EU ‘relationship’ Bullshit Bingo

For those avid players of Bullshit Bingo, we have had a plethora of bovine turd flooding the airwaves and column inches today from a number of Tory tribalists which would have enabled many of you to shout ‘Chateau! at your game cards.  Taking the topics in turn…

Trust in politicians

Gavin Barwell led the way in today’s game with his appearance on BBC Radio 4 Today where he said he would be voting for the amendment to the Queen’s Speech.  His rational was that the vote:

… isn’t an issue about Conservative MPs trusting David Cameron.  It is about using the legislative process to convince the electorate that the clear commitment he gave in his speech in January is going to happen. What we need to do is convince the sceptical electorate that we actually mean it. I think a very effective way of doing that would be bringing forward legislation, so we can go back to our constituents and say look, if you vote Conservative at the next election, here is a guarantee that we will get a referendum.

Presumably little Gavin was out of radio contact when Cast Iron Dave dropped his promise for a referendum on the Lisbon  Treaty, and again in 2010 when Cameron was asked about holding a referendum and opened his response thus:

I do not believe in an in-out referendum for many reasons. I think we are better off in the European Union…

Well Gav, what’s not to trust?

Cameron gets results in ‘Europe’

Tory MEP Martin Callanan, speaking on BBC Radio 4 PM this evening, argued that David Cameron is right to try to renegotiate the UK’s ‘relationship with the EU’ and that Lord Lawson’s claim that any deal Cameron might strike would be ‘inconsequential’ was wrong.  Referring back to the Trust in Politicians line taken by Barwell, he tried to suggest people didn’t trust Labour or the Lib Dems, while pretending Cast Iron Dave had not dropped his own promise to give voters a say on the Lisbon Treaty.

Callanan’s evidence that Cameron could renegotiate a good deal with the EU?  To paraphrase… apparently Cameron has shown he can get results in ‘Europe’ because of his success in reducing the EU budget.  Stop laughing at the back.  Yes, that’s right, this is the same EU Budget coup Cameron supposedly pulled off, that is about to be circumvented as EU finance ministers prepare to vote through extra contributions anyway.  As an EU official succinctly explained last week:

Britain cannot get a blocking minority of countries to stop the first €7.3 billion (£6.2bn) tranche of the €11.2bn the European Commission needs.

There is nothing the British government can do about it as the annual budgets are agreed by majority voting.

Yet despite this being common knowledge, Callanan deceitfully attempted to maintain the budget deal myth to talk up Cameron’s ability to get things done when dealing with the EU as part of the effort to hold the line on the faux renegotiation scam.

Callanan also took the new line rapidly being adopted by Europlastic Tories that if a referendum was being held tomorrow he would likely vote to leave, shamelessly trying to convince us he would vote himself off the gravy train and out of his luxurious Brussels pad! As if.  Clearly the plan of the Eurosceptics is to declare they would leave tomorrow, so in the event of a Cameron-led renegotiation that resulted in nothing of any benefit to the UK, they could all rush to declare a fundamental change and that we should remain firmly in the EU.

‘Breaking off’ the ‘relationship’ with the EU

The UK remaining firmly in the EU is the stated wish of one half of the Axis of Weasel, Barack Obama.  In between Barwell and Callanan’s appearance on BBC Radio, we were treated to the fortune cookie wisdom of the Chicago community organiser.

While graciously acknowledging that it was for the British people to decide the matter of EU membership – which is more than the other half of the Axis of Weasel, aka Cast Iron Dave, has been prepared to accept – he went on to lie that being subsumed into the EU and denied our own voice in international affairs and trade negotiations, is an “expression” of the UK’s global influence!  Doublespeak is alive and kicking in the White House.  Obama observed his view that Cameron’s:

basic point that you probably want to see if you can fix what is broken in a very important relationship before you break it off – that makes some sense to me.

This of course is complete manure.  Nothing is broken.  The EU is functioning exactly as intended, accumulating ever greater control while neutering nation states and dismantling every vestige of democratic accountability and avenues for people to influence and dictate the direction of government.  And of course, ceasing to be ruled from Brussels does not mean the UK and other member states would cease to trade, cooperate and support each other.

The language is purposely designed to give the impression that leaving the EU signals these isles would figuratively move away from the continental land mass and float off into the Atlantic, exiled and isolated.  Independence, it seems, is to be feared and dismissed for our own good…

Throwing in the Towel

With the odor of dung hanging heavy in the air, it was over to Cameron himself to add to the pungent aroma of stage-managed theatrics.

He called the position held on EU withdrawal by former cabinet ministers Lord Lawson and Michael Portillo ‘very, very strange’.  Presumably he feels every Tory should be in lockstep behind his efforts to bribe voters with a stitched up referendum if only they will consent to him remaining in Downing Street for an additional five years of inactivity, inertia, handwringing, excuses, mismanagement, patronage, debt, erosion of liberty and expansion of state power.

