Just words

The recent Ukip surge has politicians a bit rattled. Ukip stands for many things, but the main one is leaving the EU, however that's not the policy which has the main political parties worried. Ukip's anti immigration stance is the one where they believe they are going to have to act tough not quite realising that the second goes hand in hand with the first...
Mail.

The public has lost faith in government claims about tackling immigration because it does not tally with what they see on the ground, Nick Clegg will admit.
In a speech on immigration tomorrow, the Deputy Prime Minister will say it is ‘no wonder’ that people do not believe what ministers tell them when they have been ‘repeatedly told one thing only to then see another’.
He will speak out in favour of the free movement of European citizens but seek reforms to ensure that fewer Eastern Europeans move here if more countries are admitted to the EU in future.
Labour’s welfare spokesman Rachel Reeves will also call for reforms to the freedom of movement – to tackle benefit tourism – in a speech tomorrow.

Yes people have lost faith in the government mostly because we know they lie to us and unfortunately for the boy Clegg and Rachel Reeves they are lying to us about reforming the EU too as reform particularly on the free movement of labour (even if it is benefit tourism) is one of the cornerstones of EU policy and they aren't going to change it to suit us.
Nor is it EU immigration that really concerns people, it's immigration from islamic countries and the setting up of ghetto's of islamists who don't integrate, hate us and are just as big benefit leeches via their families who don't work and have severe medical problems due to generations of first cousin marital inbreeding.
The fact is, we've been pushed to the limits by mass uncontrolled immigration coupled with constantly being told that we have to be tolerant and tolerate the intolerable. We are the ones being called racist by the likes of the moronic left and their liberal fellow passengers. We are the ones who live next to the expanding ghetto's with their shariah law, intolerance, grooming gangs, homophobia, misogyny etc and we're told that we are the problem, not them!
What do people do when politicians and the political process fail them? They look to politicians proposing simple solutions. That usually means minor parties like Ukip, but it can also mean groups like the BNP too.
The next twenty or so years are not going to be fun in the UK, I just hope that the damage can be repaired in time. Either way, Clegg and Reeves aren't the solution, they and their parties are part of the problem.

One step closer

Well J C Juncker got chosen as the next President of the European Commission by 26 votes to 2 and has put Cameron in a position where if he were a real EUskeptic he could start the process to remove us from the EU. As it is, he isn't and he won't, though I suspect a campaign for the next UK elections with a Tory pledge to take us out would gain him a lot of support. Support of course he doesn't want and fears...
Express.

The Prime Minister admitted it would be "harder" to keep the country in the EU after the man he branded "the career insider of Brussels" was designated as the next President of the European Commission.
"It makes it harder and it makes the stakes higher," Mr Cameron said.
A bitterly-divided EU summit offically declared the former Luxembourg premier as president-designate in the powerful post following an unprecedented vote that shattered the Brussels tradition of consensus decision-making.
Only Britain and Hungary opposed the appointment, tearing open a massive rift in the EU.
After the overwhelming defeat, a clearly rattled but determined Mr Cameron said: "Frankly, sometimes you have to be ready to lose a battle in order to win a war."
He insisted he had no regrets about being virtually isolated and said he would do it again.
Mr Cameron warned that his fellow EU leaders will "live to regret" the decision, saying: "Europe has taken a big step backwards."
He had opposed Mr Juncker because of his career-long record as a Brussels insider dedicated to increasing EU meddling.
Britain would accept the result and try to work with Mr Juncker, he said, adding: "This is a bad day for Europe."

The key clue is Cameron's statement at the end of that passage, he still believes he can somehow work with Juncker's to get reform, despite the fact that Juncker's idea of reform is 'ever closer union' which is anathema to getting on half of UK voters. The facts as I see them are id that there is  no chance of a successful renegotiation and the thing we'll have to watch for is the EUphiles trying to pull the wool over our eyes and telling us that there was. Cosmetic changes to the EU are not acceptable to me or I suspect many others in this country, real change such as going back to a trading block would be fine, but that has never been the 'vision' of the EU or indeed the EEC before it, the end game was always a United States of Europe only without the inconvenience of democracy keeping the checks and balances in place.
The election of Juncker's has made our exit slightly more likely, however the EU and the EUphile traitors and their deluded followers will fight tooth and nail to keep us in.
The game is on now, but the game is definitely not over.

Consequences?

Apparently Cameron is threatening consequences if J C Juncker is appointed president of the European Commission. One wonder if it will be a childish tantrum, or a right royal snit or even heaven help us a shuffling of papers during a speech.
Telegraph.

