Thursday the 13th
By Trevor Colman
 Thursday
the 13th of December, 2007 was the day they gave my country away.
It was strange. There wasn’t any noticeable change.
It was just another cold, damp, winter’s day with everyone well wrapped up
against a biting East wind. There were no riots and no-one caused any public
disorder. There were no placards or protest marches: no barricades on the
roads. It all took place very quietly. The BBC weren’t telling us we were
losing our country, neither were the newspapers. In fact, if you don’t
follow these things, you’d never have known it was happening.
But it happened alright. In Lisbon.
Apparently they’d been trying to take control of Britain since 1972. If you
check on these things the Prime Minister back then, Edward Heath, lied to us
and signed Britain up to something which eventually led to Lisbon and
Thursday the 13th. Heath knew, all those years ago, that this would happen
but he hid most of the papers on it. Some are still hidden. To know what was
planned you needed to find out for yourself. Those who knew, were saying
nothing. The BBC and the newspapers were keeping quiet. They still are. And
anyway there were lots of other things, we were told, which were much more
important.
On Thursday the 13th, for example, the big story was about someone who had
gone out in a canoe several years ago and vanished. Then he’d turned up
again. The media was full of it, certainly more than about what was
happening in Lisbon. Looking back over the years there always seems to have
been a big story that switched our attention away from what was really going
on. And the big story always turned out to be not important at all.
Strange isn’t it?
Of course, it wasn’t just Heath. Wilson and Thatcher were just as bad, so
was John Major, Blair of course and now Brown. But for years we didn’t know
they were deceiving us. I mean, it’s so unbelievable that British
politicians should lie to us about something so important. But, as it turns
out, they did and now, after what happened in Lisbon, we know for sure they
still are.
Not that I’m particularly patriotic. I’d be the first for the exit when they
used to play the national anthem in the cinemas. Somewhere along the line,
though, the Britain I know has been disappearing. Most of our industrial and
manufacturing base has been scrapped. They’re closing the Post Offices, the
Police Stations, hospital wards and the pubs. The fishing and the farming
are almost gone, so is good old British common sense. A bloke told me a few
years ago that they plan to have a licence for everything. I laughed at
him. I’m not laughing now.
Let me ask you, did you vote for Danuta Hubner, Joe Borg or Vladmir Spidla?
No, neither did I. Neither did anyone. But those three and
another twenty four unelected people I’ve never heard of, have taken over
Britain. On Thursday the 13th in Lisbon, Gordon Brown and David Milliband
gave them the keys to our country.
And nobody said a word. Amazing isn’t it?
For me there are two things that are the worst part of all this. First,
no-one has ever asked me if this is what I wanted. Secondly, it’s the lies.
Alright, we’ve been lied to for the past thirty six years, but it’s
different now. We know now that they’re lying and they know that we know.
The awful thing is they don’t care that we know.
Then I tell myself countries don’t just disappear without some sort of
disturbance. Soldiers invade or someone drops a bomb or attacks a port.
People are killed. War is declared.
You notice when people are taking over your country, don’t you?
I keep thinking I must be wrong about Thursday the 13th. When I put on the
television that evening there was good old Porridge and Rising Damp and the
Queen was on the News in a new hat and everything looked just as it always
has done. Interest rates are coming down, the Pound is going up, petrol is
getting dearer, we’re in for a cold spell.
Nothing has changed. But it has.
Turn off the television set, walk outside and, wherever you live, you’ll see
and hear what is happening.
This is no longer our country.
 The
seductiveness of the inner circle - Why Brown signed the treaty
Hurrying in after the signing was over
and signing the EU 'Reform' Treaty by himself, Gordon Brown reminded me of
King John when he became a vassal of the Pope and made England a fiefdom of
the Papacy. Like John, he was thinking only of himself.
The treaty that Brown has signed destroys Britain’s sovereignty, Britain’s
common law, and the British people’s tradition of freedom. The British
people do not want it.
Labour thinks it will push it through Parliament next year without allowing
the British people to vote on it. Perhaps they are right, but we do not
think so. The knights of Magna Carta were slow to respond to John. They were
afraid to put their heads above the parapet, but two years later in 1215
they did, and with the
knights of God and all the people of London they compelled John to give his
assent to the rights and liberties of Magna Carta.
And that was not the end. The knights had to fight for Magna Carta, and when
John had died, they spent the remaining years of the 13th century pressing
Henry III and Edward I to affirm Magna Carta. When Henry refused, they took
the field against him.
Montfort and the bachelor knights
died, but Prince Edward, later Edward I, was forced to reaffirm Magna Carta.
In 1279 the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Peckham, was afraid that Magna
Carta was being forgotten. He ordered all his bishops to post copies on the
doors of their cathedrals and threatened to excommunicate anyone who
violated its protections. In 1297 Parliament told Edward I that if he wanted
money from them he would have to reaffirm Magna Carta. Edward affixed his
seal.
Just as in the 13th century, so in the 21st. Magna Carta has to be defended.
Brown and company are destroying Magna Carta. They are continuing in the
idiotic and treasonous steps of their political forbears who have made one
treaty after another with European leaders and have illegally given away
British rights and liberties.
For a mess of pottage they have sold the British birthright.
Why? Why would Brown do it?
One reason is that he is a Socialist and Socialism is a global religion. It
hates nation states. It wants one allegiance to one global state in which
national politicians such as Master Blair can play lofty roles. Socialism is
an ignorant religion that ignores the scientific facts of freedom, the
essential connection between a people being free and being prosperous, the
indisputable link between a people’s safety and education and happiness and
their ability to make local decisions about their police and their schools
and their livelihoods.
But there is another reason for Brown and Miliband and Blair and Heath and
Clarke and Major and Heseltine and all the rest of them to support the
creation of the EU and the destruction of Britain, aside from the obvious
reason that they do not like Britain much, do not understand or love her
history, do not forgive her imperfections and seek to support her real
goodness, and do not understand political or economic science, and that
reason is this –
They want to be part of the inner circle. They want to be in the circle for
exactly the same reason that there are circles of girls and boys in schools
and circles of men and women in clubs and at work . They want to feel that
they are in a special circle and you and most other people are outside it.
They think that they are something because they are in the circle. They
think the circle is superb.
To walk out of the circle is frightening and, almost worse, embarrassing.
Everyone in the circle will dislike them. Those men who jovially put an arm
around them will give them the cold shoulder. The man or woman who leaves
the circle finds her very sense of self threatened, if not her job and her
lucrative contacts.
Besides, everyone in the circle thinks the same thing. They must be right.
The 'cascade of information effect' leads them all over the waterfall in the
same boat.
To join in fellowship with others is a good thing, but because it is a human
thing it has the possibility of being terrible, even monstrous. That is the
inner circle of Europe with its circle of stars. It makes grown men and
women want to be part of it – to enjoy its lavish pensions and perks, to
feel specially precious, to secretly enjoy their snobbish elitism, and to
simultaneously feel self-righteous because they are helping to establish a
new world order of high-sounding platitudes. Never mind that it will be a
disaster because it ignores political science.
That is why Mr Brown signed the treaty. It is irrelevant that he did not
sign it with the other plenipotentiaries. He is with them. He is too afraid
to be without them. He is too afraid to stand alone for the freedom of the
British people.
This is a very bad day, but it is not the end.
Thanks to CS Lewis for brilliantly developing the theme of the inner circle
in The Weight of Glory. Thanks to Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, the
Nobel Prize winners who identified the 'cascade of information' effect.
Reproduced with kind thanks to
Brits at their best
Charity begins at home by Nigel Hastilow
The woman on the doorstep speaks in sorrow, not anger. Her
daughter has split up from her husband and is now a single parent with two
young children. They all live with granny because the daughter and her kids
have been refused a council house. And, according to granny, that’s because
all the available accommodation has gone to immigrants. The house is full.
Granny looks a bit worn down by her new lodgers. The novelty of having the
little ones to stay is clearly wearing off. The family seems resigned to the
fact that nobody will do anything to help. They have more or less given up
complaining about the way we roll out the red carpet for foreigners while
leaving the locals to fend for themselves. When you ask most people in the
Black Country what the single biggest problem facing the country is, most
people say immigration. Many insist: “Enoch Powell was right”. Enoch, once
MP for Wolverhampton South West, was sacked from the Conservative front
bench and marginalised politically for his 1968 “rivers of blood” speech
warning that uncontrolled immigration would change our country irrevocably.
