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Having looked at the traffic for my site, it seems that the eurosceptic posts are by far the most popular. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I bring you...EU Watch.

You will find everything identical - the same page layout, the same cheeky attempts at persuading you to subscribe to my RSS feed, except all the postings will centre on what the EU actually does, and how we can let people know about it as soon as possible.

Conservative Comment will still function as normal, except it will solely focus on politics on this sceptred isle. I hope that you, the reader, will enjoy this new service.

...Bing Bong Bing [End Public Service Announcement]

Too Few Convictions - Too Full Jails

Lord Goldsmith has said that there are too few convictions for serious crimes. However, patent evidence that this is not the case is the fact that prisons are bursting with inmates and the prison service is only 2,000 off full capacity. Some part of the system must be working.

The reason for this overcrowding is that no new prisons have been built for ages. The population of Britain has been going up, but the jail numbers has stayed constant. So, as a proportion, less crimes are committed, but more crimes happen in total.

This is a perfect opportunity to rubbish the British Crime Survey. The BCS asks people about their perception of crime, not how much crime has actually happened. Thus, the figures are not reliable when deciding how many crimes have actually happened. Not surprisingly, this is Labour's preferred method of 'measuring' crime.

A much more reliable, and Tory, method, is to look at how much crime gets reported to the police. This doesn't require perception, only requires what actually happens. This has shown a steady increase in crime over the last few years, so Labour are trying to discredit it. It seems to me that the best way of measuring crime is to ask the police. They should know what happens.

The Cost of a Parliament Protest

It turns out that the cost of evicting Brian Haw, the parliament protestor about the iraq war, is due in court today. The operation to evict him involved 78 police officers, and racked up a bill of £27,000. All to prevent a bloke exercising his democratic rights. I have found that some lengthy police operations in my area cost around £10,000. When quizzed, a police spokesman said that the money was spent on "...many things...including catering." These policemen raided in the middle of the night, and they stopped off to have a sandwich?

It is an amazingly trivial matter, that Haw was told to reduce his placards, and he hasn't. Yet this does not merit 78 police officers wasting their time in the dead of night racking up a huge police bill. Couldn't two officers arrest him in the middle of the day, if they want to make a song and dance about it?

If this ridiculous state of affairs continues, parliament protestors could feature on the treasury's expenditure bill quite regularly. The police would have been better off catching real criminals. Haw is guilty under a law designed to evict him, and he is not a real criminal, in the sense that no-one is harmed by him.

John Prescott and Peter Mandelson

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Peter Mandelson said Mr Prescott would do what was in the party's interests.

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I rather naively thought that the job of the deputy prime minister was to look after the country's interests while Blair was away in America. Peter Mandelson can talk about interests - he got fired twice from the cabinet because he had too many. As a New Labour animal, this is a hint from the Trade Commissioner that the job of the Labour Party is to blindly serve Blair.

Blair wants to avoid instability, so the New Labour advocates, Mandelson and Benn, are coming out in favour of Prescott to make Labour look united. Even if it involves slightly ambiguous statements.

Lib Dems - Criminal policy making

The Lib Dems are again trying to appear hard on crime. He makes various policy claims, that in true Lib Dem style, will not be backed up by action.

1) All prisoners convicted of serious offences will not be allowed to vote. One should remind sir Menizes that the EU recently ruled British Governmental policy of denying prisoners the vote illegal. As the Lib Dems are the biggest europhiles on record, I would like to see them finally realising the truth about europe.

2) Released foreign prisoners should face movement restrictions if they cannot be deported. What a cop-out. If people commit a crime in Britain, then they have forefited the right to live in this country, and should be deported without fail. Menizes wants to slap them with an ASBO equivalent.

3) An end to early release. It's taken the Lib Dems 8 years to realise this.

Of course, Ming has no power to control Lib Dem policy. That is the exclusive reserve of the party conference, and why for a true measure of Lib Dem actions, we should look at what the conference says, as opposed to the leader, and they've passed some pretty frightening things in the past.

George Galloway - Loonie Leftie?

