England Expects: Nobody died of passive smoking
Nobody died of passive smoking
Well that must be the way to read the response from the Commission to a question from Godfrey Bloom. The question was based on a link to an article by Dave Hitt I found on the Joe Jackson website.
Fine Gael News - Govt Should Come Clean on Operation of European Elections - Timmins
Govt Should Come Clean on Operation of European Elections - Timmins
Fine Gael Foreign Affairs Spokesperson, Billy Timmins TD has today (Tuesday) called on the Fianna Fáil Government to come clean and inform Nicolas Sarkozy that the European Elections will operate under the Nice Treaty.
“President Sarkozy on many occasions during his visit yesterday outlined how it is necessary that members of the European Union know whether next year’s European Elections will take place under the Nice or Lisbon Treaties.
“Mr Sarkozy’s openness and frankness was refreshing and the Irish Government should now reciprocate this by telling him that there will be no referendum re-run before the elections and, thus, the upcoming European Elections will operate under the Nice Treaty.
“No amount of analysis or reflection will change this fact and continuous prevarication on the matter by the Government is unfair to our European partners and to the Irish people.”
Ends
In short democratic legitimacy of the EU is non existent, none of the peoples of the nation states have ever voted for the creation of the European Project, it was created as a top down political structure where national politicians could exchange ideas and explore ways of working together for the betterment of all. But the decisions they made were never formally put to the people as an alternative form of government.
Occasionally one member states national politicians will allow or will be forced to allow the citizens of that state a small voice in the proceedings, but as we have witnessed so many times already the people are expected to vote yes and are simply not allowed to say no to the ongoing political unification, and the passing of powers of the nation state to a supra national level forum which is beyond the control of the people.
We can see the effects of this reflected in the recent news that Peter Mandelson the EU Commissioner for trade is putting a 60% reduction of farmer subsidies on the table at the WTO talks.
Which of us have given the EU the authority to make such an offer, in fact which of us gave the EU the authority to create and control such farm subsidies in the first place, when did EU farm subsidies ever feature in a national election or even in an election to the EU parliament. Of course they did not, because the politicians have by agreements between themselves removed such questions from the national debate and beyond democratic control.
So when Mr Mandelson has made his agreements and commitments in the WTO there will be no opportunity for us the people to gainsay those commitments no opportunity to say sorry we do not agree you must go back and renegotiate a different deal. This will be a deal amongst politicians about what they are going to force on the people they are supposed to represent.
For that matter when did we ever vote to become a member of the World Trade Organisation and give our authority to our government to make deals in that forum which impact on our own national well being?
The nation-state has a certain definiteness categorized by indivisible sovereignty,fixed boundaries, clear personality, established government, and constant democracy.
Because the sovereignty is indivisible it cannot be shared as the EU clique would have us believe, it is rather transferred to a different forum. We cannot decide to both share sovereignty and also retain it, once we agree to make our sovereignty conditional on agreements in the EU we obviously cannot still retain the independent expression of sovereignty. Sovereignty means we can say to Mr Mandelson, agree what you will, but we will continue to subsidies our farmers so they can continue to supply our food at a reasonable costs to the consumer, because as a nation state we demand that the ability to feed ourselves remains at all time within the power of the nation state.
Within the EU our democracy has thus become fragmented, we can still vote for Labour, Conservative or LibDem but we cannot vote to control the EU or the policies it decides to pursue, because they are no longer part of the national political debate. Only those parties which advocate leaving the EU can and do have distinct national policies on a whole raft of areas that are now EU controlled. But these are the smaller parties that have in reality no chance of forming a government or influencing policy.
As it stands we hold our own governments responsible of policies to which they are not fully responsible, over which they may have little control, and to which they may not even be politically committed. We also elect them to control policies that are beyond their control, the democratic deficit of the EU has been transferred to become a democratic deficit within the nation state. Whereas national governments do engage in debates on EU level policies there is no correlation between those debates and the national public debate which would contribute to authorising national politicians to agree to EU policy. Rather such policies are agreed by a select few in the cabinet and then forced on an excluded population.
There is also the central EU the Commission that feels it has the authority to dispense as it wishes, even if it does not have the backing of the member states governments. The announcement that $1.6 billion in uncollected farm subsidies should, instead of being returned to the nation states, be given to farmers in the developing world. On whose behalf are the EU working, certainly not the member states or their citizens they are so totally divorced from any democratic control that some ideas seem to simply materialise out of thin air and becomes EU policy that impacts on all of us but are designed to enhance the EU stature on the world stage. The only way of preventing this particular episode is if the nation states get together and take the Commission to court for overstepping its authority, and of course the court in question has a duty of “full mutual co-operation” with the Commission.
In the EU, political participation ‘by the people’ and representation of the people’ has generally been replaced with an EU claim of effective governance ‘for the people, ie. in the peoples interest, the EU claims a democratic authority because it adds benefit.