Cameron accused Conservatives wanting to leave the European Union of ‘throwing in the towel’ before negotiations had even started.  Only the most ignorant and delusional of people could kid themselves that they alone can reform the EU and reverse its essential core pillar – that of ever closer union, which entails ever more power surrendered by member states to the Brussels bureaucracy.

One would have thought that on the eve of the extent of Cameron’s impotence being revealed to all, when the EU finance ministers torpedo his supposed victory over the EU budget, he would show a bit more humility and re-engage with reality.  But the great con must go on.  The act must be played out to its conclusion and events in the real world must not be allowed to shatter the illusion that he has carefully created within the political bubble.

Media collusion

We can’t cover these steaming piles of bullshit without a special mention for the other enemy within, our fearless media.

Not once has any journalist pointed out the yawning chasm of difference between the EU and the single market, which are conflated by the europhiles as being one and the same – despite the fact leaving the political union does not automatically mean the UK cannot be part of the single market.

Not once has any journalist asked for an explanation about why it is necessary for national sovereignty and political power to be given up in return for ‘benefits’ that can be enjoyed just as easily through simple treaties.

Not once has any journalist mentioned Article 50 or explained its significance, much less asked for Cameron to explain why he won’t invoke it and makes no mention of it.

Not once has any journalist challenged Cameron to justify his tag of being an ‘instinctive Eurosceptic’ when he is desperately opposing every eurosceptic move being made to bring forward a referendum.

Anyone would think they are being careful not to challenge the politicians too hard in case ordinary people start to, you know, think there is an alternative to being ruled with no good reason by the BBC’s Brussels-based benefactor.

Mastiff – Our glorious media and their powerful reputation for accuracy

Perhaps it’s time Lord Justice Leveson was prosecuted under the Trade Descriptions Act for his infamous claim about the media having a powerful reputation for accuracy.  Consider this example above from The Week.  In the highlighted paragraph there are no less than four factual errors.  In one bloody paragraph!

For the record, which the media seems incapable of keeping straight, the Mastiff was deployed in Iraq in late 2006 after it had been ordered that summer.  However its subsequent ‘trickle’ introduction in Afghanistan (as fast it became available off the line) came after the Defence Secretary, Des Browne, came under pressure to improve the safety quality of equipment used by our forces there – which was before Gordon Brown even became Prime Minister.  The Mastiff was actually in the Afghan theatre by early 2007.  The Snatch Land Rover does not have a soft top, it is a lightly armoured vehicle.  And how could the Mastiff be called upon to replace the Viking when it had been ordered before the Viking was even deployed.  In fact the Viking was actually replaced by the Warthog.

Surely this article must be a contender for the most errors in a single paragraph in a professional media outlet.

But the media inaccuracy continues apace as Richard demonstrates on EU Referendum today.  The news that a 27 tonne Mastiff has been destroyed by a huge IED, killing three Fusiliers and injuring several more, has had various outlets reporting its weight variously as 15 tonnes in the Daily Mail, 17 tonnes in the Daily Express, 24 tonnes on Radio 4′s PM and 25 tonnes on BBC One news.

The public is being fed a diet of inaccurate, badly researched tosh that will form part of the historical record.  Generations in the future will look back at the articles and listen to the clips believing they are an accurate record of our history, and get misinformation and downright erroneous material.  This is not a trivial matter.  It is a gross distortion and it is a de facto airbrushing of our time.

What a load of old pony

Some may not know that ‘pony and trap’ is Cockney rhyming slang for excrement. But if they have the misfortune to read the increasingly detached Peter Oborne writing in the Barclay Brother Beano, they will no doubt reflect on the piece as just that.

Here we are just days after the funeral of the last radical political leader this country had, with the eulogies and the reflections on the transformation she brought about to the competitiveness and standing of the UK, still fresh in our minds.  Yet Oborne, in the style so beloved by the vacuous cabal of media sycophants, presents a ‘nothing new under the sun’ review of Nigel Farage which leads him to a typically brown-nosing conclusion in support of David Cameron and counsel not to ‘lurch to the right’ that stretches the bounds of credibility well beyond breaking point, which includes this:

I think Mr Cameron’s best bet is to stay where he is, and to fight on his record as a brave, competent and radical prime minister. Adopting such an attitude will take nerves of steel, and could lead to his premature exit if the parliamentary Tory party – that increasingly tremulous body – panics, as it probably will.

Brave, competent and radical? Cameron?

Only a shameless sycophant could describe Cameron in such a way.  What Oborne labels bravery is what most people recognise as insufferable ignorance, a refusal of Cameron to be swayed from the destructive path laid out by his masters in the EU and a plethora of international governance bodies.

Competence? A man who declared his war on deficit and debt has barely scratched the surface of the first, while presiding over a terrifying explosion of the second.

