Thursday 29 November 2012

By-Election special

Its a fine morning here in Somerset. Let us hope it is the same up North in Rotherham. In case of late information coming into the public domain I looked at the bookies odds again this morning. There is little change from my previous post. In Rotherham UKIP has gone out a tad to 8/1. In Croydon despite Winston's faux pas he is still a 60/1 shot with Respect at 7/1. In Middlesborough UKIP are 100/1, strange in a seat that once elected a monkey mascot as mayor whose platform was free bananas for children.

Talking about monkeys I looked at Tony Butcher's forum today to find I am still attracting the malice of the EUKIP trolls. digging up what I posted there years ago. Legally you cannot be sued for libel for anything you write about a troll because troll's are not people so feel free to write what you like about them. I see I am alleged to have linked Lord Pearson to the Monster Raving Loonies. This I must point out is an old established political party, founded by Screaming Lord Sutch, a genuine aristocrat, which has contested every UK by-election since 1983 so it pre-dates UKIP as the fruit cakes and loonies party of choice [Cast Iron]. Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow, had contested by-elections under various party names starting in 1963 just after TWTWTW. It has won seats in local elections and given its aristocratic foundations might well appeal to the more deferential UKIP members.

The other EUKIP troll hate figure Nikki Sinclaire also features in Butcher's forum because of a report published in the Rotherham local paper. Click on link to read what Nikki is alleged to have said. If Bloom or any one else in UKIP feels they have been misrepresented and defamed they can follow the long standing UKIP tradition and take court action.

I will try and up date this later today.

Friday 8:40

Labour win all three by-elections UKIP second in Rotherham and Middlesborough, third in Croydon.

No results last night so I start this morning. Its difficult as our journos are all Leveson navel gazing and can't be bothered to give the full results.

So far I have only found one for Rotherham in the Daily Mail web site.


Sarah Champion (Lab) 9,866 (46.25%, +1.62%)
Jane Collins (UKIP) 4,648 (21.79%, +15.87%)
Marlene Guest (BNP) 1,804 (8.46%, -1.96%)
Yvonne Ridley (Respect) 1,778 (8.34%)
Simon Wilson (C) 1,157 (5.42%, -11.32%)
Electorate 63,420; Turnout 21,330 (33.63%, -25.37%)
2010: Lab majority 10,462 (27.89%) - Turnout 37,506 (59.00%)
MacShane (Lab) 16,741 (44.64%)


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2240762/Labour-celebrates-clean-sweep-elections-UKIP-hail-ground-Coalition-parties.html#ixzz2Dh2g8rxQ
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook



I congratulate Ms Collins on a very good result particularly getting more than twice the Respect vote. BNP clearly has hard core vote in this constituency given how they were ignored during the campaign by the BBC


Middlesborough


Andy McDonald (Lab) 10,201 (60.48%, +14.60%)
Richard Elvin (UKIP) 1,990 (11.80%, +8.10%)
George Selmer (LD) 1,672 (9.91%, -10.00%)
Ben Houchen (CON) 1,063 (6.30%, -12.48%)
Imdad Hussain (Peace) 1,060 (6.28%)
Peter Foreman (BNP) 328 (1.94%, -3.90%)
John Malcolm (TUSC) 277 (1.64%)
Mark Heslehurst (ND) 275 (1.63%)

Turnout 26%

Congrats to Mr Elvin. 12% of the vote is good.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2240762/UKIP-second-party-North-Farage-declares-trouncing-Tories-Lib-Dems-election-surge.html#ixzz2DhoUhWRW
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Croydon


Steve Reed (Lab) 15,898 (64.71%, +8.69%)
Andy Stranack (Con) 4,137 (16.84%, -7.28%)
Winston McKenzie (UKIP) 1,400 (5.70%, +3.97%)
Marisha Ray (LD) 860 (3.50%, -10.48%)
Shasha Islam Khan (Green) 855 (3.48%, +1.51%)
Lee Jasper (Respect) 707 (2.88%, +2.35%)
Stephen Hammond (CPA) 192 (0.78%)
Richard Edmonds (NF) 161 (0.66%)
Ben Stevenson (Comm) 119 (0.48%, +0.17%)
John Cartwright (Loony) 110 (0.45%)
Simon Lane (Nine eleven) 66 (0.27%)
Robin Smith (Young) 63 (0.26%)

Turnout 26.4%
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2240762/UKIP-second-party-North-Farage-declares-trouncing-Tories-Lib-Dems-election-surge.html#ixzz2DhpDBxyR
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Memo to Mr McKenzie, watch what you say about homosexuals, they have a vote as well as heterosexuals.

It is disappointing that bastion of brilliant journalism or so we are told does not give the actual results but merely a load of words accompanied by a lot of hand waving.

So did the bookies get it right? Well Yes for the winner Labour but two seconds and a third for UKIP where the bookies had them as almost 2nd in Rotherham, 4th in Croydon and 5th in Middlesborough so only 6 out of 10 for the books.

Was it a good set of results for UKIP. Yes of course it was but should it have been better?

Compare it with the SNP breakthrough in the Hamilton Nov 1967 by election where Winifred Ewing overcame a 71% Labour majority to win the seat with 46% of the vote. (The SNP had previously had an MP but it was during war time.) Winnie lost in 1970 but came back in 1974 to win Moray and Nairn. She was elected as an MEP in 1979 where she became famous in Strasbourg as Madame Ecosse. What is Farages nickname in Brussels? Answers please in comments section of this blog.

It has taken 45 years since Ewing's breakthrough to Alex Salmond getting a referendum in 1314.

