Thursday 30 December 2010

We have to keep the bastards honest to get out of the EU

The Australians than a campaign with the above slogan. It has a lot to recommend it. The only way out of the EU is to repeal the 1972 European Act in the UK parliament. That is a very tough ask as it will be opposed by the LibDems, Labour and a fair chunk of the Tory political class who want on the EU unelected and very lucrative gravy train.

Every politician I have known hates elections. They get in the way of their well rewarded comfortable life. The prospect of losing their seat is all they care about but what is the point of voting out one set of  parasites to replace it with a similar but hungry one? We have to find a way to keep the pressure on our so called elected representatives to honour and keep their election pledges.

We have already seen how easily Lib Lab Con slipped out of their pledge to hold a referendum on the EU constitutional Lisbon Treaty. Our young people have just suffered the LibDems ditching their University fee pledge for personal wealth for their leaders. It is the antithesis of democracy and will I hope lead to the destruction of the LibDems. This must be a good thing for UKIP as it removes a rabidly Europhile party holding the balance of power in parliament and makes it a straight Con Lab choice with UKIP having then some pressure on an unpopular Tory party.

To be effective UKIP has to start at the grass roots in the UK with local elections. UKIP must win seats with good candidates who can then show they can perform well as Councillors. I was very struck with a vox pop done in Stoke when LibLabCon were petrified the voters were going to vote in a BNP mayor. At that stage the BNP had 5 councillors and several of the electorate remarked on camera that they had done a good job for the community they represented. That is the path UKIP must tread but we do need good honest competent candidates prepared to work their socks off here in the UK. We can therefore forget anyone associated with the Farage Brussels cabal.

The Oldham ad |Saddleworth by- election will be illuminating. The candidates according to the local rag are as follows:


Abrahams, Debbie – Labour Party
Adam, Derek George – British National Party
Ali, Kashif – Conservative Party
Allen, Peter Duncan – Green Party
Bishop, David Laurence – Bus Pass Elvis Party
Brick, The Flying – Official Monster Raving Loony Party
Kaye, Loz – Pirate Party of the UK
Morris, Stephen – English Democrats
Nuttl,l Paul Andrew – UK Independence Party
Watkins, Elwyn – Liberal Democrats

Note that Nick |Griffin is not standing for the BNP but UKIP have put up Brussels based Nuttall. Let us see how the electors vote. Will they choose UKIP or the BNP? How badly will the LinDem vote collapse? The current bookies odds are 1000 to 1 against UKIP and the BNP. Fair odds for both parties would be 1000000 to 1 in my book! It should be interesting but I will view it from the top of the Eiger, God willing!

Wednesday 29 December 2010

UKIP, British Politics boiler room scam

Boiler room scams mainly originate from Nigeria where a fictitious Mr Odinga Odinga claiming to be an official of a Nigerian bank tells a tale of a huge unclaimed sum of money in one of his deceased client's accounts which Mr O seeks your help and bank account in draining this money to your mutual advantage. The story varies but the bottom line is send details of you bank account to Mr O-O  and you will be well rewarded.


Many people are taken in by this fairy story and email Mr O details of their bank account but receive a reply that Mr O has hit a small snag but it can be resolved if you send Mr O a small facilitation fee. Many do but then Mr O tells them a further sob story which again can be resolved by sending him another larger sum and so it goes on until the mark's bank account is empty in some cases to the tune of £20000 plus!

The psychologically interesting part is many of these marks still believe in Mr O's story even after they have paid him huge sums. They cannot admit to themselves that their original decision was wrong as it is so destructive to their amour propre. Its more soothing to the ego to go on paying!

Thus it now is with UKIP. There is by now abundant evidence that the Farage's UKIP has no strategy or plan to get us out of the EU and indeed I would opine has no intention of  getting us out. Farage and his Cabal do very well out of the EU largesse, indeed they enjoy salaries and a lifestyle they could not possibly aspire to without the EU.

I admit that I was impressed by Mr Farage the first time I heard him speak at Dorchester and joined UKIP as a result. Then I heard him again and was much less impressed. When I finally met him I saw through him in about 30 seconds and as a rational former trader cut my losses immediately and was kicked off my elected position on the UKIP NEC. As a trader you cannot afford to back losers and you have to admit when your decisions were wrong if you want to succeed. This is very uncommon behaviour with the irrational public at large which is why Mr Farage got over 50% of the vote from ordinary UKIP members.