And radical?  There is nothing radical in being a lapdog for a self selecting global bureaucracy that has snuffed out anything resembling democracy and perpetuated the slow burn decline this country has experienced since the neo-social democrats wets removed Margaret Thatcher, and who along with their ideological soulmates but rivals for the illusion of power in the Labour party, commenced the reversal of this country’s recovery and the state’s coup over individual liberty, personal freedom and privacy.

But that’s the dumbed down poodle media for you.

The media’s powerful reputation for accuracy… again

Another one for Lord Justice Leveson.

This time it is Reuters demonstrating that oh-so powerful reputation for accuracy that so impresses Hacked Off’s favourite judge, hizzoner Leveson LJ.  The corporate news provider states on their video report on wealth safe havens, by hack Tara Joseph, that gold has slumped to its lowest price in 30 years!  (I would embed the video if anyone can tell me how to do it on WordPress).

Let’s see if Reuters are right, shall we?  We won’t even go back 30 years, we’ll go back just 10.

The sad thing is, people still trust the mainstream media.

Huhne trivia trumps the major issue

So after lying through his teeth for years, Chris ‘Lhuhnatic’ Huhne has admitted his guilt in open court.  Very few people will be surprised that this vile man believed the rules should not apply to him.  Laws and rules are for the little people.

The media is now swarming around Huhne for the crime of perverting the course of justice. Without any sense of perspective it is greedily lapping up details of text messages between Huhne and his son to provide ‘colour’ to the story.

What a shame the media isn’t swarming around Huhne for his role in subverting the course of this country’s energy generation infrastructure and costs.  That is a crime for which he won’t answer, yet is having and will continue to have serious consequences for millions of people who are struggling to afford their energy bills and for this country’s ability to reliably and efficiently produce the energy that is needed.

Of course, our media isn’t interested in that. As always trivia trumps the major issue and the interests of the public make way for the media’s  masturbatory coverage of matters that are in the overall scheme of things are of little consequence.

Pesky questions the media don’t want to answer

h/t The Boiling Frog

But when such a straightforward question does get asked, it is posed out of context and the answer given by the political elite is accepted unmolested by any form of challenge.  Someone’s interests are being served here, and it isn’t that of the general public.  When Cameron declared ‘we are all in this together’ he must have meant the political class and the media.

Prestige failure – another badly informed business expert looks stupid

The ‘Next’ up on the conveyor belt of ‘business experts’ to offer their prestigious insight in the pages of the media claque is Baron Wolfson of Aspley Guise.

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The former Simon Wolfson, this man is Chief Executive of Next, a Conservative Life Peer since 2010 and was a financial backer to David Cameron’s leadership campaign in 2005 – exactly the sort of man the Telegraph would run to for comment.

But despite an expensive education and even more expensive remuneration package, Wolfson demonstrates a frightening lack of knowledge about a subject that has enormous impact on the business he runs. He joins a long line of establishment and business figures who unwittingly or deliberately conflate EU membership with being part of the single market, despite them being separate as shown by .  But his comment goes unchallenged as the media refuses to do anything that will remind viewers and readers of the reality of the European project, because the media supports the project.

Anyone who has taken even a rudimentary look at the history of the European movement will know Britain joined the EEC, and remained an enthusiastic member its all its subsequent guises, knowing the destination was political union.  While voters were lied to and spun a tale of only joining a common market, reams of evidence in the years that have followed have been presented to show the political class and civil service knew, approved of and actively pursued full British integration into political union.  Britain exactly signed up to the inexorable march to a federal Europe.

For Wolfson to state otherwise proves one of two things:

1. He is a badly informed and poorly read individual whose lack of knowledge should require him to stay quiet, or
2. He knows the reality and is just another Tory Wet stooge knowingly repeating a lie for partisan political ends

Either way, his intervention in the debate adds no value and leaves him looking stupid.

But there is a wider issue here.  The media is being flooded with these inaccurate and misleading editorials and op-eds, part of an effort to rewrite history and make ordinary people accept the distorted record as fact.  While comment threads online are loaded with rebuttal and corrections, that is not a feature of the dead-tree press bought from news stands.  An evidence-based campaign will be needed soon to correct the record in local and national media so people can see how the establishment has lied to them, again.

Sausages and laws, the media doesn’t understand how either are made

Witterings from Witney picks up on an article in the press about proposals for more 20mph speed limits and enforcement cameras, one in which the well-paid hack has failed to ‘dig beneath the surface’ of the story where the origin of legislation is concerned.  It indirectly provides more evidence of the fallacy of the ‘fax democracy’ the EU supposedly dictates to non-EU members of the European Economic Area (EEA).

It is a valuable piece that all readers would benefit from taking on board, as it shows that much of the legislation being introduced by national governments – and the European Union – is not ‘home grown’ and does not even originate in the European Commission, but rather is formulated by sovereign nations and handed down by UN bodies to which they have acceded.

The EU’s ‘common position’ as representative of its 28 member states therefore mean each member state has less of a voice in shaping these decisions than independent nations such as Switzerland and Norway – who engage directly with the UN bodies to shape legislation with their own voice.

