NationStates Jolt Archive

BACKGROUND

http://www.nationstates.net/images/flags/uploads/soviet_lancashire__0.png

LINKS

Government (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14662204&postcount=2)
Population (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14662219&postcount=3)
Geography (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14662231&postcount=4)
Economy (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14662235&postcount=5)
Key Citizens (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14662238&postcount=6)
Settlements (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14662246&postcount=7)
Defence (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14662248&postcount=8)


Other threads:
[url=http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=588643]The Dove over the Hammer (]Sports and Culture[/url)
The UK collapses and Soviet Lancashire is just one of its successors...

All W.I.P.

GOVERNMENT

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Chivtv/NS1/lancashire_county_coa_n278.jpg

Head of Government: Chairman of the Central Committee of the All-Lancashire Commune of the Workers' Republic, comrade Ian Melling
Consul to the New British Commonwealth: Comrade Consul Rebecca Evans
Motto: In Concilio Consilium (in council is wisdom)
Capital: Lancaster (legislative), Preston (administrative)
Holiday: Lancashire Day, 27th November; Revolutionaries Day, 2nd April
Anthem: Hymn of the Workers' Republic, set to the same music as the National Anthem of the Soviet Union

Lyrics:
United forever in friendship and labour,
Our mighty republic will ever endure.
The Workers' Republic will live through the ages.
The dream of a people their fortress secure!

(chorus-)
Long live red Lancashire, built by the people's hand.
Long live our People, united and free.
Strong in our friendship long may our rose inspire
Blossoming in glory for all men to see!

Through tempests the sun rays to freedom have cheered us
Along the just path where the People did lead!
To a righteous cause we did rise up as comrades
Inspired by our friendship to valorous deeds!

(chorus)

We fought for the future, destroyed the corruptor,
And brought to our homeland the Laurels of Fame.
Our glory will live in the memory of nations,
And all generations will honour our name!

(chorus)

POPULATION
Population: Six million
Largest City: Manchester, 458,100 city, 2,240,230 urban
Other Key Cities: Liverpool, Blackpool, Bolton, Wigan, St.Helen's, Southport, Warrington, Oldham, Rochdale, Blackburn, Bury, Burnley, Barrow in Furness

GEOGRAPHY
Highest Point: Coniston Old Man, Lake District, 803 metres (2,634ft)
Natural Resources: Natural gas, aggregate minerals such as sand and limestone, iron, copper, lead, agricultural land
Geography Notes: The gravitational centre of Great Britain may be found at Whitendale Hanging Stones, north of the village of Dunsop Bridge, in Soviet Lancashire's Ribble Valley Commune

ECONOMY
Industries: Ship and submarine building, aircraft, defence equipment, transport equipment, textiles, paper products, natural gas, mining, brewing, fishing, food processing, tourism
Agricultural Products: Potatoes, other vegetables, oilseed rape, sheep and cattle and related products, chickens and pigs and related products, fish

KEY CITIZENS

Ian Melling
Elected Chairman of the Central Committee of the All-Lancashire Commune of the Workers' Republic during the first revolutionary days of what Lancastrians remember as The British Spring (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=588643), Comrade Melling serves as Soviet Lancashire's head-of-government. Melling was born in 1967 in the former industrial town of Preston, and, notably, still speaks with a broad accent that he does not attempt to moderate, even in diplomatic settings.

Rebecca Evans
Elected Consul to the New British Commonwealth, comrade Rebecca Evans hails from Clitheroe, where she was born in 1977.

MAJOR SETTLEMENTS

Preston

Preston was chosen as the WRSL's administrative capital in part to avert bitterness between the two largest cities, Manchester and Liverpool, should one of these perhaps more obvious contenders have been selected ahead of the other. Preston is almost equidistant to the two largest cities in the new nation, being 27 miles northwest of Manchester and 26 miles northeast of Liverpool. Additionally, the city had served as the administrative capital of the much reduced county of Lancashire prior to the revolution, and was as such relatively well prepared for its expanded role.

