By Tamara Cohen for the Daily Mail 10 Nov 2010
More than a third of Britain’s land is still in the hands of a tiny group of aristocrats, according to the most extensive ownership survey in nearly 140 years.
In a shock to those who believed the landed gentry were a dying breed, blue-blooded owners still control vast swathes of the country within their inherited estates.
A group of 36,000 individuals – only 0.6 per cent of the population – own 50 per cent of rural land…

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1328270/A-Britain-STILL-belongs-aristocracy.html

1974 Harold Wilson’s Labour election manifesto:

‘The Government have published plans for the public owner ship of development land which will get rid of the major inflationary element in the cost of building;
for public control and participation in North Sea oil;
for greater accountability and the extension of public ownership in industry;
for beginning the redistribution of wealth by new taxation on the better-off…… ‘
http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/man/lab74oct.htm

Harold Wilson plot, Treason & Conspiracy by MI5, 1968 Coup plot, 1976 Resignation 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG6FR03BqIQ
Yes two top BBC journalists Penrose and Courtieur were steered out into the long grass by the powers that be.
In 1975 Britain’s last honest Prime Minister, Harold Wilson was bugged, burgled bullied and hounded out of office by fascist, even Nazi, elements within MI5, the army and establishment who smeared him as a Russian KGB agent. As for books on this subject the best in order are as follows:
‘The Pencourt File’ by Barrie Penrose & Roger Courtiour (1978)
‘Smear!: Wilson and the Secret State’ by Stephen Dorril & Robin Ramsey (1992)
‘The Wilson Plot: How the Spycatchers and Their American Allies Tried to Overthrow the British Government’ (1988) by David Leigh

http://rt.com/uk/197120-britain-protest-pay-rise/

Written in 2010, by James Armstrong, Dorchster
Contact: james36armstrong@hotmail.com

reC.A.P., – TO  CAP IT OR SCRAP IT?
 
 
The Common Agricultural Policy costs U.K. taxpayers some £3.8bn per annum.
It does not benefit ‘small’ farmers nor agricultural workers 
It is a serious threat to democracy and welfare. It should be scrapped .  The least we can do is to cap  the expenditure at a means tested amount equivalent to claimants receiving  £12,344 per annum  – the minimum wage.
 
For an every-day example by which to judge the purchasing power of £1billion we can use the cost of the 12 new detached houses with garages built by a team of self builders in St Minver Cornwall and completed in 2008.  for a cost of  some £80,000 each.
£1million would buy twelve and a half such houses and £1 billion some 12,500 so £3.8billion would fund  the building of 47,500 new houses.  
 T his gives a measure of the annual cost of CAP. Payments to   UK taxpayers in money expended and benefit forgone. .
 
The origin of CAP. (Ritson and Harvey)
The European Union was to be a means of political unification and a guarantee for peace following the resolution of the world war.
(during the  in negotiations leading to the Treaty of Rome 1958) the attitude of  the French government and the French farm lobby  were of crucial significance in the establishment of the C.A,P.   just as Germany played a   leading role in directing the industrial policy.
 
The Treaty of Rome set the agenda for  the C.A,.P..
The Treaty  talks of,
“a fair standard of living for the agricultural  community  in particular  increasing the  earnings of persons engaged in agriculture.” 
 
The background to UK agriculture
The C.A.P. effectively transferred  money from industrial workers  (mostly  Germans )  via taxes  to fund C.A,P. payments to farmers (mostly French) . When Britain joined in 1973 owing to the nature of landownership in UK , CAP payments in large tranches were received by the very  small constituency which is the British Landowning group- some
One  per cent of the population.  The historical tendency in UK has been for farms to amalgamate by  enclosure, by  engrossment and by industiralisation  of farming techniques.by emparkment etc.
 
The Underlying principle of CAP
It was established when CAP came into being that producers  should receive a price determined by market forces   but that these market forces should be controlled so that prices fluctuated only between pre-determined upper and lower limits.  So that farmers were protected from excessively low and consumers from excessively high prices. The most basic CAP support scheme is for cereals .   All others a re a variation of this.
 
 
The second major component of the cereals regime is the import controls since world prices are often lower than EU prices.  I t would be worthwhile in the absence of controls to import, so imports are controlled by licence  and import duty must be paid.
 
