources, they add value and sell it back to the
natives. It is classic colonialism, and we are the colonised. For some of our
foreign masters we hew the wood; for others we draw the water.
And while our great mutual funds remain largely untouched, apart from
Scottish Mutual which was swallowed up by Abbey National, and the Life
Association of Scotland which went to the Dutch in the 1960s, the Scottish
financial sector has seen a number of sell-outs in recent years. The
stockbrokers, Wood Mackenzie, have gone to County Nat West; the
Clydesdale Bank to the National Australia Bank; World Markets to the
Bankers Trust; TSB Scotland to the TSB Bank.
Nor is there much hope to be found in the much-vaunted Silicon Glen, the
computer and electronics industry. Silicon Glen is made up almost entirely of
American and Japanese branch factories: IBM, Hewlett Packard, NEC,
Motorola, OKI and all the rest. The home-grown presence in the Glen is
minimal to invisible. We cannot, I think, complain too much about that kind
of inward investment. It brings jobs and a measure of prosperity (sometimes
short-lived) that would not otherwise have existed. The fact that most of the
jobs are low-grade, unskilled jobs for women is another matter.
And just about the only exportable Scottish success in the North Sea Oil
province has been the Wood Group of Aberdeen. The three big production
platforms, at Nigg, Ardersier and Methil, are all owned furth of Scotland, as
is the module-building yard at Arnish Point near Stornaway.
Of course the takeover business has not been all one way. A handful of
Scottish-owned companies were very aggressive during the 1980s, notably
General Accident, Dawson International, Stagecoach, Kwikfit, Hewden
Stewart, and the Weir Group. All made forays south of the Border and
overseas, often with great success. In the case of Stagecoach, with so much
success that the Government recently felt obliged to rein them in. But the
impact that such Scottish acquisitions can make on the huge economies of,
say, London and the south-east, or the Eastern United States, is negligible.
THE MECHANISMS AT WORK
It seem to me that there are three powerful strands in this process which is
stripping Scotland of its industrial, financial and commercial autonomy. Let
me try to tease them out.
1 Hostile Takeovers
The open nature of the British stock market makes Scottish (and, indeed,
other British) firms vulnerable to foreign predators. They are easy meat.
Very few European countries have company structures which are so
accessible and so vulnerable. It was hostile takeovers that lost us the
House of Fraser - Scotland's biggest retailer; the Distillers Company Ltd -
Scotland's biggest whisky maker; Anderson Strathclyde - Scotland's biggest
maker of mining equipment; Britoil - Scotland's biggest industrial company,
now subsumed into British Petroleum. And if Ernest Saunders is to be believed,
the whole idea for the takeover of Distillers by Guinness came not from him
or from within Guinness but from the merchant bankers - I think it was
Morgan Grenfell - who went on to make millions from the deal.
2 Friendly Takeovers and Mergers
Not all takeovers are hostile. Far from it. The big majority are friendlys.
And they are not confined to tired old family firms whose owners are looking
to retire to the golf course. There is a distinct - and some would say,
alarming - tendency among the most enterprising of Scotland's firms to sell
out once they reach a certain size. Often this is done for what is claimed
to be the best of reasons: access to more capital, bigger and better markets,
better technology, better research and development prospects, and so on.
Companies which have gone this way include high-grade electronic firms like
Fortronic, MESL, Domain Power, Office Workstations, as well as, to
mention them again, the William Low Group. Also in this category is British
Caledonian, once Scotland's biggest airline, and now the charter arm of
British Airways.
3 Nationalisation
When the Labour Party or the Scottish TUC complain, as they do, about the
hostile takeovers of Scottish companies (with the consequent loss of jobs in
Scotland), the nationalisation factor in the equation is never mentioned. This
is probably because it goes against Scotland's political grain. But it should
be mentioned, because the great nationalisation programmes of the Labour
Governments of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s stripped the Scottish economy of
control over its heavy industries. And the Scottish economy was
extraordinarily rich in heavy industries. It was through socialism that we
lost control of our coal mines, railways, steel mills, gas industry, ship-
building firms, and aircraft builders. It was done with the finest of
intentions and the best will in the world, but nationalisation was a
devastating blow to industrial Scotland.