As WfW wryly observes:

As mentioned on twitter by @WhiteWednesday, no doubt – and hopefully – the Swiss “faxed” Brussels to give them advanced warning of legislation they would shortly have to introduce – but I digress again.

Quite.

As always it’s all about what they want

For all the talk of membership of the EU being in the UK’s ‘national interest’ and the UK having ‘influence’ to shape the EU’s direction, the reality is rather different.

The media, which goes to such great lengths to make these assertions, seems completely unaware of its own contradictions on the matter.  Another example of that is presented by the Financial Times today.

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Despite the UK’s much reported influence, we read that few EU leaders see scope for an extensive renegotiation.  So where is this great influence?  And as we have asked before, if the UK has so much influence in the EU to begin with how come we have such a poor settlement today that necessitates the repatriation of powers?

Then there is the national interest argument.  The rationale given for EU leaders opposing the UK’s meek request to repatriate some powers from supreme government in Brussels is that it could undermine EU integration that is apparently required to enhance ‘Europe’s’ weight in the world.  Further that if the British people rejected any crumb-like revised terms Cameron managed to get tossed down from the table it could result in a EU split affecting Europe’s political and economic architecture.

So where in those arguments is there anything about the UK national interest?  All that is being whined about is what it could mean for the EU and its interests.  All the bleating, cajoling and veiled threats coming out of Washington, Brussels, Berlin and Paris is about the UK doing something that might hinder their interests.  The interests of the UK are irrelevant to them – exactly as they are whenever EU law is written, regulations are formulated and trade deals are struck that result in poor terms and outcomes for the UK.

As always, it’s all about what they want.  The wishes and needs of the British people don’t matter.

The Norway influence saga – what does it all mean?

Judging by the amount of people visiting this blog, EU Referendum, Witterings from Witney and The Boiling Frog; and those reading the articles and comments left on the Open Europe blog and at the Telegraph, there is a lot of interest in alternatives to EU membership.

David Cameron’s repeated claim – echoed by Tories, Lib Dems, Open Europe and a raft of media commentators – that he doesn’t think it’s right to aim for a status like Norway or Switzerland because you have to obey all the rules of the single market but you don’t have a say over what they are, has been exposed as a lie.

Over the course of several days, a small band of bloggers working independently, along with a larger number of casual commenters, have presented a raft of evidence that utterly refutes the claim and proves Cameron completely wrong. So what does it all mean? Let’s summarise it.

The reality is Norway, as a member of EFTA and part of the EEA has a veto, and has influence in shaping decision relating to the single market that even the UK doesn’t. Whether it chooses to use the veto and how it decides to shape legislative decisions is of course a matter for itself. But the influence demonstrably exists in no small measure.

The evidence is inescapable that Cameron has deliberately attempted to deceive the public, aided by the disgraceful media, as part of an establishment effort to hide workable alternatives to EU membership and pretend that outside the EU we would just have to accept whatever Brussels churns out.

For all their talk of renegotiation and repatriation of powers, the establishment wants to stay firmly inside the EU and therefore leave Brussels in overall control of the UK. They are committed to political union.

That is the issue here. The politicians are being dishonest and they have been caught out, but the media is turning a blind eye, treating the British people with cyncial contempt. The UK can not only survive outside the EU, it can thrive. The politicians, with their vested interests and with their media puppets in tow, just don’t want people to know.

Telegraph’s hack pack continues ramping up the pro-EU narrative

If anyone was in any doubt that the Barclay Brothers’ Telegraph is planting its flag firmly on europhile ‘in’ campaign ground, then their Head of Business, Damian Reece, has provided clear evidence of it in that comic, declaring in a piece titled ‘We may soon need Europe more than Europe needs us’ that:

For as long as I have been in work I’ve been writing about Europe’s single currency in one way or another, from the Exchange Rate Mechanism to a eurozone break-up.

We could try to negotiate our own bilateral trade agreements but given our market of 60m people we’re unlikely to win such attractive terms as a market such as the EU’s 500m.

All that time I’ve maintained a stubborn opposition to Britain’s membership. But now an equally difficult choice is looming, which centres on what sort of Europeans do we want to be or, perhaps more realistically, what sort of Europeans can we be?

Having spent years currying favour with its readers with various criticisms of the EU, now that push is coming to shove the Telegraph’s hack pack is declaring itself for the UK to stay firmly inside the EU pumping out evidence-free strawman articles and commentary, while downplaying or completely ignoring every negative aspect of membership.  For example, in light of a raft of opinion polls how could Reece have possibly concluded that:

There is a consensus here that the UK must retain its membership of the single market but that we should remain outside the single currency.