 
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS PRICES IN E.C. AS % OF WORLD PRICES (=100%)
                         E.C.,1994%      highest%
Common wheat         155             155
Maize                         140             211
Barley                         214            218
Rice                            209             209
White sugar                106             137
Milk                            241             259
Beef / veal                   208             208
Pig meat                      130             134
Poultry                         118             161
Sheep meat                  156             243
 
Who receives CAP payments?
The client group is heterogeneous including landowners, food manufacturers, agribusinesses , pheasant breeders,  racing stables , farmers, pony paddock owners, donkey sanctuaries, racehorse trainers’ gallops, wildlife trusts, fishing clubs ,etc
 
 
 
 
 
THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL EFFECT OF C.A.P.
The Benefits and cost of CAP versus free trade (Ritson & Harvey p 165)
 
                          Billion ECU ( U.K. ) 1994
                                                                            Interpretation ?
Producers gain                 3.82          (CAP payments received by ‘farmers’
Users cost                         4.31          (cheaper food prices foregone by consumers)
Taxpayers cost                 2.51          ( UK contribution to EU to fund CAP payments )
Net Welfare cost              3.01           ( CAP on balance is a cost not a benefit)
Bridge Trade Effect        -3.31           ( an allowance for the distortion of free trade)
                                      
Analysis
 
In the  following analysis The figures are taken and processed from the information available on the web site
www.cap-payments.defra. gov.uk
 
 
. 
Reducing the annual CAP payouts
For comparison ,the statutory  minimum wage    at £5.93per hour yields £12,334 p a for a 40 hour 52 week year
Using this as a guide  between ‘low’ and ‘high’ C.A.P-income receivers the following analysis emerges for the year 2009 .
At present (2009) 197,346 claimants receive  a total of   £3,426,076,230 costs push this up to £3.8bn) 
The high  claimants
65,991 receive   greater than   £12,334, – in total  £2,993,905,590 average £45,468
If they were ineligible ( cut off point at £12,334, ) the savings would be £2,993,905,590
If they received the  minimum wage equivalent, they would receive  £813,932,994, saving £2,179,972,596  (some £2.2bn)
The low  claimants
At present (2009) 131,427 receive  less than  £12,334,  in total  £434,158,342 , average  £3,303
 
CAP reserved for those now claiming £12,334 or less 
If all now receiving  less CAP than the minimum wage were upgraded to the min wage
And those claiming above this sum were ineligible the cost would be £1,621,020,618
And the savings £1,805,055,612
 
CAP as a fixed payment to all qualifying claimants . large and small.
If the statutory payment was  the minimum wage equivalent
For 197,346 receiving  £12,334 the cost would be £2,434,065,564,saving £992,010,666
 
THE MACRO ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF C.A.P. ON LAND VALUES
Ritson and Harvey write,
“The Producers’ gain is a measure of the economic rent earned by factors engaged in agriculture over and above that which could be earned in the  absence of the policy intervention.
In the case where all the factors and inputs except land are available to agriculture in perfect elasticity of supply (that is the prices and returns of these factors and inputs do not change whatever the  agricultural output  and use levels) theory suggests that all of the policy benefits will accumulate to rents and agricultural values of land .
So the figure is a measure of the annual gain to landowners .
In practice the assumption of perfect elasticity of supply is extreme. Some fraction  of the gain would be expected to accrue to owners of other factors specifically associated with the industry including those upstream of the farm gate”
R and H seem to mean that CAP payments cause land values to rise. 
 A marked increase in the price of agricultural land has been noticeable  since the introduction of CAP, resulting from feeding in £billion  CAP grants each year over thirty three years. .  
 
 
 
 
 
WHO RECEIVES C.A.P.PAYMENTS ?
.
 
annual payments go to –
     Lord Carrington          £149,000
     Lord Linlithgow          £ 144,000
      Lord Rothermere        £29,000
 to-    M.P.s  ,    Richard Drax ,M.P.,  £417,846
To dukes….to earls…. To Prince Charles £581,000
To their  trade association , NFU, £70,000
 
HM Queen received  £1,183,508 over the last two years for privately owning the Sandrigham estate.
Two thousand get more than the Prime Minister’s annual salary,
The regime is not designed to  benefit struggling ‘small’ farmers since the majority of funds go to large agricultural holdings.  Large plc corporations receive £multimillion payments 
It has nothing to do with food security – Owners of one million pony paddock acres  qualify for some £30million.  Preserving the countryside and the wildlife  is the business of Defra and  the RSPB-not CAP –  (yet that Charity with a £15million membership fund gets an additional £1million from CAP annually).
 
