Justice and Home Affairs

You may or may not have seen this topic in the news recently, but it's one UKIP were pushing pretty hard on. We did manage to get the Sun and the Telegraph to comment on it, but alas they did not mention UKIP. I guess it's all part of the plan not to highlight how desperately pathetic the Conservative Party are and not to weaken them by pointing out there is a party out there campaigning on the issues people care about...

At the end of the last Commission in 2004, an evaluation took place which highlighted major obstacles to 'progress'. One of these areas was the requirement on unanimity in the Council on Justice and Home Affairs.

The basic plan is to transfer criminal law and police cooperation from the 3rd pillar of the EU treaties into the 1st pillar. In English:
The first or ‘Community’ pillar contains the EU’s core policy areas such as the environment, single market and employment law.

The Third pillar covers “Provisions on Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters.” Which was formerly known as the Justice and Home Affairs pillar before the transfer of policy on asylum, migration and judicial co-operation in civil matters to the Community pillar.
The plan is for a 'bridging clause' which, in the Commission's own words would, 'constitute a solution to overcome these difficulties in applying the 'Community method' to the policies in the area of freedom, justice and security.'

This would abolish the national veto and would massively increase the power of the European Commission and the European Court of Justice, the in-house court, who has as it's aim the supporting of an ever closer union.

The ECJ already has power to declare any national law which is inconsistent with a law of the EU invalid. Moving JHA into the community pillar could potentially widen the scope of the Commission's Competence to almost anything involving police and the judiciary. It means that if the EU legislates on anything to do with JHA it becomes a Community competence. On 13th September 2005 the ECJ gave the EU powers to set criminal penalties for the first time: a combination of these factors could prove explosive.

The UK govt. in May stated that they would not reject this. The House of Lords has warned of the 'creeping competence' of the Commission which this change could bring about.
Transferring Justice and Home Affairs issues into the first pillar would mean that all proposals to harmonise criminal law across the EU and matters of police cooperation would:
• Be agreed on by Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) in the Council of Ministers
• Come under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice which has until now had only a very restricted say on third pillar matters
• Gradually confer more power over criminal matters to the EU. Once the EU gains competence in a certain area the member states lose the right to propose new laws in that field of law
• Give the EU Commission the sole right to initiate legislation in these matters. By gaining a monopoly over the right to propose laws on criminal justice and police cooperation the EU Commission would enjoy greater power than it would have received from the EU Constitution under which it would have had to share the right to propose new laws.
With decisions being made by the Council of Ministers, it has already turned the British Constitution on its head, by allowing ministers - supposed 'servants' if one knows Latin these days - to dictate to Parliament. Now, even if a British minister votes against a proposal in the Council, he cannot put it out to pasture. Instead, the British Parliament would have to enact laws made by foreign ministers, unelected by the British public which were not supported by the British representative.

The loss of trial by jury would probably be the most visible alteration. Habeas Corpus is an alian concept to the European Justice System - who do not have to have evidence before they arrest people and can keep people locked up in prison without charge for weeks, as in the case of Chris Lees, who was locked up in a Spanish jail for 50 weeks with no case ever brought against him.
There already exists a miniature EU police force called the Euro Gendarmerie Force - made up of 5 countries. (Spain, France, Portugal, Italy and Belgium). They are military police who have as a logo the ring of stars with a sword and a flaming grenade inside. They are not controlled by their government - they are a supranational police force who recognise the EU as their authority.

For pretty pictures and the such, visit : www.Eurgendfor.org

A few home truths

Am back! And so happy to be so.

Am no longer working in Brussels, but in London where I have been endlessly frustrated with these stories on immigration and foreign prisoners.

Firstly - immigration.

Let's get this one straight - the EU is not just about trade, it's about the free movement of people. If someone is a member of an EU country, they can travel into the UK and stay there for 3 months without having to get in touch with the immigration authorities. Considering that this government can't keep control of who comes in and out of this country, can you really imagine them spending time and money tracking people down after 3 months if they didn't know they were here in the first place?

Our embarkation controls were removed in 1994 by the Conservative Party - which had David Davis in it at the time. In fact, he was the Minister for Europe. So why, then, are the Conservative party saying that the government has failed on immigration when their MEPs voted for enlargement, the Major administration allowed the free movement of people from the EEA and they don't want to withdraw from the EU which is where the Directive saying who can come in and out of the country comes from? Don't believe me? have a look at
EU DIRECTIVE 2004/58/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 29 April 2004

You'll also find some useful comments in there about people with criminal records, which brings me to my second point.