Where there is evidence that Reece’s assertions simply don’t stand up to scrutiny, he simply dismisses it, as he does in this little section:

But as the brakes come off world trade, the biggest beneficiaries will be members of the biggest trading blocs. Those outside these groups risk missing out on the biggest benefits of multilateralism and trying to join after the event risks less favourable terms. We could try to negotiate our own bilateral agreements but given our market of 60m people we’re unlikely to win such attractive terms as a market such as the EU’s 500m. It’s true the likes of Switzerland do it but I don’t believe we should be aspiring to be Switzerland — no offence to the Swiss.

So his argument is undermined by evidence that the Swiss, a much smaller entity than the UK, successfully negotiate bi-lateral agreements. So to deal with that inconvenient fact he puts up another strawman that we shouldn’t be aspiring to be like the Swiss.  Eh?  That’s the only way he can make his argument stand up?  Such deep thinking.

The even more inconvenient fact Reece dodges is that Switzerland – with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein – make up the EFTA group of countries. and they do have real influence along with all-important independence.  The EFTA countries are highly competitive, open economies representing a sizeable market with strong per capita purchasing power.  There is always an option for Britain to join that bloc, if only as a temporary step, and that bloc could easily cooperate to secure attractive world trade terms.  Indeed, EFTA could easily transform itself into something different and even more beneficial.  But of course when europhilia is coursing through one’s veins, one is blinded to any alternative to remaining in the EU’s unnecessary and anti-democratic political union.

It seems the only europhile argument is that we should sacrifice this country’s ability to govern itself in return for the illusion of ‘influence’ and access to a market that is in any case open to other countries outside the EU.  And Reece is buying in to it along with the mythical renegotiation meme pushed by the Tories and their little helpers that still leaves the EU in control of the UK.

As faith in the political class is at an all time low and still falling, thankfully so is faith in the fourth estate as the disdain and mistrust extends out to encompass the whole establishment – a point Lord Justice Leveson would do well to grasp.  That much is clear from reading the almost 900 comments the overwhelmingly majority of which ridicule, challenge and deconstruct Reece’s supposed new-found europhilia.

But the important fact to take from all this is the establishment is setting itself against the wishes of the people, therefore serving interests other than ours.

It will necessitate an organic, grassroots campaign of a type not adopted here before, reaching out directly to the electorate to explain why leaving the EU will be beneficial for this country.  It’s the only way a positive message can be presented that by-passes the lies and distortions of the political class and their poodles in the mainstream media.  Battle needs to be joined for the future of the United Kingdom.

More to it than meets the eye

When the likes of CBI Director-General, John Cridland, say of the UK’s membership of the EU that it is ‘essential that we stay at the table to bang the drum for businesses and defend our national interest’ there is always a vacuum where evidence of any successful defence of our national interest is concerned. The UK is expected to sacrifice for the greater good of the EU whole.

Similarly, when the likes of rabid europhile federalist Lib Dem MEP, Andrew Duff, argue that the UK should be offered ‘associate membership’ of the EU in a move that would see the UK lose all its MEPs, its commissioner in Brussels and its right to veto decisions in the European Council you can be sure the plan is designed to ensure the UK is even more seemlessly controlled by Brussels.

The effort to sow confusion and scare people in equal measure continues apace, given unquestioning column inches and an easy ride by our unthinking media.

As the media will not do it for us, because digging to deep may reveal facts that are unacceptable to the electorate and inconvenient to the europhile cause, we cannot take things at face value.  We must continue to ask ‘why’ these things are being promoted and work out ‘who’ stands to benefit.

That Leveson assertion that media has a ‘powerful reputation for accuracy’ again

When the great Lord Justice Leveson attacked bloggers and social media and declared the mainstream media has a ‘powerful reputation for accuracy’ he didn’t do the so-called ‘fourth estate’ any favours.  It was inevitable some bloggers would use some of the multitude of glaring examples to the contrary to demonstrate what utter rubbish m’lud spoke.

Herman Van Rompuy is the President of the European Council.  Would someone please tell the Barclay Brother Beano‘s editorial staff..?

For the benefit of the Telegraph’s editorial team, with their attendant powerful reputation for accuracy, the Council of Europe has a Chairmanship which is held by a member state.  At this time it is Andorra (until May 2013).

Pleased that this ‘electronic version of pub gossip’ is be able to help the oh-so-grand font of truth!

h/t The Boiling Frog.

His masters’ man

Profoundly disappointing, but unsurprising, to see Andrew Gilligan using his platform at the Telegraph to perpetuate a demonstrably untrue assertion about the kind of relationship the UK would have with the European Union if we managed to leave.  Gilligan is, after all, his masters’ man.  He takes the Barclay Brothers’ coin and follows their pro-EU lead, as he shows with the following comment:

Yet the British impetus for full withdrawal may be dangerous: in the modern world, the very idea of “UK independence”, as promoted by the eponymous Eurosceptic party, is surely an illusion. Even if we left, given the amount of trade we do with the EU, we would still have to follow most of its rules – while no longer having any role in setting them.

This is the same fallacious tosh knowingly spun by the Norwegian foreign minister last week in spite of the reality he is completely aware of.

