The Daily Telegraph report this morning on leaks from the Commission considering a UK Bill of Rights, linked here reports the following:
A note from the Commission to Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary Ken Clarke, dated July 2011, warns that allowing MPs to vote down unpopular decisions by the European Court isa throwback to Nazi Germany
“If a right or freedom is fundamental, how can it be right to allow any legislature, however democratic, to override it? It should be remembered that many of the most objectionable laws passed in Nazi Germany were passed, at least in the early years, by a democratically elected assembly.”
What mind could construct the question posed in the secon paragraph of the above quote?
If a democratic legislature does not have such a right, what higher authority can there be to override or overrule it. The argument that the Nazis were at one point democratically successful is here being justified to legitimize any act of authoritarianism by ..... ? Here one must assume the Lib/Dems and Ken Clarke would insert either Judges or Courts! Yet in Britain (in spite of the "locked in" case announced yesterday, itself a gross travesty) only Parliament acting on behalf of the people has the right to pass legislation limiting the scope of Common Law.
Tory backbench MPs should mark, note and prevent what is now underway.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Coalition breaking apart at the seams.
It was always likely that it would be the EU in the background of the falling apart of the Cameron/Clegg Coalition. The signs that this is so are clear in the breakdown within the Committee considering Human Rights, where the factions are actually described as "Cameron appointees" or "Clegg appointees", see the leaked email in this Daily Telegraph report as follows:
“I wish to put on record now the view that I have already expressed - namely, that our present funding is completely insufficient. It is not a matter of marginal additional funding but of substantial additional funding…
“At the moment, some of the Clegg appointees have the benefit of work by members of trusts and personal staffs. As far as I am aware, the Cameron appointees lack any such facilities. It seems reasonable to allocate at least a part of the staff to servicing the Cameron group. In order to avoid bias, I suggest an equal allocation of staff time to the Clegg appointees...
"I gather from friends at the Council of Europe that the UK is exceptionally heavily populated with pressure groups on human rights and related matters. They are fully entitled to express their view. But these views already are well articulated and well known.
"While we need to be open to such pressure groups and to official bodies associated with them (such as the EHRC) we need to be careful that their demands for access to the Commission do not crowd out those of the 'silent majority'."
“I wish to put on record now the view that I have already expressed - namely, that our present funding is completely insufficient. It is not a matter of marginal additional funding but of substantial additional funding…
“At the moment, some of the Clegg appointees have the benefit of work by members of trusts and personal staffs. As far as I am aware, the Cameron appointees lack any such facilities. It seems reasonable to allocate at least a part of the staff to servicing the Cameron group. In order to avoid bias, I suggest an equal allocation of staff time to the Clegg appointees...
"I gather from friends at the Council of Europe that the UK is exceptionally heavily populated with pressure groups on human rights and related matters. They are fully entitled to express their view. But these views already are well articulated and well known.
"While we need to be open to such pressure groups and to official bodies associated with them (such as the EHRC) we need to be careful that their demands for access to the Commission do not crowd out those of the 'silent majority'."
Friday, January 20, 2012
Sacrificing our Sovereignty - HS2 and TEN-T Research by Anne Palmer
The Coalition’s Program for Government?
These two paragraphs below are acknowledged as Crown Copyright from the Coalition’s program for Government. Chapter 13: Europe.
“The Government believes that Britain should play a leading role in an enlarged European Union, but that no further powers should be transferred to Brussels without a referendum. This approach strikes the right balance between constructive engagement with the EU to deal with the issues that affect us all, and protecting our national sovereignty”.
“We will ensure that there is no further transfer of sovereignty or powers over the course of the next Parliament. We will examine the balance of the EU’s existing competences and will, in particular, work to limit the application of the Working Time Directive in the United Kingdom”. End of quotes.
