Just working back through a load of left open and forgotten browser windows and came across Iain Dales, second misguided piece about the EU banning a dozen eggs*
And was reminded of the following rant/observation made by a friend of mine:
“There seems to be an obsession with misreporting EU legislation and yet, the actual real-bad legislation never gets very much reported, if I was into conspiracy theory I’d say that it was deliberate so bad-shit could just be hidden in the lies and crap but that’s unfounded because the British government have actually been quite good about some of the bad EU law and fought it , and lost.
The British government did a really good campaign on trying to fight the tax-flattening on pleasure craft fuel which was forced on us by the EU. In the past, pleasure boats could use pink-diesel and not be taxed on it anything like as much. Forcing pleasure craft to use fully taxed diesel has pretty much destroyed Britain’s pleasure-craft industry for all but the rich now, which in turn will destroy the economy of a lot of places…
But was that reported? Not much… Nothing like as much as some bollocks about not being able to sell eggs by the dozen any more.
Sure, a bunch of Scottish islands and a whole bunch of people who make their living out of the canal boats will go bust, but that’s nothing compared to … Well, eggs.
As it happens, the Brits complied with the fuel thing but accidentally forgot to employ any inspectors to make sure people were listening and not filling with pink… there is of course the other problem that most boat tanks will have remnants of pink diesel dye in them anyway so it’s practically impossible to test.”
So whilst you’ll still be able to buy a dozen eggs from a ruddy cheeked farmers wife, chances are you won’t be on a relaxing canal boat holiday when you do so.
*But not yet it seems four candles
Typical of a Gordon Brown announcement things weren’t quite what they seem. Yes he’s going to step down as party leader but in an “orderly” manner so not until conference in September and if the country needs him (fat chance) then he’ll generously agree to cling on to any leaver of power that he can for as long as possible. On an amusing quote front Mr Brown said “parliamentary and not presidential system“, so what were those leadership debates about then?
Meanwhile senior Labour types such as John Reid and Blunkett are saying that Labour should step down and let the Tories as the largest party get on with things. Nick Clegg has abandoned his previous stated intent to work with the party with the largest mandate and is trying to play Labour and the Tories against each other to secure the best advantage for the LibDems and sod national interest. Of course it seems likely that if the LibDems do get to power via the Labour Party that they’ll not be terribly popular and Mr Cameron can paint himself as the victim of a stolen election, regardless of if it’s actually been stolen or not under our system.
All of which of course ignores the fact that there are several seats which may be open to legal challenge due to lack of voting papers, people being turned away etc. Which might not change the balance of power but who knows.
What is certain is that who ever does manage to grasp the reins of power even for a short period of time is probably not going to be popular, due to the massive amount of cuts that actually need to be made to avoid going the way of Greece, who we’re being forced to bail out by something north of 10 billion (and remember before the election the 3 main parties were struggling to find ways to cut 6). Given the renewed interest people seem to have in politics these days (we do so love a farce) I think there may actually be a way to avoid that for the Tories at least, they need to take the radical move of actually telling us the truth. Regardless of if they’re in power or not they need to come clean with us and say “we’re screwed, fixing this is going to hurt a hell of a lot – sorry but it’s got to be done”. They won’t do it obviously and even if they did people would scream but they’ll scream a hell of a lot more if we end up in the same position as Greece.
To end of a more positive note Anna Raccoon has a delightful take on the position Gordon now finds himself in, oh and we already have our first exepenses scandal of the new parliament and they haven’t even sat yet.
The end of the world must surely be coming, that or I’ve fallen into some odd alternate reality, for today we have:
Tom Harris saying Daniel Hannan is right (which he is) and elsewhere Peter Tatchell is defending homophobes (well their right to free speech). All these attacks on our liberties and sovereignty do make for some strange alliances.
I really must apologise, my previous article UKIP losing the plot I’d rather presumed that UKIP wanted a blanket ban on the burqa. However as Dick Puddlecote points out over at Old Holborns this isn’t actually the case. They just want to ban it in public buildings and allow for it to be banned in private buildings as well and they actually want to ban “anything which conceals a woman’s face“. Which is marginally more reasonable, except why just women’s faces? Surely experience tells us that men with covered faces are far more likely to be a problem? And what does it matter if you’ve got your face covered in a library say? Or if they word it really well in a council run community centre attending a group for Islamic women? Also surgical masks? I’m very sure that you can’t over estimate how badly a law can be worded, and how stupidly it will subsequently be enforced.
So given that they single out both women and Islamic garb, I’m going to stick by my previous conclusions even though I did misread the report and think they were after a blanket ban on just one type of garment.
If they proposed that it all face coverings could be requested to be removed when security concerns or the establishment of identity required it, that’d be far more reasonable – but one would hope that was the law already? And as for private buildings given that hoodies, crash helmets and even hats are banned from all sorts of places wouldn’t it just make more sense to allow private venues to ban whatever clothing they like? what with them being private property and all?
So my final question stands failing a LPUK candidate, as UKIP seem to be trying to join the rest of the authoritarian part who’s left to vote for?
Back at work today and to start the year off badly, this rather worrying post by Anna Raccoon about the birth of the ‘Euro-Mediterranean Regional and Local Assembly’. Which it seems seeks to extend the EU across the Mediterranean in to Africa – the stated goals of political partnership and economic union seem oddly familiar.
Anyway go read the article particularly the list of countries with whom we’ll soon be experiencing closer union with of course free movement of people.
