Why won’t Louise Haigh use the word ‘England’?

This is Louise Haigh on X telling Parliament and her followers that the UK Government is fixing Britain’s crumbling roads.

The Labour manifesto commitment that she refers to said ‘We will fix an additional one million potholes across England in each year of the next parliament’. Not Britain. England.

Louise Haigh has form here. She really dislikes the word ‘England’ and will use the word ‘Britain’ or the phrase ‘the country’ even when the policy or spending that she’s talking about is England-only.

Here’s a Government press release from Louise that only applies to England because transport is devolved to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It refers to ‘the country’ nine times and mentions Britain once but doesn’t mention England at all.

And here she is implying that the funding for potholes is for Britain (as the BBC points out it is spending for England).

And here she is again, talking about ‘Britain’s bus services’ when (due to devolution) she is only responsible for England’s bus services.

Here is Louise prior to Labour being in Government, imploring you to vote Labour in order to get better buses for Britain. She talks about ‘the country’ and ‘Britain’ but, as usual, fails to mention the name of the country whose future bus policy she’s actually outlining. The taking back control of local bus services applies to England. There are now 8,000 fewer bus services registered with England’s bus regulator than there were in 2010, according to the Labour Party’s own research, but she tells us that since 2010 it is Britain that has lost nearly 8,000 bus services.

In her speech to Labour conference, she stood in front of Union Flags and outlined a mix of UK, Great British and England-only policy while referring only to Britain or ‘our country’. She is the quintessential Anglo-centric British nationalist. She speaks to the whole of Britain and her vision is British, even when the policy levers to achieve the change she seeks are England-only, an England she leaves unmentioned.

Can you imagine the minister responsible for potholes and buses in Scotland talking about Britain rather than Scotland? Can you imagine the minister responsible for those matters in Wales refusing to use the word ‘Wales’ and referring only to ‘the country’? No, of course not. Why do we in England have to put up with politicians that won’t say England?