The Two-Faced Tories

Following up from a post on The Englishman's castle, I thought I would just make a little point about the tantrums by the Tory party over not having the crown logo on pint glasses anymore.

The relevant article from Directive 2004/22/EC says:

Article 1

Scope

This Directive applies to the devices and systems with a measuring function defined in the instrument-specific annexes concerning water meters (MI-001), gas meters and volume conversion devices (MI-002), active electrical energy meters (MI-003), heat meters (MI-004), measuring systems for continuous and dynamic measurement of quantities of liquids other then water (MI-005), automatic weighing instruments (MI-006), taximeters (MI-007), material measures (MI-008), dimensional measuring instruments (MI-009) and exhaust gas analysers (MI-010).

Interesting.

Even more interesting is that the chap who wrote the European Parliament report on the Commission Directive, which resulted in the written question to HMG by the Tories and the subsequent outrage was...

A Tory!

His e-mail address is giles.chichester@europarl.europa.eu and his office phone is 0032 228 45296.

You can ask him all about it yourself, then....

Quite frankly...

I am more than a little bored of politics at the moment. I went to read the BBC news page today, and my eyes glazed over at the samey samey whingy, moany old crap being written.

A summary of the three news stories I managed to scan:

"whinge, moan...blah blah...dead....politicians said...sanctimonious turdtalk..blah...moan....woe is me...whinge....more people dead..."

So instead, I thought I would post a picture of the shoes I wish I could buy if I didn't spend all my money on thin air*



Donations gratefully received.

Which reminds me of something funny that happened today. Estate agents came round as flatmate and I are moving out as this place is quite pricy. I only moved in recently as other occupant moved out. Estate agent asks flatmate (I am not there) if her roommate is called Bob i.e the guy who lived there before. Yes, she replied, forgetting that this could lead to issues when estate agent walked into mine/bobs room.

"Impressive collection of ladies shoes" he said. Flatmate smirked. Well, Bob could be a transvestite, and who would we be to comment?

Anyway, am off to Brux at end of the week to find out what will be going on at the Heads of State dinner. Trouble, I suspect. I hope that it will cause me to be angry enough to start caring again, and then I can write something decent. Or, at least, the usual crap minus the pictures of overpriced footwear.

*it may as well have, for I can't see what I have managed to spend that, and the money I have borrowed from Mastercard, on. Apart from the fabulous shoes, of course. but a quick calculation worked out that the ones on my shoe racks (winter) cost me £2300 which isn't all the money I have ever earned...conundrum.

So, Cameron; still standing by your claims...

That a Tory government would pull Britain out of the 'Social Chapter'?

As I have previously written, the Social Chapter does not exist as some sort of separate treaty which one can just withdraw from. So, as I and many others have said, for David Cameron and his band of spanners to claim that they will just pull Britain out of it is wrong. As my evidence, I call the President of the European Commission to answer the question:

Parliamentary questions
24 January 2007
E-0171/07
WRITTEN QUESTION by Nigel Farage (IND/DEM) to the Commission

Subject: Social Chapter opt-out
Answer(s)

Could the Commission comment on the feasibility of a Member State withdrawing from the social chapter under the current Treaties?

Would this action involve either the withdrawal of the Member State concerned from the European Union or a renegotiation of the Treaties which would require the unanimous approval of all Member States?

which he has done...

E-0171/07EN
Answer given by Mr Barroso
on behalf of the Commission
(26.2.2007)


The Commission assumes that when the Honourable Member refers to the Social Chapter in the Treaties, he is referring to the social provisions contained in the articles 136 to 145 of the EC Treaty. These provisions are part of the whole Treaty and cannot be isolated. All Member States are bound by the Treaties they have signed and ratified and which have entered into force, including the social provisions they contain. Consequently, a withdrawal from these provisions by a Member State would require an amendment of the EC Treaty in accordance with Article 48 of the Treaty on European Union.

See that, Davy boy?

