Inflation surges

Finally an official statistic to confirm what this blog has been preaching for years - GORDON BROWN IS AN ECONOMIC INCOMPETENT.  

A quote from the report in The Times, linked here:

 The Bank of England is facing further pressure to control rising inflation after it emerged that prices at the factory gate surged by 5.9 per cent during May - the sharpest increase since 1991 and above an expected rise of 4.7 per cent.

Input prices, the cost manufacturers pay for their raw materials, rose 27.9 per cent in the year to May.

Annual factory gate output inflation, which includes fuel, food, beverages and tobacco, surged 8.9 per cent in the year to May - the highest since records began in 1986.

Core output inflation, which strips out food, beverages, tobacco and petroleum, rose at 1.2 per cent in May, the fastest pace for 17 years, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). 

Sunday Times pleads for Irish NO to Lisbon

The plea may be read from here.

Britain and the EU post-Lisbon

"Clearly, the starting point should be that we want to stay part of the European family, building on free-trade relationships, joining in common programmes in areas such as security and the environment, and helping to foster peace and democracy across the continent. "

Lord Blackwell of Global Vision writing in the Sunday Telegraph today.

AND if the "European family" decides to revert to totalitarianism for a few years or decades, whether more similar to fascism or marxism, it matters not which, will that remain our starting point?

Muddled thinking ignoring our island state credentials.  If the EU abandons democracy as seems increasingly likely, we must build our defenses while  strengthening our ties to historic allies on other continents.  If Lisbon is ratified our only out is via the provisions of that Treaty which will prove an act of economic warfare against us.  How we would react under the present leadership of the nation is perfectly clear - surrender and capitulation.

View all Irish NO videos

Click here to go to the YouTube Playlist.

Corruption of politics now in the mainstream

At last the dead wood press and the broadcast media are taking note of the complete corruption of Europe's political institutions, boding well for a NO vote in Ireland.

For years my blogs, Teetering Tories, UKIP Uncovered and the Strasbourg Cesspit not to mention this and its forerunner Ironies have been banging the drum for change.  As indeed, of course, was the attempt to launch the new political party Veritas, at the last General Election. 

Truth is what is needed.

At the forefront today is the Guido Fawkes blog, linked here

Treasures from the threads - Number Seventeen

In response to a Telegraph columnist who seems to have suddenly noticed what is happening about him, linked here:

Prime Minister, Thank you for your reply to my letter of 14th May 2008, signed by R. Smith, which states that “careful note has been made of my comments” Today is “D Day”, the 6th of June. Sixty-four years ago today Allied soldiers stormed the beaches of Normandy to start the liberation of Europe. Many thousands of men died on that day and more continued to die in the cause of freedom until the tyranny of Nazism had been eliminated and freedom restored to the people of Europe. I believe that the sacrifice of those brave men will have been in vain if your Government ratifies the Treaty of Lisbon, and the responsibility for that will be yours Prime Minister. You have the power to consult the British people on whether they wish to be part of the European Superstate or not and you refuse to listen to their voice. When the people became angry because you took ten pence more income tax from them recently, you decided that the time had come to listen to them and to take action to repair the damage you had caused. If you can listen to the people when it concerns only a few pounds and loss of your own credibility, you MUST listen to them when they demand a referendum on the future governance of our country. There is far more at stake than mere money. My previous letter was addressed to you personally, quoting your own words. It is not enough for you to pass it on to the FCO. They simply do your bidding. It is YOU who hold the reins of power as you well know, (though for how much longer you will have that privilege is very uncertain.). There was much talk about the “Legacy” of your predecessor Mr Blair before he left office. What will be YOUR legacy Mr Brown after one year as leader of our Government? Will you be forever remembered as the man who could have saved the United Kingdom from being written out of history after nearly one thousand years? Will you be listed with the others who lied and schemed to sell their country to be ruled by a foreign power? Heath, Thatcher, Major, Blair, William Joyce! Or will you be remembered as the Leader who asked the people what THEY wanted? The democrat. You have waited many years for this moment. Making the right decision is crucial to your place in history. The choice is YOURS Mr Brown. You stand at a crossroads. You can make one grand gesture and give the people a choice, which will set you apart as saviour of your country, or you can be remembered as the ditherer who signed away his country in a back room to try to avoid being associated with the act. Choose carefully Mr Brown. ACTION THIS DAY. Yours truly, Robert D Dell. Posted by Robert Dell on June 6, 2008 8:28 AM