This is the path UKIP have to follow to succeed. Can they? Well look at the variety, depth and probity of SNP spokesmen and the look at UKIP's stars, Agnew, Bloom etc.

So my answer is Yes, a good result for UKP but nowhere near good enough. Not even close to winning a seat and Mr McKenzie's ill judged comment on homosexual couples will hang round ULKIP's neck like the Ancient Mariner's albatross.




Wednesday 28 November 2012

UKIP third after Respect in by-elections. German elections & Greek bail out

That is the view of the bookies, click on link to read the odds. In all by-elections Labour are odds on to win. I summarise the rounded odds below for the leading 4 parties in the betting:

Rotherham     Croydon      Middlesborough

Lab  1/5         Lab  1/8        Lab  1/40
Respect 7/1    Respect 6/1   Con 25/1
UKIP 8/1       Con   66/1     Peace 25/1
Others 33/1     UKIP 80/1   LibDem 33/1
                                         UKIP 100/1

So why are UKIP lagging in the bookies odds compared to Respect? Its a no-brainer. Respect have won three seats in Westminster by-elections and general elections. UKIP have never come second let alone won in a Westminster election. In bookies parlance they have no form. That's what you get if you spend most of your time in Brussels running in selling plates and get correctly rebranded EUKIP.

Remember these are first past the post odds and cannot be compared to opinion polls. They do however show that even with non-stop Farage on TV and hugely favourable UKIP publicity in Rotherham on the fostering cock up scandal UKIP will do well to come second. If UKIP cannot come close in these favourable circumstances it tells me its time to change strategy and live, work and campaign in the UK not Brussels. If not UKIP will simple stack up more bad losses in the UK. Farage may be lucky for himself but he is a loser for UKIP. Its time for UKIP to get rid.

It is clear from these odds that Labour are currently on track to win the next General Election with a huge majority, 100+ say. LibDems will be wiped out and the Tories will only survive in the shires and wealthy suburbs.  EUKIP will perform abysmally as usual but by that time Farage and his sycophants will be back in their lucrative MEP seats on the back of an anti-EU protest vote in the 2014 Euro elections.

The Greek sardine can is being cynically kicked down the road until after the German elections. Merkel dare not tell the Germans that most of their Greek loans will never be repaid. She will campaign pretending the loans are in good shape and having won then she will tell the truth just like our bunch of rotters do.

As to the deal itself I can only quote Reuters, " To reduce the (Greek) debt pile, ministers agreed to cut the interest rate on official loans, extend the maturity of Greece's loans from the EFSF bailout fund by 15 years to 30 years, and grant a 10-year interest repayment deferral on those loans." In any one's language that is a default but not  EU  Orwellian newspeak. Our language is rendered devoid of meaning by our sordid politicians and arse licking media.

Tuesday 27 November 2012

Farage talks the talk. Can he walk the walk?

There is a good piece by Farage in today's DT. He is clearly trying to widen UKIP's appeal from disaffected right wing Tories to the poor indigenous population. "Even on the great immigration  debate those in Westminster village cannot, do not and will not feel the impact of large numbers of low skilled migrants arriving here. Its great to have cheap help but not if you are from the sector of society used to provide the help." Its a point I have often made. These people  have seen their wages driven down and have no one to speak for them now New Labour is pandering to the immigrant vote.

Jeff Randall made exactly the same point rather better in Monday's DT in his piece entitled 'Del Boy Blair peddles immigration myths'. Randall writes that big business support for the EU is nothing but naked self interest. Again its the argument I have been making for years and its the argument that can winn UKIP huge numbers of votes this week in Rotherham and Croydon I hope.

Randall finishes as always with a telling sound bite, "The impact of immigration on those living in the Cotswolds manor houses is clearly not the same as it is on minimum wage workers in Barking council flats. Tony Blair knows that but could not care less.

The first person to warn UKIP against becoming a Tory pressure group was its founder Alan Sked.
He is warning again against UKIP being infiltrated by Neanderthal Tories click on

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/11/26/ukip-founder-alan-sked-morally-dodgy_n_2190987.html?ncid=GEP

The  piece is headlined UKIP is morally dodgy and extraordinarily right wing. Farage has to correct this asap but with his association with nasty right wingers in the European Parliament it will be very difficult. You see that association generates extra loot and kudos for EUKIP and Nigel. To parody Marilyn Monroe's song a kiss on the cheek can be quite continental but Euros are an MEPs best friend.

So Nigel lets see you walk the walk on that one.

Monday 26 November 2012

Osborne goes for Carney but what about the BBC?

The news that Mark Carney is to be next governor of the Bank of England came as a huge shock. My old boss Paul Tucker had been expected to be next Governor but I think Mr Carney is an excellent appointment. He comes as a clean skin untainted by the various banking scandals to hit the City and best of all he is a banker. Harvard, Oxford and 13 years at Goldman Sachs is a really strong CV. No government bail outs of Canadian banks on his watch running the Canadian central bank adds to his attractions.

Mervyn King is an academic monetary economist and control freak who does not feel comfortable talking to bankers. He is only comfortable talking to other monetary economists whom he considers his intellectual equal. King had no hands on banking experience prior to his appointment and it showed in his later errors of judgement. He was a bad governor presiding over the Northern Rock, RBS and Lloyds banking meltdowns as well as the Libor fixing scandal. He came up for reappointment in 2008. Brown was strongly rumoured to want a new man thenbut the re-appointment coincided with the Northern Rock fiasco and it was judged to risky and smacking of panic to change your central bank governor at that time. So King was reappointed and Northern Rock , became a comparitively small problem compared to the subsequent RBS, HBOS/Llyods disaster. Lesson to politicians who always claim to learn lessons is don't take long term decisions for short term reasons.