He was right. It has changed dramatically. But his speech was political
suicide. Enoch’s successors in Parliament are desperate to avoid ever
mentioning the issue. It’s too controversial and far too dangerous. Nobody
wants to be labelled a racist. Immigration is the issue that dare not speak
its name in public. Yet everywhere you go, you hear the same story. There
are simply too many people competing for the space, houses, benefits, public
services and jobs this country has to offer. It’s claimed we couldn’t
survive without immigrants to work in our hotels, pubs and restaurants, to
pick our fruit and clean our hospitals. But that’s because we make life too
easy for the five million or more people who could be working but enjoy life
too much living off the state. Why are 1.65 million people unemployed when
it seems as if there’s a job for more or less anyone who wants one? Why are
2.4 million people claiming incapacity benefit when society is getting
healthier? In the past some of them would have been accused of “swinging the
lead”, “skiving”, “scrounging” or “cheating”. Now we’re told they need
“up-skilling” and then they would be only too happy to work (but for their
bad backs). We only need so many Polish waitresses because so many people
who were born and bred in Britain can’t be bothered to work. This week we
have seen a slight but important shift. Immigration has come out of the
closet. Even David Cameron, the most liberal Conservative leader for
decades, has decided it’s safe to discuss immigration openly. This is not
about race; it’s about numbers. I have been lectured on this, on separate
occasions, by several Asian Britons. They argue that their families came to
this country to work hard, get on, pay their taxes, earn a living.
Today, far too many immigrants – they tell me – wheedle their way into
Britain in order to benefit from the generosity of our welfare state. Asian
Britons resent this as much as anyone. And no wonder. Does anybody in the
country really want to see our population grow by almost half a million
every year so that in 24 years’ time it will have increased by almost 11
million? Do we really want to see the country devastated by another three
million houses or more over the next 12 years? Up to two thirds of these
houses are only needed to cater for immigrants. How on earth can we afford
to meet other costs – council housing, roads, hospitals and schools – linked
to this staggering increase in the population?
Do we really want increased taxes to meet the increased costs of an
increasing population? We must police our borders. Deport without debate
bogus asylum-seekers and illegal immigrants. Abandon the “human rights”
merry-go-round. Tell the EU we won’t take anyone from Bulgaria or Romania or
any other country which wants to “join Europe”. And get rid of the 11,000
foreigners in our jails.
Alas, the Government hasn’t got a clue how many people it’s let in already.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, the MP for Redditch, humiliatingly apologised
this week after claiming 800,000 migrant workers had come to Britain since
1997. Turns out the real figure is 1.1 million. First we’re told immigrants
took 30 per cent of the 2.7 million jobs created in the past decade. Then
the official figure was increased to 40 per cent. Now it’s 52 per cent –
making Gordon Brown’s promise of “British jobs for British workers” look
pretty silly. It’s all guesswork And they Government has even less of a clue
how many illegal immigrants there are. Of course it’s right that we share
the international burden of caring for genuine refugees fleeing persecution
and death. But we’re being exploited. Britain is seen around the world as a
soft touch.
We must remember that, as the grandmother I was talking to the other day
pointed out, charity begins at home.
Booker unspiked
The Bookers column uncensored part one
As David Cameron ends his first year as leader of the
Opposition, there are clear signs that the greatest gamble in modern British
politics has not come off. The little group of ex-public schoolboys who last
year hi-jacked the Conservative Party have seemed to gamble on just one
strategy. List everything the Party used to stand for – low taxes, the
family, rolling back the power of the state, encouraging business, upholding
our defences, curbing criminals, common sense – then go for the opposite.
The essence of the gamble has been the belief that, in wooing the support of
Lib Dems, would-be greenies, Guardian readers and the supposed "soft
centre", they could take their supposed "core" supporters for granted. But
as support for Cameron falters, all the evidence seems to suggest that those
wished-for new recruits to his "Not The Conservative Party" are not
forthcoming, while the Party's former natural supporters are left baffled,
dismayed and increasingly angry.
All this was neatly symbolised by the recent photo-opportunities staged by
the three men now competing for the role of Britain's prime minister. Mr
Blair and Mr Brown, aware that defence and national security (not long ago
rating 34 percent on a Mori poll) still rank very much higher as voter
priorities than "environmental" issues (only 8 percent), flew out to the
Iraq and Afghan battle-zones to pose in front of the largest guns they could
find. Mr Cameron, at the same time, flew out to the Sudan, in Lord
Ashcroft's CO2 emitting private jet, to be pictured cuddling a little
refugee child. It was the "Men from Mars" against "the Boy from Venus". "Darfur
Dave" did not come well out of the contrast.
The tragedy is that, confronted by the most corrupt, hypocritical,
inefficient, illiberal, discredited government in history, what millions of
voters are looking for is an alternative which might put an end to the
sleazy, self-regarding sham of the Blair era by displaying some "masculine"
firmness: in cutting back on the bloated public sector and the
out-of-control bureaucracy which is destroying our health service, education
and police; which might encourage enterprise; which might restore democracy
to local government; bring back some balance into our public finances; sort
out the shambles into which our Armed Forces are sliding; uphold Britain's
national interest, as we suffocate under the malfunctioning system of
government represented by the European Union.
In other words, what much of the country is crying out for is a party which
represents precisely those values which Mr Cameron's Not-The-Conservative
Party seems so hellbent on abandoning. As for what he stands for instead,
almost the only clear message Darfur Dave seems to have put over to the
voters is his sentimental "save the planet" greenery, on which his dotty
little gimmicks and practical ignorance have simply made him a laughing
stock.
What many voters sadly begin to conclude is that Dave and his cronies seem
so hopelessly ill-equipped to take on the serious business of government
that, if we have to choose between one gang of PR merchants and another,
better stick with the devil we know. Hence the evidence of the latest polls
appearing to show that the gamble has failed. Ever larger become the number
of would-be Conservatives sorely tempted to join that 40 percent who already
feel so alienated from politics that they just stay sullenly at home. But
the Guardian readers are scarcely flocking to replace them. So where does
all this leave our country?
Robin Page quit as a councillor for South
Cambridgeshire District Council after 36 years - He explains his decision
below
As the longest serving member of South Cambridgeshire
District Council, I am about to resign. I've had enough after more than 36
year serving my local community as an independent councillor, I can see no
point in carrying on.
This Government is systematically destroying democracy at local level
throughout Britain. To make the task easier it has removed the right of free
speech from councillors - absurd new regulations mean those who fight back
can now be hounded out of office, even though they have been democratically
elected.
It is an astonishing state of affairs, one that is succeeding in creating a
democratic deficit where councillors are prevented from properly
representing the people who elect them.
Last week, Communities and Local Government Secretary Ruth Kelly rolled out
a hastily cobbled together White Paper apparently designed to give councils
more autonomy. How? By forcing them to adopt measures that will inevitably
take power away from communities. It's typical of Labour's contempt for
local government. I've thought long and hard about my decision but I can see
no point in remaining as a councillor in a system that is undemocratic and
reeks of political deceit and corruption. And I am not alone.
It was all so different 36 years ago. Oddly, I had just lost my job - no
resignation then; I had been sacked. As a young civil servant I had been
worried about a cover-up over social security fraud by unscrupulous Labour
politicians (for those with long memories they were principally Richard
Crossman and David Ennals). For telling the truth as I saw it, and breaking
the Official Secrets Acts in the process, I was sacked.
Aged 26, with a naive but sincerely held view that I wanted to help my
village, I decided to stand in a by-election for South Cambridgeshire
District Council as an independent candidate, because I did not want to be
tied to the views of any particular political party. My reasons were simple.
As a conservationist - even then worried about the long-term future of the
planet - I wanted to make the district greener. I was worried about the
influx of people into the area and wanted to ensure planning decisions were
sensible and the voices of local people were heard on housing matters. I
also wanted to ensure elderly people and young married couples could stay
living locally - an essential part of maintaining the ethos of community.
My first election was nerve-racking. I was up against the village's Old
Labour organiser, who bizarrely looked just like Michael Foot. I won
comfortably and have since seen off Conservative, Liberal Democrat and
Labour candidates, including a socialist called Mark Todd, who later went on
to defeat the awful Edwina Currie in South Derbyshire and become an MP.
I was almost refused entry to my first council meeting because I wasn't
wearing a tie and was 30 years younger than the other councillors.
Who are you? I was asked by a suspicious security guard when I arrived ‘I’m
a new councillor’, I replied sheepishly.
'You don't look old enough,' he said. Eventually I managed to convince him
that I was in the right place.
Over the years, I have chaired a committee, represented the council at
numerous conferences, battled against the march of urbanisation that was
turning a rural district into a suburb district, and fought against the
politicisation of local government. Emptying dustbins should be an
independent community issue, not a political issue.
I had some notable successes, and also some failures. With a group of other
independent minds we
successfully introduced a conservation committee and the idea of
conservation areas into villages. I supported an attempt by a gifted
councillor to become our first woman chairman. Unfortunately she did not
make it - virtually all the other female councillors voted against her.
I tried but failed to get the council hold meetings in the evenings so a
wider cross-section of the community could stand for election.