So the question needs to be asked does it really add benefit to the peoples lives?
On that front the EU is also struggling to offer any substantial proof that it does. The very cost to Britain of membership is calculated to add 5 pence in the pound to our taxes, do we get added benefit that compares to that, is our food cheaper because of membership, do we pay less for our energy? I do not think so, in fact just the opposite the EU adds to the cost of food production and is adding substantially to the costs of our energy bills.
It might be considered a benefit to subsidies farmers to produce food, if it is then how can it suddenly be decided that a 60% cut in those subsidies will also be a benefit, and were we not subsidising our British farmers in any case, how can it be a benefit for the level and the recipients of the subsidy being in the control of the EU and not our national government. And where is the added protection of size and greater negotiation power of the EU when those subsidies must be reduced by 60% to get a deal, could we not have done equally as well individually.
It might be a benefit to insist that 20% electricity should be produced from renewable energy sources, but as Booker points out the implementation of this policy is going to be a very costly white elephant forcing up the price of our electricity bills for several years to come and will mean that we will have to cut consumption to meet the targets.
How is it a benefit to be prevented from disposing of refuse by the traditional landfill methods when the system is in equilibrium and be forced to build costly incinerators?
In this as in so many other areas the perceived benefit of EU membership is negated by the costs involved in policies that have far more to do with a central EU socialist ethos than it does for any added benefit for the people. The EU instead of adding benefit to our lives is adding greatly to he costs both monetarily and legally with a seemingly endless flood of EU legislation.
The convoluted thinking of DANIEL GROS director of the Centre for 
European Policy Studies is shocking in its complete disregard for the democratic process and any legal boundaries.
His suggestion is that the leaders of the member states should sign the consolidated text of the Treaties which results from the incorporation of the amendments of the Lisbon Treaty into the old Treaty which has recently been officially published.
And then treat the consolidated text as an entirely new treaty, Ireland of course would not be able to sign, thus they would be invited to submit a set of protocols, or opt-outs, which would allow it to sign the treaty.
Once that had been done the Irish would then have to offer a new referendum based on the question “Does Ireland wish to join the EU (-26) with the Lisbon Treaty in force?”
GROS argues At this point, another No would effectively mean that Ireland would leave the EU.
Faced with this prospect, it is highly likely that the Irish people would choose to remain in the EU even if this meant accepting the Lisbon Treaty.
Of course the other states would also have to ratify the new treaty but conveniently this would not take much doing, as all they would be doing is re-stating their acceptance of the original treaty, but for some reason Ireland would be ratifying an entirely new treaty!
This of course is a political fudge because all states have a veto on treaty change, and Ireland’s veto would be as effective on the consolidated text because it changes the present treaties.
The question factually would still remain the same does Ireland accept changes to the EU treaty as defined by either Lisbon or the consolidated text of Lisbon, if the people do not then it to cannot be ratified. There are 27 member states not 26 or 25 as Gros would like to suggest and each would still have a veto on treaty change.
This year the School Council was elected by the children - an excellent practical demonstration of democracy at work. Next year [The Bully] will be the chair again, even if her peers don’t want her to be. What does that teach the children? That the wishes of the majority can be disregarded by the privileged few? A sad reflection of real life, I’ll grant you, but perhaps if our children were instilled with some sense of how democracy should work, in a couple of decades they might be the ones who make it work in real life?
As the Worldwide Anglican Communion (with a few exceptions) gathers to argue over women and homosexuals, which appears to be occupying all the column inches and all the blog pages ? as though the Church of England were concerned with and is about nothing else - Cranmer would like to turn to a corner of the world where Christians are being persecuted for their beliefs.
I heard somewhere once that if you asked 10 different economists their opinion on the economic outlook you’d get 10 different answers. Some will be confident, some will be gloomy - but all will base their opinions on their own personal environment. In other words, what they say depends on who they work for.Which is why I take the comments of Jim O’Neill, chief economist of Goldman Sachs, with a huge dose of salt. Writing in The Telegraph, O’Neill does his best to talk up globalisation as being good for Britain.
Weird Bans
From time to time I (and a lot of the blogging community) have a go at the government for their ludicrous attempts to control a minor problem by turning it into a major issue by banning it. Sometimes called bansturbation, a classic example being drunken behaviour, instead of arresting nuisance drunks, you ban alcohol for all.
However it’s not just a British thing, go all over the world and you will find some idiotic things that are against the law.
Shuffling the Packs?
The Sunday People reckons there will be a Tory frontbench reshuffle this week and a Labour one in September. I think it highly unlikely David Cameron would shuffle his team before he sees who their opposite numbers are.
It’s time to fight, and it’s time to win!
Next week will see hundreds of thousands of local government workers undertaking strike action in response to the Government refusing to negotiate over the real-terms pay cut it is trying to impose on its employees.
So why should local government workers go on strike?