We have read recently of the Government’s acceptance of a full speed ahead with HS2. Yet, not one word from our Government or explanation that the HS2 is part of the EU’s Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) Policy. Although I have written about this before, I did not emphasize just how, in accepting this EU project, it is transferring ever more masses of UK Sovereignty to the European Union. In the acceptance of this EU Legislation our politicians are allowing the European Union to dictate what we must do on our land, sea, and air. All of which so many people fought so very hard to prevent in the 1939-1945 war, when the people of every age-yes even children- fought so hard for this once sovereign Country to remain forever FREE FROM FOREIGN RULE.
All that I write of today, is meant to be the permanent transfer of UK Sovereignty to the European Union if this legislation goes its full course, World Maps will be changed to show these permanent changes. There must be a referendum-yes, the promised referendum on this matter whether to remain in the EU or become a free country once again.
The proposed “Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) Policy.” High Speed 2 (HS2) is the first part of TEN-T this Government seems to be going ahead with. It gives to the EU, UK Sovereignty (The Authority) to decide what the United Kingdom must have on our British land, from the South Coast all the way eventually to Scotland. Whether we want it or not, or whether we can afford it or not.
Another part of this TEN-T is the transfer of Sovereignty over our sky (Air Traffic Control/Air Traffic Management). Basically each separate Country has its own Air Traffic Control and that is as it should be for they understand one another. They get to know each others ways and voices and they know their own Country well. However, part of the TEN-T is the permanent transfer of Sovereignty over national air space for the EU’s Single European Sky. (A direct transfer of Sovereignty). There is absolutely no need at all for this-just giving power, control and sovereignty permanently to the EU when there is absolutely no need at all. (Below is an interesting Address re American Traffic Controller)
A High Level Conference on the implementation of the Single European Sky and its extension beyond the European Union took place in Warsaw, 28 November 2011, so without doubt the “Single European Sky” is very much still on the agenda and also, if this Coalition Government believes that it is right to give Sovereignty over our airspace to the EU, then there MUST be the promised referendum on each and every part of TEN-T for each gives away UK Sovereignty to the EU forever. Not only is it a great loss of UK Sovereignty, but it is given by a very temporary Coalition Government. What price “No Government shall Bind” eh? Many more people now recognise the fact that all three major political Parties want to remain in the European Union. They want our votes and they want our taxes for their pay and for contributions to the EU for they want foreigners to govern this Country forever. The people cannot allow that to happen because this Country’s Constitution forbids it and our Governments sworn Oath of Allegiance is to the British Crown and through the Crown to all the people in this land.
I now pose a few questions, for there different ways of looking at this. Will there be one Central Traffic Control? Air Traffic Management? Or would traffic controllers be simply taken under the wings of the European Union directly? What if a war broke out between EU Countries? Think it can’t happen? There was never going to be a second World War, but it came, didn’t it? We have already witnessed the ‘treatment’ when some-one says, ‘No’. So! What is the next step? Fisticuffs? Noted that in 2012 the EU is to integrate Air Traffic into CO² EU ETS perhaps through the great extra expense, most will join the Single EU Sky?
Finally, the great PERMANENT transfer of our SEAS and PORTS to the European Union for their “Motorway in the Sea”. I say permanent because World Maps will have to be changed to reflect this, for the Law of the Sea covers the World. This would be a terrible and tragic permanent loss of national Sovereignty.
We, in this Country of ours, are now being asked to give up sovereignty of our seas and oceans to the European Union. No, that is not quite right is it because we are not being asked at all on any of this tremendous permanent loss of sovereignty that our temporary Government is so casually giving away, for we are paying financially very dearly to “give it away”. We will always be paying dearly for the loss of freedom to govern ourselves. Why are our own politicians so eagerly destroying our country? For the creation of one great State of European Union? To let them have all that is in the Sea, that sails on it and the resources, known and unknown above and below the Sea bed? Lost ships and submarines etc, to the EU and yes, all the way down to the Falkland Islands. The bounty that maybe off the shores of that Island. I emphasize here how important it is that we maintain total sovereignty over our seas and oceans. Remember what previous British Governments did in giving the EU our fishing grounds?
We were not allowed a referendum on that because we did not know about it at the time, plus remember we were told “there would be no loss of essential Sovereignty” by one once highly thought of elected Prime Minister. Sadly, it was many, many years after that the people found out just how many MP’s in those days lied about the European Economic Community. Yes! We foolishly trusted them.
