Flooding disrupts Yorkshire road and rail

A little under two weeks since Yorkshire last suffered significant flooding, heavy rain has once again brought disruption to the county's road and rail network. Rail services have been disrupted between Sheffield and Leeds, with flooding in the Outwood area of Doncaster causing delays. On the Calderdale route between Leeds and Manchester, flooding near Walsden has led to the introduction of a replacement bus service to shuttle passengers between stations.

A number of roads have also been affected by flooding, with the Rotherham Advertiser reporting that Station Road in Wath has been closed, and also listing a number of other routes that have been closed or disrupted by flash flooding, including the A630 at a number of locations. As of 17:55, the Environment Agency had issued 36 flood warnings for its Northeast region which includes Yorkshire. Currently, much of the county - South Yorkshire in particular - is enjoying a respite from the rain, and the worst for many may be over for today, although parts of North Yorkshire appear set to endure more heavy rain this evening. The focus of flooding concern now switches to the West Country, which looks set to bear the brunt of the rainfall this evening and overnight. Some thunderstorms are expected across Yorkshire tomorrow, and more rain for all is forecast for the coming the week. When will it stop? The Met Office long-term forecast is equivocal, offering no opinion as to whether the latter part of the month and the remainder of the summer will bring more of the same, or some much-needed dry weather and warmth.

To date, the flooding has not been as bad as during the summer of 2007, and hopefully it will stay that way. Residents of Mytholmroyd and Hebden Bridge will certainly be anxious to avoid a repeat of their recent experience of flooding, but will the rain abate in time?

English Democrats' Performance in Doncaster: May 2012

It should perhaps come as a relief to the English Democrats that the electors of Doncaster voted in favour of retaining its mayoral system last Thursday, for following the local elections English Democrat Mayor Peter Davies remains the sole individual from that party to hold office in the borough. He himself was not up for re-election on this occasion, but the electors chose to retain the system by a margin of 61.7% to 37.8%. Just quite how far this is indicative of his personal popularity is difficult to gauge, but this result does seem to provide a clear popular endorsement of the system itself.

In the 2011 May local elections the English Democrats chose to contest twelve wards in Doncaster, whereas this year they fielded candidates in only seven. This tactic seems to have paid off, by perhaps enabling them to better concentrate their modest resources. Although on this occasion the party failed to secure elected representation, it did make tangible progress in the borough, with the average number of votes per candidate increasing from 642 to 754 despite a decline in turnout, and the average share increasing from 16.2% to 22.3%. Last year, the best share obtained was 23.3% in the Bentley Ward, whereas this time the highest proportion was obtained in Wheatley with 28.3%. The positions of the candidates improved too, for in 2011 the party achieved three second places, whereas this year it took five, with one third (just a few votes behind second place) and one fourth.

Although the English Democrats failed to make a breakthrough, these figures would seem to indicate that the presence of the mayor has accorded the party considerable public visibility and thereby generated a certain level of popular support, although this has yet to translate itself into councillors in this Labour stronghold. The future of the party however appears to be in question, as there is some dissent within the English Democrats regarding the leadership largely arising from the admission of a number of ex-BNP members, and there have been expressions of disappointment with the party's results this time around, for nationally it has not made any real headway. Moreover, the party is said to be in considerable debt.

The results below contrast this year's performance with last.

Bentley            681 (25.1%) / 739 (23.3%)

Bessacarr and Cantley        535 (12.9%) / 756 (15.9%)

Central            533 (17.7%) / didn't stand

Edenthorpe, Kirk Sandall & Barnby Dun        731 (19.9%) / 655 (14.8%)

Finningley        1163 (26%) / 1137 (21.2%)

Hatfield            827 (26%) / 673 (17.5%)

Wheatley          806 (28.3%) / 786 (22.9%)

English Democrats' Performance in Doncaster

Given that the national figures for the English Democrats local election performance are not currently available, and the party’s website contains next to no information on this theme, I thought that it might be interesting to see how it fared in Thursday’s elections in Doncaster. I have chosen to look at this borough because the town elected the English Democrat Peter Davies as its Mayor in 2009, which would suggest that local people have at least heard of the party, which may well not be the case elsewhere. It could be expected therefore, that this greater public awareness might translate into a higher potential vote (although then again, as with many parties there could be a negative incumbency effect in play), so having scoured the local press and compiled the voting figures for each of the borough’s 21 wards, I have produced a table for the borough which can be found at the end of this article.