In the past year, the average household bill has gone up by £1,300. Food bills have gone up by 9 % and energy bills by 15%. Since 2004, food costs are up by 30%.
Our the employer is offering us a 2.45% “increase” - effectively a pay cut for the tenth year in a row. This means that someone in the same job, on the same pay scale ten years ago was effectively better off in 1998 than they are in 2008.
Tough Matey so are the rest of us!
Is there more to life than shoes?
Start them early…
Oh, those Lib Dems, they’re so Liberal and, er, Democaratic. Aren’t they?
If one listened to them in the UK you could be forgiven for thinking that, given their opposition to ID cards and the such, but not if you have access to what they say in the EU. Which isjn’t easy, I’ll grant you, given that the press like to adopt an ostrich like attitude with all things EU.
So, I’ll plug the gap.
All quiet on the Barnett front
Why has it all gone quiet over the Barnett Formula? And could it be anything to do with Glasgow East? Here’s my column in today’s Newcastle Journal.
Richard Lamming director of Federal Union
suggests that voters should be allowed to vote for the president of the EU Commission
He argues that it would be in the interests of European democracy that the key political positions should be filled by election rather than by appointment. And asks How can it be preferable that the choice of Commission president be made behind closed doors?
What he does not say is that the nation wide election of the USA president was used by the US supreme court in its ruling that the political sovereignty of the people resides in the federal system, as there was obviously a USA wide demos. Thus because all Americans voted for the post of President, the federal government had political authority over the states.
The EU objective is to transfer the authority of the member states, which is based on the mandate derived directly from the people, to the EU, by creating a distinctive European identity separate from that of its member states. Thus enhancing the claim of democratic legitimacy for the EU and forming a base for further political integration, by claiming it has authority derived directly from the citizens, rather than authority channelled through the member states.
So Lamming is setting a trap to further the interests of the federalists by suggesting that there should be an EU wide election for the post of Commission President.
He asks “How can it be preferable that the choice of Commission president be made behind closed doors?”
It is preferable because the power given to the EU is given by the states and not the people, the existence of the EU is because of member states and not the people, it is a confederation in some respects because although its rules can apply directly to the people, it is the governments of the member states who agree those rules without first gaining popular authority from the people. It is the governments of the member states who give the EU authority to act on their behalf. The EU then begins to argue it is representing the people of the EU rather than the states of the EU, by so doing it is challenging the authority of the states and claiming a democratic legitimacy it does not have.
In the preamble to the EU Constitution there was clause which reads;
GRATEFUL to the members of the European Convention for having
prepared the draft of this Constitution on behalf of the citizens and States of Europe, WHO, having exchanged their full powers, found in good and due form, have agreed as follows:
The Lisbon Treaty lists the states and says the states
HAVE RESOLVED to amend the Treaty on European Union, the Treaty establishing the European Community and the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community WHO, having exchanged their full powers, found in good and due form, HAVE AGREED AS FOLLOWS:
The citizens are not mentioned as having exchanged their full powers.
There is no EU wide demos, none of the people of the EU states have voted or agreed that the EU speaks for them or has their authority to act for them. Lamming is attempting to infer that the EU does have democratic legitimacy because we will be voting for the Commission president. He wishes the EU to have the power to ignore the people yet at the same time use a non existent EU wide demos to further the ambition of a fully federal United States of Europe.
In this debate the very first question is an internal question to be answered within the member states, do we want our nation state to be part of a fully formed United States of Europe. Only when we have answered that question we can move on to others such as the power of our new nation or who will be its president. Laming and his fellow federalists are attempting to short circuit the initial question by moving swiftly on to subsidiary questions.
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Richard Lamming, Federal Union, Commission President, election,
John Redwood asks why the English Democrats stood against David Davis in the by-election, and wonders why they would want to stand against an obvious Eurosceptic or his party, a party which has voted No to Nice, No to Amsterdam and No to Lisbon.
Implying that if they stood against Conservative in a general election they will split the Eurosceptic vote, damage the Eurosceptic cause and possibly allow a federalist to win seats.
This view is one I have seen several times on the internet and I believe is built on a few misapprehensions; the first one being that the Conservatives are actually Eurosceptic - I am willing to accept that probably most Conservatives fall into that category, but then they probably always have - but if that is the case, then I can only conclude that the leadership of the party are following a different line on the EU, and probably always have.
Edward Heath took us in and campaigned with the rest of the leadership including Margaret Thatcher for a yes vote in the 1975 Referendum. Margaret Thatcher herself signed the Single European Act, her replacement John Major forced the Maastricht Treaty through parliament on a threat to resign if not backed by the Eurosceptic wing of the party. The only real Eurosceptic leader of the party and the only one elected by all of the members, held his position when there was no chance that the Conservatives could win an election and was summarily dismissed by the parliamentary party, after only 18 months. The present leader has broken one solid promise over the EU already to remove the MEPs from the federalist EPP group in the EU parliament, and is now backsliding on his promise to hold a referendum on the Lisbon treaty.
