Ukraine signs its Faustian pact with the EU

So there we have it.  The EU has signed its Association Agreement with the self appointed administration in Kiev – which came to power through a coup, rather than waiting for elections promised by Ukraine’s elected President, who is now in exile.

It may be that Ukraine’s electorate might have voted for a party or coalition that remained in favour of beginning the long process of surrendering sovereignty to the bureaucracy in Brussels, but as things stand a political settlement has been rammed through by the political class, without a clear mandate from what remains a disenfranchised population.

Small wonder that Ukraine’s unelected Prime Minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, claimed that Ukraine and the EU share the same values.  That democracy is not one of those values has been reinforced once again today.

The hypocrisy of the EU has broken new ground as it commenced the process of taking control of yet another territory without the approval of the people it will eventually govern. Whatever hopes the people in Ukraine had for a democratic, sovereign future have been swept away with a few flourishes of politicians’ pens.

The country has now been carved up between two rival entities.  The EU is set to take the spoils in the west and north, Russia has snapped up the peninsula in the south.  Another triumph for the political class.

The BBC reports that the EU Association Agreement is designed to give Ukraine’s interim leadership under PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk economic and political support.  What it actually does is give the EU ever greater control over Ukraine.

The challenge that UKIP has yet just will not grasp

Labour fanatic Dan Hodges has taken to his Telegraph blog in light of the Wythenshawe election result to dismiss the notion that UKIP is any kind of electoral threat to Labour:

So now we know. The narrative that Ukip is as much of a threat to Labour as it is to the Conservative Party is rubbish. Though to be fair, some of us always suspected as much.

Lest we forget, last night’s Wythenshawe and Sale East by-election was supposed to be the moment that Ukip made the big breakthrough into Labour’s heartland. As my colleague Toby Young wrote recently, many commentators were claiming that an outright Ukip win “is not as far-fetched as you might think, as Mike Smithson points out in this post for PoliticalBetting.com.

Hodges is clearly a man who likes to stir a reaction.  And as expected, this has turned out to be the literary equivalent of taking a stick and poking a nest of angry purple and yellow wasps, with the resident UKIP commenters swarming out to attack, ridicule, criticise, berate and insult Hodges as much as their keyboards will allow.  I think he’s actually quite enjoying it.

But one of the comments left in response to Hodges rightly observing the party has no national message, typifies the lack of awareness or political nous that characterises so many UKIP fanatics who have convinced themselves the party will deliver an electoral earthquake in the near future.  I left a reply to the comment making the point that so many UKIP followers do not seem able to grasp.

What this highlights is the absence of a political strategy at UKIP.  Some people have an idea of some of what UKIP is against, but ask people what UKIP is for and blank stares will form on their faces.  It’s not good enough for ‘kippers to say ‘you can’t criticise our lack of message because the others haven’t got a message either’.

Rightly or wrongly the other parties are established and people have a perception, accurate or otherwise, of what they stand for.  This just isn’t the case when it comes to UKIP.  I stand to be accused once again of waging a campaign against Nigel Farage, or bearing some yet to be defined grudge against him, but the fact is Farage is UKIP and UKIP is Farage.  It isn’t possible to separate the two, such is the control he wields over the party.

Holding Farage responsible for these basic political failings and strategic errors will upset some ‘kippers and the angry comments and emails will arrive again, but it is the reality.  If not him, then who is responsible for it?  UKIP has underperformed for 20 years.  Against a backdrop of anger against the political class it has made a little bit of headway to rise to around 13% nationally, higher in some individual constituencies, much lower in others.  But that is all.  It is not setting the political weather to the extent its supporters imagine because it has sent to the back burner the one cogent message people did understand, that of wanting to leave the EU.

Unless UKIP defines itself and outlines a positive vision that people can aspire to and want to vote for, the party will remain trapped below the glass ceiling it has created for itself.  It doesn’t require the spelling out of huge amounts of detail, but it needs more of a vision that ‘we aren’t the other lot’. Under Farage with his random approach and lack of depth it just ain’t gonna happen.

Unless this nettle is grasped UKIP will be a perennial protest repository that sometimes makes a nuisance of itself but can otherwise be discounted as a genuine threat by Labour or the Conservatives.  Worst of all, it will undermine the wider EUsceptic movement that the media lazily associates with the party.

A dose of EU realism that the BBC seems keen to play down

Very curious.  Tuning in to Radio 4’s Today this morning, a little earlier than usual, I was able to hear a short interview of the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schultz.

While Richard has published a full transcript of the interview on EU Referendum, the words alone do not come close to conveying the bombastic and intolerant nature of the man.  But even that does not detract from the dose of realism Schultz injected into the confused morass of verbiage that passes for discussion about the fantasy of negotiated reform of the central pillars of the EU itself, or the in-out referendum that could not possibly be delivered with a treaty negotiation almost certainly well in train.

Perhaps this explains why even though the audio of the interview is contained deep within the UK pages of BBC online, it is not written up or commented upon anywhere on the BBC’s News page, Politics page, or even the Europe page.  It has to be searched for in the God-awful search engine on the site.  It has become the broadcast equivalent of the embarrassing ginger haired stepchild, being kept firmly out of sight, never to be discussed or mentioned again.  Which as I say is very curious.

