Monday 23 December 2013


Run by idiots?

Why is it that the UK seems to be run by idiots? Who are completely out of sync with the population that voted them into power.
In a bizarre attack on the public, Vince Cable suggested voters were ‘schizophrenic’ because they wanted curbs on migration despite enjoying holidays abroad.
Cable went far further, in BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show, when he accused the Conservatives of inflaming public fear, and behaving like Enoch Powell, who was sacked from the Tory frontbench in 1968 after warning that new arrivals would lead to social unrest. Well, Mr Cable, social unrest has already arrived. Did you not see last week when two young men were sent to prison for offences when they tried to impose Sharia law.

Cable said: ‘It was summarised for me in a debate I had on the doorstep recently. Somebody said they are so absolutely fed up with all of these immigrants coming into Britain, and that they’re going to go away and live in Spain.
Having sampled living in France, I can tell you Mr Cable that unless you have your own medical insurance you wouldn’t get past the receptionist to get medical treatment. In most European countries you have to prove your health cover, and means of payment before treatment.
Do you not understand that social migration for holidays, spreads wealth, whilst benefit migration takes wealth from a country.
The UK is a small island that is struggling socially and economically there has to be a limit on its population.
If Roumania and Bulgaria are such wonderful places why are these immigrants coming to the UK? Why are they passing several other European countries before settling on the UK. Could it be that the liberals amongst us are happy to give away what little wealth we still have.

Ministers have come under pressure for failing to draw up any estimates on how many more people might move to the UK to help schools, hospitals and the police to plan ahead.

Britain is required to lift temporary restrictions on the free movement of people from Romania and Bulgaria at the start of 2014. That is a all very well if they have a guaranteed job to come to, but to come on a wing and a prayer, and then camp in Hyde Park and saturate Oxford Street with Beggars is not acceptable


‘Romanians account for more than 11 per cent of all foreign offenders arrested in the UK, despite making up, at the moment, just a tiny proportion of residents.
Last year, Romanians accounted for almost half of all arrests for begging, and one third of all arrests for pickpocketing in the capital.

Labour MP Keith Vaz has criticised the government for failing to produce an estimate of how many more people would move to Britain

There have been repeated demands on the Government to give an estimate on the number of Roumanians and Bulgarians that are likely to come to the UK after the removal of restrictions on their movements on the 1st January. The lifting of restrictions in 2005 led to many more Polish migrants arriving at British ports than initial estimates by civil servants, and in fairness to the Government, it is difficult to estimate, and to what ends, when in EU law, the whole population of Bulgaria and Roumania would have the technical right to move to the UK.


In The Sunday Times, Mr Clegg said immigration was ‘the biggest dividing line in politics today’ and plans for a cap were ‘arbitrary, pointless and distracting’.
 ‘Sticking a big no-entry sign on the cliffs of Dover may be politically popular, but at a huge economic cost. What would happen if tonight every European living in the UK boarded a ship or plane and went home?
'Are we really that keen to see the back of German lawyers, Dutch accountants or Finnish engineers? Do we want the NHS to fall over and the City of London to grind to a halt?’
He forgot to mention Dutch MPs!, and his scenario is unthinkable, so why throw the argument into the mix. To use his own words, they are distracting.

The huge economic cost is in the schools and hospitals of the UK, that are being submerged to breaking point. If proof was needed go to the schools and hospitals in Peterborough and Boston. If you want to see saturation go to Southall, and Brixton in London. Go to Bradford and Rochdale
 In 2001, the biggest foreign community in Boston comprised 249 Germans. Census figures then showed Boston as having a population of 55,753, with 98.5% indicating they were white British. Ten years on, 10.6% of the town's 64,600-strong population comes from one of the "new" EU countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia or Romania

Dear Mr Cable, we are not complaining about all immigrants, if they want to work; have a job to go to; pay taxes and observe our ways; laws, then all are welcome.

The problem lies with migrants who come here deliberately to milk the social setup of our country with no intention of contributing to it, in other words the criminal element of Europe.


