Marxist pedigrees

Charles Clarke and Alan Milburn today launched a new website in Parliament believed to be pushing the candidature for David Miliband to replace B.Liar as PM instead of the dour and dreadful ultra-Scottish Gordon Brown. Read The Scotsman report from here. The public might wish to make themselves aware of the full Marxist credentials of the 'non-thought new-speak' David Miliband, read about his father's amazing progress at the LSE from this link.

Executive responsibility 2007

Network Rail's chief executive, John Armitt, has said he would not resign. "My responsibility now is to stay with it and to make sure we understand what has happened so that we can put in place any changes which may be necessary to minimise any likelihood of this happening again." Following the example of his political masters eh? Read the whole article and the latest on the unfolding horrors on Britain's latest railway disaster from today's Independent, linked here.

European Democracy

Unusually an opinion piece in The Times worthy of a link. It opens as follows: A battle of ideas that is blinding the West Larry Siedentop Europe is in the midst of an undeclared “civil war” — a struggle that has been boiling away since the 18th century. It is a war between religious believers and secularists. The French Revolution was the decisive moment in this clash between Church and anticlericalists. It created two hostile camps across the whole of Europe — pitting the followers of Voltaire, who sought to écraser l’infâme, as they described the Church, against those who saw the separating of Church and State as an insurrection against God.

French elections latest polling

Critical to the future of the EU are the coming elections in France. Latest news is that the two main contenders are equal at 50/50 for the second round but that 'extreme centrist' François Bayrou is still gaining at 17%, up 3 points from the preceding LH2 poll, and that Jean-Marie Le Pen is steady with 13%. Sarkozy has 30% in the first round against 27% for Royal. The two main party candidates as far as I can determine will both sign up to Merkel's June 2007 memorandum of understanding which would effectively bind the EU to the terms of the failed Constitutional Treaty. Perhaps the French electorate are suspecting that their clear rejection of that document is about to be undermined!

Downing Street denies March Constitution Discussions

Believe this if you are able, but the liar Blair's official spokesman this morning maintained that the future direction of the EU will not even be discussed at the 25th March Berlin meeting:

EU Summit

Asked if the Prime Minister would be signing up to a document that might contain elements of the constitution at the forthcoming EU Summit, the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (PMOS) replied that this was somewhat surprising, as we had said in Berlin when we had stood beside Chancellor Merkel that the March Summit was not where this would be discussed. It was an economic summit in line with the practice that EU spring summits were economic ones, and it would focus on energy in particular.

The PMOS said that what was clear was that the first hurdle, as we had said all along, was that any new proposal would have to clear was French and Dutch public opinion. Given that there was an election coming up in France soon, that determined its own timing. What we were all waiting to hear was where Germany wanted to go on this. Any suggestions that were going to be serious discussions on this at the moment were premature.

Asked to clarify that not only would the leaders not sign up to such a thing, but also, they did not wish to talk about it either, the PMOS said that Chancellor Merkel had said that this was not the time for these discussions. The March summit would be about other matters, not the constitution.

Return of the EU Constitution

The Daily Mail this morning picks up on the widely circulating reports that Tony Blair is preparing to sign up to a document tying the country to the terms of the abandoned Constitutional Treaty without any pretence of obtaining democratic authority for such a move. That article may be read from here.

Looking back on EU Fines

Thinking further on the potential three hundred million pound or more fine blogged about below, I dug up this old article from the Guardian: Critics warn of disaster as ministers ignore EU commission call to punish violators of euro stability pact Ian Black in Brussels Wednesday November 26, 2003 The Guardian The European commission was left humiliated yesterday after EU finance ministers ignored its demands to punish France and Germany for borrowing too heavily.

In a move widely condemned as a political fudge, most ministers, including the chancellor, Gordon Brown, decided to suspend the sanctions mechanisms which could have brought heavy fines against Paris and Berlin for breaches of the euro-zone's stability and growth pact.

Critics labelled the deal - which gave the two countries until 2005 to get their deficits below the 3% of gross domestic product allowed under the pact - as "a blow to the foundations of monetary union" and a "sin". They warned it could have grave implications for European law and for the new EU constitutional treaty.

