Scottish campaign interventions show us more of what an EU Referendum will look like

The Scottish independence campaign has, in the last two weeks in particular, shown us the extent to which prestige will be amalgamated with fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) in the effort to influence and persude voters to back the political class’ preferred outcome.

Despite the President of the United States having previously pledged to stay out of the Scottish independence debate, he could not resist chipping in with his comment that the US has a deep interest in making sure one of the closest allies the country has remains a strong, robust, united and effective partner. To what extent the US will work to ‘make sure’ the Kingdom stays united remains to be seen.

Now His Holiness Pope Francis has passed opinion, reported in the Telegraph, with regard to the independence movements in Catalonia and Scotland, suggesting the case for independence in Scotland is not clear and may not be just:

Obviously, there are nations with cultures so different that couldn’t even be stuck together with glue. The Yugoslavian case is very clear, but I ask myself if it is so clear in other cases. Scotland, Padania, Catalunya.

There will be cases that will be just and cases that will not be just, but the secession of a nation without an antecedent of mandatory unity, one has to take it with a lot of grains of salt and analyse it case by case.

If His Holiness has a desire for unity, he should stick to matters ecumenical.  The Scots people were never asked to vote on union.  Their voice on union or independence has never been heard.  Yet outsiders are trying to push them in a particular direction – and not because it would be in the interest of Scots themselves.

The independence debate in Scotland is a matter for Scots, not for American Presidents, their Secretaries of State, the Vicar of Rome or the Swedish Foreign Minister. It is about a country’s people deciding, to an extent, the nature of their governance and how their country will be organised. It is a matter of democracy, such as it exists.

If the ‘yes’ campaign wins the referendum, what the Scots do with their restored national self determination is up to them.  If they choose to retain that self determination and represent themselves in the world, using their own voice and promoting their own interests, that is for them to establish.  If they regain ultimate decision making authority over their country, yet then choose to give it away again to the European Union, that too is a matter for them.  It is wrong for politicians and religious leaders from elsewhere in the world to seek to exert influence over the Scots’ decision.

This interference gives us a flavour of what we should expect if the Conservatives win the general election next year and a referendum on our membership of the EU is held in 2017.

Leaders of EU countries and the US in particular will be joined by religious figures and politically motivated industrialists from a variety of corporations and nations to spread FUD about what they believe about the implications for our economy if British independence is restored.  They will be joined by media cronies doing the bidding of their owners, who are in bed with the political class.

There will be no fair or impartial hearing for the ‘out’ side.  Only the most extreme, divisive or deluded figures will be invited to speak, so they push voters to the ‘in’ side due to their conspiratorial or frankly idiotic views, or lightweight claims that fall apart under the most cursory scrutiny and examination.

To win a referendum campaign the ‘out’ side must not rely on the normal channels, such as the media.  The message that a referendum is exclusively about who should run Britain, needs to be spread face to face directly to voters in cities, towns and villages throughout the country.  It is only then that the positive vision for a successful and independent Britain – as set out in FLEXCIT – can be heard and explained to counter the FUD which will flood the airwaves and print media to paint a false picture of economic armageddon should we free ourselves from the EU.

The ‘out’ side can win the referendum in the face of overwhelming dishonesty and misrepresentation, but it will need to unite around common strategy so the electorate receives a consistent and clear message.  Witterings from Witney has already started putting out feelers, with limited success.  The problem though is that some entities – which despite being nominally against EU membership have done nothing to develop or promote a strategy for getting out – will use the referendum campaign as a career move, with one eye firmly on individual prospects to become MPs or prominent figures in political circles.

There is still time to address this. But whether the individuals involved will set aside their own personal agendas, in order to help secure the exit from the EU they claim to want, remains to be seen.

More interference from the Washington Waffler

Having not watched President Obama speaking to the media at the G7 meeting in Brussels, the comments below as reported in the Barclay Beano may not be a completely accurate or contiguous transcript.  Nevertheless, the sentiment is clear:

With respect to the future of the United Kingdom, obviously ultimately this is up to the people of Great Britain.

In the case of Scotland, there is a referendum process in place and it’s up to the people of Scotland.

But I would to say the United Kingdom has been an extraordinary partner to us. From the outside at least, it looks like things have worked pretty well.

We obviously have a deep interest in making sure one of the closest allies we will ever remains a strong, robust, united and effective partner.

One wonders if the President, when he has met with the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland – Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness – has shared similar sentiments regarding the United States’ interest in the UK remaining robust, united and effective, or if it’s only Scots who are encouraged to stay put.

Yet again we have the Obama administration attempting to use its popularity overseas to influence the thinking of the British people.  Again we see the ‘encouragement’ for the UK to remain stuck in the anti-democratic, sub regional entity that is the EU, when in contrast any attempt to foist a similar settlement on the American people – with foreigners determining America’s foreign policy, trade, agriculture and fisheries etc – most likely being met with… how best to describe it…  an uncompromising and robust response from the citizenry.

I don’t have a strong view either way on the Scottish referendum.  I would be as content for the union to endure as I would for the Scots people to decide to take full control of their own affairs – although feel it is ridiculous that should they gain such cherished control and self determination, they intend to fall over themselves to hand it back to Brussels.  But following Obama’s comments there would be a particular satisfaction in seeing the independence campaign win, just to stick two fingers up at the White House and the interfering teleprompter queen who inhabits it.

Scottish independence campaign being used as a guinea pig for EU referendum campaign

For some people this may be a statement of the bleeding obvious, but listening to BBC Radio 4 Today this morning, it seems the media is using the Scottish independence campaign to test out which arguments should be made and lines taken in any future EU referendum campaign (whenever that might be).

Professor John Curtice, wearing his ScotCen Social Research hat, has told the BBC that:

Voters want to hear about the economic and financial consequences of the choice that they make, and it is on the outcome of that debate that the result of the referendum is likely to turn.

This is hardly as surprise when the questions asked focus on economic rather than political matters.

A write up of the story on BBC Online also extracts specific questions that focus on voting intentions based on whether Scots will be £500 better or worse off after independence, or whether the Scottish economy will be better or worse. There is no report on the all-important political factors, which is what the independence debate (and the EU debate for that matter) is all about.