Schultz was refreshingly realistic.  From his assertion that governments and heads of states such as David Cameron, Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande and Nickolas Sarkozy, declare themselves to be the government of Europe, yet it is Schultz’s beloved parliament that comes in for media and public criticism; to the satisfying moment where Today’s pisspoor token asian female presenter, Mishal Husain, was slapped down for talking of the UK’s ‘relationship’ with the EU with Schultz saying…

The United Kingdom is a member of the European Union so to speak about relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union sounds as if the United Kingdom would not be a part of the European Union. It is the United Kingdom Government which is a co-legislator in the Council of Ministers. There are 72 members of the United Kingdom as law makers in the European institution, the UK is part of Europe so this description, our relationship with Europe sounds to me strange.

This is a point made repeatedly on this blog, so it’s nice to see it challenged, albeit by a federalist opponent.  One point Husain made that was useful was that MEPs are very well-paid parliamentarians and voters in the UK generally have absolutely no idea who their MEP is.  Schultz dodged this, choosing instead to compare turnouts here with the higher ones in Germany.  But as Political Betting just happened to point out today, we have a nonsense voting system in Euro elections that is designed in the interest of parties and their whipping systems, not voters.

But Schultz did not duck away from the main message he wanted to get across, his vision for the EU after Barroso.  It was a clear message for David Cameron, Open Europe, the Fresh Start Group and the likes of the self serving Matthew Elliott, who all seem to think the EU can be brought to heel and made to reform to suit their deluded vision of an EU – where the political is replaced by the economic.  Schultz wants:

… to fill the gap between citizens and between member states in the European Union. That some have an enormous profit and others pay. And, because I’m speaking with BBC, the United Kingdom as a full-fledged member of the European Union. That would be my vision, a United Kingdom which is taking part in the development in a common Europe and not speaking about a specific relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom.

No reform agenda in sight. Economic carrots dangled to maintain political power seeping to Brussels.  There is a disconnect between what Cameron and his front organisations think they can ask for and get, and what the EU mandarins are prepared to give.  At some point, sooner rather than later, reality is going to bite and the UK’s political class is going to realise it is powerless unless it accepts the one option it has always rejected out of hand – leaving the EU.  Small wonder the BBC, having chosen to put Schultz on before the bulk of their Today audience tunes in, has chosen to bury this story as deep as they can.  It doesn’t fit the establishment narrative.

The incredible ignorance of politicians writ large

After the John Major government tied the UK to the Maastricht Treaty, Douglas Hurd was reported as saying:

I suppose we had now better go away and read what we have signed up to.

It’s a lesson that successive intakes of politicians have failed to learn.  Most recently this has been demonstrated by the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Margaret Hodge.  The Mail reports on today’s session of the PAC where the HMRC Annual Report and Accounts 2012-13 was being examined.  The witnesses were Edward Troup, Tax Assurance Commissioner at HMRC, Jim Harra, Director-General Business Tax at HMRC and Jennie Granger, HMRC’s Director General Enforcement and Compliance.  Some of Hodge’s reported comments include the following:

The tax gap is really the tip of the iceberg in the gap between the money that you collect and the many if everyone paid their fair share.

It looks to me that you should be litigating. Why have you not chosen to litigate and test your powers?  Why have you not litigated against one single internet company?

Make a few cases, a few show cases. It’s so bloody obvious.

According to the Mail, Hodge named Google, Facebook, Amazon and Starbucks as companies whose tax affairs had sparked public anger and doubts about whether they were paying their fair share in Britain.  However, if Hodge had the first bloody clue about what she was bloody well talking about, she would bloody well know that she was spouting a load of bloody nonsense.  What Hodge is encouraging HMRC to do is spend public money pursuing cases that would be lost.

Why would HMRC lose?  Posting about a separate issue over on EU Referendum, Richard makes clear that companies moving money between EU countries in the way Google, Facebook, Amazon and Starbucks are being demonised for doing, is one of the most fundamental provisions of the European treaties, the “free movement of capital” which was one of the “four freedoms” in the original 1957 Treaty of Rome.

Chapter 4 of the Treaty of the European Union (the Lisbon Treaty) , Article 63 declares that “all restrictions on the movement of capital between Member States and between Member States and third countries shall be prohibited”. Furthermore, the article states that: “all restrictions on payments between Member States and between Member States and third countries shall be prohibited”.

Hodge, as a well remunerated Committee Chairman of one of the most muscular select committees in Parliament, with significant research resources available to her, should know this.  The fact she doesn’t demonstrates the incredible ignorance of our politicians.  Despite the supposedly powerful position she occupies, she doesn’t understand that what Google, Facebook, Amazon and Starbucks are doing is what the EU’s rules permit them to do.

Any show case would simply show up the stupidity of the UK authorities and result in a win for the demonised firms.  But it seems no case will be forthcoming because, unlike Hodge and the expenses troughers in Westminster, HMRC understands the rules – and that seems to be why Edward Troup told the committee:

We make sure we collect the tax due under the law.

It is because of corporate friendly rules such as the free movement of capital that company bosses like Richard Branson and CBI stooges like John Cridland are desperate to keep the UK in the EU.  it suits big business to engage in tax tourism and it suits them to hire in the cheapest labour from around the union.

Politicians like Margaret Hodge can grandstand, rant, rave, stamp their feet and pretend to be the conscience of the population, but it is she and her ilk who signed the UK up to EU rules they clearly don’t understand, and who want to keep the UK firmly inside the EU.  It is at times like this, when they are constantly telling us why the UK’s future has to be within the EU, that the consequences of EU membership – the loss of tax sovereignty – become apparent.

But rather than acknowledge the reality and the self imposed limitations under the structures they are constantly trying to convince us we should remain part of, they depart into the realm of fantasy like today’s performance in Room 15 of the Palace of Westminster, where they resort to bluster and blather and playing to the audience, but ultimately will change nothing.