Labour was the only party to contest each ward, and unsurprisingly managed to take all but three council seats. The Conservatives took two, and the Liberal Democrats one. Although the English Democrats contested only twelve seats, this was one more than the Liberal Democrats managed. The full results for the borough are shown below. What this doesn’t show is that the average English Democrat share of the vote in the wards it contested was 16.2%, which is very respectable for a nationalist party. The English Democrats beat the BNP in the two wards where both parties were standing: by 512 to 153 in Edlington and Warmsworth, and by 394 to 288 in Stainforth and Moorends. They did not contest either of the wards in which UKIP were standing, whereas both UKIP and the BNP contested Mexborough, with the former taking 255 votes and the latter 265.

As can be seen from the overall number of votes and the average number of votes per candidate, the English Democrats did comparatively well on each count, coming in fourth place ahead of the Liberal Democrats. English Democrat candidates netted an average of 642 votes, compared to the Liberal Democrats’ 520. Although they took no council seats on this occasion, they did secure three second and six third places. The highest share of the vote achieved was 23.3% (four candidates exceeded 20%), whereas the lowest was 9.5%. In Doncaster at least, the English Democrats appear to have demonstrated that it is possible for a party appealing to English nationalism to make a breakthrough. Interestingly, in last year’s General Election the three parliamentary constituencies contested by the English Democrats yielded the following percentages:

Doncaster North

5.2% (fifth, behind BNP on 6.8% and ahead of UKIP on 4.3%)

Doncaster Central

4.4% (fourth place, with BNP on 4.2% and UKIP on 3.4%)

Don Valley

4.0% (sixth behind BNP on 4.9% and UKIP on 4.4%)

The English Democrats have of course done better than the BNP and UKIP this time around because they fielded more candidates in Doncaster, yet this does not account for the fact that their average number of votes and share of the vote in wards contested was higher than for either of the latter two parties. The BNP is in meltdown and UKIP as an Atlanticist Tory party will only ever exert limited appeal to a non-Tory social constituency. Given the SNP’s notable victory on Thursday, and the possible future break up of the UK, the English Democrats look to be best placed ideologically to take advantage of the situation and to become England’s natural nationalist party. Naturally, it would be absurd to extrapolate any general conclusions for the whole of England from this one case study, but Thursday’s experience in Doncaster does suggest that the English Democrats could become a significant force in English politics were they to enjoy greater public recognition.

Doncaster Council Election Results: Thursday 5 May 2011

Party                             Vote             Share                Wards       Av. Vote
Labour                           37,921           46.50%               21              1806

Conservative                  15,750           19.30%               20               788

Independent                     9,501           11.70%               13                731

English Democrats            7,703           9.50%                 12                642

Liberal Democrats            5,723           7.00%                 11                520

Community Group            1,686            2.10%                  4                422

BNP                                 1,302            1.60%                  4                326

UKIP                                 847              1.00%                  2                424

Green                                 794              1.00%                  2                 397

Trade Unionists & Socialists Against Cuts
                                          268               0.30%                 1                  268

Doncaster English Democrat Mayor in Ignorant Taliban Outburst

When Peter Davies stood as mayoral candidate for the English Democrats in Doncaster earlier this year, he presumably did so with the professed intent of promoting traditional English values and democracy. It is therefore astonishing to read that he has this week made favourable remarks concerning the Taliban, a movement of extremist thugs who in their treatment of women make your average Stalinist or Nazi appear to be exemplars of beneficent humanitarianism.

Yes, some elements of society in Doncaster suffer from woeful problems exacerbated by familial breakdown, but to drag in the example of the Taliban to make some kind of specious assertion about Islamic family values is way off the mark. He is quoted by the Telegraph as stating "The one thing to be said about the Taliban is that they do have an ordered society of some sort and that they don't have hundreds of cases of children under threat of abuse from violent parents, as we have in Doncaster." [1]

Well, if one adopts Mr Davies’s topsy-turvy logic, there is some sense to what he says. However, looking at it objectively, he omits to mention the fact that the lives of all women are seriously constrained and blighted by living under the Taliban. I do not see anything to admire in the barbarous manner in which they are treated as mere chattles; second-class citizens who may be beaten at will by their menfolk and denied the basic rights of free association, gaining an education, a job, and dressing as they please. The Taliban advocate throwing acid into the faces of women who do not cover them in public, and demand the murder (formally classed as execution) of women who have sexual relations outside of marriage, just as prescribed by the sharia law code which Rowan Williams is happy to see creep into the United Kingdom.