Despite your claims that you will withdraw Britain from the Social Chapter, YOU CAN'T!

now, are you going to apologies for your porkies?

not taking it kneeling down

Right. Am going to set the record straight on this whole 'UKIP disabled discrimination' bullshit. And my, is it bullshit. This:

I told the 650 people who voted for me that I would not stand again for the council but Ukip talked me into standing for them.

"Ukip withdrew its support when they found out I was registered disabled following a double knee replacement.

as reported in the Guardian today, for example, is a huge pile of steaming poo and lies.

What actually happened was this chap called Jack Biggs volunteered to stand for UKIP in the forthcoming local elections in Weymouth. He wrote to the branch secretary after he received an e-mail from the chairman, stating that because he had two replacement knees, and by his own admission was "useless" at leafleting and could not canvass a ward very well, that he could not be a full candidate as this required him to leaflet and canvass every single residence in the ward personally.

I have just received a letter from Vicki Sharpe, Chairman of UKIP Dorset which states that because I am registered disabled I cannot stand for the Council in Wyke Regis - where I had 680 votes as an Independent

And yet already Mr Biggs gets it wrong. He was asked to stand, but as a paper candidate where he would either not be expected to canvass every house himself, or he would get help to do so. Doesn't make such a good story, though, does it.

From the branch secretary:

Further to your email of today, I would like to set the record straight. Our Chairman, Vicki Sharp, did not say that you cannot stand as a UKIP candidate for Wyke Regis.

However, you said yourself that you are "useless" at leafleting which equates to being unable to canvass. This was discussed with Malcolm Wood (south west organiser) as mentioned, and in view of this, and the fact that you are registered disabled (i.e.unable) it has been decided that canvassing would be very difficult for you and therefore the best course of action would be for you to be a 'paper' candidate.

The ward offered to Mr Biggs had already been leafleted by both the branch chairman and the branch secretary, and they offered to help Mr Biggs with his electoral address which obviously still needed doing.

This did not meet with his approval, however. I wonder if it was because:

But given that UKIP are also mounting a campaign against my councillor daughter (UKIP minded anyway) I do not want to be either a paper or real candidate for UKIP. The last chance gone, I think I will emigrate

Yes, that's right. He found out that UKIP were standing against his daughter and so he threw a tantrum, and resorted to blackmail:

John,

I have been special Forces. I am a very good friend but a very bad enemy.

If you stay on track, ignoring me, but trying to unseat my UKIP minded daughter I will take the story for the Echo, ref you do not want disabled candidates for UKIP.

This is not a threat but a promise.

and

One of the main local issues that almost everyone is against is the Pier development. My daughter was one of 8 Councillors who voted against this. And you have people "in droves" to vote against her.

Charming gentleman. He's standing as an independent now, apparently. Although when he spoke to UKIP about standing he wasn't actually aware of how many votes he had received last time.

It's just so utterly pathetic that someone would resort to blackmail in order to protect his daughter from not getting opposition in a local election. Surely he should be confident enough in his daughter and her beliefs that she can win based on her own merit? Or maybe he doesn't have any faith in her. If she's as stupid as him, that may be a justified concern...after all; who e-mails one thing and then tells a pack of lies to the media with something which can be proved as a fabrication?

Well, Mr Biggs does, clearly.
the e-mail conversation can be seen here.
And just as a further point: if someone can't walk properly or for long periods of time, isn't it rather a justifiable assumption that they would not be suitable for a role which required lots of walking for long periods of time? I would quite like to be a surgeon and get paid lots and help people, but the fact that I almost faint at the sight of blood and find casualty too much means I wouldn't be very good.

Does that mean I have a right to jump up and down and shout 'discrimination'?

No, it fucking doesn't.
UPDATE

I have since discovered that Mr Biggs ran in a previous election under the name 'Wat Tyler'. Hmm.

No need to apply....

I read on the BBC that asylum claims are down by 9% this year.

According to the article, Home Office figures show that this is the lowest level since 1993.

