The UKIP Blog

We've moved

2009-02-23T10:29:00.001Z

We're over here now.

Still a work in progress.......

And in other places Algarve Golf.

True, which is why you Tories need to be more eurosceptic Iain.

2009-02-20T16:45:00.001Z

And what do you think was the reason the council gave for the repainting of the spaces? Because they had to comply with an EU Directive which lays out how big the spaces must be. I ask you.

What on earth has the size of car parking spaces in Tunbridge Wells got to do with the EU?

From UKIP Witney

2009-02-20T10:31:00.002Z

This is a very useful little list from the UKIP Witney site. A list of terms used when talking about the European Union.

Even people like me who are already supposed to know all this stuff will find it useful as an aide memoire.

Keeping the Krona

2009-02-20T10:25:00.002Z

We're often told by the likes of Polly Toynbee that we should be more like Sweden. And it has to be said, there are times when this is true.

The home market is looking bruised as well. Sweden's property prices have begun to buckle after rising by 175pc since 1996 in a British-style boom. The Riksbank slashed rates to 1pc last week and is openly mulling currency devaluation as well as bond purchases as a part of a radical stimulus. The kronor has fallen nearly 20pc against the euro, helping to cushion the downturn.

"It's been a blessing. This is exactly why a country needs its own currency," said Mr Magnusson.

Quite. You need to have flexibility in an economy and a floating currency is one of the best ways of getting that.

Pearson of Rannoch

2009-02-19T12:13:00.000Z

A very nice point made in the Lords:

I suggest to the Minister—perhaps he will correct me if I am wrong—that a man is innocent until he is proved guilty.

The point of the pound

2009-02-19T10:05:00.001Z

Made very well here:

None of this misery should entitle Britons to much Schadenfreude; indeed, it will intensify our own recession. But we can at least afford ourselves a grim smile over the fact that this crisis is not ours alone. And we should thank the Lord that we stayed outside the euro. This is precisely the moment when free-floating independent currencies and interest rates come into their own. The nasty dose of medicine doled out to the patient is starting to work.
Alarming and discomforting as it is to see the Bank of England pledging to start the printing presses, or to watch the pound slide by more than a quarter, these are precisely the factors that will ensure Britain's recession is less intense than that experienced by other countries. The only worry is that the freeze in world trade leads to a full-blown slide into protectionism, but that is a horror story for another day.

Where the money goes

2009-02-19T09:08:00.002Z

Bruno Waterfield reporting upon the Parliament's TV channel:

It costs £53,000 for every hour broadcast but under 160,000 people have watched it since broadcasting began in mid-September. Over 60,000 of those were in the first week.

This means that this lavishly funded European Union channel attracts less than 1200 viewers every day, from a potential audience of over 400 million.

It is, of course, the European Parliament's EuroparlTV. That's the web-TV service that will cost more than £32 million over four years, over £9,000 worth of vanity programmes for each and every MEP per annum.

1200 a day? For £32 million?

That's less traffic than my blog gets. No, not this party one, but my personal one, the one that's just me grumbling at the world.

They're really not getting very far in this bright new online world, are they?

Very interesting figures

2009-02-18T13:34:00.002Z

Very interesting indeed. I normally take MigrationWatch with a pinch of salt but as far as I can see these figures stand up:

5 The Labour force survey is the best available source. For the fourth quarter of 2008 this shows a UK born workforce of 25,582,000. The number of workers born in the A 8 countries was 482,000; this represents a fall of about 6% on the previous quarter but is very similar to the level of Q 4 2007 so there is, as yet, no clear sign of a significant return home by East European workers. The number of workers born in the EU 14 countries was 690,000; thus the total born in the other European Union countries was 1,172,000. The same survey gave the total number of non UK born as 3,819,000. Thus 70% of foreign born workers come from outside the EU [1].

6. Measured by nationality the results are different because some 1.5 million migrant workers have acquired British nationality. A8 nationals are 469,000 while EU 14 nationals come to 548,000 giving a total of EU nationals of 1,017,000.

British workers in the EU
7 The number of UK Nationals working in other EU countries is approximately 286,000. The main destinations are Germany 65,000, Ireland 52,000, Spain 42,000, France 36,000, Netherlands 28,000 (Annex A).

8 The number of EU workers in Britain is thus three or four times the number of British workers in the EU, depending on whether you take the EU born or those who are still EU nationals. Reasons for this imbalance may include limited language skills among British workers, relatively low unemployment rates in Britain in recent years and the fact that wages here are generally higher than in most EU countries.

Fascinating, no?

Yes, that's the point

2009-02-13T10:02:00.002Z

It really is remarkable what people will complain about:

French and German ministers are expected to confront the Chancellor over sterling's weakness at the opening dinner for the Group of Seven finance summit in Rome tonight. They will ask him to consider direct action to increase the value of the pound, which has suffered its worst devaluation since at least the final breakdown of the Bretton Woods agreement in the early 1970s.

What's that use of the word "worst" there? "Best" would be more appropriate, no? The economy has suffered a shock and prices must therefore change. That they change to the new, correct, level is not a bad thing, but a good thing. And an exchange rate is only that, a price.

The pound has weakened by about a quarter over the past year as it has become increasingly apparent that the UK faces a worse recession than most other developed nations, and that the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee will be forced to slash interest rates as a result.

OK, if this is true, then the pound should indeed change in value in response. This is the very point of having a market in anything at all, so as to discover prices.

In particular, companies in Europe have complained that the pound's recent devaluation has left their exporters suffering, as businesses are switching to cheaper British goods.

Well, quite, that's rather the point. That's why we're happy that we have an independent currency so that the value can indeed change: and thus the symptom of the problem, a falling exchange rate, becomes the solution to the problem.

Where the power lies

2009-02-12T09:21:00.002Z

An interesting little detail that explains something that sometimes puzzles people about our activities in the European Parliament.

The European Parliament’s campaigning Petitions Committee approved a damning new report slamming planning loopholes which leave homeowners defenceless against developers seizing part or all of their property.

Sounds terribly important, doesn't it? And the law they're complaining about is indeed vile. But here's the important line:

Now the Petitions Committee - which has no direct power - has made a new call on the Madrid government to force revision of the regional law.

This is why we almost never sign up to such petitions and motions. They have no power over anything at all. They're simply pious notions that show that MEPs "care"....not that MEPs are going to do anything about the subject. Something to show the constituents, not something that's going to change anything.

For the truth is that MEPs and Parliament cannot do anything about this or any other matter. The European Parliament does not have the right to initiate legislation. It can only vote on or attempt to amend legislation sent to it by the Commission or perhaps other agencies of the EU.

It's just another example of the lack of democracy within the whole system. The only elected people in it aren't able to even propose the law. There is indeed a Parliament, as we know, but it's a facade, the real power lies elsewhere.

Which is why we must leave, of course.

This would be a good start

2009-02-07T08:36:00.003Z

The worst thing, politically, about the present situation is that it makes democracies seem weak all over again. What most annoys people about Gordon Brown promising to produce "British jobs for British workers" is that he can't.
"No politician," said the Labour-supporting New Statesman primly this week, "should ever promise something that he knows is illegal under EU law." Perhaps, but if this means that he can promise very little at all, you do begin to wonder what is the point of him, and of the system which underpins him.
Is there any way of restoring the basic link, on which parliamentary democracy depends, between the interests of the voters and the actions of the people they vote for?

It would be even more interesting if politicians would actually realise quite how much of what they propose is indeed illegal under EU law.

For example, every single thing that anyone says about changing trade rules: this is now an EU sole competency and Westminster, our government, has no power over it at all.

There are, as we know, many other areas like this, where those in London posture and preen about what they would do for us without telling us that they have already signed that power away.

Perhaps we should design a little system of buzzers? Attatch one to each and every politician in the land. When they say something that they would do, but something which would be illegal under EU law, then the buzzer goes off.....and it only doesn't go off if they say "therefore we must leave the EU".

"I will take back control of our fisheries"...Buzz!

"We will control our borders"...Buzz!

"British jobs for British workers"...Buzz!

Only if we leave the EU matey, only if we leave the EU.

Nigel in The Guardian

2009-02-05T09:37:00.001Z

Nigel has a piece in The Guardian's Comment is Free.

Worth having a read.

Steve Crowther

2009-02-04T16:55:00.002Z

Has a great letter in the North Devon Gazette.

While the opposition leader foolishly derides 'British jobs for British workers' as a phrase "borrowed from the BNP", Government Ministers claim to be looking for "a change in the rules" to prevent the monumental realisation that this is what EU membership is, fundamentally, all about. We are one of the wealthiest countries in the community of 27 - so everything we have must be made available to the others, until we are all as poor as each other.

Lord Mandelson, who is still paid to promote the EU despite being a British Cabinet Minister (his handsome EU pension will be withdrawn if he does otherwise - that is the rule), has broken the habit of a lifetime by telling it straight on this occasion: "Within the rules, UK companies can operate in Europe and European companies can operate here. Protectionism would be a sure-fire way of turning recession into depression."

In the EU which is now our ruler, 'British jobs for British workers' is protectionism, it is against the rules and it will not be allowed. As Nigel Farage of UKIP told the BBC, "It doesn't matter how many meetings are held, how much or how loud anyone shouts... we signed away our rights when we joined this prison of nations that is the EU."

Get used to it. Or get angry, and demand that we withdraw from the EU and regain the right to keep ourselves in work.

There's more there so do click through to read it. And you tell 'em Steve, you tell 'em like it is.

If I were elected as an MEP my first priority would be ....

2009-02-04T13:27:00.001Z

Over at the EU Parliament site, they've got a little form asking what would be your first priority if you were elected as an MEP.

As Gawain says, it's just too easy to have fun with something like this, isn't it?

Go on, have a go. Tell 'em what you really think.

Nigel on Mandelson

2009-02-03T13:28:00.001Z

Janet Daly on the EU

2009-02-02T09:41:00.002Z

This is certainly a robust view.

In the grand abstract terms of the enlightenment, the legitimacy of government derives from the consent of the governed, and therefore no government should have the right to hand over its authority to some external body which is not democratically accountable to its own people. So when the framers of the EU arranged for the nations of Europe to do exactly that, they were repudiating the two centuries old political struggle for the rights and liberties of ordinary citizens, of government "of the people, by the people and for the people". It has always been my view that this was a quite conscious decision by the EU founders who, in the wake of two world wars, came to believe that the infamous national crimes of the 20th century could be traced directly to the democratic revolutions of the 18th century, and that the only long-term solution to this was to replace democracy with oligarchy.