The Conservatives leadership of today are not offering any real alternative to the EU, or any real mechanism for returning power to Westminster. Preferring instead to put the EU on the back burner so they can concentrate on those things the EU still allows us to do. If you look at their policies on Health, Education or Energy it is clear that they also follow the EU line almost to the letter.
So in reality I do not see that the Conservatives parliamentary party are Eurosceptic, yes they allow the likes of Mr Redwood to make Eurosceptic noises but once elected to office the Eurosceptic wing will find that it will not be their policies that are followed. They will become the new bastards to be pushed to the sidelines as the leadership pursue the Euro federalist line, exactly as they have in the past.
Voting No to EU treaties when in opposition, when they know that there is not a chance of that they can win the vote, is not proof of being Eurosceptic. We need to see some real leadership in the development of policies that reflect and builds on those votes when the Conservative hold power in Westminster.
The Conservatives leadership have yet to formulate anything approaching that stance, preferring to remain in their blinkered state about the EU, what it is and what it is about. As such it is the Conservative party that is splitting the Eurosceptic vote by claiming to be something it clearly is not, and clearly has no intention of becoming. It is the Conservative party that is running interference for the federalists by falsely claiming to be Eurosceptic.
So the major difference between the parties is whatever their electoral chances, the English Democrats are clear about wanting to leave the EU, they do not see the future of this country being best served by our continued membership of a union that is set on the rails of continual political integration.
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John Redwood, English Democrats, Eurosceptic Vote,
He says this is just the start of his fight in a campaign against an assault on civil liberties.
He might be better advised to come clean about his real target which is not as advertised the Labour Government but rather his own party leaders.
The controversy over the Tory leaders demands that MEP must fill in a right to know form on expenses twice a year, has thrown up an important point;
The Tory MEPs according to the leaked memo are prepared to challenge the idea based on rule two of the EU parliament which says that MEPs have an independent mandate and “do not accept instructions”
Rule 2 : The independent mandate
Members of the European Parliament shall exercise their mandate independently. They shall not be bound by any instructions and shall not receive a binding mandate.
What then is the point of electing anyone to the EU parliament on party lines.
We already know that prospective MEPs do not produce manifestos, but the argument is always advanced that when voting for them we do know what their party stands for.
We might have some idea of that, but if this EU parliament rules means the MEP does not need to follow party lines and is independent of his own party then that argument must be false.
So we are effectively voting for someone to represent us in the EU parliament without the slightest idea of what they stand for or which way they might vote on any given subject.
There will be those who in a effort to sustain the facade of democratic choice within the EU will try to dismiss the ex German foreign minister as a ranting crank who does not speak for the real EU.
Unfortunately for them Fischer is not alone in his views, he is after all only expressing bluntly the basic guiding principles that have been utilised to ensure the formation of the Union, principles that so far have been hidden behind a facade of imaginary democracy.
Monett would have been fully behind such sentiments because he believed that a technocratic central power was the only method that would ensure the building of the Union, understanding that if left to the people the whole edifice of the EU would never have got off the ground in the first place.
The shift from government to governance has been created deliberately to ensure the people cannot stand in the way of the creation of the Union, democracy has been reinvented and is understood to be expressed by allowing the people an input in the debate, but the reins of decision making are at all times firmly held in the control of the EU officials, who are placed beyond the effects of democratic control.
Efficient decision-making has displaced the ideals of representative government and Fischer’s ideas are all about efficiency, he therefore sees states who listen to their electorates as weak and inefficient because democracy is not an efficient tool. Neither for that matter are basic human rights, if democracy can get in the way of the execution of political plans, so can human rights who is to argue that these should not also be sacrificed on the altar of efficiency. That is where and governance cannot replace democracy because if you do create a situation where those in power are divorced from the effects of democratic control at the end of the day you only have their continuing good will to rely on as a safeguard against tyranny. Some might argue no that is wrong they would be a constitution to control the technocratic centre but they will not recognise that as the technocrats are in charge of the constitution they are also in control of their own rules of behaviour.
Efficiency in the case of the EU is replacing democratic choice, we must ask of ourselves do we want to live in a state when the laws we are forced to obey are designed for efficiency of the ruling system where our legal rights are defined by the efficient working of the legal system, or should efficiency be subject to controls of the democratic will of the people and the protection of the individual against the state.
Efficient law enforcement can be achieved by allowing the police greater powers and by removing the traditional protections of the accused, we can remove the right to be tried by a jury and found guilty before being punished, we can remove the traditional division of powers in the legal system and allow the police to become not only the accuser, but the judge and the executioner, that would create an efficient law enforcement regime, but do we want such a system and would we trust such a system.
Within the EU we do not have the control that allows us to say no we do not want your system, and so there is growing public disenchantment with the whole idea of a central authority that need not listen to the people.