Thousands of  claimants are already landowning millionaires
.
WHO PAYS – HOW MUCH- WHO GETS WHAT- WHY?
CAP  is not funded  by EU but out of UK taxes and costs the British taxpayer £3.8 to £4billion in 2009.
This is an increase of  23 per cent over 2008  and in 2010 will increase again, and in 2011
Some 80% of UK citizens live in urban settings. Some 99% of UK citizens own no bulk land and do not qualify for CAP payments.  
From their taxes, moistly income tax, these non qualifiers  fund CAP.
and this is largely unknown to them.
CAP is not rational.
CAP does not fulfil the rationale of the Treaty of Rome,  In UK  the number employed in agriculture has fallen by 1million  and agricultural workers are amongst the lowest paid in the land.  Those farmers on the lowest incomes receive the least benefit from CAP and the increase in incomes of large corporate  farms threatens their existence from buy outs.
The increase in land values proves a barrier to  new entrants to farming.
 
In the past CAP has caused overproduction and waste of food.
Food prices within the EU are  higher than world prices. CAP related EU  Tariffs are a barrier to  exports from third world countries.
EU exports of foodstuffs at subsidised prices threaten the livelihoods of third world producers.   
 
 
CAP  IS ANTI DEMOCRATIC
Access to the orginators of CAP policy is severely restricted and they are not democratically accountable.
 
CAP budget is set by the  Directorate  General for the  EU Budget
Agriculture policy by the   Agricultural  D.G.
The Council for Europe is the major legislative  body of the EU.
 
CAP IS ANTI- WELFARE
The CAP is a regressive tax paid mostly out of income tax to reward the wealthy and privileged . CAP has  increased the price of food.
 
CAP HAS INCREASED LAND COSTS FOR NEW HOUSES   
 
ABOLISHING / SEVERELY REDUCING THE COST AND EFFECTS OF CAP
Britain is a valued member of the EU.   The workings of CAP as shown above are not rational, not democratic and have a negative welfare effect.  It is necessary as a minimum measure , to severely reduce the burden and the effects of C.A.P. for UK citizens .
This can be achieved by the co-operation of the E.U. or unilaterally by UK if necessary by reducing pro rata the UK contribution to EU or reconsideration of our role within EU.
 
 
References :
 
The Common Agricultural Policy, 2nd Ed .  Edited by  Ritson and Harvey 
www.cap-payments.defra.gov.uk
 
James Armstrong  August 2010 .

asury in a written correspondence; puzzling however how the figure quoted of £10.3 billion was ommitted from the Annual Abstract of Statistics by the ONS). After explaining the origins of CAP and how the new system of Single-Farm Payments (reformed from the previous system of production-subsidies) still rewards the largest landowners, this time quite unashamedly in accordance of land-area, he went onto a discussion around the subject of comparing this situation with the original objective of what CAP actually stands for – which was to “reward agricultural-workers”

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Diggers350/conversations/topics/2860

On Saturday 12th July 2014 The Land Is Ours in conjunction with Bristol Housing Action Movement presents………

Former Sunday Times ‘Rich List’ journalist Kevin Cahill is the author of ‘Who Owns Britain’. Beginning at 1pm he will discuss & explain the inequalities of land ownership in the British Isles and former empire. After a break at 2pm Kevin will answer your questions. Venue opens for refreshments at 12 noon… social until 5-6pm.

View Larger Map

In 1638, with special pleadings from Archbishop Laud, Charles I addressed the privatization of land, enclosure, by fining rich merchants and parliamentarians who had evicted villagers from collectively managed open fields. Only ‘freemen’ owning land worth over 40 shillings a year could vote so the merchants had effectively been voting themselves growing land the poor needed to feed themselves.  Charles I, perhaps bravely, perhaps foolishly, tried to buck the trend of the creeping privatization of land, but the merchants secretly organised against him, launched the English Civil War and he lost his head in 1649. The merchant classes were now firmly in power and ready to bring their new-fangled capitalism to the world.

Prince Charles strikes another blow for the British republic

Beginning his working life in the aviation industry and trained by the BBC, Tony Gosling is a British land rights activist, historian & investigative radio journalist.
http://rt.com/op-edge/161020-prince-charles-strikes-blow/ Published time: May 23, 2014 10:42

There is an air of unreality to Prince Charles’ spin-squad attempting this week to prove that the future British Head of State’s comparison of Putin to Hitler, while surrounded by journalists on a royal tour, was said in a ‘private conversation’.

