Now we've all seen popstars using their fame for good causes, more often than is right just to ensure they get a wee bit of extra coverage. However, here's something a bit different. For one thing, it's not gone out in a blaze of publicity (I heard about it via the Bard of Barking group on last.fm). For another, only the people who perform the desired activity are rewarded.

But best of all, it gets people doing something concrete, that draws them into a greater level of involvement than just joining the latest fashion trend. Actually getting people engaged in the political process — marvellous.

Billy Bragg has agreed to do a private concert on Sunday April 1st in West Bromwich. There's one snag though. You have to help out with the anti-BNP day of action first.

So that'll be an hour delivering anti-fascist leaflets, then free food and drink and a private performance from the legend that is. Gotta be worth a look don't you think?

So here's the theory — a couple of senior labour bods, panic about the idea of El-Gordo as Dear Leader. In a desparate attempt to derail the expected coronation (and the gentlemen's likely permanent sinecure on the back benches), they launch a debate on the future of the Labour Party (my emphasis).

Now while this is as obvious a piece of astroturf as the gamut will allow, you'd think that if they had a modicum of sense, Haystack and Hairdo would ensure that the related website would do mad, off-the wall, distracting things like... ooh, debate ideas for the future of the Labour party.

Visiting it for the first (and likely only) time today, I discover this as the front page:

(Again, my highlighting)

Yes, it's Clarke, continuing to punt ID cards. And the forward looking bit (so far forward looking that even Tone hasn't suggested yet) is that the National Register should include a DNA database, presumably to support the Dear Leader's fondness for fishing expeditions.

Leaving aside that even this cowed Parliament balked at the idea of DNA inclusion, I'm just failing to see the 'future of the Labour Party' element here.

Anyone? Buehler? Anyone?

Many years ago, over the water, the lads at Guinness used to sell a by-product of the brewing process, Guinness Yeast Extract. So the story goes, but no more.

Viewers from the UK will recognise the product category as the rather smashing Marmite.

Right, so. The Guinness and Marmite people have now got together to create... Guinness Marmite. The degree to which I want this blending of two of my favourite dark food substances cannot be measured. If I see it in Tescos, I'm bulk buying.

I hate routine. I like things to flow, just happen, potter along. The thought of *having* to do things at a certain time fills me with horror. What if I'm late? I hate being late.

Nice to see that the Government has its priorities right:

If that’s not an Ass, I’m a horse

a gentle and respected friend got 28 days in chink for digging graves as an anti-war protest, and was therefore one of the 271 extra prisoners on Monday who took the prison population through the 80,000 ceiling...

So, a man who was due a six month sentence for downloading child porn (a crime, we are constantly being reminded, involving the actual abuse of actual children) is set free pending good behaviour. Another whose ‘crime’ is to protest against an illegal war - with particular regard to the killing of innocent children (the protest was on the feast of the holy innocents) goes down at huge cost to the taxpayer.

John Reid’s guidelines that were in the news yesterday were not new - they have been in place for quite some time. Reid’s letter was simply a reminder of a policy which was firmly in place on Monday - prison should be reserved for ’serious, repeat and violent offenders’.

[InMyHumbleEtc]

Who knows what kind of threat this serious offence might pose? Next they'll be serving Fairly Traded Tea, and then where would we be?

So, The Dear Leader and Shaven-headed Sidekick have given up on the burden of proof of the criminal law...

The Al Capone Bill (yes, it's been at least a week since a Serious Crime Bill was in the works) is positing that the necessity of proof is just a fiddly little thing that plain gets in the way when you're trying to get those Nasty Mr Bigs.

Oh yes, we're reducing the burden of proof in Criminal matters to that of Civil cases because it's easier that way.

Insert your own A-levels joke here...

Take down the Union Jack, it clashes with the sunset
And put it in the attic with the emperor's old clothes
When did it fall apart? Sometime in the 80s
When the Great and the Good gave way to the greedy and the mean

Britain isn't cool you know, its really not that great
It's not a proper country, it doesn't even have a patron saint
It's just an economic union that's passed its sell-by date

300 years ago today, the bells of the High Kirk in Edinburgh tolled out the hymn tune Why Should I Be So Sad on my Wedding Day? while the populace rioted in several Scottish cities.

The EBBC's response to this was fairly typical: On BBC Breakfast this morning, they invited Z-list celeb Aggie from How Clean is your House?, who's been out of Scotland so long she referred to the Scots as they, and some Scots-born architect who declared a loathing for all things Scottish to debate whether Scotland should stay in the Union. They also commissioned a survey so biased in methodology that it showed a drop of a third in previously surveyed support for Independence. Balanced Reporting: BBC style.