EU Costs to the UK

There has been an interesting press release on the 2005 EU budget which may be accessed from this link. The costs of British membership as calculated by the Commission were 13.74 billion Euros, presumably not including fines such as that reported on in my posting below this. The annexe detailing such costs is linked from here. Scroll down to Table Seven. It appears the UK is the fourth largest contributor, but as can be seen from here is second to last in terms of benefits receiving less than 0.5 per cent of GNI. It is significant that no party or body in favour of Britain's continuing membership of the EU has ever been able to detail ANY benefits whatsoever.

EU to fine Britain more than THREE HUNDRED MILLION POUNDS

Read the reports here and (not here as the internet report from BBC News seems to have been withdrawn), then think of the implications, the manner of the announcement, the inefficiency and negligence of their cause, the possible role of the Treasury, the silence of most of the media and the helplessness of the victimized taxpayers and wonder over who will be the beneficiaries. And the only statement on the EU by Britain's opposition leader -" stop banging on!"

Lebanon and Iran

On the day that a second US Carrier group arrives in the near waters of the Arabian/Persian Gulf, Robert Fisk's Independent article, linked here, is an important read.

Mark Coleman

The following is direct quote from the Best of British blog

Help Mark Coleman stay in Britain

Mark Coleman is facing deportation back to Zimbabwe. Britain is about to deport him even though all his relatives – parents, brothers, sisters – have now fled the Mugabe tyranny and there is no life for him there. This petition urges the Home Office to allow him to stay. It cannot be right to force the 28-year-old to face Mugabe's thugs alone when his lack of a British passport is based on a technicality and his lack of asylum on bureaucratic blindness. We hope you will sign the petition, and pass it on to friends and colleagues.

Mark was born in independent Zimbabwe. His father was born there while it was still the British colony of Southern Rhodesia, and his mother was born in India. His father's father was a British subject. His paternal great-grandfather was a British army surgeon, as was his maternal great-grandfather. . . His mother's father served in the British Army and was forced to work as a prisoner of war on the notorious bridge over the River Kwai. . .yet, because of a technicality, Coleman cannot have a British passport, cannot stay here and will soon be shipped back.

Please help by signing the petition and passing it on to friends and colleagues – it only takes a few seconds and could make a lifelong difference to Mark.

UN Agency reports on Blair's LEGACY

The Daily Mail's report and comments are here, but this table tells it all:

Who said what on Bird Flu

Putting two slick professional politicians such as Miliband and Bradshaw in charge of any department where managerial decision-making and guts to go against the stream might be required was always courting disaster and now we have evidence. Hansard for 5th February, linked here, states: Just after5 pm on Thursday 1 February, the state veterinary service was contacted by a private vet who suspected an avian notifiable disease at a poultry farm in Suffolk. Therefore no procedures for which government departments were responsible triggered alarms. It was the suspicions of a 'private vet' that first alerted officials. Hansard later quotes: "By Saturday afternoon,....... my Department imposed a wider restricted zone covering east Suffolk and south-east Norfolk, an area of about 2,090 sq km. Within that zone, we are requiring poultry and other captive birds to be housed or, if that is not possible, to be isolated from contact with wild birds." The Minister of State later continued: The state veterinary service is carrying out rapid and urgent investigations both on the infected premises themselves and by testing poultry farms and collecting dead wild birds in the protection and surveillance zones. Outside the restricted zones, our programme of wild bird surveillance continues, with 4,000 birds having been tested in the last five months alone. I urge keepers of birds to be vigilant and to exercise good biosecurity. Brilliant inaction considering the virus arrived in a lorry from Hungary. I asked myself at the time "How many birds migrate during the coldest weeks of winter?" These same ministers Bradshaw and Miliband have been on TV just today trying to indicate none could have suspected the real source. Oh yeah! How come this section of the response from their Conservative Shadow Minister: It has been suggested that the outbreak may be related to wild birds, but has there been any increase in the number of dead birds being reported in the last five months? What plans does the Secretary of State have to step up the surveillance efforts? Does he think it purely a coincidence that a Bernard Matthews-owned farm in Hungary should recently have been hit by H5NI? What steps is he taking to eliminate the Hungarian connection from the inquiries?" And reply to this latter question....... came there only this: It remains most likely that at the root of the problem there is a link with the wild bird population, but that does not mean that we should not pursue other avenues in a serious way, with the greatest of speed, and we are doing so. Extreme incompetence if not criminal negligence seems to be at work here. These ministers are supposed to be policing the nation's food. They seem so remote from the countryside and agriculture that they lack even knowledge of when birds migrate. Incredible!

