Not something you can afford to get wrong.

There are a whole load of reasons I'm opposed to the death penalty, ranging from not wanting the UK government whom I mistrust greatly over civil liberties to have that kind of power to the most major one in my eyes that if a mistake is made it cannot be corrected.
Still the coalition did make a rod for its own back when it announced any e-petition getting over a 100,000 signatures would have a chance to be debated in parliament and so various newspapers dusted off their pet projects and went for it so to speak. The Express are trying to force a debate on having a referendum on the EU which is bad timing as far as I can see and would have worked 2 years ago but today with the EU having amassed a gigantic fighting fund there's a possibility that they might bribe their way out of a defeat. To the Daily Mail and hanging...

MPs face being forced into a landmark vote on restoring the death penalty.
Capital punishment is expected to be the first subject debated by Parliament under an e-petitions scheme.
The initiative allows the public to help set the government agenda and means anyone can set up an internet petition on any subject. If it attracts more than 100,000 signatures, MPs must consider debating it in the Commons.
The scheme is officially launched today, but it has already backfired on the Coalition because Right-wing internet bloggers have been collecting signatures for the last few days.
The restoration of hanging for the murderers of children and policemen is by far the most popular serious issue.

Don't get me wrong here, I do believe that some people are an utter waste of oxygen like Huntley and Sutcliffe and not worth the cost of housing and feeding at our expense at her Majesties pleasure, but I also think that about most politicians too. Recent history is awash with certain crimes later having proved on appeal that the person convicted actually didn't do it, we probably would have hung the originally convicted Birmingham pub bombers for instance.
Capital punishment is not an area in which we can afford to get things wrong, there is no room for a jury to use reasonable doubt, if there is any I can see some juries unwilling to give guilty verdicts, then again perhaps not, you never can tell with ordinary people.
In the end though, it wont matter, EU and ECHR laws will not permit our MP's to bring back the death penalty. Though as an opening move to get us thrown out of the EU it does have some merit. Still, I do hope it's quashed, those who would have this power cannot be trusted with it.

More about → Not something you can afford to get wrong.

Unfit for purpose

I guess in the days before flight or even mass travel it was fairly easy for Her/His Majesties Customs and Excise to keep an eye on who (and what) was coming in, though judging by some of the novels of past times I've been reading, smuggling has always been a bit of a problem if only because the idiot politicians always set the bar too high where it came to duties on various imports. Eventually though we joined the EEC and the various powers that be conspired behind all our backs and without asking us turned the EEC into the EU and made our borders quite porous to anyone with an EU passport. The UK Border Agency was also formed in this time to keep a track of asylum seekers and other undesirables such as multi-national criminals and illegal immigrants. It rapidly became obvious that it was unfit for purpose.
Express.

THE UK Border Agency ran up record losses of nearly £300million last year, including £1.8million racked up by a convicted conman.
It also paid £2.2million in error to failed asylum seekers who were no longer entitled to benefits, costing £15million in all since 2008, the agency’s annual report reveals.
Staff also received £1.9million in overpayments and £14.2million was doled out to refugees wrongly detained by immigration officials.
Two private finance deals also had to be renegotiated after chiefs admitted “significant duplication” in IT projects awarded to Fujitsu and Atos Origin worth £430million.
The agency’s accounts were described as a “comedy of errors” yesterday and yet more proof that it is “not fit for purpose”, as Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said last year.
Despite the failings, 11 directors received £1.2million in pay and £90,000 in bonuses. UKBA wrote off £297million in bad debts and losses last year, including £207million lost on its e-Borders project, which collects travellers’ details before they arrive in Britain.

On top of this the government has also admitted that it has "lost" 180,000 illegals  since December 2008 and that's only the ones officially here who went missing, it does not include the ones smuggled in on lorries.
Now, I don't like government interference in my life and I especially hate it when the government and its agents are wasting my money. But I do think that it's the job of a minimal government to protect our borders, defend the country and enforce the few laws that we have. As it is we have big state and big spending and an uncanny inability to do anything right due mostly to over regulation and the idiocy of the Human Rights Act.
If we had a simplified system that checked people in and out and quickly removed those who remain illegally I'd be ok with my money being spent on it providing I thought it was giving value for money. This Agency would only allow one appeal by asylum seekers and no appeals at all for other illegals. That would also mean the return of any granted asylum who committed a crime, no ifs or buts.
We need control of our borders, the government has given them away and saddled us with a white elephant supposedly to guard them. We need out of the EU, we need the abolishment of the HRA and we need to enact laws that suit us, not the EU.
Otherwise things will only get worse.

More about → Unfit for purpose

Must?

Apparently according to an EU commissioner we "must" take more migrants and no doubt our spineless politicians will toe the line and allow more migrants in despite the fact that we have 2.45 million unemployed people officially on the books anyway.
Express.

MEDDLING eurocrats are demanding that Britain welcomes more immigrants to help the EU’s struggling economy, it emerged yesterday.
European Union Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom says immigration and visa-free travel are essential to boost economic fortunes.
The Swedish politician has urged member states to welcome more immigrants to help deal with skills shortages, an ageing population and a declining workforce.
Further immigration will boost the economies of EU countries and benefit their residents, she went on. Ms Malmstrom’s comments come after Denmark brought in tougher border controls in response to growing immigration from North Africa.

