april 23rd 2002 - jimmy young's st. george's day phone-in on radio 2

St George's Day had Jimmy hosting a phone in on Englishness. One subject broached was whether an English Parliament or devolved regional government would serve the best interests of the English people. Guest speakers argued both sides and at the end of the show the results of a phone poll were revealed with a massive 94% (14556 votes) in favour of an English Parliament as opposed to 6% (930 votes) against.

On the other side another guest speaker Darcus Howe compared celebrating St George's Day with celebrating Hitler's birthday and that it was inappropriate for the English to celebrate their patron saint's day in the same way as the Celtic nations.

WATE's comment: Old Darcus once again does his bit for race relations and in doing so bumps up the membership of the BNP more efficiently than 20 skinheads giving leaflets out on the street corner could ever do. Why oh why do they keep wheeling him out to make his deliberately provocative and irresponsible remarks when everyone knows that he only gets paid for being controversial and his views, (Hitler's birthday remark is a prime example) are not widely held. Darcus should start thinking less about his pay packet and more about improving race relations in the country. A good start might be for him to do us all a favour and go into early retirement.

The phone poll goes to show that there is strong support for an English Parliament and not even John Prescott going barmy with his re-dial button can make the issue go away. At the moment none of the political parties have the guts to even put the question to us. We'll have to wait and see.