Any rational person taking an objective look at Mr Farage's actions and comparing them with his words can see what Nigel Farage is. This argument is predicated on the word rational. People do not make rational decisions about politicians and are therefore easily duped by our political class. UKIP members are probably no worse in this respect than tribal members of the ConLibLab parties. UKIP members however think they are different. They are deluding themselves and will simply continue to keep Mr Farage and his cronies in the very nice, EU funded, Brussels life style they enjoy so much.

Getting us out of the EU requires UK based and UK funded political action by patriots who are not paid by the EU.

Friday 24 December 2010

UKIP's management needs a shake up

The history of UKIP is littered with the costs of ignoring simple administrative proceedures particularly where financial matters are involved. The latest cock up or sin of omission if you prefer is UKIP's failure to lodge any defence to Nikki Sinclaire's sexual discrimination case. We should find out on the 29th how much this will cost UKIP. I also hope it will cost Farage and Bloom personally as it might concentrate their minds a little more on these matters in the future.

Alan Wood who resigned from UKIP a year ago sent me a very funny email re the UKIP website:

"No sign of the Nikki Sinclaire situation on the UKIP website!
 
But the contact at UKIP Devizes in the South West Region under UKIP Local is ..........ME!
 
What a shower this UKIP are! After resigning over one year ago the website is still pretending that UKIP Devizes exists!" 
 
 
One wonders how many other UKIP zombie branches there are? Wiltshire was a strong UKIP area with one of the few UKIP district councillors but that is all in the past. Never mind UKIP does not need Indians only chiefs!

Wednesday 22 December 2010

Austerity is not enough

Tempting as it is to write of Nikki's just employment tribunal result against Farage's UKIP and Bloom I will stick to my theme inspired by the last words of Edith Cavell, a British nurse shot in Brussels by the Germans during the 1914-18 war, 'Patriotism is not enough'. It is not but its better than Farage's UKIP and their neo-Nazi allies in the EFD can manage! UKIP's subservient bunch of self seeking wannabees comprising the NEC who endorse the great leaders every mad whim may soon find out the meaning of the legal phrase jointly and severally liable.

The huge doses of austerity meeted out to the PIGS will also not be enough. The PIGS need hope and growth to inspire their people with hope of better times and that can only come from the devaluation of their currency to stimulate economic growth. The power crazed EU rulers can never allow this. It would show to all the world their grand project is a catastrophic failure. Many good and brave men have died and are still perishing today in Afghanistan for the vanity and career of politicians who cannot admit they were wrong. Those who trade financial markets and have to pay for their mistakes are very quick to correct their errors. Only those using other peoples money either politicians or autocratic heads of huge corporations can afford to ignore facts.

Things in the Eurozone will go from bad to worse. Ireland was a successful economy before it joined the Euro. Greece was and is a corrupt basket case. The only way out is to recognise the Euro has failed, go back to national currencies and elected politicians responsible to their own people. Barroso, Rumpy and Frumpy  and their ilk can never accept they have been wrong. As in Russia of 1917 blood shed in the streets will have to come in many EU countries before real change can happen.

Monday 20 December 2010

HSBC considers re-locating its head office from London

The above is the latest ominous sign that international financial institutions are not prepared to put up with EU financial regulation that will make them uncompetitive globally. Nigel Farage made this excellent point as well on Adam Boulton's Sky programme yesterday in relation to hedge funds. Mr Farage correctly pointed out that financial services are the UK's biggest industry and that 25% of London hedge funds, under the threat of more EU regulations, are re-locating to Switzerland exactly as I predicted a year ago.

HSBC head office is a large employer at Canary Wharf but Farage's hedge fund point is I think more important. Hedge funds are the start point for much of the M&A activity in the City which provides business for not only HSBC and other banks but also the huge law business that operates in the City. The few hedgies are the rainmakers generating work for many thousands of highly paid city lawyers but who as far as the hedgies are concerned are simply highly paid clerks.

One of the principal competitive advantages of the City is the confidence investors have in the fairness and consistency of British courts decisions irrespective of the nationalities of the parties involved unlike in the US or France. BP is being hung out to dry by the US government and legal system, something that will damage the US in the long run but again driven by the short term expediency of politicians, eg Obama, seeking re-election.

The EU's ill advised banking regulatory 'reforms' are driven by the same self interest of the French in particular. In London this will start to hit the wealthy and influential legal community. The hedgies like swallows can fly off to warmer climes but the lawyers can't. Which profession has more UK MPs than any other? The law! Now that gives us real political clout to start rolling back the EU. K Clarke the main Tory Europhile is a common lawyer. When you have them by the majorities their hearts and minds will follow!