And when the private sector was privatised by the Thatcher regime in the
1980s, hardly any of it came back into Scottish hands. Somehow we never
found the money or the nerve to buy those industries back. Others did.
Almost all the Scottish shipyards nationalised in the 1970s are now owned by
UK or foreign groups. Yarrow Shipbuilders is part of GEC; Scott Lithgow
belongs to Trafalgar House; Upper Clyde Shipbuilders went to UIE of
France; Govan Shipbuilders to Kvaerner Industries of Norway; Hall Russell
of Aberdeen was eventually sold to A & P Appledore of England; the Robb
Caledon yards at Leith and Dundee were just closed down. The only
Scottish-owned shipbuilder of any size is Fergusons of Port Glasgow who
have found a niche making small ferries, lighthouse tenders, etc.
When they nationalised and then privatised British Steel, none of it came back
to Scotland. When they nationalised and then privatised British Gas, none of
it came back to Scotland. When they nationalised and then privatised British
Coal, we were left with one - just one - deep coal-mine, the pit at Longannet.
Scotland did manage to hang on to Scottish Power and Scottish Hydro, but
we will lose control of Scottish Nuclear, and Scottish Nuclear provides more
than half our electricity. Scotland is probably the most nuclear-reliant
country in Europe, which means that most of our electricity will be provided
for us by a company owned outside of Scotland.
Some of these privatisations have been well publicised. Other have been
sneaked through. Take, for instance, the ports of the Clyde and the Forth.
Both these institutions were built up with huge sums of public money. In fact,
Edinburgh almost bankrupted itself in the nineteenth century extending Leith
Docks. But now, thanks to the Ports Act of 1991, which allowed the so-
called Trust Ports to turn themselves into public companies, they have been
privatised, sold off to the highest bidders. Now the great harbours of
Scotland, which were once held in trust for the people of Scotland belong to
City of London institutions like Schroder Investment Management Ltd, Smith
New Court, the Morgan Grenfell Group, and a swarm of others. Any profits
being made - and there are profits being made - will go to line the pockets of
the City of London.
In other words, we are stuffed when we are coming, and stuffed when we are
going. We've been in a no-win situation. We've lost out to unchecked
socialism and we've lost out to unchecked capitalism.
DOES IT MATTER?
All of which raises the question: does it matter? After all, most of the
companies which have been taken over are still operating in Scotland, still
producing revenue, still providing jobs (though perhaps not as many as
before). Some of them, Distillers for example, appear to be in better shape
than when they were in Scottish hand.
Well, I think it does matter, and a growing number of Scottish industrialists,
financiers and commentators seem to agree. They are saying that this steady
haemorrhage of power and control is bad for Scotland's economic health. It is
producing what the economist Neil Buxton called "the neutered cat"
syndrome. There is no visible deterioration, the cat still walks, stretches
and purrs, but it has lost the ability to reproduce, in company terms, to grow,
adapt or innovate.
SIDE-EFFECTS
One man who has strong views on this - and he is no nationalist - is Bruce
Pattullo of the Bank of Scotland. He argues that the loss of corporate
headquarters is damaging in a hundred subtle ways. Not only does it remove
decision-making from Scotland but it also leaches away high-grade work for
professionals : accountants, lawyers, advertising agents, designers, architects,
printers, even caterers. Pattullo argues that the sheer quality of work
generated by a head office is beyond anything that a branch office, no matter
how successful, can offer.
Pattullo explains the importance of supplying services to a head office. "It
means that the local legal firm has to have senior partners of the very highest
calibre", he says, "and that all goes round in a virtuous circle and creates
employment, and intellectual challenge and job satisfaction for professional
people working in Scotland."
WHERE THE MONEY IS MADE.....
But it matters in other ways, too. It can distort the way that Scotland is
seen by Government and, more importantly perhaps, the way Scotland sees itself.
Let me explain what I mean. Take the case of the Guinness subsidiary,
United Distillers, once known as DCL, the makers of Bells, Johnnie Walker,
Dewars, and White Horse Whisky. At the last count, Guinness made profits
of £702 million. No less than £561 million of that, or around eighty per cent,
was generated by the gin and whisky makers of United Distillers.