Ok, now first Ms Malmstrom is actually only talking about the Schengen Zone which doesn't include the UK, however once into the EU and given an EU passport, any immigrant would be free to come here and lets face it, a hell of a lot of them do.
The problem is the type of immigrant we get, North African immigrants tend to be unskilled and we have enough unskilled people here who really should be "encouraged" to take a low paid job whether they like it or not, even to the extent of cutting off their benefits.
The other problem with North African immigrants is that they tend to be Muslim and we have enough problems with the Muslims we have already in this country, not all to be sure, but enough to know that basically they cause more problems than they are worth and the more there are of them, the bigger the problems are as they don't seem to think that our rules should apply to them.
I'm not saying we don't need some immigration, however we don't need unskilled immigrants, we should only be looking for skilled professionals who can and will integrate into our society, not form another unskilled underclass with religious paranoia thrown in.
However, unless we do leave the EU, that's exactly what will happen because our idiot politicians handed over the keys to the door when they signed up to the EU and gave away our sovereignty, something the traitors had no right to do.

More about → Must?

Or how about getting rid of it altogether?

VAT, a dreadful tax and a burden to both consumers and businesses and of course partly under the control of the EU. There are alternatives out there that would work better and be easier to administer, hell we could just get politicians to decide what the spending of the next financial year will be, figure out a universal tax rate to cover it and go from there. Even better, have it announced just before an election along with am alternative from all opposition parties and see just how quickly savings could be made.

Express.

VAT must be slashed by at least five per cent to kickstart Britain’s struggling economy, chiefs of small businesses warned in a report yesterday.
The leaders of the nation’s small businesses – which make up 99 per cent of all firms in the UK – lobbied ministers after it emerged that business confidence has tumbled in the three months to June.
If VAT is not cut to 15 per cent Britain’s recovery will falter, said the Federation of Small Businesses.
Hard-pressed consumers are simply not spending as much when almost all purchases carry 20 per cent VAT.
The construction and tourism sectors in particular are suffering, as are car retailers.
The federation, which represents firms typically employing fewer than 49 staff, says such VAT cuts would help boost consumer spending and help to create new jobs.
Greater spending could make up for lost revenue to the Treasury. John Walker, chairman of the FSB, said: “The economy is still in a fragile state and these figures show the Government’s growth strategy is just not working.

Yes I know we can't really do anything about VAT at least not until we leave the EU (please, please) but frankly the whole tax situation in the UK is an utter mess anyway, it needs simplifying more than anything. Move all tax into one category, get rid of VAT, national insurance and any other extras and keep it simple. Same with benefits have one universal benefit/pension and run it via the inland revenue as a negative tax code. Yes you can have various levels in it depending on invalidity etc but these are additions via a tax code rather than a separate system. As for rates, go for a land value tax rather than council taxes, the more your land is worth, the more you pay.
It's way past time that the whole idea and implementation of taxation is looked at in the UK, it needs simplifying and streamlining and it wont happen whilst we're in the EU.
Just another reason to leave, really.

More about → Or how about getting rid of it altogether?

House of cards

or the domino principle if you wish, referring to a situation in which the collapse of one part of a structure has the end result of the next part falling until the whole structure collapses. In the case of the Euro it was (and is) Greece, however the warning signs are now showing that Italy or Spain is now about to go under too, rapidly followed by Portugal and possibly Ireland as their reckless borrowing based on the strength of the steady German and other Northern European states comes home to roost as they now simply cannot pay off their debts, or carry on the way they were doing.
Of course our banks are up to their necks in it, though fortunately although we aren't in the Eurozone, if our economy wobbles we can at least re-value our currency, something Greece, Italy or Spain cannot..
Express.

SHARES in British banks plunged today amid fears the Eurozone debt crisis is set to spread to Italy and Spain. Jittery market traders ditched shares in banks across Europe in a huge sell-off.
British banks were among the worst hit with Barclays, which has major exposure to both Italy and the Iberian peninsula, down nearly 5 per cent at one stage.
Taxpayer-backed Lloyds was down 3 per cent and Royal Bank of Scotland down 1 per cent.
The FTSE 100 Index fell 100 points, or 1.7 per cent, today with banks among the biggest fallers. Meanwhile, the Dax in Germany and the CAC 40 in France fell more than 2 per cent.
Britain’s exposure to the Italian economy amounted to £43 billion at the end of March, according to Bank of England figures.
UK banks and investment houses risking losses of £7.9 billion if the Italian government defaults on its debts and a further £5.7 billion if Italian banks collapse.

Of course, the ultimate horror of it is, is that governments might move in to shore up the banks with our money (again) and if you thought the national debt was bad now (see counter on the left), just wait and see what it will be like if or when our so called leaders have finished with trying to put right what simply should be left to sort itself out.
The problem is a matter of pride to certain EU apparatchiks, they simply cannot allow their prestige "currency" symbol of all that the EU is about fail, yet if anything should be obvious, you cannot buck the market. The Euro is doomed to fail simply because there are nations in it who do not belong to it, who falsified their economic standings to be a part of it and borrowed like hell to cover their outstanding costs as prices rose, retirement ages fell but productivity remained the same.
The fall is inevitable now, the only thing to wonder about now is how painful the leaders of the EU make it, for all of us.

More about → House of cards

Must?

Committing political suicide seems to run in the veins of the Lib Dems, or rather those of the Lib Dems who are pro EU and pro Euro.

Telegraph.

Nick Clegg angered critics by insisting Britain’s fortunes were tied to the eurozone.
He said the UK could not stand by while countries like Greece ­teeter on the brink.

I know he's an ex EU something or other and has to say such crap in order to hold onto his pension, but really, how out of touch is the deputy leader of the coagulation?
The UK more by accident than design managed to stay outside the Euro currency and thus managed to keep a measure of control over our interest rates and economy, something which the individual countries in the Eurozone do not have, much to Ireland, Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy's detriment.
This should have meant that we simply tut tutted as those economies slid into oblivion at least until they pulled out of the Euro and took control of their "new" old currencies and devalued them to the correct levels of their debt. Something they can't do with the Euro. What we shouldn't be doing as the boy Clegg is suggesting is bailing out the Euro, it's not our currency and although the EU do lord it over us to an extent (at the moment) it isn't our problem. If the Greek economy does go tits up because they can't pay their debts, then it's not our business to be throwing good money after bad and simply stave off the inevitable.
Out of touch and clearly out of his mind, Nick Clegg clearly has no idea what the UK public at large actually think about the EU or if he does, doesn't give a damn about representing that feeling in Parliament or abroad.
Sooner his party goes into oblivion the better.

