Governmentitus

Say No To The Big 3

2012-01-24T12:17:00.001Z

Agreed.

From Orphans

DNR

2011-12-06T13:59:00.000Z

It’s been a while and it’s a little tough to know where to start, but I shall dive right in.

Once upon a time Blair glibly remarked that he felt the hand of history on his shoulder whilst ironing out a settlement in Northern Ireland. It’s funny because I have been feeling that hand too lately, but only after it has been riffling through my pockets and stealing my cash. That same hand is currently writing a number of cheques from all of us to the State that ensure the masses will all be very much poorer for a good number of years.

The proportion of state spending going on servicing debt is going to keep going up year on year. We already now spend more on debt payments each year than we do on the NHS, and that is going to keep going up and up. The predictable post-Labour legacy of out of control debt coupled with a broken economy is stinging us at the exact time the Euro-Currency is about to fall down. This perfect storm has been fuelled and funded by reckless borrowing which provided a short term political smoke-screen. Now that smoke is clearing we can all see the extent of the problems and share regret that efforts to rein in spending and halt the bloating of the state had not been more successful.

But you all know this already.

There is however a worrying problem that we seem to have fallen into a near hypnotic trance. We are all sat staring at the Merkozy Bunch waiting for their latest joint conference to see what announcement can falsely prop the markets up for a few more days.

This is surely wrong.

The Euro is on its deathbed. It is a failed currency that has quite probably indebted more people for more money than any other political experiment in history. Yet, for some reason the received wisdom of the Politicians, the economists, the hack-observers and the Federalists is to call for treatment of the disease rather than the patient.

There are no solutions to the “Euro-problem” because the EU is unable to address the absolutely base problems at the core of the currency; that there is no European Demos from which to pool a central tax fund for a central bank to govern the Euro. More to the point, as stated from before the outset, no currency can have 17 different Chancellor-of-the-exchequers.

The Euro needs to be killed off and fast.

It needs to be put down if necessary.

Once the leviathan ailment is gone Europeans need to look at how we got into this boat in the first place. The structures of democracy have been twisted and used against this continent for the benefit of elite for too long. It has all been done in our name and it has all been done with a smile. Without a real change we will be here all over again when the next grand experiment fails.

Whatever Merkozy-Cameron plan evolves over the next week you can be sure of just one thing – that it will do nothing more than make the Euro more expensive financially and more dangerous politically for when it does eventually fail. I repeat, it needs to be killed off now.

Which brings me back to the UK.

I don’t think anybody who has spent much time keeping an eye on the EU problem ever really thought that Cameron would ever offer a referendum on any Treaty. That referendum lock was assumed be made from the same “cast-iron” that the previous referendum pledge was made of.

If (or more likely when) The Coalition needs to it will probably get the new treaty through the Commons and the Tories will lose but a few token rebels. Cameron’s other-half Osborne is after-all a Bilderberger and his trump card William “Eurosceptic” Hague has fully converted to the cause.

But a referendum is possible if enough people are prepared to stand up for one, but more importantly it is WINNABLE. People are waking up in real numbers to how the EU influences their lives. Those who say voting changes nothing are starting to see that is largely because of the Political Class which has organised so well that they have moved control out of a deformed and debased parliament and moved it to the anti-democratic Brussels Arm. People are starting to see with the benefit of a Coalition Government that it is the class as much as the Party.

The Federalists have never been more scared than they are now, and they have absolutely no answers, and they can lie no more about the certainty of success in their credo. They can’t do what they really want to do just yet; but they have managed to install puppet governments in Greece and Italy – It will not end there. If we could force that referendum on the wider question of UK membership the federalists argument would disintegrate, because on a weekly basis the Euro is failing more and more people. In fact, if we had a Prime Minister who had the guts to stand up for the wishes of the electorate and state we’re off out we would probably be ejected rather than have a UK referendum threaten any additional uncertainties whilst they patch up what remains of their beloved currency.

We need the courage to know we can win this and see it off for good. We have right on our side, which is not always enough, but coupled with the conviction we can turn the tables and bring about the massive changes that are needed. We may not control the media agenda or the political agenda but we control this argument because we speak the truth, and always have.

All the lies and the liars are now exposed.

It has been the sceptical voices from across the political spectrum that have been correct on the EU and the Euro all along. The leaders of tomorrow are the few that have been on the correct side of this issue all along. The Federalists of today and yesteryear may disappear without charge for their grossly destructive actions, they definitely will if we let them. Sometimes history shows a movement or an idea can be so massively wrong-headed we look back and it is nearly comical. I want to see all those who have been right so far carry on the good fight by getting themselves in positions of power. We need to rid ourselves of anyone and everyone who is in a position of public office who has taken any steps to ensnare us in the EU pit.

Judicial Ruling - Personal Humour, Not OK

2010-11-12T12:01:00.000Z

From the BBC.

A man who posted a Twitter message threatening to blow up an airport is facing a £3,000 bill after losing an appeal against his conviction.

£3,000? What did he tweet?

The message Chambers sent to his 600 followers in the early hours of 6 January said: "Robin Hood Airport is closed. You've got a week... otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!"

Three grand for that?

At his trial in May, Chambers was fined £385 and ordered to pay a £15 victim surcharge by a district judge.

On Thursday he was also ordered to pay prosecution costs of £2,600.

Fear not.

After the hearing, actor and Twitter fan Stephen Fry tweeted that he would pay Chambers' fine.

He tweeted: "My offer still stands. Whatever they fine you, I'll pay."

I'd threaten to blow them up for you Mr Chambers, but I can't afford the legal bill. Besides, "Side bar please your honour!"

Ermm, Your honour if for example the law for Common Assault requires

"Both in the common law and under statute, the actus reus of a common assault is committed when one person causes another to apprehend or fear that force is about to be used to cause some degree of personal contact and possible injury. There must be some quality of reasonableness to the apprehension on the part of the victim. If the physical contact is everyday social behaviour such as a handshake or friendly pat on the back, this is acceptable even though the victim may have a phobia although, if the defendant is aware of the psychological difficulty, this may be converted into an assault if the intention is to exploit the condition and embarrass the victim."

So, M'lud could you confirm for us please; I can spit a threatening promise to maybe kick someone in the nuts next week, but I can't make an obvious joke on twitter?... Actually don't answer that M'lud, I rather stupidly forgot for a moment we were living in the UK.

Friday Flashback

2010-11-12T08:45:00.001Z

Foundation X

2010-11-11T20:37:00.000Z

The below test is copy and pasted directly from Hansard, though I hat tip Infowars, who in turn hat tipped Charlie's Diary

The question to keep in mind as you read on is, did someone just try to but the British Government, or, should we make Peer's take a drink and drugs test before speaking in the chamber? You decide.

--

Lord James of Blackheath: My Lords, I do not know what you have done to deserve me this late in the evening but I am afraid that is where it is. It has been a fascinating day. I particularly enjoyed the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, on the subject of "Brigadoon", which was the first play I ever saw in the West End. I do not think she delivered the punchline. The whole point about "Brigadoon" was that it came out of the mist for only one day in every 100 years. That is a lovely idea for the Opposition.

We have heard today a great many tales of woe and dismay about the future, and some of optimism from this side. I am concerned about where the common ground is in that. One of the lessons of what is now quite a long life is that nothing is ever quite as bad or quite as good as you expect. It is probable that there will be a little more common ground between us than we might foresee at the moment. We might assist that process because growth will be what brings the two sides together. The more growth we can achieve, the more scope there will be to deal with some of the greater calamities that might occur unforeseen-since everything is unforeseen in politics.

I will talk a little about some of the growth opportunities that we might be able to harness and what we can do. As I have mentioned before, one of my great messages is a lesson from Sir Kenneth Cork, who taught me most of what I know about corporate rescue. It is that you cannot rescue a business that does not have a successful past. Anything that does not have a successful past is a failed start-up. Get rid of it and concentrate on the businesses that have a successful past. Where, today, are the businesses with a successful past? They are languishing in the intensive care units of the banks. They cannot get out because most of them have been the victims of expanding their capacity beyond the demands of the marketplace. That is a very expensive situation to get out of once you are in it. It was done with some dexterity and considerable success in the early 1970s through the initiatives that were forthcoming from three Is: investment in industry. One of the great tragedies of our economy at present is that we do not have three Is functioning in that form today. Boy, do we need them.

I am very much a believer in the principle of the collective collapse of generic groups of businesses as entities. Let me give some examples. At the present moment this year, we have probably lost half a million cars in our British export market. They would have been a very big additional factor to the economy, both in production-the wages that would have gone to the people who built them-and in the export value they would have had. Why? It is because the banks played their usual dirty trick a year or two ago: they saw that there were big markets outside-big back-orders-so they let the businesses have the money that they needed to fund the delivery of the order books that they had. The orders came in; they took the cash, reduced the facilities and the automotive component industry did

1 Nov 2010 : Column 1537

not have the working capital to gear up for the massive turn to the diesel engines, which were demanded, and the British export market could not maintain the export requirement necessary to maintain its position on the international scene.

That has largely been corrected now but a similar problem may well happen. The next big crisis is going to come in the second week of February next year when the huge crisis that comes cyclically every year afflicts the retail sector worse than ever. It is already bereft on the high street-with shuttered shops and redundant staff, and a very dismal sight it is. What happens in the banking industry is that it knows that in the first two weeks of February every year, all the credit cards that have been used to buy goods going into Christmas pay, and the retail industry has the lowest borrowings of the year. The banks lie in wait and they grab them. Remember Woolworths? Who is coming next?

So we need someone who can take a grip on a general strategy to save the retail industry from another calamity. One of the great regrets I have at the moment is that the person who would best be able to do that is Sir Philip Green, and he is doing something else. I hope that the Government will hold on to him, and once he has actually finished his present task, he will be told to go and cherry pick the entire retail industry languishing in the hands of the banks, and put together the next version of British Home Stores as a government subsidiary which needs funding and which can be imposed on the banking industry by grabbing each bit, despite the fact that there will be minority bank interests that will not want to sell out for the benefit of the major bank interest, which will get the cream of the equity conversion. That is what three Is should exist to do, and what it did so brilliantly before, and that is why we need it back now.

Another element of the world out there at the moment which is potentially waiting for the pratfall of a massive collective bankruptcy is the food processing industry. The more the accent is moved from the small corner shop to the big grocers, the more production has been stepped up by the food producers to satisfy the ever-increasing demands of cheap food coming through the grocery chains. Of course, they have fallen into the trap again of funding themselves to too high a capacity for the market demand with the result that the grocers can rub their hands with glee and say, "We can screw the margins down so tight you won't be able to breathe" and the suppliers are going to go collectively "pop" at some point in the next few months, because they will not be able to keep up and there is a big social factor coming. We will have the present dependence on cheap food to keep some sort of society structure fed, but we will actually end up being forced up on prices as the industry goes out of business in terms of its ability to keep supply going and prices are forced up in the grocery chains. This is going to be another calamity coming, and we need to have a top-down view as to what to do with it.

I have given your Lordships three examples of why I think we need something, but the creation of the three Is along the lines that I have been talking about would be of the order of a £5 billion cheque required

1 Nov 2010 : Column 1538

to do it. However, we do not have £5 billion; we do not have half of £5 billion to put in to the creation of this at the moment, so what do we do about it? At this point, I am going to have to make a very big apology to my noble friend Lord Sassoon, because I am about to raise a subject that I should not raise and which is going to be one which I think is now time to put on a higher awareness, and to explain to the House as a whole, as I do not think your Lordships have any knowledge of it. I am sorry my noble friend Lord Strathclyde is not with us at the moment, because this deeply concerns him also.

For the past 20 weeks I have been engaged in a very strange dialogue with the two noble Lords, in the course of which I have been trying to bring to their attention the willing availability of a strange organisation which wishes to make a great deal of money available to assist the recovery of the economy in this country. For want of a better name, I shall call it foundation X. That is not its real name, but it will do for the moment. Foundation X was introduced to me 20 weeks ago last week by an eminent City firm, which is FSA controlled. Its chairman came to me and said, "We have this extraordinary request to assist in a major financial reconstruction. It is megabucks, but we need your help to assist us in understanding whether this business is legitimate". I had the biggest put down of my life from my noble friend Lord Strathclyde when I told him this story. He said, "Why you? You're not important enough to have the answer to a question like that". He is quite right, I am not important enough, but the answer to the next question was, "You haven't got the experience for it". Yes I do. I have had one of the biggest experiences in the laundering of terrorist money and funny money that anyone has had in the City. I have handled billions of pounds of terrorist money.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham: Where did it go to?

Lord James of Blackheath: Not into my pocket. My biggest terrorist client was the IRA and I am pleased to say that I managed to write off more than £1 billion of its money. I have also had extensive connections with north African terrorists, but that was of a far nastier nature, and I do not want to talk about that because it is still a security issue. I hasten to add that it is no good getting the police in, because I shall immediately call the Bank of England as my defence witness, given that it put me in to deal with these problems.

The point is that when I was in the course of doing this strange activity, I had an interesting set of phone numbers and references that I could go to for help when I needed it. So people in the City have known that if they want to check out anything that looks at all odd, they can come to me and I can press a few phone numbers to obtain a reference. The City firm came to me and asked whether I could get a reference and a clearance on foundation X. For 20 weeks, I have been endeavouring to do that. I have come to the absolute conclusion that foundation X is completely genuine and sincere and that it directly wishes to make the United Kingdom one of the principal points that it will use to disseminate its extraordinarily great wealth into the world at this present moment, as part of an attempt to seek the recovery of the global economy.

1 Nov 2010 : Column 1539

I made the phone call to my noble friend Lord Strathclyde on a Sunday afternoon-I think he was sitting on his lawn, poor man-and he did the quickest ball pass that I have ever witnessed. If England can do anything like it at Twickenham on Saturday, we will have a chance against the All Blacks. The next think I knew, I had my noble friend Lord Sassoon on the phone. From the outset, he took the proper defensive attitude of total scepticism, and said, "This cannot possibly be right". During the following weeks, my noble friend said, "Go and talk to the Bank of England". So I phoned the governor and asked whether he could check this out for me. After about three days, he came back and said, "You can get lost. I'm not touching this with a bargepole; it is far too difficult. Take it back to the Treasury". So I did. Within another day, my noble friend Lord Sassoon had come back and said, "This is rubbish. It can't possibly be right". I said, "I am going to work more on it". Then I brought one of the senior executives from foundation X to meet my noble friend Lord Strathclyde. I have to say that, as first dates go, it was not a great success. Neither of them ended up by inviting the other out for a coffee or drink at the end of the evening, and they did not exchange telephone numbers in order to follow up the meeting.

I found myself between a rock and a hard place that were totally paranoid about each other, because the foundation X people have an amazing obsession with their own security. They expect to be contacted only by someone equal to head of state status or someone with an international security rating equal to the top six people in the world. This is a strange situation. My noble friends Lord Sassoon and Lord Strathclyde both came up with what should have been an absolute killer argument as to why this could not be true and that we should forget it. My noble friend Lord Sassoon's argument was that these people claimed to have evidence that last year they had lodged £5 billion with British banks. They gave transfer dates and the details of these transfers. As my noble friend Lord Sassoon, said, if that were true it would stick out like a sore thumb. You could not have £5 billion popping out of a bank account without it disrupting the balance sheet completely. But I remember that at about the same time as those transfers were being made the noble Lord, Lord Myners, was indulging in his game of rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic of the British banking community. If he had three banks at that time, which had had, say, a deficiency of £1.5 million each, then you would pretty well have absorbed the entire £5 billion, and you would not have had the sore thumb stick out at that time; you would have taken £1.5 billion into each of three banks and you would have absorbed the lot. That would be a logical explanation-I do not know.

My noble friend Lord Strathclyde came up with a very different argument. He said that this cannot be right because these people said at the meeting with him that they were still effectively on the gold standard from back in the 1920s and that their entire currency holdings throughout the world, which were very large, were backed by bullion. My noble friend Lord Strathclyde came back and said to me that he had an analyst working on it and that this had to be stuff and nonsense. He said that they had come up with a figure

1 Nov 2010 : Column 1540

for the amount of bullion that would be needed to cover their currency reserves, as claimed, which would be more than the entire value of bullion that had ever been mined in the history of the world. I am sorry but my noble friend Lord Strathclyde is wrong; his analysts are wrong. He had tapped into the sources that are available and there is only one definitive source for the amount of bullion that has ever been taken from the earth's crust. That was a National Geographic magazine article 12 years ago. Whatever figure it was that was quoted was then quoted again on six other sites on the internet-on Google. Everyone is quoting one original source; there is no other confirming authority. But if you tap into the Vatican accounts-of the Vatican bank-you come up with a claim of total bullion-

Lord De Mauley: The noble Lord is into his fifteenth minute. I wonder whether he can draw his remarks to a conclusion.

Lord James of Blackheath: The total value of the Vatican bank reserves would claim to be more than the entire value of gold ever mined in the history of the world. My point on all of this is that we have not proven any of this. Foundation X is saying at this moment that it is prepared to put up the entire £5 billion for the funding of the three Is recreation; the British Government can have the entire independent management and control of it-foundation X does not want anything to do with it; there will be no interest charged; and, by the way, if the British Government would like it as well, if it will help, it will be prepared to put up money for funding hospitals, schools, the building of Crossrail immediately with £17 billion transfer by Christmas, if requested, and all these other things. These things can be done, if wished, but a senior member of the Government has to accept the invitation to a phone call to the chairman of foundation X-and then we can get into business. This is too big an issue. I am just an ageing, obsessive old Peer and I am easily dispensable, but getting to the truth is not. We need to know what really is happening here. We must find out the truth of this situation.

Dan Bull On Student Protestors

2010-11-11T19:01:00.003Z

Another gem from Dan.

You Get What You Vote For

2010-11-11T12:57:00.001Z

Bra-bloody-vo.

And the 25 who are campaigning for votes for wing of The Westminster Party that advocates integration into the EU Super State, (just slightly slower than that other two, but with twice as much denial and drama) are:

•Steve Baker
•Brian Binley
•Peter Bone
•Andrew Bridgen
•Douglas Carswell
•Bill Cash
•Chris Chope
•James Clappison
•Philip Davies
•David Davis
•Richard Drax
•James Gray
•Gordon Henderson
•Philip Hollobone
•Julian Lewis
•Jason McCartney
•David Nuttall
•Andrew Percy
•Dominic Raab
•Mark Reckless
•John Redwood
•Richard Shepherd
•Sir Peter Tapsell
•Andrew Turner
•Martin Vickers

Not While I Still Have Breath In My Lungs

2010-11-10T13:44:00.001Z

I was alerted, as others have been to this by Ian, whose reaction is the same as mine having read Van Rompuy's latest call to arms in their plans to build Europa.

Here is the speech in full:

---

P R E S S
FOR FURTHER DETAILS:
Dirk De Backer - Spokesperson of the President - +32 (0)2 281 9768 - +32 (0)497 59 99 19
Jesús Carmona - Deputy Spokesperson of the President +32 (0)2 281 9548 / 6319 - +32 (0)475 65 32 15
e-mail: press.president@consilium.europa.eu - internet: www.consilium.europa.eu/vanrompuy

EN

EUROPEAN COUNCIL
THE PRESIDENT
Berlin, 9 November 2010
PCE 256/10

"A Curtain went up - Ein Vorhang ging auf "
President Herman Van Rompuy
pronounces the first Berliner Europa-Rede
Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung - Stiftung Zukunft Berlin - Robert-Bosch-Stiftung
Pergamon Museum

- DE -

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is an honour to be addressing you at this place and time.