But if, as seems certain, Guinness pays its huge tax bill through its head
office at 39 Portman Square, who gets credited with generating the revenue?
Why, the pen-pushers and keyboard operators of London, that's who. The
way things are organised, the wealth created by the distilleries around
Scotland is credited to London and the south-east of England, which has the
effect of making London and the south-east of England appear
economically much stronger than it is, while at the same time making
Scotland appear much weaker than it is.
Similarly, all the corporation tax that British Petroleum, Shell, Esso and all
the rest have to pay from the flow of oil and gas from Scottish waters is
attributed to London and the south-east of England. Now multiply that by the
number of head offices there are in London, and you can see why that region
appears to make such a huge contribution to the gross domestic product of
Britain. Heads they win, tails we lose.
A CONSTITUTIONAL PROBLEM
Like much else in Scotland, this is an issue which goes to the heart of
Scotland's constitutional position. On the one hand it seems absurd for Scots
to get all hot and bothered about one British company taking over another
British company. On the other hand, it is hard for many Scots, and not just
political nationalists, to watch great chunks of the Scottish economy being
bitten off and carried away over the Border or overseas. A branch factory
economy is an unsatisfactory replacement. When the economic going gets
tough (or sometimes as soon as the tax incentives run out), the branch factory
is the first to be closed. When wages get too high, then it can be easily
shifted into one of the world's sweatshop countries. And, as we have seen so
often in the past fifteen years, there is nothing we can do about it.
Well, we cannot say we were not warned. Andrew Fletcher himself told us
what was likely to happen. He saw very clearly the perils of allowing control
over the economy and society of Scotland slip away. Let me quote one of his
speeches to the Scots Parliament.
"So long as Scotsmen must go to the
English court to obtain offices of trust or profit in this kingdom, those
offices will always be managed with regard to the court and interest of
England."
For "English court", read "English and foreign-owned corporations" and you
have as good a description as any of the fix in which we find ourselves. The
question is: what do we do about it?
Copyright and all rights reserved, George Rosie 1996
Return to index
THE ROAD TO FEDERALISM: BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND A HIGH PLACE.
by Dr John Sleigh
First published in The Scotsman.
Dr John Sleigh is a retired Medical Officer of Health living in South Wales.
If there is way out of our present mess, it lies with the young, and it is
pleasant to read from time to time in the Press that they are actively
concerned with constitutional reform, and that some realise that there must
be an option to direct action, which so many of the young (and old) are now
despairingly contemplating. Among the alternatives, a federal arrangement,
under which several devolved parliaments would be established within the UK
under a federal parliament, which may be taken to be a continuation of the
Westminster Parliament, are regularly proposed. However, this suggestion by
young people is flawed by a naïveté which arises from a lack of appreciation
of the cynical self-interest that motivates their elders.
A federal state is proposed as an alternative to the current perceived options
of independence or devolution. The difference between federalism and
devolution, in practice, other than that of the survival of the devolved
parliament being dependent on the whim of the federal parliament (but let
Westminster try to abolish the devolved parliament once granted) is surely
dependent on how heavily the federal parliament leans on the devolved
parliament.
This is the same sort of issue as that which occupies Europhobes. It all
depends on what one means by federalism. To the Continentals, it means
transferring down to whatever level is appropriate the administration of
whatever can be transferred down (subsidiarity). To the Tories, it means
transferring everything up to the top (Brussels bureaucracy). It is pretty
obvious that in Europe the national parliaments would not take lightly to
becoming glorified county councils. In a federal Britain, with England the
overwhelming force in the federal parliament, it would not be so obvious that
the Continental view of federation would triumph.
Scotland in a European federation would be much more likely to get a square
deal than Scotland in a British federation. Scotland should take whatever
degree of self-government it is offered, and build on it.
The "West Lothian questions" is a red herring. The Scottish members sitting
together could deal with Scottish questions, the Welsh members sitting
together with Welsh questions, and the English members sitting together with
English questions, while Parliament as a whole dealt with British questions.
Each body might then be better able, in the light of its practical experience
in government, to agree how it might like this internal organisation to evolve.