More about → Must?

Deluding the readers

Another day, another cry for "British jobs for British workers" as coined by the BNP (May 2006) and now grabbed by the mainstream parties to try and make themselves look a bit like EUsceptics. Particularly after the English train company Bombardier announced a 1400 jobs cut after losing out on a contract to Siemens.

Express.

A RALLYING cry to back British workers was issued last night after the UK’s last train-maker announced it was cutting over 1,400 jobs because it was losing a key contract to a German rival.
A further 12,000 jobs are likely to go at 100 local companies supplying the plant.
Derby-based Bombardier suffered the latest blow to British industry after the Government chose German company Siemens as the preferred bidder to supply 1,200 train carriages.
They are part of the £6billion Thameslink mainline rail project.
The Government claims that it had no choice under EU competition rules.
But today the Daily Express launches its latest crusade “Battle for Bombardier” and urges the Government to think again over the decision and prevent further sell-outs affecting our companies and workers.
UKIP MEP for the East Midlands, Derek Clark, asked: “Whatever happened to British jobs for British workers?
“Workers have been let down by successive governments which have not made better efforts to retain manufacturing in this country and simply caved in to EU pressure.
“While we are in the EU we cannot do anything about competition rules or stop manufacturers going elsewhere.”

Gerry Doherty, leader of the TSSA rail union, said: “Ministers must abandon their role as Pontius Pilate and stop standing idly by while train-making slowly bleeds to death in the UK.
“No German or French government would be so foolish as to award such a vital contract to an overseas manufacturer, threatening thousands of domestic jobs.”

Well, perhaps the French and German governments wouldn't, but that would only be because they arranged the contract to be written in such a way that only a French or German company could win the quote, they'd play within the rules, but find a way to make the rules work in their favour.
The UK government isn't of course smart enough to do this, besides we still have a tendency to play fair when it comes to the rules.
However the facts remain that whilst we remain part of the EU, this sort of thing will happen, any tenders for this sort of national infrastructure have to be opened for tender to all companies/interested parties in the EU. No amount of bleating by politicians, union leaders, newspapers or even blogs like this will change the fate for Bombardiers workers unless of course we leave the EU, even then it's unlikely, contracts will have been signed, penalty clauses inserted.
When we leave the EU and I truly believe it is a when, not an if, certain politicians and civil servants need to be held to account, these people were complicit in giving up our sovereignty, complicit in allowing further integration to the detriment of our nation and who have by taking our money in taxation conspired in treason against us the people.
Leaving might well be painful, might well cause all sorts of problems, but it is infinitely more desirable than staying. What happened to Bombardier is only one of a myriad of tales of job losses and interference on a massive scale by the EU in the UK, it will happen again and again until some politician grows a set and we leave.
Can't come soon enough, though sadly it's too late for Bombardier.
Should have been the first act of the new government, but we know what kind of man cast iron Dave is...
Saying told you so is cold comfort today.

More about → Deluding the readers

On your Mark's

The Euro, love it or as most of us do ignore it has a poor history, supposedly one of the flagship marques of the European Union it was an artificial currency that took no notice of regional economies as it did not have anything like the checks and balances built in to alleviate regional differences that its so called rival the US Dollar does.
Still, with the current difficulties it faces with the Southern Mediterranean states (and Ireland) the possibility of a Greek default on their loans, you'd have suspected that it would have been one of those states who would eventually be the first to leave the Euro. and that the Euro bolstered by the more stable Northern EU economies would survive.

Express.

ALMOST three-quarters of Germans doubt that the euro has a future, a poll reveals.
They also believe rescue attempts are futile as billions more euros will be paid to bail out Greece.
A poll by German newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine, found 71 per cent had “doubt,” “no trust” or thought there is “no future” for the euro. Only 19 per cent expressed “confidence” in it.
Sixty eight per cent said they did not think the emergency bail out of Greece would work.
A separate poll last week showed more than half of Germans thought that Greece should be thrown out of the euro.
Rumours are also rife in Germany that Deutsche Mark bank notes are being printed again in preparation for ditching the euro.
It is said Germany’s central bank, the Bundesbank, has been ordered to print marks as part of contingency plans to leave Europe’s single currency.

Couple of years ago I'd have been gobsmacked by such an announcement, that was however until I noticed something a bit odd on my till receipts from my occasional booze cruises to France in that they all had the amount in Francs still printed on them, seems the only people who thought the Euro could work were the EUphiles and despite their claims, they still only form a minority of people throughout the EU, the rest being either highly hostile or mostly indifferent to the EU, just check out the percentage of votes cast in the EU elections, hardly a vote of confidence is it?
I expect the EU to move heaven and Earth to keep the Germans onboard, but Merkel is walking on a knife edge, elections are due and it's just possible that the opposition will force the German governments hand. If Germany leaves the Euro it will be the end of it, far more so than if Greece does.
We can dream.
Can we leave yet?

More about → On your Mark's

Justice?

Andrew Symeou the young man arrested under the controversial European Arrest Warrant has been found not guilty.

BBC.

A student from north London who was accused of killing a Welsh roller hockey player on holiday in Greece has been cleared of manslaughter.

Andrew Symeou, 22, from Enfield, was charged with the manslaughter of Jonathan Hiles, from Cardiff, at a Zakynthos nightclub in July 2007.

Mr Hiles, who fell from a dance podium, died after he suffered a brain injury.