David Cameron will threaten the European Union with “consequences” if Jean-Claude Juncker is appointed president of the European Commission.
As European leaders prepare to meet in Ypres and the diplomatic battle enters its final stages, it emerged that the Prime Minister has been warned by his Attorney General that there is no legal way to avert a humiliating defeat.
Mr Cameron is understood to have asked Dominic Grieve whether he could use the “Luxembourg compromise” to block a vote on appointing Mr Juncker to the EU’s top job, by insisting that Britain’s vital national interests would be damaged.
A source said that the Government “examined all conceivable options” but was told the Luxembourg compromise, a rarely-used device that lets member states defer European Union decisions, “is not applicable”. Kenneth Clarke, the minister without portfolio, angered senior Conservatives by downplaying their concerns.
The Prime Minister believes that Mr Juncker, an arch-federalist, will make it impossible to reform Britain’s relationship with the EU ahead of an in-out referendum in 2017. But Mr Clarke told the BBC that while Mr Juncker was “not the most vigorous reformer”, he was not an “arch-villain”. “No one knows what he’s supposed to have done wrong,” Mr Clarke added.

As ever Clark the arch-federast muddying the waters by implying that the government thinks Juncker has done something wrong and is being bullied and wrongly lambasted rather than simply what he is, a tool of the 'ever closer union' brigade.
As for consequences by Cameron, well it's difficult to see what he can do about what appears to be a done deal. Granted a lot of us would love to see a referendum with a simple in or out question but Cameron will only ever offer that if he thinks we'll vote for in as he's on record saying we're better off in. Nor can he now offer us a referendum on promised reform as the only reforms allowed will be those towards ever closer union and that as far as a lot of us are concerned isn't reform at all simply ever growing tyranny.
So expect some grandstanding gesture quietly shelved after a few days from Cameron, nothing will change and our disquiet will grow. Whether it will reach a peak, I don't know, at the moment staying/leaving is about 50/50 but i suspect a lot haven't made their minds up yet and a lot of our younger people have known nothing but the EU.
Still, Juncker may be the straw that breaks the camels back...

Presumption

The Lib Dems love affair with the EU carries on apace despite their drubbing in the recent election, though no doubt they've convinced themselves that it was simply a protest vote and that come the next election things will go back to normal. Still they've seized on figures drawn up recently by the treasury that show that 3 million jobs would be at risk if we left the EU, leaked despite the fact that the Tory chancellor didn't want them released.
Telegraph.

Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury, will say that official Government figures show that 3.3 million jobs could be at risk if the UK leaves the EU, prompting a row with senior Conservatives
More than three million British jobs would be at risk if Britain leaves the European Union, an official Treasury analysis has disclosed.
Danny Alexander, the Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury, will today inflame tensions in the Coalition by making public Treasury figures that show Britain’s reliance on the EU.
He will say that Treasury experts have calculated that 3.3 million are connected to Britain’s continues membership of the EU.
It will anger senior Conservatives and comes just one day before David Cameron travels to Brussels for a major clash with EU leaders over the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission.

The question is of course is the risk defined? Bandying words like could and would simply implies that if things go terribly wrong and the EU decides to cut off its nose to spite its face and suspend trading with the UK  then jobs could be at risk. Trouble is, the EU is unlikely to do so as they sell far more to us than we sell to them and they will not want to get into a trade war. The treasury report will be as other reports do giving best, worst and middle grounds and it may be that the best report simply says that things will carry on as they are without the cost of the dead hand of EU bureaucracy upon us. Certainly there may be some jobs that will go, particularly in the civil service, but its hard to define if industrial jobs will go, we may find new markets outside of the EU or our products become cheaper to sell in the EU without their oft stupid regulations on hours and paperwork.
Any argument put forward using words like 'could' and 'would' falls at the first step as it implies that they don't know. I rather suspect Mr Alexander doesn't either yet has seized on a report which on the surface appears to support his position like the old Clegg battle cry of 6 million jobs which has been quietly shelved as people now doubt the EU has done so at all.
I still doubt Cameron and co have the balls to leave the EU, I suspect it will take a little while longer for the dissent amongst the population to filter through to the political classes.
We knew this was a long road when we started, but in the end we'll get there.

Lord Haw Haw

William Joyce (amongst others) was a wartime broadcaster from Nazi Germany who 'encouraged' the British to give up fighting and praised to high heavens Nazi victories and spouted Nazi propaganda in a series of radio broadcasts during WW2. Essentially he was a tool of the Nazi's to undermine morale and to disseminate propaganda to make it look like the Germans were winning (a bit easier in the first part of the war than the latter days)
Even today though we have apologists for foreign powers telling us that we need to accede to their wishes and roll over to give them what they want, so step forward Lord Davies, ex-Tory now Labour peer...
Express.

In a House of Lords debate, former minister Lord Davies asked the Government to remain “pragmatic” when it comes to assessing what should be run by Brussels and what should be governed by the UK.
Lord Davies, who defected to Labour from the Tories when sitting as MP for Grantham and Stamford in 2007, asked: “Will the government be guided in these negotiations by an honest and value and evidence based assessment of the national interest, and if so, is it not the case that such an assessment might well throw up opportunities for repatriating powers but equally well might throw up areas where it might be in the better and national interest for more powers to be concentrated or given to the Union or at the Union level?
“Will the Government maintain entirely pragmatic about that or will the government reject out of hand or shy away from conclusions of that kind?”

