County Watch - Beliefs

Beliefs

The Anglo-Saxons set up a network of shires whose boundaries, in some cases, have been unchanged for over 1,000 years. The Normans may have conquered us in 1066 but at least they left our shire boundaries in place, just changing the name to "Counties" when they placed their own Counts in charge of the shires. The Conservatives under Edward Heath started the process of dismantling our network of shire Counties when they created the hugely unpopular new "Counties" of Avon, Humberside and Cleveland. Now it seems Labour wants to finish them off. Many English people have a strong sense of place and we are sure many of them will fight hard to keep alive and healthy the names and the real boundaries of our Counties.

—Derek Norman, Chairman of CountyWatch

CountyWatch sees the abolition of democratically elected county councils in the UK as part of a long-term project to weaken the constituent nations of Europe, notably the UK, and to concentrate power at two levels: Brussels (the European Commission) and the "regions" within countries. CountyWatch believes in taking direct action within the law to counter aspects of this project.

There have been similar illegal acts before. The former county of Humberside was extremely unpopular with some of its residents. The book The Fight for Yorkshire by Michael Bradford detailed a series of cases where signs were altered to read "East Riding of Yorkshire" in North Humberside. None of these acts were ever prosecuted and in 1996 Humberside was abolished.

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Famous quotes containing the word beliefs:

    Children demand that their heroes should be fleckless, and easily believe them so: perhaps a first discovery to the contrary is less revolutionary shock to a passionate child than the threatened downfall of habitual beliefs which makes the world seem to totter for us in maturer life.
    George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)

    Other people’s beliefs may be myths, but not mine.
    Mason Cooley (b. 1927)

    We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)