Mr Symeou denied being in the nightclub at the time. He has been held in Greece since his extradition in July 2009.

He was held in a Greek prison having been extradited, he was held in an overcrowded prison condemned by human rights groups for its inhumane treatment of inmates. Mr Symeou has revealed the appalling conditions in the maximum-security Korydallos jail in Athens. "I've seen people beaten half to death, I've seen blood, I've heard people being raped at night," he said, adding: "I've been verbally threatened and I've had to deal with all this. Yet the evidence given to extract him would not have passed scrutiny in a UK court.

Telegraph.

It all started on the holiday island of Zakynthos at 1.30am on 20 July 2007. In a nightclub called Rescue, a young Welshman, Jonathan Hiles, remonstrated with someone for urinating on the floor. That person then punched him and he fell, suffering fatal brain injuries. Five of Jonathan's friends, with him that night, gave initial statements to police saying the assailant was clean-shaven, with a blue shirt.

Andrew says he wasn't in Rescue when the incident happened, and had no idea it had even taken place. He had a beard at the time, and wore a yellow shirt that night. On 22 and 23 July, the victim's five friends, in separate interviews, gave new statements to the police identifying Andrew, from a group photo, as the killer.

But there was something odd. Although supposedly taken at different times on different days, all the statements used precisely the same words. The photo shown to the witnesses had Andrew circled with the word "perpetrator" written on it.

Then the police hauled in two friends Andrew had been with on the night of the killing. They, too, gave statements implicating Andrew.

But as soon as they emerged from police custody, they retracted them, saying the testimony had been dictated to, and beaten out, of them.

Georgina Clay, their holiday rep, saw the two afterwards. One had a swollen face, she said, and they were clearly terrified.

In statements to the Welsh inquest into Jonathan's death, the five original witnesses against Andrew also changed their stories. Four of them now said they hadn't seen the punch being thrown at all, only the urination. And the descriptions all gave still didn't match Andrew Symeou. These statements appear to be the only evidence against him.

They are highly unlikely to have passed the threshold for prosecution in this country.

This scandal is not so much about Andrew Symeou, though the sheer injustice of his incarceration before his trial is an utter scandal. This is about the idiocy of our politicians who allowed a law which enabled UK citizens to be snatched from this country on evidence that would not pass scrutiny in a UK court, because the UK courts are obliged to assume all other countries courts who are signatory to the "European Arrest Warrants" are by definition equally fair, and operate to equal standards as the UK. equivalent standard, when clearly the case is that they are not and do not.
So instead we had a young man dragged off to Greece and incarcerated waiting for trial for almost 2 years on clearly trumped up charges. Witnesses appear to have been abused and forced to sign confessions and such confessions being clearly at odds to the facts. His trial was a total farce with cheap court interpreters being replaced 3 times for being unable to translate accurately the proceedings to Andrew and the real perpetrator who murdered Jonathan Hiles seems to have gotten away with it as the man the Greek Police had in their sights clearly and obviously didn't do it!
This is the legacy you get for allowing integration via the EU route, important safeguards such as habeus corpus have been bypassed in the pursuit of making the various police forces lives easier. Andrew Symeou would not have even been convicted by a UK court, held in custody for any length of time and released by extradition into the hands of another countries police force on the evidence presented.
We have the EU to thank that he was.
Can we leave yet?

More about → Justice?

Don't you understand? He can't do anything.

Seems some Tories are upset that their glorious leader isn't being the man they thought he was. You know, the one who would get tough on the EU once he was in power.
Express.

DAVID Cameron was forced on to the defensive yesterday when MPs urged him to defy the latest onslaught of meddling and money- grabbing from Brussels and Strasbourg.

David Cameron hinted that the Government is poised to surrender to the European Court of Human Rights by allowing some prisoners in British jails to get the vote.

And he also refused to rule out a multi-billion pound contribution from UK taxpayers to a second European Union bailout of the debt-laden Greek economy.

Last night, Euro sceptic critics feared the Prime Minister was ready to “wriggle out” of a showdown with ­Eurocrats and European judges, lending weight to the Daily Express’s crusade to get Britain out of the EU.

The onslaught of questions about Britain’s relationship with Brussels and Strasbourg came during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons yesterday. Senior Tory backbencher Philip Hollobone raised the issue of the court’s call for the scrapping of Britain’s ban on jail inmates voting.

He challenged the Government not to “bend its knee to the European court” and asked: “Will it [the Government] stand up and insist that on this issue Britain will not budge?”

 Almost touchingly naive isn't it? Cameron's hands are tied by the ECHR on prisoners and the provisions of the Lisbon treaty when it comes to bailing out the bankrupt southern Europeans. previous parliaments sadly sold out our sovereignty to foreign courts and parliaments and Cameron knows this, though I suspect he doesn't really care, save only if he looks likely to be ousted as Tory leader, after all he probably could have carried the last election with a promise to have an EU referendum of some kind. As for prisoner votes well Ken Clarke sadly gave the game away a couple of weeks ago with that one in that the UK will have to kowtow to the wishes of the ECHR after all we're a signatory to it.
Cameron is of the opinion that we can negotiate something for the UK in the EU, but the EU doesn't quite work that way, we want something, they usually want something in return, something that we're more often than not loathe to give up anyway.
The only way we can fix that is to leave, Cameron knows this (I assume) but his actions show us that he is committed to the EU and not worth voting for, at least at a national level.
That we haven't attempted to leave shows the Tory leadership in their true colours.

More about → Don't you understand? He can't do anything.

You only just noticed?