Tuesday 17 December 2013




EX-Pat Voter registration - 

It was good to hear on the BBC Radio 4 news last night that the Deputy Prime Minister is now aware that there are a couple of million of British citizens living in other EU Member States. We also hear from the All-Party Inquiry into voting reforms that they hope to publish their report in early January. It is good news, as they are setting themselves an ambitious objective, and putting money into on-line advertising, in various countries including France.
 
It was good to hear on the BBC Radio 4 news last night that the Deputy Prime Minister is now aware that there are a couple of million of British citizens living in other EU Member States. I further hear from the All-Party Inquiry that they hope to publish their report in early January. Meanwhile, the attached briefing paper has been published by the Electoral Commission. Pages 1, 2 and 4 are particularly relevant to us. It is good news, as they are setting themselves an ambitious objective, and putting money into on-line advertising, in various countries including France,  to identify British expats unaffected by the 15-year rule, and send an appropriate, personalized version of this "how to register" message to them. Any help you can provide in terms of identifying would-be registrants and sending out the information would be much appreciated!
 
To support our campaigning efforts to have the 15-year rule lifted, we must get registration levels up very significantly! 

 
To support our campaigning efforts to have the 15-year rule lifted, we must get registration levels up very significantly! Below I suggest a message which can be sent out to as-yet unregistered voters, not affected by the 15-year rule, to get them to register (before 7th May 2014 ) and vote in the European Parliament elections in the UK rather than in their country of residence. I will ask the BCC webmaster to put it on the britishinfrance and votes-for-expat-brits site.
 
As and overseas voter registration is only valid for one year, we have to use the "European Parliament elections" argument, otherwise the registration would not be "useable", and would have to be renewed in a year's time.
 
The challenge now is to identify British expats unaffected by the 15-year rule, and send an appropriate, personalized version of this "how to register" message to them. Any help you can provide in terms of identifying would-be registrants and sending out the information would be much appreciated!
 
how to register
 
This is what you should do. You will need the postcode of your last address in the UK, and your current passport number and its place and date of issue.
Go to https://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk/register_to_vote/british_citizens_living_abroad/register_to_vote.aspx and enter the postcode of your last address in the UK at which you were previously registered to vote. Click on GO in the green bar.
 
The next screen enables you to download the form, and tells you where to send it once you have printed it out, and completed and signed it.
 
If this is the first time that you have registered as an overseas (as opposed to UK-based) voter, you will need another British citizen to countersign the form as witness. The countersignatory must also provide his/her passport number and place and date of issue.
 
The form also enables you to register for a postal vote, or a proxy vote.
I hope this has been useful to you, and that you will take the important step of registering as soon as possible! 

Sunday 8 December 2013





Send them all back home': UKIP councillor and key Farage ally in astonishing racist video rant... then insists: 'I stand by every word'

 is the headline in the Mail on Sunday, presumably to create a problem for UKIP in the face of Tory voters vowing to switch their vote to UKIP

In a film made by her husband Rob, from whom she has since divorced, Mrs Ayling,  said: ‘We must basically repatriate those that shouldn’t be here. That’s not quite policy yet. Maybe I should soften it a bit.’ She then added: ‘OK. Send them back.’

She further talks about the need to control the numbers arriving in the UK and to repatriate "the illegals and failed asylum seekers".


We cannot sustain the numbers coming in; the strains on our infrastructure are enormous",


"Control should be done fairly and the points system like they have in Australia and all those coming here should be encouraged to speak English so they can integrate."


Mr Farage, the leader of UKIP, said: "I have met her two or three times and I have discussed policy at length before accepting her into the party.

"I had no reason to believe she held views that were extreme or inconsistent with ours. While this comment looks odd and unpleasant there may be a context here that is slightly different to the way it appears."
Mr Farage, I hope that you are not going down the same path as the other main stream parties. THERE IS AN IMMIGRATION PROBLEM IN THE UK, AND IT IS TIME FOR OUR POLITICIANS TO GRASP THIS NETTLE. Her remarks were not extreme and reflected the views of a large part of the population of the UK.


The film was made to promote her political career, which has stagnated since she became a high-profile recruit to UKIP when she confronted David Cameron during this year’s Tory conference and told him she was leaving the party.