It is not just that his views show how out of touch he and his PR team are with the nation and the real world, but Charles’ flippant remarks draw unwelcome attention to his own and his family’s close connections to Nazis, and related war-mongering.

His father Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh was educated for a time in Nazi Germany and his four sisters married black-uniformed SS officers (three of them, Sophie, Cecile and Margarita, joining the Nazi party). Philip admitted to then having ‘inhibitions about the Jews’ to an American academic and feeling ‘jealousy of their success.’ Charles’ great uncle, the abdicated ex-King Edward VIII, was such a swastika-waver that MI6 had to banish him to Bermuda for the duration of World War Two, thwarting his and his Nazi wife Mrs Simpson’s attempts to join Hitler by crossing into occupied Europe.

Charles himself has come quite close to publicly endorsing Hitler’s slippery chief Architect and Armaments Minister Albert Speer by hiring Speer’s greatest devotee, Léon Krier, as his own chief architect for his Duchy of Cornwall’s extensive building projects. Writer and broadcaster Jonathan Meades in his 1994 documentary, ‘Jerry Building’ nails Krier as the ‘Speer-carrier’ and ‘Keeper of the Toxic Flame’, pointing out that every one of Speer’s creations, which include the Nuremberg rally stadium, is inseparable from the inhuman experimentation and forced concentration camp labor used to construct them.

Charles’ great grandfather George V was one of the three ‘great’ architects of World War One, the so-called ‘Cousins’ War’, four years of mindless slaughter that began exactly a century ago. With two more Saxe-Coburg Gotha cousins, George’s hapless subjects slugged it out in trench warfare with Germany’s Wilhelm II and Russia’s Nicholas II’s unfortunates leaving, by 1918, a total of some ten million dead for no discernible purpose.

When in 1917 ill-mannered soldiers began pointing out that German Gotha bombers from another branch of the King’s family business were killing them, George V blithely announced that his surname was changing from ‘Saxe-Coburg Gotha’ to the more English-sounding ‘Windsor’.

Even masterpieces like Richard Attenborough’s 1969 feature film ‘Oh! What A Lovely War’, the BBC’s controversial 1986 drama ‘The Monocled Mutineer’ and the poetry of Geoffrey Studdert-Kennedy, Worcester army padre known affectionately as ‘Woodbine Willie’, do not quite reflect the futility of the war and the bitterness it stirred up amongst ordinary people.

Today, despite standing against the Nazis in World War Two, Her Majesty’s government and armed forces, who all swear allegiance to the Queen, are backing most of the dictators and despots around the world. From President Mahinda Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka with the blood of 40,000 innocent Tamil civilians on his hands, to King Abdullah’s brutal Saudi regime which still practices public beheadings. Charles’ tongue always speaks for the world leaders Amnesty International tells us are the bad guys, but he is looking to make money with them, whether through real estate or arms.

The Prince of Wales, Prince William, Princess Diana and Prince Harry attend the Heads of State ceremony in Hyde Park to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of VE Day in Hyde Park May 7, 1995.(Reuters / Dylan Martinez DM)

Are we witnessing the death throes of the British monarchy?

It started thirty six years after the bloodthirsty Knights Templar warrior-bankers were disgraced and dissolved, a new order of 26 ‘knights’ were initiated in 1348 that have dominated the British crown ever since. The Order of the Garter consists of two conjoined cells, each of thirteen knights that advise and ‘protect’ the monarch and heir apparent.

Because of their obsessive secrecy and lack of transparency over the centuries those appointed to these knights have become the very antithesis of Medieval chivalry, a lethal mixture of yes-men, and devious chancers who would sell their own mother to get a seat, and a cut of the rent, at the top table.

Nothing could illustrate more clearly the British monarchy’s distain for their poor subjects than Henry VIII’s asset seizure and eviction in the 1530s of around ten thousand monks from Britain’s monasteries. Since the days of Alfred the Great these holy orders had been providing a backbone of education and healthcare to the nation, but to Henry they represented a kind of Vatican fifth column, daring to question the wisdom of his break from Rome to form his independent Church of England.

In 1638, with special pleadings from Archbishop Laud, Charles I addressed the privatization of land, enclosure, by fining rich merchants and parliamentarians who had evicted villagers from collectively managed open fields. Only ‘freemen’ owning land worth over 40 shillings a year could vote so the merchants had effectively been voting themselves growing land the poor needed to feed themselves.