Faced with widespread public disenchantment with a system designed to be efficient but one that overrides the public choice in so many areas of concern, the EU officials claim that is because EU institutions have not managed to sell themselves properly, they have not managed to get the message across, that referendums cannot be used to solve complex matters, or that national politicians are to blame because refuse to explain to their own electorates that modern problems cannot be solved by national governments. Such lines of thought implicitly suggest that the problem lies not with the EU, the EU institutions or the EU system of governance, but instead with the people who are not intelligent enough to grasp the subtleties of the European treaties and cannot be trusted to make the right decisions.
The antagonism and growing hostility to the EU is not the people misunderstanding what the EU is about, or fear of a growing EU superstate. But is clear resistance to what the EU actually is, the people do not like the way the EU operates the way decisions are made about serious subjects which affect their everyday lives over their heads, in an arena of EU policymaking which denies democratic choice.
The public opposition is not the result of confusion or misunderstanding. It is related to the transformation of the European state documented in Wall’s book. The backlash against the EU is part of a wider reaction against a vision of politics which is technocratic and only asks of us that we trust our political elites and their ability to improve our lives. If we want to build a progressive response to the populist backlash, we need to go beyond the politics of consensus. We need to combat this rising wave of disenchantment with a positive and coherent call for political renewal and change.
http://mondediplo.com/2008/07/08europe
Perhaps is the area of greatest confusion and divergence between those who support the formation of the union, even though many of them also claim that this union requires radical change before it can be acceptable, and those of us who are distinctly anti such a movement. The pro EU change brigade including our own Conservative Party, are under the illusion that the EU is something it is not and would dismiss the claims of dictatorship or autocratic rule out of hand.
Yet after listening to the likes of Joschka Fischer nobody should still be labouring under the illusion that the Union is based on anything like the democratic principal or in fact could be so based. When he says the process of democracy is weakening the West and accuses national government of opportunism, lack of determination, and cowardice in the face of democracy and charges politicians with self interest because they consider their own election prospects above the needs of the union, he is clearly advocating the formation of nothing less than a state based not on democracy but on technocratic authoritarianism. An autocratic despotic state where the people and their representatives must be disconnected from any influence over the operation or the direction of power, where our own representatives are provoked and cajoled into ignoring the wishes of those they are elected to serve.
Thus having completely failed to carry the people with them on their journey of construction the EU proponents now make it clear that they never intended to allow a little thing like democracy stand in their way.
We in Britain have come to understand that the very foundation of a state’s authority rests with the people, thus without the supporting will of the people the structure of the state will collapse into a meaningless jumble of distressed powers. Yet within the sphere of the European Union decision-making is governed by administrative procedure, not by popular will, thus the democratic principal is seen not as the base for its authority but as an inconvenience that has to be administered.
In the world inhabited by the EU autocrats the public will as expressed at the ballot box, is just one of the influences on decision making and only then a very small influence that only must be addressed if the pesky local politicians insist on actually asking the people.
EU officials instead reach agreements on policy after a series of discussions with NGOs lobbyists and other single interest groups in a system designed to be an administrative procedure, where there is no place available for public debate or public involvement. A system moreover that allows the EU official to choose who to ask and who to ignore, where public involvement is relegated to the role of cannon fodder for the pollsters. In such a process it is difficult to imagine the wishes of the people being given a leading role, where the voters are seen not as the basis for authority but as a hurdle to be surmounted or by passed, or if that is not possible to be ignored, a technocratic system designed to be self governing and self supporting where as Fischer says public involvement can only weaken the EU.
Faced with the rejection of the Constitution, its rehash in the Lisbon Treaty and the as yet unacknowledged popular widespread rejection of the central EU bureaucracy right across the EU, Joschka Fischer writing in Die Zeit newspaper last week has put some bones on the thinking behind the idea of a central core of states that want to proceed with further political integration.
Not only should they be allowed to do so, but the decisions made by the elite or Avant garde group will dictate policy inside Europe and compel the other states to agree to their conditions. Fischer therefore envisions a two speed EU as a tool for further integration, what we are being told is evidence that the EU is going our way would be nothing more than cover for further political integration, because it will be the central core of states who will make the rules and make the running with those not prepared to join the central core push towards a fully federal EU being confined to the sidelines when it comes to decision making but expected to follow the rules, so much for the idea of being at the centre of the EU and the idea of a two speed EU meaning not proceeding at a different pace towards the same goal.
Fischer sees the inclusion of the people in the decision making process as in the Irish referendum or any other for that matter, as having a wakening effect on the power of the union. He said ;
“power and decision-making authority” of Europe should not be sacrificed for the sake of the democratic will of the people.”
Let us just ponder that for a moment as the concept is so breathtaking in a supposedly democratic country that it really does beggar belief;
EUROPE SHOULD NOT BE SACRIFICED FOR THE SAKE OF THE DEMOCRATIC WILL OF THE PEOPLE.