I have high hopes of Mr Carney. The BoE deserves a good shake up but so does the BBC. Why on earth was Fat Pang allowed to appoint yet another BBC wallah, Tony Hall as DG without advertising the position or interviewing? Its quite incredible. No attempt was made to find an outside candidate. Luke Johnson, C4 chairman springs to mind but he was Fat Pang's boss on the C4 board. I remember my dear cousin a BBC wallah telling me in 1966 what a national treasure the BBC was. The Beebs big trouble is it believes this sycophantic self publicity.

The Beeb needed an outside appointment more so than the BoE.

Sunday 25 November 2012

Farage ticks Napoleon's box

Napoleon used to ask when appointing his generals, "don't tell me he is good. Is he lucky?". Well Nigel Farage has been lucky yet again with the idiotic Rotherham Conuncil deciding to take 3 children away from their foster parents on the grounds they are UKIP members 5 days before the Rotherham by-election. Farage was rightly all over the air waves since the story broke making as much political capital as he can out of this.

Milliband was even quicker out of the blocks distancing himself and Labour from this story. They could not put enough distance between themselves and the political correctness of Rotherham social services as evinced by Ms Thacker's interview with the BBC click on link to see and hear it. The Daily Mail published a very full account of the affair. Click on link to read it.

What Labour want to avoid at all costs is a repeat of the early 1980s when a succession of what were called loony left councils brought the Labour party to its knees. This has brought huge benefits to UKIP whom Liam Byrne, Labour shadow cabinet, today described as a mainstream UK political party. That is great for UKIP members who have worked so hard for this day.

Cast Iron Dave will also have to back pedal. He once described UKIP as closet racists and fruit cakes. He won't dare repeat that remark now and may well be challenged as encouraging Ms Thacker's views. It gets better than better.

Have I become a Farage fan? Well no. The comrades will hit back by digging up UKIP's fascist links not in the UK but in the EU between their MEPs like Farage and Bloom and mid European neo-fascist MEP  mid European parties. And what area of the UK does Bloom represent? Thats right Yorkshire where Rotherham is located! He is sitting duck for this to say nothing of his views on the role of women.

This is the reason I have always opposed Farage being UKIP leader. He has too much right wing baggage and is an easy target for the opposition when, as is happening now, UKIP is starting to challenge for a Westminster seat. I have never denied Farage has talent for a good sound bite which matters so much in modern UK politics but he has too much baggage to be a credible leader annd lacks intellectual depth. Have him as press spokesman by all means but make sure he is expendable when the hits start coming. It's better to lose one man than the whole ship. UKIP's weakness is its seen as the Nigel Farage party but is more correctly a Nigel Farage cult. So when Farage goes down UKIP goes with him.

Labour will target Bloom in the Rotherham campaign and I expect he will take the flak for Farage this time but next time it will be Farage they go after.

UKIP's weakness is the lack of political nous amongst its other spokespeople. Steph McWilliam, chair of UKIP SW after they ditched Alan Wood a man who had won a District Council seat, was put on the Sunday Politics SW region part of Andrew Neil's Sunday Politics show. The interviewer tied her in knots on a number of ill judged remarks she made. Click on link and fast forward about 30 mins to get to Steph's demonstration of how not to do politics.

Worse was UKIP's nominee for the West region part of the show, one Neil Hamilton. That's right the man who shot to fame in 1997 during the Tory sleaze story and who lost the fourth safest Tory seat in the country to the anti-sleaze man in a white suit independent Martin Bell. Talk about giving the opposition an easy target. Click on link if you want you see his political Lazarus performance in his new UKIP skin.

We have of course seen this all before in the South West with Farage's close associates and nominees. So far his Napoleonic luck has held. The expenses scandal saved his bacon in 2009. Sooner or later his luck will run out as it did for Napoleon at Waterloo just 10 miles or so outside Brussels.

Saturday 24 November 2012

UKIP foster parents & LibDem MEP hypocrisy

UKIP made the front page of today's Torygraph with the shocking story of 3 children being removed from their foster home because the foster parents were members of UKIP. If this is true and there were no other reasons for removing these children, then we are truely living in Orwell's big brother society. Rotherham council have not yet given their side of the story but certain aspects are very worrying.

The DT reports the social workers acted on 'an anonymous tip off' that the foster parents were UKIP members, a party which supported 'racist' policies and that their views on immigration made them unsuitable carers. I don't know what this couples views on immigration are but when I stood for UKIP I understood the UKIP policy was for 'managed' immigration along Australian lines. There are various other statements attributed to these social workers about UKIP which are clearly incorrect. I hope the media will report UKIP's actual policies in these areas.

Its the anonymous tip off bit that worries me most. It is nasty and deeply damaging to the children involved who have beeen uprooted from their home just before Xmas. Anonymous tip offs and denouncing people to the 'authorities' is what has happened in every nasty dictatorship throughout history. I thought this sort of thing had no place in the UK but clearly it does as Christopher Booker has often highlighted in his Sunday Telegraph column.

Yesterday's EU summit duely kicked the can down the road. Nothing new there then.

Our local daily the Western Morning News reports SW MEP Sir Graham Watson's deep worries over likelihood Britain me leave the EU. These statements were made to at an event in Exeter organised by the European Parliament at the NFU regional headquarters. Big landowners do very welll out of the CAP. The are largely paid for owning the land not for farming it.

You will see more of these meetings in selected areas of our country organised and paid for by the EU as pressure for an In/Out  referendum builds.

Watson is the only LibDem SW MEP out of a total of 6. He is a prize hypocrite. He is on record as opposing the whole honours system but when offered one himself it's arise Sir Graham.