I suppose it is possible that Cameron could come to that sort of conclusion, God alone knows the boy Clegg believes it with all his heart. Yet I fail to see how removing powers from (vaguely) democratically accountable levels in the UK and handing it over to unelected, unaccountable EUrocrats in Brussels who don't have a clue as to local needs and wants is going to help anyone.
All Lord Davies is, is a mouthpiece for the EUphiles who want ever more interference in our lives by Brussels or as they put it, ever closer union. He's even reading the mood of the country wrong by spouting his guff in the face of Ukip's electoral success in the last election in that there appears to be no great desire from the British to give more to the EU or indeed remain in the EU. Nor do his credentials of leaping ship from one party to another stand him in good stead in my mind and simply confirm to myself that politicians are mostly unrepresentative of what the public want and follow their own desire to remain in power rather than resign if they are totally at odds with their party and seek re-election elsewhere.
Btw, we hung Lord Haw Haw... perhaps Lord Davies should bear that in mind.

Another day, another scam

Well the Tories fended off Ukip in the Newark by-election only for another reason for people to vote Ukip emerge on the day after the election, a more suspicious man than I might think the news was suppressed in order to assist the comfortable status quo of the current establishment.
Express.

Loopholes in the system mean cheats are free to return to their homeland while being paid £87.55 a week. Workers from the EU see our 28-week statutory sick pay as easy pocket money.
Some even claim the payments while holding down second jobs back home. The deception was ­rumbled by company managers across Britain who say they are ­powerless to ­act.
The scandal confirms Britain has “lost the plot on immigration,” said a Ukip MEP last night.
It comes days after the Government conceded it was helpless to stop £30million a year in child benefit payments flowing out of Britain for the off-spring of EU migrants working here.
The Department for Work and ­Pensions said the system is not abused but admitted it does not keep records on sick pay for migrant workers. But it is worried enough to urge companies to report staff suspected of lying.
Last night a payroll manager at a firm in the South-west employing Polish drivers said one took 16 weeks sick leave last year and has racked up 12 weeks this year.
The company says the man has a second job abroad but as they receive certificates from his Polish doctor the absence goes unchallenged.

One wonders how the DWP can claim the system is not being abused whilst also saying they don't check or keep records.
Still, because the EU says we have to treat migrants here the same as someone born  here or who has paid into the system here even if they just sell Big Issues after stepping off the ferry it means that they can claim all their benefits here, take a 28 week sicky and return home to get their local doctor to keep signing them off whilst keeping their original job or enjoying a better lifestyle paid for by the UK taxpayer. Yet we're constantly told that the EU is good for us... It certainly appears to be good for anyone who wants to leach off us, along with its ruling classes to whom the corrupt lifestyle they lead enables them to pocket millions at the taxpayers expense.
We need to leave, yet the big three insist on keeping us in and telling us it's for the best, that's why I'll never vote for them, they are the ones responsible for the mess in the first place and don't seem to have a lue as to how to deal with their problems nor the gumption to tackle them.
Can't we just leave?

Aiding the recovery

Only an utter lunatic, leftard or EUphile will believe that picking peoples pockets by way of taxation will aid the recovery. By taking more away from us they believe the government will assist growth by spending it on projects they believe will be popular.
Mail.

Brussels has infuriated ministers with a provocative series of proposals to boost economic growth in Britain – including higher taxes, new levies on expensive homes, and more free childcare.
The European Commission acknowledged the UK economy had roared back to life over the past year, but warned of ‘imbalances’ that required action from the Treasury.
In an assessment of the state of the main EU economies, the Commission identified ‘risks in the housing sector’ as a problem for the UK and backed calls from other international organisations for the state’s Help to Buy scheme to be reined in.

Considering that the UK's recovery even if a lot of us haven't noticed is racing away from our EU rivals you'd almost suspect that the EU was trying to trip us up to help said rivals regain some ground. It's the typical solution of the leftards though, the magic money tree economics that caused the recession to be even worse than it actually had to be by pumping masses of cash via quantitative easing into the economy only to cause problems with inflation and see no measurable results by the use of it either, other than saddling the taxpayer with enough debt to cause our great grandchildren to be in hock up to their eyeballs.
The UK electors rejected EU meddling in the last election even if the biggest winner was the can't be arsed to vote party. You'd suspect they'd try to keep their heads down for a while, well you might, but the hubris of those idiots knows no bounds. As far as they are concerned, they know best and the rest of us have to simply do as they say, or that's the plan and always has been...

And whose fault was it in the first place?

Well gosh, Labour intend to do something about our addiction to cheap labour by immigrants. What they intend to actually do remains a bit of a mystery of course, the reason we have cheap labour via immigrants is because of EU laws, industrial need and Labour's ruinous policy of mass uncontrolled immigration from elsewhere.
Telegraph.