The Daily Mail tactic has backfired for when you read the readers comments at the bottom of their article the overwhelming response has been to agree with her remarks.


One MP said he was ‘disgusted’ by the comments that had ‘no place in front line politics’, and that is why the UK is in the situation it is as far a immigration is concerned. Our politicians have been, for too long, frightened to grasp the nettle on immigration and if something is not done shortly, I predict that there will be mass civil disobedience in some parts of the UK.




SERIOUS HEALTH CONCERNS FOR OUR LEADERS

I am not a Doctor, in fact my only health training is a one day, yearly refresher course in first aid over a 25 year period, but I have serious concerns over the health of the Socialist leadership.

Did you see Ed Ball’s response to George Osborne’s Autumn Budget Statement on Thursday? Ed’s face got red and redder, and I was concerned that he was going to have some serious breakdown.

In the meanwhile Ed Milibands face got white and whiter. I wasn’t sure if it was the result of anaemia or the abject failure of Ed Balls to face down the Tory benches opposite. On the other side of Ed Ball was Harriet Harmen and she looked as though she had a serious case of toothache.

Ed Balls is supposed to be a bright bloke, but there was no analysis of the Autumn Statement and when he came out with the one liner that he thought George Osborne was in denial, the Tories erupted in laughter and the Socialists were left in silence, trying to grasp where it had all gone wrong.
Even Labour MPs denounced his performance as one of the worst they have seen in the Commons.
Red-faced and shouting, the Shadow Chancellor faced mockery as he refused to acknowledge rising growth and continued to insist that he was right to oppose austerity all along.
Labour MPs questioned whether their party’s focus on the cost of living was enough to win them the election without a better economic message. The answer is simple, NO. 



Balls had two quite shocking performances in his last two big appearances in the chamber, and the other Ed must be wondering what to do about him.

Balls tried to put a brave face on his performance. He said: ‘I’ve got a bit of a sore throat. It was very, very loud. There are a lot of working people in this country who are seeing their living standards falling and no one to speak for them. I’m not going to allow 300 Tory MPs to shout me down.’
In his previous disaster he blamed his stammer, which he had fortunately got over on Thursday.

Since the Coalition was formed in May 2010. Ed Balls has been George Osborne's sternest critic. Increasingly his words have come back to haunt him.



Thursday 7 November 2013



Hypocracy at its highest

In an article in the Daily Mail Thursday 7/11/2013 it is reported that Nick Clegg attacked
Jeremy Paxman for his boast that he does not vote, saying that it is a ‘total abdication of responsibility’ from someone who earns £1million for sneering at politics.
The Deputy Prime Minister tore into the Newsnight presenter for ‘turning his back’ on democracy while being paid a large salary by the taxpayer.
Mr Clegg suggested Mr Paxman risked undermining the election process by dismissing all politicians as 'rogues and charlatans' instead of properly holding them to account.


Clegg launched the outspoken attack on the BBC star during his weekly broadcast on LBC,  for claiming he finds the crop of politicians so ‘unappetising’ he could not be bothered to vote.
The Lib Dem leader said he had an ‘old-fashioned view’ that anyone unhappy with politics should ‘get stuck in’ and change things not sneer from the sidelines.

‘Do you know what, politics isn’t perfect. But at the end of the day it’s the way we decide how you pay your taxes, how we support our hospitals, our schools, whether we go to war or not, how we deal with climate change.’



LETTER FROM Nick Clegg,MP. Deputy Prime Minister

Dear XXXXXXX



Thank you for contacting Nick Clegg MP about the voting rights of expatriates. I am replying on his behalf.
Nick appreciates that there are some British expatriates who have lived abroad for over 15 years and who want to vote in British elections. However, as you may know, Nick supports the existing legislation on this issue, including the removal of the right to vote after 15 years of living abroad. If a Briton has settled in another country, it is intuitive that they would know about and be directly affected by the issues of that country. If they want to become politically active, then they ought to register to vote in the country they have settled in.
Thank you for contacting Nick on this important issue.
Best wishes,