I do hope the LibDems are wiped out at the next General Election. We have to put up with Laws as our MP. A man who was caught up in the expenses scandal to the tune of £40k but who has managed to squirm out and as there are few LibDems around is now back in Cast Iron Dave's self serving coalition. Laws should have stood down and given us a by-election to elect a better MP.

Hypocrisy is prevalent in the LibDem party from the top down. They are neither liberal or democratic. Reactionary and autocratic is how I would describe them.

Friday 23 November 2012

Trolls and the factories of malice

The last part was a memorable phrase that Portillo used last night to describe the sort of Twitter attack on Lord McAlpine which he has paid back with interest to Mrs Bercow and others who should know better. Lord M has done us all a great service by unleashing his lawyers on these twitter trolls who repeated the BBC's nasty smear on MacAlpine now doubt motivated in part by his being a Thatcherite Tory a species loathed by the LibLab BBC.

I and others have experienced nasty troll smears on Butcher's Democracy Forum. Tony Butcher is a decent man and I have never understood why he allowed these anonymous posters to use his forum. They have destroyed it as a platform of worthwhile debate and its now largely used to spew out not very good pro Farage UKIP propaganda in the name of Blog Bot. I tried to point this out to Tony Butcher but obviously my message did not get through. Who for instance is behind Arthur Fonzarelli? And  where has Skeptyk gone?

A Neil's final guest suggested the solution I put forward previously. Only allow people to post personal material under their real name supported by a current photograph. An academic discussion using a nom de plume has been used for many hundreds of years. Personal smears are quite another thing.

Thursday 22 November 2012

Obama & the Queen think alike

I am no monarchist. I do not believe the Queen is infallible, omniscient or omnipotent. The royal family is far to big. We need a monarch, an heir and a spare. We do not need hordes of Dukes, Lords, Baronets etc. The deference they engender does huge damage to or country. There was a young scribbler called Lawson who wrote a very perceptive piece on company boards. Start with a 100, deduct 10 for every Sir and 20 for every Lord. When you get to zero don't touch the company with a barge pole.

The value of the Queen to the UK lies in her long term commitment and support of the Commonwealth. OK the Aussies may ditch her as their head of state but she is still very popular in Africa and the many islands. I was appalled when in 1972 Heath went on bended knee to the French, Germans and Italians to join the Common Market selling the New Zealand farmers and our own fishermen down the river, people who had fought two world wars for this country. Heath was a classic case of a general fighting the last war. Europe was even then on the slide the far East and Pacific Rim was the future. This is where the Queen's brand is strong.

Obama sees this. The whole emphasis of US policy and military might is now the Far East and Pacific Rim. That is where we should be. Look at what is going on in Brussels tonight. A motely collection of mid-europeans squabbling as they have since the fall of the Roman Empire. Why on earth do we want to be involved in thsi shambles? The EU claims to have abolished European wars. I am not so sure. What I do know is we should take evasive action now and not get involved.

So lets keep the monarchy but slim it down and lets get some more commonwealth people into Buck House and make it a real commonwealth.

Wednesday 21 November 2012

Political tectonic plates are shifting

My native tectonic plate the SNP received a huge boost from the Institute of Fiscal Studies in its tax base report on the Scottish economy. How long I had to put up with jibes and taunts from the worst of the English Tories that they support the Jocks and they should show due thanks, respect, deference etc to these jumped up toffs? The IFS nailed that lie. The scots economy is pretty well in balance with tax receipts equal to expenditure. The proviso the Tory backwoodsmen seize on is at current oil prices. Now with 2 billion plus ever wealthier Chinese and Indians driving more and bigger motor cars plus their booming oil consuming economies demand for oil can only go up which as every economist do kno, even UKIP's Prof Congdon, means oil prices will rise inexorably.

UKIP should demand a similar report from the IFS on UK contributions and purchases from the EU but Farage ain't no Alex Salmond.

Spain could break apart this weekend as Catalonia may vote for separation. You won't get this from the EU loving Beeb, that home of incompetent self praising journalists but the Spanish papers are full of it. And which regions contributes most to Spain? That's right Catalonia!

I noted today the despite Cameron having a very difficult meeting coming up in Brussels it was not raised by Milliband at PMQs. It fits in with the LibLabCon strategy of sidelining the Europe issue. Why not? Its a tactic that has worked brilliantly for te Europhiles since 1975.

The really big shift was highlighted by Andrew Neil today. Obama's first post election visit was to the Far East not Europe as it had been for all previous post war presidents. Well I would rather cuddle the delicious Suu Kyi than the lumpen Frau Merkel but far more important it showed that the US sees the Pacific rim as its main area of interest not Europe. The majority of US military force has now been redeployed to the Pacific from the Atlantic as they clearly see South China Sea as the world's likiest flashpoint with China flexing its muscles.

Also because of its shale oil and gas success by the end of Obama's presidency US oil imports from the Middle East will be zero. So US interest in the Middle East is reduced and with it Obama's interest in Israel and Middle East peace. The US pro Israel lobby is going to have to work a lot harder in future.

It was a bit sickening to see Milliband cosying up to the Europhile CBI while voting with the Eurosceptic Tories to inflict a meaningless defeat on cast iron Dave for party politics. Who cares for the UK? Not Ed or Nick or Cast Iron. Goodness knows what will happen when Rebecca and Coulson go into the witness box. It could force Dave's resignation.

Tuesday 20 November 2012

The next CBI LibLabCon tactic - scare the horses

Having got their EU position indistinguishable from each other LibLabCon aided by the BBC, CBI and TUCwill move on to blackmail the working class and frighten them into voting to stay in the EU. If we leave the EU you will lose your job.