However, I think there's an error there. For I'm not quite convinced that the democratic values of the enlightenment really ever quite took hold in certain continental states in the same way that they did here (and in the US which she discusses). Just as an example, France has always been run by an oligarchic bureaucracy, one much more closed to outside entrants than anything in this country.

So I'm not entirely certain that the EU is based so much on rejecting that enlightenment, rather, on those places which never really embraced it imposing their system upon those that did.

Immingham, Grangemouth, jobs....

2009-01-31T14:37:00.001Z

British jobs and British workers......there's actually nothing at all that anyone can do about this. Not one single thing, as Nigel points out:

And UKIP leader Nigel Farage said Acas would be powerless to help because European law barred countries from reserving jobs for its own workers.
"It doesn't matter how many meetings are held, how much or how loud anyone shouts... we signed away our rights when we joined this prison of nations that is the EU," he said.

These oil refinery strikes

2009-01-30T11:42:00.002Z

This story is simply a symptom of a much larger one, one that has very serious implications for us all.

A series of unofficial strikes broke out across Britain today over plans by oil companies to give jobs to construction workers from Portugal and Italy. The contractors were to work on the giant £200m Lindsey oil refinery at North Killingholme, North Lincolnshire.

The basic background is that any contract over a certain size must be put out to tender right across the European Union. If a foreign company, employing foreign labour, makes the best tender, then they get the job. There's no way that, in Gordon Brown's words, we can have "British jobs for British workers". Because the EU rules simply say that we can't.

This is bad enough of course but think about what happens next. Alistair Darling is talking about spending tens of billions, perhaps hundreds of billions, on infrastructure projects, shiny new trains, lots more windmills, perhaps a Severn Barrage and so on. And yes, part of the argument for this is to pull us out of the recession, to create jobs so that we don't have millions upon millions of people languishing on the dole.

And it will be us taxpayers who have to pay for all of this of course. It might be paid for by borrowing now, but the bill will come home in the future.

Ah, yes, you've spotted it. We want to spend this money so as to provide those British jobs for British workers. That's the whole Keynesian idea of a fiscal stimulus, of the infrastructure building. But under the EU rules, we can't make these jobs only for the British. They have to be advertised right across the EU.

So what we'll end up with is, as Godfrey Bloom has pointed out, "British taxes for foreign workers".

It's about time we left, don't you think, and we ran our economy for us?

Iceland and the EU....and the euro

2009-01-30T11:32:00.002Z

This story about Iceland maybe applying to join the euro is rather interesting. Even, perhaps, joining the EU itself....although most people seem to think that you have to join the EU to join the euro.

Olli Rehn, the European commissioner in charge of enlargement, said: "The EU prefers two countries joining at the same time rather than individually. If Iceland applies shortly and the negotiations are rapid, Croatia and Iceland could join the EU in parallel. On Iceland, I hope I will be busier. It is one of the oldest democracies in the world and its strategic and economic positions would be an asset to the EU."

That actually sounds very much like the Commissioner floating an idea rather than an actual plan happening. The big problem for Iceland is of course that joining the EU would mean joining the most disastrous of all fishing regimes in the world, the Common Fisheries Policy. As, indeed, people are noting.

While there is support for joining the euro as a currency safe haven to protect Iceland from a battering by the markets, there is less enthusiasm for full EU membership, particularly among those in the vital fishing sector.

There are those therefore suggesting something very different indeed. Adopting the euro but not joining the European Union.

This factor has fuelled talk of "unilateral euroisation", meaning that Iceland might join or use the single currency without being admitted to the EU. This is dismissed in Brussels as nonsense.

I do have to wonder though why people are dismissing this as nonsense. Joining the euro might not be sensible, but it's certainly entirely possible. There's absolutely nothing at all that Brussels or anyone else could do to stop Iceland simply declaring that the euro was the only legal tender on the island.

Anyone with an ounce of knowledge of how monetary systems work would know that it's not in fact very difficult to do. After all, Panama does not have its own currency and hasn't for decades. They use the US $. Ecuador abolished their own currency and moved to the US $ in the 1990s (I think that date is correct). I lived and worked in Russia when there were two currencies, the rouble and the dollar.

As I say, this might or might not be a sensible idea, but it's most certainly not nonsense.

Poor Mary

2009-01-27T17:35:00.001Z

You really do want to read the comments section here.

Mary Honeyball gets a right talking to from the citizenry.

More euro economics

2009-01-24T17:50:00.001Z

It's worth noting that this is from a very sneior and very well respected economist. And that he's been saying these things since at least 1992.

These proponents of the single currency said that a single currency was needed to facilitate trade and that a single currency would promote efficiency by permitting price comparisons. EMU advocates in Britain argued that these economic gains were worth the political sacrifices � the loss of sovereignty over monetary affairs and over other economic policies that would result from joining the EMU. But Britain already had the free trade advantages of being a member of the European Union. I argued that there were in effect no net economic gains � more likely a net economic loss -- to compensate Britain for the political costs of joining the Economic and Monetary Union. Certainly there is nothing in economic theory or in historic experience to suggest that international trade requires a single currency. The argument that one market requires one money was the kind of political slogan that frankly bothered me as an economist. I was also not impressed by the idea that a single currency would facilitate price competition that would improve market efficiency. The housewife in Madrid buys her bread locally. So knowing what bread costs in Berlin or Rome is irrelevant. The industrial buyer who may already shop for steel or chemicals in different national markets could easily compare prices stated in different currencies with the help of a pocket calculator. In contrast, the economic costs of a single currency are very real. A single currency means a single monetary policy and a single exchange rate. A single monetary policy for a group of heterogeneous countries that experience different shocks cannot be optimal � the problem is that, when it comes to monetary policy, one size cannot fit all. If monetary policy has to consider unemployment as well as inflation, the average cyclical unemployment rate will be higher with a single currency. A single currency also means that a country that experiences an increased trade deficit caused by a reduced demand for its export products cannot be helped by a natural � i.e. automatic -- exchange rate adjustment.

It's worth reading the whole thing.

Free speech and all that.

2009-01-23T12:59:00.002Z

So our own Godfrey Bloom organises a conference on the thorny subject of smoking. Yes, all sorts of people have all sorts of views on the subject.

That's what we have democracy for, so that we have a peaceful means of coming to a compromise between people and their very different views. And of course a key part of the system is that people are able, if not actively encouraged, to express those different views so that they can be taken into account when making said compromise.

Not, it appears, in the EU though. A decent overview is here.

Quite simply, because at this conference views which are not approved might be promoted, the conference was cancelled. By the authorities. By the Parliament authorities.

That is, the talking shop where compromises are reached is not willing to allow even the premises to be used to express non-compliant views.

Can we leave yet?

Ireland and the euro

2009-01-23T10:26:00.002Z

An excellent piece here on what membership of the euro has done to Irealnd. And would have done to us if we had been stupid enough to enter it:

Yes, Britain is losing 2,500 jobs a day and home repossessions have nearly doubled in a year. And indeed British banks are on death-watch, the economy is likely to shrink by almost three percent this year, and the high streets are desolate. Savers are being robbed of interest, and industry is in despair.
Still, I can offer you one light in the darkness. Just look across to Ireland and see how much worse things would be now if Britain had joined the euro.
What we have in Ireland is Exhibit A in the case against the United Kingdom ever surrendering sterling to Europe.
Ireland has been in the euro since it was launched ten years ago. During those ten years, the euro and its European Central Bank turned a healthy, growing Irish economy of the 1990s into a fake-boom economy of property bubbles, consumer debt and reckless bankers.
Now it has all crashed. The Irish are facing perhaps a decade of stagnation and high tax.
In 1997, Ireland was lauded on the front cover of the Economist as 'Europe's shining light.' After ten years in the euro - with no control over its interest rates, and no influence over its exchange rates - Ireland now has the second worse economy in the EU, second only to Latvia.

Thank goodness we didn't join, eh? And let's make sure we don't make that mistake in the future, either, shall we?

The butter mountain is back

2009-01-23T09:31:00.002Z

The European Commission has announced plans to artificially boost prices by buying up 139,000 tonnes of diary products at a cost to the public purse of £237 million.

Oh joy. We thought we'd got rid of that nonsense, didn't we? But no:

Export subsidies and EU food stocks were last used in 2007 and the Commission last year tried to scrap such payments, a reform that was blocked by France and Germany.

Thanks guys.

So, in the middle of a recession, the EU is taking the tax money from our pockets, making us poorer, and using it to make food more expensive, making us poorer again. How to beat the bad times, make the citizenry poorer twice over. Sheesh.

Can we leave yet?

It's not democracy so much

2009-01-21T15:06:00.002Z

It's the rule of law that's important.

Yes, yes, I know, democracy is important, we do need to have a system in which we can decide who we're going to hire to go and run the difficult things for us. And as Churchill pointed out, democracy is the worst of these except for all the others.

But the rule of law is even more important than that.

There was widespread anger last week when it emerged that the Government was planning to exempt MPs' expenses from Freedom of Information legislation.

They are the people that have been democratically elected to write the laws so we can't complain too much about their writing a law. However, this bit:

The measure would be applied retrospectively, thus blocking the publication of the receipts.

That's the truly awful thing.

Leave aside all the arguments about whether we should see receipts, whether we shouldn't. The law as it is right now says that, after various court cases, we can see them. To retrospectively change the law is to change the law as it was then, not just as it will be going into the future.

The danger is, of course, that we've a long standing idea that you can only be charged with a crime if that thing was indeed a crime when you did it. This is one of the great protections we have from the possible vindictiveness of those who have been elected. That they can't turn around and make something we've already done illegal after the fact.

Something which all seems to have escaped the current government.

You what?

2009-01-21T15:01:00.002Z

I'm not sure I understand this.

Employees should still accrue paid days off even if they are unable to work, the judgement said, because their rights and job benefits cannot be dependent on how well they are.
They must also be allowed to take time off that they built up while ill the previous year, and receive a payment in lieu of days off if they leave a job having been unable to take their full complement of paid leave.
The European Court of Justice declared: "A worker does not lose his right to paid annual leave which he has been unable to exercise because of sickness. He must be compensated for his annual leave not taken.
"The entitlement to annual leave of a worker on sick leave duly granted cannot be made subject to the obligation actually to have worked in the course of the leave year laid down by a member state."

Seriously? I get holiday pay when I've been off sick?

Might we not think that this is a tad de trop? Has the EU decided that I should get a bonus for not turning up to work as well? Maybe I should get my lunch allowance for not having lunch? Or my train ticket paid for when I don't commute?

Blimey, why don't we go to a simpler system. One where people decide amongst themselves the terms upon which they'll work and which they'll be employed?