George Galloway has overstepped the mark yet again. He has said that an attack on Tony Blair's life would be "morally justified." Again, these ridiculous comments come with references to the Iraq war. He said that it would be "equivalent" to the iraqi deaths at the hands of the coalition. One should remind Mr. Galloway that the point of the war was to depose an evil dictator, that incidentally Galloway supported. He has also voiced his support for the dictator Castro in Cuba, and met him this week. Given these associations, is it possible for Galloway to talk about "moral justification?"

I respect Mr. Galloway's right to say what he likes, but issuing an open invitation to terrorists that he would tacitly support a bombing attack is not on. Even the BNP do not openly glorify terrorism. People should see if the inticement to terrorism legislation applies in this case, because Galloway cannot make these ridiculous statements and get away with it.

Propaganda to rival the best.

Quote: “Unelected Brussels bureaucrats rule Britain.” Explicit or not, this is the mantra of
most so-called “Eurosceptic” (often anti-European) critics of the European Union
and Britain’s place within it. In fact, it’s nonsense.

The European Commission proposes legislation and policies, but decisions on them
are taken by the elected governments of the member states in the EU Council and
by elected MEPs in the European Parliament.

So are the claims of Richard Corbett MEP in a document published recently. As normal, we are presented with a mixture of inconsistency and blatant lying in the europhiliac argument. He says that "Unelected Brussels bureaucrats rule Britain," and then he claims that it is not the case. In the very next paragraph, he explains why eurosceptics think that it is the case. He readily admits that the Commission proposes legislation, therefore they have the power to rule over Britain. He neglects to admit the undemocratic nature of the EU council and elected MEPs, and that MEPs are pressured through luxurious expenses not to oppose commission regulations.

He then makes the ridiculous accusation that Eurosceptics are anti-european. This is Brussels propaganda at its most deceptive. Where is his evidence? I know that I am not anti-europe - I study French and Spanish languages and am ready to learn from how they deal with problems. However, I do not like the European Union and it's unelected, bureaucratic members with a disdain for democracy. I would be prepared to start from scratch to build a better, more open Union, and I am anti-europe? Many others of Corbett's catch-all "Eurosceptics" feel the same way.

Legal Injection?

I don't have another exam until thursday, so I think that a bit of blogging here and there will not do much harm.

"The independent group said allowing users to inject in a safe and hygienic environment would improve their health and reduce the risk of fatal overdoses."

I thought that drugs were dangerous, and thus should not be injected at all. How would this improve their health, by giving them a place to inject harmful substances? Fatal overdoses happen when people inject too much drugs, where they inject themselves has no relevance.

"It said they could help take drug use and discarded needles off the streets."

This part is worse. They are simply proposing to move the problem out of sight of ordinary people, instead of actually solving the problem.

"However, the Home Office has argued "drug consumption rooms" could increase localised drug dealing and crime."

Aren't the home office clever.

Be Back Later

My exams are soon approaching, so blogging will probably stop for the next month or so. If I get around to it, I may add a few posts, but exams take priority.

My last exam is on the 23rd of June, so normal service will resume then.

TTFN,
David

Liberal Democrat Road Tax

The Lib Dems, those minor players in the world of party politics, have come up with a new road tax scheme. They want people with the highest emissions to pay up to £2000 per year to use their cars.

Firstly, £2000 per year is a lot of money, considering most new cars cost around the £10000 mark. It would affect around 8% of car owners, thus it is a serious thing worth considering. THe Lib Dems have been brave by actually proposing policy that would affect people, as opposed to Gordon Brown's £0 road tax that no cars are eligible for.

Secondly, the highest tax limit is far too much. To follow the lines of the Lib Dem fascination with income, if a low income family has a high emission car, then they could end up seriously out of pocket even if they never drive it.

The Lib Dems, opportunistic to the core, spotted a chance to prove that they aren't the slash and grab party still. One spokesman said that any revenue raised would "go back to people in tax cuts elsewhere, particularly income tax cuts". Given that the Lib Dems have consistently said that income tax rates are too low for the last x years, this seems to be blatant opportunism. It is a chance to get publicity: "Lib Dems say that taxes need to be cut" etc.

It seems to me that the best solution would be to fix road tax based on a) how many miles you drive. The government can employ GPS software to do this. It is also based on b) how fuel efficient your car is and c) what roads you go on. For example, roads in inner city areas could be taxed double instead of a congestion charge. This would be the fairest medium between saving the environment and imposing a ridiculous tax burden.