If John Reid wants to change the law to allow the UK to deport criminals from within the EU he is going to have a pretty tough time. Considering that it's the aim of the EU to have a common decision on Justice and Home affairs and they don't think that their powers over immigration go far enough, how is he going to get them to repeal that Directive?

He's not.

If we want to control our borders, decide who stays in this country and refuse entry to criminals, then the only way is out.

We are forbidden from having border controls from transportation from EU countries. We can't deport foreign criminals. We can't stop foreign workers coming into the UK, along with their families.

Isn't it about time the government and the opposition stopped with their outrageous hypocrisy and told the British people the truth?

At least UKIP is there to try get the message out.

Funding of Hamas

Have been getting a bit wound up about this: previously mentioned e-mail author Luisa morgantini has been spamming e-mail inboxes with some mulch about how the innocent of Palastine shouldn't suffer from lack of funding. Here are my issues:

1) Why should we give them money?
2) Are they really innocent if they elected a bunch of murdering terrorists to represent them?
3) Why should we give money to murdering terrorists?
4) Maybe if they stopped trying to kill people and fight the whole time, and concentrated on leaving people the f*ck alone then they wouldn't have to rely on money because they could go to work, companies would invest, they could, essentially, make their own money.


Seriously - why should we be giving money to these people? They make their choices and they should abide by it without needing the rest of the world to prop them up. Those who live by the sword, die by it.

UKIPwatch give away their fears

A little look on UKIPwatch and I notive that mr Corbett et al have been encouraging UKIP voters not to elect Nigel Farage as their leader. This in itself tells me that voting for Nigel Farage as leader is exactly what we should do, as it has the opposition rattled.

What did rather amuse me was that one of the reasons they put for not voting was that he was accused by some mad tart of having sex with him, which he denies outright. Indeed, I understand the words 'order' and 'harrassment' have come into the situation. Yet, this was published in the same week as the news broke about John Prescott (two johnnies)and his two year affair using public money with a colleague. I'm not a purist who thinks that someone elected to public office should live the life of a nun, but my problem with Prescott is that he spent so many years attacking the Tories for 'sleaze' and has done the same thing himself.

I sent an e-mail to Richard Corbett asking what he thought about John Prescott, especially in light of his comments about Mr Farage. I am still waiting for an answer but I will let you know.

Another e-mail I am awaiting a reply from is regarding Mr Chris Davies. He has been forced to resign after writing to a constituent saying that he hoped 'she enjoyed wallowing in her own filth'. Classy, Mr Davies, but at least he had the decency to apologise and step down. More than Mr Prescott, let's face it, and Mr Davies didn't have a bit of slap and tickle in Ardmiralty House!

Naturally, people have been e-mailing to express their solidarity and support to Mr Davies:

'Subject: concerning freedom of thought : no comment


My solidarity and respect to MEP Chris Davies. I dont know if he used rough words. But for sure he is right on the violation of human rights and international legality perpreted by the policies of israeli government.'

What we have there is someone who doesn't have a clue what they are talking about assuming that justice has not been done because she doesn't like Israel, and neither does Mr Davies. I am so glad these people have a vote in European legislation.

Wait for the next one, though:

Dear Chris, dear all

I would also wish to express my deep respect for your firm position, Chris.

It is shocking that you are punished for being courageous enough to express a clear critique of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians in the occupied land. This ill-treatment is clear for everybody with open eyes and scandalous for everybody with a warm heart. The EU is in a shameful position, our passivity and silent acceptance of what is going on is also an offence against the Rule of Law.


Best Regards

Margrete Auken

Punished for being courageous? What planet does this woman live on? Even Mr Davies thinks he went too far, but Mrs Auken thinks insulting the people who pay your wages is good and proper!

I wrote to her, copying in the Daily Telegraph article just incase she didn't have a flying fuck of a clue what she was talking about, and am waiting for the response....

I can't stop watching this...

This is quite funny. It is a Belgian TV chat-show interview with a man who was castrated by mistake during an operation. The man's wife is sitting next to him. The entire conversation is in Flemish, but this does not matter.


Click below, and make sure you have sound turned on.


http://www.controlancy.co.uk/fun/lost_jewels.htm

Dave the Chameleon 2

Very funny...

http://www.backingblair.co.uk/dave/

England Expects: March 2006

England Expects: March 2006

hmm...I wonder if I can go into the 'not making shoes business' and therefore qualify for some subsidy for keeping Spanish shoe makers in business?

Dave the Chameleon

From Question Time last night....

Question Time – Osborne argues distinction between ‘Dave the Chameleon’ and UKIP ‘fruitcakes’


Thu, 20 Apr 06 | Adfero Report - Broadcast

Summary
The Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, has dismissed suggestions that the Conservative Party are just as likely as the Labour Party to use negative campaigning to attack other political parties.