No, não, nein, non, nie, nei,

Regardless of the language being spoken, there is one word in particular where the clarity is unequivocal, the meaning is absolute. That word in English is no.

So when President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, was asked by a journalist to comment on whether David Cameron was going to be able to repatriate any powers from Brussels, and brushed him off with a contemptuous laugh; but was followed by his Chief of Staff, Johannes Laitenberger, who responded with a firm ‘no’, the conclusion we can draw is very simple.

As Richard has already made clear, Cameron thinks he is setting the pace on cutting EU bureaucracy.  But he is two weeks behind the curve as the European Commission had already announced its REFIT initiative which at least claims to be seeking to do just that.

And now Cameron thinks he is making the weather on the subject of repatriation of powers, despite the very notion running completely contrary to the principle of ever closer union.  Yet here we have Barroso chortling away at the idea of the UK getting cherry-picked powers back from the EU, while his Chief of Staff – who as an experienced communications professional knows about how to deal with the media in surefooted fashion – slams the lid on the idea with a clear ‘no’ in response to the question.

This shows there is a clear disconnect between Cameron’s self aggrandising perceptions and reality.  Too much time spent in the Westminster bubble seems to have exacerbated Cameron’s capacity for delusion.  Nevertheless, those sections of the media that worship at the altar of prestige eat it up.  They can’t get enough of it.  And so the public continues to be deceived and the interests of the establishment are maintained.

You would need a heart of stone not to laugh…

Think back to the end of August, as the rush to bomb Syria further back into the stone age was reaching its height.

As the UK was held back from participating in a US-led – and William Hague cheer-led – attack on the Al-Assad regime thanks to a Parliamentary cock up, the Americans decided to fawn over the only nation, with insufficient democratic checks and balances but sufficient stupidity and political blood lust, to stand shoulder to shoulder with Washington.  I refer of course to France.

While that had Hague and Cameron skulking around Downing Street in a jealousy fuelled fury, the French quite enjoyed their renewed love-in with the Yanks, as this part of a puff piece on France24 made clear…

But of course, there are few beasts as fickle as the politician.  And that is brought into stark relief today as howls of protest emanate from the fragrant corridors of power of America’s oldest ally.  Guess where they are directed…

Thus it seems the American love-in-of-convenience with the French has already hit the buffers.  Bless.  But then, who would ever have believed the self centred septics and the self serving snail munchers would remain faithful?

That being the case, it couldn’t happen to two more unpleasant and repugnant administrations.  But no doubt Cast Iron Dave and Concrete Willy are today filled with fresh hope that their unrequited love for Obama and the Beltway Boys will again result in America going through the motions of being the UK’s true love and best friend forever.

Until, that is, the next time Britain doesn’t satisfy America and Washington goes roaming for a new partner to romp with.

Misconduct in Public Office

Cynthia Bower, former Chief Executive of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and her former deputy, Jill Finney, stand accused along with media manager Anna Jefferson of being involved, to varying degress, in the decision to cover-up of failures over deaths of babies at Furness General Hospital in Cumbria.

There can be no doubt that, as a regulator of the National Health Service, the CQC is a public body.  These charges are of a particularly grave nature and far more serious than police officers selling titbits of information to the media.  As we have seen police officers being prosecuted for Misconduct in Public Office and imprisoned when found guilty, it stands to reason that Bower, Finney and Jefferson should stand before a court to answer the accusations.

Our public services are infested with people who have no interest in serving anything other than their own financial and career interests.  It is obscene that Bower was allowed to leave the CQC with a pension pot of around £1.5million with her appalling track record.  The absence of accountability seems to be the most common characteristic of those who reach the higher echelons of these lavishly funded organisations that produce very little, consume a vast amount and, as the Furness scandal, the Mid Staffordshire scandal and numerous other scandals already exposed and in the pipeline for exposure show, hold the public that funds them in sickening contempt.

These people have blood on their hands.  It is the most serious failure or wilful misconduct that anyone in public service can be accused of.  Nothing less than prosecution to the full extent of the law, accompanied by complete transparency about everything that has happened with no censorship, and crucially full details of what outside organisations – such as Common Purpose – they and those who hired them are members of and have spent public money to participate in, should be accepted.

The political class has facilitated the development of the parasite class, which is consistently failing the people they are supposed to serve while feeding off us like leeches.  Enough is enough.  It’s time to take them on.

The face of Britain in 2013… how long will we tolerate this?

One cannot help but think this scene would not have occured if this country had maintained a selective immigration policy and retained the ability to remove from these shores anyone who abuses our hospitality and forments division and violence.  The image captures a situation borne of fear, which will conveniently propagate more FUD among us so fearful people in desperation plead for our useless and irrelevant politicans to do something.

The fact is, instead of only encouraging and accepting foreigners to come to these shores – yes there absolutely is a place for settlers here – who wish to contribute to our society, be a net producer rather than a net consumer, and respect and emulate the values that made this country attractive to them in the first place, we would not be seeing the kind of upsurge in religio-political violence fanned by people whose families have been allowed to settle here but not integrate.

Instead too many of them foster a cultural and religious superiority complex that results in the terror we have witnessed and subsequently necessitates our police to cover themselves like the terrorists of the past out of fear of their identity becoming known.  The bobby on the beat, the community policeman, has been replaced by intimidating and sinister paramilitary police units to respond to the consequences of government policy none of us was asked to approve.  The political class failed us.