Not only women are repressed under Taliban rule of course: atheists, homosexuals and apostates can be killed with a sense of righteous moral fervour, and the creative impulse is snuffed out in the arts and sciences alike. Granted, you might not happen upon quite so many single-parent problem households under the Taliban, but then again, the whole of society is under the heel of murderous psychotic barbarism. Whereas in Doncaster the violence may be restricted to psychotic families, the whole of society is rendered violent and psychotic under the Taliban.

Our armed forces have been waging a thankless struggle for years in Afghanistan, with many a life and limb lost, and many many more individuals traumatised by the stress of operations. It is an unwinnable war which has ostensibly been waged, at least in part, to secure decent treatment for Afghan women (despite the Karzai regime’s incorporation of repressive elements of sharia into the current penal code). Is this something that Mr Davies has forgotten? What his comments do show is that if other members of his political party share his views, they should neither be considered English nor democratic. With views like this it can be said with certainty that they cannot be considered to be a nationalist party in any meaningful sense of the term. The English love and respect their women Mr Davies, and do not (with a few criminal exceptions) view them as slaves to be beaten and abused.

References: [1] cited in ‘Britain “could learn from Taliban values’, says Doncaster Mayor’, Stephen Adams, Daily Telegraph 4 September 2009 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/6132928/Britain-could-learn-from-Taliban-family-values-says-Doncasters-mayor.html

See also ‘New mayor tells town: “We could all learn something about family values from the Taliban”’, Luke Salkeld, The Daily Mail, 5 September 2009 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211233/Outspoken-mayor-claiming-learn-family-values-Taliban.html

Surprise Nationalist Win in Doncaster

There has been a surprise win for the English Democrats in Doncaster, with Peter Davies (father of the Shipley Conservative MP Philip Davies) being elected Mayor and beating Labour into third place. This is not a fact that has pleased Don Valley MP Caroline Flint, but Mr Davies's victory demonstrates that Labour is not safe from electoral challenge in what are considered to be its most robust bailiwicks.

Doncaster has been mired in a succession of financial scandals for years, and Mr Davies's appeal to traditional Labour voters has evidently been rooted in his strongly populist programme for the town which includes: slashing his own mayoral salary from £62,000 to £30,000; reducing the number of Doncaster councillors from 63 to 21; getting rid of translation services for immigrants and axing (according to a quote in the Yorkshire Post) "politically correct non-jobs and encouraging the former employees to seek meaningful employment." This potent cocktail evidently possessed widespread popular appeal.

This is the first significant electoral success for the English Democrats and, as can be seen from the nature and focus of the Davies agenda, much of the Party's policy overlaps heavily with that of the BNP. Unlike the BNP however, the English Democrats are not subject to the unremitting media attacks co-ordinated by Searchlight, the mainstream political parties and their media allies. However, their performance in local council elections has attracted scant success compared to the BNP.

Davies came second in the first round to an independent candidate, with 16,961 votes to 17,150. However, the result was determined by second preferences. Given that the BNP candidate had polled a healthy 8,175 votes, I am certain that these proved pivotal in securing victory for the English Democrats. The final result came in at 25,344 to 24,990.

Although this election is encouraging insofar as it demonstrates that nationalist politics can have a powerful appeal to the electorate in England, my concern is that this result could raise the profile of the English Democrats and thereby fatally divide and cripple the emergence of a viable nationalist party in England. Only if the BNP achieves a breakthrough and obtains at least one MEP this year will there be a chance for it to overcome the media blackout and get its message out to the wider public. It is certain to resonate strongly if the barrage of anti-BNP propaganda can be neutralised and Nick Griffin or other leading BNP figures can secure airtime on Question Time. However, I anticipate that the BBC will continue to operate a no-platform policy for the BNP on this programme and its radio equivalent Any Questions.

The nationalist challenge to the established parties can only be effective if there is a single electable nationalist party, but the BNP faces serious obstacles if it is to become this party. The media-inflated UKIP is used to siphon off many disgruntled nationalist voters and effectively channel them into a cul-de-sac, for UKIP is ultimately a globalist free-trade party. The English Democrats are closer to the BNP in terms of their policies, but accentuate civic rather than ethnic nationalism and, as their name suggests, seek only to operate in England. Time will tell which of these contenders evolves into the credible nationalist party that we so desperately need. In the meantime, I wish good luck to Peter Davies in his new mayoral role.

For further details see: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/election/Labour-crashes-out-of-Doncaster.5339729.jp and http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/election/Shock-message-for-Government-as.5341413.jp