The EU’s Motorway in the Sea means giving British Sovereignty over our Ports and Seas so that EU ships can “come and go” without asking permission. Question: Will our ships become EU ships too?
Perhaps we will all feel closer to the continent just as if the water between us was indeed a river and we are as one complete State? Is this what this is all about? Creating one beautiful (in EU eyes) State called the European Union?
None of this has happened yet, except a commitment by our present Prime Minister for the EU’s HS2, without his asking the people of this Country. He apparently dare not ask the people because he fears the answer would be a definite “NO”, so WHY has he decided to “go it alone”? It is indeed time to hold a referendum on an “In” or “Out” of the European Union? Is there anyone that has any confidence left in this Coalition Government?
To be tied into the European Union for ever or be free to have our own Government governing us by our own Common Law Constitution once again? For the first time in more than thirty years in the General election of May 2010 there was no single-party majority. After five days of negotiations between political parties, asking one Party and then going to the other political party, a national coalition government was formed for the first time since the Second World War. There is no way can either Political Party fulfil their proposals or promises either Party made before the General election that people voted for them for. The people have every right to feel cheated. Would anyone that voted for the Conservatives wanted any policies of the LibDems? Yet to keep the LIBDEMS on board the Coalition, it seems to the people the LIBDEMS have more powers. This emphasizes that a coalition government's programme, drawn up after an election, cannot have the same mandate as a party manifesto which is available to the people before they vote.
It certainly does not escape ME or many others I suspect, that the coalition lacks a popular mandate because it was created after the general election and therefore the electorate had absolutely no opportunity to vote on it. It is no wonder the people are feeling the anger at all the changes that are being introduced that seem to have just “come out of thin air” and never been heard of before. It does not escape me either that all legislation should be in keeping with our Common Law Constitution. The dividing of ENGLAND into EU Regions was certainly not.
Although there have been coalition Governments previously, the only time I remember different Political Parties working together successfully was during the last war but there was indeed a true and perhaps at times ruthless remarkable leader and most British Politicians then were fighting the same fight as were the people-fighting for freedom from foreign rule. More people now are realising that ALL three major Political Parties want to remain in the European Union. Could this lead to yet another Coalition Government? It will if UKIP does not get its message across that it wants freedom from foreign rule.
Just how much longer can the people, in these hard times, afford to continue paying for a Government that can no longer govern? That borrows more and more money putting us all in debt, just so that the European Union can continue to govern us all? Exactly how many Billions of British pounds have we given to the European Union? Has it not dawned on every Country in the EU that they simply cannot afford financially to keep giving an outside Organisation billions of pounds each and every year?
How many people are losing their jobs and some their homes yet continue to pay through their taxes for two very full Houses in our Parliament that can no longer govern this Country according to our long standing Common Law Constitution?
For any British Government to give British sovereignty over our land, sea and air to foreigners is the greatest betrayal of all when for their freedom, so many in a previous generation gave their lives for our freedom to govern ourselves- today. Anne Palmer. 19.1.2012.
American Air traffic Controllers http://www.faa.gov/jobs/job_opportunities/airtraffic_controllers/EUROCONTROL Medium-Term Forecast October 2011 Flight Movements2011 – 2017 Really up to date http://www.eurocontrol.int/statfor/gallery/content/public/forecasts/Doc442-MT-Flights-Sep11-v1.0.pdf
Chancellor Merkel urges implementation of Single European Sky http://presse.lufthansa.com/fileadmin/downloads/en/policy-brief/12_2011/LH-PolicyBrief-December-2011-News-1.pdf
High Level Conference on the Implementation of the Single European Sky and its extension beyond the European Union Warsaw, 28 November 2011.
Background on the Single European Sky
Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland sign agreement towards the Single European Sky
CEP Analysis
Malta 2111-2015
The Coalition Government’s: Our program for Government.