This might be better than the current interminable delays in devising a
formula for the composition of a Scottish parliament, due to disagreements
whose real origin - though this has never been admitted - has owed more to
the cynical self-interest with which each faction has endeavoured to preserve
its own position on the payroll, and, wherever possible, to improve it.
Proportional representation is agreed by separatists, devolutionists, and
federalists, to be an absolute essential if discussion of further evolution
is to be properly balanced, something impossible under the present "first-
past-the-post" system. Ideally, the first Act of the new Parliaments should
be to introduce PR, followed immediately by new elections. It looks as if
instead we are to get some sort of variant on the German system where some
of the members, probably the majority, are elected by first-past-the-post,
and the rest are added from a list of supporters of the various parties to
make up something akin to what the voters voted for. This would not be so
bad if the list represented the preferences of the electors supporting the
parties, but intolerable if it represented that of the party machines.
What we are not likely to get, because it would not suit the political
parties, is the single transferrable vote in multi-member constituencies.
This would give the choice entirely to the voters, who would be able to put
in order of preference in each constituency candidates of their own party,
or even of all parties, who supported various issues on which they felt
strongly. It would ensure that all issues which commanded reasonable support
obtained adequate representation. For example, this is how to ensure that
more women are elected to Parliament, not by some artificially-imposed quota.
Finally, the second chamber and the monarchy. The obvious start is to
abolish the rights of hereditary peers. Perhaps we could then look at how
other northern European countries, not evidently less successful than our own,
choose their second chamber.
As for the monarchy, it has not covered itself with glory recently. Again, the
other northern European monarchies look considerably more attractive. But
how to reform? If our good-for-nothing aristocracy faded away, our
monarchy would probably remodel itself on Hollywood. Perhaps a Head of
State on the lines of a German-type presidency would be an improvement.
Return to index
DICTIONARY OF BRITSPEAK.. Continued from the last Forum
Brit: in England used by 80% to mean, English; in Scotland used by 19% to
mean the same thing.
Anglo-Irish talks: talks between the Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom
and the Republic of Ireland, see United Kingdom.
aye: a term of contempt, repeated use of which may lead to imprisonment.
benefit: a slang term for cash which is given to the unemployed (qv)
for the National Lottery, cigarettes, drink, and so on, so mostly
reverts to the Government in various forms, though it might be
better spent on Polaris, Trident, and other job-creation projects.
Britain: England.
British Army:
(1) an organisation, mainly of men with little formal education,
in which men from the unemployed classes are disciplined by their
betters (men from the upper classes), and taught how to kill people;
(2) an organisation in which 40% of the shop-floor workers are Scots;
(3) an organisation in which 80% of the front-line troops are Scots.
British film industry: a now obsolete industry based in London; the English
film industry.
British flag: also known as the Union Jack: the English flag. Not quite sure
what the odd bits in the background are, perhaps something to do with
our colonies, probably.
British government: a minority government representing 28 out of 100 voters
in the United Kingdom; see also democracy, mandate, south east.
British team: English team (now rare)
Budget: an annual confidence trick, or magical trick, which produces
something out of nothing and leaves everyone better off and no-one worse off.
budget: money that must be spent before 31 March whether you need to or
not, otherwise they'll give you less next year, see job-creation.
central parts: Midlands of England (National Weather, 13.12.93).
Children's Society: a London-based organisation concerned with the welfare
of English children.
Church: Church of England; a quasi-religious governmental organisation or
quargo which sends 24 independent representatives, appointed by central
government, to the House of Lords; once said to be the Conservative
Party at prayer, but unable to move with the times quite as rapidly
as the C.P.
citizen: an English person who is free to make his home wherever he wishes
within the UK, or the EU, or anywhere else, for that matter; see
market forces.
citizens' charter: a jolly good idea, bringing democracy to the masses, so
that they know who to complain to in British Rail or the NHS and so on.
civilisation: the English way of life, comprising tea, cricket, democracy, firm
government, market forces, etc etc. See racist:
consultation: a request for opinion and information regarding proposed
changes of any kind, originally part of the democratic process, now
a practice frequently used by the SSS to ascertain the view of groups
and individuals on specific issues, so as to identify those who
disagree with central government and to make sure their opinions may
be completely disregarded.
country (eg 'the country', 'this country)': England (as in National News any
night).
down south: England
Elizabeth I: a Queen of England who conquered Scotland (Englishman on
train, Nov 1992).