The Patient Passport Take Two

"Hang on. Are you saying there should be a scale of subsidies for people to use on the private sector? Or the NHS should be seperatly funded using the scale you stated?"

Such was a comment recieved for Patient passport take one. I think that this requires some clarification.

There are a lot of problems with the NHS. Wastage, long waiting times, etc. In contrast, the private sector is economical with their money, because they are running a business, and they have very short waiting times. It seems to me that we cannot continue having our two-tier system whereby those with the ability to pay get better healthcare. That is not fair.

At the last election, the Tories proposed giving those with the ability to pay 1/2 the cost, treatment outside the NHS with state money. This changes the function of the NHS from administering treatment to giving the money to administer treatment. It is this idea that I expanded upon. The Government should own 51% of all hospitals, private and public, and the mixture of private economy and government money would create a single-tier NHS. The scale below was merely a method of funding this scheme to release a huge burden from the Treasury. It gives those without the ability to pay free healthcare, and those that can pay do so for the good of the country.

In short, this scheme is not about financing the private sector with state money. It is about abolishing the grossly unfair two-tier healthcare system, and thus doing away with the need for public and private.

Patient Passport - A Tory policy coming from the heart of the EU

During the last general election, the Conservative party stood on the principle of allowing a person to opt into private healthcare. The government would then pay 50% of the costs. The idea was that it would free up NHS rescources for those without enough money to pay for private care, as in effect, the NHS has paid half price for a treatment that was going to happen anyway.

Today, Brussels' Court of Justice has ruled that if a citizen finds an unacceptable wait on the British NHS, then they can go and get treated abroad, and claim the allowance back off the Government. This idea of subsidising the private sector, but this time it is the private sector in France, seems odd coming from the Conservative Party and the EU. Amazingly, the EU seems to advocate Governments subsidising the entirity of the cost on private, instead of jus 50%.

I think that choice in healthcare is vitally important. People should be able to be treated where they want, in NHS hospitals or in private hospitals. To develop the Tory patient passport, there should be a sliding scale, which could work something like this based on average earning:
Top 10% earners in Britain - State subsidy - 10%
10-20% earners in Britain - State subsidy - 20%
etcetera.

Under this scheme, the NHS would still be free to the bottom 10% of earners in Britain. This is not an election winning policy, but it needs to happen.

The difference between private and the NHS is where the money comes from. Ideally, the NHS should merely be a vehicle for distributing money to privately-run hospitals, where the state owns 51% stake. There is no doubt that conditions in privately run hospitals are better than in NHS hospitals, and the money saved can lead to more tax cuts.

Ten Things I Hate About (E)U

In no particular order, the ten things that I hate about the EU are:

1) Their wild assertion that straight cucumbers is a eurosceptic myth. The legislation can be found below:

They must:

- be well developed

- be well shaped and practically straight (maximum height of the arc: 10 mm per 10 cm of length of the cucumber)

Source: Commission Regulation (EEC) No 1677/88 of 15 June 1988 laying down quality standards for cucumbers

2) The blatant disregard for democracy shown in its workings.
3) The obvious favouritism towards France and Germany. Why must we give up our rebate while they do not give up their CAP?
4) The bonkers legislation that comes out of Brussels, e.g. straight cucumbers, bendy bananas, harmonising sun cream etc.
5) Their belief that they are more important than the member states. They can overrule our parliament and introduce laws without consulting it.
6) The waste of British taxes. Why must the whole brigade migrate to Strasbourg once a month? What a waste of money.
7) Fraud. A conservative estimate is that £5bn a year is lost to fraud. Actual figure is probably double. Even the EU's own accountants agree to this.
8) The Brussels gravy train. Euro MPs get ridiculous expenses, and so do its civil servants.
9) The reams of unnecesary legislation that comes out of it. Approximately 75% of our laws originate from the EU. We've only been members for 34 years.
10) The fact that it is run by an unelected bureaucrat. Step forward Jose Manuel Barroso.

Please comment if I have missed anything out.

Is this a police state?

The comments from the Prime Minister about the Human Rights act seem to point towards Blair wanting to remove the independance of the judicial system.

"The Observer says a leaked letter to Home Secretary John Reid suggests creating new laws which would allow the government to veto court rulings."