Some ideas were ahead of their time. Twenty years ago I tried to make it
compulsory for all new buildings South Cambridgeshire to incorporate solar
panels for heating and electricity. Just like today, that innovation was
considered too expensive too expensive to try to save the planet.
Oh, and I had one great success that completely demolished any respect had
for the homeless charity Shelter. At a conference I heard the charity’s then
director claiming council rent arrears and evictions were all the fault of
local authorities and that with care and consideration rents would be paid
by virtually all council-house tenants and there would be no need to evict
anybody. So we invited Shelter to manage our rent arrears and bad payers -
surprise, surprise, the organisation said no. Apparently action did not
speak louder than words.
Of course, even then, not everything was perfect. I remember one council
forever pleading for development in parish in the interests' of the village.
What he forgot to say was he owned potential building land and that
development was very much in his own interests. He got his development and
pocketed his money. When questioned, he simply said he had forgotten to
mention his land and he was not even interviewed by the police.
He wasn't alone in working the system to his benefit. When my parish was
linked to the village of Grantchester, local resident Jeffrey Archer and his
'fragrant' wife Mary became voters.
One day Jeffrey phoned me. The former owner of the Archers' home, The Old
Vicarage, had retained a strip of land at the bottom of their garden and had
applied to renew the outline planning permission he had for the site.
Jeffrey claimed to be outraged at the prospect of part of our heritage being
despoiled by a new building. I agreed with him and caused a local stir about
this proposed vandalism.
'What are you doing?' the chief planning officer asked me. 'Archer simply
wants to buy it and hopes to pay an agricultural price for it and not a
development price.'
‘No, no,' I said innocently. 'Jeffrey would never use me like that, he's
quite sincere.'
Even so, the planning permission was renewed and Archer bought the land. Two
years later came another application to keep the outline planning permission
by ... yes, that's right, Jeffrey Archer.
These kinds of problems exist, of course, in councils across the land. But
they used to be places of open and vigorous debate, often followed by action
to help improve the lives of the local population.
I could always say what I thought, fight for my communities, tell the truth
and not hold grudges against those who disagreed with me. But I am no longer
allowed to express my views freely, vote as my conscience tells me or
represent the people who elected me in the way they, and I, would want.
So when and how did things change? It began in 2000 with New Labour's
Local Government Act. The old system of committees which gave each
councillor a voice was scrapped and a ‘Cabinet system was imposed, with the
Cabinet made up of 'portfolio holders'.
These holders have virtually taken ordinary councillors out of the
policy-making loop. Though councillors are allowed to attend these meetings
they cannot vote, thereby reducing their influence and creating an elite of
inflated egos with delegated power and increased allowances at taxpayers’
expense. In theory this was done to speed up decision-making; in practice it
diluted democracy.
But it didn't stop there. A ridiculous code of conduct was then introduce in
2001 - an exhaustive 22-page document covering everything from treating
others with respect to declaring any gifts or hospitality worth £25 or more,
it was aimed at controlling councillors what they could say and how they
said it. It is a code that severely restricts free speech and debate.
Previously a chairman would control councillors and the councillors
themselves would have to declare if they had pecuniary or non-pecuniary
interests. But under the new code virtually everything became a matter of'
‘prejudicial interest', which meant that if a councillor had previously
expressed views on a subject outside the council he was prejudiced and
therefore could not speak about it in council meetings. If he did, he would
be reported to a monitoring officer, the local Standards Committee and then
the Standards Board for England, an intimidating new London-based quango
employing 100 staff and a team of ethical standards officers each paid
£61,000 a year. It's a cross between Monty Python and a kangaroo court.
This absurd, undemocratic and intimidating system, in which informers,
commissars and quislings thrive, covers every parish council, district
council, county council and unitary authority in England. It's not just an
insult to the ideal of free speech, it causes anxiety and career-threatening
consequences to those who simply say and do what they believe.
This is, quite plainly, not a code of conduct but a Government gag.
Ironically, the man who introduced this neo-Stalinist nonsense was that
paragon of good behaviour, John Prescott, who is to democracy what Attila
the Hun was to flower arranging.
Mail on Sunday readers may remember I've already been hit twice by New
Labour's thought police for expressing my opinions. Three years ago I was
arrested and thrown into a police cell for saying: 'If you are a black,
vegetarian, Muslim, asylum-seeking, one-legged lesbian lorry driver I want
the same rights as you.' The charge was inciting racial hatred.
Then last year the Standards Board for England charged me with showing a
‘lack of respect' to a fellow councillor. I'd suggested her private meeting
with a developer about a project in the green belt was a 'soiree'. The
farce, which resulted in a public hearing, cost the council more than
£7,000. I was given a three-month suspension from attending the planning
committee and I had to be 'retrained'. It transpired later that none of the
three-member panel had been trained to run a tribunal.
The madness continues. At virtually every meeting I attend, I hear of
councillors (usually Lib Dems, many of whom seem to be both illiberal and
undemocratic) wanting to report me for some imagined politically incorrect
sin. Recently when the Lib Dims voted in unison like sheep, my reaction was
to say: ‘Baa.' Instead of laughing, some complained to the monitoring
office.
The point of the code of conduct is to prevent councillors opposing
development and Government targets. Tony Blair and John Prescott are
conducting a building bonanza across southern England which has nothing to
do with real housing need but is creating a phoney and unsustainable
economic boom.
There is another reason for all this, of course. Just as Herbert Morrison
once said he would 'build the Tories out of London’, so Labour is trying to
build the Tories out of Middle England. By speaking out against specific
developments, the code of conduct declares I have a prejudicial interest and
cannot express a further opinion on the matter. I have already spoken out
against "Stansted airport's second runway and a proposed incinerator three
miles from my village - all of which means I could be stopped from
representing my community on the same subjects at council meetings.
Indeed, because the incinerator smoke would blow over the parishes of
three-quarters of the councillors, we're all automatically barred from
debates on the subject. Even if there are great protests in our villages, we
will not be able to act. Taking this argument to its illogical conclusion,
we were actually told councillors owning mobile phones would not be allowed
to make decisions on phone masts.
Astonishingly, two independent councillors for the villages of Fenstanton
and Oakington have already been gagged. Massive development is taking place
around them and they were voted in specifically to fight the unsustainable
development. Now both have been barred from speaking and voting - and one
has even been banned from some meetings just because he can see the
development from his house.
Worse still, he is also said to have broken the law on 'predetermination'.
The Standards Board argues that, under common law that has been used since
the Forties, councillors who have already declared a view on any issue
cannot then vote on it or discuss it again because they may stop a fair
decision being made. In other words, this councillor is banned from doing
his job because has thought about the facts of an issue, come to a
conclusion, spoken about them and been elected as a result.
It is ludicrous and if applied to Parliament it would silence virtually
every MP and make political manifestos illegal. Apparently councillors have
to go into meetings with completely open minds and empty heads. I got voted
in for 36 years because I didn't have an open mind - I had opinions and a
large majority of my parishioners shared them. Real planning decisions have
been taken away from local government, with Westminster imposing its views
regardless of true democracy or the wishes of local people.
There are 20,000 new homes planned for South Cambridgeshire in the next
decade and 470,000 in time throughout East Anglia. This at a time when
Northern towns are crying out for investment and acres of housing are
falling into dereliction. Who are the houses for? At the last General
Election I asked if they were for immigrants. I was told no and it was
implied I was a racist. Now we learn that up to 70 per cent of the new
houses could be because of immigration. Before the expansion of the EU, the
forecast for Britain's population growth was virtually nil. After EU
expansion and an automatic right of entry for millions, the growth is high,
serious and guaranteed to lower the quality of life for those of us born
here. The new roads and buildings will increase light, air and noise
pollution; congestion will be worse, hospital waiting lists longer and
schools more crowded. Opposition to mass immigration is not based on racism
but environmental and social awareness.
Open EU borders have also brought in other problems to our villages -
gipsies. A policeman told me the other day they now had to call the gipsies
'travellers'. That's absurd: one of the main reasons there are problems is
that they have stopped travelling.
Some have come in from Ireland quite legally and set up camps quite
illegally. It would take the council years and hundreds of thousands of
pounds to move them. At a private meeting, a councillor recently said: 'We
should move the buggers on.' That member is now being harried by the
Standards Board - reported, of course, by a politically correct Lib Dim for
being disrespectful to gipsies and could soon be suspended.
The council is now run from a £17.5 million white elephant, South
Cambridgeshire Hall, built at the new village of Cambourne. Interestingly,
Cambourne was built on a green-field site, right next to an undeveloped
brownfield site. How did that happen?
To raise money for its new headquarters the council sold two prime sites in
Cambridge for modest sums. So far it has been impossible to find out who
first suggested the sale and the move.