For a journalist who boasts a reputation for ‘investigative’ ability, Gilligan has failed to investigate the truth before doling out the sort of lie that helped Edward Heath Harold Wilson secure his EEC referendum victory (Apologies – in my rush I conflated the 1975 referendum with Heath’s 1973 parliamentary action).  Members of the EEA/EFTA do have a substantial say in the trade rules.  To suggest otherwise is an outrageous lie.

The tactics of the europhiles remain the same.  The truth is not their ally, but something to be concealed from the populace.  Instead of matters of substance on the subject of EU membership we are subjected to a narrative of superfluous nonsense, which Gilligan resorts to at the end of his article to underpin the europhilia that inspired it:

On that day in 1973 when we joined, an opinion poll asked the British people whether they wanted to see in their country Common Market “customs” such as “regular wine with meals”, “more pavement cafes”, “more shops open on Sunday”, “pubs open all day” and “coffee and a roll for breakfast, not bacon and eggs”. The poll respondents said no to all these dangerous foreign innovations (apart from the wine), but now, of course, along with Polish waitresses in London and British pensioners in Spain, they are standard parts of national life. For all our professed hostility to the EU, we are in some ways far more “European” than we were.

To expose how shallow the justifications for EU membership truly are, there’s two questions that eurosceptics should continually keep asking the europhiles to answer:

• Why does it require the surrender of control of our country, identity, money and self determination to an unelected and unaccountable power overseas to realise any supposed benefits?
• Why can’t benefits be achieved through cooperation and agreements, without rule from Brussels?

Another example of Nigel Farage’s poor judgement

Many people who still hold faith in the political process, but are disillusioned by the three main parties, are looking for a home. A number of them may be looking at UKIP as a party they might support and want to know a bit more about its autocratic leader, Nigel Farage.

But if their search is for a political figure who offers reassuring gravitas and comes across as steady, measured and in possession of good judgement then a spotlight piece about Farage published in the Daily Wail last night is likely to have left them feeling disappointed and frustrated in equal measure.

Britain needs a serious politician for serious times and the dross offered up by the political party nursery production line of grabbers and troughers isn’t providing it. So Farage had clear run to conduct a clinical public relations campaign that confounds the ‘ordinary bloke, cheeky chappie’ image which prevents him being taken seriously and instead positions him and his party as leadership material.

However Farage’s ego has seen him walk straight into a hatchet job by the broadly pro-EU media which continues to present him as something of a lightweight prat. It won’t put off those people who are already sold on Farage, but it will do nothing to attract serious floating voters who take issues seriously and want to see a credible alternative they can lend their support to.

The Wail is expert in this kind of thing and played its hand well. It sent along a not unattractive female journalist, Jane Fryer, to smile and bat her eyelids at Farage in the knowledge that with his lothario-like reputation he would be disarmed and play up to her – resulting in him saying daft things and giggling away like a hormone-filled teenager. The resulting output could then be assembled into a harmful piece and that is what has subsequently hit the printing press. He may try to laugh it off and bluster past it, but this Mail piece has landed a blow.

Farage has been in politics long enough to have known better. His public relations advisers should have insisted he do a different kind of interview in which he could still display an easy charm while showing the public he is the kind of serious man for serious times alternative they are craving.

Whether his PR did advise this but Farage’s famously ‘my way or the highway’ approach took over, we will probably never know. But we can be sure he won’t be attracting the kind of supporter he and his party desperately needs. UKIP will continue to be viewed as the party that draws the slightly off-the-wall kind of person to it. Farage is more likely to get the nose-pinching desperate voter than the kind of voter who will only go out to vote positively and enthusiastically for a party’s candidate.

As with so many cock ups Farage has been at the heart of, it was completely avoidable. Another golden opportunity presented at an ideal time, utterly wasted. I often wish I could support Farage and the party he has moulded in his image, but this is another reminder of why I don’t.

Update: Richard has seen the Wail piece and has drawn the same conclusion, only with additional context and background. Well worth reading in full here…

That’s us told…

The Daily Wail has regurgitated a story that has been doing the rounds on the internet for a couple of days, about a man in Tunisia who died in an attempt to eat 30 raw eggs in a single sitting as part of a wager.

There is nothing in the space filler about the cause of death, just that the man was dead before he could be taken to hospital after downing 28 of the eggs.

Nevertheless, Sara Malm, fearless hack for the noted media campaigner against the nanny state, deigns to round off her incredibly short ‘story’ thus:

Whilst eggs cooked properly are a great source of protein and part of a healthy diet, raw eggs could cause food poisoning and may contain salmonella bacteria.

If you are making food demanding raw eggs, such as mayonnaise or ice cream, use pasteurised eggs to eliminate risks.

Well that’s us told, and without a trace of ‘we know best’ hectoring in sight… not!

Perhaps this signals the Mail’s crusade against the nanny state is at an end?  Efforts to discover if Malm is related to Edwina Currie have so far drawn a blank.