It is important to note that the Today piece included comments from four Scots voters – and only one of them said financial considerations were an important factor to him when it comes to voting on independence.  The other three didn’t focus on economics and instead spoke about variations on the theme of who decides how Scotland is run.  Once this segment had been played, the presenter then ignored the voter contributions and turned the discussion straight back to economics, disregarding what the voters had said; and Curtice himself then introduced identity as an issue rather than politics, to move the conversation further away from the central political dimension.

The feeling is of there being a clear agenda to frame the Scottish debate firmly in terms of economics, while doing everything possible to confine the politics to the wilderness.  While this mirrors the current approach taken to the EU debate by the Europhiles at places such as the Centre for European Reform and the Europlastics at places such as Open Europe, what it does is enable the power of the narrative to be tested on a live electorate and see how effectively the electorate can be manipulated into focusing on issues that are irrelevant to the concept of independence – namely who should run Scotland.

No matter whether one feels the Scots should be independent, or whether the union should be preserved as it is, all should be concerned that the crux of the independence issue is being airbrushed from the discourse by the media, which is taking its line from entities with vested interests in keeping all structures as they are – which suits the European Union perfectly.

Putting patients first? Another example of the unaccountable NHS serving its own interests

The BBC is reporting that a hospital where a girl bled to death has refused to publish the findings of its inquiry for fear of “endangering the mental health” of staff.

Kettering General Hospital conducted a serious incident investigation following the death of 17-year-old Victoria Harrison, who bled to death on a ward after an appendix operation in 2012, but has said it will not be making the full report public despite an FoI request.

The trust has undertaken a public interest test with regard to providing a chronology of events.

It believes that Section 38 (1) (a) should be engaged as it is likely to endanger the mental health of individuals [staff] linked to the events leading up to the tragic death of Victoria Harrison, should the information be in the public domain.

The reason for this is due to the risk of colleagues and peers being able to identify the individuals [staff] involved in the incident, and placing the individuals concerned under additional stress and pressure in addition to that already experienced during the investigation and inquest.

Having made this response, Kettering General refused to say how many staff had been disciplined, or their rank, claiming individuals would be identified, but it did reveal that no staff were dismissed.

An artery had been damaged during surgery, with the surgeon rectifying the issue, but not all nursing staff had been told about the bleeding and a number of nurses – incredibly – did not routinely read medical notes of the patients, or when they did could not always decipher surgeons’ handwriting, the inquest was told.

The last written formal observations were taken nine hours before Miss Harrison was found dead by nursing staff.  It is staggering that Miss Harrison had texted her boyfriend to say she was in pain and bleeding, yet staff apparently did not know about it.  No surprise therefore to hear that the coroner said:

Windows of opportunity to treat Victoria were lost – had these been acted upon the outcome may have been different.

I believe her chances of survival would have significantly increased.

Yet despite these failings, the hospital is telling the public they have no right to know how the failings leading to a preventable death have been addressed.

How are residents, forced to rely on the ‘care’ provided at Kettering General, supposed to have confidence in how they will be treated and subsequently looked after?

The interests of the hospital staff are being put first.  This is another example of the public sector, the servant of the public, acting more like the public’s master in refusing to be held to account.  We are just expected to provide the funding and take pot luck when it comes to putting our lives in their hands.

‘Charities’ taking people for fools for their own ends

It is becoming increasingly difficult to identify worthy and genuine charities, those that prioiritise the delivery of good works for people in genuine need by channelling every penny possible to them.

In the first instance, if a charity relies on state handouts for the bulk of its funding then it isn’t a charity at all, but an extension of the state.  It also suggests the charity does not appeal to donors sufficiently to make them want to part with their money.  Prompting this is a column by Amanda Platell, which reminds us of the corruption of the definition of the word ‘poverty’ by groups such as the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), to suit their own ends.  As their website explains:

What this adopted ‘definition’ shows is that in affluent societies where real poverty does exists but is comparatively rare, the only way a charity like the CPAG can justify its existance is through a corruption of the definition and creation of a problem that isn’t really there.  In that way it can enjoin the state to fork over our money to tackle – if one can describe their work in such terms – ‘relative poverty’.

You may wonder what’s in it for CPAG.  A look at their website makes that very obvious…

What this menu of options tells us is that CPAG is a business.  It has people on the payroll focused on publications, media, education and lobbying.  It is an enterprise that generates income (pg 5) for a staff whose primary focus is merely:

Such awareness consists of adverts and videos like the one below which, while purporting to tell us the truth about benefits Britain, singularly fails to recognise or mention that governments use benefits as electoral bribes and have a vested interest in making people dependent on the state; increase the cost of living through rising taxation; wheezes like fighting ‘climate change’; subsidising wealthy companies and land owner involved in renewables; sending aid money overseas; financing the EU’s largesse and so on.

There is much talk but little direct intervention on show.  I’m sure the ‘poverty’ stricken will be glad of this ‘help’, especially when the first £1,362,314 of the ‘charity’s’ income in the last financial year (pg 20) was spent on salaries, National Insurance and pension contributions, more than £70,ooo of which was spent on the chief executive, Alison Garnham.  At least she has enough money for a selective diet, activity participation and customary amenities:

To keep this show on the road, the Child Poverty Action Group needs to keep the cash coming in.  To keep the cash coming in it needs to keep inventing crises, peddling myths and constructing a narrative to give the impression there is a major and immediate problem that has to be addressed, requiring substantial public funds that have the happy coincidence of meeting the employment costs of like minded activists.  In this it is no different to so many other of these fake charities.

People are being taken for fools.  The current multi-pronged campaign being waged by self serving ‘poverty’ activists on everything from wages to food banks to deprived children, is a scam.  These committed political activists are applying pressure and being joined in their cause by simple minded virtue-mongers who need the supposed issues to be true to justify their chest beating and scattergun condemnation of everyone and everything they believe to be less virtuous than them.

As these entities are reliant on state funding rather than individual donations, the only way to stop feeding the beast is to show up these campaign chartities for what they are – so even the government will not want to be seen by taxpayers as being associated with them.  It’s time for the rip off to end.