The Conservatives have attacked the Labour Party over negative campaigning after the Labour Party, in their first local election broadcast before the local elections in May, decided to brand Tory party leader David Cameron as a chameleon. Although, the Conservative leader himself made disparaging comments recently on a radio phone-in that the UK Independence party were ‘fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists, mostly’.

Speaking on BBC One’s ‘Question Time’, Mr Osborne responded to the chameleon comments: ‘I thought it was a pretty significant moment. Here is a government that’s been in office for nine years, that keeps telling us and is desperate to tell us “don’t worry we haven’t run out of ideas and we’ve got lots of things we want to do in the future”, and here is their big change- they’ve got their party political broadcast… and they choose to do a negative attack on the new leader of the Conservative Party.’

He observed: ‘This is a party by the way [Labour] who came to office saying “I will never ever use negative advertising ever again” and that’s what’s happened nine years later.’

‘They’ve got nothing to say for themselves’, he remarked.

However, when suggestions were made by a members of the audience that the chameleon slur was not dissimilar to David Cameron’s suggestions that the UKIP were ‘fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists, mostly’, Mr Osborne stressed: ‘There is a difference between a radio interview and designing a party political broadcast because this is all part of a Labour strategy.’

Commenting on Mr Cameron’s comments, he said: ‘The fascinating thing about that was the reaction of the UK Independence Party, which I promise you said “We don’t mind being called fruitcakes or loonies, but we object to being called closet racists” .’

‘Then the founder of the party, a guy called Alan Sked, came out and said “actually he was right to say that about us” ‘, Mr Osborne added


Odd thing is, Dr Sked isn't a member of UKIP. Guess which party he is a member of.

Cameron, the Tory Party, hypocrisy and nepotism

After the childish Mr Cameron threw his toys out of the pram by calling UKIP "racists" I thought I would write to his office and ask for either a jusitification or an apology.

My letter to him:

Mr Cameron,

I am writing to request from you an apology for the unfounded slur you made on the UK Independence Party, it's supporters and voters. Indeed, as a former member of the Conservative Party I know of many of your elected officials and long time members who have voted UKIP and who, therefore, come under the umbrella of your accusation.

I had the pleasure of your company one evening at a dinner at Royal Holloway College where we were sitting next to each other: I trust then that my company did not lead you to believe that I was a racist.

Politics is made interesting and lively by people sharing different views, and debating those views. My opinion that the UK would be better off outside of the EU, where we could experience a proper democracy, sensible legislation and our own trade and development policy is one shared by many, and does not make me a racist. Nor does my view that those of us living in the South East who would prefer not to have an extra 1.5m homes built, essentially in our back gardens, make me a fruitcake: particularly given that with the current hose pipe ban, car washing and manicured lawns in Surrey is made very difficult.

You must be aware by now of how answering the question of why you think UKIP are a bunch of racists with the jealous and spiteful mutterings and lies of Dr Alan Sked is not taken seriously by anyone. I await your reply with interest and hope,

Yours etc,

'his' reply to me:

Many thanks for your email to David Cameron about his recent comments regarding UKIP - I'm replying on his behalf.

I must apologise for the delay in replying to your email - I'm sure you can understand that we've been completely inundated with correspondence since David took over as Leader.

I can appreciate your views, however, a number of people have made allegations about UKIP’s links to the far right. David Cameron was simply reflecting that fact when he was pressed about his opinion of UKIP.

You might be interested to know that Ashok Viswanathan of Operation Black Vote has said: ‘There’s no doubt that when you talk about the UKIP they’re wolves in sheeps clothing… We know that a number of candidates who have stood for UKIP have BNP links – there’s no question there are links’. He suggested UKIP had been spreading ‘hate and bigotry’, adding: ‘It’s not just about anti-Europe. It’s anti-black, it’s anti-minority, anti-migrants, anti-asylum seekers. And we should be very clear about that when we vote on June 10th’ (Black Information Link, 9 June 2004).
The Commission for Racial Equality in Wales has also stated that during the European Elections in 2004, ‘we received many complaints from members of the public about election materials issued for both the BNP and UKIP’ (Annual Report, Commission for Racial Equality in Wales, 2004).

Regarding Europe, we want Britain to be a positive participant in the EU, championing liberal values. Britain has an enormous amount to gain through co-operation and free trade in Europe. The EU does much that is worthwhile. It allows people and goods to move freely across Europe. Just as importantly it has brought stability and has helped to entrench democracy in newly free countries.