Sunday 19 December 2010

Smug Farage is now part of the media political establishment

I switched on Sky News this morning to watch the clips of the cricket and catch up on the latest snow havoc to find Mr Farage looking very smug on with Charlie Kennedy, Tessa Jowell and David Davies on Adam Boulton's politics programme. I did not find anything Mr Farage said advanced UKIP's anti-EU position with the Sky News public. Worse what he said merely aligned UKIP with the David Davies view that the collapse of the Euro would be bad for the UK as the Eurozone was our biggest market!

In his position I would have been advancing the argument that the ejection of Sterling from the EMS in 1992 was crucial in saving the UK economy from rising unemployment and other disasters and that the same release of economic energy would follow the collapse of the Eurozone and the Euro. Nigel Farage did not advance this argument and seemed very comfortable to acquiesce with the consensus views of those around him none of whom could now be called front rank politicians and all of whom are on the TV media circuit.

I found it all a huge wasted opportunity. UKIP has battled to escape the one issue party label. If Farage continues to grab all the TV media opportunities to promote himself then the one man band is a fair comment on UKIP which increasingly looks more like a Nigel Farage cult than a political party.

Friday 17 December 2010

They don't like a Liverpool scally in Oldham

I read Mr Nuttall is to be the UKIP candidate in the Oldham and Saddleworth by-election on 13 Jan 2011. I note also Mr Griffin is contesting the seat for the BNP. I hope we are not in for another cheap publicity stunt with Nuttall leaving the returning officer's result announcement as Griffin is there. Behaving properly with people you may dislike is an integral part of our democracy. Manners makyth man as William of Wykeham said.

UKIP contesting this by-election is a stupid waste of effort and money. They will be swamped by the bigger parties who will pour people and money into the election which of course Labour will easily win.  I suspect it is driven by the BNP deciding to stand but its much more natural BNP territory with a big immigrant population resented by the indigenous natives. I understand UKIP do not want to run any risk of being seen to have a tacit electoral pact with the BNP but they should have chosen a local candidate. Nuttall is a Liverpool scally with a strong scouse accent, a group that is detested East of the M6 in Lancashire. Ask any Man Utd supporter what do you call a scouser in a suit?

The good result for UKIP will be the EU obsessed LibDems will be rightly trashed and will then be entirely in Cameron's power. Its what they deserve after their disgraceful reneging on their very public pledges to the students. Diane Abbott got it dead right on This Week last night when she said Clegg will never fight another General Election for the LibDems and will be found some lucrative EU job.

On the same programme Portillo clearly shares my view that the Euro problems and its impact on domestic UK politics will be the big issue in 2011. I think it could well precipitate a general election next year. Yesterday's Brussels farce is yet more hot air and no action or as they say in Liverpool, all fur coat and no knickers. The markets will go on trashing the Euro until they see real action backed by real cash by the EU.

Thursday 16 December 2010

Why do British officials and elected represenatives not fight for British interests?

It is depressing to read in today's DT that we will be required to pay up to £16bn to fund future euro bail outs under article 122 of the Lisbon Treaty. That's the treaty that was described by our Europhile political elite as a mere tidying up exercise involving no transfer of power. The Brits thought article 122 would only be used to fund bail outs for natural disasters not financial incompetence. If they believed this why does our government simply refuse to pay?

Extending the scope of laws and regulation from what was presented to the gullible public is a trick British politicians like to use as well. Remember the poor old man who heckled Jack Straw at the Labour conference only to be threatened, as have many other honest citizens, with prosecution under anti-terrorist legislation. Then of course there was the one sided US extradition treaty. We were told it was to be used to extradite terrorists but it seems to have been a one way street used by the US to try law abiding British businessmen.

Then there is the current European Arrest Warrant fiasco currently being used to hound Mr Assange for blatantly political reasons and now playing in the British High Court. Pushed through by the idiot Lib Dem MEP Watson on claims it was needed to combat international drug dealing criminals and yes, yet again international terrorists. Whatever Mr Assange is he is neither a drug dealer or a terrorist and has never been found guilty of a criminal offence.

I am sure our officials were well aware of the expansionary potential of such agreements to pastures green and new and would have informed their political masters of the dangers. The truth is the UK political elite, elected and unelected, simply did not want to hear. I had a similar experience in the Bank of England re financial risk. So the good old British public will just have to cough up yet again.