The most potent weapon in the media’s arsenal deployed against the public

On Radio 4’s Today programme this morning was an interview with former Sun editor, David Yelland.  He was talking about his views on press regulation and the Royal Charter, attacking the press for their reaction to the output from the Leveson inquiry.

While it was an interesting take on matters, focused on the Leveson Anniversary Lecture he is delivering today at the Free Word Centre and covered in the Guardian today, one small snippet of his speech that he shared on air stood out as being an invaluable insight from a heavyweight media insider:

One of the most potent weapons a newspaper has is to totally ignore an issue or a story. People attack papers for what they print. But what they don’t print is often the bigger story.

This is essential for people to understand.

For campaigns such as those concerned with leaving the EU, challenging climate change orthodoxy, demanding democratic reform, exposing abuses and failings of the establishment and so on, this  bias by omission is all too familiar and occurs all too frequently.  Another example of it has surfaced today.  It is invariably a weapon deployed in the interest of the media itself – but most frequently in support of agendas in the interest of the political class (which the media relies on for stories) and the rest of the establishment.  This cosy little stitch up, by and for people who consider themselves important, is designed to keep people in ignorance and conceal truths that are inconvenient to the establishment.

While this and many other blogs have often pointed at instances of bias by omission in favour of the establishment, very rarely does a member of it break ranks like this and admit the truth in such a transparent and matter of fact way.  Yelland reinforces the reality with another observation, thus:

[…] Whether they are mad or just lack self-awareness, the fact is editors and proprietors in this country see themselves as the small guy, the powerless man struggling against the establishment. What they fail to grasp is that they have become the establishment themselves. They are the powerful, and others are the weak.

He also confirms the pack mentality and derivative nature of the media – which while focused in this instance on the reaction to Leveson, equally applies to just about every major issue covered (or ignored) by this country’s press:

The press has done itself no favours in the biased way this entire matter has been reported, when it has been reported at all. Few papers have dared differ from the fundamental response to the great mess that caused the Leveson inquiry in the first place. There is a party line. And nearly everybody follows it.

The media cannot be relied upon.  Every story that is published needs to be viewed through a filter where one should ask themself; why has this story been covered, whose interest is being served, what is the other point of view, how and why were those providing comment selected, and what information has been excluded from the story?

It may seem cynical to do this, but it is the only way to shield oneself from the cynical manipulation to which the public is subjected by the press, be it broadcast, print or electronic.

New coal-fired power plants: All the news that’s convenient to print

It’s almost a week since Steag GmbH, started up the new 725-megawatt Walsum-10 coal-fired power plant, in eco-friendly Germany.  The plant is due to commence full commercial operation before the end of the year.

Germany is consistently cited by environmentalists in the UK as a stunning example of the use of renewables, and evidence that the UK should follow Germany’s ‘wise’ example in moving away from fossil fuels.

How curious it is, therefore, that the same environmentalists have been completely silent about Walsum-10.  For that matter, how curious it is that while the UK is being saddled with more disproportionately expensive and grossly inefficient wind turbines, the UK lamestream media has completely ignored the Walsum-10 story.  You could perhaps understand a single coal plant’s opening being ignored, but no less than ten new hard-coal power stations, or 7,985 megawatts, are scheduled to start producing electricity in the next two years.

The difference between the German approach and the UK approach is stark.  The German government is determined to produce affordable and reliable energy for its industry and domestic consumers and is building substantial new coal to meet its needs.  Meanwhile the UK government is determined to put up wind turbines regardless of the cost and at the expense of reliability and is more concerned with forcing people to use less energy rather than striving to meet demand.

The compliant UK media remains silent.  They only publish the news that’s convenient to print, and in any case the journalists who cover political issues have other more pressing concerns than something as trivial as keeping the public informed.

Politics of the kindergarten

A measure of just how far party politics has sunk, and the extent to which the desperation of politicians to see their tribe ‘in power’ trumps everything, can be seen in Nick Boles’ suggestion that the National Liberal Party be revived by the Conservatives.

Such is the contempt in which voters are held by the political class, politicians like Boles believe that the Conservatives setting up a modern day National Liberal Party – which in its previous incarnation after splitting from the Liberal Party had the likes of Michael Heseltine and John Nott on its roll, before going on to merge completely with the Conservatives in 1968 – would attract liberal-minded voters at the next general election that the Conservative brand cannot.

The point here is that Boles is admitting the Conservatives are unpopular and need to win Liberal Democrat votes.  Knowing most of those Lib Dem supporters who could be tempted to jump ship from the SS Clegg would jump left rather than right, he is pinning his hopes on people falling for a false flag party that, he reasons, would appeal to the centre left yet obey the Conservatives’ bidding without question.  It failed in the 60s and it would fail again now.  But the fact the idea is even being kicked around shows the depths these people will plumb.

Of course, nowhere in all these shenanigans is there any consideration of what the people may want, or recognition that most of the promises the parties will make ahead of the 2015 General Election could never be honoured in any case because the power sits in Brussels, not Westminster.  While a relatively small story with little traction, this is by far one of the most cynical trains of thought and naked attempts to con voters into supporting something they don’t want that has so far emerged from the festering swamp that is home to the political bubble.

Voting for any of these lying crooks would be an obscenity.  They are nothing more than children playing games.  We are looking on at the politics of the kindergarten.  It’s well past time for a change to the system.

Thanks for nothing, Farage and UKIP

In May this year, when UKIP had its ‘big’ electoral ‘breakthrough’ opinion polls asking people their views on the UK’s membership of the EU had 47% in favour of leaving, and 30% in favour of staying.

Despite Eurosceptic UKIP’s ‘surge’ the signs have been clear that the number in favour of staying in the EU would rise.  This is because of the concerted campaign that has been conducted by the Europhiles and their corporate sponsors to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about the impact on the UK of leaving the union.