Above all because I am the first politician you have invited to give the annual "Europe Address".

And then because it is my privilege to do so in the Pergamon Museum, and on 9 November.

This place and that date are linked to so much history! There is a sense of powerful and ancient forces driving us in two directions

The Gods of Olympus before and behind us, 2300 years old, take us to Greek civilization and Pergamon with its temples, fountains, libraries and theatres. For someone who was schooled in the Classics, to be standing here is a proud moment indeed!

What is more, today is 9 November, a day of such exceptional significance in 20th-century German history. With its times of darkness but also of course with the joy of the fall of the Berlin Wall, so close to where we stand.

The "Wall of Shame", the very antithesis of the legacy of Greece: democracy.

At school I learned of Pericles' famous formulation of democracy in which "the affairs of State are not the privilege of the few but the right of the many".

That too is why I cannot remain unmoved by today's date.

EN

A well-known German philosopher, Peter Sloterdijk, said thirteen years ago - and I quote:

"Were it possible for nations as a whole to suffer nervous breakdowns - in the case of Germany the only date on which that could occur would be 9 November. With a regularity which resembles a nervous tick, since 1918 for nearly a century this is the date on which the Germans have assembled to answer to history, for both good and evil."

What a series of events.

1918: the end of the First World War.
1938: the Kristallnacht, the start of a nightmare.
1989: the end of the Cold War, the commencement of a reunited Germany.

For me, 9 November is perhaps the most important turning point, not just in the history of Germany but also in Europe's most recent history. It has made Berlin a European city.

(I hope you will forgive me if I now continue my address in English.)

EN -

The Fall of the Berlin Wall, 21 years ago.

Some of you were there, on one or the other side.

Some of you even not yet born.

I myself was then chairman of my party. I remember a few months after the fall of the Berlin Wall that we, with the Christian Democrat prime ministers of Italy and the Benelux countries, met in Salzburg with Chancellor Kohl to speak about German reunification. I felt in that very small group, up in the mountains, that history was present.

Before 1989, I had not seen this side of the Wall first hand.

When I was about fifteen or sixteen years old, a teacher recommended me to read Karl Marx. At our Catholic school this could be seen as strange advice, but the teacher said: “You will not become a Marxist anyway!” He was right... For me, communism was a denial of European values. So when I arrived at the University – shortly before May ’68 – I was already immune to all Marxist and other ‘revolutionary’ movements. Ever since, my anticommunist convictions have remained strong.

That’s why the events of 9 November marked for me, like for all of us, the end of an era of destructive ideologies. This story is often told, and must continue to be told.

However, the fall of Wall not only marked an end (to communism), it also was a new beginning. And that's why we are here tonight.

The fall of the Berlin Wall created a movement in and for Europe.

Our divided, frozen continent was set in motion, a desire for freedom gripped millions of people. It first hit everyone on the Eastern side of the Iron Curtain; the Curtain, which, according to Churchill, would run "from Stettin to Trieste”. They could shake off the tyranny and discover the great wind of liberty. However, people on the West side were also touched. So the "wind of change" not only blew "from Stettin to Trieste" but also from Cork to Capri, and from Stockholm to Sevilla.

1 Peter Sloterdijk, 'Der starke Grund, zusammen zu sein', Die Zeit, 2 Jan. 2008.

Before 1989, the European Community mostly stood for economic integration -- the internal market on its way, Schengen "noch in den Kinderschuhen" -- but now new impulses were given to our common adventure.

Through the 9th of November, the European Union became what it is now, and from this event we must also understand how to act today.

Before 1989, all Europe was, figuratively, behind a curtain!

The world map only contained East and West in our minds.

There was no role for Europe itself on the Cold War's conceptual globe.

Only when the Curtain went up in 1989, did old Europe come from the wings and enter onto the world stage, aus den Kulissen auf das Podium. Step by step.

• Filling its own space.
• Strengthening its internal bonds.
• Finding its own voice.

These are the three European themes which I should like to illustrate tonight: our space, our strength, our voice.

II.

The day after the Wall came down, Willy Brandt spoke the famous words: 'Jetzt wächst zusammen, was zusammengehört.'

Although he spoke about Germany, it is true of Europe too.

We also 'grew' together.

There was no plan, but it wasn’t an accident of history either.

The movement came from the people, grass roots up -- beginning with stirrings of freedom in Poland, in Hungary, in Czechoslovakia.

What started as a flight from tyranny, evolved into the freedom of movement. Salesmen and students, traders and tourists, men and women from East and West: all started to seize opportunities across borders, as soon as the Wall came down. Today, after the entry of ten Central and Eastern European states into the EU these flows of freedom have been secured. It is more than an element of an economic Union. A space of freedom and rule of law, for restless travellers and sedentary citizens alike: it is a sign of civilization.

Enlargement is not just a bureaucratic process from Brussels, it is about getting to terms with the events since 1989. In opening itself to new Members, the Union has maybe not done the ‘zusammenwachsen’, but it has done something as essential: sealing the fact that we Europeans ‘gehören zusammen’.

That we are one Union.

This chapter of the Union's history is not complete yet.

In the first ten months of my mandate, I have visited seven countries of the Western Balkans, in order to confirm their European perspective.

Their desire to join our club follows a time of barbarism and violence, which all of us had thought to be impossible in Europe after 1945.

This should encourage us even further to welcome them.

Why?

Because almost all who are now part of Europe have experienced great upheavals within living memory.

It is true for Germany, France and the other founders after the destruction of the Second World War.

It is true for Greece, Spain and Portugal after the end of their dictatorships.

It is true for the former communist countries which joined us after the Wall came down.

In every enlargement, the Union has absorbed the shocks.

As an anchor of stability.

As a haven of prosperity and freedom.

As a guarantee of peace.

The entry of the Western-Balkans into the Union will seal an end to the last civil war in long history of Europe -- no more, no less.

So to those who say that war is so far away in our past that peace cannot be a key issue in Europe anymore, that it does not appeal to the younger generations, I answer: just go out there and ask the people there! And ask the young ones too!

Achieving this goal will require political courage, on both sides. The idea of accession is not popular in all the current Member States. Of course candidate Members have to fulfil all the conditions and have to break completely with their past of civil wars.

Pro-European governments and parties should not lose enthusiasm.

Citizens who strive for peace and reconciliation, should not lose hope.

The countries of the region deserve our help to fulfil their European destiny.

Why do these accession movements also lift the Curtain from Europe as a whole?

Just consider the two different meanings of 'Europe': on the one hand our beautiful continent, our rich culture, on the other hand the political object called EU.

The geographical and cultural Europe, versus the political 'E-U-rope'.

And now see what happens over time.

When back in the 1950s only six countries grouped together and called themselves 'Europe', this was maybe a bit pretentious, or rather: an allusion to the future. However, this original promise is now coming true!

Thanks to the successive enlargements, the European Union grows into the political expression of our continent.

After 1989, we start to resemble ourselves, our clothes finally fit us.

When we speak about Europe as the continent of values, then today it is true not for just a small part of Europe, not for the half of Europe, no, today it is true for the continent as a whole!

It gives us credibility.

All our countries have to deal with a new diversity. The time of the homogenous nation-state is over. Each European country has to be open for different cultures. However, we only have one civilization: of democracy, of individual rights, of the rule of law.

Alongside diversity -- and diversity is certainly a strength of our societies --, we still need, in each of our societies, a sense of unity, of belonging together. This sense of unity can lie in shared values; or in a language, a shared history, a will to live together (as Ernest Renan said). And this will springs above all from the stories which we tell each other.

Think of the ancient Greeks: the stories of Homer created bonds throughout the centuries. They have us spell-bound tonight. It can be stories of war and peace, of Olympic exploits or saint-like sacrifice, of a Prison stormed or a Wall which came down.

Such stories do what a treatise on ‘values’ cannot achieve: they embody ‘virtues’ in an understandable way, virtues shown by men and women in real situations. Courage, respect, responsibility, tolerance, a sense of the common good.

To keep such European virtues alive, to transmit their age-old qualities to our children and grandchildren, that will be one of the great challenges for the future.

We have to be a Union of values but also a Union of civic virtues, 'eine Wertegemeinschaft genauso wie eine Union der Zivilcourage'.

III.

I should like to come to the second theme of our European story as it started when that Curtain went up.

I am talking about the euro: the great bringer of unity and stability.

Just imagine the big recession of 2008-2009 with the old currencies. It would have resulted in a currency turmoil and the end of the single market! A currency war always ends in protectionism. This spring, at the height of the public debt crisis, you said, Frau Bundeskanzlerin: ‘Scheitert der Euro, dann scheitert Europa.’ If the euro fails, then Europe will fail.

These words marked people's minds.

You thus highlighted the wisdom behind the creation of single currency. This insight was: when we make a currency, we are building Europe.

After the Wall came down, in a moment of potential conflict between the new Germany and her partners, the statesmen of 1989 – Helmut Kohl, François Mitterrand, Jacques Delors and the others –, they seized the anchor of Europe and accelerated the plans for a single currency. It was the great achievement of the Maastricht Treaty.

Ever since, the fate of Europe and the euro have been intertwined.

The euro is the most visible and the most palpable sign of our common destiny. It is also our most powerful tool.

Sharing a currency means that the decisions of one, affect all.

We have seen how! This spring, the crisis of a country of 10 million people became the crisis of 350 million people; early May, it even turned into a global threat.

What happens with pensions or debt in one country, affects the banks and taxpayers in another country. In good times and in bad times. What hurts Athens damages Amsterdam; and if Barcelona flourishes, Berlin prospers. The national and the European interest can no longer be separated; they coincide.

Until one year ago, all this was just knowledge – theoretical.

In the spring crisis, it became an experience – unforgettable.

Today, we have to act upon the fact – responsibly.

That’s why two weeks ago the European Council took important decisions: we sealed a solid pact to strengthen the euro.

Our decisions -- and I am thinking in particular about the recommendations of my Task Force on economic governance -- make sure that every Member State feels and understands that its decisions affect all the others and the Union as a whole. One cannot maintain a monetary unity without an economic union.

I am very satisfied that the European Council of 29 October endorsed the end result of the Task Force. It is a huge leap forward.

Let me mention the three crucial points.

First of all: We will better observe the economies of our countries, their competitiveness, the risks of housing bubbles and other vulnerabilities. We will act and correct if necessary.

It is a real innovation!

If we had had this instrument in the euro's first decade, a crisis in the Eurozone could well have been prevented.

Second point: we will strengthen the Stability and Growth Pact, to substantially increase fiscal responsibility and penalise irresponsibility. Sanctions will kick in earlier, on more grounds, and be decided more easily. Some people are disappointed there is not more "automaticity" in the decisionmaking.

Well, thanks to the new so-called reversed majority, more "automaticity" is exactly what
we propose!

It is a break-through.

Third point: we will establish ‘a permanent crisis mechanism to safeguard the financial stability of the euro area as a whole’. As President of the European Council, I will undertake consultations with the Heads of State and Government and the Commission President on the limited treaty change required to achieve this goal. We all want a robust and credible system to be in place in 2013.

It is our duty.

Taken together, these proposals are the biggest reform of the Economic and Monetary Union since the euro was created. They will make our economies more crisis-proof. We will thus complete the edifice started in 1989. Not by moving into an imaginary new castle, but by strengthening our foundations.

In the true spirit of the Lisbon Treaty, all institutions and Member States have worked together to achieve this. It was an excellent example of what the Chancellor last week in Bruges baptised the “Unionsmethode”.

Cooperation is the Leitmotif. It has always been my political ‘way of life’. For instance, from the first day of my mandate, I established informal and structural contacts with the Commission, the European Parliament and the rotating Council Presidency. Without cooperation between the institutions and between the Member States and the institutions, the Lisbon Treaty cannot function.

So the euro brings us stability. But we also need progress. If we only stay stable in a moving world, we decline. We also need more structural economic growth.

In most European countries -- which are not growing demographically, on the contrary, especially in Germany -- economic growth is basically the result either of working more or of increasing productivity, the quality of the work. Making better cars, more competitive machines, developing smarter services.

Otherwise we will become a large museum, but not one that you and I would like as much as this one!

Reforms which touch social security or pension systems are basically the work of the Member States. The European Union can set orientations, especially in the Eurozone, but the implementation is ‘decentralized’ (it is the principle of subsidiarity). In normal situations, the Union can observe the situation, give recommendations on fiscal balances and debts to Member States, but it cannot impose concrete measures. But when the policies of one country create risks for the Eurozone as a whole, sanctions can be imposed, even at an early stage.

Within the European Council, economic growth is a ‘Leitmotif’ since the first meeting I chaired in February 2010. Over the next months, I intend to take up in the European Council the twin theme of Innovation and Energy.

These meetings are elements in a long term economic strategy.

In March we will evaluate for the first time – as part of the so-called European semester – the efforts made by all Member States to implement the EU2020 strategy, aimed at growth and jobs. Let’s insist on that: growth and jobs, that is our goal.

People sometimes complain about a lack of political courage these days (presuming that one or two generations ago, this was a quality in abundance!).

I, for one, have really been impressed over the last year by the political courage of our governments. All are taking deeply unpopular measures to reform the economy and their budgets, moreover, at a time of rising populism. Some Heads of Government do this while being confronted with opposition in parliament, with protest in the streets, with strikes on the workplace (or all of this together!) and fully knowing they run a big risk of electoral defeat -- and yet they push ahead.

If this is not political courage, what is?

We will overcome the divergences inside the Eurozone, which were at the root of the eurocrisis. The current differences in economic growth rates are due to the strong economic measures taken by the countries with problems, but all this will be temporary. A few years from now we will show more convergence, not just in policy, but in figures.

And to reassure the German audience: this is about catching up, not slowing down!

The euro is now stronger than a few months ago, precisely because we acted with political determination.

I pay tribute here in Berlin to the exceptional role the German Chancellor and her government have
played since the beginning of the euro crisis.

The Franco-German friendship is for the Eurozone a necessary condition for success, but not a sufficient one. The concerns of all should be taken on board. It is my role to make sure that this happens. And it does.

In my view the limited Treaty amendment all Heads of State and Government agreed upon ten days ago is essential, but it should not reopen the entire ‘internal debate’ on the nature, the goal and the architecture of the Union: we have more pressing matters at hand.

For the same reason, I do not think that redesigning the way the EU get its revenue is a top priority.

The current system reflects as a rule the Member States’ capacity to pay. Contributions are based on the Gross National Income and thus seen as fair. Some have suggested to replace this with a direct EU tax, for instance on financial transactions or on carbon. It is argued that such real 'own resources' would make the Brussels institutions 'more responsible'. I am personally open to new ideas, but since most alternative sources of income would risk to hit Member States unequally, this would weaken the fairness of the current system, its built-in solidarity. So let's be prudent, but let's discuss it.

The more important question is how we spend European money. We must focus on areas where European expenditure, by avoiding duplication or by economies of scale, adds value for the taxpayers.

IV.

This finally brings me to the third theme of our story, as it started in this city 21 years ago.

As I said, since that day of joy, the Curtain went up over Europe as a whole:

• We have been bringing into our club the rest of our continent (thanks to the enlargements);
• We have been increasing our internal strength (thanks above all to the euro)
• And, thirdly now, we have improved the reach of our voice on the world stage.

Here again, 1989 has been a turning point. The changes in the world forced us to assume a growing responsibility for our own security. After the Cold War, we came out of our Winterschlaf.

Not just advocating common principles, but also defining and defending our common interests.

To those who speak with complacency or masochism of a “decline of Europe on the world stage”, I just ask: where was Europe on this stage before 1989?

And it is not just WE who have changed since that moment. Look at the world today!

It is no longer divided in West and East, with the Third World in a corner and us in the wings. No, those old categories have disappeared.

The impressive economic and political shifts which we call 'globalisation' have not only lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, in so doing they have also drawn a new map. Thus the Third World has almost shrunk to a large part of Africa, whereas the largest part of Asia, with China and India, shows new self-confidence, and so does South-America.

THIS is the global stage on which Europe has to act.

In this new world, which may offer us many surprises, we have to get and occupy our place. The Heads of State and Government have a seminal role to play: together defining the Union's strategic interests, deciding priorities, setting our common direction.

Let me briefly sketch some developments.

First development: power and influence in the world are more and more a matter of economy, and less of weapons. Recent regional conflicts like in Iraq and Afghanistan have clearly demonstrated the limits of military intervention. Emerging powers are also learning the lesson that they cannot rely on their growing military muscle without the risk of isolating themselves. Moreover, with the world economy growing at a pace of about 4 percent, pressure will increase on the prices of energy, of food, of raw materials. Access to these basic products will be key in the coming decades. As a Union we have to defend our interests in this changing world.

Second, for this globalising world we need a stronger global governance. That’s why we need the G20 to take a more political lead as well. Two big reforms are stuck: the so-called Doha Round for further free trade in the world, and the follow-up of the Climate conference of Copenhagen. Fortunately, last month the Ministers of Finance have reached an agreement on the reform of the International Monetary Fund. However, the international monetary system as such no longer works smoothly.

Only market-based exchange rates could translateuld translate the ‘fundamentals’ of an economy correctly and ensure fair competition between countries and currency areas. The economic fundamentals, such as low inflation and low deficits, also have to be sound. Without this, the spectre of protectionism will come back. The shift towards more flexible exchange rates and sound fundamentals will take place progressively, but it is a necessity.

That's why this will be a key issue at the G20 summit of Seoul, later this week.

Third, the European Union wants to recognise the political role of the new emerging economies. The Europeans did so by establishing the G20 at the highest level, and by giving up two European seats in the IMF reform. However, we also think that the emerging countries in turn should then feel themselves more responsible for the world economy and be more active in ‘world governance’. I hope they will understand that it is difficult to have simultaneously the rights of an underdeveloped country and of an advanced economy.

In this changing world, the European Union has to adapt itself further. We have to punch our full weight. As we concluded in the European Council of 16 we must build our relations with strategic partners on reciprocity and on mutual benefits. Let’s start where we are strongest: leveraging our economic weight. In the IMF, the countries from the Eurozone should work closely together. One day we should come to a powerful euro seat in the IMF, a seat as strong as our common currency. If we want to count in the world, then each of the 27 Member States and the EU institutions should give the same key messages. Not per se a single voice but a single message, delivered by all 27 countries.

The Lisbon Treaty provides us with the political and diplomatic means to do this.

After having spent the first half of the year in crisis management mode, this autumn the European Council has started to give the strategic guidance. From now on, we will discuss foreign relations in each meeting.

To sum up: the Curtain is up, the public is waiting, and Europe is ready to act.

V.

We have together to fight the danger of a new Euro-scepticism.

This is no longer the monopoly of a few countries.

In every Member State, there are people who believe their country can survive alone in the
globalised world.

It is more than an illusion: it is a lie!

Franklin Roosevelt said: 'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.'

The biggest enemy of Europe today is fear.

Fear leads to egoism, egoism leads to nationalism, and nationalism leads to war (“le nationalisme, c’est la guerre” (F. Mitterrand)). Today’s nationalism is often not a positive feeling of pride of one’s own identity, but a negative feeling of apprehension of the others.

Fear of ‘enemies’ within our borders and beyond our borders. It is a feeling all over Europe, not of a majority, but everywhere present.

Our Union is born out of a will to cooperate, to reconcile and to act in solidarity.