Elizabeth II: what is there to explain? (Englishman on train, Nov 1992)
Englishman: someone often called Anderson, Bowman, Burton, Clarke,
Coutts, Davies, Edwards, Gillespie, Henderson, Hume, Griffiths,
Jackson, Kennedy, Milligan, Morgan, Ross, Saunders, Scott, Shaw,
Taylor, Thomson, White, Williams, or Wilson, who lives and works
in England; a white person who speaks the Queen's English; a black
person who is good at sport.
environment: green stuff one can build on; a land bank, see green belt.
ethnic: something belonging to a lower form of life; people without culture or
civilisation, particularly if they speak English with a funny accent
and make jolly useless things like funny hats for Oxfam to sell to
undergrads.
Europeans: funny foreign chappies who shake hands every morning and
speak English with a funny accent, see ethnic, foreigner. (Sir
Leon Brittan seems to get on with them, but he's almost one himself.)
See Yerp.
fair play: any game with complicated rules, which may change at any time
without notice; the British way of doing things.
far north: SW Scotland, Galloway (Morris: The Age of Arthur, p337.)
far south-east: Kent? (National Weather, 13.12.93).
far south-west: Devon and Cornwall (National Weather, 13.12.93).
foreigner: anyone who does not speak the Queen's English.
GATT: a treaty to encourage growth and development world-wide; a good
thing since 'anything that opens up markets is good' (Leon Brittan,
December 1993) (see also market forces)
government: as in 'the government'; see British Government.
green belt: green stuff one can build on; a land bank, see environment.
hallmark: a sign of guaranteed high quality; a sign of wishful thinking, as in the phrase 'all the hallmarks of the IRA'.
industry: something clever chappies from the lower classes get involved in
since they can't do the kind of work we do; any kind of dirty or
lowering activity.
Lallyland: a never-never land where there is an endless supply of public
money and everything will be all right if it is always used up
before the end of the budget period. From US Lallaland, a never-
never land, etc.
Law Society: the English Law Society.
lobbying: a good old British practice, where someone is persuaded by various
means to do something in the interests of the lobbier, often to provide
employment, or award a contract, or pass a piece of legislation;
see British, corruption.
local government: a lot of loonie lefties who spend too much money and need
strong management (qv).
London: England; the capital of England, see central government.
nationalist: (1) a Scottish loony; (2) a proper attitude to one's country (qv).
management: no real idea; something to do with spending money?
mandate: the opinion of a minority concentrated in the south east but with
solitary representatives dispersed throughout the country(qv); a
misplaced illusion of being all-powerful or godlike.
market forces: a system which allows those with money to force the sale of
anything belonging to anyone with less money; economic warfare.
nation: England, as in "the nation".
National Health Service>: (1) a public service which spends far too much
money and so needs more and more very highly paid managers; (2)
a public service which responds to increased public need by
reducing its public facilities.
national news, weather etc: anglocentric news/weather.
national: English, as in national register, national computer, national office,
national sport: English sport.
national quality press: "Telegraph, Times, Guardian, that kind of thing"
(Stewart Cruikshank, in a programme filmed in Scotland about Scottish
music, ITN, 15 Dec 1993)
north east: a remote place north of Watford.
North Stirlingshire: West Perthshire.
Northern English: Scots (ref: Channel Four chat show, 28 April 1993).
nuclear power: jolly good stuff, so long as it is somewhere as far away as
possible, like the North of Scotland.
nurses: wee girls who get everything done for them and who would only waste
the money anyway.
(FLETCHER PUBLICATIONS)
Land Ownership and Use, edited by John Hulbert (1986), price £2.75
Unitax: an alternative national and local tax, by Malcolm Slesser (1989), price £1.50
THE ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION OF TEN POUNDS
(CONCESSIONARY RATE FIVE POUNDS)
IS NOW DUE FOR THE YEAR 1996-97 AND MAY BE SENT TO
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