This blog has not held back in accusing UKIP of failing the Eurosceptic side because it has utterly failed to use its prominent platform to even attempt to counter the flood of misinformation, lies, manipulated statistics being pumped out.  This isn’t a case of UKIP struggling to get attention for its rebuttals of the Europhile FUD, it has simply not devoted a single moment to rebutting the Europhile nonsense.  In return this blogger has been attacked by some UKIP supporters who refuse to accept any criticism of their party.  Time and again this blog has said that if there is no rebuttal by the prominent Eurosceptics to counter the lies, using evidence and facts, voters will start to believe the Europhile claims are true and increasingly – however reluctantly – opt to stick with the status quo.

This blog’s UKIP detractors and naysayers have rubbished this argument. Voters, they claim, do not want lots of detail in rebuttal of the Europhile lies.  UKIP’s simple ‘we want out’ message, they assert, is far more effective than explaining the truth.  No one is that interested, they say, in an argument that extolls the opportunities and benefits of the UK freeing itself of EU control.  This blog explained why these arguments are wrong, but to no avail.

So it is that a YouGov poll question, ‘If there was a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union, how would you vote?’ returned the following results:

Taken from PoliticalBetting.com

Richard has his own analysis of the findings over at EU Referendum.  He points out the trend that is emerging, this being the lowest margin of the year so far, dropping 17 points from the peak in 9-10 May when the “outers” stood at 47 percent and the “inners” took 30 percents. By August, the margin had dropped to 12 points and last month it stood at a mere five points.  While Richard points out the linkage between anti-EU sentiment and UKIP support is no longer clear-cut, for me the linkage between this decline in support for the ‘out’ campaign and UKIP’s silence in the face of Europhile FUD is clear.

It does not give me any pleasure.  There is no smug self satisfaction about this.  But it was so bloody obvious.  What it does is make me want to scream in frustration at those cult-like morons who blindly follow Farage regardless of any evident failings, both political and strategic, and adopt a tribal defence of UKIP even though it is clearly letting down the Eurosceptic side – even reducing the argument to things such as misdirections where they demand I compare how many Google returns there are for UKIP as opposed to The Harrogate Agenda, as if that refutes UKIP’s failure.

With only a small handful of blogs reaching out to their audience of readers in low five figures, getting the message across to voters is an almost impossible ask.  With UKIP having run  away from the fight, because Nigel Farage is frightened of the debate that needs to be had and won, it is clear that no political party is going to devote the kind of focus to this issue that a campaign requires.  A non-party political campaign is not now preferable, it has become essential.

For all its talk of a ‘surge’ in support, its boasts of thousands of new members added to its roll, and its predictions of a big result in the European elections in 2014, UKIP has done the sum total of nothing to push the positive reasons for leaving the EU and nothing to counter the flood of spin and deception that characterises the Europhile media blitz.  The Europhiles are in the ring throwing punches while UKIP is searching for the fastest car away from the venue.

My message tonight to Nigel Farage and his Praetorian Guard in UKIP, is short and sweet.  Thanks for nothing.

Charge of the Referendum Light Brigade

Having been derided for his aspiration of leading the Conservative Party, Adam Afriyie, has now determined how he plans to exact revenge – declaring via the Daily Mail’s RightMinds section that he will force David Cameron to hold an in-out referendum on EU membership ‘now’.

This really is a new charge of a light brigade, misguided and doomed to failure.  While it may elicit excitement among Eurosceptics, an early referendum would almost certainly be lost and the UK would be shackled to the twitching corpse of the EU, for decades to come or until the whole ediface comes crashing down under its own weight.

The facts are these.  The Eurosceptics are in appalling shape and nowhere close to ready to fighting the kind of campaign required to win public support for an ‘out’ vote.  We would face a biased and distorting media where the selected voices on our side will be those who will undermine us with undecided voters and where, with the exception of the Express, even the supposed Eurosceptic press like the Mail and the Telegraph will support continued EU membership and push the false ‘renegotiation’ meme.

Add in to this the fact that Afriyie is not really pushing an early referendum to hasten UK withdrawal from the EU, but for narrow party political considerations.  Always delve into a piece if you want to find the author’s genuine motivations.  The headline rationale is the ‘acceptable’ argument only put there to earn sympathy from the audience.  As a piece goes on, the author lets slip what is really on their mind.  Afriyie’s piece is no different and his motives are clear in his article:

I think people understand the argument that if you vote Conservative you will get a referendum and if you vote Labour you won’t.

But we must not rely too heavily on the belief that the promise of a referendum will persuade people to vote Conservative nor trust the Labour Party not to change its position.

In reality, the British people are unsure whether the Conservative leadership would be able to stick to its promise of holding a referendum after the Election, especially if in coalition once again.

It seems to me that if we don’t hold the referendum before 2015, large numbers of people will continue to vote UKIP whatever happens – and if they do, there is a distinct danger that Labour will gain a majority and we will never see a referendum at all.

Protest votes are understandable mid-term, but mainstream politicians continue to underestimate and dismiss the power and significance of populism – currently expressed in the form of UKIP votes. Because at the heart of a populist movement is a legitimate concern unacknowledged by the political establishment.

By holding an early EU referendum, we would have recognised, embraced and addressed those concerns.

An early EU referendum would resolve the issue for all political parties as well as the British people. And for my party, I believe it will reunite the wider Conservative family so that we can win convincingly in 2015.

That is his Afriyie’s real agenda.  Stealing a march on Labour and neutering UKIP’s capacity for harming Conservative electoral prospects.

So we now can see the only reason why Afriyie wants an early referendum.  Narrow, party political advantage.  The conventional wisdom is that the Conservatives would benefit regardless of the outcome of the referendum – and that is what Afriyie is trying to sell to his Tory colleagues right now ahead of tomorrow’s amendment.  The national and public interest, which would be served by freeing this country from the EU, isn’t the primary consideration.

That can only spell bad news for our prospects of securing our exit from the EU.  Those who are currently excited by Afriyie’s construct should be careful for what they wish for.  Rather than throwing compliments at Afriyie, they should be hurling brickbats.  We have to suit up for a referendum campaign and be strong in order to win it.  The suit has not been stitched and we are severely under our fighting weight.  An early referendum is to be avoided.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel with no sense of shame

After a weekend offline, savouring the rugby and the dubious delights of preparing the garden for autumn, a visit of the news sites reveals the Guardian’s War on Murdoch continues apace.