This is not the way Britain should be.  The road to hell is paved with good intentions and now the chickens hatched by the political class are coming home to roost – with ordinary British people paying the price in treasure and blood.  We have been betrayed and compromised by the political class and as a result we experience ever more efforts to turn the population into the property of the state where we are monitored, treated by default as suspects, have our lives and finances intruded into, see a desire for privacy treated as suspicious behaviour and any dissent against the government’s actions viewed as harmful and summarily demonised.

The political class has learned nothing and has no interest in learning anything.  As such is continues to fail us.  How much longer will we tolerate this?

The political class is frit

Writing in the New Statesman’s blog, The Staggers, on Tuesday George Eaton made the following observation about what would happen if the current polling percentages were repeated at a General Election:

The Conservatives can have no complaints about the outcome delivered by an electoral system they have consistently defended and Labour governed for a full term after winning on just 35 per cent of the vote in 2005 (it bagged 55 per cent of the seats). But party figures have told me that they fear Labour could face a “crisis of legitimacy” if it wins an outsized majority on a thin slice of the vote. A share of 34 per cent would be the lowest winning percentage of the vote since 1832.

The language is interesting.  Set aside for a moment the idea of such a large majority for Labour if it only secures 34% of the votes cast at the General Election on a turnout of around 65%.  The real crisis of legitimacy that would finally emerge as a talking point following such an election ‘victory’ is that there would be a Labour government, imposing its will on the entire country without check, balance or accountability to voters, that was voted for by only 22% of registered voters.

There is not just fear within the political class about the impression that would be made by a large Labour majority on a very small percentage of the vote.  There is fear people will wake up and declare it to be unacceptable that with approaching 40% of voters rejecting all the parties, any of them can claim to represent the people.  The illusion of legitimacy for the political class will be crumbling.

We can expect to see another push for Proportional Representation as part of an electoral reform package.  Perhaps even the first moves to make voting compulsory.  Not just because the distribution of votes would make party representation in the House in terms of seats ‘fair’, but because it would allow for the appearance of legitimacy as the political class will seek to focus attention away from turnout and purely on to share of the vote – while increasing numbers of Britons refuse to support any of them.

Segregated Britain? The real segregation is this (pt.2)

Prompting the previous post was this piece today in the Daily Mail.

In my view the description ‘white flight’ wrongly ascribes a racial motive for people moving away from areas where ethnic minorities have grown to become a substantial number of people or even a majority.  It is not the race or colour of the skin of people living in an area which is driving this phenomenon.  It is the pronounced cultural differences between members of the community, that have been encouraged and entrenched by the political class as it pursued its own nefarious agenda to dilute and erode the sense of nationhood as part of a wider political agenda.

Although there are plenty of differences within a population that shares the same race, ethnic characteristics, heritage, values and way of life, these were not sufficient to enable the undermining of the nation state, as part of the political objective of developing a world order, where populations that are bound together by their shared similarities and values have strong enough cohesion to reject and resist what the politicians want.

Whenever I have lived overseas I conformed to the norms of the community I became part of.  Many migrants to these shores have done the same thing and where that integration has happened we don’t see this ‘white flight’ phenomenon.  We see relaxed people where aspirations, values and language are the same, resulting in cohesion.

Conversely, where people have come here and transplanted their own cultural norms that are alien to the community, we see a lack of cohesion.  The politicians are to blame for actively seeking and encouraging this.  It comes as no surprise to find the left wing, pro-immigration ‘think tank’ DEMOS claiming that a ‘retreat’ of white Britons from areas where minorities live is limiting cultural integration.  As usual, in a cynical effort to distort the findings and perpetuate the political agenda they have actively been in involved in crafting, they deny the reality which is that the refusal of some migrants to integrate culturally coupled with their desire to create a cultural colony, is actually the cause of increasing segregation.

How many times have we been ordered by the political class to ’embrace’ the changes being forced on the community, with the implicit assertion that failure to do so denotes you as xenophobic or racist?  How many times have we witnessed neighbourhoods become fragmented because these differences are being aggressively entrenched by an arriving migrant minority that demands acceptance of their alien culture being transplanted into the community?  How many times have we seen the arriving migrants seek out people who share their cultural heritage and values so they do not have to integrate or conform to the societal norms of the host community, resulting in the ghetto phenomenon?  How many times, when this has happened, have we then been instructed by the political class to ‘celebrate’ this, despite the lack of consent for the transformation and the unwelcome and undesired impacts this has on the community?  Why is it acceptable for an aggressive cultural supremacy to be implemented by an arriving migrant population, yet any attempt to preserve the cultural norms of the host community is considered wrong and unacceptable?

What has never made stood up to any scrutiny is the notion that migrants want to come here for a better life, when on arrival they do all they can to maintain the same life they supposedly sought to leave behind them in their home country.  It is entirely understandable that people draw the conclusion the new arrivals have not come to enrich our community and become part of what made this country attractive in the first place, as the political class claims, but only to take economic advantage of what has been built up over generations while rejecting our values, language and norms.

The blame for this ‘white flight’ which is so exercising the politicians, and the breakdown in community cohesion which suits their aims, has to be firmly laid at the door of the concept of multiculturalism, advanced by the likes of DEMOS, the Labour party, and legions of politicians across Europe.

Having a multiethnic community is fine and can work wonderfully well.  Often it is integrated migrants who are most vocal alongside us in opposing the contemptible behaviour of the political class as it seeks to dismantle what made this country attractive and proud in the first place.  Where people come together as a community regardless of colour and race we do not see the problems that arise in areas where part of the community chooses to emphasise and reinforce pronounced differences and seeks separation from the host community due to a desire for their imported culture to have supremacy – and seeks to strengthen that separation by bringing more people from their country of origin to build a rival community.

