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Conference snippets with Tim Worstall
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In an exciting addition to my regular blogging entertainment I bring
you a running report from the UKIP Party Conference here in sunny
(ahem) Bournemouth. There’s a certain justice to coming to an
English seaside town on the day that reports are coming in of 2
inches of rain in 24 hours in parts of the country. Updates through
the day as things happen.....
- Just going through the outlines of
what is to happen. Where’s the coffee, how to get your voting
papers, who is what at the fringe events, no news yet as to whether
Polly Toynbee is to be manning the British Humanist Association
stall. Pity really, we’d like to expose her to some sensible
political ideas.
- Bob Spink, the party’s first MP. "We’ve an
honourable history of fighting for freedom"….absolutely right, given
that we pretty much invented the concepts of individual freedom and
liberty. "In joining UKIP I put my country before my career. The
young men and women in our Armed Forces put their country before
their very lives: my risk is minimal in comparison. Tony Blair said
"I’m a pretty regular guy….he lied. David Cameron said he would
withdraw from the EPP immediately. He lied. Gordon Brown said we
would have a referendum on the Constitution…he lied. Unlike David Miliband, I’m not afraid to mention my party leader’s name." A very
interesting little logical point. Why shouldn’t we have a
retrospective referendum on the Lisbon Treaty? After all, 100% of
referendums we’ve had on European votes so far have been
retrospective. "As long as I have a voice in Parliament I will fight
for its sovereignty".
- James Whale comes on to speak. "I don’t
respect many politicians but one of the few that I do is Nigel
Farage. James will be starting with LBC in November. Rather teasing
the audience about the euro. "I love it when the skinheads come up
and say I’m of Anglo-Saxon stock….well, piss off back to Germany
then."
- Clive Page now introduces some of the candidates for the euro
elections. "The danger with political jokes is that they end up
being elected". "You can fool some of the people all of the time
and those are the ones you concentrate on." GW Bush. First up,
Godfrey Bloom. Godfrey…..nice to see James Whale here...he makes me
look like an intellectual.
- Nigel Farage’s speech. "I’m told that the
European question has gone away…..but we’re all talking about post
office closures, about rubbish rules, about windmills littering the
country, but no one seems to be willing to point out that these are
all from European laws….as with over 75% of all the new laws imposed
upon us." The Lib Dems promise one thing in the UK and vote another
way in Brussels….And David Cameron? "If David Cameron stood up and
said that the next Conservative Government would have a referendum
on the Lisbon Treaty then the treaty would be dead in the water. But
he won’t do it." The continual expansion of the EU and NATO ever
eastwards is perhaps the most dangerous foreign policy I’ve seen in
my lifetime. Russia fears us more than we fear it….we must retain an
independent British foreign policy. "We must turn the elections
next year into the referendum that you were promised but that you’ve
never had." "Outside the EU we would be free to make trade deals as
we wish…." "We should not be simply negative about the EU, we
should be positive about what we can create in a 21 st century State
that is free from it. John Whittaker is standing down as Chairman
of the party….he wants more time to go back to academia. We thank
his for the hard work he’s done over the years. The new Chairman
will be Paul Nuttall ….he’s going to need your support and help.
There’s a vacuum in politics, there’s no one making the argument for
a free and sovereign country once again. Our job is to fill that
vacuum.
- Michael McManus with a lovely joke. Who’s the greatest
living Briton? 16 year old says Churchill. Um, I said living…..yes,
Churchill. No, sorry, he’s dead……what, that cute little dog died?
- Question and answer session…..first one, why don’t we make more
about the regional system of government? We know it’s appalling and
wasteful. Nigel’s response is that yes, we have indeed got our plans
to abolish that level of government but we need to remember
something. We can’t go around banging on about just the issues that
interest us. We need to run our political campaigns around what
interests others as well. Second question…can we make sure that the
Press Office includes the SNP and Plaid Cymru in the lists of the EU
supporting parties? Umm, yes, that’s me isn’t it….OK, so that’s
done. Interesting point made…..opposition to the EU seems to be
strongest in the 18-30 group.
- Excellent speech from the Taxpayer’s
Alliance. Now it’s Tim Congdon talking about Northern Rock.
Essentially the problem was that the usual head bashing and a
banking takeover was not possible because of the European Markets
Abuse Directive. Yes, there’s still a lot of arguing about this, but
it’s the uncertainty that did the damage. When you’ve got two
potentially conflicting legal systems this is inevitable. If we
didn’t belong to the EU, there would not have been a Northern Rock
fiasco.
- John Whittaker - everyone’s been talking for years about
reducing regulation. Why hasn’t anything been done to actually
reduce it? Because most of it comes from the EU….so we can’t cut it
without leaving the EU.
- Now Mark Wadsworth is on talking about the
problems with the welfare state. His fuller proposals can be seen at
his blog of course. Much of the analysis could come from Chris Dillow.
- David Campbell Bannerman runs through the transport
proposals. A quick run through of the paper in preparations followed
by Richard Heaslip on defence matters. One of the things which we
need to spend more upon - paid for of course by the money that we’re
not sending to the EU and the money that the regulations cost us, a
much greater sum.
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