It is not a battle about media plurality, if it were then the Guardian’s broadcast arm, aka the BBC, would be in Rusbridger’s sights, so overwhelming is its news media presence on TV, radio and the internet.  No, this fight is about limiting the scope and reach of an alternative to the Guardian/BBC worldview and their nasty left wing agenda.

Having done the ‘phone hacking’ story to death, including a number of serious false claims and errors that were played down when corrected; and having managed to ensure the Guardian-connected Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer protected Rusbridger’s brother-in-law, David Leigh from arrest and prosecution – despite his self confessed illegal behaviour in listening to other people’s voicemails – today the Guardian changes tack and marks a new low even for that hateful low circulation rag. using a new proxy.

The employment of Chris Huhne, the disgraced convicted criminal and confessed serial liar, to attack Murdoch, is not just desperate, it is reprehensible.  The BBC shares the shame, kissing the Guardian’s loss-making behind and pushing the story with gusto on the radio this morning.  He still will not accept responsibility for his own actions without heavy caveats and excuses, but the Guardian is delighted to use him as a tool to service its own ends – just like the climate change businesses that are filling Huhne’s pockets with cash in return for advice on how best to corrupt and milk the system.

Inside the parallel universe in which Huhne resides, where inverted morality holds sway and people ascribe responsibility for their actions to someone else, who they then attack for it, it is held that Murdoch and his press are responsible for corroding public trust in politicians.  No, really.  Huhne tries to find an angle for his attack by suggesting the reason why the News of the World put what he tries to describe as so many resources, into proving his affair with Carina Trimmingham, was that he had called for the police to re-open the phone hacking investigation.

So the demise of the saintly Huhne, which began with the exposure of his extra-marital affair (one of many if his children are to be believed) only started because of his selfless desire to aid the Guardian’s noble campaign to nail News International’s impropriety and right some wrongs into the bargain (but not it seems any comeuppance for the Guardian’s David Leigh, naturally).  Then, wails Huhne, the Murdoch press ‘groomed’ his wife into spilling the beans about his criminal act of pressuring her into taking his speeding points to avoid a driving ban.  He bleats that:

The Crown Prosecution Service loves a celebrity trial. It was the end of my political career, and it locked up my ex-wife too. She was just another “burned contact” for the Murdoch press.

Burned contacts?  The Guardian knows all about burning contacts.  Remember how they used then turned on Julian Assange?  Where were they after coaxing a story out of Edward Snowden, then running for cover to avoid prosecution themselves?

As an exercise in self justification and an effort to sanitise oneself, Huhne’s outrageously manipulative piece is an absolute masterclass.  Oh the unfairness of it all.  Sure it was his fault, but…  For a pathological and selfish liar such as Huhne there always has to be someone else to blame.  He refuses to accept the reality that public trust in politicians is not because of media actions, but the behaviour of lying, corrupt and self serving parasites such as himself.  There has to be a conspiracy behind it.  Perhaps this piece may spark something of a reaction from James Murdoch when he reads the following passage:

The wider lesson is a liberal leitmotif: it is the duty of politicians to combat concentrations of power wherever they are, private or public, business or state. Time and again, Murdoch has used his media muscle to bulldoze a way for his business interests. In 2010 he wanted to buy all of Sky, and needed Vince Cable’s approval. His son James even came to lobby me. The implicit offer was: back us, and we will back you.

That is quite some accusation and I’m sure Huhne has evidence by way of a witness or a record of the meeting’s discussion to back up his claim.   Or perhaps he expects the public to take him at his word…?

Huhne of course says nothing about the Guardian’s use of media muscle and its effective editorial control of the BBC and left wing MPs, a much bigger stick than anything Murdoch wields, to force the capitulation of Tiny Rowland after a smear campaign so it could buy the Observer. Then there’s the way they undermined the Conservative government by going after the idiot Neil Hamilton for cash for questions – something he still denies and for which there is a substantial amount of material that suggests that some of the Guardian’s evidence and witness statements were fabricated.

What this all goes to show is that as long as one is happy to preach the Guardian’s gospel by talking up left wing concerns, climate alarmism, attacks on the British entity and identity, or servicing the assault on Murdoch, no amount of criminal activity, viciousness or sickening mindset is enough to preclude anyone from a platform and copious column inches.  It’s a bit like the Guardian saying, that person is a pathetic scumbag, but he’s their kind of pathetic scumbag so he’s OK.

The whole attack on Murdoch, now rejoined by Huhne, is nakedly political and self serving.  It has nothing to do with public interest and everything to do with preserving a liberal dominance of the news media in the UK, where the Guardian (despite its tumbling sales), the BBC and the Press Association work together to push a slanted narrative or exclude stories unhelpful to the ‘progressives’ from the coverage they dominate.  This is the journalism of the gutter, shamelessly executed.

UPDATE:  A Mail hack has kindly done a piece that compares some of Huhne’s self-pitying cant with the reality his deluded mind has tried to airbrush from the record.  It reinforces what a lying, discredited, unreliable, untrustworthy, arrogant and conceited tosser Huhne is.  But the Guardian loves him.

BBC covering up for their friends?

Which of the following headlines do you consider to be the more newsworthy and being of greater public interest?

1. 25% of the population have been victims of a violent attack this year, or

2. 38% of the population are concerned about being violently attacked in the coming year

If a news organisation ran a story with headline one, then changed it to headline two later the same day, people could be forgiven for thinking that the organisation was perhaps trying to tone down the story by diverting attention away from the serious impacts that have been experienced by people and on to a statistic dealing in hypothesis rather than actuality.

The BBC has done just this today, not on the subject of violent crime but on the consequences of rising energy prices, particularly on low income and vulnerable households.

We will never know why they have changed the focus of the story, because any request for an explanation of an editorial decision or the process that led to the change is summarily rejected thanks to the BBC’s broad and routinely abused exemption under the Freedom of Information Act.  But there are some things we do know.

We do know, as covered in the previous post, the BBC is firmly on the side of environmental organisations, indeed any departure from the BBC’s ranks of environment reporters is invariably to positions in such eco groups or to become formal campaigners for such groups.  We also know as this earlier post reminds readers, that environmental organisations are the driving force at governmental level behind the insipid approach to energy policy that is pushing up energy prices to force people to use less energy.  And from the BBC’s survey findings we now have a clear picture of the consequences of this energy policy on real people, who are going without heat in their homes.