The building itself looks like advanced Lego. When it rains the sound of
rainfall is so loud that staff can't hear themselves talk and many complain
of noise and cold. Of course it has won prizes architects are notorious
for awarding self-promoting accolades. Among its green highlights is a
bicycle shed with more than 100 cycle racks - when I last looked, eight of
them were being used.
It is hardly surprising with all this nonsense that our council has been
capped. We have been prevented from raising council tax to cover the cost of
the building, meaning many local services, including sheltered housing for
the elderly, have been hit badly and staff laid off.
Incredibly, at a recent meeting in which councillors were voting to lay off
staff out of economic desperation, they also voted to increase their own
allowances - there's public service for you. The Audit Commission has been
called in and it could even give more powers to the Government as a result.
So after 36 years, I'm sorry to say I can see no further point in serving as
a councillor. When I was 26 I felt proud of Britain's reputation for
democracy. On visiting the House of Commons, the Mother of Parliaments, my
pride was reinforced still more.
Now when I pass the Commons I feel nothing but contempt for the jobsworths,
self-servers and freeloaders inside. Perhaps when Blair gets out of Iraq he
will get out of local government here too, and give the British people back
their democracy.
Somehow I doubt it.
Aussie Rules
Immigrants, not Australians, must adapt - Take it or Leave
It.
I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some
individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali, we have
experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians. However,
the dust from the attacks had barely settled when the 'politically correct'
crowd began complaining about the possibility that our patriotism was
offending others. I am not against immigration, nor do I hold a grudge
against anyone who is seeking a better life by coming to Australia. However,
there are a few things that those who have recently come to our country, and
apparently some born here, need to understand. This idea of Australia being
a multicultural community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our
national identity. As Australians, we have our own culture, our own society,
our own language and our own lifestyle. This culture has been developed over
two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and
women who have sought freedom. We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish,
Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language.
Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society, learn the language!
Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian, right wing,
political push but a fact because Christian men and women, on Christian
principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is
certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God
offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your
new home, because God is part of our culture. We will accept your beliefs
and will not question why, all we ask is that you accept ours and live in
harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us. If the Southern Cross offends you,
or you don't like "A Fair Go", then you should seriously consider a move to
another part of this planet. We are happy with our culture and have no
desire to change, and we really don't care how you did things where you came
from. By all means keep your culture but do not force it on others. This is
OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every
opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whining,
and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way of
Life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian
freedom, 'THE RIGHT TO LEAVE'. If you aren't happy here then LEAVE. We
didn't force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country
YOU accepted. Pretty easy really, when you think about it.
Anon Aussie.
Booker Uncut
One reason why British troops continue to be killed and
injured in southern Iraq is that they are expected to patrol in
lightly-armoured Land Rovers which give them no protection against roadside
bombs and rocket-propelled grenades, Meanwhile their American counterparts
walk away unscathed, even when their RG31 armoured patrol vehicles are hit
by the same explosives, because these are designed to protect them against
precisely the same dangers. Yet the Ministry of Defence has not seen fit to
equip the British Army with the RG31, even though it is built by a
British-owned company.
This is a small but chilling example of the extraordinary shambles the MoD
is making of Britain’s defences, thanks not least to the way Tony Blair is
trying to pursue two totally contradictory policies at the same time, This
has not been properly appreciated because media coverage of defence has
become so scrappy that we have lost sight of the overall picture.
We hear, for instance, about prosecutions of British soldiers for supposed
‘human rights abuses’, the abolition of ancient regiments and some of the
more ambitious defence projects on which the MoD is spending tens of
billions of pounds, such as the Eurofighter or the two giant aircraft
carriers planned for the Royal Navy. But no one fits all the pieces of this
jigsaw together.
On one hand, as we saw yet again with his recent visit to Washington, Mr
Blair tries to keep in with the Americans, by committing thousands of
hard-pressed and ill-equipped British troops to fighting the insurgencies in
Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush and Blair still like to talk of keeping alive the
Joint Strike Fighter project, the last major example of Anglo-US
collaboration on military hardware.
On the other, as we saw again with his subsequent visit to President Chirac,
Mr Blair has stealthily agreed to Britain playing a key role in the planned
European Rapid Reaction Force. For this he and the MoD have been prepared to
restructure the British Army, scrapping the old regiments, and to commit
colossal sums to buying every kind of European equipment, as well as those
giant carriers we are to build with the French. All this is to meet the
‘Helsinki goals’ agreed by EU leaders including Mr Blair in 1999, by which
an integrated European defence force is to be brought about.
For the MoD, the top priority has been to get on with meeting those Helsinki
commitments, co-ordinated by the European Defence Agency in Brussels, headed
by a former senior MoD official Nick Witney, which will enable us to play
our part in creating that EU expeditionary force. To this end the MoD has
been prepared to spend billions on EU-made missiles, ships, trucks,
artillery and armoured vehicles, not to mention a French-led project to
build unmanned aircraft which Blair discussed with Chirac earlier this
month, following Britain’s withdrawal from a similar joint-project with the
US.
But what this has left is a British Army starved of proper resources for its
current tasks, so overstretched that it must rely on thousands of
territorial soldiers, its morale sapped by the dangerous lack of proper
equipment and by the MoD’s insistence on enforcing the European Convention
on Human Rights in situations to which it was never intended to apply.
The real problem is that all this has been so hidden away behind layers of
stealth and deception that no one ever asks any longer that fundamental
question: what are our armed forces for? Behind the scenes, the driving
force of national policy is to fit us to play our part in building up a
European expeditionary force, capable of operating anywhere in the world.
But no one can explain the purpose of such a force, for essentially it has
only one: to promote the cause of European integration.
This leaves us, in an increasingly darkling world, with forces ill-designed
to protect any national British interests. Indeed, so dependent are we now
becoming on equipment bought from our EU partners, including our most basic
guns and ammunition, that it will soon be inconceivable that we could
operate without their consent.
Meanwhile our armed services, which until recently we still prided ourselves
on being the most professional in the world, are being asked to perform
dangerous tasks, knowing that they no longer have much practical support
from a Government bent on exploiting them politically, for purposes they
find it increasingly hard to understand.
When the final charge sheet is drawn up against the way Mr Blair governed
this country, one of the most damning charges will be the way in which he
destroyed its armed forces. Yet the remarkable thing will be how almost
nobody at the time noticed it was happening.
----------
Few people south of the border are yet aware of the tragedy unfolding in
Scotland, where there are now proposals for 200 wind farms, from Sutherland
and the Isle of Lewis down to the Borders. These include no fewer than 6,622
turbines, many 400 feet high, covering more than 1,000 square miles. If all
these are built, according to the Scottish Wind Assessment Project, which
has just published a map of these sites, there will be scarcely ‘a single
view in Scotland where you cannot see one of these windmills’.
Last week I spoke to Olive Repton, a 74-year old farmer in Dumfriesshire,
one of thousands of campaigners against this devastation of Scotland’s
countryside. On Wednesday a public inquiry opened into a proposal for 71
colossal turbines to dominate the hills where she has farmed for decades.
Another opens shortly into a proposal for 161 more in the nearby Upper Clyde
valley.
Few of these schemes will be turned down because the Scottish Executive is
so infatuated by the fantasy of wind power that by 2020 it dreams of
generating 40 percent of Scotland’s energy from renewable sources, double
its EU target. What makes this so alarming is that wind turbines are so
inefficient and expensive that, economically, they make no sense at all
(without the hidden 100 percent subsidy paid by all of us through our
electricity bills, it would not pay anyone to build them), As for their
supposed environmental benefits, not only are these absurdly overstated in
terms of ‘combating ‘global warming‘; somehow, in environmental terms, the
loss of Scotland’s unique landscape to these vast steel structures is never
taken into account.
Forty years ago we pointlessly sacrificed the skylines of our cities to
building tower blocks of council flats, many of which have since had to be
demolished. When this mad obsession with turbines comes to be seen as a
similar fantasy, who will then restore the wild beauty of those Scottish
hills?
----------
Who holds the record for the largest number of complaints made to the
Standards Board for England under Mr Prescott’s Code of Conduct for
councillors? In March I reported that Richard Thomas, a town councillor in
Shaftesbury, Dorset, had been the subject of 10 complaints from his
colleagues. All were eventually rejected, one costing council taxpayers over
£20,000.
Although Councillor Thomas now tells me he has since been the subject of two
further complaints, bringing his score to 12, he points out that his own
efforts are dwarfed by the 36 complaints made against Lib Dem ‘Cabinet’
members of Cheltenham borough council by Christine Laird, the council’s
former chief executive. This long running battle between Ms Laird and senior
local councillors is estimated to have cost taxpayers nearly £400,000,
before she was sacked.