I wonder at times about Eric Pickles the Local Government Secretary, much of what he rails at I agree with, though his success rates doesn't seem to be that great. Good for a soundbite I guess, but not for getting things done. He's now having a go at the "Arc Manche" region idea proposed by the EU several years ago having inherited it from the Labour government (probably given the go ahead by that bunch of English haters as a measure of spite) Odd thing is, the English nationalists have been very, very unhappy about the EU's regionalisation for years and viewed with disgust Gordon Brown's continual pronouncement of the UK as a country of nations (Scotland, Wales N/Ireland) and regions (England) We were also aware of the Arc Manche scheme a few years ago too, though nothing we said or did could halt the slide of the Labour government towards the dismemberment of England.

Daily Mail.

Eric Pickles last night accused the European Union of trying to ‘wipe England off the map’ by developing a new cross-Channel region, complete with its own ‘flag’.

The Cabinet Minister condemned the EU for ploughing millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money into the ‘Arc Manche’, the name given by Brussels to an ambitious attempt to merge Northern France and Southern England.

Mr Pickles, the Local Government Secretary, says he is incensed to have discovered that Eurocrats are planning to roll out a new Arc Manche ‘transnational emblem’ across England.

‘Labour has been conspiring with European bureaucrats to wipe England off the map,’ Mr Pickles said.

Not exactly something that the politically aware in the UK were in ignorance of though. Still it's quite nice to see it get a little publicity though God alone knows what Pickles thinks he can do about it. Even if he had the power to stop it (he doesn't) there are those in his own party who would sabotage any attempt to try (yes we're looking at you Ken Clarke)
The only way schemes like this can be stopped is to leave the EU, our spineless treacherous politicians have simply given away too much of our sovereignty to stop any EU diktat from being implemented. We might have stood a chance if given a referendum on Lisbon, though clearly in hindsight there was no chance of ever being given such a referendum, the EUphiles know what the result would have been and for all their bland corruption and evil intent, they aren't stupid enough to ask a question of the English they know they won't like the answer too.
So, Eric Pickles has finally noticed something we in the anti-EU ranks have known for years, wonder what he thinks he can do about it?

More about → You only just noticed?

Why is this man in the government?

No, not Ken Clarke (for once) but Vince (famous for calling G Brown Mr Bean) Cable a man who was féted as some sort of economic wizard but for the life of me seems to be some sort of socialist simpleton with no grasp of the effect of socialist policies on ordinary people, in this case uncontrolled immigration.

Telegraph.

The Prime Minister will today claim that uncontrolled immigration has undermined some British communities. Pledging to cut the numbers entering Britain to tens of thousands, rather than hundreds of thousands, Mr Cameron will say that "for too long, immigration has been too high".

Mr Cameron’s speech, his first major address on the issue since the general election, will please many Conservative MPs and voters.

But Mr Cable, a Liberal Democrat, described the speech as “very unwise” and suggested it could fuel extremism over immigration.

“The reference to the tens of thousands of immigrants rather than hundreds of thousands is not part of the coalition agreement, it is Tory party policy only,” Mr Cable told the BBC.

“I do understand there is an election coming but talk of mass immigration risks inflaming the extremism to which he and I are both strongly opposed.”

Thing that strikes me is that if Cameron's speech will inflame extremism, why did we invite extremists into the UK in the first place? Assuming of course we did invite them and they just didn't turn up on their own bat, which under labour was entirely possible. Doubt that Cable has got an answer for that one other than a Neville Chamberlainesque appeasement to totalitarianism, which seems to be what he's aiming for. You don't appease bullies and extremists, they see it as weakness and will just attempt to extort more concessions from you. I know that, I suspect you'll know that, but politicians? I just don't know any more, after all you'll see or hear Cameron's speech today and not that the only immigration he can do anything about is non EU immigration which means anyone getting an EU passport from any after escaping any violent shithole can come here and start their own branch of gangsters r us complete with a full set of benefits and a decent house paid for by us. What Cable doesn't get is the fact that it's our generosity that's fuelling extremism because we pay for extremists to do nothing except sit at home, or meet up to plot extremism. If they had to work hard to feed themselves trust me that will knock the extremism out of anyone.
Cameron can't stop mass immigration, it's no longer under the UK governments remit as it's under EU control, he can only sound off and make as if he can make a difference to get votes during the local elections. Cable claims that he and Cameron oppose extremism, though neither are able to do anything about the extremists in our midst, though I do know that talking about immigration won't inflame them, they're already inflamed and Cable would only have us appease them, it's an old socialist fantasy that being nice to someone will make them nice right back, that only works with civilised people and those who would be inflamed are not civilised otherwise they wouldn't be extremists.

More about → Why is this man in the government?

No Government can bind the actions of its successor

Simple quote and not exactly rocket science is it, but it's part of what remains of the UK constitution. That's why I'm taking David Cameron's attack on Alistair Darling about bailing Portugal out with a pinch of salt.

Express.

DAVID Cameron last night rounded on Alistair Darling over an EU deal that could leave British taxpayers facing a multi-billion-pound eurozone bailout.

The Prime Minister clashed with the former Labour Chancellor in the Commons over the UK’s involvement in a £50billion rescue fund. It was set up after the financial crisis in Greece last year.

Dreamed up by eurocrats and Labour ministers while negotiations to form the coalition Government were under way last May, the deal could mean Britain paying up to £6billion to support Portugal.

Tory MPs are furious that the deal was agreed by Mr Darling, in virtually his last act in office, after Labour had lost the last General Election. Mr Cameron told MPs: “I have always said that a successful eurozone is in Britain’s national interest. But I have also said that Britain isn’t in the euro and isn’t going to be joining the euro and so it is right we shouldn’t be involved in the euro area’s internal arrangements.

“It is also why I believe we should not have any liability for bailing out the eurozone. But with the current emergency arrangements, we do.”