The effects of the energy policy going to get much worse.  More elderly and vulnerable people are going to perish this winter and in future winters because the cost of heating their homes has been dramatically increased, with much of that increase driven by direct and indirect levies and taxes demanded by the environmental NGOs, who sit alongside government and make the rules, unscrutinised, unaccountable and unmoveable.

If 25% of people surveyed have already suffered cold homes because heating is unaffordable, heaven knows how bad things will get for them in future years, let alone how many more households will be dragged into fuel poverty by this madness.  Who knows, even the BBC might struggle to conceal the impacts of the actions of their fellow travellers.

Media bias and UKIP’s failure highlighted yet again

Another day and yet another example of how the the media distorts coverage of matters EU, while UKIP continues to act as if the cat has got its tongue by offering no Eurosceptic view on the subject in question.

Robert Watts, writing in the Telegraph, gives that pro-EU paper’s take on the burden British businesses experience as a result of EU regulations.  According to Watts, the details will be laid bare in a series of reports which will be published on Monday by the Foreign Secretary, Concrete Willy, beginning with a focus on how the EU affects UK taxation, health, overseas aid, foreign policy, animal welfare and food safety.

Watts goes on to tell readers that a further 26 reports will be published in coming months, ‘in a boost to the Eurosceptic wing of the Conservatives’.  Having made his reference to Eurosceptics, Watts runs off to get a Eurosceptic quote from… yes you guessed it, the Tory stooge EUphile ‘think tank’ Open Europe which, as the Telegraph intended, prattles on about the non-existent fantasy renegotiation where the UK can supposedly secure more flexible membership terms from the EU.

Where the main Eurosceptic force, UKIP, is supposed to be leading by rebutting the bullshit coming out of the Tory delusion department, instead we get the Europlastics of pro-EU Open Europe taking a break from acting as official minder to Andrea Leadsom (wherever she speaks about EU matters, Open Europe are at her side keeping her on message) in order to blaze a trail for the Tory line, being the only supposed Eurosceptic voice that readers hear – and in the absence of any challenge, those readers assume what they hear to be accurate and well informed.

The problem is not only that UKIP isn’t establishing itself ‘go to’ organisation for Eurosceptic commentary in the mainstream media, it is that UKIP isn’t even talking about this issue on its own website.  How can potential supporters take UKIP seriously when it is voluntarily absents itself from engaging on core issues concerning the negative aspects of EU membership, just as the subject gets serious media profile?

When it comes to boosting Nigel Farage’s personal profile, no column inches or photo opportunities are spared.  But when discussion turns to subjects that are supposed to be at the heart of the very reason for UKIP’s being, the party goes AWOL.  This isn’t a one off, this is part of a consistent pattern.  The only logical explanation is that Farage deliberately refuses to engage on these topics because he doesn’t understand them himself.  He determination to not do detail means he doesn’t have anything of value to add and he is scared of being bested in an argument as a result.

This is just the latest in a long line of examples of both the public and the UKIP membership being ill served, by the press and the UKIP leader respectively.  In such circumstances how can we Eurosceptics possibly hope to win any prospective EU in-out referendum?  The media is ‘in the tank’ for the EUphiles and the sole Eurosceptic political party is asleep at the wheel as its leader plays ‘look at me’.  The media is serving its own interests and Farage relies upon his cult to lash out at any criticism of his ineptitude.  With this seemingly unresolvable issue, we can be excused for asking ourselves why we bother.

Blinkered… bloody-minded… and justified

It is a strategy of such ingenuity, such cunning and such extraordinary brilliance it could only be described as a stunning masterstroke.

There can be no doubt that the development of the strategy took hundreds of hours of painstaking planning, discussion, re-working and collaboration with interested parties to bring to fruition.  One can only stand, applaud and marvel at the sheer élan to which we are bearing witness.

So take a bow Ed Davey, no mere Energy Secretary, but an intellectual colossus making arguments of such unassailable depth and citing empirical evidence of such weight that every sceptic of the orthodoxy of climate change should declare their complete and unconditional surrender and endorse Davey’s factual reality.

What else can we do?  After all, Davey has deployed an argument so substantive as to be beyond contestation by mere mortals.

He has argued in powerful terms that we are guilty of being ‘blinkered’ and bloody minded, that it is we who have been undermining science for political ends, that it is we who have turned the issue of climate change into a political football and that it is we who have an uncritical campaigning platform in the media to be used by individuals and lobby groups.

No, really.

It takes a special kind of thick-skinned arrogance to be able to take the full range of accusations levelled against the government, for refusing to examine or consider scientific findings that challenge the extent to which man and carbon are allegedly influencing the climate, and level those at sceptics instead.

Moreso to attempt to deflect attention from the BBC, Guardian and Independent in particular, which uncritically report every alarmist claim – however ludicrous and unscientific – as fact and truth in support of the warmist agenda while ignoring anything that contradicts them including scientific findings, and denouncing ‘right-wing’ newspapers who very occasionally allow sceptics to point out where predictions made with a high degree of certainty have failed to materialise, and models have failed to reflect actual observations we see around us.

As for citing the sceptics for supposedly using climate change as a political football, it is downright dishonest to pretend that anyone other than the politicans have used climate change in such a way.  The topic has been booted back and forth in a metaphoric arms-race between the parties to impose climate change related taxes on businesses and households (overt and hidden extra costs on energy bills, air passenger duty, petrol prices, recycling rules, closure of power plants etc).  It has been exploited to force expensive ‘solutions’ on us that create far more of an environmental hazard (lightbulbs, wildlife killing and illness inducing windturbines), outlaw ever more things to limit choice (restricting the kind of boilers that can be used).  And it has been used as an excuse to pledge ever more money – with a significant sum heading overseas – to tackling a phenomenon that is barely understood, the source of which is still unproven, and which consistently fails to result in the catastrophic outcomes predicted.