Hmmm, am not surprised, personally, seeing that the year afterwards was the year where control over our borders was first given away to the EU by Michael Howard when he was Home Secretary, and since then the Labour government have been doing a mighty fine job of ensuring that they hand over as much control as possible.

Brown, of course, wants to make people do volunteering work before they get citizenship, which is a step on from the tests they are supposed to do, called Life in the UK.

I called up the Immigration directorate to ask about who has to take the tests, and who would have to do the volunteering work if this idea is accepted, and they confirmed to me that anyone from the EU is excluded from these requirements.

Alas, the fact that 450 million people are excluded from this seems to have passed our MPs and press by. Does no one apart from me think that not only is it sickening that our poliicians can deliberately mislead us by making out that this will affect all immigration and also that is essentially imposes a colour bar on people who wish to naturalise?

The people from our Commonwealth countries will have to jump through hoops to come and stay here, but anyone from the EU can just wander in.

And of course, because we aren't allowed embarkation controls from transportation coming in from EU countries, regardless of whether people on that flight, or that boat originate from an EU country, we don't really have any idea who is in this country.

Meaning, of course, that we can't really do anything about illegal immigration.

Confused Britain

According to experts, 1.7 million people will have dementia by 2051.

Good news for our politicians: 1.7 million people might think that what they're doing is good.

Harry Pottering and the Ten Commandments

He hath spoken, and we must obey.

On Tuesday 13 February new EP president Hans-Gert Pöttering outlined his priorities for the next two and a half years. What will our institution be focusing on up to the next elections? The Pöttering 'ten commandments' say:

step up intercultural dialogue, especially between Europe and the Islamic world (use the EuroMed assembly for "peace and partnership")

Yet another pointless, politically correct quango giving jobs to people who should really restrict their lives to knitting. EuroMed is a monumental failure which is taking yet more and more power away from national governments, especially immigration. Trade, of course, has already gone tubby bye byes.

push for a new European constitution in 2009

See that, Tony? See it there? It doesn't really match up with your comments in the Daily Mail today:

The meeting on March 25 is nothing to do with the constitution. It is to celebrate 50 years of the Treaty of Rome. The constitution won't be discussed until after the French election

Right. That's odd, because the letter I have on my desk from Angela Merkel states quite clearly:

I intend to prepare the political Declaration to be adopted on 25 March 2007 in confidential consultations with Heads of State and Government and their close advisers. The same goes for consultations over possible ways to take the constitutional process forward....

followed by a 'tentative schedule for the consultations on the Declaration and the constitutional process:

25 March - Adoption of the Declaration in Berlin. On the margins of the celebrations a first exchange of views between Heads of State and Government on the constitutional process.

improve the EU institutions' credibility through better lawmaking.

How about no lawmaking? Let's face it, the rules are made to further the interests of those people who benefit from the EU, i.e the politicians and eurocrats. They make laws just to keep themselves in more work and give themselves more power. It is perfectly evident that the laws are badly thought out, and go through a process of amending which allows even the most retarded MEP to bugger up an already stupid suggestion. I know this to be true, for Liberal Democrats put in amendments which are passed.

strike up a democratic and effective partnership with Russia

Who have just stopped Poland being allowed to have anything to do with the 'Son of Starwars' because it is too close to them. Very convenient friendship.

remember that Europe and the USA are friends

Which just sounds like something thrown in at the last minute to keep the Brits quiet. But it won't wash, sunshine. The EU is far too socialist to 'be friends' with America, and never agrees with them.

don't let anyone deny the holocaust

Free Speech, anyone?

support Israel's right to exist and the Palestinians right to a state of their own

And keep spending tax payers money funding the terrorist organisation that is Hamas

help those who fight for freedom and democracy, like in Belarus

Unless they're Eurosceptic, in which case just anhialate them. And, of course, conveniently ignore that the EU is neither free or democratic, else the Commissioners would be elected and accountable, and meetings would not be held in secret.