Not the least striking feature of Mr Prescott’s system is the way it can
poison relations between councillors and officials by encouraging them to
‘sneak’ on each other by raising nitpicking complaints, the vast majority of
which are then found to be groundless. But for both taxpayers and
councillors this is proving to be an expensive sport, as in the notorious
saga when a three-year investigation of complaints made by a Labour
councillor against five Lib Dem members of Islington council ended up
costing more than £1 million. This included a bill of £350,000 for the legal
fees the victims had to pay to clear their names. At least in that case the
Standards Board was good enough eventually to apologise. But might it not
save a great deal of trouble if the whole absurd system was scrapped?
----------
Corrections
The Cheshire villagers invited by the police to pay £423 per household for
the services of a ‘dedicated community support officer’ live not in Malpas,
as I wrote last week, but in the nearby hamlet of Chorlton, which shares its
postal address.
A friendly letter from Diageo points out that Smirnoff would not be affected
by a Brussels proposal that the term ‘vodka’ could only be used for products
distilled from potatoes or grain, because it is made from grain. It would
not therefore have to be renamed ‘white spirit’, unlike vodkas made from
other materials such as sugar beet, or that which Diageo makes in France
from grape skins.
Flea
Bites And Freedom
Tom Utley in the Telegraph says quitting the E.U.
should be the start of regaining our freedoms.
Conspiracy at the heart of the European
Union - By John Blundell (Director General of the Institute of Economic
Affairs)
One of the great clichés of
politics is that Britain has no written Constitution. Like all such stale
propositions it is wrong. Britain’s constitution is called the Treaty of
Accession. It has been supplemented by the Treaties of Maastricht and Nice.
It leaves us with an increasingly constricted area of national discretion.
Our politicians can chunter about schools and healthcare while most other
important topics are controlled or directed by the European Union (EU).
Remember Winston Churchill’s phrase about “fighting them on the beaches”.
Well our beaches are entirely subject to the European Commission’s
directives. Britain cannot be responsible for the cleanliness of its shores,
it seems. The EU is such an ambitious imperial force it is now assuming
central control of defence procurement. Her Majesty the Queen will no longer
have enemies for her military to fight. Martial matters are to be commanded
by the EU.
You think I am exaggerating? We have the Department of Trade and Industry
(DTI), which determines Britain’s policies on all the commercial horizons.
No, it does not. The DTI has few residual functions that matter. It is
largely the messenger boy for the instructions from the Commission.
These complex and detailed commands can be found, though I agree few of us
look, in the “acquis communautaire”, the bulky handbook that is the 86,000
pages- long body of European law. These are not amiable abstractions or
expressions of goodwill. They are the body of laws under which every British
business operates.
Chancellor Gordon Brown told the Labour Party conference last September :“
If we are to make poverty history we must make the scandal and waste of
agricultural protectionism history.” Yet what can the British Chancellor of
the Exchequer actually do? He has no powers to relax the organised
corruption that is the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). If, or when, he
became our Prime Minister he could still do nothing. He can mutter. He can
exhort. He has no executive authority. He has no levers. The CAP cannot be
dented by words. It is the creation of the Commission. It is cocooned. Where
is Britain’s trade policy devised now? The answer is the Article 133
Committee. It never publishes its deliberations. It meets in secret. Nobody
joining its proceedings has ever been elected by anybody. Nor can they be
dismissed. This is a conclave far more secretive than anything from the Da
Vinci Code.
What do they do? They operate subtle but effective protectionist measures. “
Health and Safety Standards” sound rather positive but in reality they are a
bluff to deter African farmers exporting their nuts, cereals and fruits on
the pretext they may have been treated with aflatoxin. The Commission’s own
advisers admit the “danger” is a mirage. Not one in a billion citizens would
be poisoned. The Article 133 team also devise “anti-dumping measures”
against non European food. Don’t you feel lucky these unseen figures are
protecting you so diligently from cheaper products? It is all very odd.
British business seems to be sleepwalking. It may be unkind but I cannot
resist saying I think the EU’s game is up when you examine its admirers. The
Confederation of British Industry (CBI) bleats its loyalty to the Commission
and its baffling ritual phrase “level playing fields”. Trade benefits
precisely from differences not uniformities. Comparative advantage, the
heart of economics, is a notion that continues to elude the CBI. I am struck
how the senior voices of British business, long mute on these themes, are
now speaking out. I identify a number of names who are no longer too timid
to speak out for reform. Tim Melville Ross, Sir Michael Angus, Lord
Sainsbury, Sir Brian Williamson, Rupert Hambro, David Ord, Stuart Rose and
Simon Wolfson are shrewd men. They can all see Britain’s business is with
all of the world rather than our 23 continental neighbours.
The conspiracy at the heart of the EU, and I’m sure that is the correct
word, is to create a United States of Europe in emulation of the United
States of America. This was exposed when the Dutch and French electorate
rejected the idea. Yet these mishaps have not deflected the Commission from
its anti-capitalist hostility to free market spontaneity. My reservations
would be diminished if the leading exponents of the EU “project” were ever
frank about their grand plan.
I admit that I scoffed at the time of the 1975 European Referendum. I
regarded those who said there would be an EU currency, industrial policy and
defence and foreign policy as fanciful.
What powers do unfortunate Cabinet Ministers actually wield? The substantive
powers of Secretaries of State are evaporating. Real discretion accrues to
the Commission each week. It is not long into criticism of the EU before the
reprimand “Little Englander” is spoken. This is encouraging. This indicates
brain death has occurred among the apologists for the Commission’s bizarre
autarchic regime. Those of us who want to renounce the EU are not
protectionists. We want to be open to the world. The Little Englanders
wanted to preserve the Corn Laws, ancestor of the CAP. The Common Market has
decayed into something less than wholesome. It is an impediment to market
processes. I believe it is a policy cul de sac from which we will eventually
withdraw. Some seem to fear Britain would be punished in an unspecified way
by angry eurocrats incited by the impertinence of Britons waving “au revoir”.
No doubt the nitty gritty detail of renouncing membership would be complex
but in essence it could not be more simple. British businesses would start
to live under UK law again. The great euro-tax of VAT could be cut. I fancy
an easy rate of 10%. My strong hunch is commerce would flourish and Brown’s
tax harvest would be boosted.
Which bits of the ceiling would fall in? I can think of none. It is true a
few hundred Brits riding on the gravy train would be discomforted when it
hit the buffers. They could find more useful things to do. MEPs could be re-
trained into value adding roles though they will have to learn to pay for
their own meals and transport again.
Make a leap of imagination. It is not a difficult mind experiment. The weeks
after the UK ceases to be a province of “the Belgian Empire”, as Lady
Thatcher termed it, we can liberalise our economy on every front. It is true
we would be free to select preposterous options – higher taxes, or dafter
regulations – but this is not in the grain of our political culture.
Although we have been bound by EU rules for 35 years now, half of our trade
remains outside the Commission's control. I do not think that patterns of
trade would alter dramatically. Yet over time our economy, unencumbered by
the Commission, would reconnect with the rest of the planet.
Is this a bit too abstract ? Look at the European nations that are
flourishing best. They are Switzerland, Iceland and Norway. What do they
have in common? Yes, you guessed correctly. Business will bubble with
success when free of this drizzle of directives that is the EU.
The Cartoons
David Conway from Civitas on what could be behind the reaction to those
cartoons.
Immigration - a Reality Check
We cannot publish this article here for copyright reasons. So to read it click
here.
And then they came
First they came for the hunters, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a fisherman.
Then they came for the smokers, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a drinker.
Then they came for my identity, and I didn’t speak up, because I felt secure.
Then they came for the countryside, and I didn’t speak up, because I live in a town.
Then they came for the family, and I didn’t speak up, because I was single.
Then they came for the farmers, and I didn’t speak up, because my belly was full.
Then they came for the drivers, and I didn’t speak up, because I took the bus.
Then they came for the jobs, and I didn’t speak up, because I was on benefit.
Then they came for the army, and I didn’t speak up, because there was no threat.
Then they came for freedom, and I didn’t speak up, because I was offended.
Then they came for my vote, and I didn’t speak up, because It wouldn't make a difference.
Then they came for my country, and I didn’t speak up, because it seemed like history.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left just me.
With kudos to Pastor Martin Niemöller
A View from EU - Mike Nattrass MEP Deputy Leader UKIP
There is no doubt that the influx of UKIP MEPs in July 2004 into the EU parliament was a spanner in the works of the EU project later encapsulated by the Dutch in their vote NO slogan Strike back at the Empire. Our team of MEPs have commercial experience from various walks of life and work together as a strong and united team. If the EU were to pass a directive outlawing stupidity the Brussels parliament would close. The UKIP MEPs have in 12 months made 86 speeches to the parliament pointing to issues of fraud, bad directives and waste and have proved that changing the direction of the massive EU tanker known as The Bullship is impossible. The only way is out. In addition to the parliamentary session UKIP MEPs attend the various EU committees, in my case Transport and Tourism (presumably they threw them together because they begin with) this committee also oversees the Galileo project, which is a satellite with precision bombing potential. The main criterion for membership of a committee appears to be knowing nothing about the subject. Committees are therefore filled with well meaning but misguided amateurs, with no commercial experience, these good souls make inspirational directives closing down industry, while they in sublime ignorance trot off for their real objective i.e. to claim their expenses.