If challenging all this is construed as blinkered and bloody minded by the likes of Davey, it is also without any shadow of a doubt  completely and utterly justified.

Davey is not just lazy, uncritical, dogmatic and ignorant.  With his quasi-religious zeal and immunity to reason, this swivel-eyed climate change loon’s attempt to stifle dissent and keep the bandwagon rolling on in spite of evidence that challenges it, is downright dangerous.

Arch Tory Timmy and the Conservative fetish for big government

It’s interesting to see that Timmy of The Times has been holding forth over on the ConservativeHome blog.  He is arguing that although David Cameron is not a great leader, he can still win the next General Election and should not be ousted by the party’s MPs.

In his assessment, Timmy references a story hidden behind the same Times paywall where he will be shrinking to greatness, talks about the way Cameron has allowed the so-called centre right vote to be split:

Most of all, I hold Cameron responsible for the splitting of the centre right vote. Successful leaders spend 50% of their time looking after their existing voters and 50% reaching out to new voters. In recent months Cameron has scrambled back to a more balanced approach but the damage is already done. UKIP is booming in the polls and today’s FT reports (£) that they are about to broaden further – adding a low tax message (which seems completely unaffordable to me) to their existing core messages on Europe and immigration. UKIP, remember, don’t need to win a single seat in order to still deny Tory candidates victory in key marginals.

As you can see from the piece I have emphasised in bold, Timmy has his eye on the fusion between electoral appeal and economics.  The piece in the Times that he refers to is summarised on ConHome’s main page as follows:

“The UK Independence party is to broaden its electoral message beyond its usual campaigns against Europe and immigration with a new tax strategy aimed squarely at swing voters in middle Britain. Godfrey Bloom, the party’s economics spokesman, wants to create a flat rate of income tax at 25 per cent with a personal allowance of £13,000, a policy which he accepts will bring particular benefits to middle earners. Meanwhile, in another attempt to chisel support away from the Conservatives, Mr Bloom also wants to allow non-working parents to transfer their tax allowance to a working spouse.”

Timmy’s big problem here is the same one that infests the Cameron Conservatives; the belief that the plans UKIP are putting forward are unaffordable because government has to spend so much money.  It is this kind of lazy thinking, and the authoritarian bent that accompanies it, which is causing so much financial misery to ordinary people.

UKIP’s economic plan is entirely affordable – as long as the government stops spending money on non-essential services and provisions.  But politicians of every stripe are in an arms race to make promises to voters that cannot be delivered without stealing ever greater sums of our money.

And when the consequences of a government’s irresponsible spending, unaffordable borrowing, increasing taxation and syphoning of our wealth to service its own ends become so serious they can no longer be hidden, we are presented with the ‘false choice’.  Brandon Smith, writing on this from an American perspective on Zero Hedge, defines it superbly when he writes:

Large and corrupt governments love to use the magic of the false choice.  For instance, “…it is better to sacrifice some of your money and your principles to the establishment than it is to live through total collapse of the nation…”  This false choice process, though, never ends.  The offending government will demand more property and more freedom from the citizenry everyday while constantly warning that if we do not submit, the alternative will be “far worse”.

The truth is, Cyprus is not the issue.  What the disaster in Cyprus reflects, however, concerns us all.  It is a moment of precedence; an action which sets the stage for the final destruction of the idea of private property.  It dissolves one of the final barriers to total government control.  Governments and elitists have always stolen from the public through misspent taxation and rampant inflation, but with Cyprus, we see a renewed feudalistic paradigm.  The EU and the banking hierarchy are sending a message to the Western world:  You are now their personal emergency fund, and nothing you own is actually yours anymore.

When an institution confiscates property and capital at will from a subdued and frightened populace without consent, they are essentially exploiting the labor of that populace.  In any culture or language, this is called “slavery”.

The Tories, for all their pontificating about personal freedom and responsibility, are following this exact path, just as Labour and the Lib Dems would if they held ‘power’ exclusively.  This is the disease that has infested the political class and will harm us all.

Where Timmy should be shouting from the rooftops that government should not be continuously expanding and over reaching and does not need to be so big or spend so much, he merely whimpers that leaving people to decide for themselves how their money is spent and how they use their resources, is unaffordable – for the government!  How is that viewpoint reconcilable with someone who professes to want limited government and individual freedom?  He clearly hasn’t got a bloody clue.

They just don’t get it

The anti-democrats

The reaction within the establishment to David Cameron’s speech pledging an in-out referendum on the EU, if he manages to remain Prime Minister after the next general election, shows how detached and contemptuous its members are.

First up we had Ed Miliband, puffing his chest out like a gooney bird in the House of Commons, declaring ‘his’ party would not allow the people to choose the way this country is governed.

It seems the socialist dogma of common ownership is limited to taking money from those who have it, to lavish in return for votes on those who want it, but don’t go out and earn it.  For Comrade Ed and his fellow travellers when it comes to common ownership of this country, only the self selecting elitists who have served their time in party youth organisations, think tanks and policy units, get to decide.

Then we had Nick Clegg chipping in with the same utterly discredited arguments he used in favour of the lunacy of the UK ditching sterling and adopting the Euro, namely that this issue will cause uncertainty for business and the economy and jobs and investment will be at risk.

Then with every man and his dog across the continent chipping in their tuppence worth, the august pages of the Barclay Brother Beano provided a platform for Fraser Nelson to opine that while David Cameron puts his faith in the people, Ed Miliband clings rigidly to belief in the state.  Fraser Nelson’s take on this issue reveals his paternalist Tory streak:

All of a sudden, “this Cameron” finds himself armed with a very powerful question to ask his opponents at election time: “We trust the people. Why don’t you?”

Trust the people? Trust them to do what? Why, to do what Cameron wants them to do of course!  It speaks volumes of the establishment that this issue is presented in terms of ‘trust’.

Democratically-minded people would not be talking about trusting the people any more than they would be declaring they would not be holding a referendum.  True democrats would be talking about letting the people decide and seeking the people’s consent. They would be talking about representing the wishes of the people.  But that doesn’t occur to the likes of Cameron, Clegg, Miliband or hacks like Nelson. These are people who belive they have a divine right to impose their wishes and dictate what will be to everyone else, and those who are their cheerleaders.  When it comes to democracy they just don’t get it.