make a stand against the death penalty

Surely this should be up to individual countries to decide? Oh, yes. Sorry. Forgot you wanted to remove the veto on Justice and Home Affairs and make it a full EU competence.

develop a common EU immigration policy

Although with Directive 2004/58/EC from the 29th April 2004 they have already gone most of the way. But here it is: the EU want to control every single aspect of immigration. Labour will say it's not true, and then start ranting about ID cards, the Tories will ignore it because it's politically inconvenient, what with they being the party who first gave away control to Brussels on immigration in 1994, and the Lib Dems will have a reception in the parliament with disabled people to celebrate what a wonderful idea it is.

And the press will probably ignore it, or write about it, but not mention that the three main parties are all in support of this.

hmph.

Life is (amazingly) good

So, am fairly exhausted and looking generally rubbish through tiredness, but that doesn't mean that life can't be good.

It's still light outside, and I can see all the beautiful flowers in St James's Park. I have just found a strawberry chocolate in amongst the box which I was given to me by a friend, which did run the risk of being a coffee cream so you can imagine how pleased I am.

Also, I have just been sent a press release which made me howl with laughter, with the title:

Dementia must be made a national priority

A policy which is evidently widely successful, if you consider that our government and the shower over in Westminster are elected by the people.

That press release

Well, ladies and gentlemen. Trixy thought that despite one of her contacts informing her that the Electoral Commission were 'a bunch of pedants' (or pendants, if Polly Tonybee was my contact, which she isn't) she had better get and read the press release from the Electoral Commission about them taking UKIP to court.

So, she did, and it's here for your perusal:



H/T The Spine

Carry on regardless

In spite of all this heavy UKIP shit, I am off out to make the most of my dancing lessons at the most expensive restaurant in London, followed my favourite club. And I'm not paying, which is even better.*

Uncomfortable, yet fabulous outfit? Check

glazed expression and perfect makeup? Check

Rocks? check

And of course...

Gorgeous shoes which cost one months rent?

Check, check...

*someone will, though. Am not eating and running off

kicking the smallest boy in the playground

Am a little bit sick of all these 'UKIP finance' stories, but I thought this timeline in The Times today was rather illustrative of the motivations here:

Peaks and troughs

1993 The United Kingdom Independence Party is founded by Alan Sked and other members of the AntiFederalist League

1997 The party fails to win any seats in the general election. Mr Sked resigns as leader and leaves the party

1999 UKIP wins three seats in the European Parliament with 7 per cent of the vote

2000 Michael Holmes is ousted as leader in a power struggle and leaves the party

2002 The former Conservative minister Roger Knapman is elected leader

2004 Robert Kilroy-Silk joins UKIP. The party wins 12 seats in the European election with 16.8 per cent of vote

2005 Mr Kilroy-Silk resigns after failing to become leader

2006 Nigel Farage MEP is elected as leader

2007 UKIP gets its first foothold in Parliament when two peers defect

2007 The Electoral Commission demands the return of £367,697 donations

Translation: Oh, fuck; they're in Westminster. We never thought they'd do that.I know, we'll close them down! That way we can keep this wonderful status quo of useless, traitor politicians.

And for those of you who weren't aware of the other delight handed out by the Electoral Commission to UKIP:

The UK Independence Party's plight deepened yesterday when election watchdogs signalled that they would veto its plans to rebrand itself.

Which is odd, because when it was bounced around as an idea, lots of people seemed to think it was a rather good one. Someone who wrote such an article (which I am not going to link to as I am rather keen on keeping my contacts) said that he had had four calls from CCHQ asking why he wrote such a positive article on the name change, as it was the biggest fear of the Tory party that UKIP do that.

Well, they can't. But I hope that they will have a new logo, though, and get a better website and engage with the new media because I personally think that it's vital in the 21st century.

The reason why they weren't allowed to change the name? Because some people might get confused between The Independence Party and an Independent candidate.

The Electoral Commission: Bolstering rock bottom standards in education since 2000.