Main parties start to slide?

BNP and English Democrat Shocker in Bede council by-election BNP ran Labour 658 votes a close second with 546 votes with the English Democrats on 75 and Save the NHS with 43 making the combined small party total sufficient to have changed the result. Cameron's sham conservatives on 301 and UKIP with just 8 votes came away with the biggest bloody noses.

Letter Bombs?????

Feeling remorseful that your reaction might have been "well at least somebody is making a stand"? These bloggers put it in their words. Read Samizdata from here. EU Referendum from here. Interesting!!!!

25th Anniversary of Greenland leaving the EU

Roger Helmer MEP has issued his second broadcast to mark the above event. Listen to it by clicking here. Towards the end of the recording there is a piece of inaccurate Tory propaganda where Roger implies that David Cameron has encouraged his backbenchers to oppose the EU. Vapid Cameron did indeed commit to do this during his leadership bid, but like his promise to quit the EPP, this has not been fulfilled but worse he will not accept any Tory MP pushing for EU withdrawal or signing up to the Better Off Out campaign onto his shadow ministerial team - apparently granting the political kiss of death but perhaps more likely granting salvation by non-association with Vapid's dreadful party leadership.

Watch advert against tax funding of parties

The video may be viewed from here. More information and background from Nopublicfunding linked here.

Disaffected and Dumb

The Daily Telegraph today carries a YouGov poll , linked here, which shows widespread disgust with mainstream political parties and politicians while indicating an incredible 73 per cent of voters would still vote for one of the three main parties at an early general election. With a major Lib/Dem donor from the last election up on charges of fraud, the new leader of the Tories first response to the sale of honours scandal rushing to meet the implicated Prime Minister to push for state funding, the electorate seems to be undeserving of democracy - no wonder they have now almost completely lost it. My posting below has one suggested means of trying to obtain change. This poll offers no encouragement, although the Telegraph's accompanying article, linked here, argues otherwise..

Time for the Country to neuter the corrupt Commons

"It seems to me it’s got to that point where everyone in parliament, everyone in government, everyone in the press, everyone in the country is thinking: 'Hello! It’s over,'" Mr Cameron said. The above is a quote from an article in this morning's Daily Telegraph, linked from here. For once I here agree with the words of the ineffectual leader of the faux Conservative Party. However, the nation should make it clear that it is not just over for Tony Blair. It is time to bring the curtain down on the whole corrupt charade that the House of Commons has become. How could this be achieved? I suggest the following: Next May in the local elections anyone disgusted with the present state of our nation's political construct should make a point of voting for anyone other than a representative of the three main parties, some of whose bought representatives now sit in parliament's second legislative chamber - the House of Lords. Starting such a campaign this month will allow sitting local councilors of integrity to seek election as independents or for one of the many minor or nationalist parties. Loss of local government control should finally concentrate the minds of those who have sold out our democracy and corrupted our governing establishment - the leaders of the Labour Party, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats. Will just ridding the nation of Blair really solve anything?

More deceit on the EU Constitution

In yesterday's Prime Minister's parliamentary questions Tony Blair slammed David Heathcoat-Amory for his "antiquated" views on the EU, clearly signaling that further concessions are planned in that direction. More danger signs may be read in today's The Times, linked here. It appears Blair and Brown plan to inform the clearly stupid British electorate that no concessions towards the constitution are being made, thus avoiding the earlier promised referendum, while agreeing exactly those changes necessary to 'make the EU more easily governable'. Dangerous times involving the final destruction of our little remaining European democracy.