Wednesday 15 December 2010

Could the Eurozone end game be the end of the Coalition?

Ominous noises are being made about Portuguese, Spanish and now Belgian sovereign debt. Downgrades by the rating agencies are coming thick and fast. There has been more serious civil unrest in Greece following cuts in public sector pay that puts our little student demo in the shade. Civil unrest in a nation's capital is always bad news for the incumbent government as it implies they are not in charge of their own capital.

Political risk is starting to dominate even in Belgium without a government for many months and with a debt to GDP ratio of Spanish or even UK proportions. This is starting to put real pressure on the Euro. Spanish bond spreads have jumped 100 bps in just a month. J C Trichet wants a 'quasi fiscal union' whatever that is  to stabilise the Eurozone debt markets. The ECB itself may be insolvent under strict accounting rules. Their whole approach will go through under article 48 of the Lisbon Treaty that Brown signed in isolation on our behalf.

Merkel cannot sell a fiscal union of any sort to the Germans but what off the UK. The Lib Dems will do anything the Eurocrats ask, indeed their idiotic SW MEP Watson boasts of putting through the European Arrest Warrant, the one the Swedes re using to try and extradite Assenge with no doubt to eventually hand him over to the Yanks. The Tories won't agree to fiscal union, quasi or otherwise. Clegg will be wiped out at the Oldham by-election by Labour in early January. No wonder he looked sick at today's PMQs.

Another General Election in spring 2011 is a distinct possibility. Are you ready UKIP?

Monday 13 December 2010

Not in the Eurozone but we still have to pay for it

It was sad to see John Major on the AM Sunday show claiming his decision to not take us into the Euro as a great triumph which ensures that eurozone troubles are not our problem. This is simply not true. Under the Lisbon Treaty we have had to contribute directly to the EU Greece and Ireland bail out fund and indirectly via the IMF our share of that component of the fund. The latter is unavoidable under the Bretton Woods IMF arrangements.

More insidious is the Marr europhile argument that as the Eurozone is our biggest export market it is in our interest to support the Eurozone in its current problems for the sake of British business. Nothing about us being the Eurozone's biggest export market and the balance of trade being hugely in the Eurozone's favour.

Meanwhile Merkel and Sarky edicts on eurozone sovereign bond holders haircuts are jacking up borrowing costs for Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain. The Greeks are now having to pay four times the interest rate the Germans are on their bonds. The are hving to pay so much to service their debt that there is little left to pay for essential public services. Something has to give soon. 

Friday 10 December 2010

If FIFA were a country it would be the EU

I was vastly amused whilst in Oz listening to how upset the Aussies were at FIFA awarding the world cup to Qatar not them and then when I got back to find similar pique here about Russia getting it instead of England. The Anglo Saxons have still to learn that behind closed doors its money and back scratching that counts not merit or value. Its a pity the great British electorate who were so worked up in the tabloids on England's slight don't see that FIFA is just a microcosm of the EU which screws us at every turn. Not difficult when we are represented by the Buller oiks Cameron and Osborne who could afford to pat as much for their silly outfit as would keep an ordinary student at Corrie university for a whole year.

Similarly the country is oblivious to the fact that the whole EU 'improved' financial regulation is aimed at killing London as a major financial centre and promoting the Franco Prussian interests in Paris and Frankfurt. Monday's DT carried a centre page article in this vein by one Ted Sumpter. Businesses like Kraft/Cadbury are re-locating out of the UK every week for to avoid increased tax and regulation. Mr Sumpter reports one quarter of UK firms will follow suit in the next few years.

Young professionals are showing similar inclinations to depart these shores for tax and regulatory reasons. My own daughter for one, a UK trained surgeon, now works and lives in Oz and has no intention of  returning. She wanted a UK training job but these had all been earmarked for 'international', i.e. Indian sub continent doctors for the next 5 years so she left as did three of her peer group.

Truely, this country has a death wish ruled by a cabinet of millionaire public schoolboys most of whom inherited their wealth, did PPE at Oxford, then were Spads and then went on to become Tory/LibDem MPs in their early thirties without ever mixing or working with the ordinary people. It is a self perpetuating political elite as it is with Labour also.

Thursday 9 December 2010

As a dog returns to its vomit so a fool returns to his folly

So it says in the Bible and so it is with UKIP requesting funds from its largely impoverished membership to fight the hopeless cause of the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election.