The EU and the power of the EU and of its political leaders is more important than democracy.
I suspect we in the West would have a greater understanding and recognition of their real meaning of such sentiments if they were made by the leader of for instance China or by the North Korean glorious leader Kim Jong Il in a speech extolling the virtues of greater individual sacrifice for the good of all. We would automatically understand that such sentiments have no place in a western democracy; they are out of place and in Europe out of time.
Even if in Europe Fischer’s censure of democratic decision-making calls to mind historical parallels, we have it seems unfortunately not learned the lesson. Although Europe has experienced the effects autocrat philosophy can have on peace prosperity and the very fabric of society within living memory, we do not seem to have completely eradicated the concept. We have not taken on board that political vision needs to be tested at all times on the fire of the democratic will of the people where the ideas must be weathered and burnished in the court of public opinion, if the vision of society is to be generally accepted as being appropriate. Europe in the shape of the EU has therefore reproduced the very thing it was created to obliterate from the political map, because stripped of it fine clothing as Fischer has done the EU is nothing more than an fully fledged authoritarian enterprise, one moreover that can only be realised by the suppression of democratic rights.
Bonekickers BCC1 Tuesday 9pm
What a load of unmitigated twaddle the drama program the first of a series was a convoluted cross between Time Team, Waking the Dead and The Da Vinci Code with a little bit of Highlander thrown in for good measure with, none of the verve associated with any of the forgoing. The whole package burdened with a very large dollop of BBC anti Christian politically correct prejudice.
Most of the time was spent waiting in anticipation for Tony Robinson to rush onto the dig and breathlessly announce that the team only had half a day to finish up and discover who done it.
The story such as it was revolved around the discovery of 12th century murder scene, it was discovered that a group Knights Templars, described as the Popes SAS, were escaping from France and were attacked and murdered by apparently Saracens, of course it turned out they were not really Saracens but another group of murdering Christians who were only dressed as Muslims and dropped hints of Muslim involvement in order to make the plot more complicatedly PC some 700 hundred years later.
There was no pity allowed for the Templars as it was stated twice in the hour long program that their job for the Pope had been to murder Muslims, the clear implication that these were defenceless, peace loving individuals being reinforced when a modern day Templar with mad staring hate filled eyes, unceremoniously hacked off the head of a young Muslim lad who was pleading “it does not have to be this way we can live in peace”.
The modern Templars were orphans who were brainwashed by a right wing Christian religious fanatic, who for some unexplained reason forgo modern day weapons in favour of the 13th century broad sword were portrayed as unbalanced troubled souls who understood that murdering defenceless Muslims was wrong but just could not stop themselves, the brainwashing I suppose.
We are becoming accustomed to the PC totally re-writing the history of the Crusades with Hollywood films such as Kingdom of Heaven and the impression that the Crusades were evidence of European cultural and economic expansion, rather than a reaction against three centuries of Islamic Jihad.
This was just another wasteful un-entertaining attempt to justify present day Islamic terrorism by reference to religious wars, which took place over a thousand years ago.
It was amateurish anti-Christian pro-Islamic propaganda at it worst, with un-historical nonsense being passed off as unquestionable facts that have a real relevance in today’s world. Where we are faced not only with ongoing Islamic Jihad but one that is carried out by a real band of religious fanatics, who use modern day weapons to create as much mayhem as they possibly can. A shame on the BBC for producing and showing such unbalanced and politically biased rubbish in these days when our own freedoms are being removed by our governments in a fight to contain today’s Islamic Jihad.
The Sharia debate: we can’t all be equal under different laws | Matthew Parris - Times Online
It made me sad to note that Lord Phillips began his speech by describing his maternal grandparents’ arrival in Britain in 1903, Sephardic Jews who eloped from Alexandria and their families’ attitudes “because they understood that England was a country in which they would enjoy freedom”. How fortunate that the attitudes they were escaping did not pursue them here with “voluntary” codes pushed forward by a “shared” culture whose compelling nature is more insidious in reality than it seems in law.
Ian Jack looks at the prospects for the Davis campaign in the Guardian he makes a point that has been concerning me since Davis resigned;
“Haltemprice will elect David Davis because of his party, but the popularity of his beliefs will remain unproved. As an independent newcomer campaigning for liberty he might struggle, like Miss Great Britain, to save his £500.”
Although I agree with the perceived stance of Davis - there is so much to complain about over the various invasions this government has made into the neighbourhood of our civil liberties - The struggle for the restoration of those liberties and rebalancing the power of the state verses the people will not be centred on the results of the by-election in Haltemprice.
In that respect the Davis campaign is practically a non event and can only serve to entrench the idea in a political elite that these things do not matter to the man in the street, which of course they do not, until he is individually faced with the power of the state at which point he will soon begin to realise that his so called rights no longer exist.