Fear is the source of immobility, of a lack of ambition, or worse, of protectionism, in Europe and globally.

Those who are afraid of the loss of jobs and prosperity will thus create precisely what they wanted to avoid.

- DE -

Nothing was ever built on fear.

The European Founders-- Monnet, Adenauer, Spaak -- were full of ambition, not faint-hearted. The citizens of East Germany thrust aside their fear and in so doing vanquished the terror of communism.

Our Europe stands for an open, not a closed society. But an open society with rules and values, with a project and with a positive identity .

Ultimately, people respect leaders, who bring together and who have a unifying effect. But without hope and vigour, nothing great can be achieved.

We must therefore be men and women of hope.
Hope, founded on achievements in the past,
hope, used for moulding the present,
hope, as a spur to a better future.

The European idea has been the most successful and most generous project in the world since 1945. It has united the whole continent and brought us peace and prosperity. And it has given the 500 million men and women in our Union today a foundation on which they can build a better Europe for tomorrow.

Let us then use our experience, and above all live our hopes!
___________________

What stunning delusions the man has, to allude to European Democracy whilst sounding a call against Euro-scepticism which is of course code for democratic process and checks and balances. It is the same old battle, that "they" always seem to get out ahead of us, do some name calling and label a few people so that the abiding masses can be shuffled along feeling comfortable that their bland "leaders" on telly are protecting them.

Well, Ian said it first:

I was Born English, I will Die English. I will never be an EU ‘citizen’ – I do not consent.

The unelected Van Rompuy, the quiet assassin of nations, has just declared war on the peoples of these Islands and the rest of Europe who will not quietly submit. I WILL fight if necessary to defend my homeland.

Amen. I am with you Ian and all those who are prepared to state the same.

The Conservative method, if we can call it that of trying to take us into the EU at a slower pace, whilst allowing a couple of vocal voices on the fringes must be exposed as just another weapon in EU-philes arsenal. It might be slower than they would like, but it delivers exactly the same results. It is a lie that they will reform from within and only a delusional mad person would believe that anybody other than those with the megalomaniacal desire to drag us into a European subservient state has any "influence" from within.

Today in the Commons, the Conservative led Coalition will, I have absolutely no doubts, sign up to an amendment to the Lisbon Treaty. The Cast Iron pledge of a referendum withdrawn "because it is already law" forgotten despite these changes not yet being law.

For a decade or more there was always the illusional hope that if the Conservatives got back in they would sort out our position in the EU, yet not long after Cameron got in, the real EU-Sceptics not only saw behind the mask; but pointed out that a real EU Sceptic has no need for a mask. Those of us who would put Country before Party were prepared ask questions of the ~~man~~ boy that were supposed to make him uncomfortable - that's the point. The UK has ushered in yet another submissive surrounded by Bilderbergers that will carry on playing the game of selling us out.

We have to draw a line in the sand.

We, non-Conservative Party supporters, NEED the EU Sceptic members and voters drawn to the Conservative Party because of the 5 or 6 EU Sceptic voices that are there.

We will never, ever, ever, ever get a referendum on membership nor the chance to vote into Westminster a Party prepared to withdraw from the EU as long as we accept the position that you can be an EU Sceptic voice in a EU Phile party. Tonight and tomorrow, the few in there will be vocal about the Lisbon Treachery, but they will always ask you to vote for more of their Party.

This means, as I say, a line in the sand. 1st December, Traitors Day. From this point on we must make stronger arguments that you cannot be in the Westminster Party of LIB/LAB/CON and be an EU Sceptic, and we must add to our list of opponents those who will stand up and call for people to vote for them, even if they are, themselves vocally EU Sceptic. You know immediately of the few Conservatives and one or two Labour MPs who are prepared to "break ranks" and "speak out". They are harming the EU Sceptic cause by advocating the continued voting for LIB/LAB/CON which acts and legislates with one voice on all matters EU and they serve as useful mascots come election time that can be given just a little more airtime so as to hold onto EU Sceptic voters.

Sometimes we need to tell our friends the truth and hurt their feelings, because they cannot see the damage they are doing. They maybe and in this case are acting in what they view to be in the best interests of those they wish to serve, and to as they may view it to best serve the cause. But sometimes, we must tell our friends that they are wrong, and that though they might not see it right away, they are actually doing themselves, or their cause a great disservice.

And to Van Rompuy we need to send the message that we are not done here in England. He can hunt us down one by one, but we will never accept that Europe can be united by stealth and undemocratic measures. We must remind those who would look upon us with a critical eye that we do not care that they do, and point out it is the Unelected Federalists in Brussels who act in secret and cannot get their books signed off that are the ones who are forever laterly revealing what they really intended all along.

IF

2010-11-05T20:41:00.000Z

IF there were some kind of revolution...

and IF I had a say on the matter...

This would be song one in our post revolution party

Farage Wins UKIP Leadership Race

2010-11-05T15:48:00.000Z

Since many Journo's are on strike, here is the press release.

UKIP Leadership Announcement

Nigel Farage MEP has been re-elected as Leader of the UK Independence Party.

Mr Farage, 46, was elected by UKIP members with a total vote of 6,085 or 60.5% of the 10,073 votes cast.
The unsuccessful candidates and their voting tallies were:

Tim Congdon 2,037 (20.2%)
David Campbell Bannerman 1,404 (14%)
Winston McKenzie 530 (5.3%)

It is his second term as leader, his first came to an end after he had stood down before the last General Election to fight Speaker John Bercow for his seat of Buckingham.

Here is his acceptance speech in full:

I would firstly like to thank the UKIP electorate once more for putting their faith in me. I would also like to give thanks for being alive, for being here and for having the chance to take on this role again. I really did have the most miraculous escape from that plane crash. I must also give thanks to my family who, once again, will have to pay the price for me doing this job.

I note with delight that today is November 5th, a symbolic day of an attempt to overthrow the political class, although I promise our methods will be peaceful.

Being leader of UKIP is a job I have done before and I led the party in the European Elections of 2009 to second place across the entire United Kingdom. If I was bold before the accident, I'm fearless now.

And this is the time to be fearless; to be strong and decisive and to push for what we believe in. For never have the political classes been more out of touch with public opinion.

Patriotic Old Labour voters have known this for a long time. The Traditional Liberals are also finding it hard to recognise what the Liberal Democrats have become.

But for millions of Tory voters, the last few months have been something of a shock.

For years I was told 'The Tories are playing a very clever game' and 'Just wait until David gets in'.

Well, David is in. And his international policy is simple:

Surrender, Surrender, Surrender.

Patriotic Eurosceptic Tories are beginning to realise that under David Cameron and William Hague their party has ceased to exist. Quite simply, they've given up. Remember the cast-iron pledge of a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty? They turned their back on it and now only UKIP are prepared to put the question to the British people.

In no single area does our national interest come first.

Look at the economy, with cuts made in almost all areas of public life except the EU budget. In December I will lead the UKIP MEPs in voting against not only the 6% rise proposed by the European Parliament but also the 2.9% rise we think is an insult to British tax payers and Mr Cameron thinks is some sort of victory.

And their defence policy reads like the script of a Gilbert and Sullivan farce. Carriers without planes and 50 year treaties with France; troop numbers at risk when we are facing the hardest fighting since the Second World War. Our Armed Forces should be completely at the command of the British government: they take an oath to The Queen as their Commander in Chief not Nicolas Sarkozy. We must take back full control of our defence forces.

As for immigration, well every single assurance the Tory Party has made has proved to be valueless. Now we don't just have an open door to the Bulgarian criminals gangs but a million Moldavians have been given EU passports and a new trade deal with India is being negotiated which proposes not just trade but an open door to the entire Indian work force into the United Kingdom. Every assurance on immigration caps is meaningless. The only people who should decide who comes to live, work and settle in this country should be the British people themselves through their own parliament.

But the acceptance by the coalition of the EU Foreign Policy and the formation of an EU External Action Service under the ludicrous Baroness Ashton is a policy which should make the Tories hang their head in shame. The woman that no one dares to criticise, a woman who has never been elected to anything apart from her successful position as treasurer of CND. Well I dare. Closing British embassies and replacing them with EU ones doesn't give the UK a bigger influence in the world.

And despite receiving millions of pounds from city sources, Mr Cameron has given away total control of the UK's biggest industry to three EU regulators. It is now an irrelevance who forms the British government now if you work in financial services. In all areas of our public life, UKIP is the only party saying let's take back control.

Sadly, there isn't time to mention the £8.7 billion being spent on dubious foreign aid or giving the vote to rapists and murderers; the wasted billions on useless windfarms and the closing down of British industry because of carbon credits.

In 'defending' the national interest, David Cameron has let the country down like a cheap pair of braces.

Britain needs a party that puts British interests first.

UKIP is that party, but it needs to up its game.

I'm appealing to people who believe in the UKIP message that the best people to govern Britain are the British people themselves; not to just agree with us, or lend us their vote at European Elections.

I'm appealing for them to join us, to get involved in this battle against our political classes. When David Cameron talked about the 'Big Society' I had no idea what he was talking about. Well, here's my version of it. Let's create the Big Society of law abiding, tax paying, patriotic people and urge them to join us in this battle against our gutless political classes.

Help us to make UKIP a force to be reckoned with.

Thank you.

EU Vote Pledge

2010-11-01T21:37:00.004Z

It might not come to much, and it definitely won't if people don't take part. But, the fact is, until the LIB/LAB/CON alliance is threatened with electoral disaster they will not act, and they are still not listening. Please take a few seconds to read and sign, and if this and other initiatives can help pile on the pressure then it will be worth it.

The more people that sign and mean it, the better the chance of getting what we want. Please spread the word to any one you know who will pledge.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

If you also want to run this pledge on your blogs ~~or facebook~~, email me and I will send you the code.

The New Last Post

2010-08-31T15:32:00.000+01:00

Hello

Long-time no blog.... For those of you who have left me on their feeds and blogrolls, I just thought I would add one last post as this one concerns the blog.

I have published a sort of "best of" collection of posts which has been possible thanks to Amazon rolling extending their kindle market by opening a UK store. The book is quite literally a collection of posts from over the twenty months this blog was up and running; it will not be to every one's interest but if it is to yours please check it out on Amazon or click on the widget.

eBooks have overtaken their paper equivalents in terms of sales from the Amazon US store and I is my guess that the same is going to happen here and that ebooks are about to take off. This is going to allow independent author a direct and simple route to market, so people like myself can have a crack at putting some work out there.

Personally speaking, since May when I packed the blog in things have been going well. It was a big change to routine to not be posting regularly but despite the urges to get blogging I have found new motivation to pursue other things. The main project is a work of fiction that I am very excited about and I hope to also publish in a few months time when it is completed. I have also been reading a lot which has helped me to refocus a little about where things are going wrong in the UK and I feel this reading will be influential to me if and when I get back to occasional postings elsewhere.

I hope you're all well; I have been looking in around the blogosphere and many of my favourites seems to have had a similar line of thinking and have since the election finished blogging also which is of course a shame, but I am happy to see many other favourites still going strong.

That's All Folks!

2010-05-13T13:53:00.005+01:00

This is not so much a goodbye as it is more an au revoir as this is intended to be the last post here and I am taking a self-imposed blogging break. Governmentitus (fka: Daniel1979 Blog) will no longer be updated.

I got into blogs and blogging when my interest in politics had led me into the habit of reading the papers online and being active in the commenting of those, and from there I found the MSM blogs and in time from there I discovered some of the more well known blogs who sit independent from the major publications. My interest in politics seems to have grown proportionately with my dismay at the way things work in this country. I loathe(d) the Labour Government and I despise the EU even more. The more I look at life and how things don’t work properly the more I have found about Labour and the EU that I don’t like. The Newspaper forums and then the blog comments allowed me an outlet both to vent, but also to mull over my own beliefs and the opportunity to occasionally pontificate.

After a time it was not enough to simply answer the points of others and I became frustrated not just at the points being made, but in the very manner in which it was being put across. I was no longer content in providing my points in response to others and answering their questions I now wanted to put my points across and ask my own questions. So I took my time and gave it some thought and after my wedding in 2008 I went on the internet to see if it was possible to start my own blog, and crikey it was easy! There I was, with a blog, and completely shocked that I had not until then realised that there were literally hundreds, if not thousands who have done the same thing.

It did not take too long before an important realisation dawned, I had come to this blog thing a few years too late to be ground breaking in any way, there were and are already loads and loads of blogs and bloggers out there saying what I am thinking, usually in a more informative and/or entertaining way. It also became immediately apparent that if I actually wanted anyone to read my scribblings, I was very much going to have to be updating the blog regularly to keep people coming back for frequently updated content. When time did not allow me to post for a few days my small readership frequently becomes a lot smaller. Away from the blog I am blessed to have managed to keep my full time job and to have found a loving wife. These two worlds do not sit next to each other easily and I have had to make a few sacrifices, and take a few risks to keep things going.

And so, at the end of 2009 having blogged for a year I took a look back and decided yhen that I cannot warrant the time and effort for me to try to keep this blog running. The truth of the matter is, it is becoming harder and harder to justify to myself that it is OK to spend time writing or researching posts at the cost of not spending time with my beautiful and wonderful wife. It has been a risk pushing out those lunch breaks or sneaking online during the work day for the benefit of the blog. I need my job to pay me money and being with my wife is without question the best thing that ever has or ever will happen to me. At that point I decided that after the General Election would probably be the right time for me to pack things in here, and decided to keep that in mind.

At that point of reflection in late 2009 that I told my wife what I was thinking of doing and she, as always said she would be supportive and encouraging of my decision no matter what I chose to do. However, it was in March when I told her that my mind was made up and that I was going to put this to bed that she turned to me and with a tear in her eye said ‘thank you for doing this, I want my husband back.’ And in that moment I knew I had definitely and unequivocally made the correct decision and that I would not change my mind.

And so, I hope that you too dear reader will also understand.

My readership has been fantastic; you have always supported me and prompted me. I have never had a single problem with trolls or terribly abusive behaviour and it has been a real and delightful pleasure to have put this blog together and to have shared it with the world. But, alas it would seem that only a small pocket of the world has agreed sufficiently or found regular entertainment here. That has always been enough for me and I have found the whole exercise as therapeutic as I have found it rewarding; but it is now time for me to look to other things.

Looking back at what I am proud of, I think I made some good points and some good arguments before other people even considered them. I am proud that I rallied against the Lisbon treaty and have spent at least a part of my life helping people see that the UK is not the free country it claims to be. I am proud that I helped further the EU-Sceptic argument, I am proud that I added my voice to those who denounce the BBC, I am proud that being sceptical of the Global Warming movement is no longer something that cannot be spoken about openly, I am proud that I have made some effort in my life to defend the notion of free speech and I am proud that along the way I have been in touch with, and occasionally met up with other champions of the same spirit.

There was also a moment I shall remember fondly for the rest of my life when my jaw hit the floor after I took a peak at the Total Politics Centre-Right bloggers poll and found that despite my thinking that I would not really figure I was absolutely astonished to find I had made the top 50. I resolved then to try harder and do better for this year, but alas, that will not now be the case now.

So, what now for me?

The blog will remain but and just will not be updated. Looking through the archive I think there were a few good posts that went largely unread except by a small handful of people and just knowing it is still out there on the Internet is preferential to me that for it to disappear and also helps me to rationalise that the time spent writing them was worthwhile. The comment moderation will go on in a few days time.

I will almost certainly return to blogging in the future but it will be on a much reduced basis and elsewhere, probably on the Voice of the Resistance blog, or maybe as a guest elsewhere if I can find a new home. At least there I can just post and then go back to the rest of my day. At the very least I will pop along to my favourite blogs (of which there are many!) and try to be a bit more active in the comments elsewhere.

Away from the heady world of blogging I have an absolute mountain of books crying out to be read which I am going to start to work my way through, and I am going to grow up a little bit on the health side which is perhaps overdue. I am going to take a good long look at how I earn my living because god knows I did not grow up wanting to prepare maintenance renewals on software – though the real problem there was more that I have never known what I want to do with my life. One of my few evolved aims is to get myself published on paper somewhere and somehow. I think that I can finally put to bed the notion that I have some great work of fiction in me, because I have given myself long enough for some of those half decent ideas to ferment in the brain and these have ended up nowhere. I may really test myself and start putting down my own particular views and ideas and see if I can go Print on Demand and publish some thoughts and ideas. On that score, I only need about a dozen devotees to take my ideas seriously enough to know there will be hope for them in the future, even if that time line is a rather drawn out one. Again I suspect the therapeutic benefits of doing this will be the most rewarding aspect.

But mostly seeing as I am the happiest man in the world, I would like to make sure I give more time to ensuring that my wife can be as happy as I can possibly make her.

Politically I really want to see someone fill the new void of British politics, because I not only sense the opportunity but feel a little disenfranchised. If someone comes up with a sensible and decent alternative then I am interested and would want to support those efforts. I said the other day that there is a vacuum and an opportunity and I have already sensed from elsewhere there is talk of the same.

I don’t want to lose touch with the few of you I did make contact with, so please keep hold of my email address like almost everyone else I am on Facebook.

I hope that those of you who have been visitors have found something that you have wanted to here and that those of you who are bloggers go on and continue to fight the good fight. There is much wrong with the UK today and we are marching in the wrong direction; the road map is not a good one.

The blogosphere is still in reality in its embryo phase, there is so much more that will be achieved by blogs and bloggers. One day people will look back and see how crucially important the impending explosion of these blogs will have been in defending and expanding the rights of the people. It can be hard work and it can be lonely, but I bet I am not the only blogger who looks back and knows that on the whole it was worth every minute of it.

Take care everybody and thanks for being a part of this experience with me.

Phrase Of The Week

2010-05-12T10:30:00.002+01:00

From me of all people.

"Conditional Optimism"

That was all.

Changes

2010-05-12T09:01:00.000+01:00

From Dan Bull, the man who brought you the 4th Leaders Debate Rap.

Thanks Dan!

Good Riddance

2010-05-11T19:39:00.000+01:00

Enough

2010-05-11T14:00:00.003+01:00

There has been much ink spilt over this already and I have no desire to rehash the arguments; despite which the events of recent days were why 24 hour rolling news was developed for and my words might be out dated before I smash 'enter'.

Lets me get the key points clear as I see them.

One. Gordon Brown has not resigned. He said he had no desire to stay on any longer than needed. He is still in number 10, I am not rejoicing. Like the horror movies, dead does not actually mean dead once the film rolls on a bit. Until he is actually gone, there is no cause for celebration. Remember this is the man who fell for Blair’s offer of a later resignation only to have Blair go back on it; if Brown can pull off a rainbow coalition with himself at the helm, you can be guaranteed that the come the time he is expected to go he will find some crisis or other in which to justify a u-turn. To be honest though I do not believe any such Rainbow coalition has any legs.

Two. Thankfully some Labour stalwarts actually did care to listen to the electorate and they know that Brown, Mandelson et al are putting themselves above the Labour Party and the electorate in trying to stay on for a bit. The only explicit message the electorate delivered was that Brown had to go.

Three. The Tories put too much on the table and built up the idea of a stable long term option in the minds of the electorate and now they look like they have been done. That was for the Lib Dems to offer. They have demonstrated a degree of naivety that the Lib Dems predictable are attempting to maximise for their own advantage.