Charles I, perhaps bravely, perhaps foolishly, tried to buck the trend of the creeping privatization of land, but the merchants secretly organised against him, launched the English Civil War and he lost his head in 1649. The merchant classes were now firmly in power and ready to bring their new-fangled capitalism to the world.

Occupy Founders Launch the After Party in Detroit
Dennis Trainor 05/07/14 03:39 PM
ET
http://www.huffpost.com/us/entry/5250788
Originally Posted at  PopularResistance.org
Some of the founding members of the occupy movement are launching a new political party — THE AFTER
Party.
Carl Gibson is among them.
He says:

“What sets The After Party  apart is that 365 days out of the year it is a humanitarian organization. The way we
organize politically, what sets us apart is that we are finding needs within the community, and then working to meet them using the community’s assets.”

And, so is Radio Rahim, another After Party founding member and, yes the real life persona behind the character in Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing says the following:
“There is a little bit of Radio Rahim in everybody (…) we all love our music and we have outrage about different things.”
How will After Party be different than other 3 party alternatives?
Why start a political party at all?

Everybody agrees Rock music is great and particularly to blast out at an occupation party!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnRxYE7PFYU
But absolutely no Planet Gong! They are terrible and will destroy our credibility

So much of Medieval Suffolk was owned by the church and, as I drove through it with Phillip Schofield, I began to realise just how much the ownership and use of our land has changed since the Middle Ages. Back then, there was an open field system by which the common people rented strips from the lord and farmed them in unfenced fields. It was an arrangement that lasted for centuries.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af_GgELWrN0

I suppose the first big sign of change in ownership came in 1536 when Henry VIII started to close monasteries. He took away their lands and the abbeys fell into ruins. like this one at Bury. If you look at the documents of that time, you can see that, whilst existing landowners increased their stake, there were also new types of land owner such as merchants and lawyers.

But the biggest change was undoubtedly enclosure. Ever since the Middle Ages, a gradual process of fencing off and hedging fields had been underway. It happened more in certain parts of the country than others, but by the mid 1700s enclosure was stepping up a gear.

Dr Brian Short
The impact on the landscape was enormous. The Midlands in particular were severely affected by enclosure. It was the great landscape reshaper. Many poor and small farmers lost out at that time – they were often given allotments which were uneconomic, and they sold them out and became a kind of landed proletariat who, thereafter, had to sell their own labour for money, rather than having land to live off. So it affected enormously both the landscape and society at the time.

Bettany
I hear Aylesbury has some pretty good enclosure records, showing just how things changed. Enclosure replaced the strip field system. But what happened when the strips disappeared? Leigh Shaw-Taylor is the man with the answers.

Leigh
This is drawn up in 1799, a map of Weston Turville just south of Aylesbury. Prior to the enclosure, there were three very large open fields. One here, one here and one here, and a small one down here.

Bettany
So big field but still with the tiny strips.

Leigh
That’s right. So, as a result of enclosure, the Commissioners, having decided who had what land and what rights, then reallocated people, consolidated lots of land. Elizabeth Saunders for instance gets this big rectangular piece of land here, the Mercer Company get this block here, and here, and another piece here – they’re big land owners, Marquis of Buckingham this one here.

Bettany
The perceived wisdom is that enclosure took away the farming rights of the peasantry. This isn’t strictly true. By the 1750s enclosure was regulated by government. You needed an Act of Parliament and about 4,000 such acts were passed by 1810.

As part of the process, a committee would visit your village to establish who had common right dwellings. The cottages owned or rented, with rights to use the land. Leigh followed up a number of these. Robert Fitkin owned one cottage. His tenant, James Burnham was a labourer and he would have lost his rights to land with enclosure. But interestingly, he was untypical. Only 6 of this village’s 50 labourers had common land rights. And what you don’t have to begin with, you can’t lose.

Bettany
And so who are the winners, I mean who’s really benefiting from this situation?

Leigh
Definitely the big landlords, who get higher rents, rents can double at enclosure, and probably farmers, the more substantial farmers.

Bettany
And can you still see the physical effects of this in Weston Turville today?

Leigh
Very much so. The landscape of Weston Turville is very much the one created by the Georgian enclosure.

http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/social-economic-history/breaking-the-seal-the-ownership-land