Shirley Williams, born with silver spoons in all her orifices, has put forward this argument incessantly since Wislon's 1975 referendum on staying in the EU. Its a bit rich coming from a woman who has never held a non-political job other than one year as a jounalist, trashed grammar schools for able working class kids and sent her own kids to fee paying schools. Wikepedia reports, "She skimmed off her own daughter Rebecca to one of the best selective schools in London, Godolphin and Latymer. The Williams family lived outside the catchment area of this school, so Rebecca was sent to stay with friends who lived close to the school, in order to qualify for entry." She is the epitomy of our political elite, do as I say because you can't afford to do what I do.

I expect we will hear a lot of scare stories from this dreadful hyopcritical woman as realism about the EU gradually percolates down to the working people. Williams has appeared more than any other panellist on the BBC political talk show Question Time; most recently on 8 November 2012 in Bexhill. 

A similar thing goes on with another LibLab Baroness, Helena Kennedy on Marr's Sunday morning politics show. I keep on complaing about this to the Beeb who reply they have difficulty getting suitable people to review the papers. The Beeb seem unwilling to produce details of how many appearances the lady has made but I wager its a lot more than any other guest. Sky don't seem to have any problem in that area and use a wide range of people for their excellent paper review.

I predict you will see a lot of La Kennedy over the next few years pushing the Williams scare story.

Jeff Randall had the CBI chairman Carr and David Davis on last night. He put to Carr that every month we have a balance of payments deficit of £4.5 bn sterling so if we leave the EU they will still trade with us. Carr seemed to find £50bn plus of net benefit to the EU not a significant factor. He is chairman of Centrica which I put a sell note on right now

Randall put this to David Davis on the line that the CBI represented British business. Davis replied they represent big international business only and that the job creation and growth in the UK was coming from the SME sector. This is the critical area that generates German economic growth. Type mittelstand to find out what these firms do  for Germany. Around 70 % of private sector employment in Germay is these firms. They are mainly family firmss employing on average 700 people and not liable to be bought and sold by dishonest bankers. They take a long term view, train up their own children and prosper. We have very few firms like that in the UK more's the pity.

These mittelstand firms have no interest in re-locating to other countries. Big CBI corporations do and to this end employ armies of lobbyists and PR men to bend our very flexible politicians to their will. The EU is run by these big firms with their priveleged access to the decision makers of Brussels to boost their profits. Dont be told how to vote or be scared into voting EU by them! They will make you redundant as soon as look at you. They have no loyalty to you or this country. They are loyal only to their wallets. Read Colin Crouch's book , "Post-Democracy" is my advice!



Monday 19 November 2012

EU sidelining on track

At the CBI conference today our political elite were clearly lining up with the CBI to shunt the EU problem into the sidings and ensure it does not become a serious issue. LIBLabCon are much happier to have their stereotyped party fights on Health, Schools and other such anodyne issues and ignore the EU elephant in the room. The CBI are clearly on board for this just as they were gung ho for ERM entry  which was a disaster, cost the UK a huge loss of reserves to George Soros (Is he a CBI member?) and ended in the UK having to leave the ERM and a subsequent election loss by the Tories in 1997. Leaving the ERM cost the reserves £3.4 bn because it was so badly handled by our political leaders but was the foundation of our economic growth in the late 90s.

This will be repeated if we leave the EU. Freed of the dead hand of EU bureaucracy our country will return to growth once more, our children will be able to get jobs and young couples buy their first house. The CBI does not speak for the people of the UK. It lobbies and represents big business, big bosses and international corporations who see people as an input to their money making machine, a facor of production as the economists say.

All their arguments about it being good for business boils down to good for them and the top bosses. The EU is great for them because with our flexible labour laws they can switch production and jobs to other cheaper countries with less workers rights. It also means they can play one country off against another to get the best deal for their corporation. This could happen outside the EU as well but the EU makes it easy for them to retain their intellectual property rights, distribution networks and tax minimisation schemes with minimum disruption to their business. Its a capitalist's wet dream.

Alan Walters, Thatchers economic adviser and our best UK political economist in my lifetime, was vehemently opposed to the ERM and was proved right. He was also proven right on the Howe Thatcher budget of 1981 which was opposed by 364 allegedly great economists including the current BoE governor the dosastrous Mervyn King in a letter to the Times. So much for great economists. I can name 4, Keynes, Galbraith, Friedmann and Alan Walters whom I knew as a North London neighbour. The rest have inflated ideas of their own abilities.

Alan came from a humble Midland'sbackgroud. He could communicate with ordnary people. He was never taken in by the EU flannel and indeed stood as a Referendum party candidate in the 1997 general election. Our current crop of economists like Mervyn King can only communicate with other economists. Thank God the current favourite to be next BoE governor, my old boss Paul Tucker, is not an economist but a central banker.


Sunday 18 November 2012

PCCs & Independents

I decided not to stand in my region, Avon & Somerset as there was already an independent on the slate and I would simply have split the independent vote and let yet another party aparatchik in. This is what happened in neighbouring Devon an Cornwall where something like 10 independents stood. Their aggregate total first choice was something like 30%, greater than the successful Tory who got 6% on first choices. Its the advantage of the party candidate system, the vote does not get split.

Millipede speaks with forked tongue in today's Sunday Telegraph trying to garner a few eurosceptic votes. Cast Iron is off to Brussels for talks to set the coming EU budget. There are 2 options. Cast Iron caves in as before or its put off till after Xmas - the current favourite.