Four. If a Queens speech cannot be agreed on or if we go back to the polls again this year the Tories will get their majority. Certainly Labour appear desperate and underhanded, the Lib Dems duplicitous and opportunistic; but more than that, ask any candidate who just lost their deposits and spent a fortune on posters and campaign materials if they want to do it all over again in a few weeks or months and it will soon become clear that there will be lot of areas where there will be much shorter ballot papers.

Elections are like balance sheets and MOT’s, they are a snap shot of a particular moment. If there is another election to follow with uncertainty over who would lead Labour (for which there may not be time this side of an election to get sorted) and with the events of recent days and with a reduced field and a nearly bankrupted Labour Party, there will only be one winner.

So, come on Cameron, this is the time to show your mettle. Call Clegg, remind him he came third and lost seats tell him that time’s up; dare him to try a rainbow coalition – he and Brown can share a Pickford’s van when moving out of their London homes for the journey north. The rainbow coalition will fall short of votes because there are a good few Labour MPs that have and will openly not back it.

Where To Go Now?

2010-05-08T20:35:00.006+01:00

Well it’s all over and done with and we are stuck with a hung Parliament. It seems the only way to break the deadlock is to win the Lib Dems over with a promise to change the voting system to one that will almost always ensure a coalition is needed. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are similar enough that they could probably find enough common ground to govern for a time.

I hope that FPTP can be preserved for the Commons, but there needs to be an urgent review of the constituency sizes and perhaps even boundaries which have benefitted Labour so greatly. This is not this first election in recent history where Labour has benefitted from the status quo. Cameron has got about the same share of the vote as Blair in 2005 and has fallen short in term seats; all parties and candidates should be on a level playing field; the electoral commission has some questions to answer on why it has not moved to take more corrective action. We only need to look to this election where the third party is now dictating to the winner about what they want for there to be a functioning government to get a sense of how all future governments under PR would be formed.

For Cameron perhaps a wholly elected Lords using PR will allow him to seal the deal with the Lib Dems?

I am left wondering where I personally should go now? As regulars will know I am one of those disgruntled Tories who no longer wishes to support them because of the direction Mr Cameron is taking them. My objection is mostly on the Conservative position on continued membership of the EU. I do not believe the UK is benefitting from membership, in my heart I loathe the fact that 85% of our laws are made in a fashion I believe to be undemocratic. Furthermore I am tired of more and more powers being handed over.

I describe the EU as undemocratic but the truth is it is more anti-democratic in nature. One only has to look at how the EU is set up to be undemocratic despite the presence of a “parliament” which is unable to propose or initiate laws; it is a facade conceived so as to give the appearance of a democratic centre. The ruthless pursuit of it’s agenda and it’s willingness to break it’s own laws when it suits the Euro project makes the EU project a dangerous one for freedom loving democrats like myself. It is a totalitarian construct. It has achieved, or is still working to achieve every single aim it has set out for; you cannot defeat the will of the EU ruling classes; rare defeats in the past has been temporary as the EU ALWAYS eventually gets it way.

So which party does somebody of a right wing political agenda but it dead set in the idea that we must no longer participate in the EU but leave amicably but with great expedience? Well realistically the Conservatives are not an option. David Cameron will never give us a referendum on the EU, and he will likely re-ratify the Lisbon Treaty this year; he see’s Britain’s future in the EU but like all the others will not give that direction the democratic legitimacy and extend to us the voters a referendum. Had David Cameron not gone back on his Lisbon Referendum pledge last year he would likely have a majority today. A commenter on the DT Site has helpfully compiled this list showing what Dr North would describe as the UKIP effect. That is, these are the seats the Conservatives lost, where the UKIP vote is greater than the Tory losing margin.

Telford
Somerton and Frome
Plymouth Moor View
Morley & Outward
Newcastle-Under-Lyme
Bolton West
Great Grimsby
Walsall North
Walsall South
Southampton Itchen
Dorset Mid & Poole North
Wirral South
Solihull
Wells (LD gain from Con)
St Austell & Newquay
Derby North
Middlesbrough South & Cleveland East
St Ives
Dudley North

( Note: Most of this post was written yesterday, Dr North today lists 41 seats where the anti-EU vote cost the Tories )

I was one of those voices on the internet that warned that that the UKIP vote would in some seats cost the Conservatives; and it has done more it has denied them an Parliamentary majority. UKIP stood down in seats where the incumbent candidates were sufficiently vocal about the need for an EU referendum; I believe that with a commitment to a referendum on EU membership UKIP would have stood down in many more seats. When most Conservatives when polled tend to agree to either a referendum on membership or a degree of return of powers (unclear how that would happen) why have Cameron, Clarke and Osborne denied us this option?

So, I voted UKIP, but it would seem that I am one of only 3% or so that did. I have no regrets as I voted with my conscience and on the issues that I most care about; UKIP was the only option for me; in this election at least.

However, it is a little disappointing that UKIP were fairly disorganised in some areas; it seems there is little central help and candidates were left to fend for themselves – or at least that would be my assessment. Financially this is a big commitment to take on for UKIP candidates, if it were me I simply could not afford to stand. Despite some good policies and a compelling line that the three big parties are conspiring not to discuss openly how bad our debt crisis really is, it was clear that UKIP are really still a single issue party and that if only the blue team would accept that UKIP are right about EU membership they and the Tories could go back down the pub and get along together again. UKIP would probably disband if the EU membership question was finally settled. The entire UKIP campaign really came down to Buckingham with Nigel Farage being their star performer on TV not really coming close in the end to unseating the Speaker.

In my opinion, I hope UKIP do a little bit of soul searching and maybe take a look at a few things. There is a very real vacuum now on the right of the modern Conservative Party. And though the formula has clearly worked for them in terms of the EU elections, the UKIP formula does not work for UK elections; and a bigger presence in Westminster is exactly what they need to achieve their ultimate aim. I must also declare that I think their £ sign logo makes their literature and sites look dated, and reinforces the idea that they are a single issue party.

I want a party to fill this vacuum and I want that party to be able to win seats in Westminster. If UKIP in their hearts only see themselves as existing until the Conservatives change their point of view then I say we need another party in that void to cater for disenchanted Tories. If UKIP can recognise that for some they now represent more than they initially set themselves up to deliver and recognise that some minor tweaks would help sell them as an alternative to the conservatives on so much more than just Europe then I really truly believe that there is success to be had, and many, many more votes to be won.

Where exactly is my party of the right? In the next five years which party is going to raise the debate and fight for an end to the BBC tax? How about cutting welfare and socialist payments which create dependency and arguing that work should always be more rewarding than welfare? Who will speak out against the encroachment upon our civil liberties? Who on the right is advocating personal tax cuts for the coping classes? Who is going to cut through the bureaucracy and health and safety regulations which are stiffling small business start ups? Who is advocating Parliamentary oversight of judges? Where is the opposition to the new Supreme Court for the UK which cannot rule on devolved matters? Where on the right is advocating more Private Schools and Grammar schools which would allow more kids to get a better standard of education? Who is pointing out how illiberal it is to be a member of the CAP or to tell people how many hours they may work in a week? Who on the right dare question if we should continue as the United Kingdom or separate back to the component nations? Who is going to cut the cost and reach of the state? Who is arguing to an end to QUANGO’s and a minister in Parliament responsible for every penny that is spent of taxpayer’s money? I want a party who agree that life in prison means life in prison for people who commit the most vicious and serious of crimes.

The next few days it will be interesting and I will cheer from the very moment Gordon Brown is finally dragged out of Downing Street. However I am completely disenfranchised now by the major parties and struggling to find a political home and I don’t think I am alone. So what are we going to do?

Election Night Live Blog

2010-05-06T21:30:00.006+01:00

Things will kick off at about 10pm or just a few moments before.

The Leaders Debate Rap Battle

2010-05-06T18:42:00.000+01:00

Sent from Dan Bull

Referral

2010-05-05T19:44:00.000+01:00

I have not done a "recommended reading" for a while, but I would like to draw people's attention to a post by Witterings from Witney entitled The End Of Our Democracy As We Knew It?

Off you go.

Pre Election Feelings

2010-05-05T15:00:00.070+01:00

If it were me, my poster would say, "People of Europe, WAKE UP!"

Doomsday beckons, the Germans know it. The Greeks ran up debts which they could not afford by creating a State that demands massively more money than it can raise in taxes.

So it borrowed from the markets until they said enough.

Now they are now borrowing from the EU, in the form of tax payer loans. We bailed out the Rock and RBS, the Germans are about to bail our Greece. At present there is no real plan to cut the Greeks budget deficit sufficiently so as to bring them into a sustainable budget cycle; they are essentially on welfare now.

Through this Greek tragedy has been locked into the Eurozone rules so has not been able to take preemptive corrective actions to limit its problems and worse still is unable to reduce the cost of the state because protesters will set fire to anyone who dares. Greece, in short, is economically f****d.

Today Angela Merkel has signalled that the success of the EURO and the Greek recovery are intrinsically linked both to the future of the EU and in particular Germany's role within the EU. The same is true of the UK.

The UK rightly stayed out of the EURO, but once the ink is dry on this Greek loan and once we know how Parliament will look next week the agenda is going to have to turn to matters European. It is my belief that very soon (perhaps days if not weeks) Germany and France will demand that the UK will need to begin proceedings to join the EURO; it is the currency of the European Union to which we are members. They will argue that in the meantime we in the UK will need to meet the cost of supporting Greece and it's bloated public sector. It looks like we will have to endure another round of the Lisbon Treaty. Were they not content with rubbing our noses in it once?

Germany is still feeling the heavy financial costs of reunification to a single nation; Germans will instinctively know that the cost of uniting a continent will run massively deeper. The project will need to be sown up with a single federal government or abandoned; with national governments replaced with the regional assemblies already in place to help balance the books. Too much effort has been invested from the Federalists to simply give up and they will argue too much of our tax payer money. We have been defecated on from a great height before by the EU's cheerleaders; and it is coming again.

It was said at the 2005 election that we were not voting on Europe. The truth is we should have and could have. All of the parties said there would be a referendum on the Constitutional Treaty through Westminster collusion and dramatics we were denied that vote. We gave LIB/LAB/CON our votes because they collectively promised to do what was in our best interests; and they fooled us all in spectacular fashion. The EU costs us more than ever before and makes more of our laws than ever before. Soon we will lose our embassy's, our currency, our national identity. England is already broken into regions ready to be split forever.

Now in 2010 do you really believe that your Westminster vote will have no affect on Europe as well? That who we put in Parliament will not affect our relationship and absorption into the EU Federal Superstate?

So, it is vital that today and tomorrow we think about our role in the EU; that we look at the real economic problem ahead for the UK and how unaffordable it is going to be for us not only to prop up our own economically initiative; but those of Southern Europe also. We don't really get too much of a say on matters as citizens here in the UK and really the best say we do get is when a General Election comes around twice a decade. The political leaders may not be talking about what REALLY lies ahead but here on the blogosphere we have spelt out what we can see; and the MSM have made similar, but less audible grumbles.

We need a government on Friday that is going to cut the debt, and we need MP's who are prepared to put the United Kingdoms interests ahead of Party Politics and their whips. We need democratic discourse, through debate and through the ballot box. This might be the last chance for you to tie your vote to Lisbon and to EU membership; so please bare this in mind when considering who to vote for. For what it is worth, once again here is the link to the Albion Alliance where you can find the list of candidates who have been willing to say up front that they will pledge to work in your interests and for a referendum on your behalf regardless of what their party leadership, the whips and the EU have to say. There is UKIP, there are many independents who would work in your interests and really listen to what you want rather than dolling out what the EU has dictated to them needs to be done.

Don't be fooled into thinking that a vote for a smaller party or an independent is "wasted" there is no such thing as a wasted vote on a completed ballot paper. We all must vote with our conscience, we must vote with how we feel, we must vote for the person or party who shares our ideals and when we do we have participated in democracy. When people don't do this and are convinced to lend their vote to a big party they don't really agree with, or fail to vote at all - that is when we have been manipulated by politics.

Election Night Live Blog - Advanced Notice

2010-05-05T12:30:00.041+01:00

At 10pm tomorrow night within minutes of the polls closing the most anticipated exit polls in UK Polling history will be announced. You will probably be glued to the TV or to your computer screens so why not join in our now famous live-chat collaborations? With polling companies set up for a two horse race, the time between 10pm and 11pm could be the most interesting on TV all year.

Be here at just before 10pm for the opening and the chat will run as long as there is the moderators are awake and there are people online and taking part (so this will probably still run quite late). Please be aware, there are only 25 unmoderated slots available with the current technology; however things will probably be less manic tomorrow as opposed to previous sessions when a few hundred people were collectively shouting at three leaders who participated in the debates; and comments should be published quickly.

As before, the session will be a team effort and hosted by:

All Seeing Eye, Barking Spider, Biased-BBC, Corrugated Soundbite, Dick Puddlecote, Governmentitus (here), GrumpyOldTwat, Man Widdicombe, Subrosa and Red Rag Online. All of these blogs come recommended and if are worth checking them out if you have not done so before. As it is a collaboration, you can be on any of the above blogs and participate in the same live chat session.

It is unfortunately unlikely I will be joining in tomorrow as I have volunteered to count votes at my local counting centre and I don't anticipate being home before 4am. However I will look in on the chat when I get in and if it is still rolling will say hello. I will be hosting the chat still here on my blog thanks to the advanced posting feature in blogger.

Thanks must go to the All Seeing Eye for organising and to G.O.T. for another superb graphic.

DON'T. VOTE. LABOUR.

2010-05-05T11:30:00.006+01:00

After 13 years the mood of the nation I think is clear, and I believe that tomorrow we will all have the opportunity to go cast that ballot and finally kick Labour into the long grass. This blog came about for two reasons, firstly as my voice of opposition to the EU and secondly to voice my opposition to this Labour Government.

I have pleaded for voters to look to the Albion Alliance for a list of candidates who can be trusted to work in our best interests on the question of EU membership, but I will add a new plea today. Please, don't vote Labour. I will personally be voting with my conscience tomorrow; I am voting on my issues and I will not regret doing so for it will be a vote which most closely aligns to my politics and beliefs. I am also proud that I will be upholding my own Albion Alliance Voters Pledge and voting for a candidate who has said that he will put country before party.

William Hague sent me the below email and no doubt the blogs run by Conservative voters and party members will be carrying this today.

I say again. Don't. Vote. Labour.

I posted the below in February - there was too much to bring it up-to-date, but here was Feb's output.

Jaw Smacking, Holiday Scrounging, Election Bribing, Access Selling, Passport Flogging, Tax Avoiding, Twitter Abusing, Enron Loving, Bad News Burying, Granny Bashing, Rent Boy Hiring, Doctor Killing, Jew Hating, Fire Starting, Badger Watching,

Dodgy Financing, Naked Picture Taking, Company Destroying, Monarchy Hating, Embarrassing, Hairdressing, Hospital Closing, Frequently Resigning, Lobby Bribing, Visa Scamming, Secretary Throwing, Paternity Testing, Expenses Shredding,

Iffy Trading, Completely Bungling, Over Eating, Peerage Selling, Mortgage Faking, Air Miles Scamming, Consequence Dodging, Slime Dripping Allowance Fiddling, War Mongering, Charity Charging Legislation Selling, Double Dipping, Triple Dipping

Window Licking, Emotionally Blackmailing, Truth Hiding, Bile Inducing, Coup Messing, Principle Abandoning, Eugenics Considering, Ghurkha Oppressing, Secretly Thieving, History Making, Porn Claiming, Economy Destroying, Procrastinating, Terrorist Appeasing, Tax Hiking, Slush Fund Building, Disappointing,

Lisbon Revisited

2010-05-05T09:00:00.030+01:00

Exciting news from the Tax Payers Alliance yesterday that the EU is set to make all of its members vote once again on Lisbon.

This would likely mean that in this Autumn the UK Parliament will need to re-ratify the document, which this time will allow for the additional 18 MEP's who are in attendance and on the pay roll to be able to actually vote in the EU's mock Parliament.

This of course opens a question today, in the last day of the campaign before an election of how each party if returned with a majority would react to what will be a very unpopular vote.

I think we could be certain that the Labour position would be to just ram it through Parliament; after all they did so the first time round despite their manifesto pledge.

The Liberal Democrats would certainly follow suit, and would argue it is a technicality and in keeping with the initial vote. They would not give us a referendum on this or the wider EU vote they have talked of.

But what would David Cameron and the Conservatives do? Would a second vote on Lisbon qualify in their "referendum lock" policy? Would the supposedly more EU Sceptic swath of new Conservative MP's kick up a fuss and demand a that the referendum were were once denied now be granted.

I would genuinely like to know, and I hope if any of my readers are within shouting distance of any candidates today they try and get an answer - because a commitment on THIS SIDE of the election is what is needed.

My guess is that the Conservatives would not give the referendum vote and would push Lisbon through with the support of the Lib Dems and Labour.

I don't need to guess which MP's would work for a referendum on Lisbon, or in fact on a referendum on the wider issue of EU Membership because there are at the time of writing 99 candidates nationally who have taken the Albion Alliance pledge and declared:

I pledge to work tirelessly to give the voters of my constituency a democratic and direct voice in the United Kingdom’s continued relationship with the EU.

I pledge that I will sponsor a Private Members Bill, written in clear concise terms, calling for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union – and/or support any motion for such a referendum – and to vote positively for any Bill that may call for such a referendum, irrespective of Party Whip, with a view to the successful outcome of this pledge within 1 year of a new Parliament or sooner.

If the question of EU membership is your election hot spot and if you are one of the awakening masses that knows that our ailing country cannot be repaired whilst we are subject to EU diktat then we have one day to increase this 99 number and we have one day in which to prod and probe the three factions of the Westminster Cartel on what they are and are not prepared to do for us. If the LIB/LAB/CON candidates want your vote, get them to pledge before the election to the Albion Alliance pledge so that you can be certain they will do what they say and so that others locally can be informed too.

I hope the 5th May is a busy day on the politics blogs, and I hope that people read and realise that getting out of the EU is the very best thing the UK could do.

Predictions?

2010-05-05T07:30:00.006+01:00

One day to go. Does anyone care to make any electoral predictions, or revise previous predictions?

What To Expect With A Hung Parliament

2010-05-04T22:45:00.002+01:00

An economists view...

Lifted from the IEA Blog

Worst PM Ever

2010-05-04T21:00:00.006+01:00

So says Manish Sood, a Labour PPC to an article in Lynn News.

Here's the highlights:

"Immigration has gone up which is creating friction within communities. The country is getting bigger and messier.

"The role of ministers has gone bureaucratic and the action of ministers has gone downhill – it is corrupt.

"The loss of social values is the basic problem and this is not what the Labour Party is about.

"I believe Gordon Brown has been the worst Prime Minister we have had in this country.

"It is a disgrace and he owes an apology to the people and the Queen.

"We have to get back to basics where people can leave their money outside for the milkman without it being stolen."

He later declared to Sky News that he thinks he would be interested in leading the Labour Party.

To Mr Sood I would agree with his sentiments and in my opinion also Gordon Brown has been the worst PM ever. Is Mr Sood alone in the Labour Party?

The Labour Party elevated Gordon Brown to the highest office of the land, and people will never forgive the Labour Party for that mistake.

I'm With Cartman

2010-05-04T20:30:00.000+01:00

Yet again freedom of speech is under attack.

You may not agree with South Park, but the fact that it is broadcast is a good indicator that television programme makers are free to make and broadcast programmes saying whatever they like.