More on the euro

2009-01-20T11:05:00.002Z

We've got intellectual pygmies like Will Hutton telling us that we should join the euro:

Will Hutton, journalist and executive vice chair of the Work Foundation and co-compiler of the report, argues that failure to enter the Euro would risk ‘endemic inflation’.

The we've got real intellectuals like the most recent Nobel Laureate in Economics, Paul Krugman.

So what can Spain do? It needs to become more competitive — but it can’t have a devaluation, because it’s a euro country. So the only alternative is wage cuts, which are desperately hard to achieve (and create big problems for debtors.)

Contrary to what everyone seemed to be saying even a few weeks ago, being a member of the eurozone doesn’t immunize countries against crisis. In Spain’s case (and Italy’s, and Ireland’s, and Greece’s) the euro may well be making things worse.
And Britain’s plunging pound, unpopular though it is, may turn out to have been a very good thing.

So who are you going to believe? A two bit journalist or someone recently awarded the highest accolade in the intellectual world?

Toughie that one, isn't it?

Quite right Ambrose

2009-01-20T09:14:00.002Z

Real interest rates of minus 2pc set by Frankfurt for German needs led to a Spanish property bubble of fearsome scale. Construction rose to 16pc of GDP, trumping the British and US bubble by large margins. Spanish companies tapped the euro capital markets as if there was tomorrow. Reliance on foreign borrowing reached 10pc of GDP, among the world's highest. Wages went up and up. The result is a current account deficit that is also 10pc of GDP.

Interest rates were too low for Spain (and Ireland etc) in the boom times. Now they're too high in the bad times. But much more than that we know of two ways which a country can use to get out of these bad times. The first is to lower interest rates and thus devalue the currency. But if you're in a single currency like the euro of course you cannot do that. The second way is to have wage deflation in that country.

That means falling wages....not just falling wages in real terms (ie, accounting for inflation) but falling wages in nominal terms (that is, the actual amount of cash people gets must fall). Now this is indeed possible: but I'm not sure that I can think of any democratic society that has managed to reduce nominal wages. At least, not without a great deal of rioting in the streets.

Spain has to claw back 20pc to 30pc against a stern German that will not inflate. Therefore, Spain must deflate. It must embark on a 1930s policy of draconian wage cuts.

It remains to be seen whether this will be tolerated by a democracy. Brussels expects Spanish unemployment to reach 19pc – or 4.5m people – by late next year. This is a depression.

This is an effect of the euro. No, it's not a side effect nor was it unseen. It's a direct effect of, if you're going to have one currency then you also have to have one interest rate, and it was predicted. Indeed, it's the sort of thing that even I, not an economist, was predicting back in the 1990s.

Thank goodness we didn't in fact join and let this be a lesson to those arguing that we should. If it's not an optimal currency area then a single currency just doesn't work.

Anne Frank and Danny Finkelstein

2009-01-19T14:25:00.002Z

Please do go and read this.

Read it all.

It's almost unbearably sad and massively enraging. You certainly wouldn't want to be a holocaust denier anywhere around someone who had just read that.

Do make sure to read the very last line.

Marching bands outside my window

2009-01-19T09:22:00.003Z

Here at UKIP press office central we're right in the heart of Westminster. This means that when the military musicians decide to take their instruments out for an airing they march and play just outside our window.

Just spotted something that rather confused me. So there's 20, 30 men in greatcoats and bearskins marching down the road and pumping out the 19 th century equivalent of pop music and behind them are another 20, 30 men (umm, a platoon I think from my limited military knowledge) in greatcoats and bearskins carrying that rather nifty looking new rifle.

There's also a rather pretty looking policewoman on a horse traling along behind them in her turn.

Why?

What might happen on a London street that a woman on a horse can deal with and thirty armed men cannot?

It just puzzles me.

EU stupidity in Wales

2009-01-18T09:45:00.002Z

From Booker's column:

Another British industry which may soon disappear, thanks to our masters in Brussels, is production of that remarkably useful metal aluminium. Although we rank only 19th in the world production league, our two main plants, in Anglesey and Northumberland, are as efficient as any of their competitors. But aluminium relies heavily on constant supplies of electricity.
The Holyhead plant, Wales's largest electricity user, is supplied at a discount price by the nearby Wylfa nuclear power station, state-owned through the Nuclear Decommissioning Authoritty (NDA). If the NDA was privately owned, it says it would be happy to carry on selling power to its largest customer at a discount. But under EU state-aid rules this is now "against the law".

This is willful stupidity on the part of the EU. The major cost in producing aluminium is electricity. So much so that you normally build your smelters right next to a long term source of cheap power. So much so in fact that you might deliberately go and build a dam (as has been done in many parts of the world) and then build your smelter right beside it so as to get cheap electricity.

In a country like the UK, where we've not got much hydro power possibility unused, we might build our smelter close to a nuclear plant. And the nuclear plant would be very happy to have you next door as you're going to be a reliable customer for a good percentage of their power, decade after decade.

In fact, this symbiotic relationship is so strong that the decision to build or not to build a nuclear plant will be informed by whether someone would like to build an aluminium smelter next door. And this is indeed what happened here. There is no coincidence in Wylfa and the smelter both opening in 1971. They were both built knowing that the other would be. The smelter gets a guarantee of low cost electricity, the nuclear plant knows that they have a long term customer for a substantial chunk of output and is willing to offer a discount to get one.

Think about it in any other line of business. "I'd like to take 30% of the production of that new plant you're thinking of building for the entire lifetime of the plant but I would like a discount".

Is he going to get his discount? Sure he is. And the EU now says this is illegal.

They're fools.

They eat horses, don't they?

2009-01-15T16:31:00.000Z

Godfrey does Goddersvision.

Most fun.

This is something to see

2009-01-15T15:18:00.001Z

But Lord Malloch Brown said: 'With 24 countries having approved the Treaty, I am not sure whether the voters of Ireland should have a right of veto over the aspirations of all the other people of Europe. I am not sure whether that is or is not democracy.'

Quite remarkable, don't you think? That a man who is a member of a democratic government doesn't seem to know what the word "democracy" itself means?

Nothing to see here

2009-01-15T15:12:00.002Z

Move along now....and in fact there isn't anything to see here.

Caroline Flint, the Europe Minister, was reported as saying that we might at some time join the euro. Now of course, we think that we would be an entirely disastrous idea but it does have to be said that what Flint was saying isn't a change in policy or anything.
Europe minister Caroline Flint opposed a promise made by David Cameron yesterday to keep the pound regardless of the circumstances.
She told Metro: 'We will make a decision based on economic conditions. We have identified five tests that have to be met: convergence with other European economies, flexibility, impact on investment, the impact on the financial services industry and growth stability and employment.
'At the moment, those economic tests have not been met.'
Britain has maintained the same position on the euro since 1997 when Mr Brown as chancellor devised the tests to assess whether the country was ready to switch to the euro.

What we've got to worry about is when they either stop referring to those tests or start to claim that they've been passed.

How it all works

2009-01-15T15:01:00.002Z

Interesting fact for today: The Pesticide Action Network, who were interviewed by the BBC yesterday, welcoming the EU's decision to ban a range of pesticides, are funded by...the EU.

That's from Bishop Hill.

That's where some of that 2.4 billion euros the EU spends on propaganda goes. To so called "independent" organisations so that they can praise whatever it is that the EU is up to this week.

Timeo Danae: Not

2009-01-14T14:44:00.002Z

We've had a fun little back and forth with some Greek MEPs over the last couple of days. Yesterday Nigel makes a speech in the Strasbourg Parliament which points out that the Greek bonds have a spread of 233 basis points over the German Bund (no, don't worry, you don't need to know all of this financial terminology. Essentially, the Greek Government has to pay a lot more to borrow money that the German one does because the markets think they're a dodgy bunch....).

Then the Greek MEPs allied with the EPP (ie, sitting with David Cameron's bods) send around an email which says this:

Following today's attempt by Mr Farage to attack the EURO through provocative statements on Greece's membership to the EMU -during the plenary debate on the 10th anniversary of the EURO-, the Greek EPP-ED Delegation (Nea Demokratia) would like to inform you that today's tender of government bonds yielded a total amount of 2,550 billion Euros at an average rate of 2,51%, well below the Euribor rate of reference. The final result covers more than 6 times the amount targeted by the Greek government.

This offers a tangible response to any Member seeking to establish the truth regarding the credibility of Greece's performance as a trustworthy member of the Eurozone.

Mr Farage was really unlucky to attack Greece on the same day that markets proved their confidence to the Greek economy.

Ohh, get that eh? They'll be scratching our eyes out next.

(Boring technical stuff. Skip this unless you like details. Actually, the Greek government didn't issue bonds. They issued bills. Bonds are for more than a year, bills for less than one. Also, they didn't get "below Euribor". Euribor was 2.19% yesterday for 360 day bills. The Greeks paid 2.67%. This is known in financial circles as "more" than, not "less than" or "well below". The implication of this is that the markets think that the Greek government is a worse risk than your common or garden bank.)

But what is really delightful is that today S&P cut their credit rating for Greece.

This is, to use again that impenetrable jargon of the financial markets, evidence that the markets do not have confidence in the Greek economy, not proof that they do.

That Cameron Promise

2009-01-14T12:53:00.002Z

All sounds very good, doesn't it?

BRITAIN will have a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in October if the Tories win a 2009 snap election, David Cameron declared last night.

The Tory leader and his shadow foreign secretary William Hague vowed to put the hated constitution to a national vote in the autumn.

Mr Cameron – who also promised to keep the Pound – made his pledge to The Sun.

He said he would honour the commitment as soon as possible after a spring General Election victory.

But, umm, as there isn't going to be a snap General Election then they won't win one and they won't hold a referendum.

This is as weasel worded and mealy mouthed as Brown's own promise to have a referendum on the Constitution: which we won't have now because they've changed the title page to "Lisbon Treaty".

We've got to get out so that people will stop lying to us in this manner.

Sir Dai

2009-01-14T10:01:00.002Z

One of the little things about how the newspaper business works is that a lot of stories come from the Press Association. Each newspaper then either prints the piece or, more likley, takes the parts of it that it wants and then prints it as their own story.

So one of the things that we try to keep an eye on in the press office is, if something is mentioned in a Press Association story, which of the newspapers then use that little bit of it that mentions us?

Like this from the PA story about Sir Dai:

Nigel Farage, leader of the UKIP party, paid tribute to Sir Dai, saying: "He was a larger than life character who brought great joy to both life and our party.

"We are sad to see him gone. We will remember him, and of course we will still be fighting for what he believed in, which is a free, sovereign and independent United Kingdom."