Irish Referendum - NO side forges into the lead

A sudden reversal in the polls indicates many 'don't knows' as finally getting off the fence and opting for retention of democracy and independence, one of many reports, this from the Irish Times, is here. The report begins as follows:

The Lisbon Treaty is heading towards a shock defeat with the No side now in the lead, according to the findings of the latest Irish Times/TNS mrbi poll.

It will take an unprecedented swing in the last week of the campaign for the Treaty to be carried.

The poll shows the number of people intending to vote No has almost doubled to 35 per cent (up 17 points) since the last poll three weeks ago, while the number of the Yes side has declined to 30 per cent (down 5 points).

The number of undecided voters is still a significant 28 per (down 12 points) cent, while 7 per cent won’t vote.

A measure of videos on YouTube also indicate a resounding victory for the No side as reported here, a playlist for the NO side videos is linked here.  One of the scariest is here.

Widespread reports from Brussels that the question of an EU Army or permanent armed standing force consisting of troops from all nations will presumably make a positive outcome for the Treaty, in famously neutral  and anti-miliaristic Ireland, even less likely, read here.

Double-crossed Dutch

The following is a quote from the EU Referendum Blog, worth reading in full from this link:

Yesterday, the Dutch parliament rejected the proposal for a law enabling a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, with only the Socialist Party holding to its committment that a referendum was necessary. On Thursday 5th June, the Netherlands will become the 16th country to ratify the Lisbon Treaty, so ending a long and sorry trail of broken election promises and deceit. And saddest of all, the betrayal of trust will continue. Listening to a Dutch Labour Party politician defending his vote against the referendum on the car radio on the way home this evening I felt a wave of deep sadness wash over me. They talk of the EU and Europe in turn as if they were synonymous. This collection of arrogant, self-satisfied, pompous politicians are not Europe, not my Europe. The EU is not Europe, and because of the EU Europe is becoming so much a poorer place. Europe was a vibrant, exciting place to be; with the enactment of the Lisbon Treaty it will become the EU, a very different place.

OECD Outlook hints non-democratically ratified Lisbon Treaty will finish the EU

The June OECD report is linked from here. Hamish McRae writing in The Independent this morning, linked here, concludes as follows:

"But if it (the world economic downturn) is not going to be deep, maybe it will be long. The banks will be scarred (and scared) for a decade. Squeezing out this burst of inflation will take three years at best. The about-turn by the US Federal Reserve this week suggests that the next move in interest rates will be up, not down. The scope for interest rate cuts in the UK and in Europe is limited at best, even though rates are much higher than in the States. Were this a normal cycle you would expect the recovery to be pretty evident by 2010, but somehow I feel a growing concern that this might be wrong: that though this downswing will not be particularly deep, it will be unusually protracted. It will certainly be unusually uneven.

To say that goes far beyond conventional economic forecasting. We don't have the tools to help us envisage what economic growth and inflation will look like in 2014, when presumably our next government will come up for re-election and the next US president will be in his second term, or not. But I am pretty sure the next few years will be difficult for governments in all western democracies. Voters will expect higher living standards and it will be tough to deliver them – tougher even than it is now."

So it would appear that the objective of this blog and its forerunner can at last be seen as attainable, at least somewhere far out on the distant horizon, but what a miserable way to see a small chance for the restoration of democracy and what pain seems in store to arrive at that end.