Establishment arrogance redux

It never gets old, but by God it’s bloody boring. Once again the establishment is indulging itself with a substantial dose of hubris, with Bruce Anderson leading the charge.

His op-ed in the Tory Wet propaganda sheet Barclay Brother Beano says it all, ‘Until David Cameron learns to explain himself, voters will not trust him – Many natural Tories are losing faith in a party that appears to ignore their opinions’.

Apparently the focus is on those people Anderson and CCO label as ‘potential’ Tory voters. By that logic however those people are also potentially voters for every other candidate and party, but that kind of common sense eludes them.

But the real issue here concerns the assessment of Anderson and his puppet masters in Cameron’s office; it’s not that Cameron is wrong, oh no, it’s just people don’t understand what he’s getting at because we’re presumably too thick.

It’s obviously a simple communication problem and nothing to do with the fact many of us don’t agree with Cameron’s viewpoint and direction. After all, how could anyone possibly disagree with the supremely educated, all-knowing and all-wise Cameron? Ungrateful rabble of serfs. By now we should all get that the benevolent political class know what’s best for us. No need to think, just get on with life, work your fingers to the bone, hand over your money for them to spend as they see fit and do what they tell us. It’s all so easy really.

Which is why Anderson writes complete and utter bullshit, such as this:

To think about David Cameron’s premiership is to ponder on paradox. Although he is the dominant figure in British politics, he has only shallow roots in public affection; sometimes, it seems, in his own party’s loyalty. Although he will always rise to a big occasion with a big speech, most voters have only a vague idea as to who he is or what he stands for. Politics, abhorring a vacuum, often fills it with a four-letter word – in this case, Eton. That is the one fact which everyone knows about the Prime Minister: where he went to school. It is not a helpful fact.

Cameron can deliver a big speech, you know… You just don’t know enough about him… Therefore your criticism and dislike of him is just all so jolly unfair… blah blah blah. The problem for Bullshit Brucie’s ludicrous little strawman is that we do know what Cameron is for. We see his direction very clearly. We see our interests are plainly not his interests. We can see power seeking for its own sake for what it is. We get it when we demand to make our own decisions and he refuses because it doesn’t fit with his wishes. It’s just we happen to know best what is good for us and what we want.

To suggest anything other is exhibit unbelievable self delusion and an incredible kind of arrogance – two qualities that exist with staggering abundance among members of the establishment. It all makes for thousands of column inches of wind, noise and bluster. Increasingly is it that which is being ignored. Far from not knowing or understanding, it is because more and more people know and understand far better than ever before that the bubbleista find they are communicating with themselves.

They are now totally irrelevant. Soon they will be wholly illegitimate too. Then things will start to get interesting.

English law again shows itself to be a complete ass

In the Mail on Sunday is a story concerning two adults from a family from Eastbourne.  It is thought they have taken an overdose, possibly as a suicide attempt.  The facts are not yet known, as such the media is in full speculation mode.

The point to note here is their names have not been used in the story because their daughter cannot be named for legal reasons.

This is because the daughter ran away to France with her married schoolteacher.  The teacher, who has been charged with child abduction, the girl herself and her parents all became household names earlier this year as a result of the manhunt, with their photographs splashed all over the television and newspapers.

To name them in this blog post would be breaking the law.  If the media named them it would be breaking the law.  This despite the names and photographs of all the actors in this sad piece still being instantly accessible on the internet.

So what we have is a courtroom constructed fantasy that the identity of the child – and by extension her family – can now be kept secret to protect her.  It takes a special kind of stupidity, or a complete detachment from reality, for the courts to think a genie can be put back in the bottle by banning the publication of the girl’s name – and by extension her family – in this way after saturation media coverage of all concerned.

A victory for state sanctioned and engineered bullying and intimidation

Following on from the BBC-enabled Margaret Hodge hypocrisy fest on the Today programme this morning…

American citizen Sam Bloggs, who when in Europe is resident in the Netherlands and pays tax on his earnings in full there, has told the UK government he is going to voluntarily pay more tax to the Exchequer than required by law, following a sustained campaign by his neighbours who argue that because he has a lot of money and he should pay more here.

Bloggs had followed the letter of the law enabling free movement of trade and capital in the EU after taking advice from taxation specialists.  But following his hard work and success in building up his worldwide franchise business, which indirectly employs a large number of people and contributes a substantial sum in tax and National Insurance to this country’s coffers, he was subjected to an onslaught of vilification in the media and even in Parliament.  Bloggs told AM:

My business model has helped create companies, wealth and jobs, generated substantial tax income and contributed a great deal through National Insurance in the UK. I give money and time to charity, working with the Fairtrade Foundation and supporting the Prince’s Trust through a partnership agreement even though I’m not based in Britain.