A nodding donkey

2009-01-13T15:46:00.001Z

What, actually, is the point of electing a Conservative Euro MP? Nodding donkey's might actually be more useful: at least a donkey sometimes turns around and bites back.

Is this really necessary?

2009-01-10T10:16:00.002Z

We all know what the point of the European Union is. Sr. Barroso has told us. It's to stop Germany invading France. Again*.

Is this really a necessary part of ensuring that?

The EU has also imposed a limit on the quantity of cow pats that can be allowed to stand on farm land. The NFU has warned that the 170 kilos per hectare limit is too low for about 40pc of dairy farms and the Government has agreed to lobby Brussels to raise the limit to 250 kilos.

We need to monitor the toilet habits of cows to stop the Wehrmacht marching down the Champs Elysee again?

Can we leave yet?

* There is a thought that, after four or five attempts at taking France over the last couple of centuries, the Wehrmacht actually succeeded last time. Perhaps, having actually taken the place, they simply think now that France isn't worth the effort, and thus we don't need to worry about it?

Misunderstanding Sangatte

2009-01-10T08:57:00.002Z

As Nigel says:

UKIP leader Nigel Farage said: “Monsieur Pinte clearly does not understand the UN convention on refugees but prefers to pass on the problem to Britain. And he has no understanding of history as most of the countries he refers to were not British colonies.”

Well, quite. Would be immigrants into the UK can be divided into three groups. Firstly, those who are EU citizens, such as those from Eastern Europe. They have, under EU law, an absolute right to move and settle in here, just as you or I have an absolute right to move to any other EU country. Whether we like this or not is entirely different from whether this is true or not. (There are still some restrictions on Romanians or Bulgarians *working* in the UK, but they have the freedom to come here all the same.)

The second group are migrants from outside the EU. These might be economic migrants, family members, students, whatever, and at present it is up to each individual country as to who they will let in and why. Brazil and Portugal have a special arrangement for historical reasons, as an example, as the UK does with, say, family members in ex-Empire countries. The EU is very much trying to take control of this aspect of immigration and is encroaching on the national perogatives. For example, there's a mooted change whereby someone who comes in under one of those special arrangements, or who gets the right to live in any one EU country, can then assume the right to live in any other EU country.

Then there's the third group, asylum seekers. These are people (in the true definition) fleeing oppression in their homelands. The law here isn't either national or EU. It's a UN Convention. The problem I think that most of us have isn't that there is a special set of laws for asylum seekers. We wouldn't send dissidents back to be murdered by a Stalin type figure, send Jews into the Holocaust, the problem is in distinguishing between those cases and those who are simply adopting such a cloak to cover their desire to be economic migrants.

So, what is it that M. Pinte said?

In an open letter to France’s Immigration Minister Brice Hortefeux, Mr Pinte, the MP for Versailles, said Britain should accept all the migrants in northern France and consider their asylum claims on British soil.
He said: “Why are the British rejecting them while at the same time they’re welcoming thousands of citizens from eastern Europe and in particular from Poland?
“They don’t want to stay in France. They have a common history with the British. Most of them speak English. They often have family members who emigrated to Great Britain at a time when being part of the Commonwealth entitled them to do so.

The EU migrants are let in because EU law insists that they should be let in. The asylum seekers are in France because asylum seekers don't have the right to go where they want. They have the right to claim shelter and succour from the first safe country they get to. Unless he's saying that France is not a safe place, the very fact that they are in France means that, as asylum seekers, France is the place they should seek asylum.

This isn't a matter of interpretation, or nuance, this is simply what the law is. And as Nigel points out, M. Pinte seems to simply not know what this law is.

MEPs new pay deal

2009-01-10T08:45:00.002Z

This is something I find really quite disturbing:

Britain's army of Euro MPs are to see their pay soar by almost £20,000 under reforms intended to end the Brussels gravy train.
A deal due to take effect this year will see MEPs' salaries increase by around a third to £82,000, making them higher paid than Westminster MPs.

No, not really that bit. If people are going to take currency risks with their pay then there will be times when the rates move in their favour....and times when they move against them. Rather, it's these two bits.

Currently the 78 British MEPs are paid £63,291, the same as MPs. But from July they will be paid in euros which represents a bumper pay rise given the current strength of the European currency against sterling.
The wage hike at a time when thousands of jobs are being lost has outraged critics, who accuse MEPs of being out of touch with the grim economic reality faced by millions.
Under the deal, members of the European Parliament are also exempt from British tax and National Insurance and instead are charged a lower special EU tax of between 15 per cent and 17 per cent.

It isn't just that they will be paid in euros. It's that they will be paid by the European Parliament, not the Home Office. That's right, no longer will our representatives be paid by us. The second is that special tax rate. This will be the first time ever that our constituency representatives will face a different tax rate from constituents.

That, to me at least, is a very dangerous innovation, it's the beginning of the creation of a special privileged class.

Yes, OK, the Treasury says that it will introduce a new special tax rate to make up for this but again, that's the creation of a new special system, another set of privileges.

There's a much simpler solution. The Government can simply say that all MEPs will continue to be paid by the taxpayer, by the Home Office, and not the European Parliament. This power exists under the current regulations. And after all, the MEPs are our representatives to the Parliament, aren't they, they're not the Parliament's representatives to us. And if they're paid by the Home Office, as now, then they'll face the same tax system as us, as now.

And as Nigel says:

MEP Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, said: 'I think MEPs should be paid the same as MPs.
'Given the current exchange rate, it is an outrage that MEPs face a massive pay increase. Voters will be very angry about this.'

And there are two ways to get a pay rise of course....get more money, or pay less of it in tax.

Oh Joy!

2009-01-09T11:46:00.002Z

So we in the UK have to approve one of the most intrusive laws we've ever seen as a result of the EU telling us we must do so.

From March, ISPs will have to keep data about emails sent and received in the UK for a year in an EU-wide bid to tackle terrorism.
They would have to be able to provide the timing and number of communications from individuals, but not their content.
It follows a ruling last October that telecoms companies should keep records of phone calls and text messages for 12 months
About 57 billion text messages were sent in Britain last year, while an estimated three billion emails are sent every day.
Parliament approved the powers, described as a vital tool against terrorism, last July under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.
The law is being implemented as part an EC directive, and the Government will reportedly have to pay the ISPs more than £25 million to ensure it is obeyed.

The whole idea is simply abhorrent under our system of law. We haven't, historically, allowed the State to take such powers for our basic belief is that yes, there are indeed things that we define as crimes but everything else is not just legal to do but our right to do if we should so wish.

It's simply no business of the government who we email or text. Only if we are charged with a crime can such records be accessed: that's how we've historically done things. That isn't, unfortunately, how it has historically been on the Continent. And we seem to be importing the worst parts of the continental relationship between the citizen and the State rather than exporting our own much better system.

Time we leace before that uniquely British system of freedom and liberty is entirely destroyed.

Spain and the euro

2009-01-09T11:32:00.002Z

Yet more evidence that we really don't want to be in the euro....as several countries that are in it are finding out that they really don't want to be.

Spain lost almost 140,000 jobs in December, pushing unemployment to 3.1m or 13.4pc. The Labour Office said the country had shed a million in jobs in 2008 as the building boom collapsed. This is equivalent to 7m job losses in the United States.

The Labour Secretary Maravillas Rojo said she could not rule out a rise in unemployment to 4m this year. "We are in an unprecedented situation, and 2009 is going to be very difficult," she said.
Madrid now has its hands tied under the constraints of monetary union. It cannot slash interest rates or devalue, and it has already exhausted its scope for fiscal stimulus under the EU's Stability Pact.

There has to be flexibility in the economy: if you're not going to get it from interest rates and an exchange rate that suits local conditions, then you're going to have to get it the difficult way, through mass unemployment.

Better to have the interest rate and exchange rate flexibility, don't you think?

Europeanising the North Sea

2009-01-09T08:47:00.002Z

Disturbing news from Brussels:

BRITAIN’S vital North Sea oil and gas supplies are to be taken over by Europe under emergency plans revealed for the first time in Brussels yesterday.

EU leaders are demanding control of British energy reserves to prevent power blackouts that have left millions of eastern Europeans without heat in Arctic weather due to the Russian gas blockade.

No, this isn't just some crazed idea (although it is crazed). This is something that they already have the power to do. Or at least, power they will have if the Lisbon Treaty finally gets ratified.

The transfer of ownership would be enacted under secret powers written into the controversial Lisbon Treaty. It gives Europe the legal power to take over individual states’ supplies to “ensure security of energy supply in the Union”.

Ultimate control over Britain’s vast natural gas and oil fields – by far the biggest resource within the EU – will fall to Brussels if the new treaty, which has already been ratified by Britain, is adopted throughout Europe.

Yup. They want what is ours.

Last night, however, there were calls for Britain to stand firm against the seizure of our oil and gas. UKIP leader Nigel Farage said: “Brussels has already stolen our fish. Now they want our oil and gas. These are vital resources to Britain and we demand that the British Government vetoes these proposals. This shows how vital it is that the UK holds a referendum on our future in the European Union.”

As Nigel says, they want to take the oil and gas just as they've taken the fish. And they've made a right pig's ear of the fisheries, haven't they?

Can we leave yet?

Vaclav Klaus

2009-01-07T12:22:00.002Z

Yes, I know, it's not often that we think that the President of the European Union has good ideas. However, the post has just been taken up by Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic. He's got a great piece in the Financial Times today.

Aggregate demand needs strengthening. One traditional way to do this is to increase government expenditures, probably in public infrastructure projects, on condition these are available. It would be much more helpful, however, to have a great reduction in all kinds of restrictions on private initiatives introduced in the last half a century during the era of the brave new world of the “social and ecological market economy”. The best thing to do now would be temporarily to weaken, if not repeal, various labour, environmental, social, health and other “standards”, because they block rational human activity more than anything else.
As regards the EU’s “constitutional” stalemate, the Czech government will – hopefully – not lead Europe to an ever-closer union, to a Europe of regions (instead of states), to a centralised, supranational Europe or to an increasingly controlled and regulated Europe masterminded from above. It will keep stressing its EU presidency slogan “Europe without barriers”, which means the advocacy of further liberalisation, removing trade barriers and getting rid of protectionism.
Our historical experience gives us a clear instruction: we always need more of markets and less of government intervention. We also know that government failure is more costly than market failure.

It's worth reading the whole thing. However, we do need to remember on huge caveat. That however hard we try we know that this isn't the way that the Project is going to develop. It just isn't going to be possible to negotiate from within, we need to leave so that we can build this desirable end point for ourselves: the EU is never going to become what we desire.