That is why we need to be sceptical and suspicious of the motives of all members of this insular, self serving crowd.  They are not trying to serve interests, only their own.

Why did YouGov change its EU opinion poll question format?

In the previous post this blog referenced a big change in voter views captured by YouGov if there was an in-out referendum on EU membership.

The Better Off Out campaign has an invaluable post on its blog that highlights the findings of a poll watcher, Leo Barasi, who spotted that YouGov had changed the question structure of its polls and then claimed an “opinion change“. You can read Leo’s post and follow up on the Noise of the Crowd blog.

When writing my previous post, Peter Kellner’s political leanings were a consideration, but these were pushed aside as it felt unlikely that a seemingly reputable pollster like YouGov would be so unprincipled as to lead respondents in a particular direction. Now I’m not so sure. YouGov needs to explain why it changed the format and explain the poll sample is therefore not like for like.

What this underlines is the EUphile side is active and vocal vocal and trying to defeat the EUsceptics before they effectively counter the scare stories about withdrawal. We have seen this in the media in recent weeks with a flood of op-eds all pushing the ‘in’ line, and now we have interesting changes to the poll format by the company run by the husband of the EU’s unelected Foreign Affairs representative, Catherine Ashton.

The EUsceptics need to get in the game right now and challenge the spin and distortion that is worrying some voters who previously wanted the UK to withdraw. Then even if YouGov walks poll respondents down a path they can still say no because they are informed about how the UK can leave and protect its economic interests.

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.

Click to enlarge

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.

Open letter to Philip Gordon, US Assistant Secretary for European Affairs

Dear Mr Gordon,

I read with interest the following comment you made on behalf of the Government of the United States of America, in your capacity as US Assistant Secretary for European Affairs, regarding the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union:

We have a growing relationship with the EU as an institution, which has an increasing voice in the world, and we want to see a strong British voice in that EU. That is in America’s interests. We welcome an outward-looking EU with Britain in it.

This comes as no surprise as it reflects the thinking of other senior members of the Obama administration, who have previously opined that the United Kingdom should remain a member of the EU.

The President of the United States is considered by many to be the leader of the free world, and the United States itself considered to be a beacon of democracy.  So it is profoundly disappointing to see the United States administration endorsing and encouraging something that is fundamentally undemocratic.  I would like to ask you the following questions.

• Would it be acceptable to you and your fellow United States citizens that over 70% of the laws and regulations they were forced to comply with across all 50 states were created by a supranational government comprising layers of complex political and judicial structures, mostly unelected and unaccountable, and made up of delegates from not only the US, but Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, El Salvador, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela and Peru?

• Would it be acceptable to you, your fellow United States citizens and members of the Senate and House of Representatives that they were routinely handed diktats from the various bodies that make up the supranational government and were bound by law to implement the directives or be fined or dragged into a supranational court operating an alien form of judicial code and process?  Further, that Congress was denied the ability to draft, and the President sign into law, other legislation of national interest whenever the supranational decided it was not appropriate?

• Would it be acceptable to you, your fellow United States citizens and the Justices of the Supreme Court that decisions made by the bench, the highest court in your land, could be appealed to a supranational court overseas with the hearing presided over by foreign judges and if overruled the Supreme Court would have to accept that as a binding ruling?

If these scenarios do not sound very democratic or judicious to you and your fellow Americans it is because they are not.  Intentionally and by design.  But this is the reality of the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union and its associated bodies and institutions.  UK membership of the EU has entailed a substantial loss of power from our democratically elected Parliament as it has been quietly and steadily transferred to unelected and unaccountable bodies abroad – all done without the people of the UK being asked to give their consent for it to happen.

While it may be in the geopolitical interest of the Government of the United States for the United Kingdom to remain a member of the European Union, opinion polls show this anti-democratic situation is opposed by a majority of British citizens.  Membership of the EU dilutes the voice of the United Kingdom.  Seats on various world bodies held by the UK have been given up so the EU can supposedly represent the competing and disparate interests of 27 countries in a wholly unsatisfactory fudge that frequently fails to serve British interests.

I am sure you will recognise the obvious contradiction in the position of the United States, on one hand calling for Syria’s regime to heed the wishes of the Syrian people, while on the other calling for the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to maintain membership of the EU, despite the wishes of the British people.  I am sure you will also recognise the obvious contradiction of the United States urging countries around the world to embrace democracy, while urging the United Kingdom to maintain its place in political and judicial structures that replace representative democracy with control by unelected and unaccountable aliens who are drawn from a pool of self-selecting career politicians and civil servants.

Would such a situation be an acceptable settlement in the United States?  I think we both know the answer to that is categorically ‘no’.

No one who believes in democracy – people power – would endorse and encourage a continuation of this anti-democratic situation for the United Kingdom.  That is what this issue is about.  So, Mr Gordon, please do not presume to meddle in our affairs and wish on us that which you would aggressively oppose for yourself.

Yours sincerely,

Autonomous Mind

Open Europe displays its europhile Closed Mind

Returning home this evening I intended to draw attention to a piece in the Barclay Brother Beano.  However Richard has done it justice already, so rather than spend time recreating the story with slightly less panache, here is how Richard sets the scene on EU Referendum…

Unable to fight his corner even on his own blog, after the assertions he made on Norway were challenged, Mats Persson of Open Europe has scuttled off to his Telegraph clog, repeating his propaganda in the hope of reaching a more gullible audience.

However, while desperate to support the Cameron line that Norway, within the EFTA/EEA matrix has “no say” over the framing of EU rules, Persson has been forced to concede that Norway does indeed have some input on the framing of laws. All he will grudgingly allow, though, is that “Oslo has exceptionally limited ability to influence them”.

There’s more where that came from, once again exposing Persson’s shallow and ill-informed assertions for the misleading rubbish they are.

The comments section under the post in the Beano are a joy to behold as they almost universally rip little Mats’ argument to shreds.  Christmas may have come and gone but one Persson is still working as Cameron’s EuroElf.  However the goodies coming out of the sack are shoddy imitations and already broken before they have been opened.