See also this re Coalition Government
Air traffic control in Europe
Re Coalition on Europe
Single European Sky
and
Motorway in the Sea
Malta’s performance plan for Air navigation Services
Law of the Sea
Oceans and Law of the Sea
Territorial agenda
http://www.eu-territorial-agenda.eu/Reference%20Documents/The-Territorial-State-and-Perspectives-of-the-European-Union.pdfAir Controller Discipline Probed by U.S. in Near Plane crash.http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-18/controller-in-near-plane-crash-raises-professionalism-concern.html
Manifesto promise Conservative government will defend our national security and support our brave Armed Forces in everything they do. We will promote our national interest with an active foreign policy. We will work constructively with the EU, but we will not hand over any more areas of power and we will never join the Euro. We will honour our aid commitments and make sure this money works for the poorest nations. http://media.conservatives.s3.amazonaws.com/manifesto/cpmanifesto2010_lowres.pdf
Civil Aviation (Eurocontrol) Bill. Hansard HL Deb 19 December 1961 vol 236 cc661-79 Eurocontrol http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1980/mar/10/eurocontrol#S5CV0980P0_19800310_CWA_377
Civil Aviation (Eurocontrol) Act, 1962. Royal Assent. Not the Single European Sky.
France and the UK
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Coalition Shambles
John Ward has a good article on the disastrous mess the UK Coalition Government has become, in his blog "The Slog" this weekend, linked here. Read it all I would suggest, but merely quote the conclusion:
For a while, most of us were asleep – and then just dozy or distracted. But the loss of job, services and home alongside rocketing costs will sober every last one of us up….for be it uncles, kids, siblings or parents, we are all going to share the experience of seeing the unthinkable come to pass.
How those events are handled will decide a lot more than whether we stay in a rapidly crumbling EU or avoid debt default. Which is why I do still want a stable, sensible Government to prevail: because the alternative of pie-in-the-sky pc aided and abetted by the dead hand of a corrupt State would be the end for anyone who genuinely understands the responsibility of being British.
But I’ve given up on this lot. They are governing in the only way they know how, and it is nowhere near enough to guarantee our survival in the harsh world that must pertain for the next decade or so. Somewhere between Etonian toffs and obese bar stewards lie the rest of us. All we ask is a Government that reflects our decency, commonsense and courage. It surely cannot be too much to ask; but equally surely, it won’t happen unless more of us get off our backsides, get together on the internet, and get real about what really matters in life.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
George Osborne's Child Benefit Cut and its Timing
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, we are told, considers himself a political strategist. Why then announce a cut to universal child benefit at your own party conference, which will bear most heavily on the income group which provides your party's core support yet will only come into effect some three years into the future?
The first assumption I make is that Osborne believes that the Coalition will (note; not 'can' but 'will') survive the full five years in power. Interestingly Parliament will almost certainly at some stage need to have its powers further neutered if such is to be guaranteed. A General Election in May 2013, a probable date in my earlier calculations of likliehoods would now appear totally out of the question coming one month after the money is actually cut at the start of the financial year.
A rational and consistent approach to reducing universality by cutting heating allowances and free bus passes for the over 65s would have been consistent and logical, dispelling the impression that there is some form of political process in play.
The greatest mystery arise from the deferment of the cut to 2013. Surely any unpopular move such as this is best brought in as far from the next election as possible, therefore as soon as possible. As austerity and the huge government borrowings of one pound in every four being spent today is the ostensible reason then logically the cut should be effective at the latest at the start of the next tax year or lumped in with any other necessary fiscal changes coming from the spending cuts to be announced later this month.
There is no discernible logic behind the change or the timing of its announcement.
What I believe we have seen is a drawing of the line at a level of income where a future combined political party will look for support at the next general election when the coalition will plan to run only joint candidates. Cameron and Osborne will thus have achieved that of which Blair could only dream in his long gone Labour Party Conference speech, the destruction of Conservatism.
Cameron and Osborne are now betting that their Tory supportes are too dense to perceive this reality, a calculation in which they are probably correct.
This post will also appear on the blog Teetering Tories.