Because of the strength and support of the membership UKIP continue to progress. Independence and Democracy, our group in the EU parliament continues to grow in strength and has 37 members. The “NO” votes in France and Holland were lead by group characters and the bond between UKIP and our continental allies has strengthened. You can meet these friends at the conference in London on 7th October. Sadly our ten Poles and their amazing humour will not be present owing to elections in Poland. The newspapers failed to report the assault on my assistant for holding a “NO” sign in the Strasbourg parliament building when all around were holding “YES” to the constitution. She was correctly standing in an area where she was authorised and not saying anything just standing with the others. She was punched in the left breast, through the sign, to the floor and dragged down the corridor by five guards. The subsequent enquiry resulted in a statement that the guards were doing their job. Not worthy of a report? Our Poles have constantly compared the EU with the USSR and this kind of action helps the case. Yet the “Independent” when it found out that our South Staffs candidate had restored a “Messerschmitt” said that UKIP members collect “Nazi memorabilia”, the fact that the plane was built in the 1970s must mean they also feel the “Airbus” is Nazi memorabilia. .In any event where do they get the concept? The Sunday Times said I was playing “Air Guitar” with Tom Wise, while Le Penn was dancing at an event where all MEPs were invited. My wife was with me and, like me, recalls nothing. In any event I never go anywhere near Le Penn and my air guitar was at home! This is the normal quality of journalism that UKIP recognises. The hacks try to undermine our image and confuse UKIP with all kinds of nasty things that we are not. Nothing was said when we got over 10.5% at the South Staffs parliamentary election, although the BBC indicated that we “scraped our
deposit back” they presumably know that 5% returns the deposit ! Nor did they point out that our vote was not at the expense of the Tory who increased his majority, spoiling another newspaper myth. I was asked to define EU citizenship by a newspaper who then did not print it, please read on and ask yourself why?
EU Citizenship
There can be no finer way of adopting EU Citizenship than by emulating the example of those who set the standard i.e. The Commissioners and MEPs of the EU Parliament. The same people who introduce directives to bind their citizens then smoke in the parliament dining room, ignoring the signs they themselves invoke. The President in June outlined the fact that he had no need to declare his perks, even when the perk donor was the recipient of EU money, a fact that almost all MEPs endorsed. The only British MEPs that objected to this were the members of UKIP and 5 Tories against their whip, one of whom was thrown out of his group for agreeing the point. Obviously bad EU citizens. This high standard is again illustrated by the French Commissioner who, prior to taking his post failed to disclose his suspended sentence for embezzlement involving £2.5m. Once this was exposed by UKIP he was endorsed in his post by the vast majority of MEPs showing they are good EU citizens. The EU shows the best practice for EU citizens in accounting standards by failing the audit for 10 years. This with a current annual budget of 106,000,000,000 Euros. Spending 3.5m euros per year on introducing Irish as the 21st EU language, whilst African citizens go blind for the want of a few pence, illustrates the priority of EU citizenship. The re-writing of history is essential to protect the eyes of EU citizens. The First World War was a civil war and the Germans were not in the second. This point was contested by our Polish MEPs who were told no they were Nazis. It is essential as an EU citizen to believe in harmonisation and trample all over the traditions of the people. The Czechs close restaurants in Prague because their traditional food cannot be sold as it must be illegally exposed for more than four hours without refrigeration. But harmonisation comes to the rescue in the form of Mc Donald's. The French appear to believe in French citizenship and avoid taking rules like this seriously; their cheese therefore is as good as ever.
The EU takes massive volumes of fish from the West coast of Africa, putting local fishermen into poverty, whist giving compensation to the political leaders. These same EU fishing citizens kill dolphins because they have no regard for safe methods of fishing. This despite the exposure of the facts. The long distance transportation of cattle across Europe and the 11.8m lives of animals needed for experimentation if the REACH directive is passed show that EU citizenship does not involve friendship to animals. In short it would appear that EU citizenship has yet to be civilised by the adoption of British standards or in the words of my friend Tom Wise MEP, If the EU is the answer, it must have been a stupid question. We are winning the argument and educating the public to the truth about the EU. I hope you can see the progress and are pleased to be part of it. Thank you for your continued support.
Tax, Public Spending and Everything Else:
The Sorry Truth about The Conservative Hidden Agenda by Dr Sean Gabb
(Abridged for Space)
After several weeks of appearing to do well, the Conservatives have, by general agreement, just wrecked their pre-election campaign. Apparently, the Deputy Party Chairman - a man called Howard Flight, of whom I had previously never heard - gave a speech last Wednesday evening to a closed meeting. During this, he promised his audience that the true scale of spending cuts intended by a Conservative Government would only become clear after winning the general election. This promise was somehow reported to the media - first rule of speaking to a closed meeting: there is no such thing as a closed meeting: every statement is as much on the record as if made in a television studio - and the man has had his political career ended as a punishment. He has been sacked from his job and deselected from his seat in Parliament. His colleagues are now running desperately from studio to studio, putting on their usual headless chicken performance.
If I still had any intention of voting for these people at the election, or any hope that they would win, or that they would do anything worth calling conservative if they managed to win, I might share the dejection of my Conservative friends. But I long ago gave up all hope in the Conservative Party, and I am instead in my rather gloomy way amused. The Government and its Enemy Class allies in the media are glorying in the revelation and are speaking solemnly about the Conservative hidden agenda of real spending cuts. The evident truth, however, is that so far as the Conservatives have any hidden agenda, it is not to have an agenda.
The Conservative strategy for winning the next general election has two elements. The first is to hope for the Labour vote to collapse. There is some reason to hope for this. The white working classes are beginning to realise that Labour is not their party. Its economic interventions are determined far more by the desire of big business for cartelised markets than by the stated wishes of ordinary people for security. The rest of its domestic policy is dictated in part from Brussels, and for the rest by the needs of a politically correct cultural revolution that is stripping us all of our ancient liberties and our national identity.
The promise to renegotiate some of the European treaties is backed by no commitment to withdraw from the European Union if the stated demands are not met. It amounts therefore to an undertaking to behave like an aggressive and foul-mouthed but paraplegic beggar - all demands for performance, without the means to compel it. How anyone was able to take the Conservatives seriously on Europe would defeat my understanding, if large numbers did. Fortunately, large numbers do not take them seriously, and my understanding remains undefeated.
As for immigration, even if seriously intended, the quota system would be unworkable. There would be institutional pressures for the limit to be exceeded every year: there would always be exceptional circumstances. The proposed points system, whereby better educated immigrants would be substituted for the mass of welfare claimants who presently are coming in, would be corrupted in no time. If a genuine British passport can be bought for £2,000, how much for an Indian MBA, or for a Chinese degree in computer science? And there are no significant proposals to deal with secondary immigration by dependants.
Labour may play along with these Quisling Right initiatives, by warning of the costs of leaving Europe, or denouncing the Conservatives for playing the race card. But we can be assured that no changes are proposed in either issue to the established trends - or in any other issue of importance. For the Conservatives, political success means no more than that they sit in the official cars, and they preside over the next round of national destruction. That a Conservative Government should be a government of conservatives is no part of their strategy.
I tested this hypothesis, by the way, when I had dinner last month with a senior Conservative politician. I asked him if his people had any plan to abolish bodies like the Commission for Racial Equality and the Health and Safety Executive. Would they shut down large parts of the ideological and repressive state apparatus, thereby making our lives better and even paying for a few extra tax cuts? He pulled a sad face and said that nothing like this had even been discussed, and that, bearing in mind the
sort of people who run his Party, he personally saw no point in trying to trying to get it discussed.
And so we are able to explain the otherwise inexplicable digression the Conservatives made earlier this month into abortion law reform. Why did they do this? Why, in a country where hardly anyone seems to care either way, were they talking about limiting the time for legal abortions? Were they copying the tactics of the American Republicans without considering the very different state of public opinion in England? The answer is no. This was a Quisling Right approach to groups previously overlooked. Though most people in this country would rather not think about it, there may be several hundred thousand Christians, Moslems and Jews who do care about the number of viable pregnancies terminated because they are inconvenient. Were they to win the next election, the Conservatives would, of course, leave the law unchanged. But the issue was raised and discussed; and while most electors have probably forgotten it was ever raised at all, many within the targeted groups now think the Conservatives have promised to change the law. This was a smooth and probably successful raid on an electoral interest.