Britain risks becoming “dependent” on cheap migrant labour, Yvette Cooper will say today.
A Labour government would create laws to stop bosses using migrants to under-cut the wages of British workers, and the “serious exploitation” of migrants by businesses would be made a criminal offence, she will say.
Miss Cooper will also attack the Government for having a “worst of all worlds” stance, in which illegal immigration is getting worse while businesses are unable to find people with the skills they need.
Last month, James Brokenshire, the immigration minister, accused better-off families and big businesses of helping to support mass immigration by demanding cheap labour and services. Miss Cooper will say: “This kind of exploitation should be illegal. But the law isn’t working. We need change.
“The truth is that, for too long, exploitation in the labour market – a cause and effect of low-skilled immigration and illegal immigration – has gone unchecked.

Words, words, words... That's all they are, the only way to prevent immigration is to control our borders, to do that we need to leave the EU. Changing the law won't change a thing, particularly for EU citizens as it's illegal to treat other EU citizens as different to your own. Changing a law to prevent bosses from paying anything but the minimum wage just means the rest of us pay more as prices will rise and no doubt companies will still take on immigrants because they are prepared to do the work as our benefits culture means that a lot of people are quite comfy where they are.
This whole idea is simply ludicrous and won't/can't work, not unless we regain our sovereignty and can act in our best interests rather than the socialist wet dream of the EU and its insidious bureaucracy.
Cooper is just spouting the politicians mantra of saying what she thinks we want to hear, if she doesn't realise there's nothing we can do about it whilst being in the EU then she's either stupid or ignorant (possibly nay probably both)
Problem is there are some out there who will believe her... and vote for them...

Farage 2 Clegg Nil

I rather suspect the boy Clegg is regretting his decision to go head to head with Nigel Farage. I really expected Clegg to do better after the first encounter but frankly Farage wiped the floor with him in a far more personal and bitter exchange of views.
Express.

A SNAP poll last night crowned Nigel Farage the winner of his showdowns with Nick Clegg after he triumphed in the second of their live broadcast clashes over Europe.
Voters were even more impressed this week than last week by the anti-Brussels UK Independence Party leader.
After their first joust a week ago on LBC radio, 57 per cent of people surveyed by YouGov thought Mr Farage won with 36 per cent of voters thinking Mr Clegg came out on top.
But after last night’s BBC2 TV clash, YouGov found a massive 68 per cent thought the Ukip man bested his opponent compared to just 27 per cent who thought the Lib Dems Deputy Prime Minister won. Pollsters at ICM found Mr Farage had won by 69 per cent to 31 per cent.
The result was a blow for Mr Clegg as he had instigated the clashes.

Clegg had all the advantages, briefed by civil servants and seemingly given an own goal by Farage's admiration of Putin's statesmanship Iin the Ukraine despite a poll suggesting a good few in the UK agreed with Farage. Yet in the end Clegg's inner weasel won out, he simply does not get what ordinary people are thinking because unlike Farage he doesn't meet them on a day to day basis. Against Caneron  and Milliband he may be fine, but they are political class and inhabit his world whereas Farage does not and it showed when the insults began and the accusations of lies began. In the end people believed Farage if only because we regard him as one of us, though whether that will translate into votes remains to be seen. Still it was nice to see the EUphile cause torn apart by a man of passion.

Farage 1 Clegg nil

I have to admit I was surprised at how well Farage outmanoeuvred Clegg in the first of their debates last night. Granted Clegg put up a good fight, but his defence of Brussels was weak if only because he can't admit as to how far its tentacles reach into the lifeblood of this country. Plus on uncontrolled immigration and corruption he was on very dodgy ground.
Express.

NIGEL Farage emerged triumphant last night with a confident and combative performance in the first of his Euro showdowns with Nick Clegg.
The UK Independence Party leader confounded Lib Dem prejudices by proving he had done his homework on facts and figures and taking on Europhile arguments.
Mr Farage, establishing himself as a major threat to the three main Westminster parties, was rewarded with frequent applause from the studio audience.
And later a YouGov poll made him a clear winner – by 57 per cent to Mr Clegg’s 36 per cent – on who voters thought performed best.
The hour-long LBC radio debate – staged live in London and carried also on TV networks – was the first of two clashes between the anti-Brussels and pro-EU leaders.

Farage was definitely in character as a man of the people and if it is an act then it's a class act and he made Clegg look rather like the political slimeball he is. Farage also showed a far greater knowledge on how much the EU actually costs us and the myriad of rules and regulations that it foists upon us. The only path in the end open for Clegg was denial of facts and figures.
Still, there is another debate to go and I expect the boy Clegg to up his game. I suspect he was harking back to his performance in the last televised debates where he won the first one hands down, though against those clowns Cameron and Brown that couldn't have been difficult. If he can't up his game then his offer of a debate will have exploded in his face.
Some might say it already has...

397,000 reasons to leave

I'm not opposed to immigration (on my terms) nor am I opposed to the free movement of labour, what I am opposed to is the economic migration of immigrants to gain access to the UK's benefits system which under EU law we have to provide to EU citizens in exactly the same manner that we provide our own unemployed.
Express.