But the European Union is not working as it should. It does too much and too much of what it does do, it does badly. The EU needs reform, and Britain, one of its leading members, must be at the front pushing for change. We must challenge the culture of the EU - leaving it to focus on its real job: making the single market work properly and championing free trade. Every European country needs to be competitive with the emerging giants such as China and India. Britain needs to be able to operate a highly flexible labour market. British jobs depend on British Governments being able to retain and enhance that labour market flexibility. That is why our priority is must be the return of powers over employment and social regulation.

The EU needs reform in other areas too. The Common Fisheries Policy has not worked well. We can do more to conserve fish stocks through local management and bilateral agreements. Our farmers have already made tremendous efforts to adapt to change in the Common Agricultural Policy, but reform here too must go further.

We believe in an open, flexible Europe. We do not believe in a United States of Europe. That is why we oppose the EU Constitution in principle, and why we must make sure that the federal agenda contained within it is not introduced through the back door. It is best for Britain’s economy if Britain controls its own interest rates, so we rule out ever joining the euro.

Thank you once again for taking the time and trouble to write.

Yours sincerely,


Alice Sheffield

Christopher Booker's notebook, Sunday Telgraph 16th April (hasn't the Telegraph gone all sensible recently!)

David Cameron spells out his new recipe for disaster
'Catch the bus when you can." "Get to know your neighbours better." "Pick up one piece of litter from the street every day." "Don't overfill your kettle." With advice such as this, the leaflet handed to delegates at last weekend's Tory spring conference in Manchester must rank as the most self-parodyingly condescending piece of litter ever produced by a political party.

Last week it became more apparent than ever just what a catastrophic blunder the Tories made in picking David Cameron as their leader. In talking to Tory activists, MPs and councillors, three incidents seem to have confirmed their view that the party has been hijacked by a gang of spoiled children who appear to have no contact with the realities with which the rest of us live.
The first was that toe-curling speech in which Mr Cameron seemed to emphasise that the only policy in which he believes is the "green revolution", typified by his plan to spend three days "watching glaciers dry" in Norway.

The second was his outburst against the "closet racists" of the UK Independence Party (Ukip). When various Ukip supporters wrote asking how Mr Cameron could justify this insulting claim, the reply from his correspondence secretary, Alice Sheffield, was that his view of Ukip had been confirmed by Ashok Viswanathan of "Operation Black Vote".

It then turned out that Miss Sheffield is Mr Cameron's sister-in-law and that Operation Black Vote is a rum outfit indeed for the Tory party to be consorting with: an aggressively propagandist black lobby group, chiefly funded by the European Social Fund, the European Parliament, various Labour councils and Ken Livingstone's "Government of London". If a similar body were to be set up calling itself "Operation White Vote'", it would soon be prosecuted under the Race Relations and Public Order Acts.

The third shock, just when our country is ruled by the most incompetent, corrupt, discredited government in its history, crying out for trenchant opposition on almost every conceivable issue, from the shambles of the NHS and the destruction of our local government, to the selling out of our Armed Forces to political correctness and a cracked dream of European integration, has been the way that Mr Cameron and his gang seem to have decided that their "Not The Conservative Party" must stop trying to be an opposition - the very task for which we taxpayers give them £4 million a year.

"The real problem," as one dismayed senior Tory put it recently, "is that it is going to take two more years before this disaster can be undone. Labour walks the next election, and then we're going to have to start all over again."

I couldn't have put it better myself

Mr Heffer was excellent on Any Questions, and this editorial in the Telegraph marks a much welcomed change in the Torygraph coverage. I had actually stopped reading it, ever since work UKIp did on a story and quotations from Nigel Farage were attributed to Dan Hannan and the Tories. Not cricket, my dear fellows.

Simon Heffer on Saturday
By Simon Heffer
(Filed: 08/04/2006)
Not all the loonies are in UKIP, Dave

You won't believe this - no, really, you won't - but there are people now running the Conservative Party who think it was brilliant of Dave to describe UKIP as "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists, mostly". One of them is his own party chairman, Francis Maude, who was clearly on something yesterday morning when, with no regard at all for the truth, he described UKIP as wanting an "all-white Britain". These two "loonies" regard this smear on thousands of decent, harmless and patriotic people as a masterstroke in Dave's desire to
"reposition" the party.

More in sorrow than in anger - I can't take Dave and Francis sufficiently seriously to get angry about them - I feel I must offer some advice. They are repositioning their party in much the same fashion as Senator Ted Kennedy used to reposition cars after a night's boozing. It's all very well abusing your core vote, provided you can find others to vote for you instead: but the UKIP blunder has simply served to remind everyone of Dave's inexperience, stupidity and shallowness, and that is hardly going to help drum up support.