Saturday 17 November 2012

Farage, UKIP, Corby and PCCs

Now that the dust has settled a few thoughts on the above. Farage could have been caught out on Thursday for his obvious confusion over Switzerland  which he implied was in the EEA, European Economic Area, but infact is not a member. He got away with it against the useless Dimblebore. He won't get away with it against Andrew Neil who catches Farage out regularly on his bluster and lack of attention to detail.

Corby, UKIP 3rd  with 14.3% of the vote with the Tories 2nd with 26.6% and Labour winning with 48.4%. It was good to see the LibDems just the wrong side of 5% and lose their deposit. UKIP got 4.5% in Manc and 6.1% in Cardiff. Its clearly not a breakthrough for UKIP. They would have to double their Corby vote to seriously threaten Cameron. The BNP vote was 1.7% which is also good news for UKIP.

The PCCs were more interesting with Idependents winning 11 out of 37. Now that is encouraging as it shows people are getting fed up with old style ya boo party politics. Labour won 13 and one of their PCCs made it clear he would use it to oppose the government. The dinosaurs are still with us.

Friday 16 November 2012

Farage very good on question time

I thought Farage was excellent last night. He was concise, sharp and to the point. He did not have Hislop to contend with and he had some UKIP friendly questions on Abu Qatada, commercial tax avoidance etc. Hettie Harman had the best line of the night on the Corby by-election where she said the joke doing the round was that the Tories were splittiing the UKIP vote. As I write the result has not been published so time will tell.

The most telling political point was when Farage pointed out that it was single market regulations pushed through by LibLabCon allowed corporations to choose where they are taxed so they of course go to the lowest tax regime! LibLabCon were dumbfounded at that.

 The Eurozone news was that Greece and indeed the whole Eurozone area had increased their exports to non-Eurozone areas with German exports out of the EU up 5%! Exactly, that's where we should be not competing in an over crowed over supplied Eurozone where German industrial production is falling.

No Corby result but it looks good for UKIP. Farage certainly satisfies Napoleon's criteria for his generals. Don't tell me he is good, is he lucky? Well  NF looks to have been lucky this weekend.


Thursday 15 November 2012

Where is Farage's moustache?

If you have an answer to this question please post it in comments box of this blog. NF is never one to not jump on a passing band wagon that identifies him with the political elite. So why not grow a moustache as so many of his Tory friends are doing?

The Jews and the Palestinians seem intent on killing each other once more. Its a festering sore in the Middle East which one day will lead to a nuclear war. I just hope we keep out of it and leave it to the Yanks.

The BBC continues to ignore the BNP the fourth placed party last time at Corby but gives lots of air time to UKIP which did not contest the seat last time. I don't like the BNP one little bit but this is a country that sticks to the rules and precedent as much as the rule of law and I think we should preserve our reputation for fair play. Its the reason so many firms use English common law for their contracts. They know that if they have to go to court the contract will be fairly interpreted and enforced unlike in the US which BP are now finding out.

The PIGS coordinated strikes roll on to the inevitable disintegration of their social fabric, extremism and revolution. Thus ends the not so great European nation.

I voted today for the only independent candidate standing for police commissioner in our area. Its loaded against independents by requiring a £5000 deposit plus providing no free post for their election statement. It will very quickly politicize our police which is a very bad thing. An obvious solution to level the playing field would be to have a deposit of £500 for independents but £50000 for those who put a party label next to their name. Is it unfair to those in political parties? Not in my view. Anyone who wants to stand can stand only without a party label.They still have all their comrades to deliver their election literature which true Independents don't have. Labour see it not as a means to align the police with local needs but rather another stick to beat the government with. Hence Prescott and his like.


Wednesday 14 November 2012

Eurozone Club Med on Strike; BoE fiddles

Even the BBC have reported these huge strikes over all the PIGS. It will end in blood. This was a trade union organised protest but the right wing can organise strikes as well. It can't go on. The Greek economy is forecast to contract a further 7% this year! Unemployment is already 25% in Greece and Spain rising to 50% among the young. Portugal, the good little PIG which has swallowed the Merkel austerity medicine is in just as big a mess. Universities there have had a 50% funding cut since the crisis began and one University head is talking of shutting the whole University down.

Never mind the Brussels gravy train rolls on. I was amazed to read that LibDem MEP and Cabaret star Sharon Bowles is on the Bank of England short list for Governor! I gather she claims to know a lot about regulation. Well thats what a spell in Brussels teaches you but not a lot about banking. It will be something fo Nick to boast about and is a monument to political correctness The bank had a better female in 2008 with Rachel Lomax who then held Tucker's DG job. But along came Northern Rock, Gord got cold feet about changing his bank governor in a minor crisis so he re-appointed Merv and created a major crisis. The sister hood led by P Toynbee were very disappointed.

I gather my old boss Paul Tucker is hot favourite and he will be grateful that La Bowles is a total nonentity. He is the only banker on the list. JohnVickers was the Bank chief economist but is a competition economist with no hands on banking experience. The same applies to Adair Turner and Terry Burns, ex-HMT so its an open goal for PT. He is very able but believes his own publicity a little too much.

Tuesday 13 November 2012

Farage & Hislop again!

It says in the bible , 'That as a dog returns to its vomit so a fool returns to his folly'. Nigel Farage having come off second best to Hislop in HIGNFY last Friday has agreed to appear on Question Time with guess who? That's right Ian Hislop editor of Private Eye.

There will be a few good issues for Farage, Abu Qatada, the BBC Newsnight mess with the only real danger that someone might bring up expenses but if no one does I am sure Hislop will get it in. Hislop is far cleverer than Farage and has much better command of English.