THE growing popularity of Britain as a haven for economic migrants has been exposed in figures showing the lives of almost 400,000 foreign-born residents are funded by the taxpayer.
New Home Office statistics reveal that 397,000 non-UK nationals received handouts in February 2013 – a rise of nearly 110,000 from 288,720 in the five years since 2008.
But the true number could be even greater as the details are not yet available for the past 12 months.
Ukip spokesman Tim Aker said: “This shows the Government has virtually no control over our borders.
“It shows how broken our migration system is – and the longer this is allowed to go on the more chaotic the situation will get.
“We need to be outside the EU in order to have full control over our borders so we know who is in the UK and who is deserving of benefits.”
It was revealed that net UK migration rose to 212,000 in the year to September 2013, pushing it further away from Prime Minister David Cameron’s target of below 100,000 by 2015.

The government aided and abetted by the previous government  has no control whatsoever over immigration, just look at their pathetic attempts to remove illegal immigrant criminals. The floodgates were opened under Labour in an attempt to rub the 'rights' nose in multiculturalism the socialist wet dream that has proven to be a nightmare as taxpayers are becoming increasingly angry about paying for those who come here and do not work, indeed have no intentions of working. Every day it seems some bloody twat of a politician comes on the MSM declaring something has to be done about immigration knowing fine bloody well that owing to our EU membership there's absolutely sod all they can do without it. They talk the talk as opinion polls tell them it's a voter concern, but they cannot walk the walk as the leadership of their party are EUphiles to the bloody core.
Yes I know Ukip are not everyone's cup of tea and they do have a hell of a lot of oddballs who appear at times not to know how the EU actually works... or indeed real life.
But if not Ukip, then who?
There is no chance the Tories, Labour or especially the Lib Dems will ever allow us to leave the EU.
Vote for them and you vote to perpetuate the nightmare they've created for us...

Well you would say that wouldn't you?

There has recently been a spate of Tory attacks on Ukip, mostly down to nerves about the upcoming EU elections and Ukip sweeping the board where Tory seats are concerned. Still this one takes some beating in the histrionics stakes...
Mail.

Some members of the UK Independence Party are ‘literally akin to the Nazis’, according to a Tory MP.
In an incendiary attack ahead of the European elections, Robert Halfon said the anti-EU party had played a helpful role in ‘cleansing’ the Conservatives of people with extreme views.
Mr Halfon, an ally of Chancellor George Osborne and Tory chairman Grant Shapps, cited the example of UKIP immigration spokesman Gerard Batten, who believes that British Muslims should sign a special code of conduct rejecting violence.
Mr Halfon, who is Jewish, said: ‘To me there are two kinds of UKIP – the [former defence spokesman] Godfrey Bloom guy who’s like a cross between Sid James and Bernard Manning, and then there’s a much more sinister element, like the MEP who said every Muslim has got to sign a declaration of non-violence, which to me is literally akin to the Nazis saying Jews should wear a yellow star.
‘I genuinely find it abhorrent and frightening.’

You'd think a Jewish person would have extreme caution about citing the yellow star that the Nazi's made Jews wear as using it in this case is both derogatory to Ukip, but also dilutes the effect for Jews. Now I don't believe Ukip are right to expect muslims to sign a code of conduct, if only because their quran supersedes any document that conflicts it and the quran is choc full of violence and how to treat the infidel once you're on top.
It does seem strange that a party full of thieves would attack another party for its extreme views, most of which are misrepresented. The recent furore about a woman Ukip candidate being a case in point, trying to make her out to be racist and a bigot when at the end of the day she stuck up for freedom of choice of the individual in that people ought to have the right to refuse to serve anyone they like, it's their problem if they lose business, but underlined a basic freedom the state has removed in its desire to force us to comply with its own standards.
Goodness knows Ukip aren't perfect and some of its members are naive as well as ill informed about the EU, but the question that you need to ask is 'if not Ukip, then who?' No other political party has a hope in hell of breaking the hold of the big three and removing us from the EU.
The desperation of the Tories is evident if that's the best Mr Halfon can do....

Not our problem

I had planned on blogging about Westminster wasting its time debating why holidays in school holiday periods are so high, but I figure most of you know about supply and demand even if the morons who put their name to the petition don't. What grabbed my attention though was the governments position on what happened in the Ukraine, an area that really is none of our business.
Mail.

George Osborne offered the Ukraine a blank cheque last night to turn the ravaged country around.
The Chancellor said the UK is willing to pour millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to prop up the new government.
Speaking at a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Australia, Mr Osborne said: ‘We are here ready to help just as soon as there is someone at the end of the telephone.
'We should be there with a chequebook to help the people of Ukraine rebuild their country.’
Last night it was unclear how much cash might be provided but Britain is likely to contribute to stability funds being put together by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
Since the uprising on Saturday ousted the Russian-backed President Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine no longer has access to a £9billion handout from Moscow.
Ukraine may need a bailout since it has a dire ‘CCC’ credit rating, but British taxpayers may not take kindly to assisting a country with huge natural resources including oil, whose former president spent millions on a vulgar palace while his people suffered.