True, Stuart Wheeler's legal case and the Irish referendum, both almost upon us, could still prevent the worst, but it looks increasingly likely that the Lisbon Treaty will be ratified without the open consent of the peoples of most of Europe. Against the background of the growing economic storm clouds the repercussions could be explosive and those individuals responsible must now clearly be seen to be even more self-serving,callous and incompetent than already evidenced by their disatrous policies which have brought the world to its present sorry plight and destroyed the powers of 27 democratic parliaments almost completely .

At long last - a Dutch protest on Lisbon

The following is from Radio Netherlands, linked here: No becomes Yes Dutch ratifying Treaty of Lisbon By political editor John Tyle Three years ago the people of the Netherlands rejected the European constitution. This week, the Dutch parliament is ratifying the Treaty of Lisbon. This new treaty scrapped the symbols of a federal state that were in the constitution. Otherwise, most of the new treaty is the same as the constitution. So what made the Dutch change their mind? Fooled According to Harry van Bommel, an MP for the Socialist Party, the Dutch Public should again have had a say in a referendum: "I feel fooled. The Dutch said no, convincingly. We see now a Lisbon Treaty which is for 95 percent the same as the constitutional treaty. And now all of a sudden our government says no, this is a completely different treaty. My story's a different story."He goes on: "I think that it has so many similarities with the constitutional treaty that we should simply compare it with that treaty and allow our people to have a vote."

Another plea from an MEP for an Irish NO

Tobias Pflüger MEP, details from here, made an interesting speech in Dublin recently. It may be read from this link. He concluded as follows: Additionally, the Reform Treaty will change the voting counts in the most important EU body, the Council of the Heads of State and Government. When the treaty is ratified, Germany will nearly double its share of vote in the Council from 8,4% to 16,73% (the other winners will be France, Great Britain and Italy) while all other states will significantly loose influence. CONCLUSION Finally, the Treaty unmistakably states, that European law takes priority over national law. Declaration 17 says that "the Treaties and the law adopted by the Union on the basis of the Treaties have primacy over the law of Member States." So, whether they like it nor not, when ratified, all Member States are obliged to adhere to the militaristic program laid out by the Treaty of Lisbon. Therefore, I cannot overemphasize how important the referendum on the 12th of June is. Not only for Ireland and the future of its neutrality. But also for the whole continent and the prospects for a peaceful and democratic European Union. So, I hope that the population of Ireland will reject this treaty!

The Disaster for Democracy gets Daily ever more Direful

The following is from today's "Open Europe" Press Review: ==========================================

Hague writes to Clegg: if you "really" want an in or out referendum why didn't you vote for it?

What will the Lib Dems do in the Lords?

William Hague has written to Nick Clegg about the inconsistency between his party's position in the Commons and in the Lords on the referendum. Hague said: "Tomorrow the Lords will begin the key votes on the Lisbon Treaty, including the crucial vote on a referendum. In the Commons you ordered your MPs to abstain on the vote. You even ordered those frontbenchers who insisted on keeping their manifesto promises to resign... Yet in the House of Lords, when an amendment was tabled to provide for the very In-Out referendum that you had presented as the key Liberal Democrat objective, your peers abstained. Had those 76 peers voted for the amendment you would have won the vote. Why were they told to abstain?

"Now the Lords will soon vote on a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. The Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the Lords has indicated that Lib Dem peers will be whipped to oppose it. Do you support this? If not, have you lost control over your party in the Lords or will you publicly tell Lib Dem peers to vote the same way as Lib Dem MPs were told to? If you do, does that not expose your real position as being determined to force this Treaty through without the British people having the say they were promised in any way at all?"