Rory Belcher

Office of Nick Clegg MP
WINTER FUEL PAYMENT

On 1st November a Briefing Note was placed in the Library of the House of Commons.
It is very revealing about the way in which the Government has gone about trying to find any way in which the Winter Fuel Payment could be blocked for pensioners living out their lives within the EU.  Here are one or two selected extracts which I think illustrate Government’s attitude.
§             …. recently, a decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union regarding payment of Incapacity Benefit to people living abroad has had implications for the rules for other benefits, including the Winter Fuel Payment.  It is now possible that people living in the EEA or Switzerland may be entitled to Winter Fuel Payment even if they did not acquire it first in the UK, provided they have a “genuine and sufficient link” with the UK and satisfy the other entitlement conditions.
§             In July 2012 the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, issued the following statement:   We will fight these ridiculous EU rules. The Winter Fuel Payment is about helping British pensioners with heating costs and it is ludicrous that we could have to pay more pensioners living in hot countries. We will protect taxpayers’ money and bring in temperature criteria so payments can only be made to British pensioners living in cold climates.
§             From 2015-16 winter fuel payments will no longer be payable to individuals in countries where the average winter temperature is warmer than the warmest region of the UK (South-West England). The Government has worked with the Met Office to analyse comparable winter temperature data across all EEA countries. The Met Office used recognised administrative regions for each country. For France this was the 27 regions, including French Guyana, Guadeloupe, La Reunion, Martinique and Mayotte. It does not include the French overseas territories, which are not part of the EEA.


A Government response to a Freedom of Information request reveals the following:
§             DWP commissioned the Met Office to produce a report which shows the average winter
temperature data for each European Union country and region of that country.

The Met Office used data sets of the monthly mean air temperature (for the reference period
1961-1990) for land areas of the globe, from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of
East Anglia
.
§              
The Climatic Research Unit have said:
§             “For us France means mainland France and Corsica”.  The CRU goes on: “We got all country boundaries from a dataset at the UN.  The French overseas departments are in our dataset as different 'countries'   It doesn't make any climatological sense to include the French overseas departments”.
So, it looks more and more as if the Department of Work and Pensions are prepared to go to any lengths to prove their point!
If the DWP have used the Climatic Research Unit data for their comparative temperatures as the guide for establishing the hot/cold country tests.  France is quite definitely below the yardstick measurement they are using of 5.6C for SW England.  On the other hand if you add in the French Overseas Departments then the situation changes.  But there is something very odd indeed - when announcing that France was a ‘hot’ country, the DWP made Italy a ‘cold’ country, and yet the very figures they are using as their source clearly show that Italy is in fact ‘hot’!!
Country
Mean Temperatures Nov-Mar from the CRU datasets C
UK Yardstick of the SW of England
Also Nov-Mar C
 France
5.08

 Greece
9.00

 Italy
7.54

 Portugal
10.40

 Spain
7.58

 United Kingdom
4.28
5.60

         Taken from an article Posted by Roger Boaden on November 6, 2013                     http://www.survivefrance.com/forum/topics/winter-fuel-payment-upd

This is real proof that the British Government is able to walk over British pensioners who live outside the UK, simply by the undemocratic process of removing the vote after 15 years of overseas residence.
Are they also willing to give up all the taxes that are still paid to the UK Exchequer by those same pensioners.

It is scandalous that the UK Government denies voting rights to British expats who have lived outside the UK for more than fifteen years.

The UK should enable and encourage all its expat citizens – not just some of them – to participate fully in the political process in their home country, by giving them unrestricted voting rights in national elections, as in most other advanced democracies (and indeed in many so-called third - world countries).


It is vitally important for every expat citizen from the UK who has the right to vote, registers and uses that right [see the Electoral Commission website www.aboutmyvote.co.uk]. It’s no good complaining about UK government decisions that affect the livelihoods of the expat communities if those who CAN don’t use that opportunity to vote.

Friday 25 October 2013

My flabber has once again been gasted by the idiocy of the government.