What happened this week was of the same nature, but failed. It was another Quisling Right approach, this time to a group that was thought to favour cuts in government spending. The assumption is that most ordinary people like to see about half their income taken and spent on their individual and collective ruin. This being so, cuts must never be promised in public. The most that can be discussed is how to trim the rate of increase in spending to below the rant of general economic growth. But some groups are known even by Conservative politicians to want lower taxes, and these must be kept on side.
Hitler used to specialise before 1933 in making different promises to different groups in closed meetings. Either he was brighter than our Conservatives - and this would not be hard - or closed meetings were more closed in his day. Whatever the case, the Conservatives have had their Easter break ruined. And they richly deserve their present embarrassment. They are political frauds. By continuing to exist and to show some prospect of being able to win an election, they attract funding and votes from genuinely conservative parties. Yes, this Labour Government is dreadful. But this is not good enough reason for thinking that another Conservative Government would be in our long term national interest. We need to destroy New Labour. Before then, though, we need to destroy the Conservative Party. The Enemy Class media has its own reasons for kicking the Conservatives down. But this media should be regarded in this respect as objectively allied to the forces of conservatism.
I know some of my readers will think my closing sally disrespectful. But I really cannot help myself. The Conservatives have been crucified today. Is it too much to hope they will not be resurrected on the third day?
Zero growth is too high by Martin Hutchinson
©
United Press International
The Indian Ocean tsunami tragedy, and its 150,000 casualties, reminds us fortunate Westerners that too many of the world's people live in places and conditions that we would consider intolerable. The problem is not the world economy, it's world population, which has doubled in the last 50 years. The Zero Population Growth campaign of the 1970s was misguided in one respect: zero growth is too high, we need a reduction! With a world population of 6.4 billion and rising, concentrations of huge numbers of people in unsafe and squalid conditions are inevitable. The loss of life from the tsunami wasn't as bad as it might have been -- think for a moment of the potential loss of life had it hit Bangladesh, a country largely consisting of river deltas, with a population of 140 million people at a density of 2,300 per square mile, the highest in the world.
With the United Nations forecasting world population increasing to 9.1 billion in 2050, almost all of the increase coming in poor countries, this problem is only going to get worse. If world population were to increase in the second half of the 21st Century at the same speed as it did in the second half of the 20th, it would be 18 billion by 2100, a clearly unsustainable figure. Ecological decay, use of resources, overcrowding, disease and poverty are all made worse by excess population; it is time we tackled these problem at their source. Historically, it is a remarkable fact that the richest societies have been those where some natural catastrophe has wiped out a large portion of the population, or where population is far below the level that the land can support. In England, for example, the highest living standards for the working and middle classes before the very late nineteenth century came not in the technologically sophisticated but quite heavily populated eighteenth century, but 300 years earlier, with a peak around 1475. The reason was nothing to do with any technological advance; a third of England's population had been wiped out by the Black Death in 1347-8 and population stayed low for the next 150 years, kept down by further plagues and outbreaks of war.
Builders' wages (a proxy for working class living standards) more than doubled in real terms between 1320-40 and 1470-1510. Then, as population increased (and Henry VIII rewarded the rich and impoverished the poor through heavy taxation, debasement of the currency and the Dissolution of the Monasteries) wages began to fall sharply. By 1630, in Charles 1st's reign, when population was about the same as in 1330, builders' wages were less than a quarter in real terms of their level 150 years earlier, and -- remarkably -- less than half their level 300 years earlier (this statistic should give us rather more sympathy for Charles 1st's difficulties, in my view.) After about 1650, living standards began a gentle rise through the eighteenth century, and a rather more rapid rise through the nineteenth, reaching their 1330 level about 1810-1820, but their 1475 level only around 1880-1900.
The legend of a medieval Merrie England is quite real; you'd have been Merrie around 1475 if you were earning twice what your grandfather had earned, and more than your descendents were to earn for the next 400 years!
Adam Smith has a passage in his 1776 Wealth of Nations remarking on the high living standards prevalent in new colonies particularly those that were to form the United States, the richest society in the world at that time, unlike its position today (when several European countries and Japan are richer). The same effect appeared in Australia a century later; that country was the richest in the world in 1880-1890, but had a population of only 3 million.
Throughout human history it has been demonstrated, that provided knowledge, law and infrastructure are not destroyed (yes, the Dark Ages, even though depopulated, were indeed Dark) a country that has suffered a population drop, or is for some other reason far below its population potential, will be wealthy, in terms of the living standards of its people. Conversely, a country whose population has been increasing in an unchecked manner will have low living standards, high unemployment and high crime, even if it is technologically sophisticated by the standards of its day, as was Charles I's Britain.
Thomas Malthus, in his 1798 Essay on Population forecast that population would increase exponentially, but food supply only linearly (he considered only bringing new land into production, not technological and genetic advances in farming) so that we would all starve to death. Malthus was wrong at the time, but may in fact simply have been about 250 years early, when not only food but the other necessities of life, and in particular the planet's ecosystem are properly considered.
It now appears that global warming has produced a rise of only 0.6 degrees Celsius since 1970, and may produce a rise of 1.5-2.0 degrees Celsius by 2100. That is nowhere near enough to justify the hundreds of billions that would have to be spent were anyone to take the Kyoto Agreement seriously. It is however a matter of concern if population keeps on increasing. It must be clear that each billion increase in the world's population drives us closer to some ecological or resource barrier that cannot be overcome, or can only be overcome by decimating our living standards and handing over to government the control over huge swathes of the economy. Conversely, if population were to decrease, resources would last longer, the ecological dangers facing us would recede, and people would no longer need to farm or inhabit marginal land where the danger of human tragedy was so high.
It's clear that the surge in world population since 1800, that carried it from around 1 billion to today's 6.4 billion, was to a large extent artificial, produced by industrialization raising people's living, health and sanitation standards before wealth reduced their propensity to reproduce themselves. In a world in which we were all wealthy, the reproduction level adopted by Italy, Russia and Japan, of 1.3 babies per mother, less than the 2.1 that stabilizes population, might become more or less universal. However, we don't live in such a world; in the world we inhabit, population continues to increase rapidly, and may easily reach a level at which human living standards start to degrade seriously, at which point fertility would very likely rise again rather than falling. In other words, we are quite close to an unstable tipping point and had better draw back before we get there.
A world population of 1 billion would appear to offer plenty of advantages, and no obvious disadvantages. Since Shakespeare and Newton appeared within a century in an English population of only 4 million, 1 billion should be ample to preserve diversity of the species and ensure an adequate supply of superlative talent. Conversely, a world population of 1 billion would enable the entire globe to enjoy a middle class lifestyle, without farming marginal or ecologically dangerous areas, and without any danger of resource exhaustion or ecological disaster (just getting environmentalists away from the levers of power is probably worth 5 percent in Gross World Product per capita, on its own!) Since 1 billion was what we started with in 1800, it seems a reasonable long term target.
Assuming we don't suffer a nuclear war or a Black Death (which heaven forbid) reducing world population to 1 billion will require a substantial change in world demographic patterns, in which the Third World adopts approximately Italian/Russian/Japanese reproduction patterns, and then sustains them for about 200 years. Here we reach a problem, that of the Prisoners' Dilemma nature of countries' population policies.
Economic and to a lesser extent military power are dependent on GDP, growth in which in turn depends on satisfactory economic performance and growth in population. Because of their high rates of economic growth, if present trends are close to continuing China will be more powerful than Europe in 2050 and India almost as powerful, while the United States will have barely maintained a lead, largely owing to high immigration to the U.S. and the high fertility of its immigrants.
These changes have important strategic implications, and it's folly to expect them to be welcomed by the politicians concerned. Thus every country is subject to the classic Prisoners' Dilemma: if it encourages high fertility, it will increase its gross economic and military power at the expense of its rivals, but only if all countries encourage low fertility will world welfare be maximized.
This dilemma does not seem to have occurred to the current generation of politicians, of if it has, they are playing the Prisoners' Dilemma game in a very selfish, wealth-destroying way. The United States is rejoicing in its high population growth compared with the E.U. -- another 3 million Americans in 2004 -- and trumpeting its faster rate of increase in GDP, without correcting for population growth. China, it was reported last week, is considering relaxing its one child policy in order to increase the country's population. E.U. officials make anguished speeches about a demographic deficit, whereby there might in the future be fewer Europeans. And so on.
What's needed is a World Population Treaty, which binds participants to work towards the eventual goal of reducing world population to 1 billion, and, as a first step, to bring forward as close as possible the magic date on which world population ceases to increase and starts diminishing. On current United Nations figures, world population is expected to be 9.1 billion in 2050, peaking at just below 10 billion around 2070. By my rough calculations, with good policy the world's population in 2050 can be reduced only marginally, to about 8.3 billion, but the date when it starts decreasing can be brought forward substantially, from 2070 to 2047. This would ensure that world population in 2100 is slightly below its level today, and well on the way to its 1 billion goal, to be achieved about 2250.