Two years ago, a friend who is also a Tory MP - indeed, who is now a member of Dave's shadow cabinet - asked me to speak at a dinner in his constituency. I delivered a speech about the wickedness of the European constitution, then not the dead duck it is today. It was a month before the European elections. Afterwards, streams of people queued up to tell me the same thing: that, despite being members of the Tory party, they would all be voting UKIP in the euros.

Dave would like to pretend to the contrary, but a sizeable proportion of those activists on whom his candidates will depend to run their election campaigns in 2009 or 2010 are regular UKIP voters. That is because they regard the Tory party's position on Europe as dishonest and unrealistic. They are right to do so.

This does not make them either loonies or fruitcakes, and by no stretch of the imagination does it make them racists, closet or otherwise. And they will this week have heard what their leader said about them, and been horrified. Indeed, their horror has been eloquently expressed on the letters page of this very paper.

The more one thinks about what Dave did, the more idiotic he seems. If he finds UKIP's position so appalling, why is he proposing to shift his own MEPs towards it by withdrawing them from the EPP grouping in the European Parliament? It couldn't be because he needed to say that to win the backing of Right-wing MPs during his election campaign, could it, and that, since he has no principles, it was an easy promise to make?

More stunning even than that, though, is the failure of this man - whose friends are always telling us how clever he is - to apologise for what has universally now been recognised as a damaging and stupid mistake.

With that smug, self-righteous arrogance we have come to expect of a man whose only training for high office was to be a PR spiv, Dave has not only failed to do that, but he has also compounded his offence by attempting to defend himself. The overpaid teenagers who work for him and write his jokes will have told him that this makes him look decisive, resolute and tough. In fact, as older and wiser hands in his own parliamentary party readily concede, it makes him look a little plonker.

Well, Dave, old boy, if you want to continue this strategy of cleaning out your core vote, here are a few more suggestions. Use a keynote speech at your conference this weekend to attack the Women's Institute ("bigots"), the Brigade of Guards ("fascists"), the Salvation Army ("paedophiles"), the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association ("Nazis") and Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother ("crackhead"), just to liven things up a bit. And enjoy your retirement!´

The Times have another excellent article today, about the absence of Europe in Cameron's speech. As they point out:

Any policy without a European element is only half a policy, if that.

The reason? Westminster just 'rubber stamps' the Brussels work, and very little original legislation actually comes from MPs. Mr Cameron, trying to appease his eurosceptic supporters said that the Tories would oppose ID cards and regionalisation. Yet both of these come from Europe. A major area he chose to talk about was the environment, now a competence of the EU, and the Court of Justice has precedence to take countries to court if they do not obey EU envirnoment legislation.

As my friend and Tory councillor put to me 'is he a socialist plant?' because Blue Labout is going a pretty good job of being more unrealistic, more incomeptent and more left wing than new Labour!

Wet behind the ears? What gives you that impression?

Oh Mr Cameron, what have you done? You can't go around accusing your political opponents of being 'racist' because you are bitter they have parked their tanks on your lawns.

We know that you have completely abandoned your traditional spot on the centre right, and are no longer the party of low tax, choice and independence but accusing UKIP of a criminal charge isn't really the right way to react now, is it.

Isn't it somewhat telling that you could not get a single elected official to follow the party line on newsnight last night, which is why you had to wheel out Dr Alan Sked to lead the attack? A bit odd, though, basing your opinion on the words of the man who, when he was leader of UKIP, brought a BNP activist in to be head of research, and was subsequently expelled?

I am sure there are people of dubious opinion in all political parties - indeed the above mentioned Mr Sked is a member of none other than the Conservative Party - but the elected officials and senior officials in UKIP are not racist, nor have they been, and an apology must be forthcoming. Or is Mr Cameron too scared to admit that he is a young, naïve politician who is only used to dealing with a positive image?

It must have been hard for him, I guess, when his plans to only tell the Electoral Commission the names of people who had been funding 'Blue Labour', fell through after UKIP reminded him that the Electoral Commission is subject to the Freedom of Information Act. Did he not know that? Odd, considering he voted for it...

The trouble for him is that UKIP read legislation. We were the party who found the clause in the Treaty Establishing a Consitution for Europe which said that if 20 countries ratified, then the Super State Scheme could press ahead without the others. That was, of course, ridiculed at the time and, as you could have heard on Radio 4 the other week, is now stated as fact.