This removes the point from the judicial system. If the Government gets defeated in a case, for example over the constitutional legality of EU primacy, then allowing the government to veto such rulings would be madness. It should be noticed that leaning on the judicial system is the first part of a police state, and Blair seems to be wanting to create one.

The European Constitution - Undemocratic tactics from the EU

To the horror of everyone who believes in the fairness of democracy, the EU's newest leader has pledged to revive the failed constitution. With two No votes to its name, the constitution should have been declared dead last year, yet Brussels have done what they have always done for the last 25 years, and have bulldozed across the will of the EU citizens.

It has long been my belief that the EU is about as undemocratic as institutions come. This episode reiterates that Brussels does not care one iota about what anyone else thinks. The last time this happened was in Communist Eastern Europe, when the USSR dictated policy to 15 countries. Interestingly, most of them are now members of the EU. They swapped one oppressive, tyrannical regieme for another.

Any further ratification of the constitution cannot progress, because the constitution has already been rejected, not once, but twice. Brussels is going for shock tactics. It will wait for most countries to ratify the constitution and then put pressure of the countries that rejected it, i.e. Britain, France and Holland, to accept it on the second attempt.

The sad thing is that the text of the traty has not changed at all. I obtained a copy in 2004, and two years later, the text has not changed to take into account the people's verdict. This is arrogance from Brussels, who are the only people who will benefit from the constitution.

Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill

This has aroused lots of feeling in Britain, and will be debated by peers today. I shall briefly state my position, as I understand that it is a sensitive subject.

A distinction must be drawn between assisted dying and euthanasia. Euthanasia involves the doctor killing the patient, whereas assisted dying is when the doctor gives the patient drugs to be taken themselves.

Euthanasia will always be tantamount to murder. The normal consent arguments are irrelavent. Time and time again, in this country as well as abroad, people have been convicted of murder when the victim had consented. A case of this happened last week with the German cannibal. Therefore, under current legal conditions, doctors could be tried for murder by relatives. Removing this as a murder offence leads to the sticky ground of where to draw the line between euthanasia and murder. I believe that they are one and the same thing.

Assisted dying, therefore, is tantamount to suicide. It is marginally better than euthanasia, because if the person does not consent, they cannot take the drugs and kill themselves. However, everyone has the right to live, not the right to die. Doctors need to prolong life, not destroy it.

Finally, if people can 'play God' with their lives, the value of life is undermined. If people can kill themselves legally, some people will see life as something that they can end when it starts to get tough. That is not the sort of attitude that we want to encourage.

An absolute disaster

David Cameron's "A-list" policy of choosing the best 100 candidates and expecting the top winnable seats to pick their candidates from the list was branded "an absolute disaster." This is because previously, local constituencies could pick anyone they wanted, but this ties them down to a set list of people. It is obvious that Cameron expects the listed people to get into the House of Commons, because they will contest the easiest to win seats.

Cameron is applying a one size fits all policy to selection. Different constituencies may call for different types of people, and if that type of person isn't on the list, then tough luck. Also, this policy shall lead to career politicians.

Career politicians are those that choose politics as a career, instead of a calling. They rely on getting elected, not always reliable, and once inside Westminster, they will blindly follow the party line, because they rely on the party leader for their jobs. They do not care about the people who elected them, because they don't come from the area, so have no interest in their electors. This selection by the centralised Conservative Party, instead of the local associations, will lead to a rise in these people in the Conservative party. It will not be good for British politics.

Although this is a fallible method of selecting candidates, it is at least better than Labour's blatand discrimination, a.k.a. all women shortlists. The events in Wales at the last election proved that this was not a good idea at all.

Other political tests

While we're on the subject of political tests, there is a very good one at http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/

It places your political position on two scales, from authoritarian to liberal, and from wholly deregulated economy to state controlled economy. That in itself is an interesting concept.

I always come out 1/2 way up the authoritarian section of the scale, and slightly to the right of centre on economics.

Just in case anyone's in any doubt...

This is a test that I've done, that I found through Politics through the eyes of a teenager.

It shows me well away from Labour and the Lib Dems, and wholly Tory. Yippee!