The Ukraine is simply not our problem and interfering between the EU and Russia haas turned the place into a very nasty troublespot just waiting to happen. The EU has thoroughly antagonised Russia by backing the rebels when it should have kept its nose out and the ever fragrant Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the Commission was clearly as ever out of her depth representing the EU in negotiations.
As it is, writing a blank cheque to what is essentially a kleptocracy led by a corrupt cabal (and yes that's what the rebel leaders are) seem like just handing money over to another set of crooks as opposed to the Russian backed crooks.
There are historical reasons for the Ukraine being split on its east/west ethnic lines with memories of the Soviet Unions abysmal record still deep in peoples minds, however the counterbalanced fascistic tendencies that grew out of this when the Soviets collapsed are not exactly a welcome addition to the EU's influence.
In short we should let them sort out their own problems and not just offer them a blank cheque.
Sadly no one seems willing to listen to common sense in the political classes, after all, it's only money isn't it?

Debates

The Boy Clegg threw down a challenge to the Leader of Ukip the other day to debate an in out referendum on the EU. Farage's response was simply to say only of Cameron and Milliband were involved too.

Express.
NICK Clegg has challenged Ukip leader Nigel Farage to a "once and for all" live debate on Britain's membership to the Europe Union.
Ukip's new director of communications Patrick O’Flynn, the former chief political commentator for the Daily Express, said the idea was "interesting" but wanted further assurances about other participants.
He said: “A televised leaders’ debate for the European elections is a very interesting idea. But it would be ridiculous if Nick Clegg were to refuse to extend his invitation to David Cameron and Ed Miliband too.
“So we want to know from Mr Clegg that Mr Cameron and Mr Miliband are invited as well and that he has in mind a comprehensive and live leaders’ debate on a major broadcast outlet. We would also like to hear from Mr Clegg that he is ready to resume his support for an In/Out EU referendum, which he supported before the 2010 general election, but abandoned soon after.

One can only imagine that Clegg is getting desperate to pick up the pro EU vote in the UK as Cameron and Milliband are struggling against Ukip to a degree over the EU with both parties having their own branch of EUskeptics within the parties who are clearly at odds with the leadership who seem to believe the sun shines out of the EU's orifices.
It has been pointed out to me that perhaps Clegg is being wise here in attempting to gain the pro EU vote for the EU elections, but overall a debate is highly unlikely way to gain votes as although Clegg did well in the last elections leadership debate his performance thereafter in Parliament showed that words alone do not make a good politician.
Whilst I must admit I'd like to see such a debate, I rather fancy that when the ground rules are sorted (should anyone agree to such a debate) that it would be deadly dull and the truth would probably be the biggest casualty.I don't want to vote on personalities, I want facts and facts about the EU are very hard to come by, we don't even know for sure how much it costs us to belong for one thing.
Still, it might be interesting to at least see Clegg and Farage go head to head...

They can't help themselves

To many in the warmist set the recent floods have been a Godsend, finally a vindication that their ludicrous religion has some basis in fact rather than their fevered imaginations (and computer predictions)
And predictably we have money grabbing politicians piling in to declare it must be so and we'll spend your cash on a snark hunt because it's not your money but ours to do with what we want.
BBC.

Climate change is now an issue of national security with extreme weather threatening homes, livelihoods and businesses, Ed Miliband has warned.
In an interview with the Observer, the Labour leader said the country was sleepwalking towards a crisis.
This, he said, was because of a failure to recognise that climate change was causing the storms and floods.
His comments come as flooding is still expected in many parts of the country despite a let-up in the stormy weather.
There are 14 severe flood warnings - indicating a "danger to life" - for south-east England close to the River Thames and two for the Somerset Levels, which have experienced weeks of flooding.

 Pretty much all a pack of lies, the flooding in the Somerset levels was a result of an EU environmental diktat which meant the silt from the channels couldn't be put back on the land so the UK government via the environment agency decided not to bother. In essence it was environmentalists who caused the flooding there by adding into the EU diktat a set of conditions that could not be economically met.
As for climate change causing the flooding, well as usual Millipede E has jumped the gun...
Mail.

One of the Met Office’s most senior experts yesterday made a dramatic intervention in the climate change debate by insisting there is no link between the storms that have battered Britain and global warming.
Mat Collins, a Professor in climate systems at Exeter University, said the storms have been driven by the jet stream – the high-speed current of air that girdles the globe – which has been ‘stuck’ further south than usual.
Professor Collins told The Mail on Sunday: ‘There is no evidence that global warming can cause the jet stream to get stuck in the way it has this winter. If this is due to climate change, it is outside our knowledge.’

In other words just bad luck and piss poor flood defences coupled with building on a flood plain.
You can be sure the warmist enviroloons will ignore the Met Office as Professor Collins views will be ignored in their rush to try and prove their point and grab more cash off us.
Sadly this lack of ethics is something we've come to expect from the watermelons as well as the Labour party.
It's all a cash grab and will be wasted on stuff we neither want nor need...

Charity begins at home

With the Somerset Levels under several feet of water in some places, the Thames bursting its banks upriver of London and even in my neck of the woods the Medway flooding between Yalding and the tidal lock at Allington the pressure is mounting from some to grab from the foreign aid budget and spend it on the people in this country who have been betrayed by the EU and enviroloon led Environment Agency.
South China Morning Post.