Stop the world, I want to get off.

EU Referendum

I notice from the Devil's Kitchen that our great Prime Minister has replied about the vote to have a referendum on membership of the EU.

Well, some people may have had an e-mail, but I haven't.

I'm not sure I have anything to add that the Devil hasn't already. I don't even think I would bother to tone down the language.

Blair is such a hateful man. He's lying to us, he knows what's going on. He knows that however small that 'mini' treaty is it only takes one line to day, 'all decisions will be taken by qualified majority voting' and then BANG! Bye bye Britain.

All these men obessed with size. I think it points to a deep rooted psycological fear that they are too small down below...

Can I just say: if you voted for this man you are a prat.

How the cookie crumbles

Written on the side of my yummy biscuits:

Our all butter cookies are made by biscuit experts with over 100 years of experience.

Blimey. They're some old, old cookie experts. Maybe their pensions were done over by Robber Brown and they can't afford to retire?

Hope they don't drop their dentures in the cookie dough. That would be horrid.

Lord Harris of Small Government

Trixy was lucky enough to be invited to the memorial service of Lord Harris of Highcross in Westminster yesterday.

I sat there listening to people I was completely in awe of talk about this man, and how I wish I could have known him.

All the great lines I was told about when I was studying economics were by him:

'What nobody really owns, nobody really cares'

'If all economists were laid in a line, they would never reach a conclusion'

'the cock may crow, but it's the hen who lays the eggs'

and his comparison of the National Plan (which I can't believe anyone would actually think would work being 'like trying to make water flow up a hill'.

Described as 'A Liberal, but a sound Liberal' he was Head of the Institute for Economic Affairs from 1957 until 1987 and in 1990 was made founder president which he remained until his death. His leadership was at a time when his brand of free market liberalism was deeply unpopular, with the post war consensus happy to jump aboard demand side Keynesian economics, which of course proved such a disaster to the British economy.

He was also involved in the Bruges group and a committed Eurosceptic, with statements to the Lords like:

In an earlier debate, I ventured to offer some broad orders of magnitude of the opportunity costs that might be saved by British withdrawal. The figures were admittedly derivative, but a retired economist can hardly be expected to undergo the fatigue of original research in such a matter. Anyway, I suspect that hordes of experts in the Treasury could produce much of the data for which we are looking from their word processors in their lunch hour.

My first approximation differs a little from that of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson. I start from a gross payment to the EU and its institutions shown in the Pink Book at almost £12 billion, from which might be deducted up to £7 billion, including the Thatcher rebate, which of course the French and Germans would like to snatch back. Then there are estimates of the total cost of the CAP, which range from £5 billion to £9 billion. Is it about right to put at £5 billion the higher priced imports that follow from the EU's dubious anti-dumping duties? Such outside "guestimates" would suggest that annual costs might range from £15 million to £25 million—a little short of the estimate made by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson. They are huge figures to set against the arguable political and psychological advantages of membership.

Rather than retreat into her usual charming evasions, would the noble Baroness, the Minister, at least acknowledge the desirability of a more accurate assessment than I have been able to offer? The stakes are high. The Minister might even avoid further re-runs of our unending debates.

But most of all, he was honorary president of the smoking group FOREST. One of my favourite speeches of his was this one, about a debate Liverpool City Council wanting to ban smoking in all public places:

My Lords, in what has turned out to be rather a grim end-of-term scrap, I cheerfully declare my interest as a contented pipe smoker of many years' standing and a former chairman—now honorary president—of the smokers' defence group FOREST.

Listening to these debates, it is tempting to resort to unparliamentary language about this gratuitous and time-wasting debate after Her Majesty's Government have announced a smoking ban. The obsessive, highly organised witch hunt against smokers—deaf to reasoned argument—reminds me of my early days as a campaigning economist. Then it was equally difficult to win a hearing for plain common sense on economic freedom.