Let's not sit quiet when the freedoms we love and cherish and which form the foundations of our society come under attack. If we sit quiet we know it will be taken from us. Freedom's are not free, they come with a cost; but the price people pay when freedoms are removed is always greater.

This is a snippet of the episode in question:

Video H/T: Calling England

Promise Versus Reality

2010-05-04T19:15:00.000+01:00

Some election humour:

While walking down the street one day a Member of Parliament is tragically hit by a truck and dies.

His soul arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the entrance.

'Welcome to heaven,' says St. Peter.

'Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we're not sure what to do with you.'

'No problem, just let me in,' says the man.

'Well, I'd like to, but I have orders from higher up. What we'll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you can choose where to spend eternity.'

'Really, I've made up my mind. I want to be in heaven,' says the MP.

'I'm sorry, but we have our rules.'

And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell. The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a green golf course. In the distance is a clubhouse and standing in front of it are all his friends and other politicians who had worked with him.

Everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet him, shake his hand, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of the people.

They play a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster, caviar and champagne.

Also present is the devil, who really is a very friendly & nice guy who has a good time dancing and telling jokes. They are having such a good time that before he realizes it, it is time to go.

Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves while the elevator rises....

The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens on heaven where St. Peter is waiting for him.

'Now it's time to visit heaven.'

So, 24 hours pass with the MP joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing. They have a good time and, before he realizes it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns.

'Well, then, you've spent a day in hell and another in heaven. Now choose your eternity.'

The MP reflects for a minute, then he answers: 'Well, I would never have said it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in hell.'

So St. Peter escorts him to the lift and he goes down, down, down to hell.

Now the doors of the lift open and he's in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and rubbish.

He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags as more trash falls from above.

The devil comes over to him and puts his arm around his shoulder. ' I don't understand,' stammers the MP.

'Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and clubhouse, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time. Now there's just a wasteland full of rubbish and my friends look miserable.

What happened? '

The devil looks at him, smiles and says, ' Yesterday we were campaigning.. ...

Today you voted.

--

For a look quick look at how far Gordon's metaphorical golf course is from the pretty real rubbish tip he is leaving behind, might I recommend this excellent guide from Anna Raccoon.

More From Mr Condell

2010-05-04T18:31:00.000+01:00

If you liked the last video, you will probably enjoy this one as well

The Truth About Ed Balls

2010-05-04T18:08:00.000+01:00

Like most people in the UK I am not a fan of Ed Balls, here is a video listing some of the reasons why he is not easy to like.

As seen at Old Holborn

Deja Vu All Over Again

2010-05-03T13:01:00.000+01:00

It's May bank holiday, I am hung over, the lawn looks like a jungle, there is a mountain of clothes that need ironing and there is nothing on the telly....

If I can summon the neurons to put anything down of interest I will be back later, if not that's probably it until right before polling.

Have fun everyone!

Bigotgate in 60 Seconds

2010-05-01T15:40:00.003+01:00

Khaaaan!

2010-04-30T10:51:00.002+01:00

For Rob.

Third Leaders Debate - The Live Blog

2010-04-29T19:45:00.001+01:00

<p><a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=2662bb8318" >The 3rd Leaders' Debate</a></p>

Oh Dear Kerry

2010-04-29T19:36:00.000+01:00

Labours chief Twitterer has seemingly broken electoral law.

Bracknell Blog has the full story.

H/T: Cato.

Les Grande Third Debate Live Blog - Tonite

2010-04-29T08:30:00.001+01:00

Tonight there will be another live-blog for the Third and final debate which will this time be a collaboration between All Seeing Eye, Barking Spider, Biased-BBC, Corrugated Soundbite, Dick Puddlecote, Governmentitus (here), GrumpyOldTwat, Man Widdecombe, Subrosa, and The Red Rag - all excellent and highly recommended blogs. The collaboration means you can be at any one of these blogs and participate in the same live-blog experience.

The TV debate starts at 8.30pm so be ready at a few minutes to as we will be rolling a little before the introductions. The All Seeing Eye (who is the brains behind this particular operation) is set to allow yours truly loose for a second week tri-moderating with David M and ASE himself.

Come and have your say. I can't guarantee that Gordon Brown won't classify you as a bigot for taking part, after all we know his brain misfires when people express opinions which do not recognise his personal sacrifice and visionary leadership; but we all know he will be out of work for a week so why not join us in a verse of:

nah nah nah nah
nah nah nah nah
wheeeaaay,
GOODBYE

New Labour Poster

2010-04-28T22:45:00.001+01:00

Thanks Ollie.

The End Of Gordon Brown

2010-04-28T20:03:00.003+01:00

Today was a very busy day at work, but it was impossible after having seen the news breaking at lunchtime not to keep the headphones in and Sky News quietly keeping me up to date with the goings on of a rather eventful day in politics.

This video needs to be watched again over and over. It is a bit of a David Brent moment, where the flawed 'on camera' persona slips and the even more flawed 'off camera' persona shows through.

Labour have been trying to spin this all afternoon and as the day goes on their rebuttal gets weaker and more tired.

There is a claim, (blatant spin really) that Gordon Brown was somehow involved in a "difficult conversation" but watch the video back and there is nothing troubling about it at all. This is a bread and butter conversation in the street with a Labour supporter, who was identified by Gordon's own advisors in the crowd who had briefly vetted Mrs Duffy to ensure that she was somebody who would raise a concern, yet not really cause any real problems. The Prime Minister's own reporting lobby have been critical that he is not engaging anyone without a red rosette on the campaign trail, to which Gordon's staff replied by ensuring the rosettes were left at home, so the journo's could not complain. None-the-less, this women was vetted and deemed a useful pawn for the cameras.

That however was most definately not a difficult conversation.

Dear God man, if that was difficult for you it is clear you would barely qualify for checkout work, let alone qualify as Prime Minister.

There is a spin that Gordon Brown like other people will say things that they don't really mean. So, Labour spinners are actively saying that the Prime Minister is disingenuous as a defence to a worse perception. It is truly so very disappointing that this is the man who already leads us, and that Labour supporters are paying their subs for an army of spin masters who must go on television to make excuses for Brown. If the Prime Minister was lacking in frankness and sincerity in that interview, and his cheer-leaders are shouting this fact from the rooftops; then why should we ever believe a single word he ever has to say?

There is another spin, from Gordon himself this time, that he misheard Gillian Duffy. Well, that really raises two more questions.

1. What do you think you heard?
2. If your reaction was that she was a bigot, why did you not challenge her on that assertion, and show yourself on live TV as someone who is prepared to stand up to bigots?

The answer of course is that he did not mishear or misunderstand at all. Again, watch the video back and see how dismissive he is of a ~~voter~~ lifelong Labour voter for simply having concerns, and how he brands her ridiculous. Why? Because she says she is no longer sure that she will vote Labour.

It brings us screamingly back to the BIG question of the election. It is not the economy and it is not the EU. It is, is Gordon Brown mentally and psychologically capable of the job to which the Labour party have already anointed him?

Well, if shooting the breeze with a supporter is "difficult" for him and if his private thoughts consist of branding pensioners as bigots, I would say he needs a very, very, very long holiday.

Brown talks a big game on morals and personal character yet he is frequently shown up on these very characteristics. He, his staff and his government have been caught out countless times for lying and it is an ingrained characteristic of this Labour Government that they will only speak to their version of events, and their version of the truth. This is of course never an accurate reflection of real life, of the real situation, of the real statistics or experiences of people. In the conversation with Mrs Duffy today he was untruthful to her. When she asked what he was going to do about the debt he replied he would cut in in half in four years. The Labour policy as I have written about before is in fact not to cut debt in four years, but to cut the deficit in four years. A liar to the very end.

Gordon Brown thinks that if a person does not agree with him, or holds a different point of view that they are somehow evil, they are twisted. They are certainly of a lower standing in his mind. There is only one acceptable viewpoint and it is the one that he sets out. When Gillian Duffy spoke of her pension, on immigration, on university places and did so in a tone that did not recognise that she finds him to be as great as he thinks himself to be, then he immediately dismissed her in his own head and to his inner-circle as "ridiculous" and as a "just a sort of bigoted woman". Does he think anyone who simply mentions immigration and the virtue of handing away border control as a cost of EU membership to be bigotted? If so, then according to Gordon Brown's litmus test I too am a bigot. My friends and family are bigots. Many of you are bigots. Certainly all of UKIP and many Conservatives must then be bigots. I am a bigot could be on a million t-shirts by the end of next week carrying the slogan, "Gordon Brown thinks I am a Bigot!"

Today, thanks to a Sky microphone and to the incompetence of Gordon's own staff in not turning off that mic as he got into the car; the truth was revealed about what has been widely speculated on how Gordon's mind functions. The man has no mental capacity to accept anything other than his own point of view; he got into the car and in his own head HE was some kind of victim, and in thinking this threw a horrible and exceptionally inappropriate label at someone who may well have knocked on more doors on behalf of the Labour party in her lifetime than he himself ever has. How dare someone speak to him like that!

Today, may well be the very day that the Labour Party finally was killed off as an electoral force in the UK. The Liberals I think in the national psyche will now leapfrog Labour and will set themselves out as the party of the left after the election. No longer being one of the big two will see their post election support waiver further with the Lib Dems, Greens and BNP the likely benefactors.

The Labour Party it must be remembered chose to move on their own leader when they removed Tony Blair, a man for all his faults had won three elections. In removing him, they elevated via coronation rather than election the man they all saw as closer to their own ideology. They did so with full conscience that the UK people would not be happy at having a Prime Minsiter who had not been elected by them directly - they did not care, they wanted Gordon and you and I were to have no say. The man who knew he could never win an election, and never did became our leader. He shafted us on an election on him, he denied us our promised vote on Lisbon, he mortgaged our childrens futures for the benefit of his mates in the city without a vote in Parliament. Elections demand scrutiny that's one of many reasons why they safeguard people; Labour ignored all of us for the benefit of Gordon. They themselves could have chucked him out, but chose instead to maximise their own salaries, pensions and expenses wand ran down the clock. They must be made to pay the price for this now when we vote.

Gordon Browns career effectively ended today and there is only one person who can be blamed, and that is Gordon Brown. I wonder if this reality has caught up with him yet and he truly realises how significant his captured words are?

I always imagined the day the Labour Party died would be a joyous one, but instead I just feel sad for the poor pensioner from Rochdale who went out for a loaf of bread and came home branded by the Prime Minsiter of The United Kingdom to be a Bigot. Come tomorrow, I suspect she will be glad she delayed posting that ballot paper.

The World According To Labour

2010-04-28T12:42:00.001+01:00

This, at the time of posting is Breaking News.

The world according to Labour - If you even mention the word "Immigration" you are a bigot or a racist.

As per Sky News, from Gordon Brown this morning:

Gordon Brown has been caught out on microphone in an unguarded moment - calling a pensioner "bigoted".The Prime Minister was confronted by the 66-year-old woman while visiting Rochdale.

He spent nearly five minutes answering her questions and told her: "It's been very good to meet you."

However, a microphone picked up his words to an aide as he drove away in a car.

He said: "That was a disaster.

"You should never have put me with that woman.

"Whose idea was that?"

Mr Brown went on: "It's just ridiculous."

His aide then asked: "What did she say?"

Mr Brown replied: "Oh, everything, she's just a sort of bigoted woman who said she used to vote Labour."

The Prime Minister had been chatting to the woman about her pension credit, crime, education, as well as immigration, before the gaffe.

Brown will claim that he has been going around 'listening to people', but he is the same old closed-minded, two-faced Labourman he always was. If you want to talk about Labour failures, and about what you see are issues - they, Labour, will smear you and they will ignore you. How nasty and ignorant of the Prime Minister; but also so very revealling to his true character.

How did this idiot ever get to be Prime Minister?

Update: here is the video -

He's Not Wrong

2010-04-28T10:30:00.001+01:00

Farage here filmed after Irelands second referendum taking questions on the EU.

H/T: Fausty.

Dignitas - New Scandal

2010-04-28T08:00:00.001+01:00

Quite frankly this is shocking:

At least 300 urns containing human remains have been dumped in a lake near where the Swiss suicide firm Dignitas operates, it has been claimed.

Police have launched an investigation after scores were discovered on the bed of Lake Zurich.

The urns, lying in 'a big heap', bear only the logo of a cremation service thought to be used by Dignitas, the controversial organisation where more than 100 Britons have ended their lives.

Full Story in the Daily Mail.

Farage Needs Some Cash

2010-04-27T22:53:00.000+01:00

If you want to see Speaker Bercow unseated, or, if you want to help UKIP in the seat where they are presently most likely to win, then click HERE to donate.

UKIP Threaten BBC With Judicial Review

2010-04-27T20:01:00.001+01:00

Leader's Office

United Kingdom Independence Party

Room 230

10 Greycoat Place

London

SW1P 1SB

020 7960 6773

Mark Thompson, Esq.,
Director-General,
British Broadcasting Corporation,
White City,
201 Wood Lane,
LONDON,
W12 7TS.

27 April 2010

By email to markthompsonandpa@bbc.co.uk

Dear Mark,

Proposed claim for judicial review

I wrote to Sir Michael Lyons at the BBC Trust on 22 December, asking that UKIP should be allowed to participate in the televised debates between party leaders. Sir Michael wrote explaining that you rather than the Trust were the appropriate point of contact, and you wrote to me on 15 January 2010, conveying to me your decision and that of the BBC to reject my request on the following grounds:

"The basis on which judgements are made about relative levels of coverage rests on past and current electoral support. For the election to the House of Commons in 2010, the starting point is the last General Election, in 2005. Similarly, the starting point for coverage of the 2009 European election was the previous European election of 2004. This means that UKIP - on the basis of its strong performance in 2004 - was given the same level of coverage in the 2009 election as the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties. In 2005, however, at the last General Election (notwithstanding its performance at the European election less than a year before), UKIP attracted just over 2% of the vote and won no representation at Westminster.

"It is, therefore, appropriate and consistent for the BBC - and other broadcasters - to offer the opportunity to take part in the Prime Ministerial debates only to those parties which have substantial electoral support in the context of Westminster. There will be additional opportunities across the BBC for other parties to receive appropriate coverage responding to the Prime Ministerial debate."

We have been given no adequate opportunity to respond to the first two debates. What arrangements is the BBC making to address this? How can the coverage be "appropriate" if we cannot reach the leaders' audience?

The first two of the party leaders' debates have been held and, as I feared, have given spectacular prominence to the three parties whom you, ITV and Sky TV allowed to take part. The unfairness in our being excluded from the party leaders' debates is now all too evident.

Most recently, I wrote to you on 23 April, sending you my recent correspondence with Sky TV, and inviting you to rectify the lack of impartiality which broadcasters have demonstrated in refusing to allow UKIP to participate in the televised leaders' debates. I have not had a reply to my letter to you. The final leaders' debate is in just two days' time. The matter is now urgent, and I have done my best to pursue it timeously.

Since time is now short, I have taken advice, in the light of which I should like to draw your attention to the following provisions in the BBC's own election guidelines:

"3. Due Impartiality in coverage of parties and issues

"3.1 Coverage of the Parties

"To achieve due impartiality, each bulletin, programme or programme strand, as well as online and interactive services, for each election, must ensure that the parties are covered proportionately over an appropriate period, normally across a week. This means taking into account levels of past and current electoral support.

"Due impartiality must be achieved within these categories:

 "clips;
 "interviews/discussions of up to 10 minutes;
 "longer-form programmes.

"Previous electoral support in equivalent elections is the starting-point for making judgments about the proportionate level of coverage between parties.

"However, other factors can be taken into account where appropriate, including evidence of variation in levels of support in more recent elections, changed political circumstances (e.g. new parties or party splits) as well as other evidence of current support. The number of candidates a party is standing may also be a factor."

These election guidelines - as you may know - were approved by Jenny Watson, the chairman of the Electoral Commission, in a letter dated 11 January 2010 to Ric Bailey, the BBC's Chief Adviser for Politics (Editorial Policy), as follows:

"In addition we are satisfied with the draft Election Guidelines, and the approach taken regarding the participation of candidates in constituency items during the election period."

In the last "equivalent" election, the 2005 General Election, UKIP won 2.2% of the national vote, as you have pointed out. However, in the more recent European Election of last year, UKIP came second in the UK, with 16.5% of the national vote, compared with 15.7% for Labour and 13.7% for the Liberal Democrats. This surely constitutes compelling "evidence of variation in levels of support in more recent elections". In the circumstances, I should have expected your correspondence to have referred to this provision within your election guidelines. You have allowed Labour and the Liberal Democrats to participate in the leaders' debates, though they received smaller shares of the vote than UKIP in the most recent test of national opinion, which was the European Election of last year. Yet you have denied UKIP the chance to participate.

Furthermore, UKIP - as of today - is fielding 560 candidates, a number not far short of those fielded by the three parties whom you are allowing to participate in the leaders' debate. As your own guidelines say, "The number of candidates a party is standing may also be a factor." I should have expected your correspondence to have referred to this provision of your electoral guidelines too. Certainly, UKIP - in the number of candidates we are fielding in this General Election - is close to parity with those parties whom you are allowing to participate.

Both these circumstances are directly relevant to any decision whether to allow UKIP to participate in the leaders' debates. Yet you do not seem to have taken account of them in your decision as conveyed to me, or in any of our subsequent discussions.

There is also the question of the BBC's obligations under its charter, which has been the subject of correspondence between us on many previous occasions. In the leaders' debate so far, the question of our EU membership, its lack of democratic accountability and its heavy financial and constitutional cost has not been debated at all. Mr. Brown has been allowed to get away with saying, unchallenged, that three million jobs depend on our membership of the European Union. Nor has there been any discussion of our proposal to introduce binding initiative referenda at local as well as national level, which is the only effective way to allow us, the people, to rule once more, as well as to address the issue of corruption in Parliament, to say nothing of the increasing gulf between government and the governed.

It is reasonable and proportionate, having regard to the election guidelines as cited above, and having regard to the absence of UKIP from the first two leaders' debates, that UKIP should be allowed to participate fairly and fully in the final leaders' debate.

Since you did not adopt my original suggestion that UKIP should at least be allowed to participate in some part of each debate, and since all other avenues available to me have been exhausted, and since UKIP has been denied the opportunity to participate at all in either of the first two debates, and since time is running out, I must now ask you to reconsider your refusal to allow UKIP to participate in the third and final leaders' debate, to be aired on Thursday evening, 29 April 2010.

Should you and the BBC fail to accede to this request by noon tomorrow, Wednesday, 28 April, 2010, please take this letter as notice, in terms of the pre-action protocol in judicial review proceedings under the Civil Procedure Rules, that the United Kingdom Independence Party, of PO Box 480, Newton Abbot, Devon, TQ12 9BG, and I as UKIP's leader, as claimants, will apply to the Administrative Court at or as soon as practicable after 2 pm tomorrow afternoon for judicial review of your decision and that of the BBC, as defendants, expressed in your letter to me of 15 January 2010, to refuse to allow UKIP to participate in the third and final leaders' debate, and for an injunction requiring you and the BBC to permit me, as UKIP's leader, to participate in that debate on an equal footing with all others whom you and the BBC shall have permitted to participate.

I regret that the notice is very short, but time is pressing and I have not had an answer to my letter to you of 23 April.

Details of our legal advisers will be notified to you in due course. In the meantime, any reply and any court documents should be sent to me at the address below:

The Lord Pearson of Rannoch,
Leader's Office,
United Kingdom Independence Party,
Room 230,
10 Greycoat Place,
LONDON,
SW1P 1SB.