The leader of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage, urged the government yesterday to redirect part of its foreign aid budget to flood victims at home.
On a visit to the flood-hit county of Somerset, Farage complained that Britain gives aid to India despite New Delhi having its own space programme.
Flooding and landslips have completely cut off rail routes to large parts of England's south west as storms continue to batter southern Britain.
"It seems to me that the aid budget is about us giving charity overseas. When you've got an emergency in this country, it's time to say that charity begins at home," he said. "The international aid budget is £11 billion [HK$140 billion] a year. All the government have offered so far is less than 1 per cent of that in the form of £100 million.
"If, suddenly, that was 5 per cent or 6 per cent, you'd be talking real money."

Of course there's the usual lunacy from some who believe spending UK cash abroad to reduce 'climate change' will be the best way to rip us off
Telegraph.

Britain’s international aid budget will help reduce flooding in the UK by addressing the causes of climate change abroad, Eric Pickles has said.

Yes that is the enviroloon line that our money spent abroad might have prevented the flooding. The sort of lunacy that prevented dredging to siphon off the excess water quickly and wouldn't allow the silt to be used to raise land (That's the EU for you putting wildlife above people)
It's now reached the stage where £11 billion is being handed out to kleptocracies and countries who don't need it. This cash would be better spent on us and used as the occasional bribe to sell hardware abroad not handed out to warlords and corrupt politicians.
Foreign aid is a luxury we can no longer afford along with muslim extremism and the EU which are the most pressing problems facing this nation other than the growth of the public sector and fake charities.
It's time to take a chainsaw to state spending and remove billions from the tax cache to be spent on things we simply don't need.
Somewhere along the line the political class hijacked the budgets to spend on pet projects, they need to be reined in and if necessary punitively fined to claim back the waste they've lavished upon themselves.
The boy Clegg is going on about a mansion tax (again) he'd be better off destroying the states largesse on organisations like quango's and the environment agency.
Except he won't, he has a finger in that pie via the EU as well.

Define extreme

Tim (Birdmincer) Yeo believes extreme Tories might just put voters off for voting for the party. After being deselected by his own party due to mostly not attending to his constituency and his insistence on green birdmincers being placed all over the countryside for his own personal profit he believes that somehow or other it's the fault of people he believes to be extreme, but who are probably just applying common sense with who are responsible for party numbers dropping.
Telegraph.

The Conservative Party is increasingly dominated by a “shrinking band” of members with “extreme” views on issues like Europe and same-sex marriage, an ousted MP has said.
Tim Yeo, who was this week deselected by the Conservatives in South Suffolk, said the party’s dwindling membership was leading it to take positions that are increasingly at odds with wider public opinion. He was the second sitting Conservative MP in a week to be sacked as a candidate by local activists, following the deselection of Anne McIntosh in Thirsk and Malton.
Mr Yeo’s critics said his deselection partly reflected his controversial business interests in the renewable-energy industry, but the MP suggested the move showed a wider trend within the party.
Interviewed by The Telegraph, Mr Yeo said that grassroots Conservatives were seeking to force MPs into ever-stronger opposition to the European Union and same-sex marriage. He has taken a moderate line on both issues.
“We have a shrinking membership which means you tend to get predominantly among those remaining activists people with probably more extreme views than the average Conservative voter and that applies on issues like the EU, on issues like gay marriage,” he said. Mr Yeo also warned the Conservative Party in Parliament was becoming increasingly unmanageable on issues like Europe, demanding that David Cameron take an impossibly hard line on the EU.

On the matter of same sex marriage, a lot of people believe that marriage is a male/female institution and a religious set of vows. Forcing churches, mosques and synagogues to perform same sex marriages was never going to be a vote winner despite what the gay movement believed. You want to alienate people, that was a good way to do it, if you want to persecute people and force them to act against their beliefs than you can't expect them to remain in a political party that ignores their views.
The EU is a contentious issue but mostly because the EUphiles of whom Cameron and Yeo are members and a lot of the Tory grass roots are anything but and do not like the government simply rubber stamping EU diktats and especially do not like the promise of a referendum taken away from them no matter how weasel worded the apology was. Nor does the fact that some people want out of the EU repel voters as Mr Yeo believes, otherwise Ukip would not be growing at both the Tories and Labour's expense.
No, what's put off voters from the political process is the fact that the political classes do not want what the voters want and have been caught like Mr Yeo with their hands in the till both literally and figuratively through directorships of 'green' companies sucking up taxes without giving value for money.
We're put of because they are lying, greedy pigs who have time and time again put their own benefit ahead of the countries and Mr Yeo led the bloody charge!
One day we'll hang them all...

Delusions of grandeur

Ukip must be getting right up the noses of the establishment, no small achievement by a party which does appear to have its own set of odd balls, though admittedly actually deals with them unlike the utterly corrupt big three. They've even managed to upset some German nobody who believes that they are a threat to peace in Europe.
Telegraph.