No Dave we don't, the only reason we are as far as I can see is that your lot agreed that we should, no government can bind the actions of its successors, all you need to turn around and say is that that was a decision of the previous government and we are not bound by its actions in bailing out the Euro. Fact is your Chancellor agreed to this with Darling in the interim period whilst the coalition was being set up and I suspect that some Lib Dems as well as the Kenneth Clarkite wing of the Tories might just kick up a fuss if you repudiate giving our cash away to prop up a currency that we aren't even a part of such are the traitors to the UK that you harbour in your party.
You see Dave, we've noticed even before you got into power that you tried to talk the talk but singularly failed to walk the walk on EUskeptisism, after all where's that referendum you promised us as opposed to the referendum on AV we have that you didn't promise us. Since then your government has done its best to block every anti-EU move and call for a return of sovereignty along with an in/out referendum that has been proposed. You even had to give prisoners the vote because the ECHR said you had too, so you clearly aren't in line with the wishes of the majority of people in this country.
Until you do actually decide to get real on the EU, I'm afraid your party will not be getting my votes, same for the Labour Party and the Lib Dems at local or national levels. You simply can't be trusted.

More about → No Government can bind the actions of its successor

So how do you set up something to fail?

So, how do you set up something to fail? Particularly when it's about the erosion of British sovereignty by European courts? Well if you stuff it with EUrophiles and then bar it from considering whether Britain should withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, you can pretty much guarantee its failure or deadlock.

Mail.

A panel set up to challenge the erosion of British sovereignty by European courts was branded a ‘con’ last night.
It emerged that the commission investigating the creation of a British Bill of Rights would be barred from considering whether Britain should withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights.
Critics also claimed the commission was ‘dominated’ by Europhiles and human rights lawyers likely to be in favour of the supremacy of the European courts.
The supposedly independent commission was hurriedly set up by the Coalition in response to mounting public outrage at a European ruling ordering Britain to give prisoners the vote.
But Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke announced yesterday that the body will be barred from debating whether Britain should pull out of the European Convention of Human Rights – the basis for Labour’s controversial Human Rights Act.
It will instead have to ‘incorporate and build on all our obligations’ under the Convention.
The remit means that even if the commission eventually recommends a British Bill of Rights, it will have to embrace the principle that the European Convention on Human Rights should be enshrined in UK law.

Ah yes good old Ken Clarke traitor extraordinaire, the man who would sell us all down the EU river to his masters in Brussels telling a committee debating a British Bill of Rights that they will have to do it in the existing system and not tear up the current system, the one which has been over-riding our national sovereignty and caused the founding of the committee in the first place.
In other words the committee is a total waste of time and a mere charade, a sop to the public who were outraged over the prisoners votes fiasco, yet totally toothless and unable to change a thing.
Tories, same as Labour, same as Lib Dems, run by traitors for the EU, not the British people and certainly not for the English.
Can we just leave the EU? Now?

More about → So how do you set up something to fail?

Can't have it both ways

Guenther Oettinger, the EU's energy commissioner is somewhat of an idiot, a very dangerous type of idiot to be sure, but still an idiot. Currently he's blatting out soundbites about the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan...

Telegraph.

Europe contemplates 'nuclear free' world in wake of Japan disaster
All Europe's atomic power reactors will be subjected to natural disaster tests in the wake of a the disaster at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant. 

Tuesday's EU decision came after Germany moved to shut down seven aged atomic plants amid panic over the safety of nuclear power as the Japanese crisis worsened.

Guenther Oettinger, the EU's energy commissioner, warned that a third explosion and fire at the Fukushima plant on Tuesday heralded the world's worst nuclear disaster.

"There is talk of an apocalypse and I think the word is particularly well chosen," he said.

Mr Oettinger said that "stress" testing was needed to ensure that Europe's 143 reactors could withstand earthquakes and other emergencies.

"We want the safety of all reactors to be reviewed in the light of events in Japan," he said. 

"It has to raise the question of whether we in Europe, in the foreseeable future, can secure our energy needs without nuclear power?" 

 Nuclear power is dangerous, no doubt about it, however it has to be pointed out that in Europe few if any of our nuclear plants are built on or near tectonic fault lines so there's not much chance of a tsunami belting up the English Channel to inundate Dungeness after a massive earthquake off the south coast of Devon. Nor I suspect will the French be amused by Oettinger's outburst either as 80% of their power generation is nuclear in origin and as the EU is run for the benefit of the French Oettinger is probably doing the verbal equivalent of pissing into the wind. I suspect Oettinger is from the old school Green movement in Germany, the ones who produced all those nuclear power nein danke stickers back in the heyday of the old Berlin Wall East West protests, plus Germans have always been a little ambivalent about nuclear power anyway. But what Oettinger seems to have forgotten is that the EU is hell bent on carbon free power generation and quite frankly as much as he'd love to have us believe it, wind and solar power just won't hack it, we can't even make them competitive without massive subsidies, government lies notwithstanding on the issue.

So like it or not, nuclear power is the only option for the EU that actually works and will deliver the power necessary to keep the howling savages at bay from stringing up EU energy commissioners.

Saying or suggesting anything else would be a lie and I suspect Oettinger knows this, but his distaste for nuclear power is well known and clearly colours his judgement. Looks like he couldn't resist the opportunity to put the boot in despite the likelihood of a similar disaster as happened to Japan ever happening in northern Europe.

More about → Can't have it both ways

Equal in misery

When you want to know the odds on something you can either go to a bookies or an insurance company, the insurance company especially will use a complicated set of statistics based on your age, area and lifestyle to figure out the odds of anything happening to you or what the chances are of you doing something. After all if they have to pay out all the time, their shareholders will not be too pleased. So in essence they have to get it right and when it comes to car insurance they'll take your age and your gender as well as your past history into account. Well they'll take your gender into account up till 21st of December 2012, after that the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg has ruled that using differences between men and women as a risk factor in setting premiums for car and medical insurance and pension schemes breaches EU rules on equality. And equality rules especially don't work on common sense, they work by dragging everyone down to the lowest common denominator. In other words Car insurance companies are no longer allowed to give their statistically safest drivers a bigger discount because of gender any more, well not according to the EU.