The following article recently appeared in the DAILY TELEGRAPH,

Expats: help us test a new service

by John Waterworth on 23/10/2013

We need your help to test one of our services.
One goal of the Individual Electoral Registration project is to allow people to register online at GOV.UK. We hope that the new service will make it easier for overseas voters in particular to register and exercise their voting rights.
We are now looking for expats to try out a prototype of the new service, to see how well it works for them and to see how we can improve it.

Testing days

Our testing partner is recruiting participants for testing days in the Oxford area on Thursday 31 October and in London on Tuesday 17 December. The testing sessions take up to 45 minutes.
If you are a British citizen who normally lives overseas, and you are visiting the UK on either of those dates we would love to have you come and try out the new service.
Please contact Sarah Tynan to book a place on the Oxford testing day, and contact Kelley Frizelle to book a place on the London testing day.


My flabber has once again been gasted by the idiocy of a government initiative. I fail to understand how you can expect to find enough, or indeed any prospective Expat Voters either in Oxford or London at the time specified.
Why not ask Expat Voters in the various counties of the EU to test out the system. We are now virtually all online, and communicating via blogs  - websites  -  flyers, -Newsletters, and English language newspapers

It is appalling that because I choose to live within Europe, that I have no right to vote in my mother country which is itself part of the Union. This should be a fundamental right granted to every UK National. The whole point of The European Union is to allow Europeans free movement and reside in whichever European Country they might choose without becoming disenfranchised. This is an injustice that should be addressed not just by the British Government but also in The European Parliament as a matter of extreme urgency.

The arrogance of this government knows no bounds, in launching “Tests” in two English cities to test a new service to determine whether or not you can make it more practical for UK citizens living on the continent of Europe to vote in UK elections, and expect expats who just happen to be there on two specific days to participate.

Clearly, they are hoping for failure so that they can declare that  “Because of lack of interest from expats this experiment has been cancelled”.

The 15 year rule is one of the most odious and obnoxious laws ever to be passed and enacted to descriminate against British citizens throughout the world, and flies in the face of British governments who have sent our troops throughout the world to fight for democracy

This is further proof of a government who seems hell bent on disenfranchising its citizens who work and live overseas, and further disregards them simply because they have no voice. It falls into the same category as the governments wriggling over Winter Fuel Payments, when they employ massaged statistics and data to pursue an argument for the elimination of our winter fuel allowance and skirt around the ECHR ruling.

This test sounds as though it was dreamed up by the same civil servant who uses the tropical territories of Guadeloupe and Reunion to increase the average temperature of France to avoid paying Winter Fuel Payment.

Wednesday 25 September 2013

Whatever’s wrong with socialism.


Miliband said he would 'fix power bills until 2017' if he won next election
But the energy industry warns it will lead to gas and electricity shortages

Centrica’s Sir Roger Carr called the policy ‘a recipe for economic ruin’
Energy firms said capping prices would halt the investment needed to avoid blackouts, and lead to gas and electricity shortages.


Freezing bills, may be superficially attractive, but it will also freeze the money to build and renew power stations, freeze the jobs and livelihoods of the 600,000 plus people employed in the energy industry, and make the prospect of energy shortages a reality, pushing up the prices for everyone.


It seems highly likely that the power companys would increase their charges, before Milliband could enact a bill for his freeze, and then at the end of the two years, would again hike the price to cover their lost profits.


A Miliband administration, we can now be sure, would have appalling consequences for the economy, and undo the limited, hesitant progress of the past few years.
Whatever’s wrong with socialism. Well we have tried that, and look where it got us. We know Ed Miliband’s master plan.  Socialism turned post-war Britain into a bankrupt basket case.
Ed Miliband’s assault on the energy market is the final, depressing confirmation that Labour has returned to its collectivist, anti-capitalist stance.

Industries and Banks that fall out of favour will be hit by almost random hit and grab raids.

The Labour Party’s 20-year attempt at reconciling left-wing politics with the market economy, private business and individual aspiration is now over.

Labour’s approach will buy votes but rob the energy industry of any kind of certainty: why invest to reconstruct the UK’s crumbling infrastructure. 

Will Miliband nationalise the whole industry to ensure the lights stay on?

And once you start with electricity price controls, what next? Transport, petrol, food, clothes, or the Labour favourite – the Banks.