The West Lothian Question

Pausing only momentarily to note the 290 years when English MPs in the 'United Kingdom' parliament could foist anything they liked apon Scotland through sheer force of numbers, the only danger that the WLQ brings is to ultra-unionists who are worried about the symbolism. Does it practically matter? Probably not. But let's not wear the blinkers that say that the only alternative is a return to full Unionism — that's politically untenable. Anyone positing the WLQ in post-devolutionary times is arguing for something bounded on the one hand by a Federal Kingdom and the other by Scottish Independence, whether they're aware of it or not.

An English Parliament?

Let's make the point of principle first: if the English want a Parliament, it's a decision for the English Body Politic (ie all those who live and vote there) to make, and to decide which powers it will inherit from Westminster. Just as it is for the Scottish Body Politic to decide our constitutional relationship with the overall UK. If they want it, good luck to 'em.

And what of the federal option?

We're partially in this mess because the 'Union' was a de facto takeover. The official theory was that the Scots and English parliaments both adjourned, and their representatives joined a United Kingdom one. But of course, the English parliament remained, and absorbed the Scots MPs in such small numbers that English interests remained dominant. A more equitable settlement would validate all the Brownite rhetoric of I represent a constituency in the United Kingdom parliament; it doesn't matter where it is. And a fully federal state, where limited powers are equally reserved to the Federal Senate from all constituent nations would entirely remove the WLQ.

(Here's a side-thought - wouldn't this body be a logical end-game for the House of Lords debate?)

The powers I would reserve would be a far-narrower set than at present, and I suspect that English political opinion would come to the same conclusion. They wouldn't include the Home Office and Lord Chancellor's Office, for a start; we have our own judicial tradition, thanks. And the skill shortages in Scotland that might be filled by immigration are quite distinct to those of England (particularly those of London, which drive current policy). I'd also devolve DWP, as again, Scottish political sensibilities have a different aspect on much of Disability and Benefits policy.

Although Independence (whatever that means for any nation-state in our globalised world) is my preferred option, I could live with that.

The Barnett Formula and Subsidy Junkies

The echo-chamber of unionist and reactionary English bloggery would have you believe that without English money, Scotland would be in penury. It's easy to believe... if you only go for the advertised per capita spend without further analysis. To understand whether the conclusion is true, you also need consider the following:

Scotland's needs are greater than England's

Wealth creation/poverty reduction in the UK is biased towards England. Set policies that reduce the gap and we'll happily do without the extra cash. To be fair to the Welsh brethren, they do far worse relative to needs — there's probably a case for a needs-based assessment all round.

The Government Spending in question is identifiable expenditure

As HM Treasury admits when pressed, what's included in this is an entirely arbitrary classification. One could equally point towards the massive central government infrastructure in the South East of England that is an enormous subsidy to that region, yet strangely not counted when working these things out. It makes the bleating of the Evening Standard about 'subsidy junkies' particularly odious. The appropriate quote here is:

If the government spends money in the regions of the UK it is called subsidy. But if it pours it down the gullet of the cities and counties in south-east England it is called essential support of the infrastructure.

Political Editor John Forsyth in the Scotsman

It only counts spending

Scotland also has a significantly higher financial per capita contribution to UK taxation revenues. Scotland is in fact a net contributer to the UK economy.

Nationalism is Not A Right Wing Creed

I hear this myth all the time, whether overtly, or implied through barbs of Anti-English Whining when applied to any nationalistic argument. It's not even close to being true — the perpetrators of this myth have clearly not noticed that the SNP is some way to the left of the Labour Party on most issues, showing that Nationalism is ideologically neutral — it can be a Progressive philosophy as much as a Reactionary one. I can think that my country's great, want to better the people who live there, love its (current, ever-changing) culture, while at the same time, be perfectly happy to welcome people to it and celebrate the variation this brings.

But because of this left/right agnosticism, there are fellow-travellers towards Nationhood who dirty the word with their thuggery. Narrow-minded, thoroughly dogmatic, unable to accept difference from self-defined 'norms'; you'll find Fascists in all human societies, political parties not least. It's up to us to fight them wherever we find them.

So where does this leave us, 300 years on? Does the UK continue to make sense? The strongest pro-union arguments I've heard over the last 20 years have all been based on tradition and past glories: The Union has served Scotland well or The Union (particularly the Army) was the best means by which ambitious men could achieve anything.

What it is left with is an economic union that was put together on one party's terms, quite unlike the EU where each member state negotiates its entry. An arranged marriage, with a hefty bribe dowry paid to MPs who had lost out at Darien. Yes, we've had our good times. But we're fed up of being in your shadow, kept subservient incapable of making our own decisions beyond spending the housekeeping.

Which Bride would enter into such a marriage these days? And which Wife of such a marriage would not weep on her anniversary?