Farage is a useful idiot for the BBC as he is a useful idiot, in the Lenin sense, for the EU. He is the harmless Euroseptic for both organisations and keeps those more dangerous to both organisations off the TV.  Both Farage, the BBC and the EU benefit from this unholy hidden agenda. I believe one of the TV channels is researching an in depth look at Farage and his expenses. This will not be another Newsnight cock up but a serious piece of investigative journalism that the BBC have chosen not to do. I wonder why?

Thus tonight on the 6 pm news the Tory, Labour, LibDem and UKIP candidate were all interviewed on the forthcoming by- election in Corby. Strange indeed. In 2010 UKIP did not even contest the seat but the BNP did and came fourth with 4.7% of the vote almost saving their deposit but there was no interview of the BNP candidate. Now like Abu Qatada's judge I believe in fairness. I don't like the BNP or Abu Qatada but they should both be treated fairly according to the law for Qatada and BBC custom and practice for the BNP. There should have been an interview all the serious contenders not just the 4 they want to favour. They did show a picture of the BNP office as their lip service to balance!

Meanwhile things in Greece are approaching a hunanitarian catastrophe in which aid agencies must soon become involved.







Monday 12 November 2012

Greek tragedy goes on and on

Russian plays were written to be so slow moving that it gave you time to go for a pee and not miss any of the action. Thus it is with Greece. Its economy continues to shrink, down by 30%+ since the start of the crisis five years ago and forecast to fall by another 6% next year. Athens burns, protestors riot, public sector strikes continue and the fascist Golden Dawn gains support every day. What have the ordinary Greeks to lose. Surely it is better to have your own right wing dictator than an EU right wing dictatorship.

This is how Hitler came to power. We will hear how nasty Golden Dawn is but it is of course the EU political elite that will have brought it to power with its insane austerity policies. This is worse than the US Great Depression. Athens can be very cold in winter and soon Greeks will be dying from cold and starvation.

Meanwhile our great national treasure the BBC continues its navel gazing and worries about editorial independence. Get real. People are dieing right now in Greec so why worry about over paif BBC types.. Ah well they edit and control the news so what you see is all the news that matters to the Beeb.

Have a look at the comments to my HIGNY blog entry to understand how we have tied a millstone round our neck called the EU and wait for the arrival of the benefit claiming Balkan hordes.

Sunday 11 November 2012

Remembrance Day

For the first time I can remember my wife and I did not attend the Remembrance Day service in our local church today. We both felt that our elite, political and social, had betrayed those who gave their lives for our freedoms and way of life.  In reading the Witterings from Witney I was glad to find others felt the same way. I reproduce the introduction from the blog below.

And so once again at this time of year ‘the great and the good‘ the likes of Cameron, Brown, Blair, Major and MilibandE* will come to the Cenotaph to pay homage to those who have fallen in order to preserve our country. It should be the case that every politician, when they bow their heads, should do so not in homage, but in shame. Shame that they have deliberately cheapened all those lives that have been wasted fighting for freedom and independence – a freedom and independence that they, the politicians, have since steadily eroded and ceded.

Original Article at Witterings from Witney http://witteringsfromwitney.com/


Lord Pantsdown usually attends these services. He supports and apologises for this horrid government which is still sending our young people to die in Afghanistan, He was a soldier but he does not seem to have read any military history. In the first Afghan War at the start of Queen Vicky's reign during the retreat from Kabul the Afghans destroyed a British army of 2000 men. Only 2 made it back to the Khyber pass! Our political elite forget nothing and learn nothing. Grand phrases like lions lead by donkeys, putting our country at the heart of Europe slip easily from their lips but of course they don't do the dying. They are always with us. The peoples only protection lies in a Swiss style direct democracy that reurns power to the ordinary people of this country. That's what our dead and wounded soldiers fought for.

As Witterings finished his blog:

* Which is why I will not watch those that pay faux-homage, but will wait for those that truly do remember, that truly do pay homage

Original Article at Witterings from Witney http://witteringsfromwitney.com/

Saturday 10 November 2012

Farage on HIGNFY - pass the sick bag Mabel

A bravado performance of false bonhommie and faked laughter through gritted teeth by NF last night. It was cringe making to watch him calling McShane a scumbag. It takes one to know one Nigel!

I am glad they replayed the A Neil clip nailing Farge's broken promise on publishing his expenses quarterly. Nothing has appeared so far this year.

Farage's statement that he did not claim expenses from the EU but allowances drew derisive laughter from the audience. They were lauging at you Nigel not with you.

Keep it up Nigel. You are making UKIP a lauging stock every time you go on TV.

Thursday 8 November 2012

It is time to reconsider the Bank's independence

This is the headline on and excellent piece by Andrew Lilico who runs the biggest bond fund in the world. Its well worth close study. BoE independence was granted by Brown so we could enter the Euro says Mr Lilico. That was the spin but it was not the reason. Brown wanted inflation to be some one else's problem. Simples! Then no blame could be attached to GB when inflation took off and politically worse interest rates went up.

The Treasury then setlled old scores with the Bank taking away gilt edged issuance which it had done for 300 years. GB also removed its banking regulation function to the FSA and we all know what a great success that was. He later compounded his mistakes by ordering the Bank to sell off half our gold reserves. We got a knock down price of $275 per ounce.

The idea that central bank independence was a great way to control inflation was an attempt to copy the Bundesbank's success. Misses the point. The BU was backed by the super efficient German manufacturing economy and thats where the low inflation came from. Blair's cool Brittania was backed by Costa Coffee etc.

The BoE has a sorry record over the last 5 years of missed inflation targets and also missed significant structural changes in the economy. Lilico's thesis is that if we put politicians back in control we can always boot them out. True but may not result in improved perormance. Still, having worked under the autocratic rule of MAK its worth a try.