Politics is becoming such a dire game: the expectations people put on politicians that they are whiter than white (although in the context of this, maybe that phrase will not be allowed?), have no past history, don't do anything wrong, never experimented when they were younger surely rules out in the future any politicians having gone to university? And who wants the governing elite (I use that losely, we all know that about 80% of our laws are made in Brussels) who are tediously dull with no life experience? That is the way I see the new faces of New Labour and Blue Labour going. To quote a friend who text me last night:

'To suggest that I am in touch with the modern Tory party would be missing the point'. And I met him through the Tory Party....

Burning cars and waving placards

I am not surprised that a few months ago large numbers of the French immigrant population were rioting in the streets. Unemployment amongst this area of society is currently 49%. Youth unemployment averages in France 23%, and total unemployment is desperately struggling to get down below 9%. This, in a Western European economy. It's no wonder economic growth for 2005 was only 1.9%.

Over half GDP in France comes from the public sector - private businesses are in the minority, and why? Because it's almost illegal to fire someone so there is no incentive for businesses to expand and new jobs to be created. With all the risks that come with starting up a new business, having the additional fear that you will be lumbered with wages for people who aren't making money for you isn't going to encourage you.

Unfortunately, this is an example of the European Social Model being thrust upon the unfortunate members of the European Union: A Union so blinded by its desire for a single state, it fails to see how chronically ill so many economies are, and how it's prescription will cause the vibrant economies to stutter to a halt in time.

Here is a little summary from the Guardian today about welfare systems and employment in some EU countries:

FRANCE: Job protections include generous vacation, pensions and maternity leave,
and subsidized meals and transport. It is extremely difficult to fire anyone
with a permanent contract, and layoffs can be blocked by courts. High youth
unemployment prompted a new law that would make it easier to fire young workers
to try to encourage hiring. The law has prompted protests and strikes.

BRITAIN: Most benefits are decided by the employer, not the state. Layoffs for
economic reasons are common. Mass protests are rare, though anger over a pension
dispute prompted public sector workers to stage a one-day strike Tuesday.

GERMANY: Workers enjoy several weeks of vacation and generous pensions, and most
work weeks run less than 40 hours. The two ruling parties agreed last year to
ease the regulation of the labor market to encourage firms to hire more staff,
but the move has met wide opposition.

ITALY: Job security is playing a key role in the campaign for April 9-10
elections. The government introduced temporary work contracts in 2002 after
protests forced them to water down deeper reforms. Like France, Italy has
generous protections and high youth unemployment.

NORWAY: With a booming oil economy, Norway has just 3 percent unemployment.
Norwegians have strong rights in the workplace, good unemployment and sick leave
benefits, legislated time off, holidays and working hours. Employers often
include a contract clause of a six-month trial period for new employees.

BALTIC STATES: Labour laws in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia favour employers, who
have few restrictions in hiring and firing. With many young people having moved
to Britain, Ireland and Sweden since 2004, employers are offering health plans
and career training to entice workers. Estonia's laws protect workers with
children younger than 3 and make it nearly impossible for employers to fire
pregnant women.

POLAND: The EU's highest jobless rate at 18 percent. Its rigid labor laws - in
part a legacy of the strong social safety net once guaranteed by communism -
make firings difficult.

SWEDEN: Strong worker protections and generous welfare benefits are hallmarks of
Sweden's cherished social model. To fire a worker, an employer must show it is
absolutely necessary because of cutbacks or the worker has severely failed to
live up to expectations. Offers a minimum of five weeks paid vacation or the
right to up to 480 days of paid parental leave.

I prefer cats myself

Whilst trying to book a hotel for the boss in Brussels, which turned out to be nigh-on impossible due to the world and his wife descending on Brussels, I stumled across a rather pretentious hotel.

Comfort Art Hotel Siru - Brussels - 3*

A showcase of Contemporary Belgian Art, between 1989 and 1990, the Comfort Art Hotel Siru gave free rein to the imagination of 130 painters, sculptors and comic-strip draughtsmen to turn its 101 rooms into as many paintings and in the process turn this property into the first "museum-hotel" in the world. The imaginative and individual decor of each room makes for an enjoyable and refreshing visit.

I wondered if Todd might like a trip at some point, so I checked their pets policy:

Pets policy

Children welcome

ooh, that's a shame. If cats were allowed I might have paid them a visit, but children - no thanks!

The truth about the Labour Party

The truth about the Labour Party

Our author takes no prisoners! A very interesting read.

It's easier to do it this way

My computer at 'work' doesn't let me attach pictures but some clever person has managed to do it for me!

http://englandexpects.blogspot.com/2006/01/something-i-meant-to-do-long-time-ago.html

In the spirit of solidarity I put these on my blog! I am not constrained by their religous laws, and until they start treating women a bit better, I'm not that bothered about them jumping up and down about their 'rights' and 'respecting them'.