Comment: There are a number of significant EU events next week: Monday 9 sees the adoption of the controversial agency workers directive; On the 9th and 10th the courts hear Stuart Wheeler's judicial review of the Government's broken promise of a referendum; Wednesday 11th is the crucial vote on the referendum in the Lords, and Thursday 12th is the Irish referendum, with results out on Friday 13th. =======================

Protest outside Liberal Democrats Party HQ

LIB DIM LORDS WILL VOTE AGAINST A REFERENDUM AND FOR THE LISBON TREATY PLEASE COME TO PROTEST OUTSIDE LIB DIM’S LONDON OFFICE AT: 4 COWLEY STREET WESTMINSTER SW1 ON TUESDAY 10TH JUNE AT MIDDAY COME TO DEFEND YOUR RIGHT TO A REFERENDUM AND YOUR SOVEREIGN RIGHT TO CHOOSE FREEDOM BANNERS AND LEAFLETS WILL BE AVAILABLE PLUS THE MEDIA WILL BE THERE PLEASE COME (THEY WILL HATE CONTROVERSIAL EXPOSURE PRIOR TO HENLEY’S IMMINENT BY-ELECTION) Directions: From Houses of Parliament go down Abingdon Street, turn into Gt. Peter Street {opposite Victoria Tower Gardens} and Cowley St is a short distance on the right. Organised by Campaign for an Independent Britain

First rate analysis of the Lisbon trickery - from the French

The entire article is available from the blog, Agora Vox, The Citizen Media, linked here. A quote with one of the many footnotes, helpful to Stuart Wheeler's legal team: ....................... The Lisbon treaty is not a consistent text, but a combination of amendments to the European constitution, references to previous treaties and annexes, which isolate the most controversial parts. The method “is to keep a part of the innovations of the constitutional treaty and to split them into several texts in order to make them less visible. The most innovative dispositions would pass as simple amendments of the Maastricht and Nice treaties. The technical improvements would be gathered in an innocuous treaty. The whole would be addressed to Parliaments, which would decide with separate votes. The public opinion would therefore unknowingly adopt the dispositions that it would not accept if presented directly.”(17) Little matter then that the treaty should be 267 pages long, and about 3000 with the annexes (18). Thanks to this trick, the reluctant peoples can be ignored. This draws suspicion on the previous steps of European integration. For after all, as José-Manuel Barroso put it, “If a referendum had to be held on the creation of the European Community or the introduction of the euro, do you think these would have passed?”(19) ..................................... (19) President of the European commission, Daily Telegraph, November 4, 2007.

Secret negotiations heighten democracy's danger

The following is from the Brussels blog of Bruno Waterfield of the Telegraph, linked here. Because the Treaty of Lisbon is being rushed through in indecent haste (it was only signed last December) much of it must be implemented before ratification has taken place, a delicate issue. Plans to create entirely new organs of public authority are being carried out before, mostly via parliamentary ratification rather than referendums, the public has agreed to it. This problem is compounded by the excessive secrecy surrounding the necessary preparations, for institutions like the European External Action Service, that must thrashed out for the EU Treaty to be up and running for Jan 1 2009.

486 million Europeans disenfranchised - picture

Thanks to the Open Europe blog for this picture of last Saturday's protest:

Gordon Brown - tell him yourself!

Almost two thirds of voters believe Labour reneged on referendum manifesto promise. The report is in the Scotsman linked here. The Press Association also quotes the YouGov poll and adds comments on the pending court case about this matter brought by Stuart Wheeler, read here. The Prime Minister himself, apparently oblivious to the total disgust with which he is viewed by much of the nation, has written today in The Times about his plans to lock anyone he chooses away for 42 days without trial or charges. There is a comment facility to this column so you can make your own views known from this link.

Radar or ratification?

More Czech concerns for the EU, read here.

From other blogs

Catholic Bishops attempt to sway referendum result, link here a quote: The Catholic bishops appear to have called for a Yes vote - nothing explicit of course, but we’re not complete eejits, Your Lordships Good comment from 2007 - link here, a taste: The Reform Treaty, in its essence, is all about the centralization of political power by an unelected ruling clique in Brussels that wants to pursue its superpower ambitions free from the constraints of democracy. The new treaty is nearly identical to the proposed European Constitution that voters rejected in 2005.