But because I’ve been fortunate enough to be successful a number of people and politicians have demanded I pay more than the rules say I am obligated to. They say it’s not fair that I’ve been successful and earned a lot of money and pay full tax in Holland instead of here.  Because I’ve earned it and got it they say fairness dictates they should have it instead.  They say they want it and they make the rules so therefore they’re entitled to it.

It means I’ll have less money to invest in creating more opportunities and supporting charity, but if I don’t make these additional payments some people are going to keep smearing me and telling people to boycott my brand.

State sanctioned and engineered bullying and intimidation has won the day for the feckless incompetents.  When will people wake up and say enough is enough?

Those who fritter away our money – not just on deserving vulnerable people in our society in need of support – on those who think they have a right to be kept in return for nothing, on those who come to this country to take advantage of the enhanced suite of benefits and services they have never contributed a penny to, and worst of all on massive handouts to the establishment’s friends who farm taxpayer subsidies for all manner of wheezes on an industrial scale to boost their already substantial wealth, are demanding even more money with menaces while hoodwinking the unthinking into applying the necessary pressure to make it possible.

The pressure to fork over ever more money to the government is not just being applied to the likes of Starbucks and Amazon.  Via the spiteful tactics of HMRC conducted outside the view of the public, it’s happening to small businessmen too, driving some out of business altogether.  And the state calls this ‘fair’.  Bollocks!

Energy Bill published… and in our supposed democracy, the media and the people sleep on

The big news this week? Many of you may think it is the floods across the country. Others will believe it is the Leveson Report. Others may feel it is the Common Purpose inspired Rotherham foster child scandal.

Of course, it’s all subjective. But for this blog the biggest news this week – and indeed for many months – is that which will have the widest reaching and most harmful effect on the vast majority of people up and down the UK. Only, assuming our glorious press is capable of understanding the story in the first place, you won’t have read much about it in the papers or seen it on the news because the press is too busy doing exactly what the political parties do… navel gazing and considering its self interest. That is why they are in such convival company among the establishment.

The story? Why, it’s the Energy Bill of course. It’s huge (that applies as much to the draft legislation as to what drops on your doormat) it’s sexy, it’s loaded with scandal and dodgy dealing, it has the capacity to run for months on end and it’s underpinned by faustian pacts. But barely anyone is giving the Energy Bill, the ream of additional information about it, the coverage it deserves.

It will only get the coverage it deserves, and the politicians will only come under necessary scrutiny and pressure, when people see the cost of heating their homes and having the lights on continues to spiral, and rota disconnections via smart meters remotely cut the power to our homes despite lofty pledges to keep the lights on.

The politicians will follow the usual response format. First they will blame wholesale energy prices for the increasing cost of consumer energy. Then they will prattle on about people needing to shop around for the best deal, where the major energy providers (British Gas, E.ON, nPower, Scottish and Southern, EDF and Scottish Power) provide tariffs ranging from high (which people opt for as the cheapest available option) to ludicrous (knowing hardly anyone will opt for them it makes the high tariff look comparatively good value). Soon that bolt hole for the Westminster morons will disappear when the range of tariffs becomes limited by law thanks to a typically brainless Cameron piece of policy making on the hoof. The effect of this will be the lowest available prices actually increased and the cartel able to lock in their existing customer base as there will be no benefit to changing provider with barely a cigarette paper between the prices each of the big six set.

But it is the politicians who are to blame.

It is the politicians who are, with puppy-like timidity, executing the policies and direction handed down to them by unelected, unaccountable and largely unknown bureaucrats and activists operating with impunity within the structures of the United Nations to make the supposedly voluntary and non-binding Agenda 21 (sustainable development) a reality.

Rather than map out in detail here how the vicious Agenda 21 objectives (which this UN document explains without any mention of the word voluntary) are designed to force people to reduce energy consumption I humbly recommend this post by Richard at EU Referendum, who has been painting the bigger picture and connecting the dots on this massive story for a long time and continued with that effort yesterday.

The Agenda 21 objectives drive up prices by reducing supply. That is why industrialised nations are decommissioning effective and reliable energy generating capacity and replacing it with ineffective, unreliable and intermittent sources that are only economically viable if people pay grossly inflated charges – and behind the scenes billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is forked over in direct funding to the land barons and subsidy farmers who get rich in return for a product that isn’t fit for purpose.

The same objectives are responsible for driving an insane approach to water supply, where the focus is on restricting our use instead of building more reservoirs to negate the need for supply interruptions and hose pipe bans. All of it done out of the sight and beyond the reach of voters, but we all feel the effects. And with a typical inversion of the reality, using techniques embraced by totalitarians the world over, Agenda 21′s corruption of ‘sustainability’ is portrayed in images and logos as a something wonderful.

The media would rather focus on the cult of celebrity and their own narrow interests. If it were not for a few determined people fighting to be heard on the internet we would know nothing about this. That’s why the majority of the people in this country continue to sleep on in ignorance – indeed in places like Croydon North, Rotherham and Middlesbrough, they even continue to vote for the slime representing the very political parties who are carrying out this spiteful agenda.