Eastern Europe gets rubbish from EU

Literally, and not just via stupid, ill-thought-out regulations! Well, I'm afraid they can't have it all their way:
Reuters
Czechs fear EU garbage plan could worsen dumping
08 Mar 2006 17:19:46 GMT
Source: Reuters

PRAGUE, March 8 (Reuters) - EU plans to relax rules on refuse disposal could see
poorer members swamped with rubbish from their richer neighbours, the Czech
Republic said on Wednesday.

Prague, worried by how much German rubbish has come into the country where
disposal is cheaper, has barred foreign waste for dumping and burning, allowing
it in only for recycling.

But under a proposed European Union directive, to be discussed by ministers in
Brussels on Thursday, a member state could no longer refuse to import waste for
burning.

Czech Environment Minister Libor Ambrozek said he would protest against the
proposal.

"The directive does not reflect the difference in the economic conditions in the
new EU member states," he said in a statement.

"The different price levels in the waste treatment area create preconditions for
an undesirable cross-border transfer of waste ... to new member states, for
eco-dumping."

The Czech Republic, which borders much richer and larger Germany, has
experienced a rise in cases of often illegal waste imports -- "eco-dumping" --
as companies try to cut costs.

It fears the new plan could cause a massive rise in shipments, including illegal
ones.

There are about 20,000 tonnes of illegally dumped German waste in the country, a
ministry spokeswoman said.

Customs officials have tightened up border controls and have caught six trucks
this month trying to enter Czech territory with undeclared illegal waste, the
news agency CTK reported.

The Environment Ministry said Prague would try to widen opposition to the
planned directive, and discuss this with nearby Slovakia, Hungary and Poland.

They have received huge amounts of money from the EU budget - and if I recall then the UK paid £7bn into the slush fund, which was going out to the underground system in Warsaw and the sewers in Budapest: both of which represent huge, sensible investments to the British tax payer who wants to save for their pension or their childrens' university fees.

The comment about the different economic situations also angers me somewhat. We know here in the west that there are different economic situations: this is why we have had about 300,000 economic migrants from eastern europe since 2004. They can't have their cake and eat it, I'm afraid. Whilst the EU may seem to them a way to be a player on the international stage, a way of getting free money from hard working tax payers in other countries and new working destinations it's also about the eradication of laws based on what is best for individual countries and the erosions of national borders and customs until we are one fat, sinking, economically retarded federal state. Just ask Richard Corbett. Or the Communists.

Let's celebrate womens day

By talking about the rape laws in pakistan and the abortion laws in South Dakota.

Let's start wíth the rape first:

In 2002 six men were sentenced to death for the gang rape of a woman. Gang rape is hideous enough, but what makes this case even more so is that it was actually ordered as a punishment by a council. Mukhtar Mai was raped by four men on the instruction of tribal elders after she refused to marry a member of a clan whose relative buggered her 12 year old brother. What I cannot understand is how these people can think so little of women - that she is just a pawn and a bargaining tool so men can get what they want. She wanted justice for the crime committed on her brother and instead gets brutally raped, degraded and humiliated by people who are supposed to be the leaders of the village. Can someone explain that to me? Maybe when they do, can they also explain what is honourable about murdering a female member of your family for having an independent spirit and not wanting to live their lives for others? Why women jump on the funeral pyres of their dead husbands, so they aren't a 'burden' to anyone? Why are there so many people in this world who seem to think that women are inferior to men? Without women the human race would not exist. Without men, the human race would not exist. Surely it's logical that both sexes are equal and that such attitudes are just a way of control and power?

On that happy note, let's go to the South Dakota abortion laws. A marmalade-dropping moment if ever I heard, although I don't eat marmalade. From July it will be a crime in South Dakota to perform any abortion unless a pregnant woman's life was in danger.That means that pregnancy from rape or incest is not included! Danger from whom? Danger from what? From herself? From trying to self abort through sheer desperation, because when you make abortion illegal, the number of abortions do not fall, but the number of women who die rises. If you ban abortion, you end up with some very seriously injured women: back street abortions end up with severe bleeding, internal damage and hysterectomies. But presumably the "pro-lifers" (whose life, may I ask? Certainly not that of the pregnant woman - her wishes for her life are not even taken into consideration)consider this to be some kind of punishment for having the audacity to end an unwanted pregnancy.

A woman cannot be free until she has the right over her own body and her own future. This means access to contraception, to abortions, to education, healthcare, the same wage for the same job as men, to public positions and to legal personality. Not being able to decide what happens to your own body is an abuse of human rights. And no, I do not think that a foetus has the same rights as a human, because rights come with responsibilities. A foetus at ten weeks might look like a baby when magnified and stuck on the front cover of the Daily Outrage, but considering it's about the size of a walnut I can't see it surviving. And until it can survive outside the womb, the wishes of the pregnant woman must come first.