The rise of Eurosceptic groups such as the UK Independence Party hampers the cooperation that has kept the continent at peace for decades, Germany’s foreign minister said.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier also dealt a blow to David Cameron’s attempt to recast the European Union membership deal, suggesting Germany and Britain were not “pulling in exactly the same direction”.
Speaking on a visit to London for talks with William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, Mr Steinmeier said he was concerned about a drift towards scepticism that has aided parties such as Ukip, Germany’s AfD and the French Front National, and led Mr Cameron to offer an in/out referendum.
Instead of moving further apart, European nations should cooperate ever more closely, he said, adding that history has shown that when European countries do not have close relations, military conflict can arise. “History before the First World War was a history of not talking to each other, of nationalisms which could no longer be [tamed] by reason,” Mr Steinmeier said. “These dangers have to be forever banned.”

Well I have some news for Mr Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the peace in Europe was actually maintained by NATO and the allied armies, not the EU and before NATO the biggest threat to Europe was German militarism. The EU was never and has never been essential in maintaining peace in Europe, it was originally a trading cartel with delusions of grandeur that have sadly never died in the face of reality and now appears to be bolstered by out and out lies.
Nor would I expect if the Tories do hold a referendum on the EU and we do get the chance to leave (unlikely as Cameron will never allow it) I rather doubt Europ will descend into war, although a major European war is a bit overdue as there are too many competing national interests which the EU does not help with by attempting to suppress them.
If anything it's the EU driving Europe towards war by insisting on ever greater political unity and leaving ordinary people seething at their arrogance in pushing them to one side with their decisions.
Ukip are not the problem here, the EU is and always will be the problem so long as it attempts to try for political unity.
It will be the EU that leads countries to a European war, not those who wish nothing to do with it.

Unaccountable cash grab

Seems the higher you go up in the EU the less grasp you have on the basic concept of just whose cash it is you're pronouncing on when it comes to telling national parliaments what to do... something that really they ought not to be able to do anyway...
Mail.

Eurocrats sparked fury last night by ordering the UK to double dole payments.
The Council of Europe claims the handouts given to Britain’s jobless are ‘manifestly inadequate’.
Ministers have been told they are in violation of the European Social Charter – potentially opening the door for claimants to take the Government to court to get more money.
But ministers say obeying the diktat from the Council, which oversees the controversial European Court of Human Rights, would cost the UK billions of pounds and plunge efforts to reduce the deficit into chaos.
To comply, Jobseeker’s Allow- ance (JSA) would have to be hiked by £71, from £67 to £138 a week.
Last night Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith accused the Council of Europe of ‘lunacy’.

So where's all this extra cash going to come from to pay more to those who don't work?
Oh yes, that's right it'll have to come from the taxpayer both individually and the business world.
All this is because the previous Labour Government signed us up to the Social Charter when they also signed us up to the Human Rights Act and now the ECHR has passed a judgement which will allow the UK courts to penalise the taxpayer by forcing the government to increase benefits.
The only way out of this is to withdraw from the Social Charter, the HRA and probably the EU as both sets of rights are built into the EU's mandate. Sure, no one wants people to live in poverty, but, the cost of all the benefits combined also make living on benefits a viable lifestyle choice and that is simply wrong. Being employed should vastly improve your finances and choices, at the moment it simply doesn't because once you go over a certain threshold you lose the housing benefits and health benefits and a benefitee life becomes an easy option.
It should never be easy to live on state benefits, save if you're ill, disabled or a pensioner, all others should be in the position where a job... any job is a desirable thing to have.
Instead we have the ECHR telling us we should be making it easier for those on benefits to remain there.

Clawing back powers?

One of the promises Cameron is making is that he's going to attempt to claw back power from the EU. Many think he's simply using delaying tactics to try and delay the inevitable to when he's out of power and the next government will refuse to do sod all about the promises he's making.
So naturally the Tories unveil a massive clawback of power from the EU just to prove me wrong...
Express.

THE EUROPEAN flag will no longer have to fly outside Government departments, it was confirmed today.
The “petty” European Union regulation agreed under the Labour administration has been scrapped following top government talks.
Today Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said this was an example of the UK being able to claim back powers from Brussels.
Speaking in the House of Commons, he said: "The last Labour government signed-up to a petty EU regulation that forced my and other Government departments to fly the European flag outside our buildings.

Impressive is it not?
Top level talks were required to remove a petty bloody regulation that could simply have been overruled by our national Parliament. Christ Almighty if this is the kind of clawback that Cameron plans to negotiate on then truly we are all doomed to EU membership pending the inevitable bloody revolution.
This. Was. Nothing. It's like being sold into slavery but being told that you don't have to wear the iron collar, it doesn't mean your circumstances have changed, just that it looks a bit better to others...
If it takes top level talks to remove the obligation to fly a flag, then quite frankly the EU is not an organisation we really ought to be in. A freedom loving organisation simply wouldn't care if we flew their flag or not and wouldn't plough billions into various schemes to try and make us love them. Respect needs to be earned, not bought or enforced.
Can we just not leave? Now?