Telegraph.

The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg has ruled that using differences between men and women as a risk factor in setting premiums for car and medical insurance and pension schemes breaches EU rules on equality.

"Taking the gender of the insured individual into account as a risk factor in insurance contracts constitutes discrimination," the court said in a statement.

The verdict - which applies from December 21 2012 - will force changes in the current standard practice across Europe of basing insurance rates on statistics about differing life expectancies or road accident records of the sexes.

Women could face a jump of 25pc in car insurance premiums in light of the decision, while pension income from men could fall by between 5 and 10pc.

The problem is the insurance companies weren't discriminating, they were using statistics which showed them that women were a better risk. Women as a whole drive far more cautiously than men and as a result have fewer accidents, particularly so with young men. And now they are no longer allowed to do this so a low risk group get to pay more, which will please the insurance companies no doubt but not those who are going to get hit by higher premiums.
It's these verdicts which fly in the face of common sense that cause more and more people to ask why we're in the EU at all. But as Cameron said in his interview with Al Jazeera the other day, "we're going to change it from the inside" (or something like that). So we aren't going to be asked if we want to stay in despite the fact most of us would like to leave (according to statistics) but as the above story tells you, ignoring statistics is what those who purport to rule us are apt to do when it suits them.

Me, I just want to know when we can get out of that corrupt nest of political vipers.

More about → Equal in misery

Central European time?

Seems the government want to adjust the clocks forward 2 hours and are offering the excuse that it will be good for tourism.

Express.

THE prospect of longer and lighter summer evenings came a step closer yesterday after ministers backed the Daily Express and agreed to look at a shake-up in the way clocks are set.

Whitehall sources confirmed that a permanent change will be proposed by the coalition this week.

The move, to be announced as part of a new “tourism strategy”, would put the country on “double summertime” – two hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, and an hour ahead of British Summer Time.

“The tourism industry estimates that this measure could create 80,000 jobs at a stroke and would be worth about £3.5billion to the economy. It would also be a huge boost to participation in sport.” She said research by the Department for Transport had found that putting the clocks forward could save about 80 lives a year by cutting road accidents on darker evenings.

It is understood the Government will put forward a series of options in a public consultation later this year. Its favoured option is to put the country on Central European Time, in line with most of the Continent.

Personally I don't know why they don't just change the business hours and open schools earlier if they want to approach it from a health and safety point of view, the proposed plans will also have kids walking to school in the dark for a lot of the winter anyway, so I don't think safety has anything to do with this. There are also plenty of other ways to get around this, though none so simple as changing the clocks admittedly.
Over all, I suspect this is simply more of the EU's machinations to bring us all into line with the rest of Europe, which would raise my hackles anyway, though I'm not really in any position to do anything about it as other than a general election and a European election every 4 years or so I don't get a say, they never think to ask me even in polls. I expect the public will swallow the excuses, at least until the winter when they'll discover that dark mornings and school runs are not a lot of fun at all.

Ministers want to switch the date of the May Day bank holiday. The break is based upon Labour Day, which some ministers see as an outdated socialist festival. Instead, they would like a “UK Day” or a “Trafalgar Day” marking Admiral Nelson’s victory over the French and Spanish fleets on October 21, 1805.

Strangely enough no mention of St George's day which is popular amongst the English at least and certainly a worthy replacement for May Day, though Trafalgar day would be nice as well, until the pc crowd get involved about insulting and hurting French feelings. As for a UK day, well that's the most likely one, though I for one will feel no desire to celebrate such a day. I'm English, not British, not UK ish and not European, not in my mind anyway, legal requirements be damned.
If there is to be a new bank holiday, let it be St George's Day in England, St David's Day in Wales, St Andrew's Day in Scotland.and St Patrick's Day in Northern Ireland. Not a generic one size fits all celebration of multicultural Britain which is what I suspect the government and various politically correct types will aim for.

You know it's coming.

More about → Central European time?

Meddling

Used to be at one time we had one (metal) bin for rubbish that was collected weekly and you just put everything in it. Increases in the packaging used by supermarkets etc soon meant we ended up with bigger bins, but still weekly collections. Then came the obsession with recycling (generally a good thing) and extra bins and containers were added to the mix, being collected fortnightly (in my case) Somewhere in that we lost the free collection of large items of waste and either had to sort it out ourselves or pay the council to do it for us, it had to be the council, they wont allow vans or pickups into the waste depot, just cars. I now have 2 bags, one for paper/card one for cans, bottles (plastic and glass) and a brown wheely for garden rubbish which hardly gets used as I hate gardening. Oh and the rest of the rubbish is collected in black sacks weekly, so I guess I'm lucky there. Others are not so lucky...

Express.

COUNCIL chiefs were branded “over the top” yesterday for ­making householders sort their rubbish into as many as nine bins.
A nationwide study revealed the “shocking disparity” in Britain’s approach to recycling with households being required to use ­anything from one to nine bins.
And failure to comply can incur fines of up to £100.
The TaxPayers’ Alliance said the average number of bins residents are required to use is four. But 136 councils use five bins, 58 use six and 21 use seven.
Adding to the confusion, each council has its own system of weekly or fortnightly collections.

As I said, I'm one of the lucky ones and no this isn't a dig at Medway Council (other than the waste depot and vans) as I know who exactly is at the root of all this messing about, as do the Taxpayers Alliance.

Councils face heavy EU fines if they do not reduce the amount of rubbish sent to landfill sites, so they are pushing for dramatic increases in recycling.