The World Population Treaty, which like the failed Kyoto Treaty should bind all participants once representatives of 50 percent of the world population have signed (so India and China's assent would be essential) would incorporate a number of methods to reach its goals. Since the impoverished normally have large families in order to provide for their old age, it would provide a modest old age pension for the over-70s in the Third World, of whom there are not very many, which would be administered by a body independent of the local government. In the same way as President George W. Bush's Millennium Challenge plan, it would provide for foreign aid payments only to those countries that established appropriate anti-natalist policies, and preferential trade treatment for such countries. It would provide for a 5-yearly review, and a system of rewards and penalties for those countries that attained or missed agreed birth rate goals.
How should the United States persuade Europe and other countries to adopt this treaty? Simple. It should refuse to enter any negotiations on the environment or trade until a WPT has been signed. Thus the E.U. and the left, seeking an extension of the Kyoto Treaty, and the right and business, seeking a Doha round of trade negotiations, would be forced to suspend their agendas until a population treaty had been negotiated and signed. It's that important; as the Indonesian tsunami tragedy has shown, it may even be that urgent.
The True British Government by Donald Stevens
The British have developed the ideal form of government. It is tripartite – having three vital parts. Formerly it was composed of the King, the Barons, and the People. This became: King, Nobles, and People. When Parliament became a vital part of our country, this became King, Parliament, and People.
This was ideal because if one of these became too powerful, the other two combined against it. Thus, in the Peasants’ Revolt of the late Middle Ages, King and Barons combined to suppress it. In the 17th century, Parliament and People combined against a too powerful King, Charles I.
To make this system work, it was necessary that each part was different from the others: the King was of the royal family; the Barons and Nobles represented the large land-owners, the People represented the largest proportion of the population.
When Parliament was formed into two Houses, Upper and Lower, the Upper represented the Nobles and the Lower the People. The King was outside this arrangement, so that he could be impartial and also not influence it. Thus, our present Queen must ask permission to enter the Houses of Parliament, for example, to deliver the Queen’s Speech.
This system has worked so well for fairness and justice that it has been greatly admired throughout the world, and many countries (like Italy) have tried to imitate it, with varying success.
In the last hundred years, we have seen the destruction of this ideal form of government. Parliament has become too strong, and the King and People too weak. The balance between the two Houses of Parliament has become an imbalance, with the House of Lords becoming merely a reflection of the House of Commons, and controlled by it.
Ideally, the members of the House of Lords should not belong to any political party. They should represent those who already have a large inherited stake in the country, as well as those who by their lives and deeds have merited elevation to the peerage. The iniquitous system initiated by Lloyd George, that anyone can buy a peerage, must be abolished, and those who have obtained a peerage by this method should be stripped of their titles. The House of Commons should represent the People, and obey the will of the People. The Queen should be above politics and arbitrate between the two.
The Prime Minster has become too powerful. He has taken into his own hands what is not his. He appoints the Bishops of the Church of England, a privilege that formerly belonged to the King. He appoints new members of the House of Lords, thus turning it into another House of Commons.
We do not know the larger part of what goes on behind the scenes, but the Queen should play her part in the restoration of our traditional form of government, and not meekly give the royal assent to all bills passed by parliament. We need royalty of the calibre of Victoria and Albert, who reprimanded ministers of the government and who regularly examined the diplomatic post-bag and, on at least one occasion, removed a letter from it which might have caused a war.
We have left it very late to change things, but it can be done – but must be done quickly, before we are made a slave-state of the European Union. Parliament must face the will of the people it has betrayed through the Ballot box.
The U.N. Needs To Be Destroyed By Mark Steyn
© Mark Steyn
Don't take the word of your lazy rolling-news update anchor or the AP rewrite guy on the Duelfer findings on Iraq. Instead, read the report for yourself. It is an amazing document. It renders John Kerry, on foreign policy and national security, either a complacent fool or an utter fraud. It's not about WMD, it's about the top-to-toe corruption of the entire international system by Saddam Hussein. The global test is a racket, and anybody who puts faith in it is jeopardizing America's national security. If the lazy US media won't pick up this story now, shame on them. Here's what I wrote six months ago, in The Sunday Telegraph of April 25th:
'War without the UN is unthinkable, huffed The Guardian's Polly Toynbee a year ago, just before it happened. For a certain type of person, any action on the international scene without the UN is unthinkable. And, conversely, anything that happens under the UN imprimatur is mostly for the unthinking.
No matter how corrupt and depraved it is in practice, the organisation's sunny utopian image endures. Say the initials UN to your average member of Ms Toynbee's legions of the unthinking and they conjure up not UN participation in the sex-slave trade in Bosnia, nor the UN refugee extortion racket in Kenya, nor the UN cover-up of the sex-for-food scandal in West Africa, nor UN complicity in massacres, but some misty Unesco cultural event compeered by the late Sir Peter Ustinov featuring photogenic children of many lands.
So the question now is whether the UN Oil-for-Food programme is just another of those things that slip down the memory hole, and we all go back to parroting the lullaby that only the UN can bring legitimacy to Iraq/Afghanistan/Your Basket Case Here. Legitimacy seems to be the one thing the UN doesn't bring, and I'm not just talking about the love-children of UN-enriched Balkan hookers in Kosovo.
The scale of the UN Oil-for-Fraud programme is way beyond any of the corporate scandals that so excite the progressive mind. Oil-for-Food was designed to let the Iraqi government sell a limited amount of oil in return for food and other necessities for its people. Between 1996 and 2003, Saddam did more than $100 billion of business, all of it approved by Kofi Annan's Secretariat.
In return, by their own official figures, $15 billion of food and health supplies was sent to Iraq. What proportion of this reached the sick and malnourished Iraqi children is anybody's guess. Coalition troops discovered stockpiles of UN food far from starving moppets. But let us assume there is an innocent explanation. Even so, by the UN's own account, Oil-for-Food seemed to involve an awful lot of oil for not much food.
Where did all the other billions go? According to Kofi Annan himself, some $31 billion went on other humanitarian spending for Iraq. Such as? Well, in 2002, the Secretary-General expanded the programme to cover other humanitarian categories such as sport, information, justice and labour and social affairs.
In Iraq, sport meant Uday's rape rooms, and justice meant a mass grave out in the desert, but that's not to say there weren't attendant expenses involved. So Kofi himself directly approved such humanitarian items as $20 million for an Olympic sport city (state-of-the-art rape rooms) and $50 million for Iraq's Ministry of Information (Comical Ali's office).
As the US Defence Contract Management Agency's report put it after the liberation, Some items of questionable utility for the Iraqi people (e.g., Mercedes-Benz touring sedans) were identified. The Jordanian supplier of school furniture had to be let go on the grounds that he didn't exist.
At the UN they were taken aback by this impertinent auditing by US government agencies. At Enron, you have to run the books past Arthur Andersen. But at UNron you don't need to hire even a ledger clerk. That total of $46 billion - 15 for food, 31 for Ba'ath Party interior decorating - is Kofi's best guess, and he expects us to take his word for it.
True, he approved some scrutiny. All Oil-for-Food shipments into Iraq had to be inspected - initially by Lloyd's Register of London, but in 1998 they were let go and replaced by a Swiss company, who had on the payroll a consultant by the name of Kojo Annan, son of Kofi. Hmm.
So far all this is just UN business as usual - venal and wasteful, albeit on a larger scale than ever before. But even by their own revolting standards the UN crossed a line.
A programme created to allow the world to constrain Saddam appears to have become instead the means by which Saddam constrained the world. Oil-for-Food gave him a free hand to reward well-connected French and Russian suppliers. He ran the programme by selling cut-price vouchers for Iraqi oil to politicians and bureaucrats, which they could then offload on the world markets at the going rate.
Among the alleged beneficiaries were senior French politicians and Russia's office of the President. According to documentation found in the Oil Ministry in Baghdad, recipients of Saddam's generosity included the man Annan picked to run Oil-for-Food, the UN under-secretary-general Benon Sevan, who got enough oil to make himself a nice illegal profit of $3.5 million.
In other words, Oil-for-Fraud is everything the Left said the war was: it was all about oil - for Benon Sevan, the UN, France, Russia and the others who had every incentive to maintain Saddam in power. Every Halliburton invoice to the Pentagon is audited to the last penny, but Saddam can use Kofi Annan's office as a front for a multi-billion dollar global kickback scheme and, until it was brought to public attention by the tireless Claudia Rosett of The Wall Street Journal and a few other persistent types, the Secretary-General apparently never noticed.
Mr Sevan has now returned to New York from Australia. The lethargic Aussie press had made little effort to run him to ground because the notion that lifelong UN bureaucrats could be at the centre of a web of massive fraud at the expense of starving Iraqi urchins is just too, too unthinkable for much of the media.
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