Raise the personal allowance

2009-01-07T12:08:00.002Z

An interesting piece of news. Well, perhaps gossip is a better description. Gordon Brown is apparently mulling raising the personal allowance for income tax to £10,000.

Gordon Brown is considering raising the tax-free allowance to £10,000 as part of measures to help families struggling with the credit crunch, a close ally has claimed.

John McFall, chairman of the influential Commons Treasury committee, said he knows the move - which would effectively exempt millions of low-paid workers from income tax - is "in the Prime Minister's mind".

We at UKIP of course support such a move. For it's something which we've been arguing for some time, that the first and most basic thing we have to do with our income tax system is to stop taxing the working poor. Of course, we go further and argue that we need to simplify the system by having a flat tax as well. But at least we can see that the basic idea, that it is near insane to both tax and provide tax credits to the same people, is getting through.

It's also an interesting example of how things work in politics. When we first announced this policy, that the working poor should be taken out of the tax net altogether, it was considered to be near lunacy. Now, only a couple of short years later, it's become a mainstream idea. Even Polly Toynbee has been known to support it (yes, I know, that's not quite something we would use normally as a recommendation of an idea, Polly's support, but...) and now we've got one of the Prime Minister's close colleagues floating it as a trial balloon.

It may and does take time, but sensible ideas do tend to get picked up if only someone is brave enough to propose them in the first place.

An excellent overview of the euro

2009-01-01T09:30:00.002Z

Ambrose Evans Pritchard:

So the debate goes on. For defenders of sterling - and the Swedish and Norwegian crowns -- the precipitous slide against the euro over recent months is broadly a boon, unless you work in the travel industry, or ski a lot. It acts as a shock absorber at a crucial moment, helping to cushion the economy against debt deflation.

Export profits may hold up long enough to give a lifeline to UK manufacturing and service firms as banks shut off credit lines. It is the difference between survival and failure for thousands of healthy companies. This is what an independent currency is for. It preserved social stability in 1931 when Britain left the Gold Standard, and again in 1992 on leaving the ERM (from which the pound later roared back to a higher level, at the appropriate time).

That's certainly the view that I take. There has to be flexibility in an economy and it's a great deal better that this flexibility be in the exchange rate and interest rates than it is in nominal wages and prices. Because trying to get flexibility in nominal wages and prices is almost impossible.

Defining Propaganda

2008-12-28T10:39:00.002Z

It can be difficult of course. When does the simple imparting of information cross the line into propaganda?

Then again, at other times there's no real problem with making the distinction.

EU Tube’s attempts to adopt street language have also misfired, with ventures such as a three-minute “euro-rap”, which urges young viewers “you gotta be a part of” a united Europe.

“Get on our team, you know what I mean,” the rapper sings, surrounded by teenagers brandishing the EU flag. “It’s the return of the blue. See I’m going to move across from Germany to Paris, oui. We get united and take a stand in solidarity. I speak in all ’hoods.”

Or this:

a three-minute series of clips of people having sex, ending with the words “Let’s come together”. The video, intended to promote the Brussels film subsidy,

Hmmm...

EU Tube is funded out of a €207m (£196m) communication budget from Brussels. So far the channel has attracted 7,391 subscribers. The community has a population of 500m.

I think we'd probably take those examples as being propaganda, wouldn't we?

A spokesman for the European commission in London said: “This is not propaganda, we are simply providing information.”

Ah, yes, that simply confirms it then.

Ode to Joy

2008-12-19T12:15:00.002Z

As we all know, this is the European Union's anthem

D'ye think we could get them to play this version at official events? About the right level of seriousness don't you think?

Nigel, Sarkozy and Klaus

2008-12-17T08:53:00.002Z

Interesting times yesterday in the European Parliament. It starts off with this:

The French president sided with federalist Euro-MPs who are engaged in a bitter feud with Vaclav Klaus, the Czech president and a Eurosceptic.
Senior MEPs, including the president of the European Parliament, Hans Gert Poettering, caused a diplomatic incident ten days ago after demanding that Mr Klaus hoist the European flag over his residence during bad tempered talks in Prague.
"It was a wound, it was an outrage to see that flags had been taken down from public buildings," said President Sarkozy, the current holder of the EU's six-month rotating presidency which he hands over to the Czech Republic in January.

Yes, that dreary insistence that the EU flag must be flown everywhere, even where it's not wanted. The response is rather plain and simple:

Karel Schwarzenberg, the Czech foreign minister, hit back as the diplomatic war of words between Paris and Prague threatened to overshadow the smooth transfer of the EU presidency.
"There is no law binding the Czech Republic to hang the EU flag over Prague Castle. Prague Castle is a symbol of the Czech state and not the EU," he said.
"It is not up to the head of another state to criticise the Czech president over flags."

Quite. Whatever might be the ambition, the collapse of the nation states into a federal system, it hasn't actually happened yet. People are allowed to fly the 12 stars, but it's not required as yet. And Nigel Farage had something to say on it all:

Nigel Farage, the leader of UK Independence Party, compared the EU flag demand to the behaviour of Nazi or Soviet officials, both dictatorships that had occupied Prague and its Castle in the past.
"The manner in which Cohn-Bendit demanded that President Klaus fly the EU flag over his castle could easily have been done by a German official of over 70 years ago or a Soviet official of 20 years ago," he said.
"No doubt they think that Buckingham Palace should fly the EU flag to show its dominium."

A note to The Politics Show

2008-12-16T14:45:00.002Z

The Politics Show is a TV programme coming out of Birmingham.

Just a short note to the people who run it.

An MEP is a Member of the European Parliament.

MEPs do not have the address "House of Commons, London", although thank you for the Christmas card.

No wonder there's a certain confusion amongst the population at large when those speakers of truth to power, the professional media, get such trivially simple things wrong.

Livia Klausova

2008-12-16T13:19:00.000Z

Oh, very good, very good indeed.

"Well were they wrong when they elected your husband?"

Verse about the EU

2008-12-16T12:51:00.001Z

They do in fact seem to get verse and verse.

The entire commissioner college,
Is bereft of all relevant knowledge.
Their spirits are stunted,
Their wits are all blunted,
And their brains are like watered-down porridge.

Anyone who can do better please do so in the comments.

More idiotic euro arguments

2008-12-16T12:12:00.002Z

Perhaps the pound will achieve parity with the euro; perhaps it might even approach parity with the dollar. But so what? The habit of financial writers to call such milestones "psychologically important" just shows that they are in fact economically irrelevant. And the idea that parity with the euro somehow strengthens the case for British membership is asinine: please name one country that has joined it because its old currency was at or close to parity. It is utterly irrelevant.

One worth remembering in the times to come. The arguments in favour and against membership of the euro are nothing at all to do with what rate the exchange rate is. And, as above, from the ex-editor of The Economist, the idea that parity means we should join the euro is simply asinine. Irrelevant even.

That falling pound

2008-12-14T11:43:00.002Z

The solution is contained within the problem.

However, it was estimated that half of the visitors to London's West End were savvy continental shoppers who had travelled to Britain hoping to make a saving by cashing in on a weak pound.

Jace Tyrrell from the NWEC said: "Just as we used to head to New York to grab a bargain, we're now seeing foreign visitors, particularly Europeans, flocking to London. The strong euro against the pound means Europeans are flocking to London to grab a bargain - with prices about 25 to 30% down on Paris and Milan.

"This week Fortnum and Mason's cafe was 70% European visitors and our market across the West End is 50% tourists."

The pound falls, our exports become cheaper for foreigners to buy and thus economic activity here is boosted.

This is how floating exchange rates work and are supposed to work, the solution is built into hte very system. Absolutely the last thing we want to do is give up this self-correcting mechanism by joining the euro.

Spot on

2008-12-14T11:37:00.000Z

The apparatchiks of the European Union establishment have one thing, at least, in common with serial rapists. They cannot accept that no means no. These people all want it really, they say. They’re not victims; they’re gagging for it. And they’ll love it really when we get our way with them. What the EU establishment wants, it gets. It takes, regardless.

Can't really say fairer than that, can you?

A very good point

2008-12-13T15:07:00.000Z

Can someone explain to me why Gordon Brown wants Ireland to vote twice on the Lisbon Treaty while simultaneously insisting that Britain shouldn't vote at all?

Quite Mr Redwood

2008-12-11T14:38:00.002Z

I think we all rather knew this first part.

The outrageous decision to make the Irish vote again shows the EU is thoroughly anti democratic.

It's the second part which is a little more complex.

It also appears that there are changes to the Treaty, over the number of Commissioners. This means it should be put again to the people and Parliaments of the EU everywhere.

Complex even if equally true.

For the assurances that the Irish are seeking need, of course, to be legally watertight. A few well meaning expressions of intent won't cover it. But if they are to be legally watertight then they need to be part of the legal document. Meaning that the treaty approved (if it is of course) by the Irish will be different in a legal sense from the one approved by everyone else.

So, therefore, everybody should have to ratify the treaty once again.

Now of course neither I nor anyone else is sufficiently naive to believe that this is what will actually happen. Which means that not only are we a tad short on that democracy thing within the EU, we're also alarmingly short on the rule of law.

No euro, not here.

2008-12-08T12:06:00.002Z

This is going to be a tad controversial: there are indeed benefits of joining the euro. For there are benefits about doing just about anything. There are also costs to joining the euro, just as there are costs to doing just about anything.

One thing economists like to point out is that there are in fact no solutions. There are only tradeoffs. And what you want to do is work out the value of all of those tradeoffs so that you can make the correct decsion, do this or don't do this?

One of the claimed benefits of joining the euro has been that it will boost trade. Yes, it almost certainly would as the costs (and uncertainties) of using different currencies fall. But what we actually want to know is by how much, so that we can set it off against the undoubted costs of losing our currency and interest rate freedoms.

One of the most important pieces of research used by euro proponents was a paper from Andrew Rose showing that countries which joined currency unions tended to see their trade increase by up to 200pc. However, a paper published by Harvard's Jeffrey Frankel has shown that, in fact, trade within the eurozone increased by just 10-20pc during the first four years of the currency. Moreover, the volume of trade did not rise any further thereafter.

In the paper, published by the National Bureau for Economic Research, Prof Frankel says: "The most surprising finding of this study was the absence of any evidence that the effects of the euro on bilateral trade have continued to rise during the second half of the eight-year history of the euro."