Who should I vote for? v2

Your expected outcome:

Conservative

Your actual outcome:

Labour -5
	Conservative 85
Liberal Democrat -57
	UKIP 38
Green -9

You should vote: Conservative

The Conservative Party is strongly against joining the Euro and against greater use of taxation to fund public services. The party broadly supported the Iraq war and backs greater policing and ID cards. The Tories are against increasing the minimum wage above the rate of inflation, and have committed to abolishing university tuition fees. They support 'virtual vouchers' for private education.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

Blair - Is he going or not?

Perhaps in Labour's current predicament, they could take a few lessons from the Tories. Michael Howard declared that he would be stepping down after the general election, and afterwards there was a debate of where the party was going, and under which leader. As the polls of last week show, it did the Tories the world of good. The reason why it worked was because there was no outright winner of the leadership race from the start.

Gordon Brown is the labour leader in waiting, and there lies Labour's problem. There is no doubt that labour will lurch slightly to the left under Brown, so it is obvious what path the party shall take. Politics is all about choice, and if the Labour supporters only get one realistic choice of leader, they will become opposition very quickly.

Blair has lost all authority, as the last few weeks proved. so I think that he should step down right away, as he is accountable for the mess that this country is in.

To change the subject, congratulations to the person who found this blog in Turkey via a Google search for the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill. I hope you were not disappointed. Also a big thankyou to the owners of the two bloglines accounts that track updates to this blog.

John Reid - In his own words

"But writing in the News of the World, Mr Reid also blamed the courts for often "thwarting" government wishes."

Has it never crossed Mr. Reid's mind that the courts may have thwarted government wishes because they were illegal?

I can think of detention without trial and the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill to name two.

He also says that he expects Home Office systems not to "cock up".

That's a radical idea.

The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill - Part II

I see that the government has backed down over its plans to make Britain a police state, and it will propose changes. It has yet to be seen whether these changes will be acceptable.

See The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill - Part I
for more information.

Cabinet Reshuffle

Tony Blair's new government contains many things worthy of comment.

Charles Clarke is finally sacked, his problems at the home office were too great, and he has been replaced by John Reid. Jack Straw has been shunted sideways to Leader of the House, and he has been replaced by Margaret Beckett, who pushed through the ban on fox hunting. Geoff Hoon is now Europe minister, a job with no power.

How can John Prescott still claim £1/4 million for being deputy prime minister when he has not got any responsibilities? It is a case of Government waste, and people inside Labour trying to do their friends a good turn.

On other fronts, there is proof that a resignation is a good career move. Hazel Blears, who resigned over immigration visas, is now party chairwoman. She follows a long line of Labour politicians who, after resigning for all possible reasons, find themselves in hign office. Peter Mandelson resigned not once, but twice, and he now holds one of the most influential positions inside the EU. David Blunkett also resigned twice, once over visas, and once for his breaking the ministerial code.

Perhaps there is hope for Charles Clarke yet.

Local Elections

Labour has lost lots of council seats, and gues who's won the most!

A turnout of 40% seems to prove that the Tories have the most core support, who will turn out whatever the occasion. While Labour has gone backwards, The Lib Dems have won 18 extra councillors, as opposed to 247 for the Tories. At last, the Lib Dems have proven that they are not the 'real alternative', they are, and are destined to always be, a third party in British politics.

Protest votes also went horribly wrong. The BNP doubled their councillors, and on the other side, the Greens also made gains.

One sad thing is that the result appeared to be a referendum on the parties leaders, instead of on local issues.

Telegraph 2/05/06

The daily telegraph contained many interesting ideas today. Firstly, there was a cartoon with a candidate in the local elections saying: "I've caused lots of problems, vote for me and I'll sort them out." Or words to that effect anyway. It really sums up the Labour attitude.

Secondly, there was an article on John Otway. The self-styled 'microstar' is touring the world, having bought his own airbus. He wants fans to join him for £3000, so if you like Mr. Otway, a bargain is there to be had.

It is 150 years since Sigmund Freud was born this saturday. Having studied his ideas for an english exam, I can say without fear of contradiction that he had a one-track mind, a sure sign of someone that doesn't get out enough. Any contradictions welcome. Please comment below.

For anyone very sad, at 01:02:03 on Thursday, aka 04/05/06, you shall witness this phenomenon on your (digital) watch. Us analoguers don't have this privilige.