It is not a racial or colour issue, it is to do with culture.  The political class actively pursued this without seeking the consent of the British people.  If I had refused to conform to the cultural norms of my hosts overseas I would not have been welcome and encouraged to leave.  So why is it wrong for Britons to apply the same conditions  and make clear to migrants that if they will not conform to our norms and be part of an integrated community they have no place living here?  Oh yes, because the political class says so, as it doesn’t fit in with their objectives.

Don’t be angry and frustrated with those who have been able to come here and build a rival community steeped in their own culture and values.  Be angry and frustrated with the political class that allowed it, encouraged it, stamped on dissent against it, and sought to stigmatise those who refused to compromise their principles – and take action against them.

The real segregation in this country is that between the political class and bureaucrats, and we ordinary people who they abuse and treat with contempt.

Farage attempts to snatch defeat before getting anywhere close to victory

Within hours of the party he has forged in his own image record its best ever results in local elections, if reports are to be believed, Nigel Farage has demonstrated yet again his complete lack of strategic thinking – which may arrest UKIP’s momentum and cost him essential votes from wavering Labour and Lib Dem supporters.

Having spent the election campaign delivering the message that UKIP offers something to Labour and Lib Dem voters who are unhappy with EU membership and the ongoing net influx of migrants, Farage has perhaps supped a few too many pints while posing for the media and, according to the Daily Wail, informally offered entertained the idea of [edited to reflect observations in comments] an electoral pact and coalition with the Conservatives as long as they drop David Cameron.

In many ways it’s not news because he’s said it before.  But in doing so now, just after making a comparatively major advance, Farage has blinked figuratively and shown weakness when he should be portraying strength and confidence.  Compounding this political illieracy Farage has also undermined UKIP’s apparent appeal as an entity that stands apart from the discredited three main parties; for instead of occupying the high ground above the political class in the eyes of jaded voters he has instead signalled his desperation to join with them.

What was supposed to be an insurgency designed to break the mould in British politics is now being revealed to those less schooled in the ways of Farage to have an altogether different aim.  UKIP candidates who enjoin voters to reject the Lib-Lab-Con will now have to explain why given UKIP’s plan is to cosy up to the Conservatives. As Richard eloquently explained yesterday to the Campaign for an Independent Britain, we are no further forward.

In the final analysis what this means for voters, desperate for a change to the political system and for this country to become democratic, is that real change is not on the agenda.  Farage’s objective is to be part of the political equivalent of the Royston Vasey community, which will result in the Lib-Lab-UKIP-Con.  Clearly the message to voters is that this league of gentlemen is a local bubble for local politicians and there’s nothing for us ordinary people here.

The Benefits of Smart Appliances

If you were worried this would be some geeky piece extolling the virtues of ‘smart’ fridge freezers, ovens, washing machines etc, then you can relax.  The benefits of smart appliances are not designed for consumers, instead they are designed for the convenience of the political class and corporate interests.  Richard puts it into context on EU Referendum.

Having long peddled the lie that renewable energy is the answer to this country’s energy needs, under a new order where the establishment has declared war on hydrocarbons as part of its deranged obsession with fighting climate change, the reality can no longer be contained.

The future of this advanced industrialised nation is not one of continuing progress – save for the corrupted definition of the word which means the diametric opposite – rather it is being structured to bring about the end of energy supplied on demand at the flick of a switch.  Under the new order control over how power is used is to be shifted to the corporations with power being rationed when the dangerously inadequate energy generating solution, pursued and implemented by the politicians, cannot deliver sufficient electricity to meet our needs.

America’s leaders are taking advantage of its shale gas to power its economy and drive down prices. China’s leaders are building a coal fired power station a week to power its economy and support its growth.  Germany’s leaders (inspite of EU strategy) is turning away from nuclear and building a raft of new coal fired power stations to power its economy and ensure adequate supply for the needs of its population.  Even Japan is starting a new dash for coal as part of its efforts to reduce reliance on nuclear power and still ensure affordable and adequate energy supply for its people and meet the needs of its people.

And the the UK?  Well, our political class, convinced within its self reverential bubble of its virtue and righteousness, is shutting down coal fired power stations despite there being no replacement for the lost generating capacity, is pursuing an approach that constrains exploration and exploitation of shale gas, is driving up prices through rising charges for carbon, and has a ludicrous strategy of building of inefficient and intermittant wind turbines at huge cost that cannot come close to meeting our energy needs or servicing industry.  To make this work they have a master plan.  Rationing power and controlling what energy private citizens can use in their homes by rolling out smart applicances and dressing these up as being of benefit – and charging us billions of pounds to make it happen.

Welcome to your progressive future.

Britain ‘raped’ by high taxes? Almost right, Ray, almost right…

My lack of output in recent weeks is due to a combination of the long working hours a newly self employed person needs to put in to keep clients happy, and a desire to use what time is left available to me to enjoy family and friends and not spend it in misery looking at the mess this country is in.

However, spotting the EU-loving  Daily Wail’s report of the comments made on radio by the actor, Ray Winstone, has given me enough of a push to have a little rant on here while reinforcing some points every reader has taken on board or urgently needs to.  As the Wail explains:

Actor Ray Winstone says he may quit the UK because it has been ‘raped’ by high taxes.

The former boxer, 56, said:  ‘I can see myself leaving. I love this country but I’ve had enough.’

The actor added: ‘I don’t see what we are being given back. I just see the country being raped.’

Winstone told talkSPORT Radio that the taxman was ‘taking too much in exchange for too little’.