Worth noting that Jeff Frankels is one of those economists we should be listening to. And the benefits are a great deal smaller, one tenth only, of those previously assumed. Further, they come as a one off boost (a "step change" I like to call it) rather than an ever accelerating benefit. This is important because the exchange rate and interest rate flexibility will be something that, retaining the pound, continues to give us extra benefits each year into the future.

So, another nail in the coffin of the idea that the euro is good for us....or anyone else come to that.

A lot of sound and fury signifying nothing

2008-12-08T12:02:00.002Z

This all sounds very good:

Immigrants will have wait up to 10 years for the right to claim UK benefits and council housing in the toughest crackdown seen for decades, it emerged last night.
All legal migrants will have to serve a five year 'probationary citzienship' before being considered for a passport, immigration minister Phil Woolas said.
Those who work hard, are law-abiding and do voluntary work will be eligible for benefits one or two years afterwards.
But others will have to wait another five years before they can claim any benefits at all, in order to deter migrants who see Britain as a soft touch for benefit claimants.
Mr Woolas said: 'Entitlement to benefits should be for citizens of our country, not other people. If you are a citizen you have earned the right to benefits. People must show they are here to work.'

And then you look at the details. This will not apply to asylum seekers as they are dealt with under UN and EU rules. This won't apply to EU citizens because it is illegal for us to make such distinctions against them. The only group it does apply to is non-EU immigrants (who are not asylum seekers) and there really aren't all that many of them.

It's not that I mind or don't mind the restrictions, it's the way that it's being announced.

Last October Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was forced to make the embarrassing admission that the number of foreign workers entering Britain since 1997 was 1.1 million - a staggering 300,000 more than official figures recorded.

It simply doesn't affect that number of people.

No doesn't mean no

2008-12-08T11:58:00.002Z

At least, not in the European Union it seems.

On Thursday the Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen will confirm that a new vote will be held in 2009.
Diplomats have named October as the most likely date for the vote, while Government sources said April was also being considered
Mr Cowen said he believed that the economic crisis could help persuade some of those who voted against the Treaty to change their minds.
The Government is expected to argue that Ireland would have been in a worse position if it had not signed up to the euro, and that the Treaty will speed up decision-making and help tackle the downturn.

That part of being "worse off" out of the euro is of course insane. With their own currency Eire could have set interest rates to suit their own economy rather than that of Germany. They would thus have been higher and the housing boom and subsequent bust less painful.

A warning on the National Database

2008-12-08T11:41:00.002Z

No, we really do not want to have these ID cards nor the associated National Database.

The idiocy of the euro

2008-12-06T12:21:00.002Z

Peter Obourne tells it like it is over the euro. No, of course Britain shouldn't join it, it's a laughable idea.

The truth is that the euro has failed as a currency. Its supporters are talking nonsense when they say it will soon emerge as a major world currency capable of rivalling the dollar. In fact, the single currency is likely to fall apart during the recession.
Back in 1999, the British public was told by Tony Blair and others that we would suffer economically if we stayed out of the euro. As we now know, these warnings were mendacious. Instead, Britain's growth rate has increased by 26 per cent in real terms since 1999. Meanwhile, the eurozone countries have seen a figure of just 21 per cent.
There is a structural reason for this. While the euro has certainly created some benefits for member countries, such as the abolition of currency transactions, these have been outweighed by one fundamental flaw: nations in the eurozone are forced to have the same interest rate regardless of their individual economic circumstances.
Over the past decade, these rates have tended to be too low. This is because they were set in order to help the German economy recover from the recession into which it fell as a result of the massive costs of incorporating East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
While these low rates benefited Germany, they fuelled a disastrous inflationary boom in Spain, Ireland and a number of other countries.
Conversely, the German economy then started to improve - leading to the European Central Bank raising interest rates.
Once again, this policy suited Germany at a time when it needed to hold back inflation. But it has proved disastrous to economies such as those in Ireland, France, Italy and Greece because it suffocated their growth and created a period of prolonged recession from which some will struggle to emerge.
Britain alone, among major European economies, remains outside the euro. This has proved a fantastic piece of good fortune.
Indeed, our economic fate scarcely bears thinking about had we joined the single currency, as all those so- called 'experts' wanted, ten years ago.
With the same, low interest rates as the rest of Europe in the early years, Gordon Brown's credit boom would have been even more reckless. Subsequently, as rates were raised steeply, Britain would have plunged into an even deeper recession because our industry would have found borrowing costs too high.
As it is, sterling has benefited greatly by being outside the eurozone. Having fallen in value by 30 per cent against the single currency during the past 12 months, exporters have seen a growth in business while the cost of imports have soared.
Without the pound being able to find its own natural level outside the euro, unemployment would have been considerably higher.

Those are very much the same arguments that I make myself. Indeed, I would go further: there has to be flexibility in an economy. The world isn't stable, technology isn't stable, markets and relative prices aren't stable. So the economy is a continual balancing act. And to do that balancing we need to have flexibility in the economy. There's a number of different ways we can get that too.

The first and most obvious is that with a floating currency we're able to change the external value of our exports and the internal value of our imports. This is exactly what he decline of sterling in the recent months has done for us. Our exports are now cheaper for the rest of the world to buy, imports are more expensive. This will increase the demand doubly for goods and services produced in Britain and thus boost the economy and employment.

A second source of flexibility is in interest rates. We've the power and ability to set them to suit the needs of our economy.

Neither of those sources of flexibility exist inside the euro. However, there are two more sources of possible flexibility. The first is the number of unemployed. If we can't change interest rates or the exchange rate then we can still change the number in employment. But does anyone really want recessions to be marked by even higher unemployment than we are already going to get?

The second is in prices. The general price level could fall (or real wages as has been happening in Germany) but that's something we call deflation. And that's something we really really don't want as it causes the entire economy to collapse in on itself as happened in the 1930s.

There's a truism from economics, that there are no solutions, only tradeoffs.

Stay out of the euro and control our own interest rates and exchange rate to provide the flexibility the economy requires. Or join and lose those two tools and leave ourselves only with unemployment or deflation as the tools available.

Given that the social effects, the results in terms of human suffering, are much greater from those latter two than the first pair this leads us to the inevitable answer.

Stay out of the euro.

Your help needed

2008-12-05T18:00:00.003Z

The European Union is asking for your views on what it should do, how Europe could be made a better place.

The website is here.

I think it might be a good idea if we contributed an idea or two, don't you? Perhaps a tad more constructive than my own desired entry of "Bugger Off"?

In fact, why don't we try and rally the clans, get the word out, and see quite how many constructive ideas we might be able to contribute?

As long as they're being honest and publishing all entries we might be able to get some interesting points across.

The return of nationalism

2008-12-04T15:03:00.001Z

No, not far right idiots goose stepping around, rather that in hard times people look to the nation rather than the ethereal creations of an international elite.

The abandonment by its few remaining supporters of any residual, sentimental loyalty to the idea of the European Union is becoming more likely by the day. The peoples of Europe, under very great stress, are beginning to realise that their pain is being made worse by supranational rules made in Brussels by unelected officials and then rammed through supine national parliaments by political elites. These rules are now working against the interests of the people of Europe.
No-one has been more supportive of the EU project than the Germans, from their windmills to their currency. However, when their country's core industries are shutting down, they will turn to an entity they recognise and resonate with: their nation. Germany.
The same will happen in France, as it always has though it is impolite - not communautaire - to say so out loud. France first. All else is convenience, nostalgic national bombast or smokescreen.

UKIP Elsewhere

2008-12-04T14:56:00.001Z

A report on a talk give by Tim Congdon:

Professor Tim Congdon was clearly outraged at the behaviour of the Bank of England over Northern Rock. He argued that the Bank of England is meant to be and has long been the lender of last resort. That is how the system has worked. For many years it has saved banks but it has done so in a way that does not damage a free society. What it has done is lend aggressively and expensively to banks that have had need of cash but whose assets have exceeded their liabilities.

He said that in the case of Northern Rock, Lloyds TSB offered to buy Northern Rock but wanted the Bank of England to promise to back it up with cash if need be. Congdon said that normally the Bank would have said yes. He claimed the previous Bank governor, Eddie George, would have said yes. But the current governor, Mervyn King, said no. He is outraged by this and argues that this made our current crisis worse than it need have been. He says the Northern Rock had net assets (assets larger than its liabilities) and that even after the fall in house values, this remains the case. He said, if I recall, that 97 per cent of its mortgages are being paid off in the normal way.

More recently, again the Bank of England has not kept to its usual role of lending aggressively and expensively. Instead the government has only lent on conditions and, I would add, one major condition has been the taking large stakes in several major banks. The freedom, independence and perhaps international competitiveness of banks has been undermined and the crisis has been made worse than it need have been.

Sounds about right to me (althopugh do remember that I'm not a banking economist, only an interested amateur in the subject).

Can we have our country back?

2008-12-04T14:50:00.002Z

These stories enrage me.

A primary school infuriated parents after cancelling the traditional Christmas nativity play to make way for the Muslim festival of Eid.
Parents at the Nottingham school were told that the planned performance had to be pulled because some of the pupils wanted to celebrate Eid at home with their families.

No, it's not Islam or Islamism that enrages. Anybody and everybody can worship whichever version of the sky pilot they desire as far as I'm concerned. And it's certainly not the reaction of those Muslim parents that enrages.

Sajad Hussain, 35, of who has two children at the school said: 'My children will be off for the two days next week to see their family.
'It's not that complicated; they could have one event on one day and another on another day, they should have both celebrations at the school.
'If you do not have both it becomes a racist thing and that's why you have to be careful if an issue is made out of it it could become nasty.'

An eminently sensible mixture of tolerance, pragmatism and a touch of scheduling. Very British in fact.

No, it's twits like this:

In a letter, sent by the staff at Greenwood Junior School, mothers and fathers were told: 'It is with much regret that we have had to cancel this year's Christmas performances.

'This is due to the Eid celebrations that take place next week and its effect on our performers.'

How did we end up with the education system run by people like this?

What the Socialists would bring us

2008-12-03T16:20:00.001Z

Good spot by The Croydonian here. The Socialist Manifesto for the European Elections (and yes, this is the group that our own dear Labour Party belong to).

We must ensure that workers have full rights to information and consultation during all takeovers.

We propose to strengthen workers’ rights to information and consultation. Employee participation at European and global level is a key issue for the future - a vital element of a more social Europe and a precondition for decent work. We will seek to enhance participation in economic decision-making processes at European level. To do this, workers’ rights to information and consultation must be anchored in company law directives using the European Company Statute model and the rights of European Works Councils must be extended. We also want to foster greater social dialogue between unions and employers at European level
and extend it to more sectors.

They'd never get that sort of stuff through the system here domestically so they'll get Brussels to insist that we must do it instead.