The first assumption I make is that Osborne believes that the Coalition will (note; not 'can' but 'will') survive the full five years in power. Interestingly Parliament will almost certainly at some stage need to have its powers further neutered if such is to be guaranteed. A General Election in May 2013, a probable date in my earlier calculations of likliehoods would now appear totally out of the question coming one month after the money is actually cut at the start of the financial year.
A rational and consistent approach to reducing universality by cutting heating allowances and free bus passes for the over 65s would have been consistent and logical, dispelling the impression that there is some form of political process in play.
The greatest mystery arise from the deferment of the cut to 2013. Surely any unpopular move such as this is best brought in as far from the next election as possible, therefore as soon as possible. As austerity and the huge government borrowings of one pound in every four being spent today is the ostensible reason then logically the cut should be effective at the latest at the start of the next tax year or lumped in with any other necessary fiscal changes coming from the spending cuts to be announced later this month.
There is no discernible logic behind the change or the timing of its announcement.
What I believe we have seen is a drawing of the line at a level of income where a future combined political party will look for support at the next general election when the coalition will plan to run only joint candidates. Cameron and Osborne will thus have achieved that of which Blair could only dream in his long gone Labour Party Conference speech, the destruction of Conservatism.
Cameron and Osborne are now betting that their Tory supportes are too dense to perceive this reality, a calculation in which they are probably correct.
This post will also appear on the blog Teetering Tories.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Cameron/Clegg and the EU
There is an interesting, if rather flatteringly effusive review of the Coalition Government two months from its formation by Peter Oborne in the Daily Mail this morning which is linked here.
Absent from this review is the area most crucial to the future of Britain, namely the crisis within the EU and its common currency.
I commented in depth on Ironies Too this morning, link here, on the Telegraph's schizophrenia over the EU. Unhappily the Mail itself seems to prefer to join the Coalition co-leaders themselves in ignoring this most important of all issues for the country they now govern.
Could the EU crisis, the main difference that divides the two parties which form the coalition, perhaps not be used both to resolve the crisis within the EU itself, but also perhaps prevent an early destruction of the coalition concept by disaffected MPs from both parties on the Government's backbenches?
Britain has a driving interest in maintaining a prosperous Continent of Europe freely trading in a partnership that above all values the wealth brought by its diversities of backgrounds, languages and cultures.
A joint party political coalition committee, meeting in public and drawn from leading Conservative MP Eurosceptics and MP Liberal Democrat EU enthusiasts, charged to suggest means of resolving the single currency crisis and future for the pound for presentation to the Cabinet, may well aid the Coalition in resolving how it might in future proceed on this thorny issue and even perhaps prevent the EU crisis becoming the reason for its own demise.
Somewhere, some politicians in the EU should be solely concerned with this issue. It is not a matter for resolution by either Germany and France battling out their disagreements, nor by a dark manipulation by the EU Commission and the ECB working in tandem.
Absent from this review is the area most crucial to the future of Britain, namely the crisis within the EU and its common currency.
I commented in depth on Ironies Too this morning, link here, on the Telegraph's schizophrenia over the EU. Unhappily the Mail itself seems to prefer to join the Coalition co-leaders themselves in ignoring this most important of all issues for the country they now govern.
Could the EU crisis, the main difference that divides the two parties which form the coalition, perhaps not be used both to resolve the crisis within the EU itself, but also perhaps prevent an early destruction of the coalition concept by disaffected MPs from both parties on the Government's backbenches?
Britain has a driving interest in maintaining a prosperous Continent of Europe freely trading in a partnership that above all values the wealth brought by its diversities of backgrounds, languages and cultures.
A joint party political coalition committee, meeting in public and drawn from leading Conservative MP Eurosceptics and MP Liberal Democrat EU enthusiasts, charged to suggest means of resolving the single currency crisis and future for the pound for presentation to the Cabinet, may well aid the Coalition in resolving how it might in future proceed on this thorny issue and even perhaps prevent the EU crisis becoming the reason for its own demise.
Somewhere, some politicians in the EU should be solely concerned with this issue. It is not a matter for resolution by either Germany and France battling out their disagreements, nor by a dark manipulation by the EU Commission and the ECB working in tandem.
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