Preston is the birthplace of Chairman Melling, but boasts a host of other famous children, including Sir Richard Arkwright, who invented the water-frame and kick-started the textile industry during the Industrial Revolution, as well as many famous sportsmen, from retired footballers such as Sir Tom Finney and Mark Lawrenson to former England cricket captain Andrew 'Freddy' Flintoff.

Thanks to Arkwright's invention and existing status as a market town, Preston became an industrial boom town at the heart of the textile industry in Britain, and was the first town outside London to be illuminated with gas lighting. In keeping with its sporting traditions, Preston is home to the National Football Museum, based at Preston North End F.C.'s Deepdale stadium, which is said to be the oldest venue for league football anywhere in the world. North End won the first ever football league, in 1888-89, and also lifted the FA Cup that year, becoming the first winners of 'The Double' in a season that earned them the nickname The Invincibles for a record that saw them undefeated, and raising the FA Cup without conceeding a single goal in the competition.

The city's population stands at 132,000, while the wider urban population is 365,000. Of this population, 82% are white British, almost 12% South Asian, and the remainder other-white, black British, mixed race, and East Asian. Though one of England's most Catholic cities, Preston is home to the oldest continuous branch of the Mormon Church, following the Church's first ever foreign mission, in 1837, and some 8.2% of the city's population are Muslim.

The Soviet capital has inherited in and around Preston massive defence and aerospace capacities in the nationalised former BAE Systems facilities there, as well as other -sometimes related- firms and factories. Eurofighter Typhoon, Hawk and Goshawk, and Nimrod aircraft are manufactured or assembled in and near Preston.
Preston bus station is the largest in Britain, and the Preston by-pass was the UK's first stretch of motorway when it opened in 1958. The city is also a regional rail hub and a major stop on the West Coast Main Line.
The largest educational institution in the city is the University of Central Lancashire, which had over 33,000 students prior to the revolution and is now seen by the Soviet government as a possible source of foreign currency due to its ability to attract fee-paying students from far afield.

There stands in Preston a large monument to a bloody act of repression in 1842, when cotton workers demonstrating against poor conditions were read the Riot Act and corralled in front of the Corn Exchange before troops opened fire, killing four people. Karl Marx visited Preston in the 1850s and called it, "the next St.Petersburg", and Charles Dickens visited in 1854, during a cotton-workers' strike, and based Coketown upon Preston for his novel Hard Times.

DEFENCE

Organisation

The professional defence forces of the WRSL are known as the National Guard, which is divided into ground, aerial, and maritime forces. Supporting the full-time formations are the Patriots' Brigades, irregular auxiliary militias drawn from Worker Soviets and student bodies and given limited training and second-hand armaments.

Strength

Manpower availability in Soviet Lancashire is estimated at 1.2 million able males aged between 15 and 50, and 1.15 million females in the same range.

The National Guard enrolls 20,000 personnel, distributed as follows:
The National Guard's Ground Forces Branch has a manpower of 12,000.
The National Guard's Naval Forces Branch has a manpower of 3,500.
The National Guard's Air Forces Branch has a manpower of 4,500.

All able citizens are obliged to enroll in the Patriots' Brigades, meaning that their theoretical strength is an impressive 2.35 million. In practice, there are insufficient armaments and even uniforms for all citizens on the Brigades' register, and it is those with past military or other useful experience who are called upon first to take part in basic training on weekends, followed by males between 18 and 40 years of age, then women between 18 and 30. As such, the strength of the Patriots' Brigades, while steady at 2.35 million on paper, in practice fluctuates according to availability of resources and other factors, and is far below official levels.

The NGNFB incorporates the Soviet Marines Commando Battalion, with a strength of 700 personnel.

Equipment

Some military and police equipment was inherited from the United Kingdom and is as such highly modern and effective in the trained hands of National Guards.

Having nationalised the region's impressive military-industrial facilities, Soviet Lancashire is in the enviable position of being able to produce a range of advanced aircraft including Hawk lead-in flight trainers and light attackers especially useful to such a small nation, and major components of the hugely more devastating Eurofighter Typhoon. In addition, the Workers' Republic is home to the shipbuilders that builds Britain's nuclear submarines as well as destroyers, aircraft carriers, amphibious warfare platforms, and auxiliary vessels.

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