The whole reason Davis offers for his resignation is flawed in any case, because he could not possibly put pressure on this government by resigning from his office as Shadow Home Sectary, resigning his seat, and forcing an election. The other major parties - LibDems and Labour - are not even standing, so there can be no question that the issues will be discussed nationally when the only opponents to Davis re-election are independents, greens and various assorted others. As Ian Jack point out David Davis’s resignation has triggered not just a by-election but a scramble for publicity. And when he is returned with a lower turnout he will find himself in a weaker position than that which he previously held within the party. It will be entirely up to Mr Cameron if he wishes to offer Davis his old job back, some other job, or simply leave him languishing on the back benches.
Not that it really matters what happens to Davis, but he hung his banner on a very important civil liberties issue, as he becomes weakened so will the cause. Unless he can force Cameron to make this a real Conservative party issue at the next election. Which looks unlikely as Cameron has already declared his interests and they did not include civil liberties.
Technorati Tags:
David Davis, civil liberties, Davis Cameron, Tory policy,
The President of Poland has firmed up on his refusal to sign the Lisbon Treaty, but said he would do so if the Irish voted yes in a second referendum, as long as it was as fair as the first and the Irish government did not change the constitution in order to sidestep the Irish voters.
EUbusiness.com assess the reason why Lech Kaczynski has taken this stance is more to do with internal matters rather than an objection to the treaty. He is trying to force the government to agree to a change in the law so that EU-related decisions would be taken jointly by the government, the parliament and the president, a move which is being resisted by Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
The European Union is literally falling apart; and its all the fault of Poland and the USA according to Pravda in a roundup of Lisbon Treaty news:
European experts were originally concerned about Poland’s unpredictable behavior. However, the reaction of Polish President Lech Kaczynski turned out to be a lot more unpredictable than anyone could ever expect. It is worthy of note that it happened after Brussels had agreed to make all possible concessions on the European Constitution to Warsaw. The whole of Europe breathed with relief when Poland signed and ratified the Lisbon Agreement in December 2007.
There was very little left for Lech Kaczynski to do: to put his signature once again on the document which he had already approved. However, it suddenly occurred to him that Poland did not need the Lisbon Treaty at all. The Lisbon Treaty became useless in an instant. Poland refused to sign the Treaty on July 1, when France replaced Slovenia as the chairing state of the European Union.
None of that makes much sense why would the Poland not need the treaty when France took over the Presidency?
Poland has preserved its previous political course and the aspiration to prove that it is not the last country in Europe. Poland used to put obstacles on the way of EU-Russia relations. Nowadays, it puts a spoke in the wheels of the European Union.
Some may recall the glorious Soviet times, when Poland virtually destroyed the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. It seems like Poland is now willing to do the same with the European Union.
The News from Pravda - The place where truth hurts
If only the EU were literally falling apart, now that would be cause for celebration.
Technorati Tags:
EU, Poland, Lisbon Treaty, Russia
David Cameron has a plan for the next Conservative government!
He says the NuLabour project was nothing more than a communications strategy -
Labour said that it would combine social justice and economic efficiency. The trouble was that it never explained how it would do. Which meant they had no proper plan or focus, it’s no wonder, 11 years on, that precious little has been achieved.
Well actually quite a lot has been achieved?
Scotland has a devolved parliament -
Wales has a devolved parliament -
The English people have been made second class citizen of this country - the House of Lords has been decimated -
The British Parliament has been striped of power to hold the executive to account as -
more power has been passed to our government in Brussels -
our Taxes have gone through the roof -
BT has been opened up to competition -
The Royal Mail had been broken up and competitors from abroad have been allowed to cherry pick the most profitable bits, leaving the rump struggling to make end meet and now Post offices across the country are being forced to close.
The National Health service is being privatised under the auspices of EU induced decentralisation and health care for all -
The country has been flooded with a low wage work force from new EU entrants -
we can now be arrested in our own homes and extradited to a foreign country without any proof -
Since 1997 there have been literally thousands of EU regulations forced on us; so many that the government do not even have a figure
The power of the state over the individual has been increased by several draconian laws forced by this government under the anti terrorism and police acts-
now our local councils can use the anti terrorism laws to spy on us if they think we are throwing away too much rubbish,
These laws have been used to arrest a woman for reading a list of our soldiers who had perished in Iraqi at the cenotaph, to detain an 86 year old Labour supporter for heckling a minister at the Labour conference, a lady who wore a t-shirt with the slogan “Bollocks to Blair”
These are just some of the achievements of NuLabour, and Mr Cameron’s cunning plan is …
putting rocket boosters behind renewable energy; even more spending on useless and expensive wind turbines to blot our landscape, based on a questionable theory, more cost to the consumer in order to meet EU targets by 2020, and Labour is doing this anyway so no change there
having a border police force; what is the point of a border police when we are not in control of our own borders; and Labour is doing this anyway so no change.