He added: ‘There are more holes in the roads than a tennis racket, we can’t build hospitals and fire stations are closing.’

Confession time. Ray Winstone is one of my favourite actors.  Yes, the remake of The Sweeney was disappointing rubbish and a waste of Blu Ray disc, but Winstone can’t be blamed for that.  However, Ray isn’t quite right in his assessment. The UK isn’t being raped by high taxes.  High taxes are but one symptom of the systematic rape of our personal freedom, individual rights, resources, self determination and laws by the political class.

The taxman is only doing what he has been instructed to do by the largely worthless collective of power obsessed hypocrites who have an uncontrollable fetish for dictating how every aspect of our lives must be run.  It is they who determine what should be taken from producers to subsidise not just the needy and vulnerable who should be supported, but also the feckless, opportunists, grabbers and the other power crazed meglomaniacs higher up the political food chain in Brussels and the UN.

Politicians cannot secure the votes of enough of the self interested lumpen masses without some kind of bribe.  For decades the bribes have come in the form of welfare handouts. Vote for us and we will give you XYZ in return.  The taxman is only the collector.  Ray Winstone should have gone the whole way and laid the responsibility for the pain so many of us experience and the door of the political parasites for whom we are just a food source.

The mismanagement of this country’s welfare system has all but broken the UK economy.  The national debt is staggeringly huge and is still growing.  Paying back the debt, even if it were a realistic proposition – which it isn’t – is not enough.  The problem is structural so it won’t go away without significant and deep changes that would have to reshape the expectations people have.  Changes our parasitic political class will never make.

Promises have been made that cannot be kept because the price of the bribery exceeds the amount the producers can pay for.  It’s not just the needy and vulnerable who are getting handouts – arguably less than they should – but every Tomislaw, Dalmar and Harbijan who alights here to be given a roof over their head and have money put in their pocket paid for from the welfare fund contributions of British taxpayers.  Working people are getting tax credits and benefits – I kid you not, to compensate for the tax burden imposed by government in the first place – via an expensive and flawed system that bleeds money to which many are not entitled even under the rules.  And across the EU, British money taken by Brussels is doled out on projects and grants that do nothing to benefit the Britons who paid them.  All at the instruction of politicians and bureaucrats, and one rarely sees a poor one of those.

That, Ray Winstone, is the reason why the hospitals, schools and roads that used to be fairly well funded and maintained are falling into disrepair and providing ever worsening services.  The politicians have built up a welfare dependent client state so large, and so open to clients from around the world who have never contributed to it, it cannot be sustained.  From being a wealthy producer Britain has been reduced to the status of debtor nation.  It’s only getting worse, even under a government that pledge to reduce debt but hasn’t the guts to take the decisions needed to shrink the welfare state, the size and scope of government itself and enable a reduction in the tax take.

British voters are still needed by the political class, so we continue to get yet more completely unfunded promises being made to those people who feel the world owes them a living and vote in just enough numbers to keep the whole ponzi scheme rolling along, deepening our problems.  The only reason the UK economy hasn’t yet collapsed is that interest rates are so low.  If interest rates rise this country will not be able to afford to pay the spiralling debts and debt interest it is just about servicing today.

If the unions and taxpayers think this supposed ‘austerity’ is bad, they should wait to see what is in store when Britain runs out of other people’s money and can’t fund the NHS, welfare budget and all the organs of state interference in our lives upon which so many people have been conditioned to be reliant.  When that happens people really will understand the true meaning of the saying attributed to Gerald Ford and Barry Goldwater:

A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.

Sadly it will mean the effects and consequences will be far worse than they needed to be had action been taken sooner and the political class had put the interests of this country and its people before their own ambitions and self interest.

If EUphile delusion is a disease, this man could be the unwitting cure

If there is one thing we can all respect about fanatical EU federalists, it’s that they invariably tell the truth about the EU project even if to further its aims they slip in the odfd misdirection to keep the less informed on side.  Contrast that with the UK political class, which spends all its time attempting – clearly with some success – to deceive the British public into believing the EU is only about the single market, rather than the decades-old objective of political union.

Reading the piss-poor Huffington Post ranks lower on my list of enjoyable activities than having teeth pulled without anaesthetic or undergoing a vasectomy with garden shears. But every so often that paean of quasi-Marxist groin-centric spherical objects, does manage to extract a valuable contribution from one its fellow travellers that underline the scale of the task facing we democratically-minded, classically-liberal freedom lovers.  On Friday that digital equivalent of used toilet roll delivered one such soul-destroying jumble of bovine colonic detritus.

The former prime minister of Belgium, Guy Verhofstadt, replete with those thick framed spectacles that are the essential fashion eyewear of socialist authoritarians the world over, for the benefit of the UK audience briefly used the tired but seemingly effective trick of conflating the EU and it destination of political union with the single market. Cue yawns, or in Nile Gardiner’s worthy case a short rebuttal in the Telegraph. But thereafter the true EUphile colours streamed through. Following the typical EU federalist falsehood came some welcome honesty:

Cameron will not succeed if he attempts to hold his European partners to ransom, exchanging acquiescence to EU treaty change over the eurozone for a unilateral repatriation of powers. Moreover, the rest of the EU knows that stability and economic recovery in the eurozone is vital to the UK’s own economic interests. Some have said Cameron is not going to get his way by pointing a gun at everyone else’s head. I believe a more apt metaphor would be that of a madman, threatening to blow himself up unless he gets his own way.