Other free spirits this evening have rebuffed the spiteful attack on the everyday civil rights of millions of smokers and tens of thousands of pubs, hotels and restaurants. My single purpose is to assert the commonsense implausibility that so-called passive smoking can actually kill non-smokers. After much diligent study, I have concluded that all this agitation is mere puffed-up propaganda to punish smokers for exercising a traditional freedom—at their own risk. My smoke may irritate the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, but it cannot kill him or anybody else.

I wish there were more politicians, and indeed people, like him today. People who thought windmills were for tilting at and 'not to be stuck on the rooves of upper-middle-class houses in Notting Hill in the name of an inexact science'.

Well, quite.

Mandy says BOO!

Could this be? Has the great man seen the light? Could the UK Independence Party have it's biggest defector yet as the man responsible for keeping millions in the third world in poverty crosses the floor?

Comic relief: I'm not laughing

I wrote some time ago about the pointlessness of Fair Trade juice: how, essentially, it is just a convenient way for the bleeding heart brigade to feel good about developing world poverty without actually having to do anything.

We are used to hearing about the hypocrisy of the EU: Glenys Kinnock and the Development committee cantering in on their white horses, promising to eradicate global poverty by next Thursday if we all attend their cheese-dip reception for 'lesbian equality officers in Africa'...

The parliament itself has now found one way of combating this imbalance by selling Oxfam 'fair trade' juice in its subsidised cafeteria. If I was a dairy farmer in the developing world, trying to survive when EU and US dairy subsidies keep world prices 34% lower than they should be, I would be grateful that three people a week were buying my products rather than getting to the crux of the issue.

More recently, my delight in finding some lovely sun blushed tomatoes which don't actually taste like bits of carpet someone has spilt tomato puree on has been hampered by a patronising little addition to the label informing me that 10p from every 'special pack' is being donated to Comic Relief.*

I've never been much of a fan of Comic Relief. When I was growing up, my father used to rage at the TV saying something along the lines of 'why don't they just put a load of guns in a boat and ship them over to Africa? ' in an effort to highlight that a countries torn apart by war are never going to develop either economically or socially.

That apart, if we really want to help the developing world, 10p from my overpriced culinary knick knacks isn't going to do much good.

I don't know how many times people actually have to say this, but if you want to help alleviate poverty, there's a rather handy trick you can employ.

FREE TRADE.

It increases global parity. It allows countries to specialise in what they have either an absolute or a comparative advantage in, thus making global production both more productively and allocatively more efficient and shifting the global productivity curve out to the right. Everyone gets richer, albeit some at different rates to others.

And yet, we in the UK are still part of this hideous monster known as the European Union. A statist organisation which allows countries not to develop and adapt to globalisation, but instead gives them money when they are inefficient.

As I have written before,

Trading blocs are bad. They encourage protectionism and, particularly when they become political, non tariff barriers which people can't immediately see unless they are embroiled in the technical details of trade negotiations. We don't want retarded trade blocs, we want free international trade which exploits comparative and absolute advantage, shifts that global production possibility curve a large wedge to the right and which increases global parity. This does not happen with tariff barriers on shoes and health and safety rules imposed on barely above subsistence level farmers in Africa.

So all you people who are going to fanny around with your red noses, slapping yourselves on the back for being so caring and so thoughtful and really thinking that you are doing your bit to help out those less fortunate than yourselves, think again.

If you really want to do some good, help get the world's fifth largest trading nation out of the EU, back with their own seat at the WTO and leading the way in free trade. It made us rich when we did it unilaterally in the nineteenth century, and it can make us and everyone else who gets involved rich in the twenty first.

And there's a very simple way of doing that....

*Ironically, underneath this is the special offer price of '2 for £4' which does rather highlight the futility of the exercise.

Up in smoke

It seems that I am not the only one ignoring the smoking ban:

View As Web Page
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1400798.ece
From The Sunday Times
February 18, 2007
MEPs’ cigarette ban goes up in smoke
Nicola Smith

IT WAS a ban that left even the politicians who issued it gasping. After 43 days
without lighting up, the members of the European parliament have reversed a
decision forbidding smoking in their buildings.