I do hope we get a good appointee as Governor. To the best of my knowledge unlike the C of E there are no old Etonians in the frame.

Wednesday 7 November 2012

The City's best days are behind it

"City cull to leave jobs at 20-year low by next year" is a headline in today's DT business. The CEBR forecasts City job numbers to tumble to 237000 next year down from354000 in 2007. Optimists attribute this fall to the economic downturn and the financial crisis but will it recovery when economic conditions improve? I doubt it. The EU awants banks to hold capital reserves which means less lending so less bankers.

This is bad news for Gideon Osborne. Less bankers means less tax reveneue. Oh dear, the goose that laid the golden eggs ain't what it used to be. That other powerhouse of the EU German manufacturing orders dropped by 3.3% in September so less dosh for Dr Frau Merkel to pick up the tab after her din-dins with call me Cast Iron Dave this evening.

The Open Europe think tank man in today's DT says Germany is losing patience with the UK which the Dr Frau  likens to the old men heckling from their theatre box in the Muppet show. I have nou doubt Cast Iron and Gideon will be raising the spectre of the German taxpayer have to pay for more and more club Med bad debts. If I were themI would be more worried about the 38 million Bularians and Romanians who will be eligible to come to the UK and Germany seeking work and social benefits on 1st January 2013. Still it may distract the media from Dave's texts to Rebekah.

Sunday 4 November 2012

Farage on the Sunday Politics

This interview with Andrew Neil indicated where his and UKIP's weaknesses will lie as their poll rating improves. It illustrated what Richard North wrote in his blog this weekend. Click on link to read Richard's words reproduced by Junius who gives the link to Richard's full blog if you wish to check its veracity.

Richard makes the point that Farage's statement, " “But if the Conservative and Labour leaderships decide they will ignore Ukip’s messages, then goodness knows what we can do” , shows that UKIP is, what it always has been, a pressure group. Farage does not address his remarks to the people of the UK. He addresses them to the political elite not to the voting public who are the people who elect MPs and governments. As Richard, who knows Farage better than most says, after he gets rejected by LibLabCon leadership he simply does not know what to do other than running around contesting and getting soundly defeated in by-elections up and down the country.

Farage made a few sound bites but then fell back on bluster when probed further by Neil. Farage was clearly all at sea on the question of where he would get the £50bn from that the abolition of national insurance would cost. From growth he repeated ad naseum like every political party hack. He simply had not thought through his position and it showed.

Next was the vexed question of Farage's claim he would post his expense claims quarterly on the UKIP web site except that Neil had checked and there was nothing there for this year. Farage then back tracked to 6 monthly postings but as Neil pointed out even that was not there. Neither was Mr Nuttall's expenses and Mr Farage's only dealt in round numbers whereas everyone knows actual expenses come in pounds and pence or in Farage and Nuttall's case euros and cents.

This all arose I believe because Farage had been putting the boot into McShane the latest casualty of MP expense claims. This was a silly thing to as I recollect McShane had frequently been a guest on Neil's various TV politics shows. McShane can also dish it out as Farage might well discover.

Farage demolished the 48% of our exports go to the EU myth and also that if we left trade barriers would be instantly erected against us crippling our industry. Complete bollocks as A Neil well knows. He also did a decent job demolishing the 77 % of UK business want to stay in the EU BBC 'poll'. As Farage rightly pointed out  the BBC only ever polled the bigg multi-nationals who would say that anyway. He missed two additional good points. These were the same businesses that wanted us to join the Euro and these were the businesses that had no loyalty to this country and would be happy to relocate to any other country that offered them a better deal. Read Colin Crouch's little book, 'Post Democracy' Mr F.

UKIP, Farage and Nuttall can expect a lot more of this in the future. Factual justification of his sound bites is not Farage's strong suit. I am looking forward to Neil quizzing Bloom, Clarke and Agnew. That will be a real blood bath.

UKIP's basic weakness is it is not a political party. At best it is a pressure group and at worst a Farage cult.

Monday morning PS

I hear NF is to be on HIGNFY this Friday. This is very silly. Private Eye, edited by Hislop, is bound to have a fund of damaging Farage stories. Only watych if you like blood sports!

Thursday 1 November 2012

Where was Farage during the great debate?

I know last night's defeat of Cast Iron Dave was a petty little thing owing every thing to the worst side of UK party politics, nevertheless it was a Government defeat. No Government likes losing. It undermines its credibility and conjures up images for Dave of a pale man on a pale horse called John Major destroyed by Teflon Tony. It was a good bit of political theatre where every Eurosceptic and fellow traveler could strut their stuff on College Green and in the TV studios up and down the land.

But where was Farage and his bag man Nuttall, the Don Quixote and Pancho Sanchez of UKIP? There were not even seen out in the UK tilting at windmills. I opine they would be in Brussels proping up the EUand the Brussels bars while collecting their 30 pieces of EU silver leaving other better men than they and even Ms Wollaston to carry the flag of our cause. It reminds me of the WWI recruting poster, ' What did you do in the great battle to get our country back Nigel?'

The EU commission is full of very clever operators. They set up the MEP system of d'Hondt voting to ensure there could never be a majority party in their talking shop to oppose their wishes. Divide and rule is policy that has worked for the Eurocrats these 40 years and will go on working. Don Quixote Farage tells the UKIP faithful he is using the EU system against the EU. Poor fools! It's they who via Farage and Nuttall are being used by the EU. I just wish F & N spoke and wrote English as well as the EU bureaucracy and had ten per cent of their political skill!