One issue on which Cameron has been deliberately vague is what powers he seeks to repatriate. Social and employment law which sets minimum standards for annual leave, maternity, working hours or health and safety practices? Police and judicial cooperation which leading law enforcement figures have said are vital to the UK’s national security? The Common Fisheries Policy, which is already currently undergoing major reform? Do the fish even know wherei (sic) international borders are anyway? The only thing Cameron will achieve by seeking to renegotiate terms of membership is that Britain will be left ostracised, resented and alone. And the failure to meet expectations back home for a repatriation of powers would risk sending the UK hurtling towards the exit.

We can but hope.  But this honesty, even though it has been spilled out in a curious effort to make Britons want more of this rather than less, once again exposes Cameron’s empty rhetoric and the bleating of supposed business geniuses for what it is.  What it also does is provide ‘outers’ with yet more valuable ‘horse’s mouth’ material to show the renegotiation meme so beloved of Cameron, the leaden Tories and their partisan cheerleaders, is a fantasy option.

People are being lured in to supporting a non-existant ‘renegotiation’ option or reluctantly accepting continued EU membership because of establishment scare tactics and the concealment of the benefits of independence; which is why Mr Catherine Ashton’s recent YouGov poll (for the EUphile Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung and the socialist authoritarian Fabian Society) saw a fall in the number of people aged 18-34 wanting to leave the EU with more in that group wanting to stay put. Across the whole electorate the split for leaving the EU/staying in the EU is 55% / 43%.

Click to enlarge

People desiring a major renegotiation of the terms of EU subordination is perfectly fine in itself; but its prospects are even less likely than me fulfilling my desire of engaging in an extended passionate, Monte Carlo based extra-marital liaison with Bar Refaeli, Kate Beckinsale, Doutzen Kroes and Blake Lively.  However many people polled say they support the idea, it’s just not going to happen.

While Verhofstadt then deviates back into the realms of lies and gross distortion by repeating the agreed line on EFTA and the ‘fax law’ fallacy, misleading people by describing the more than 50% of UK exports that travel through the EU as being exports to the EU, (the UK Treasury Pink Book, the OECD and the European Commission all put the figure at below 50 per cent, with the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics showing the Eurozone accounts for just 47.1 per cent of our exports of goods) and desperately trying to convince people that having your voice and interests diluted and weakened by combining it with 26 other competing and conflicting voices and interests is more effective than using your own voice to articulate your own position, he has nonetheless offered some service.  If little Guy reads the HuffPo comments in response to his rant he may also be rather disheartened to see how many people reject his premise and see the need and value to be an independent country again.

But before heading back to his seat on the gravy train and some back-slapping from the ‘colleagues’ who are desperate to keep the whole stinking ediface intact, Verhofstadt leaves us with a fisking opportunity:

In fields as diverse as the single market, foreign policy, trade and enlargement, the UK has shown that it can play a leading role. Crucially, Britain’s liberal instincts have helped ensure that the EU remains competitive, outward looking, and a force for peace and trade liberalisation throughout the world. It has achieved this not through blackmail, but by building alliances and pushing for EU-wide reform.

If put accurately and truthfully that would read: In fields as diverse as the single market, foreign policy, trade and enlargement, the UK has tried to play a leading role but has been ignored. Crucially, Britain’s liberal instints have been abused to keep it firmly inside an EU that is anti-competitive, insular, and a force for empty rhetoric and corporatism throughout the world. It has achieved this not through blackmail, but by being lied to and blackmailed by EU federalists who determine the UK’s alliances for her and reject every call for EU-wide reform.

Thanks for your help, Guy!

Miliband illustrates why politics is broken

Readers may be shocked that Ed Miliband of all people is getting any credit from this blog, but he performed a valuable public service yesterday at Prime Minister’s Questions – albeit unwittingly.

In his desperate desire to give the impression of being a strong leader – stop sniggering at the back – and take advantage of supposed Tory in-fighting over renegotiation of powers from the EU, Miliband accused David Cameron of ‘losing control of his party’. That little soundbite said it all.

There, in his own words, Miliband demonstrated he knows nothing about leadership. Among a number of important qualities, good leaders share one in particular, the ability to listen to and take on board the views of people who disagree with them in order to clarify or modify their thinking. Miliband’s perspective on leadership however reflects his dogmatic socialist worldview that leadership is about dictating to people, keeping them under control and only listening to oneself.

But what else can one expect from a man whose life has been one long training programme to become an MP; to the extent that he has never done a proper job in his life yet is worth several million pounds and claims to speak for the less well off in society? In what possible way can he relate to the everyday struggles of we ordinary people outside the establishment?

Setting that aside, Miliband unwittingly showed complete contempt for Labour Party members by trying to portray himself, in contrast to Cameron, as in control of his party and its MPs. The party is owned by its members, not Ed Miliband. Such arrogance is nauseating, yet uniform among the establishment claque of which Miliband is a youth product turned full member.

What all this underlines is that the party political process, which is riven with personality politics, does not and cannot serve the interests of ordinary people. It is said if politics could change anything they would ban it – that is only true of party politics where mindsets such as Miliband’s and Cameron’s are all pervasive.

Politics is far broader than the narrow interests of political parties, stuffed with control freaks who devote their lives to lining their pockets and accumulating positions of power as far removed from accountability as possible, while telling other people what’s best for them. Grassroots politics and campaigning, without stifling structures and dictatorial leaders, has and still can get things changed. That is why the politicians and establishment fear that approach.

We are in a much changed world and living in challenging times. Now, more than ever, grassroots campaigns rather than party politics are the route to achieving ends. Thanks to Miliband more people may wake up to this and see that loose groups with substantial autonomy, that offer a vision for people to support if they wish and gives them space to campaign in their own way, is far more powerful than trying to herd people within a party and forcing them to swallow whole that which an autocrat decrees to be the way things must be.