Yours sincerely,

[signed] Malcolm

Lord Pearson of Rannoch

Who Can You Trust?

2010-04-27T19:00:00.001+01:00

Who can you trust to work towards what you want in this General Election?

That is a tough question of course, but the way to find out is to get those people who want to represent you in Parliament to acknowledge and pledge that they will do what they say they will. It is in this mindset and fed up of again being betrayed by our political class that James, Ian and David got together set up the Albion Alliance.

It is because the Albion Alliance exists that I am able to publish the 95 names of the candidates that has had the courage and the conviction to make a simple pledge on this side of the election that if they are elected, they have all declared:

I pledge to work tirelessly to give the voters of my constituency a democratic and direct voice in the United Kingdom’s continued relationship with the EU.

I pledge that I will sponsor a Private Members Bill, written in clear concise terms, calling for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union – and/or support any motion for such a referendum – and to vote positively for any Bill that may call for such a referendum, irrespective of Party Whip, with a view to the successful outcome of this pledge within 1 year of a new Parliament or sooner.

As someone else who feels let down by our continued submersion into the EU leviathian the Albion Alliance has provided me with a mechanism by which look at the candidates running in my area and press my local candidates to get them to state unequivocally whether they feel the same way as I do, and if so to offer more than mere words. Words alone that one day things will all come good have stranded the UK without the means of real self-determination. It is time we got serious about what is at stake and how to correct it.

Thus far, just ninety-five candidates out of thousands have been willing and/or able to make this very simple pledge. Thus these are the only ninety-five candidates that can really be trusted to work for a referendum. I have included their contact info where I have it, as there is no such thing as an election candidate who could not use a bit more support, or a bit more cash.

Here they are:

Constituency                                   Candidate                                    Party

Aberconwy                                       Mike Wietska                            UKIP

Aylesbury                                         Chris Adams                              UKIP

Banbury                                           David Fairweather                      UKIP

Barnsley East                                  Mark Watson                              UKIP

Bermondsey &                                Loanna Morrison                      Conservative Party
Old Southwark

Bishop Auckland                            David Brothers                              UKIP

Bognor Regis &                            Douglas Denny                               UKIP
Littlehampton

Boston & Skegness                      Christopher Pain                            UKIP

Bournemouth West                       Philip Glover                                 UKIP

Bradford West                               Jason Smith                                   UKIP

Braintree                                         Michael Ford                                 UKIP

Bristol West                                  Chris Lees                                      UKIP

Camborne & Redruth                  Derek Elliot                                    UKIP

Cambridge                                     Old Holborn                                  Independent

Cardiff Central                              Susan Davies                                 UKIP

Carmarthen East &                      John Atkinson                                UKIP
Dinefwr

Chatham |& Aylesford                 Sean Varnham                               English Democrats

Chatham & Aylesford                  Steve Newton                                UKIP

Chelsea & Fulham                      Tim Gittos                                       UKIP

Chesham & Amersham             Alan Stevens                                    UKIP

Chippenham                             Michael Simpkins                            BNP

Christchurch                            David Williams                                 UKIP

Clwyd West                             Warwick Nicholson                          UKIP

Colchester                                John Pitts                                           UKIP

Colne Valley                            Nicola Turner                                    Liberal Democrats

Congleton                                Lee Slaughter                                    UKIP

Crawley                                   Chris French                                      UKIP

Croydon Central                     Ralph Atkinson                                 UKIP

Croydon South                     Jeffrey Bolter                                      UKIP

Devizes                                  Nic Coome                                         Libertarian Party UK

Doncaster North                 David Wilson                                     UKIP

Dover                                   Victor Matcham                                  UKIP

Dudley North                      Malcom Davis                                    UKIP

Ealing, Southall                   Ben Weald                                          English Democrats

East Devon                          Mike Amor                                           UKIP

East Lothian                        Jonathan Lloyd                                  UKIP

East Surrey                         Helena Windsor                                   UKIP

Epping Forest                      Andrew Smith                                       UKIP

Exeter                                  Keith Crawford                                     UKIP

Fareham                               Steve Richards                                      UKIP

Gateshead                            John Tennant                                       UKIP

Gillingham &                        Dean Lacey                                           English Democrats
Rainham

Gillingham &                        Robert Oakley                                       UKIP
Rainham

Glasgow Central                  Ramsey Ewan Urquhart                        UKIP

Glasgow East                      Arthur Thackeray                                    UKIP

Hampstead & Kilburn         Magnus Nielsen                                      UKIP

Hastings & Rye                   Rod Bridger                                           English Democrats

Hastings & Rye                  Tony Smith                                              UKIP

Hornsey & Wood              Dr Rohen Kapur                                      Independent
Green

Horsham                              Harry Aldridge                                      UKIP

Huntington                         Ian Curtis                                                UKIP

Isle of Wight                      Mike Tarrant                                          UKIP

Kenilworth &                    John Moore                                            UKIP
Southam

Kingston Upon                 Mike Hookem                                       UKIP
Hull East

Leeds North East               Warren Hendon                                   UKIP

Lincoln                                Nick Smith                                          UKIP

Liverpool, Walton             Joe Nugent                                           UKIP

Liverpool, Wavertree        Neil Miney                                           UKIP

Maidenhead                        Kenneth Wight                                      UKIP

Mid Bedfordshire              Bill Hall                                                 UKIP

Mid Sussex                         Marc Montgomery                             UKIP

Middlesbrough                  Stewart Lightwing                               UKIP
South & East Cleveland

Monmouth                         Derek Rowe                                           UKIP

Newbury                             David Black                                           UKIP

Newton Abbott                Jackie Hooper                                         UKIP

North Antrim                      Jim Allister                                          Traditional Unionist

North Cornwall                  Ivor Masters                                         UKIP

North Dorset                     Jeremy Nieboer                                    UKIP

North Swindon                Steven Halden                                        UKIP

North West                        Robert Brown                                       UKIP
Cambridgeshire

North Wiltshire                 Charles Bennett                                   UKIP

Oxford West &                 Paul Williams                                        UKIP
Abingdon

Rochester & Strood         Ron Sands                                            English Democrats

Rochford &                       James Moyies                                      UKIP
Southend East

Sevenoakes                      Alan Bullion                                          Liberal Democrats

Slough                               Diana Coad                                           Conservative Party

Somerton & Frome          Barry Harding                                       UKIP

South East Cornwall        Stephanie McWilliam                         UKIP

St Austell & Newquay     Clive Medway                                     UKIP

St Austell & Newquay    Stephen Gilbert                                    Liberal Democrat

St Ives                                Mick Faulkner                                     UKIP

Sutton & Cheam              Martin Cullip                                        Libertarian Party UK

Tiverton & Honiton        Daryl Stanbury                                     UKIP

Tonbridge & Malling      David Waller                                        UKIP

Truro & Falmouth            Harry Blakeley                                    UKIP

Uxbridge & South            Mark Wadsworth                               UKIP
Ruislip

Weaver Vale                    Paul Remfry                                         UKIP

Wentworth & Dearne       John Wilkinson                                 UKIP

West Suffolk                     Ian Smith                                              UKIP

West Worcestershire      Caroline Bovey                                   UKIP

Westmorland &               John Mander                                        UKIP
Lonsdale

Wirral West                   David Kirwan                                      Independent

Witney                           Nikolai Tolstoy                                    UKIP

Witney                           Paul Wesson                                        Independent

Wythenshawe &           Christopher Cassidy                             UKIP
Sale East

It is NOT too late to pledge, it is not too late to contact your local candidates to ask them to pledge.

It WILL be too late to do anything about our EU Membership when the final controls are soon ceded to Brussels - Do something about it today!

UKIP Back SNP Action

2010-04-27T13:06:00.000+01:00

UKIP support SNP action

Statement from UKIP re Alex Salmond (SNP) legal action.

Leader of UKIP, Lord Pearson said:

"UKIP support the stance of the SNP on this issue.

"We came second in the last national test of public opinion - at the Euro elections last year.

"Therefore, we should have a place in the debates also.

"Many people say they are becoming increasingly disinterested in the three failed old parties, and are less inclined to vote than ever before.

"The refusal to allow parties like UKIP and the SNP a place on the platforms only acts to perpetuate this disinterest further, and add to the problem of low voter turn-out.

"The public have the right to be informed of the choices open to them, and as a public service broadcaster, the BBC is honour-bound to provide licence fee payers with that information.

"We call on the BBC to give UKIP a place in the debates."

Gordon Brown = Compulsive Liar

2010-04-26T23:37:00.002+01:00

Bring Down The Elephant

2010-04-25T12:43:00.002+01:00

I should just clarify, though the gentleman in the video says much of what I do here, it is not me. ~~(I am not sure who he is)~~*. I have just seen this over on Muffled Vociferation where Sue says it is already doing the rounds, so I thought I would do my bit and post it here also.

Perhaps we should have a whip-round and get this broadcast on the BBC and ITV as a party political broadcast for the movement against more of the same?

If you like this and agree, then please remember to look at the smaller parties and the Independents running in your area; and if you have a blog or a social network page, please help spread this video so as many voters as possible see it.

*Update: Lawson Narse got in touch to inform me it is Pat Condell; Thanks Lawson!

The Second Debate - The Live Blog

2010-04-22T18:58:00.000+01:00

In His Own Words

2010-04-22T14:10:00.000+01:00

From Nick Clegg; about you and I.

“Watching Germany rise from its knees after the war and become a vastly more prosperous nation has not been easy on the febrile* British psyche.”

“All nations have a cross to bear, and none more so than Germany with its memories of Nazism. But the British cross is more insidious still.”

“A misplaced sense of superiority, sustained by delusions of grandeur and a tenacious obsession with the last war, is much harder to shake off. We need to be put back in our place.”

A Liberal Elitist slamming the Brits is neither new nor surprising, but considering how close he and his ilk are to power here in the UK, it is worrying. Certainly a febrile blogger like I couldn't tolerate living here under Clegg rule.

*I had to look it up.

Reminder: Second Debate Live Blog Tonight

2010-04-22T09:04:00.000+01:00

Tonights live-blog of the Second Debate will be a collaboration between All Seeing Eye, Barking Spider, Biased-BBC, Corrugated Soundbite, Dick Puddlecote, Governmentitus (here), GrumpyOldTwat, Man Widdecombe, Subrosa, and Tory Totty Online - all excellent and highly recommended blogs. The collaboration means you can be at any one of these blogs and participate in the same live-blog experience.

The debate starts at 8pm so be ready at a few minutes to as we will be rolling a little before the introductions.

Holier Than Thou

2010-04-21T22:26:00.003+01:00

The Lib Dems have had questionable donations to the party which have come under question in recent years, but tonight it seems that one halo has just hit the floor, hard, with Nick Clegg being uncovered as receiving donations from wealthy businessmen to his personal bank account for which he claims "it had subsidised his parliamentary work."

It's unclear what "parliamentary work" these funds contributed to, especially as his expenses were rather high and staff costs and just about everything else was covered. As yet, despite questioning no satisfactory answer for the purpose of the money has been provided, nor for what it was actually spent on.

Erm, some of us call that taking a bribe Cleggie.

"New Politics" my arse! The Lib Dems are as corrupt, or more so that the other factions of The Westminster Party.
The full story is on The Telegraph.

St Vince, Brillo & Flanders On Economics

2010-04-21T21:04:00.000+01:00

For anyone who wants to know a little bit more about Liberal Democrat Economics and on Vince Cable's public record prior to the election.

The Second Debate - The Live Blog

2010-04-20T20:58:00.001+01:00

After the fantastic success of our group live-blog for the budget a few weeks ago, a few of us have decided that the debates offer another great opportunity for some live-blogging. And this time, I will be climbing into the moderators chair.

The Second Debate will be a collaboration between All Seeing Eye, Barking Spider, Biased-BBC, Corrugated Soundbite, Dick Puddlecote, Governmentitus (here), GrumpyOldTwat, Man Widdecombe, Subrosa, and Tory Totty Online - all excellent and highly recommended blogs. If you haven't been to some of them before then please take this chance to try them out.

I hope many of you can join us for what promises to be a lot of fun. Be here or at any of the blogs mentioned above Thursday night, the debate kicks off at 8pm, so we will probably be rolling at a few minutes to eight.

The First Debate In 15 Seconds

2010-04-20T13:00:00.003+01:00

Sent to me by Tom, a Lib Dem supporter.

Farage vs Paxman

2010-04-20T11:30:00.000+01:00

This is how you do it.

DD

2010-04-20T08:30:00.018+01:00

I have not been alone on the blogosphere in pointing out how the current electoral set up is almost criminally unfairly balanced towards Labour.  Very soon (May 7th to be precise) I think the full effect of just how unfair the electoral boundaries have become is about to come slamming home and it could be the wider electorate who are being courted like never before that will be demanding some answers when the results are being digested after the election.

With the Lib Dems polling above Labour today it would seem Labour's Plan B is working. If the Lib Dems do well, it is the Tories that suffer more; Labour get in via the back door.

For example, if all three parties get exactly 30% of the popular vote, as a voter it would be fair for me to expect a roughly equal number of seats to be allocated to each give or take a reasonable margin of error.

Have a look at the UK Polling Report seat calculator, which is calculating seats based on a uniform swing which is admittedly is a little flawed, but paints a compelling picture none-the-less. At 30% each, which is not beyond the realms of possibility looking at the current polls we would get the following outcome:

Labour 305 seats (-51)

Conservative 208 seats (+10)

Liberal Democrats 106 seats (+44)

Others 13 Seats (+1)

Northern Ireland 18 Seats (NC)

Do you see what I am seeing? Not only do Labour come out massively on top despite attaining the same share of the vote as Conservatives and the Lib Dems, but even if we combined the Tory and Lib Dem vote, they could not form a minority government between them even if they wanted one with their combined tally. Net result, Gordon clings on.

What about another scenario. Let's give The Tories and the Lib Dems 32% each, and leave Labour on 26%. Here's what comes out of the seat calculator:

Labour 252 seats (-104)

Conservative 243 seats (+45)

Liberal Democrats 124 seats (+62)

Others 13 Seats (+1)

Northern Ireland 18 Seats (NC)

Despite Labour potentially polling 6% less than the Tories and 6% less than the Lib Dems, they could end up with the most seats in the new Parliament. Net result, Gordon clings on.

It is the Electoral Commission who has held the responsibility for Electoral Boundary reviews can by no measure claim success for this distortion. Such happenings are not chance occurances or accidents.

Here's the thing, don't go knocking on their door on May 7th because they've just handed over responsibility for the boundaries to a brand new QUANGO called the Local Government Boundary Commission on 1st April 2010. The body responsible for the stitch up will insist it is no longer anything to do with them, and this new body will rightly claim they had nothing to do with it. We will be afforded No Questions, No Answers, No Accountability. One body set up to provide a stitch up quietly melts away where its actions can no longer be called to account and a new QUANGO takes its place at great cost to us both financially and electorally.

Boundaries aside there is another point. Postal Votes will be going out soon and I believe they can arrive between one to two weeks before the actual election day; so the "others" and the Conservatives had better get their arguments sharpened real quick if they are serious about kicking Brown out.    Postal voting is becoming more popular so there are some serious votes to be won and lost at this next debate because those ballots could be in the post before the last debate comes around.

If the Tory plan is to give Nick Clegg more rope in the hope he hangs himself then they are going to lose because time is just about up and I am not convinced they understand this. If Lib Dem support is a novelty, if it is a whim then the Tories need to know that they do not have the luxury of time.

Cameron's term can be characterised because of his seemingly hubristic belief that when Labour fail, people will move to the Conservatives; so he moved the Tories left, in an attempt to seize the centre ground. In the last week however, that centre ground went Orange.  Since last Thursday Brown seems to have retreated into the bunker and the Conservatives appear to have lost that little bit of momentum and confidence they had just started to get in the lead up to that first debate. Fraser Nelson seems to be making a better case for the Conservatives and is more visible in the last few days than David Cameron.

There are plenty more twists and turns left in this campaign yet.

You Should Vote Conservative Because....

2010-04-20T00:36:00.000+01:00

That's the question on "This Week", (now twice weekly). It is a good question, and one that needs answering.

I say those 5 words out loud, and I can't finish the sentence. Well I can, but not convincingly.

... Because the Conservative Party will give you a referendum on EU Membership. No, can't use that.

... Because the Conservative Party will cut income tax so we can better provide for our families. Nope, the two tax cuts I know of are for Inheritance and on NI for business contributions.

... Because the Conservative Party will cut fuel duty to help small businesses and families. Nope, ditto duty on ciggies and booze.

... Because they will do away with the hated TV Licence and sell of the Left Wing BBC. No, David Cameron long ago insisted he was a fan of the BBC.

... Because they will reduce the size of the government. Not sure; they are talking about "Big Society" which sounds a lot like big government with a bit of out sourcing.

I will refer back to a previous post for the benefit of anyone who wants to know what I am looking for, and why I will not be voting for the three main parties.

This is not Tory bashing - I can't think of any reason to vote Lib Dem nor Labour. But Lib Dem and Labour voters can probably finish their own sentences and that is part of the Tories problem. Perhaps Conservative supporters can finish the sentence for themselves and help others to finish the sentence in a way that will make people want to vote for the Blues.

Top Job

2010-04-19T21:39:00.002+01:00

Anna Raccoon has had a busy day, again. This time the blogger with the claws has torn some flesh from a pretty shoddy sounding local rag.

Additional to the entertaining read there was a lesson I had not been aware of. In researching the law behind reporting during a General Election Anna reveals that the print media are under no obligation to employ balanced reporting when describing Parliamentary candidates, it is the broadcast media which must take these steps.

Good job Anna! I'm more of a read then rant blogger so you have gone to much more effort than I would have gone to, but I am glad there are many people like Anna on the Blogosphere who are willing to put in a shift on these things.

Monday Musing

2010-04-19T13:09:00.002+01:00

Apologies for not posting for a few days, I have been away enjoying Conference League Football, celebrating my sisters impending birthday, recovering from some genetically modified super-virus and last night watching 24 and House all of which kept me away from the computer, and work will no doubt be competing for my attentions this week.

Along my travels there has been some conversations along the way from people regarding the election and regarding in particular the debates. Despite what the polls are saying, I have yet to encounter anyone who is swinging their vote to the Lib Dems. Now, that might say more about my circle of friends and family, and the encounters of the weekend, but none the less with a 14% swing in the polls, it is not matching the reality out there in Daniel World.

Which is good because I would genuinely be concerned if all of this fantasy talk of Nick Clegg becoming Prime Minister were to come true. Mostly because of the Lib Dems fanatical support of all things EU - they would sell us down the river in a heartbeat; but also for Cleggs refusal to back the Lisbon vote despite the Lib Dem Manifesto commitment, and his intent to rid us of Trident (despite declaring publically he would not in his own leadership election, and at the cost of leaving our defence in the hands of the French). I am actually getting annoyed hearing him refer to his opposition as the "older" parties when his party was born before Labour back in the 1800's. (And back then the Liberal Party were for personal liberty, free markets, free trade and smaller government none of which can be charactered to Cleggy's party of today.)

What is a little alarming is that there are still people about supporting Gordon Brown, including people in my own family that really should know better. It seems that whilst most of us are at work, Brown has done some good work in the last year on the sofa's of daytime television and at least one person I love dearly is at the moment still planning to vote for him, though she freely admits it is out of pity. That really does not make it any better.