And the really big plan is” Lifting up our society is the great task for the next Conservative government” this boils down to basically following the EU line on schools, welfare, and decentralised energy,
As the Conservatives are going to be following the EU line, the real question to ask is—- what is the point of electing them to government?
Just because we are fed up with this government? Well we might be and with good cause, but they are also following the EU agenda, and Mr Cameron is not offering anything different, just more communications strategy than a governing one, because the governing strategy is not made in Westminster. Even in areas such as education which are still within the remit of our government there are EU soft laws which means that we pay the pipers but they play the EU Tune .
And what of addressing the dogs dinner of a constitution Labour has created, well there we can only look at the signs because on these matters Mr Cameron is silent - Habeas Corpus and civil liberties are not high on the Conservative agenda, otherwise the Shadow Home Sectary David Davis would not have resigned, if he thought that he would have been allowed to address his concerns by Mr Cameron.
The West Lothian Question - Mr Clarke has come up with a fudge and a fig leaf, stepping back from the original EVonEM which would not even have solved the problem anyway.
Regional Government, doing away with Regional Assemblies but leaving the Regional Development Agencies in place - Labour is doing this anyway.
Mr Cameron said he was answering questions posed by the Times:
“The Conservative leader replies to a call by The Times to make clear what his party stands for”
Well according to Mr Cameron the Conservative Party stands for more of the same - more evading the real issues, more spin, more misrepresentation, more lies, and more EU.
Technorati Tags:
David Cameron, Conservative Party, Civil Liberties, decentralised energy, education, welfare
No NO an Thrice NO !
The Irish Examiner could have used Frankie Howard`s famous catch phrase when it printed a letter from John Scanlan Co Cork.
THE Lisbon Treaty was never about making the EU work more efficiently. A study by Prof Helen Wallace of the London School of Economics showed EU institutions are working as efficiently as ever despite the increase from 15 to 27 states.
This was confirmed independently in another study by a university in Paris which found that new EU rules were adopted a quarter times faster in the years after enlargement in comparison with the two years before it.
Sensitive deals agreed on the working time directive or the unbundling of energy networks also show that tough decisions can be taken under the current arrangements.
The Lisbon Treaty was intended to give a constitutional foundation to a federal superstate, and to do so by deceptive means.
In the aftermath of the rejection of the European constitution, officials at the Council of Ministers were instructed to make understanding the text of the Lisbon Treaty as difficult as possible while preserving the constitutional content entirely.
Three times now, however, European citizens have rejected this project of the political elite who would have seen their personal power greatly increased.
It is up to Brian Cowen to call for an end to the ratification process and denounce the dishonest attempts to present a constitution as a reform of EU institutions which are working quite efficiently.
tag: Lisbon Treaty, federal superstate, European constitution, EU institutions
They’ll be persuaded in the end - is the opinion expressed by French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner at the news that the Polish president Lech Kaczynski has indicated he will not sign the Lisbon treaty until Ireland gets over its No vote, the German president Horst Koehler is also refusing to sign the Treaty until the country’s Constitutional Court rules on two legal challenges, and problems with ratifying in the Czech Republic where the government is also struggling with a constitutional court challenge and a EUsceptic majority in the parliament’s Senate, on top of a having the most EUsceptice of all EU leaders as president.
The French who took over the presidency of the EU today did have plans to take forward further political integration in the spheres of more harmonised tax rates, joint EU defence, illegal immigrants, global warming and addressing the effects of rising oil prices.
The first two of these; harmonised tax rates and joint EU defence were leading problems in the Irish No vote, it is unlikely that the French will want to push ahead with these plans when the only legal way the Treaty can come into force will be if the Irish hold another referendum. When by doing so they would be confirming the Irish No camps original objections.
Instead the French will be concentrating on applying as much pressure as possible to the Irish government, one way is to halt all enlargements and blame it on the Irish - Bernard Kouchner said
“What use is it to take, say, three more countries into the EU, if we’re blocked and can’t proceed with political integration?”
At least he is honest about the aim of the EU which is clearly political integration. (Mr Brown please take note)
So the messages coming from Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic will not be welcomed by the French who can see that it will become difficult to isolate the Irish if the Polish are linking their ratification to the Irish outcome and two other countries are also holding back, in Germany’s case until early next year when the Constitutional court will decide.
The Polish President Lech Kaczynski has also said that the principle of unanimity is binding on the EU and there is no way he could agree to breaking that clause.
“The principle of unanimity is binding here, Poland must protect small EU countries’ rights as it is not a major power itself. “If the principle of unanimity is broken once it will cease to exist for ever. We are too weak to accept this kind of solution.”
And with a clear statment that he will not allow the power of Poland to be sidlined by a treaty that gives greater power to the larger states he said;
“My politics is a way to make sure the telephone number of the Polish president or prime minister is frequently used by Berlin, Paris, London or other capitals,”
tag: Lisbon Treaty, European constitution, EU institutions, Czech Republic, principle of unanimity
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