People want proper listening and receptive leaders. They don’t want to be controlled Miliband fashion.

Louise Mensch criticised by Corby Tories as a Central Office clone

Conservative Party membership is nose-diving and with very good reason – the party’s grassroots members have been neutered by the Conservative Central Office machine.

Cameron may think he mashed the Turnip Taliban with a patronising campaign of ridicule, but grassroots grumbling has not gone away and has now returned in the form of the Midlands Militia that makes up the Corby Conservative Association.  Following the recent abdication from the Corby throne of wannabe Cameron Queen, Louise Mensch, and subsequent by-election humiliation in November that saw Labour regain the seat with a substantial majority, the local activists that remain are finding their voice again.  Speaking to the Northamptonshire Telegraph, Cllr David Sims, leader of the Conservative group on the borough council, said:

It could be very frustrating for us at times when Louise Mensch was in office.

The local Conservatives are not clones from Central Office or career politicians sent in by the party, but hard-working Corby people who care deeply about the town and who are involved in local politics to further Corby’s interests and to help bring this great place the bright future it deserves. Of course we wanted to win the recent by-election, but we are now in a position where the new Team Corby Conservatives will have the freedom to do things the Corby way.

Trapped in a party political model the Corby Tories will find their apparent freedom after the Mensch’s emigration affords them only limited room for manoeuvre.  They are constrained by undemocratic party rules and direction by an autocratic leader who can only be removed if a sufficient number of Conservative MPs trigger a leadership contest.

While some are defecting to UKIP far more are simply walking away from party politics altogether, despite being passionate about a number of burning issues, such as UK membership of the EU.  This is fertile ground for non-party grassroots movements to plough.  As more former party members realise there are campaigns in which they can contribute a great deal, party political tribalism will contract until it contains only the career politicians, policy wonks and ‘special advisors’ and the next self selecting generation coming out of college to climb the greasy pole into those roles.

Party politics is moving into old age and the countdown to its inevitable demise continues.  The future will be rather different and more democratic.

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.

Proof that Norway has influence in the regulatory process from outside the EU

By now readers will be familiar with the scare tactics being employed by various political and institutional figures.  The current line of attack is the false claim that unless the UK remains in the EU it will have no influence over trade and commerce issues in the single market and would be subject to ‘fax democracy’.  Some of the recent quotes include:

I don’t think it’s right to aim for a status like Norway or Switzerland where basically you have to obey all the rules of the single market but you don’t have a say over what they are.
–  David Cameron, Prime Minister

———-

The EU Federalists have already written the script for the UK’s new relationship as an “associate member”.  We will be subject to all the regulations and costs of EU membership without any influence or voting rights.  That is roughly the deal Norway currently has.
–  Tim Ambler, Adam Smith Institute

———-

Either way the idea is for the UK to effectively be given access to the single market but with little say – like Norway but with some twists and without the EEA-wrapping.
–  Open Europe Blog, Tory front organisation

Setting aside the fact Norway and Switzerland’s situation has only been held up as an example of what the UK could achieve outside the EU and that no one has argued it is the only option, the fact is the assertions of Cameron, Ambler, et al are false.  Norway does have influence in the regulatory process.

More than that, at times it actually shapes regulatory frameworks that the EU later finds itself adopting.  Evidence of this has already been provided on EU Referendum.  But to further reinforce the point Richard has provided details of yet another example that explodes the lies and deceptions contained in the quotes above that the media is all too quick to publicise in an effort to scare eurosceptic voters away from supporting the idea of withdrawing from the EU.

The lies of Cameron and co are designed to one end, to keep the EU in control of the UK.  We are bound into a developing political union which is not required to achieve free trade or access the single market.  But the vested interests of the political class demand that the EU becomes the government of the member states against the wishes of voters, so the lies are told and repeated without challenge by the craven media which is desperate to keep ‘access’ to the politicians.  That’s how the game works.

A ‘New Politics’ is emerging that rejects the political class

One key element of the Harrogate Agenda is that the movement does not have a defined ‘leader’ and rejects the idea of morphing itself into a political party.

Part of the thinking is that the focus remains on the aims of the movement, allowing every supporter of those aims to have the autonomy to organise meetings and events and support the campaign in a way that suits them.

In this way internal intrigues are thus diminished and autocrats are prevented from seizing the direction of the movement and diverting the energies of supporters to activities that suit a different agenda. It is a reflection of the dwindling trust in political parties among ordinary people.

This shift has accelerated as politics has become ‘professionalised’ to the extent where future party figures are groomed from a young age in party youth sections, read politics and economics at college and then work in think-tanks and policy institutes before being streamed into party candidate selection. Real world experience and a productive employment history is noticeable by its absence among this political class.

With this in mind we notice that another non-aligned, organic, grassroots movement has similarly rejected the idea of electing a leader or forming a political party, while still recognising the need for a government.

Regardless of the cause this movement is pursuing, this is yet another striking example of the rapidly changing approach to politics and campaigning that deliberately marginalises the political parties and strives to keeps them and their influence at arms length.

We are seeing the advent of a new politics, one that operates in a way that encourages people power instead of seeing that stripped away by the political class which hijacks and plunders each passing bandwagon.

People are increasingly joining such campaigns because they have a great deal more confidence that grassroots movements won’t be saddled with the party political baggage and the selfish motivations of power seekers who use politics as a route to personal enrichment and seek reward from the self selecting establishment they inevitably service.

Times are a changing.

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.