And with absolutely nothing to back up this or any of my claims I will move onto David Cameron who it seems has actually alienated people back home. Whereas I thought he had just edged the debate over Clegg (despite clearly not having picked up some basic lessons from the US debates) it seems back home Cameron came across as remote and as somebody who could never understand the problems facing the coping classes and working poor. A comment I would find difficult to make an argument against. So I won't.

And is it just me in thinking that if there really is a Clegg-bounce from a debate appearance, does that not make the case stronger for all of the parties to be involved in a TV debate at some point? If seeing and hearing Nick Clegg talk Lib Dem for his part of the 90 minute debate did him good because he was perhaps seen as new or different by some, then maybe UKIP, SNP, the Greens...et al, should be included also in future prime time debates.

So, with three weeks to go dare I make another prediction? No, I am gonna stick with my original prediction of a wafer thin Tory majority and I think the Great British public in their infinite wisdom are collectively and subconsciously keeping the numbers in hung parliament territory because quite frankly we all have a shopping list of what we want from a perspective government, and few of us thanks to Browns busting of the bank balance are getting to hear much of what we want. Consensus politics and record debt means there is little anyone feels able to promise. The closer we get to polling day the more some of our shopping lists will get second and third looks from the main players.

If I were up there, as a crazy right-winger, I would be offering to sell off the BBC, and a referendum on EU membership which would save us money. But I am not, so you can't have it.

ITV / Comres Poll

2010-04-16T12:35:00.002+01:00

The first poll after the debates is out and there is a big twist

Conservative - 36%
Lib Dem - 35%
Labour - 24%
Others - 5%

The two big questions are, how solid is this for the Lib Dems and how would a General Election affect Parliament in terms of seats?

I think it is still hung parliament territory, but with the Lib Dems and Labour much closer together with the Conservatives way out in front. Tellingly, Labour face a massive electoral advantage, so an 11% advantage for the Lib Dems and 12% to the Conservatives may still not be enough to relegate them to third in terms of seats.

The good news, perhaps now for as many as 76% of us is that the Socialists and Gordon Brown are now on the fast train to oblivion.

Update: Oh Dear, the above is the "unweighted polling" and Adam Boulton on Sky says it leaked via Twitter when an ITV Journalist tweeted the raw data.

Update 2: A lesson for us all. Comres have rushed out the "real" results.

Conservatives - 35%
Labour - 28%
Lib Dem - 24%
Others - 13%

The weighting is done to ensure that voting weight for things like age and race samples from raw data are taken to match (or massaged) national samples... all in all, weighted polls are much more reliable than raw data (which is why the media pay for professional sampling to be done)

Overall, still in hung Parliament territory, with the Conservatives in the high 200's, Labour in Mid 200's and the Lib Dems's gaining to about the 70's.

There are more twists and turns to come, but the story could be (with more polling) that the Lib Dems are starting to take Labour voters; it is the Conservatives that need to do this for an overall win.

Debate Poll Results

2010-04-16T00:06:00.001+01:00

The poll was open for just under an hour.

Q. Who Won Tonights Debate?

A.
David Cameron - 71%
Nick Clegg - 29%
Gordon Brown - 0%

Total Responses - 18

Comments from the poll:

1. No-one they are all as bad as each other falling over themselves to tell us how they'll spend our cash without asking us whether we agree or not.

2. But God help us if that is the best of it. Cameron "won" it for me, but Clegg, allowed by Cameron to get away with some ridiculous assertions, will do so in the eyes of most people who now are not interested in politics. Tonight will not have helped

3. Cameron too careful.
Clegg was anti-tory.
Brown looked foolish.

My personal feeling was that Cameron just edged it; he was out in front for a bit then Brown turned on the Tory Cuts line and dragged Cameron into a bit of a slog which let Nick Clegg do well in the late questions. Brown came over pretty bad, but I have never been a fan. The big winner on the night was Clegg purely for getting the airtime and the big loser was Brown.

It was not as sterile as I had anticipated, and it might actually shift the polls - it definitely will if Brown is this bad in either or both of the future debates.

Cross-Posted

Debate Poll

2010-04-15T22:24:00.001+01:00

For blog readers.

Who Won Tonight's Debate?

Feel free to spread this.

Unwell

2010-04-14T15:51:00.000+01:00

Will be back when I am better

Albion Alliance Newsletter

2010-04-13T11:03:00.000+01:00

The Albion Alliance takes the campaign to the doorsteps.

Well Gordon Brown has finally gone to see the Queen, Parliament has been prorogued and the MP's are no more.

Many have stood down and will disappear like the mist, others will be standing again along with a host of new candidates all looking for your vote in this all important General Election to be held alongside the local authority elections on the 6th May 2010.

The Albion Alliance has decided to now move the campaign into the constituencies along with the candidates, and take the fight for a referendum onto the doorstep.

Has your candidate signed The Albion Alliance pledge yet? If not, we have now produced a printable PDF file that you can present them with at the doorstep when they come canvassing for your vote.

Feel free to tell them that you will only be voting for a candidate who will represent your desire for a democratic vote on the the future of the UK and our relationship with the EU. Feel free to tell them bluntly that if they are not prepared to sign up to

The Albion Alliance campaign, you won't be prepared to vote for them.

If they tell you they have already signed, ask them to sign again as you don't have time to check the database whilst you are on the doorstep, use the PDF file to keep a few printed copies handy by the door. (whether they sign once or twice is irrelevant, so long as they do sign up).

You can download and save the PDF file here http://downloads.albionalliance.org.uk/pledge_form_2010.pdf

In fact, why not print lots of copies of the PDF Albion Alliance pledge and give them out to your neighbours, friends, work colleagues, in the local, in the gym, when you go shopping. The more people who know about The Albion Alliance the better the campaign will work.

Lets make every candidate wonder every time they knock on a door looking for a vote, will I be asked about the EU? will I be asked to sign this pledge. This time, don't let them talk at you, this time, make them listen to you.

NO PLEDGE, NO VOTE.

Good luck and our best wishes

The Albion Alliance team.

The State Of Our Union

2010-04-13T00:10:00.000+01:00

As I suspected I arrived at work today and there is quite a bit of talk going on regarding the election campaign. What does not seem to have penetrated the hard skin of those who only "do" politics when an election looms is the scale of the crisis in the economy, and that is probably fair enough because I don’t think the campaign has really directly addressed these problems or highlighted exactly how severe things are.

So, here is my attempt to set it out in layman’s terms, both why the main parties are being shall we say economical with the truth and to set out where things are, or at least and more accurately how I think things are. My humble aim is to reach beyond my normal readers and offer something that can help people understand some of what is being talked about. I am not generally comfortable on the economics when it comes to the nitty gritty, so I will reference back where I am able, but feel free to put me right in the comments if I have drifted astray.

I believe it was in the 2009 Budget that Labour set out their spending plans for the 2010/11 year and this was not amended in the recent 2010 budget. In it, Labour has basically said that they will spend around about £706bn in this financial year (2010/11). Now, this covers everything from doctors and nurses, through to teachers, maintaining the roads, buying paperclips, servicing our debts and of course, funding MP's expenses.

That number again is:

£ 706,000,000,000

Now, the Conservatives did say quite some time back in 2007 that they will match Labour overall spending totals were they to win the election. This was emulating Labours 1997 pledge to mirror the Tory economic plans, which won favour with the voters and reduced uncertainty in the minds of the voters about changing the regime. The plan in 2007 was to try and take away any accusations from Labour that the Conservatives would “cut services”. The debate at that time was that Spending was equal to Service, thus a cut in spending would result in a proportional cut in service; this is an argument I would reject, (but you may not.)

That was pretty much how things stood until recently.

However, the Labour government recently announced that they have identified £11bn of annual spending which they could classify, today, as “waste” and they declared that they intend to cut this waste from their 2012-13 spending plans onwards. In return, the Conservatives amended their 2007 pledge stating that they had in fact identified £12bn in “waste” and that if elected they would cut that “12bn waste starting right away; using £6bn of it to tinker with the National Insurance Bands (the “Tax on Jobs”) and cut spending annual spending by £6bn with the rest.

That's:

£ 12,000,000,000 in annual wasteful spending the conservatives will begin to halt in the over the 2010/11 year if elected in a few weeks.

£ 11,000,000,000 that Labour say they know is being wasted or inefficiently used that they want to keep spending until the 2012/13 year, (though we should keep in mind that by 2012 whoever wins the election will have to have at least one spending review before this date so all numbers at that point are likely to change.)

£ 6,000,000,000 that the Conservatives will spend less per year than the Labour Government. (A less than 1% reduction.)

So to repeat, the £6bn currently in discussion in the media and on the TV and what will be mentioned in the leader’s debates is £6bn of money already being spent which has been identified as wasteful with a further £6bn being used to not make employing people into work more expensive.

So, based on the above, the Conservatives are effectively now saying that for 2010/11 their spending projection is the Labour pledge of £706bn, less the £6bn just mentioned, or:

£700,000,000,000

Now, if you like me get a bit bamboozled over these numbers you are not alone and it is because the numbers are truly huge.

To pay for Public Sector Spending as set out by each party a Government can basically do two things, it can collects tax and it can borrow money. Borrowed money needs to be repaid at some point along with interest along the way and is obviously a more costly way of keeping the Government running.

There is no way I, you or Alistair Darling can be certain of the amount of tax that will be collected in the 2010/11 period, but what we can look at is how much was collected last year and see how much tax is coming in versus how much is needed to go out. Looking at the HMRC numbers for total tax collected in the past year and in recent years there is a very large gap between what can be afforded via tax revenues and via what either a Labour or a Conservative Government is committed to spend. By the chart linked, the Government has collected £397bn in taxation to go towards the amount needed.

Let’s keep our numbers simple hope that the tax rises coming will not stifle tax revenue collection and assume that if collection remained flat the money coming in will be:

£ 397,000,000,000

So in our exercise, with a fair assumption on tax income for this year there is a shortfall or to use the Economic term a Budget Deficit in the Labour plan between the amount of money needed to keep the government going and the amount of money coming in via tax of:

£ 309,000,000,000

And it is fair to say that there is a deficit in tax revenues to the Conservative plan of:

£ 303,000,000,000

And that crucially for this next year alone!

This deficit however is not the same as debt.

So when The Chancellor and George Osborne talk about tackling national debt and tackling the deficit these are not the same thing. Sometimes watching debates on TV about the state of the economy I have heard questions asked about our debt and the answer has come about cutting our deficit – this is usually a rouse to lead away from the truth that by all projections our national debt is soaring and will continue to soar no matter who wins the election because the best the parties are offereing is to halve the deficit.

The national debt can be defined quite simply as what the UK owes, and every penny of it needs to be repaid, usually with interest. The current national debt for the UK is about £849bn and as (I hope) you can see from what I have written above, this is rising all the time as the deficit between the money coming into Government and the money going out are vastly different and the deficit needs to be plugged with new loans.

That number again that every taxpayer in this country is now indebted to is:

£ 849,000,000,000

Now, unfortunately this is the "official" number. However, the official number because it is defined by the Government does not take everthing into account that you and me might include in a more traditional definition. So, to illustrate this more clearly I need to go back just a few months. At the end of 2009 the National Debt number stood at £829.7bn. At that point I wrote about how that £829.7 does not even include Private Finance Initiatives and Pension Obligations that the Government is obliged to pay and at that point a more truer interpretation might put the true debt at £1.35 Trillion, or:

£ 1,350,000,000,000

But, this £1.3 Trillion also does/did not include the potential and worst case outlay based on pledges to buy back mortgage securities. When those are factored in the number rises again to £2 trillion.

Yep, that’s:

£2,000,000,000,000

As the debt goes up in terms of what we can afford to pay so too will the interest rate in which we can borrow future debt, as it becomes more and more risky to lend to us the more we already owe. This is not just true of the UK, but also true of all countries, all households and all businesses. As our deficits continue our total debt rises.

If the deficit is the difference between income and outgoing, and debt is the total that we owe; it is therefore the case that the deficit can be cut, whilst debt continues to rise.

So, you can see that by focusing the debate on the £6bn issue of whether to cut wasteful spending now or later is kind of a false issue which serves to distract from the fact that to actually implement either plan would require loans that are just not realistic in the medium or long term. To meet spending plans as presently set would require loans that would cripple us. If the deficit is growing by about £12bn every month, perhaps £6bn annual reversal is not enough of a plan for now(?)

When the Chancellor and George Osborne talk about halving the deficit in the next Parliament we should remain aware that they are not talking about cutting the debt that is being accrued for which we must continue to pay interest on, the gap will remain and the amount we owe and the amounts we pay each year in interest are set to go up and up and up and up and up and up.

You can look back across recent years and see, there is no way tax revenue would ever cover the levels needed. Simply raising tax rates will not guarantee that more money will come in at the end of the day.

So, in my humble view the current economic debate is something of a sham, because none of the parties are facing up to the real tough questions that should be posed this side of an election. They all know that there is absolutely no way we can afford to take on and service that level of debt. The extent, size, reach and cost of the State has been inflated to a dangerous size, one in which the people of the UK could never have afforded to support over a great period of time. This has been done by our present Labour Government and it is being propped up already by high amounts of borrowing. We will spend more this year on debt repayments than we will for the entire Armed Forces on the United Kingdom and the figure is creeping up.

Labour has had 13 years to re-build the country in the Social Democratic or Socialist model it so desired, but they built their house on foundations of sand and there is a storm approaching. It will need to be rebuilt all over again.

The State framework that Labour built is going to crumble in the next year or so no matter who wins this election. There is going to have to be massive, massive cuts to get by. But let’s be clear, the size and cost of this predicament has been caused by, set up by, with sole responsibility belonging to, this Labour government.

Please frame this in the context of your home or in terms of circumstances that are close to you in terms of what we must do. If your household income fell, you would not increase your level of spending you would cut it to match your income. There may be loans, credit cards and even a mortgage to factor in, but you would manage these based on your ability to make repayments. We probably all know someone who over borrowed or maxed out their credit cards a few years back who is struggling today. It is not really so dissimilar, we all know that in the end to balance ANY budget spending and outgoings need to be balanced against ability to pay, furthermore we all know that by delaying this ends up being more costly in the long run.

By keeping the argument about the circumstances, and merits of the Conservative application of a potential £6bn distracts from the very real arguments that are not being aired, and that people will be afraid to air. The cost, and thus the size of Government needs to be cut by my guess at least by a third and maybe more.

The Institute for Economic Affairs is more optimistic than me, and they think that without any new tax rises that Labour’s spending plans need to be scaled back by at least £167bn annually.

Sorry, but to continue the theme that’s a cut of:

£ 167,000,000,000

Taking £167bn or two times the NHS budget out of the public sector will lead to unrest, it will lead to strikes. Tragic though the consequences are for the people losing those jobs are, the truth is many of them should not have been hired in the first place, their fate is a result of Government mismanagement of our economy.

So when the layoffs do happen and the strikes and civil unrest does come, be it under Labour, the Conservatives or under a Coalition partnership we should be talking today about what lies in store in the road ahead; because ultimately every single person in our land is going to feel the effect of this, every single one of us. And that is what the leaders in this election campaign should be addressing, and as a result that is the debate that we should be having in our schools, workplaces and pubs. By not discussing the size and extent of the inevitable cuts, I believe will fuel even more unrest and protest, because yet again decisions will be made in Whitehall and by the time the election is over and the cuts are being made, the dialogue will be about the tough decisions that need to be made.

After this election the only thing we will be talking about is cuts, cuts and more cuts. That is why we should all be talking about it this side of the election if we want an input on how those cuts may land.

Political Correctness

2010-04-11T17:29:00.000+01:00

This is indeed a sad story in the Mail on Sunday.

Reading the Mail on Sunday story what I find is sad is that there seems to have been a private conversation between two individuals, perhaps more accurately brief exchange who have over time grown friendly and got to know one-and-other, and yet when the exchange was overheard it was a third person that took offence to the remark and they who raised a complaint on the grounds of racism, which seemingly led to the sad events that followed.

My question is, without knowing the particulars of Mr Amors case and set in a broad context, is it not really the case anymore that it is for individuals to take offence for themselves? It would seem that two of the three people concerned had an association based on knowing each other and that the remark made was within the acceptable perameters of their friendship. In such a case there would appear to have been no offence caused.

Can someone cause no offence and yet still potentially be punished for making an offensive remark? Are we comfortable with that?

Perhaps the unnamed third party could have consulted privately with Mr Amors associate and established whether offence had been caused or not, and in doing so if he or she felt appropriate offered assistance?

At what point, or volume, or context does a private conversation now become other people's business? Am I alone in thinking that we would struggle to define such limits and that we really ought not need to?

I am in no doubt of the need for laws to protect people from discrimination, for the need for HR departments, and the need for Social Workers. But are we now smothered by too many protections, laws and directives? Can common sense and individual conscience survive in a world determined to legislate everybody into one-world-thinking? Can two or three people no longer sit down and air their opinions and feelings openly with each other before feeling the need to refer the matter to the appropriate "authority" or have we now surrendered the right of privacy and the right to take offence to higher powers?

The terror of being scolded for the remark after having been suspended seems to have sadly overwhelmed Mr Amors into taking a tragic course of action. It just seems very sad to me that had this particular third party not raised a formal complaint that no offence had been rendered, no discriminating behavior disadvantaged anyone and Mr Amor would still be alive.

Bravo

2010-04-11T14:23:00.000+01:00

There is a reason why I am a part-time bedroom blogger, and that is that on my best day I could not come close to writing as good as many others, and especially Christopher Bookers latest.

If you have not read it yet, go now.

No One In Iceland Is Fighting For EU Membership

2010-04-10T10:30:00.000+01:00

Copied & Pasted from EU News From Iceland Blog.

Former Foreign Minister of Iceland, Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, said to the German journalist Clemens Bomdorf yesterday (April 8) that no one was really fighting for membership of the European Union in Iceland any longer. Membership would probably be rejected in a referendum and it was therefore even better to postpone the EU application rather than to continue the process in total uncertainty.

Gísladóttir is one of the most outspoken supporters of EU membership in Iceland and former chairman of the Social Democratic Alliance, the only political party in Iceland that favours membership. With these comments she joins a growing number of EU supporters in Iceland that have openly aired their worries about the EU application and predicted that it will be rejected by the Icelandic people.

Sources:

Betra að fresta ESB-viðræðum en halda þeim áfram í óvissu (Mbl.is April 9, 2010)

Stolz und Vorurteil (Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir 3) (Highnorth.wordpress.com April 8, 2010)

Typical of EU devotees that they would no push no referendum, rather than losing one when the chance remains that Iceland may change its collective mind in the future. Perhaps the anti-EU forces should push for it still to help close down the debate for some time?

Albion Alliance News

2010-04-10T09:00:00.001+01:00

[This post has been copied at pasted from Ian PJ on Politics Blog.]

You could be forgiven for thinking we are dormant but nothing could be further from the truth. At this second we’re keeping an eye on the Chris Grayling sacking [or not].

There is much being done in getting the databases up to date, it’s soaking up time and we need your help here. For example, one candidate said today that he pledged but we have no record.

The Albion Alliance relies on accurate data – we have various organizations, MSM, parliament, esp. Brussels etc. coming in to observe, as well as parties themselves and it’s egg on our faces if the data is not up to the minute.

One area of our political arm we’re getting traction through is the tweeting and that has almost taken over our output. The Forum is virtually dormant now – too difficult to get into and we can’t run news so we have the AA Blog to do this. We’re also a bit slow on Facebook as well. We’ve had regional interviews and the MSM is monitoring us but so far we’re not saying much which is new.