Labour seeks yet more levies on banks, as if they are some sort of magic money tree that can endlessly be tapped, with no consequences on jobs, credit or customers.

Ed Miliband has no understanding of incentives and cannot see that those who work hard, build a business and career or save and invest should be able to reap the fruits of their efforts.

Miliband has lived up to his Red Ed nickname by telling Labour activists he is ‘bringing back socialism’, and set out a socialist agenda, saying that if he won power in 2015 he would: 
·                                 Grab land from owners who fail to build on it;
·                                 Reverse housing benefit cuts;
·                                 Force firms in key sectors to pay employees a higher rate under the minimum wage laws;
·                                 Penalise companies that fail to take on apprentices and trainees
·                                 Stop rural communities objecting to urban sprawl and new towns;
·                                 Fund a business rate freeze for small firms by hitting 80,000 medium and large employers;
·                                 Give 16- and 17-year-olds the vote.
·                                  
Len McCluskey, the militant leader of Unite, the country’s largest union and Labour’s biggest financial backer, declared: ‘There wasn’t anything you couldn’t like.’ 
And former Labour leader Lord Kinnock, was seen clapping and cheering, and declared Miliband’s vision was ‘brilliant’.
With those two endorsements, we should all be scared.


Unions, through the Socialist party have exercised a stranglehold on production and distribution. In the name of the ‘workers’, wealthy union leaders, living a champagne lifestyle, called strikes at the drop of a hat.
This resulted in swathes of industry closing. We all remember the disputes at British Leyland, Longbridge, the problems with British Steel, the coal miners disputes, and the earlier problems at the Port of London together with the many strikes at Fords at Dagenham. All reigned over by the socialists. All now disappeared, with the loss of thousands of jobs, and the wholesale dependence on social security.

The socialists compensated by nationalising every aspect of our daily lives, through quangos such as the Health and Safety and Equality Commissions and the ‘human rights’ racket. Employment was solved by over hiring in the civil service.
In an attempt to sway voting trends, immigration was encouraged and allowed to go out of control  ‘‘diversity’ is a socialist fronted industry aimed at eradicating the Tories.
Ed Miliband will pledge to build 200,000 homes a year by 2020 as he sets out plans for a new generation of garden cities and new towns, and many will be to house immigrants that have swamped this country, and has caused overloading of our NHS and Education system.

During the Labour Party conference, union boss Len McCluskey warned Labour had ‘no future unless it bowed to the union's’ demands, and declared Labour was now ‘our party’. The cat is out of the bag

Ed Miliband pledged to reverse government's housing benefit cuts, and said it would be funded by scrapping 'tax cuts for hedge funds'
But industry bodies say savers and pensioners will lose £140m-a-year.

Labour's pensions raid to pay for scrapping bedroom tax will 'put people off saving for their retirement'  and will find that all pensioners will live in equal poverty reliant on the State. Ultimately the entire population will live in equal poverty, reliant on the State. Sound familiar?

It amazes me that Labour would ever have the gall to contest a General Election again with the same incompetent idiots who cocked it up last time. They must think we have very short memories.



Miliband is promising to fix the economy, but don’t forget it was the Socialists that put us into this mess during their long term in power, and are asking us to vote them in, to repeat more of the same.
Labour’s answer is a re-run of the tax-and-spend disaster system which got us into this mess in the first place. 



There are now 5.98 million members of TUC-affiliated unions, which is fewer than half the number just 30 years ago.
The TUC blames the fall, on job cuts in the public sector. Of course that is correct, because the last Socialist government hired people to do non jobs in the public sector to massage the employment figures
Trade union ranks soared in the post-war years. By the end of the 1970s - a decade of widespread industrial unrest - more than 12 million workers were paying their subs.
Union membership plummeted during successive Conservative governments and the trend continued under New Labour, albeit at a lower rate.
Since the start of the financial crisis in 2008, membership has declined by more than half a million.
The TUC said that the fall in membership was "a direct result of redundancies particularly in the public sector".

There are 29.17 million people in employment aged 16 and over, and yet the Unions with their 5.98 million members want to dictate to the rest of us through the Socialist party.