Despite backing smoking bans in countries from Sweden to Ireland, when it came
to sticking to their own new year’s resolution MEPs proved that they lacked
willpower.

A 12-member committee of MEPs, which included some smokers, decided that the
ban, which had been in place at the parliament’s premises in Brussels and
Strasbourg since the start of last month, was “unenforceable”. Politicians and
bureaucrats from Poland, Malta and Greece were among those who helped force the
reversal.

Critics and antismoking lobbyists condemned the move as an “absolute disgrace”
and hypocritical when the European Union is promoting smoking bans across the
continent.

Deborah Arnott, director of the antismoking charity Ash, described the latest
decision as “scandalous”.

“There can be no justification for politicians to place themselves above the law
and it makes a mockery of the commission’s proposals for an EU-wide smoking
ban,” she said.

Smoking bans have been introduced in Scotland, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Belgium
and Sweden. France joined the smoke-free club this month and smoking in enclosed
public areas will be illegal in England from July 1.

The European parliament has long been a champion of the antismoking lobby,
hosting events and issuing frequent statements about the dangers.

However, senior officials said the U-turn was necessary after a revolt by MEPs
and staff who began smoking everywhere in protest at the restrictions.

“They are adapting the decision to reality. After January 1 people started to
smoke all over the building and we had more smoke and problems for nonsmokers
than before,” said one senior parliamentary source.

Nigel Farage, the UK Independence party leader, said he had been one of the MEP
rebels flouting the ban. “I have been ignoring it since January 1 and I have
smoked in more places than before. I don’t want to be told by PC people what I
can and cannot do,” he said.

The thing is, as much as I hate the smoking ban, Ms Smith gets across a very good point. That it's one rule for them, and another for us. MEPs who have been calling for smoking bans across the EU, and supported the health commissioner when he said he wanted to ban smoking across the EU, won't have a smoking ban in their buildings.

I don't want a smoking ban anywhere. I personally think that it's something which can be sorted out on a local level, for example by a pub landlords and the freedom of people to use choice to decide where they frequent. But I'd be pissed off if I were someone who was facing a massive loss in profits and possibly losing my job because of these fascist rules being forced upon us, yet those very same people did not have to obey those rules.

Ooops

My best friend is called Minge. Well, obviously he wasn't called Minge by his parents but it's his nickname.

I sometimes forget that this may be a bit of an unusual name, especially when I am in public, and today was no exception. So there I am, sitting on the bus back from Hell to Trixy Towers when Minge calls up about our plans for this evening. And I just happen to say quite innocently down the phone, "I can't wait to see my lovely minge again."

It didn't take long to work out why I was getting odd looks...

And another thing

Further to my rant the other day about the EU and it carrying on, guns blazing (well, the guns it generally makes the British wield) here is a wonderful post by Eliab which clarifies the situation much better than my frustrated ramblings ever did...

Those little listening devices always reminded me somewhat of the TV screen whatsits in 1984 - some twat trying to drill into your head their agenda for the next squillion years whilst their minions sit around applauding, like the spasticated monkeys that they are.

I await with interest the 8th March, not least because I will be in Brussels.

Latest YouGov poll

Shows that under the leadership of Nigel Farage, UKIP have doubled the number of people who are planning on voting for us in the next general election. Whilst there is still a long way to go, of course, it is incredibly encouraging to see.

I am most pleased about the Midlands and Wales score, which shows UK Independence on 7% and bodes well for our Welsh campaign where we are the only party who want to stop the hideous waste that is yet another regional assembly stuffed to the brim with people who may have trouble with their own shoe laces.

The squeeze question this time was about voting intention apart from the three main parties, which shows that despite many in the media, leaders of the opposition etc. trying to discredit UK Independence by ridiculing their sensible policies such as cutting tax and free trade, many people do support us and what we stand for:



So there.

Much work still to do, but it's all moving in the right direction.