Caught between a rock and a hard place as people like me will take them to task for raising Council Tax to pay for fines incurred because they can't recycle more and take them to task about over complicating the systems they use to do it.

Yet in the end it boils down to following EU regs and as ever we end up paying for it and so the resentment grows whilst our political classes rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic and hoping no-one notices it's sinking, instead of launching the lifeboat by way of an in or out referendum.

EU regulations are wrecking this country and strangling our businesses and councils in red tape, it's time and past time we left.

More about → Meddling

Quite a few of us, aren't there?

A good many people out there suspect (quite rightly) that the reason we're never given a referendum on the EU is that the government know we'll vote to leave, or we'll vote as in the case of something like the Lisbon treaty not to integrate further. The EUphiles know this and will move heaven and earth to make sure that no European country gets a fair say, even to the point of making people vote again as in the case of Ireland if necessary. In fact I suspect that's why we never get any referendums at all, the government has become too estranged from what the people actually want or need.

Express.

DAVID Cameron was yesterday given the clearest message yet that the UK should leave the European Union.
The Daily Express’s historic crusade for the country to withdraw from the EU marched on Downing Street.
Editor Peter Hill led a delegation to hand over the bulging sacks of petition coupons signed by 373,000 of our loyal readers.
In an indication of the growing support at Westminster, five senior MPs from both sides of the House of Commons helped to carry the petition to the Prime Minister’s home.
Tory MP Philip Hollobone said: “Congrat­ulations to the Daily Express for saying so clearly what most of Britain actually feels. At least one national newspaper has the guts to speak out on this issue.
“The message has been delivered straight to the door of Number 10. The Prime Minister will certainly take note of the strength of feeling on this.”
The Daily Express’s petition is among the largest collected by a newspaper in living memory. Coupons from 350,000 readers were sent in and a further 23,000 signed up on our website.

It will be ignored of course, oh I'm sure there will be many words in favour being spouted by all and sundry, but the business of selling the UK out to the EU will carry on apace because the vast majority of our MP's are spineless cowards in thrall to the EUphiles leaderships of their parties. Any attempt to get a debate on the EU is immediately stalled by filibustering EUphiles and the use of the government (and opposition) whips to make sure that any attempt by the few brave parliamentarians to do something about our undemocratic ties and lack of sovereignty to the corrupt EU elite are simply ignored or talked out before any damage can be done.
What of course the politicians don't realise is that all they are doing is causing more and more anger amongst the public who see their wishes thwarted by the people they've elected to represent them. This in part is wht the big 2 1/2 political parties are struggling to hold onto membership and actually get people to take an interest in voting. They decry the lack of interest in politics in the UK and then vote against the wishes of the people anyway, perhaps if they actually did what we wanted, people might vote for them, just a thought...
The day though is coming when we'll leave the EU, it's almost becoming inevitable with every decision in favour of the EU that our parliament makes, all those petty little regulations that make our lives less than happy, the collapse of its own currency and the ever growing tensions between the member states along with its immigration policies and import export taxes and regulations. A one size fits all clearly doesn't work for the EU and its becoming ever more apparent. A return to the EEC and the EFTA zone would be the best solution for the EU, except that the politicians (not the people) can't or won't do that. Eventually though the people will make that decision for them and they'll only have themselves to blame.
We should have never joined, we should have left years ago and we should get out now! The only reason we don't can be laid squarely at the door of our political leaders.

More about → Quite a few of us, aren't there?

Took you long enough.

The UK as a whole is largely EUsceptic, a lot of us want out as we believe we could do far better for ourselves outside rather than inside, selling to all rather than subsidising a trade cartel. The UK has always in the past been a trader on a world scale, rather than on a local scale, which is what mainland Europe tended to do, particularly the further inland you got. Largely EUsceptic means the public at large of course, the political classes on the whole aren't, never have been either, they see it as aggrandising their power rather than giving away our sovereignty, after all the bigger the block, supposedly the more power it has, though in the case of the EU, power resides in the hands of a few apparatchiks rather than politicians. Still it's nice to see that one of the MSM have finally caught up with the thinking of the common folk.

Express.

THE Daily Express today becomes the first national newspaper to call for Britain to leave the European Union.

From this day forth our energies will be directed to furthering the cause of those who believe Britain is Better Off Out.

The famous and symbolic Crusader who adorns our masthead will become the figurehead of the struggle to repatriate British sovereignty from a political project that has comprehensively failed.

After far too many years as the victims of Brussels larceny, bullying, over-regulation and all-round interference, the time has come for the British people to win back their country and restore legitimacy and accountability to their political process.

Following the debacle of the Lisbon Treaty – disgracefully imposed upon the public without the referendum they were promised by the three main political parties – many had expected matters European to take a lower profile in British politics.

But the opposite has been true as those on board the European gravy train have mounted one power grab after another.

At a time of austerity throughout Europe they have expanded their bloated budgets, pushing Britain’s disproportionate contributions even higher.

And despite not being part of the failing eurozone, British taxpayers have learned that under Brussels rules agreed to by Labour after it had lost the election they are liable to help bail out economies wrecked by the single currency.

I wonder how long this will last, most newspaper campaigns fizzle out after a week or two, but still it's nice to see them announcing what the majority have been feeling for about 20 years or so, still I suspect some critical threshold has been passed in some private poll for the Express group, though I'd have laid odds on it being the Daily Mail first.
It will be interesting too, which of our politicians break ranks (other than the obvious ones of Carswell and Hannan) to support this campaign, the better off out group will be one, but will any of the big names come out and support it? I guess it will depend on how much pressure can be brought to bear, if they see votes going to it they'll follow the votes. If not I suspect a possible UKIP landslide in the next EU elections possibly pushing the Tories into second place, now there's a nice thought.

Their petition can be signed here.

More about → Took you long enough.