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Green Party's first leader takes aim at Westminster

Sept. 5, 1885: Pay at the Pump

1885: Sylvanus F. Bowser delivers the first gasoline pump. It improves safety, but can't guarantee low prices. The automobile was yet to be invented, and gasoline was a byproduct of refining kerosene for stoves and lamps. Some of that equipment could use gasoline, but it wasn't much in demand. You bought fuel in a general, hardware or grocery store. You had to bring your own gallon (or whatever) can, and the storekeeper would ladle the flammable fluid from a barrel. Wasteful. Messy. Dangerous. To reduce spillage, Bowser built a pump in his Fort Wayne, Indiana, barn. He sold and delivered the first one to Fort Wayne merchant Jake Gumper 123 years ago today. The self-contained unit included a wooden storage barrel, marble valves, a wooden plunger, a hand lever and an upright faucet lever. It was a success. Bowser formed the S.F. Bowser Company and patented his pump in 1887. The Bowser pump soon became known as a "filling station," and Bowser started selling an improved model to the first automobile-repair garages in 1893. Most places that sold fuel to motorists used the "drum and measure" method. Gasoline was gravity-fed from a large steel drum into a five-gallon measuring can. The motorist then carried the can over to his automobile and poured the fuel into the car's tank through a funnel that was lined with a chamois filter to remove grit and impurities. A big bother all around, and not awfully safe, either. Bowser came up with a big improvement in 1905: He enclosed a square, metal tank in a wooden cabinet equipped with a forced-suction pump. A hand-stroke lever pumped the gas. This pump featured air vents for safety, stops that you could set to deliver a predetermined quantity and -- wonder of wonders -- a hose to dispense the gasoline directly into the vehicle's fuel tank. He called it the Bowser Self-Measuring Gasoline Storage Pump. (Rival John J. Tokheim of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, had fitted a pump with a direct-delivery hose in 1903.) The word bowser soon became a generic term for a vertical gasoline pump. That usage has dropped away in the United States, but lingers in Australia, New Zealand and, to a lesser extent, Canada. A bowser is also a tank truck that delivers fuel to airplanes on the tarmac, and in Britain the term applies as well to self-propelled tanks carrying any fluid that is delivered directly to the end user -- for instance, water after a disaster. Bowser's later career was quirky and litigious. He invented and personally marketed a backscratcher and a sit-down enema. He also sold postcards of himself next to the "Stone of Scone," part of the coronation throne on which British monarchs sit while being crowned in Westminster Abbey. Source: Petroleum Collectibles Monthly, others

Tory candidate cleared of racism

A Conservative Westminster candidate, who was suspended amid a probe over racist comments, is reinstated.

Partition in Scotland

From the GuardianI would not lose any sleep if the Scots voted to repeal the 1707 act. Independence need not end the United Kingdom: Scotland and England shared a monarch before 1707, as Britain and Canada do today. Separation need be no more radical than the partial autonomy of a dozen European countries from their neighbours. Borders were not sealed or passports cancelled under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. If eastern Europe can handle partition, so can Britain.The phased withdrawal of the subvention would be traumatic, but it would do Scotland nothing but good to learn that public money does not grow on English trees. If economic history teaches anything, it is that huge inflows of aid rot an economy, while "unearned" wealth, as from oil, is usually wasted. The phased end of the subsidy would be thoroughly good for Scotland, not bad.Partition is the new politics, despite being the hobgoblin of centralism. It is through partition that Ireland is booming, Slovakia reviving and the Baltic states prospering. The British government is in favour of it for everyone else, even forcing it on the former Yugoslavia and Iraq/Kurdistan. This year it welcomed Montenegro to Europe's community. By what hypocrisy do Westminster grandees ridicule Scotland's ambition?Big federal states were fine when governments were small and unobtrusive. Today's governments are elephantine and unresponsive to local sentiment. That is why Spain, France and Italy have all opted for constitutional devolution in the past two decades, fending off separatist pressure. Anti-federalism is why European public opinion revolted against Brussels last year, and why there is no more talk of a Scandinavian union. As for size being crucial to viability, this is corporatist rubbish. If Denmark is viable, why not Scotland?All such considerations must anyway bow before self-determination. If the Scots want to repeal the 1707 act (as some Britons want to repeal the European Union's treaties), the British cannot deny it. The story of the past quarter-century is that states enjoy no legitimacy without the consent of their territorial minorities. Britain went to war for this principle in Kosovo.

'PM terror threat' three remanded

Three men questioned over a threat to assassinate Gordon Brown are remanded in custody by Westminster magistrates.

Tories pick by-election candidate

The Conservatives announce their candidate for the forthcoming Westminster by-election in Fife.

Parliamentary Quilt And 1833 Act Connect Abolition Anniversaries

A quilt made by the public and MPs during last year's Parliamentary Archives exhibition marking the abolition of slavery has gone on display in Westminster Hall.

Row over cash for pension changes

The SNP accuses Westminster of refusing to make money available to implement UK-wide pension changes in Scotland.

Unseen images of London to appear in new exhibition

Suspended on a rope 600 feet above the streets of Westminster a worker lowers himself down to clean one of the four faces of Big Ben.