Happy Womens Day: I'm going shopping.

If Kinnock thinks it's good, it must be bad

So we need to change all our road signs from miles to kilometers do we? And why is that? We hear again today that the Commission say that the UK will not reduce it's budget deficit to under the 3% target before the end of the year so what a good thing to spend yet more money we don't have on changing road signs just for the sake of harmonisation.

Alastair Darling MP last night on question time said that he didn't think it was necessary but when Nigel Farage MEP said that the EU Directive due to come into force by 2010 was going to ban imperial weights and measures he called him 'nasty' and 'anti European'. Darling, please try come up with something convincing as an argument and try not be hypocritical.

Whilst we have our heads in the sand...

Yet more proof that this idea for a Single European State will press ahead regardless of what people in Europe really want. The French and Dutch said "no", the Commission went "la la la, we're not listening". The majority of people do not want Turkey to join, so negotiations opened. The Parliament repeatedly reject the Port Services Directive (for different reasons, because countries are not the same, Mr Barrot)the COmmission keeps on trying to get it passed.

EUobserver.com
Verheugen predicts political union in 20 years
20.02.2006 - 09:53 CET | By Mark Beunderman

EU industry commissioner Gunter Verheugen has predicted that some EU states will
in 20 years form a political union.

In in an interview with German daily Die Welt, the commissioner was asked how he
sees the EU in 20 years' time.

He responded by saying "I believe… we will have a political union, but maybe not
with all states that now form part of the EU."

"Certain European states will agree to have common competencies in foreign,
economic and financial policy as well as in judicial policy," he explained about
his long-term vision.

The remarks point to the possible creation of a "core" Europe of EU states
further integrating policies, with other states opting out.

This vision emerged in the 1990s in German conservative political circles, and
has since won supporters mainly in France and Belgium, with the Belgian prime
minister Guy Verhofstadt recently suggesting closer co-operation between the
eurozone states.

The commissioner also appeared to predict predicted a further enlarged EU
encompassing the western Balkans, Turkey, Switzerland and Norway - but excluding
states like Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Russia.

"In 20 years all European states will be members of the EU, except the
post-Soviet states that do not yet form part of the EU now," he said.

Mr Verheugen served as the EU's enlargement commissioner in the previous Prodi
commission from 1999-2004, succesfully managing the bloc's 2004 expansion while
championing further enlargement, including with Turkey.

© EUobserver.com 2006
Printed from EUobserver.com 20.02.2006

Unless we actually do something solid about it, and elect people to power who aren't bribed with nice positions in a new central government, we will no longer have national identities. But the people of Britain appear not to care - they act as though if they ignore it, it will go away. And slowly, they accept the creeping changes until they are used to seeing the EU pirate flag hanging from buildings in Brussels, and being waved at the last night of the Proms (an event which is full of patriotism and national pride - I bet the BBC paid someone to wave it about). It won't go away, we can't ignore it so hello media, can we have some coverage on what is going on over here. Hello people, stop saying you hate the EU and don't want Britain to be a part of it, and do something about it!

slimey creatures

Fish are. scaley and odd colours. Still, as much as I don't particularly like them, they aren't anywhere near as slimey as Tory politicians! I grant you, many of the other denominations are bad - but their hypocracy never fails to astound me.

The reason I mentioned fish was because this new gut wrenching tory comment is about fish, fishing, the Common Fisheries Policy and a stable. At least, that's what the Shetland box sounds like.

The Tories, in particular Struan Stevenson, have been slagging off UKIP MEPs for voting against the preservation of this Shetland box because they say that we should be happy that we are allowed 40% of fish stocks as long as the Germans, Norwegians and some others could come along and fish too. They don't seem to understand that according to UNCLOS III, that area is part of the British Exclusive Economic Zone and selling our fishing rights away has not only caused havoc for fish stocks but also cost British fishermen and their communities greatly. The EU allowed Spain to sue each and every fishing village under the CFP because they were fishing in British waters and they weren't allowed to!

We should have 100% not 40%. So Mr Stevenson, you are part of a party which has already lied about the CFP when you said the Tories would renegotate, and now you lie about this being a good deal. Tories jumping into bed with Labour - continual evidence for this centerist politics we have now. The Commission themselves, when they were asked by Nigel Farage years ago, and by Catherine Stihler a few weeks ago have said that if you withdraw from the CFP, you leave the EU. And the Tories don't have the backbone to come up with a sensible policy such as withdrawing from this hideous, economically retarded dictatorship.