Not the Queen's Speech

2008-12-03T16:19:00.000Z

The end of a very fine piece:

Still, at the end of their day they're my Government, and I don't have to sign any of their poxy laws if I don't want to. The Duke of Edinburgh and I will be going home now. It's racing from Catterick this afternoon, and we don't want to miss it.

Where the money goes.

2008-12-03T16:15:00.002Z

This is how the European Union spends our money.

The findings? Astronomically high levels of nickel and elevated amounts of lead. Enough for the European Commission to pull the plug on all 20 of the machines - installed in January at a cost of about €5,000, or $6,350, each.

Soon the machines may be removed from the upper floors of the iconic Berlaymont, the building in Brussels where top European Commission officials have their offices.

100,000 on coffee machines? Why can't they just go to Starbucks like everyone else?

The climate change solution!

2008-12-03T16:07:00.002Z

Amazing this, truly wonderful. Margot Wallstrom goes looking for some answers to the problems of today.

Last Friday I participated in the Interfaith Climate Summit in the beautiful Swedish city of Uppsala. The Archbishop of Uppsala Anders Wejryd, had invited 30 distinguished persons from different faith traditions around the world to discuss climate change and to sign a manifesto with demands to political leaders for the UN negotiations on a new global climate agreement. The manifesto calls, among other things, for rapid and large emission cuts in the rich world, mitigation actions by developing countries and massive transfers and sharing of important technology.

Isn't that lovely?

Next week Margot will be asking the opinions of atmospheric scientists upon the meaning of transubstantiation.

Well, why not? It's as sensible as using the sky pilots to investigate climate science isn't it?

Strange People

2008-12-02T17:07:00.002Z

There really are some strange people in politics. Take this from Caroline Lucas MEP:

Green Euro-MP Caroline Lucas sent a message of solidarity to West Papua today, as campaigners from the Indonesian-occupied province delivered a petition to Downing Street and launched a Declaration for self-determination (1).
Exiled West Papuan independence leader Benny Wenda was joined by UK Parliamentarians and Free West Papua supporters from all over UK for the signing of the West Papua Declaration in Westminster.

Well, at this point I have to agree. West Papua (Irian Jaya as it used to be called) should indeed be able to decide its own future. It's what self-determination is all about.

It's also true that what they're actually asking for is a referendum on how they are governed and who by. I certainly can't argue with that.

But this is what leads me to think that there really are some strange people in politics. Dr. Lucas is perfectly at liberty to call for a referendum in some far flung corner of the world. But why doesn't she call for the same for us here? Why doesn't she call for the same rights for her own constituents?

Is there something about us that means we're not ready for democracy yet?

Barroso, the euro and The Guardian

2008-12-01T11:42:00.002Z

This is an interesting little piece. Barroso says that Britain is closer than ever to joining the euro. It would appear that at least some people don't agree with him. As reported in The Guardian:

Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence party, said: "The ruling elite would love to bounce us into the euro and will grasp at any straw to do so, for it's a step on the way to their dream and our nightmare, a federal superstate.
"We're told that some British politicians have said, 'If we had the euro, we would have been better off.' Whoever these people are we need to hunt them down and explain some simple economics to them. Membership of the euro would have meant lower interest rates in the boom, making the bubble even larger. And it would mean higher interest rates now in the bust, making the recession even deeper. The pound has fallen against both the dollar and the euro thus providing us with that fiscal boost that everyone says is so necessary, a boost which we couldn't have had if we were in the euro."
He said that if Barroso wanted to consult the people who mattered in Britain he should call for a referendum on the euro and the Lisbon treaty "so that the people of Britain can tell him where to go".

EuroSanta

2008-12-01T09:02:00.001Z

This story of how the EU intends to capture Chrismas may not be entirely true in all its details.

Had a lunch meeting with Commissioner Wallström - I'm sure she's part Elf. She wanted me to deliver a copy of the Proposed EU Constitution to every child as part of their communication strategy. “Even if they've been naughty?” “Especially if they've been naughty,” she purred. We manage to find a compromise and they're going to produce it as a colouring book. What sold me on the idea is thinking of the look on Nigel Farage's face on Christmas morning. As I leave, she calls out, asking what I would think of a rebrand. Pardon? Would I consider rebranding myself as EuroSanta, as it would give the EU a friendlier image? I take a huge slug from my hip flask and promise to think it over.

How the EU spends your money

2008-11-29T16:53:00.002Z

Is there anything that can be usefully said about this?

"A Concert with Vegetables."

Thus spake a commission spokesman today to a dumbfounded press room.

"Next Friday evening there is a Concert with Vegetables, that is for you. The press corps are expressly invited to attend this 'concert of vegetables' in the framework of the launch of the European Year of Creativity and Innovation" he told journalists.

That's where our tax money goes.

Blimey.

Sikhs and turbans

2008-11-28T17:26:00.002Z

I have to admit that this story really rather puzzles me.

A Sikh man who wanted the right to wear a turban while being photographed for his French drivers' licence has lost his case in the European Court of Human Rights.
Shingara Mann Singh, a French national, lost a series of appeals in France against the authorities who refused to issue a new licence with a photograph of him wearing a turban.
Under French regulations, motorists must appear 'bareheaded and facing forward' in their licence photographs but the Sikh religion requires men to wear a turban at all times.
Mr Singh, 52, took his case to the ECHR but the Strasbourg-based court dismissed the case.

No, not the way that, as always seems to happen, the French go to Strasbourg they get their way and we almost never do (thus showing that European law is very similar to French and very different from our own).

No, it's something different. Why do the French authorities insist that he be photographed without his turban?

After all, he's always going to be wearing one so surely that's what you'd like his ID photo to look like, wouldn't you?

Derek Clark and Bobby Silk

2008-11-28T17:24:00.001Z

This little campaign seems to be getting a little more airplay. The Beeb in Brussels ahs picked it up here.

Derek Clark is a UK Independence Party MEP for the East Midlands. Robert Kilroy Silk's behaviour is doubly annoying for him.
The former TV presenter was elected as a UKIP MEP in 2004 - but left the party shortly afterwards to found his own Eurosceptic party, Veritas. Six months later he gave up as leader of the fringe party - and now sits as an Independent.
"We think he should resign altogether and give the seat back to us," Mr Clark told the BBC.
"This chap has taken himself out altogether. ITV won't let him communicate with anyone in the outside world at just the time he has a job to do. He is being paid and he is not doing his job, simple as that."

Kilroy Step Down!

2008-11-27T16:59:00.002Z

A fun little site just launched this afternoon.

An online petition for people to sign asking Robert Kilroy Silk to step down as an MEP.

www.kilroystepdown.co.uk.

As Sky News puts it:

Keen advocates of the ‘adding insult to injury’ school of thought they’ve now put their name to a petition calling on the Silver Fox to stand down as an MEP.
Oh, what fun they must have had putting the news release together.
“All five of the East Midland's MEPs (that is, all of the region's MEPs other than Kilroy Silk himself) are backing an online petition calling for him to stand down,” they write.
MEP Derek Clark then puts the boot in: “Its not just that he hasn't been working while in the jungle, it's that he hasn't spoken in the Parliament since 2005. No one has seen him in the region for years, we even had a competition for anyone who could spot him.”

I have to say I do like that line "keen advocates of the ‘adding insult to injury’ school of thought".....

Now this is what the internet is really for

2008-11-27T16:17:00.002Z

No, really, it is. A website devoted entirely to bacon.

If a story's got bacon in it they'll publish it. No bacon, no story as far as they are concerned.

Bacon Today in all it's porcine goodness.

Remind me, what was it we all did before we had toys like this to play with?

Spending other people's money

2008-11-27T11:14:00.002Z

It's always very simple to spend other people's money. And as Milton Friedman pointed out it usually ends up being spent very badly:

There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s close to 40% of our national income.

Now that refers, of course, to our owwn government spending the tax money they extort from us. If we take it up another level, to the money that the European Union spends....

A European package of spending increases and tax cuts said to be worth €200bn (£170bn), or 1.5% of the European Union's gross domestic product, was unveiled yesterday as the EU's answer to the swelling financial and economic crisis.

The important point here isn't the amount of money nor whatever minor fiscal stimulus it will bring. Rather, it's where the money is coming from.

The commission's two-year plan is aimed at restoring consumer and business confidence, shoring up employment, getting the banks lending again, and promoting green technologies. It reshuffles EU spending schedules and increases loans from the European Investment Bank (EIB), but leaves the bulk of the extra spending and fiscal stimuli to the 27 member states.
The 27 countries would provide €170bn of the €200bn - or 1.2% of European GDP - while the other €30bn would come from Brussels' coffers in the form of EIB loans, and accelerating payments from the cohesion and structural funds, which go mainly to the new members in central Europe.

So they're not announcing that the EU is going to be spending the money the EU already has. Rather, they're announcing that the EU is going to spend money which the national government's have to find from the pockets of the taxpayers. That is, an unelected body is telling elected bodies how they should gouge the citizenry.

So, to go back to the four ways to spend money. The fourth method provides the very worst result....and this announcement is of the fourth way squared. Without even the limitations placed by the ballot box upon how the money is splurged.

Given that it's very difficult indeed to believe that this money will be anything other than entirely wasted....if not spent on things which make matters actively worse.

Who are the BNP?

2008-11-26T18:29:00.003Z

This is really rather shaming. I know, I know, I'll be contrite. But it does pain me to have to admit that I even know about the existence of the newspaper Socialist Worker, let alone that I know where to find it on the web.

But they do have this interesting little graphic.

Based on 500 or so of those names from the BNP list, this is who the BNP are.

There's nothing amazing there, I agree. Just interesting, that's all.

Comment of the week

2008-11-25T21:56:00.002Z

At the bottom of a Times editorial.

Central to the appeal of the new movement was its claim to be economically competent and fiscally prudent, a claim it pursued in office and was, for many years, generally accepted. New Labour believed that wealth creation and social justice depended upon each other. It was, as one of its leaders put it, “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”. It determined not to raise the tax rate paid by top earners, for three election this was a manifesto commitment that symbolised how it had come to share the hopes and ambitions of middle class families.
Yesterday Alistair Darling, using the sombre tones appropriate to the occasion, provided Members of Parliament with details of new Labour's tragic end.

Yes, yes, OK, so another group of politicians have been shown to be know nothings....but then the comment:

So the New Labour model was finally tested and found to be defective. Faced with a return to old Labour or the conservatives I know which way I would go... UKIP

Rex Lester, Surbiton, UK

Rex, as and when you're in central London, allow me to buy you a pint would you?

