... burning crosses

You could have heard a pin drop around the Moot House as we watched the BBC's "Question Time" this evening.  Nick Griffin announced that he was standing up for the indigenous people who have been in this country for 17,000 years.  17,000 years?  Since 5,000 years before the end of the last Ice Age?  No wonder the British are such a hardy race.  After 5,000 years of permafrost and glaciers, standing up to a bit of drizzle was always gonna be a doddle.

But the question rang in our minds.  If we are only to allow the original indigenous people of these islands to live and work here, who will that be?  The original Beaker People?  They clearly predate the Angles, Saxons, Norse, Normans and Celts whom Mr Griffin is presumably thinking of.  Yet they have this annoying habit of laying around under round barrows and buried in holes near Stonehenge.  They're not gonna be reclaiming the country.  Or bringing it forward a few centuries - perhaps we should allow the  Welsh, Cornish and Scots people of Great Britain to reclaim England?  After all, they were driven out by the invading Angles, Saxons and Norse - coming over here, taking their wives and jobs.  Perhaps all those of Germanic origin should head back where they belong - Friesland, Saxony and Jutland - came over here bringing their foreign and oppressive Odinism.  Make some space for the real British people?
Or perhaps - cue the violins and pull out an onion - perhaps we should all who live in these crazy, mixed-up, dirty and yet achingly beautiful  islands learn to respect one another, stop identifying the "Other" - whoever that "Other" is - light our tea lights and stand shoulder to shoulder.  It's a decent country underneath it all.  Let's celebrate it.