Lest we forget

Remembrance day commemorates the moment at 11:00 am on the 11th November 1918 when the "War to End Wars" ended. The ability of industrialised countries to slaughter each other industrially shocked what was then called the civilised world. The lesson of both the World Wars was that warfare - even necessary warfare in a good cause - kills people by the thousand or million. War is a horrific, terrible experience, and it is that that we remember.

Today, we remember everyone, guilty and innocent, soldier and civilian, brave and coward, hero and villian that was killed in war.  Not just the British military deaths, but everyone; the gaelic football fans killed in Páirc an Chrócaigh in 1920, the Japanese citizens at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the British and German soldiers at the Somme in 1916, the ANZACs and Turks in Gallipoli in 1915, the Vietnamese at My Lai in 1968, even Reynhard Heydrich in Prague in 1942. War kills, and we should never forget that.

It's usual to quote Laurence Binyon, but I think the tone of this post is better met by Wilfred Owen:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, 
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, 
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs 
And towards our distant rest began to trudge. 
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots 
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; 
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! –  An ecstasy of fumbling, 
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; 
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, 
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . . 
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, 
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, 
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace 
Behind the wagon that we flung him in, 
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, 
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; 
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood 
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, 
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud 
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, 
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory, 
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est 
Pro patria mori.

English Parliament

I used to think that the best solution to the “problem” of the West Lothian Question was regional government in England. I’ve come to recognise two things; firstly, Scotland will never accept an equal status to an English region (Wales, incidentally, might), and secondly the English don’t want regional government. English people don’t identify strongly with their regions, with the possible exception of Yorkshire, and that only because it aligns with a traditional county. Regional government is seen as an attempt to break up England. For all that an English parliament would be on a similar scale to Westminster, it would still constitute dispersal of power if it was separately elected, if not devolution.

It’s taken me a long time to get there, but I would personally favour holding a referendum in England on the establishment of an English Parliament with the same powers as the Scottish Parliament (and therefore raising up the Welsh and Northern Irish assemblies to the same powers if the people in those countries chose to do so in a referendum). I could not accept an English parliament unless it was completely separate from Westminster – there would need to be a prohibition on dual mandates, and I would strongly favour locating it outside of London; my suggestion would be to put it in MediaCity in Salford, like a large chunk of the BBC is about to be.

There are lots of good things that would result from an English parliament; it would result in there being multiple centres of power, and would induce the media to take the devolved parliaments outside England seriously, and so to separate devolved and non-devolved (ie English and British) issues.  Wouldn’t it be nice when education was debated, there was an understanding that there are four separate systems and they would not be under the control of the UK government at all?

It would also induce a complete revision of the Barnett formula, and hopefully some real devolution of tax-raising powers, which would be fantastic!

Gladstonian thought for the day, it’s time to complete Home Rule All Round, as originally proposed in 1885.