Money

I’ve just been approached now about whether we accept donations. Sadly, we don’t – we try to stay clean and unassailable, non-party political and focused on the two issues:

1. addressing the democratic deficit;

2. referendum in one year on the EU.

Too complex?

Some have said there are so many buttons to press to sign the pledges so our techie is looking at that this evening. We’ve made two changes already and will monitor how people are finding it.

I’m running this on my own site, rather than at our own because it’s getting crowded over there. If you are aligned with what we are about and can see your way clear, sign the pledge here if you are a candidate and here if you are a voter.

[James Higham]

Independent Network

2010-04-09T19:45:00.000+01:00

I have just stumbled upon this website and wanted to extend a link in case it is of interest to any of my readers and help spread the word as such.

This is the link to the Independent Network an organisation set up to aid Independent Candidates. It would appear to be a similar concept to the Jury Team, but not the same in that this appears to be an unbranded network seeking to assist in the background rather than providing an umbrella for which Independents can stand under - I have written about Jury Team many times, so if you are considering standing or prodding someone else to do so, both are worthy of some attention.

They claim that 98.5% of people do not belong to a political party in the UK, yet there are only two Independently Elected MP's in Westminster, Dai Davies and Dr Richard Taylor MP.

The Independent Network claims on their site to have done the following previously:

Helped over a dozen candidates in the 2005 general election and provided an effective national media campaign
Produced leaflets and resources for supporters
Started an online presence, with a website, blog and social media pages
Connected with current and former independent politicians, such as Martin Bell and Richard Taylor
Formed an Executive committee for the IN that act as the guiding body
Designed and created videos for Independent candidates. Examples of these include campaign adverts and vox pops
Adopted and edited the Bell Principles, a code of conduct for Independent candidates and representatives
Registered IN as a Ltd company – Independent Network Campaign Ltd
Registered IN as a Third Party with the Electoral Commission
Held meetings with national journalists
Arranged meetings and formed partnerships with organisations, such as Parliamentary Outreach and the Democracy Trust.
Connected with Independent PPCs and individuals interested in non-party politics
Arranged events and workshops for Independent PPCs
Started a bank of volunteers
Conducted interviews and set up media opportunities for candidates
Created an information page on Wikipedia

If you are thinking of standing as an Independent and the above sounds like the kind of support that you could use, then it would certainly seem like a worthwhile click of the mouse.

Independents are vital to our system; they are predominantly focused on constituency issues and can really challenge parachuted party candidates. Independents are the candidates that dare to say if you want to run to be my MP, you have to speak to my issues, and get more votes than I can.

Lord Pearson Interview

2010-04-09T18:48:00.000+01:00

The BBC are saying that Lord Pearson has recorded an interview to be shown over the weekend for BBC's Hardtalk programme with Brillo, and have revealled that UKIP will not be standing against Conservatives Philip Davies, Doug Carswell & Phillip Hollobone and "at least" one unnammed Labour MP who are all well know EU Sceptic MP's.

Lord Pearson is also quoted as saying that if David Cameron wins a working majority at the election it "is certainly the end of this country".

I will have to do my best to catch this interview as this is the stuff I have been writing about for some time now.

Congratulations to UKIP for putting country before party by not running against MP's of similar conviction who wish to see the people of the UK be granted a referendum on EU membership.

ONS - 98.5% Of New Jobs Since 1997 Went To Foreign Workers

2010-04-09T18:00:00.001+01:00

The Westminster Party

2010-04-09T16:13:00.005+01:00

Lord Adonis was just on Sky News talking about his article in the Independent today which is worth reading in full. The Labour Transport Secretary has attempted to wade into the sticky area of tactical voting and come out to declare that in his eyes Labour and the Liberal Democrats are virtually the same. In fact he only quotes the Iraq War and the Lib Dem obsession of Proportional Representation Voting as their only differences. A little ironic considering Labour seem to have found a new appreciation for the voting with PR their proposed system for a wholly elected Lords and their step towards PR with their efforts to force a referendum on The AV system for the Commons.

Let's let Lord Adonis do the talking here.

Nick Clegg will spend the next month attempting to cast a "plague on both your houses". The truth is that the Lib Dems, for all their local opportunism, have national policy that is similar to Labour's. The difference is that Labour can implement its programme. The Lib Dems have no realistic chance to implement theirs without a Labour government. In Labour-Tory marginals, a vote for the Lib Dems is a vote which helps the Tories against progressive policies. And in Labour-Lib Dem marginals every Labour MP returned is a seat in the Commons more likely to put Labour ahead of the Tories and therefore better placed to form a government.

So what about Conservative-Lib Dem Marginals? Is the Transport Secretary going to finish the sentence and advocate Labour Supporters then voting Lib Dem?

The Liberals won their last election precisely a century ago. Or rather they were the governing party in a hung parliament which, with strong Labour support, introduced national insurance for the sick and unemployed, abolished the veto of the hereditary House of Lords, raised taxes on the rich, and permitted the trade unions to support political parties financially. In turn the Liberals supported the 1924, 1929 and 1977 minority Labour governments. Until recently the two parties were in coalition in Scotland. Outside wartime, the official Liberal party has never supported a Tory government. Lloyd George's decision to govern with the Tories after 1918 – even with the plea of a post-war national emergency – split his party, destroyed his own political authority, and led directly to Labour replacing the Liberals as the major party of the left within five years.

Never a truer word spoken by a Labour Minister.

Roy Jenkins told me when I was considering joining Labour after Tony Blair became Labour leader: "The only real difference is that Labour is now the larger party of social democrats, the Lib Dems are the smaller; and in our political system, it is generally wise to support the larger party if they are on the same page."

No surprises there then.

The Lib Dems have supported our investment in the public services, radical constitutional reform, equal rights, fair taxation, environmental protection and positive engagement in Europe. As his diaries reveal, Paddy Ashdown ardently sought a coalition with Labour after 1997, which might have happened had the Labour majority not been so large.

Take political reform, which is top of the Liberal agenda. It was this Labour Government that devolved power to a Scottish Parliament, a Welsh Assembly, a Northern Ireland Assembly and a directly elected Mayor of London. It was this Labour Government that introduced the Human Rights Act and that finally passed a Freedom of Information Act, giving the public the right to know. It was this Labour Government that removed most of the hereditary peers from the House of Lords – a reform the Liberals failed to implement when they had the chance in 1911. And it was the Tories who this week blocked a referendum on voting reform and our legislation to remove the remaining hereditary peers.

All these policies were supported by the Lib Dems. Yes, in some cases they were Lib Dem policy before Labour embraced them.

Well we all knew that Labour ran out of new ideas around 1998 and have been skulking around nicking other peoples ever since, but it is nice to have a Labour Minister commit to paper that they are nicking the Lib Dem's proposals.

So, it's clear that Lord Adonis has made a national acknowledgement that there is not a cigarette paper between the two parties.... hang on a second... "Not a cigarette paper between the two parties" where do I recognise that phrase from?.... hmmm.... Oh yes, that's right, that is what David Cameron reckons is all that separates HIS Conservative Party and the Lib Dems.
Let's revisit David Cameron's article entitled "A Lib-Dem-Tory Alliance will vanquish Labour" which he wrote for The Observer just last September.

In 1997, Labour cruised into power on a wave of expectation that Britain would become a more progressive country. Twelve years on, the poor have got poorer, social mobility has stalled and quality of life has gone down.

He understands Lib Dem foreplay well, let's recall what follows...

I don't believe in drawing dividing lines where they don't really exist. Politics works best when instead of hiding behind false divisions we seize opportunities to work together to get things done.

What do you mean Sir by "dividing lines where they don't really exist" ? Surely that's the whole reason why you are in, and lead different political parties!

That's what Nick Clegg and I did with the Gurkha issue. We had different answers as to how best to repay those who had given our country so much, but we agreed the status quo was unacceptable, so we recognised it was best to work together, defeat the government and make them think again.

That same spirit should exist between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats in other areas, too. That's because on so many progressive issues, there is strong agreement between our parties.

David Cameron then rolls off numerous examples of how the Conservative and Lib Dem policies are the same and subtly refers to each as "real progressives" so as to collectively group Conservatives and Lib Dems.

His last sentence begins:

There's barely a cigarette paper between us in all these areas. It's clear: the real enemy of progressive politics is not the Conservatives and I would not claim it is the Liberal Democrats.

So if Labour Ministers think that the Lib Dems and Labour supporters are essentially the same and the Conservative Leader thinks there is barely a cigarette paper between his party and the Lib Dems could it just be that is because the Parties are now too close together to warrant even pretending differently?

I find it pretty sad that in our adversarial system of democracy that has worked so well for so long, we now have most decisions and laws get handed down from a totalitarian system based in Brussels. The areas left in which Parliament and our notional government presides over is monopolised now by what can only be described as "The Westminster Party" the amalgamation of three main existing parties who basically agree on what they will do on most things and on most policies including remaining quietly subservient to our real government in brussels.

To my mind the only way to resolve this is to force a referendum on EU Membership for the UK, whereby if we stay in we can do away with the largely unnecessary and costly Westminster and if we exit we can restore sovereignty and power to Westminster and make the decisions for ourselves with the parties willing and able to offer variety and alternatives.

Until that point, LIB/LAB/CON = Westminster Party.

Unfinished Business

2010-04-09T08:30:00.001+01:00

Lifted from: Sue

The NHS Language Barrier

2010-04-08T19:00:00.006+01:00

Have you ever been to see a doctor when feeling unwell who had little or no comprehension of the English Language? I have, and though fair to say I do not enjoy visiting doctors or feeling unwell, mine were not experiences which endeared the NHS to me.

One such time with a twisted ankle I hobbled in on crutches which I had been loaned from a hospital visit a few days earlier and with my injured leg raised, slightly extended and in the absense of a shoe visibly wrapped; the doctor "read" my notes whilst I stood (not being sure if I should sit in the chair or climb aboard the examination table), the Doctor then stood behind me and lifed my shirt from my trousers.... He could not read English and had wrongly assumed from my limp that I had a back problem - at least that was the nature of the misunderstanding as I read it and I am sticking to that. An angry exchange followed, and I left as promptly as my crutches and good leg would carry me. I tried to warn (in a civil tone) the handful of people who remained in the waiting room that stood between myself and the outer world that the doctor did not seem to understand English, and failed in a visual diagnosis that I had a bad leg. They looked on with the same vacant glare that is nationally recognised of a UK GP's waiting room where we preparing to take leave of our senses, go into a trance and "make do" with the service we are to receive.

Luckily for me, no harm done, I went to the chemist and simply purchased some pain-killers which I assumed would have been the end result if my trip to the doctors surgery had of been resulted in me leaving with a prescription. That was my first and last experience of that particular GP surgery. This particular experience was the first of a few, because as we all know the NHS is staffed with a number of people in different positions from around the world with varying comprehensions of English. It is our own fault that we do not have enough home-grown, English Speaking front-line staff, but if we weren't poaching them from abroad we would on the current size of the NHS have a massive shortfall.

However, this experience has always left me cautious to the potential pitfalls of Doctors and Nurses who quite frankly can't communicate and as such are a danger to all of us, be it a through Nurses not being able to read and understand a medical chart, or through the inability of a Doctor to understand a patient describing potentially life threatening symptoms. There are other dangers of course when you set of down the road of setting out why it is dangerous not having a satisfactory level of communication between patients and NHS staff, and of course between two or more members of NHS staff.

The case in the public eye today relates to Dr Daniel Ubani who administered a lethal dose of a drug (Diamorphine) to a pensioner resulting in his death during his very first out-of-hours surgery. Dr Ubani's poor grasp of English is at the root of the case, and he had already been turned down for work by one NHS trust because of it. The Health Select Committee has reported in the wake of this case:

"If the General Medical Council had been able to carry out language and competence checks on EEA (European Economic Area) doctors wishing to practise as GPs, lives might have been saved. As a matter of extreme urgency, the Government should press for change to the relevant EU Directive to enable the GMC to test the clinical competence of doctors and to undertake systematic testing of language skills."

That's right, we are testing Doctors and Nurse's who come from abroad to work here for their grasp of English, but not if they come from other EEA countries because EU Law forbids it on the grounds that it inhibits free movement of people across the EU. What's more, people are dying as a result.

To me, it simply beggars belief that we allow people to work in the NHS who cannot write perscriptions in English, or potentially understand such simple phrases as "nil by mouth". You do not need me to rant about the insanity of it, it is clear. What's more, in my company we routinely test UK based EEA staff for their grasp of French and German when they are dealing with customers based in France and Germany; to not do so would be disastrous for our revenue.

So why no public outrage when it comes to our beloved NHS and people winding up dead?

What this case does highlight is how subservient the UK to the EU, and more importantly by our own initiative. Do you think that the French allow Doctors to work who can't adequately speak French? Of course not!

The General Medical Council has addressed this particular concern with Health Secretary Andy "Lashes" Burnham to request an end to the ban on language tests. Mr Burnham's response was to point out that the ban stems from an EU Directive and has primacy in our law, and as such there is absolutely nothing at all the Government of the UK can, or will do about it - to do so would result in the UK being fined by the EU.

Understand? We can't test Doctors and Nurses travelling here from other countries in the EEA/EU for their comprehension of English even though it is resulting in the deaths of patients because the EU says so, and to go ahead and do it was to risk getting fined... even though this particular law is flouted in other EU countries, such as France. Andy Burnham additionally points out that the EU directive cannot be reviewed until 2012.

The Government and the Opposition Parties cannot do a thing about this issue, so they just will not talk about it. That, right there is our modern politics. We are supine to the real government in Brussels and as I said the other day, the reason all of the parties (or collectively, "the Westminster Party") seem the same these days is because they are; they are governing in the wastelands that the EU has left for them or just not got around to yet, which is not a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.

There will rightly be much talk during this General Election about the NHS but you will not get a policy or a commitment from any of the main parties on the issue if testing NHS Staff to ensure an adequate level of English because they know that they can't do a damned thing about it; not that they want you to know this of course, these kinds of issues might have people questioning whether in that case we should be in the EU at all, and that is an issue they definitely do not want to talk about between now and election night.

Petrol Receipts

2010-04-08T17:18:00.000+01:00

The price at the pump has hit £1.20, of which about 45p goes to the retailer and the oil company and the rest, approx 75p per litre goes to the Government in VAT and fuel duty.

The Government has the power to bring down the price at the pump but it will not as this is views as a "green tax" and they, plus the opposition parties will not do anything to anger the Green Lobby, even if it would make a very real and very helpful hand to business and families alike.

My solution is neither original nor will it bring down the prices right away. We should as voters demand it be law that all receipts issued by cashiers should itemise what you have just handed money over for, be it VAT or Fuel Duty; whether you are filling up your car, or buying a meal in a restaurant or buying a few bottles of cider at the supermarket.

The result, I would hypothesise would be that people would start to see how much they are handing over in indirect taxations, and that would in turn bring into the debate in clearer terms such duties as is levied on fuel, on cigarettes, the tax we pay when we eat out and when we buy a round of drinks. Perhaps if people could see that for every £50 of petrol that goes in the car £34 was heading to Westminster there would be more debate on excessive, and largely hidden taxation.

European Sovereignty?

2010-04-06T20:00:00.000+01:00

THIS is an interesting piece, it begins...

In the Swiss newspaper Zeit Fragen, Professor Dr. Eberhard Hamer from Germany asks, "How Sovereign is Europe?"

He examines the issue and concludes that Europe has little, if any, sovereignty.

Professor Hamer writes that the sovereign rights of Europeans as citizens of nation states were dissolved with the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty on Dec. 1, 2009. The rights of the people have been conveyed to a political commissariat in Brussels. The French, Germans, Belgians, Spanish, British, Irish, Italians, Greeks, and so forth, now have "European citizenship whatever this may be."

The result of aggregating nations is to reduce the political participation of people. The authority of parliaments and local councils has been impaired. Power is now concentrated in new hierarchical structures within the European Union. European citizenship means indirect and weak participation by people. Self-rule has given way to authoritarian rule from top to bottom.

Professor Hamer then examines the EU commissariat and concludes that it, too, lacks sovereignty, having submitted to the will of the United States. The problem is not only that Europeans are waging an unconstitutional war ordered by the U.S. in a region of the world where Europe has no interests. Europe’s puppet state existence goes far beyond its mercenary service to the American Empire.

Read more at the source article.

To understand where sovereignty now lies, we must look to those who wield the power, and at who controls the money.

As the football has begun I will cut it short and offer further reading available, Here, Here, Here, Here, Here, and an Interesting couple of videos, Here and Here.

Greece A Takes Step On Road To EURO Exit

2010-04-06T19:05:00.002+01:00

Tapestry has the story.

The EURO won't collapse solely because Greece exits, but the floodgates for a number of debates will open if they do come out. Hopefully the Greeks and other nations will now question if there really is value to be had in this slow motion push for a Federal Europe or if we should all take back control to a national level where voters can have a direct say in the decisions that need to be made.

Gordon Brown Calls Election Video

2010-04-06T18:00:00.003+01:00

This will probably be all over the evening news, but in case people were at work and haven't seen it yet, here is Gordon Brown standing outside 10 Downing Street announcing the election.

And here is one of about a million reasons why you should seriously consider not voting Gordon...

Governmentitus

Say No To The Big 3

DNR

Judicial Ruling - Personal Humour, Not OK

Friday Flashback

Foundation X

Dan Bull On Student Protestors

You Get What You Vote For

Not While I Still Have Breath In My Lungs

IF

Farage Wins UKIP Leadership Race

EU Vote Pledge

Recommended Reading

The New Last Post

That's All Folks!

Phrase Of The Week

Changes

Good Riddance

Enough

Where To Go Now?

Election Night Live Blog

The Leaders Debate Rap Battle

Referral

Pre Election Feelings

Election Night Live Blog - Advanced Notice

DON'T. VOTE. LABOUR.

Lisbon Revisited

Predictions?

What To Expect With A Hung Parliament

Worst PM Ever

I'm With Cartman

Promise Versus Reality

More From Mr Condell

The Truth About Ed Balls

Deja Vu All Over Again

Bigotgate in 60 Seconds

Khaaaan!

Third Leaders Debate - The Live Blog

Oh Dear Kerry

Les Grande Third Debate Live Blog - Tonite

New Labour Poster

The End Of Gordon Brown

The World According To Labour

He's Not Wrong

Dignitas - New Scandal

Farage Needs Some Cash

UKIP Threaten BBC With Judicial Review

Who Can You Trust?

UKIP Back SNP Action

Gordon Brown = Compulsive Liar

Bring Down The Elephant

The Second Debate - The Live Blog

In His Own Words

Reminder: Second Debate Live Blog Tonight

Holier Than Thou

St Vince, Brillo & Flanders On Economics

The Second Debate - The Live Blog

The First Debate In 15 Seconds

Farage vs Paxman

DD

You Should Vote Conservative Because....

Top Job

Monday Musing

ITV / Comres Poll

Debate Poll Results

Debate Poll

Unwell

Albion Alliance Newsletter

The State Of Our Union

Political Correctness

Bravo

No One In Iceland Is Fighting For EU Membership

Albion Alliance News

Independent Network

Lord Pearson Interview

ONS - 98.5% Of New Jobs Since 1997 Went To Foreign Workers

The Westminster Party

Unfinished Business

The NHS Language Barrier

Petrol Receipts