Dang, I've spent years working on how to write, how to get a point across, and here I am entirely outclassed by someone who simply speaks his mind. D'ye think I might have to spring for the second round as well?

Sometimes you don't get the credit

2008-11-25T14:26:00.003Z

But even so the message still gets across.

Of course, we all remember Gerard Batten's report of last week on the costs of the EU. We do, that is. (I obviously do as I was running around with Robert Oulds trying to get people to write about it ....after Gerard's done all that work it's worth trying to get a bit of coverage.)

And of course we'd all be thrilled if all the newspapers wrote up the report, name checked Gerard, mentioned UKIP and so on. Which, sadly, of course they don't. But that's only one side of this whole political game. Sure, we want our party to win, we want our party to get lots of publicity.

But we also want to get our message across. Yes, of course it's better if the message and the party are linked but getting just the message across is still a win.

All of which is a lead up to this column in The Sun. What should we be doing about the current financial and economic problems? What's the very first suggestion for concrete action?

Let’s have a referendum on leaving the EU (saving: �65billion a year).

No, they don't mention us or Gerard. But in only a week that figure that he calculated has become a generally accepted fact in Britain's largest selling daily newspaper.

We'll accept that as a victory for getting the message across I think?

Cutting VAT

2008-11-23T11:06:00.002Z

It's rather nice to see all these newspaper reports about cutting VAT. Almost none of them fail to make the point that 15% is the minimum that we can cut it to because of EU rules. That is, that we don't in fact control our own tax levels.

However, there's one more point it might be worthwhile to get across.

According to the Telegraph, the cut "could save the average family as much as £10 a week.

£10 week eh?

It's generally accepted that CAP costs the average household an extra £25 a week on top of what food prices would be in the absence of CAP. So let's get out of the EU, abolish CAP and benefit the average household by two and a half times more than this £12.5 billion a year borrowing splurge will cost us.

Plus, of course, abolishing CAP will cost us nothing.

I assume that the only reason more people don't propose this is because the modern education system has left people incapable of doing simple arithmetic.

Good news in the SW

2008-11-21T17:39:00.001Z

This.

TORY activists are preparing to down tools and not campaign in next year's European elections in a row over the selection of Giles Chichester as the region's number one candidate, the WMN has learned.

Sections of the party's rank and file are so concerned about the South West MEP's re-selection that they are preparing to call on Tory HQ to intervene.

The split stems from Mr Chichester's admission that he wrongly channelled EU funds through a company he helped run – but was later cleared of profiting from the breach of the rules.

EU watchdogs found that the £400,000 had been correctly used for secretarial and assistant services, but the practice contravened rules on MEPs using companies they are connected with to handle the money.

There's more of course:

The rebels are keen not to be publicly seen as divisive but fear Mr Chichester being top of the Tory selection list will not only hit the vote in the EU poll, but also undermine campaigning in county council elections in the region, which take place on the same day, June 4.

Leading activists, including parliamentary candidates and senior councillors, are understood to be so unhappy with Chichester's inclusion they are threatening to down tools and not campaign or even vote for the party.

Always happy to see a federast being unhappy....

Fools, fools

2008-11-21T17:38:00.001Z

Can we please just get this straight?

We want to run the economy for the benefit of consumers, not the benefit of producers.

Frederick Toben

2008-11-21T17:33:00.003Z

This is good news (however despicable his actual ideas are):

The Holocaust denier, Frederick Toben, has been released from custody after the German government gave up its legal battle to extradite him from Britain.

This was all under the European Arrest Warrant of course. Sadly though, it's not really cleared up the law, rather, it has muddied it.

"I said, 'We will go all the way to the House of Lords with this and let the House of Lords decide'. But when the draft extradition Act passed through the House of Lords in 2002, one of the questions was what would happen if someone was arrested on a European arrest warrant to be extradited to a country where Holocaust denial is an offence.
"The response was, 'No, that will never happen'."

This was a political deal: this particular person will not be extradited. But we'll still be liable to being extradited for things which are not an offence in this country, things which lack dual criminality. It'll depend rather on whether the person accused has enough political (or financial) weight to fight it and that isn't justice as we either know it or want it to be.

Gerard's Report

2008-11-21T17:29:00.002Z

Good couple of pieces of press coverage of Gerard Batten's report on the costs to us of the European Union.

Here in the Mail, here in The Sun.

I'm told that he's on LBC in the morning discussing it too (but sorry, I don't know when).

Sigh

2008-11-20T12:04:00.002Z

What is it about these people?

Women are to be banned from returning to work within six weeks of giving birth under new EU plans.

They seem to have no concept of what the point of all this government actually is, to maximise the amount of freedom and liberty that we the people enjoy. They also seem to miss the meaning of the word "liberal". That is, the aim to increase the amount of liberty that, again, we the people enjoy.

It might be that having a law that allows women to have 6 weeks maternity leave after the birth is a good idea. I'd certainly not fight against such a law nor I think would many others.

But there's a huge difference between "allows" and "insists". The first is an increase in liberty, the second a diminution. That is, it's profoundly illiberal because it reduces peoples' choices.

OK, this isn't that much of a shock, but it is further evidence that the EU is an illiberal institution.

Bob FM

2008-11-20T09:42:00.001Z

Bob seems to have a letter in the Swindon Advertiser (no link, sorry).

"Little realising one would suspect that all EU Parliament sessions are recorded on video, Christopher Beazley MEP for the Tories, has rather let the Tories policy for our continued membership out of the bag, and staggeringly disclosing the Tories real intentions over the pound. Readers should go to my site at www.freedom2choose.co.uk and watch for themselves what he says. He concludes by saying this: " I look forward to the next Conservative Government applying to join the Euro Zone really quite shortly.""

Good work that man!

The real John Sergeant story

2008-11-20T09:10:00.002Z

This is what happened. Yes, really....

As the nation mourns the apparently voluntary departure of John Sergeant from Strictly Come Dancing because he says, he was worried he might win (how bizarre is that?), we've come up with a solution: Peter Mandelson, who has said he quite fancies a twirl for Bruce and the Judges
Send for Mandy: It seemed to have worked for Gordon Brown!
But our light-hearted idea appears to have taken a very odd twist: A conspiracy theory, no less, courtesy of UKip.
In an internal memo, they talk of "dark forces at work" - blaming Alastair Campbell (really) of forcing the BBC to create a vacancy on the show for Lord Mandelson who "has already proved to be nimble on his feet as he hot-footed it from Hartlepool then Brussels and waltzed into the House of Lords".
They say he also "skipped away" from answering any awkward questions about his relationship with a certain Russian billionaire and, they point out, "not by chance Mr Sergeant's dancing partner is from the former USSR"
It ain't much as conspiracy theories, even humorous ones, go - but we thought we'd share it with you anyway.

We thought it was pretty good as a humorous conspiracy story but then taste in jokes really is rather fickle, isn't it?

Saying it all about the BNP

2008-11-20T09:01:00.001Z

It does this, doesn't it? Say it all?

UKIP leader Nigel Farage said: “It says it all about the BNP that so many of those on their database seem to be worried about being revealed as members. Who would join a party where membership is a social and professional embarrassment?”

Well, quite.

LOLGriffins

2008-11-19T14:43:00.000Z

Yes, I like this, I like this.

LOLGriffins.

Correcting The Times

2008-11-19T11:20:00.002Z

Slightly concerning to see this this morning.

Many are now looking nervously towards next year’s European elections. The absence of UKIP, which squeezed the BNP vote in 2004, means that Britain’s first BNP Euro MP could be just months from taking office.

Absence? That makes it sound like we're not going to be fighting the election!

Yes, we have been on to him and yes, he does say that the sub-editors mangled what he meant to say. More like "in the absence of UKIP's strength of 2004" and a correction or clarification will be run tomorrow. Even that's wrong of course, for no one at all has done any polling at all about how people are likely to vote at the euro-elections, so no one can make any informed comments upon relative strengths.

But just to set minds at rest, yes, we are fighting the elections, no we've not all gone home.

As you've been told, you shouldn't believe everything you read in the newspapers......

Graham Watson

2008-11-18T13:31:00.002Z

Graham Watson (the entirely insufferable Lib Dem MEP) is to give a speech with the following title.

Four years after the Constitution, one year after the Lisbon treaty: Is the EU being held hostage by its citizens?

There really are times when you just can't make things up, improve upon the humour that the natural world offers.

Jamie Oliver

2008-11-14T17:54:00.000Z

So, I wonder, has anyone sent Jamie Oliver a membership pack yet?

This is a very elegant argument

2008-11-13T14:11:00.003Z

I'm not sure that I wholly agree with it but I do think there's at least some truth to it. It's also a very elegant argument. Why is it that, given that Fascism and Communism were roughly equally foul murderous systems, we tend to forgive former communists more easily than we do former fascists?

This of course has echoes with our own attitudes, we're far more likely to welcome a former leftie activist (one or other of the flavours of Revolutionary Communism for example) into UKIP than we are a former BNP one.

This is a matter of psychology, not philosophy. In most Western countries, people look upon Communists with bemused disdain; Nazis, in contrast, they view with horrified disgust. Since the stigma against Communists is far weaker, the Communists manage to attract some vaguely normal adherents... or at least they used to. In contrast, the stigma against Nazis is so intense that you have to be virtually psychopathic to join. Once you send that signal, it's almost impossible to trust anything you say - even if you claim that you're no longer a Nazi.

As I say, I'm not sure I buy this 100% but it certainly is an interesting way of looking at it.

Euronating

2008-11-12T17:37:00.002Z

Oh, very good, very good indeed.

You do want to go over and have a look at what the Anoneumouse has worked out.

In order to meet the conditions for joining the single European currency, all citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland must be made aware that the phrase 'Spending a Penny' is not to be used..........

Marta Speaks Out

2008-11-10T08:02:00.001Z

Marta Andreassen has a nice piece in The Times this morning. The full thing is here.

Here we go again. Today, for the 14th year in a row, the European Court of Auditors will unveil their report, telling us that they refuse to clear the EU accounts. What's worse, no one will really seem to care. We are told that the accounts won't be cleared until 2020 - if then.

Having worked inside the Brussels nomenklatura and having being sacked for my insistence that financial controls have to be strengthened, I am not surprised to find that nothing has changed other than the arguments deployed to defend this state of affairs. What the auditors have been saying for years is that most of the payments made by the Commission from its £70 billion-a- year budget cannot be deemed legal or regular. That is, that they cannot confirm those payments have been made to the correct person for the correct purpose and for the correct amount. It stretches credulity to insist, as the Europhiles do, that this does not mean that there is fraud.