Former leadership contender Alan Wood, one of the few UKIPers who has won a fptp election, all be it for a District Council seat emailed me this quote,

 "UKIP do not stand a chance at this election. It is not an issue about the EU. It is about a corrupt practice by Labour, and UKIP do not have a clean bill of health in that department. They are not strong enough to take on the massed battalions of the 3 major parties in a by-election. UKIP should save their money for the local elections in May 2011 where their best candidates have a better chance of winning a seat with good financial support. History is laden with bad generals like Nigel Farage who take on unwinnable battles."
 
I suspect one motivation is that the BNP may well put up a candidate and that man may be Nick Griffin MEP for the North West. It would be far better to let the BNP make a fool of themselves than risk them beating UKIP in a constituency which is far more BNP territory than UKIP.

All good leaders never choose to fight on ground favourable to the enemy.

UKIP would do far better to follow Alan Wood's strategy of only contesting parliamentary seats where UKIP had done the groundwork and built up their vote in local government elections. This was AW's strategy when he was SW Counties chairman stupidly scrapped by Steve Crowther, UKIPs latest Farage national supremo appointee with some grandiose job title. Whoops, expect more of the same electoral disasters. Only a fool keeps on doing the same thing expecting a different result but I have no doubt some UKIP Farage groupie like Whittaker or Nuttall will be selected as the UKIP sacrificial lamb unless Biggles Farage is up for another wizard prang.

Tuesday 7 December 2010

No taxation without representation!

This was the cry of the rebellious American colonists in their revolutionary struggle against their political master, the British Empire. It should be our rallying cry as well!

Yesterday's DT business notes Mr King's, the BoE governor's, concerns that when the developing Greek Debt crisis was being discussed at The Ecofin meeting the UK our so called representative, Badger Darling, was well, invited to leave. However when the Greek bail out plan was announced we were not asked to leave but to contribute many billions of Euros to the EU rescue fund in addition to the large contribution we had to make  to the IMF component as well!

To quote Rudyard Kipling,

'Its Tommy this and Tommy that and Tommy go away,
but its Mr flippin Atkins when the band begins to play'

Who is to be our George Washington? Who is to be our Benjamin Franklin? Well not Nigel Farage and his sordid crew. They are all on the EU payroll. I can't recollect George Washington taking money from the British Empire. Nigel Farage is not made of the stuff to take us out of the EU. Benedict Arnold is possibly a more apt comparison. Someone who takes the Empires money and is on a promise. he thinks, of preferment to the red leather of our useless House of Lords, there to sit with such other extinct revolutionary firebrands as the Kinnocks, John Prescott etc. 

Now the same scenario has been played out in Ireland where we are forced by the Lisbon Treaty to hand over another double whamy of dosh to a country which has been a haven to terrorists who have murdered thousands of innocent British men, women and children in my lifetime along with many British soldiers who in all truth were sent as in Afghanistan today into a war zone in which they were just sitting targets for terrorists.

And what are UKIP's leaders doing to publicise this grotesque injustice? Well nothing. Just getting in another round of drinks in Murphy's bar in Brussels. Nothing changes at the top of UKIP.

Monday 6 December 2010

Back from Oz to find Farage's begging letter on the doormat

I returned from my sailing and cricket watching trip to Oz to find as I had earlier predicted this unwelcome begging letter from Mr Farage awaiting me. As you see I have replied in the Freepost envelope provided saying I will consider his request when he and all other UKIP MEPs  publish a dated itemised list of their own personal donations to UKIP. I also pointed out I did not put my trust in him. I voted for Tim Congdon.

I remember at the leadership hustings Mr Farage boasted that he would secure funds from large donors he knew. If so why does he need to beg from the UKIP members many of whom are pensioners living on fixed incomes?

I note that in my absence things in Euroland are proceeding along the easily predictable path I have opined on to the inevitable hardship for the ordinary working people of Europe. Our political masters. including Mr Farage, will of course not be expected to share the pain of the ordinary people.

The full financial consequences consequences of the ill advised decision to sign the Lisbon treaty are now becoming obvious to all. We have no say in the Eurozone decisions but have of course to pay our share of the bail out to the profligate Greeks and Irish. Portugal will be next and of course the EU bailout cannot work without currency devaluation for these countries. EU crats led by, Barroso and van Rumpoy cannot allow this as it would be a public admission of the failure of their flagship Euro policy but this will inevitably put them on a collision course with EU national leaders seeking re-election, a process the 'crats are spared from!

Self interest rules OK!