AND IT T’WERE HUNDRED PER CENT BRITISH

Did you eat up your crusts with lashings of real butter when you were a kid? Did it make your hair go curley? I loved my crusty bread and butter, still do and have a curly beard to show for it. However, other than bothering if the bread was wholemeal or not, like a lot of people no doubt, I have never given too much thought as to the source of the ingredients of our daily loaf.

Reported in the Daily Telegraph on Friday 20th November 2009, was the news that good old Hovis is on the verge of producing the first 100 per cent British loaf of bread.

I know that this is not news to have you jumping up and down with utter joy and ecstasy, but in these days when so much of what we purchase has been produced in foreign climes, it is a nice little snippet of news.

It seems the last time we had 100 per cent produced British bread was before the repeal of the corn laws in 1846, ever since then most mass produced bread made in Britain has contained around 20 per cent imported wheat. However, Hovis has declared that as from January 2010 it will be using British flour only.

Hovis has always produced good bread and to use the terminology of its old adverts: ‘It’ll be reet good, and it t’were hundred per cent British.

NONENITIES TO THE FORE

Rompuy & Ashton.

Baroness Ashton, who she you may ask. Believe it or not she has been our one United Kingdom EU Commissioner hidden away in the bowels of Brussels ever since Baroness Mandy departed and returned to these shores to meddle and spin in British politics again. The Baroness, Ashton that is, has just landed one of the top new jobs created under the Lisbon Treaty as the EU’s ‘High Representative, or in reality foreign minister. She now sits alongside that other nonentity who has been elevated to EU President, Herman Van Rompuy. What a lovely couple they make!

Neither of this dubious duo have been elected into office, they were placed after some argy-bargy by the EU leaders at a grand do in Brussels last night. The people of Europe who have shown their disapproval for first the EU constitution, then the Lisbon Treaty which was more or less the same thing anyway, were then informed of the fact they have had this pair foisted upon them.

The Europhile BBC have been having a lovely time doing the job of informing us mere mortals on behalf of the EU, the bullshit has been coming thick and fast and in great dollops. It has told us how Mr Rumpy Pumpy will really be a “chairman” more than a President, it also informed us how pleased the EU leaders were as such a lowly figure as Mr Rompuy will not take away their power – what utter tosh.

What the BBC failed to explain was the fact that by signing and ratifying the dreadful and dangerous Lisbon Treaty the leaders of the once sovereign nations of Europe have handed over immense power to the EU. Nor did the BBC remind us of Mr Rompuy’s recent comments about the replacement of national symbols such as flags and anthems to be usurped by the EU’s symbols to create a European identity. This man may be a little known backwater Belgian, but his ideas and ambitions spell great danger to all our freedoms and liberties.

Baroness Ashton (remember her?) got the job of High Representative after Gordon Brown dropped his support for Tony Blair as President and proposed the invisible Baroness instead for the second post. Naturally she was invited onto the BBC Radio Four Programme to tell us that despite never being elected to anything in her life, how lucky we all are to have such a wonderful person as her in this high ranking EU post – I am sure we are all eternally grateful!

When we go into 2010 and the grey and invisible people of the EU finally get their mits on great chunks of power, we will begin to see some drastic changes, sadly none for the better. As the nonentities of the EU rise to the fore our only and last option to save ourselves is to leave the European Union. Will you be voting for that next May by voting UKIP or will you doom us by voting for the same old Lib, Lab, Con?

TONIGHTS THE NIGHT

It’s taken a long time getting there, the electorate in several parts of the continent have been very inconsiderate and uncooperative and had to be put in their place and told what was good for them, and now the EU constitution, otherwise known as the Lisbon Treaty, is in place. This means the EU leaders can have a nice little jolly and decide who is going to take the plum jobs of President and High Representative (foreign minister).

All this is due to take place tonight at a grand dinner, there is no need for such niceties as democratic accountability and the EU definitely would not want the electorate near this – they may elect the wrong person. So, after a slap-up dinner they will get together and haggle over the details. Compromises will be made and when they all get a bit too tired and it gets way past their bed times, then they will pick the least opposed person and inflict that person upon the rest of us plebs who are too ignorant to understand the workings of these things. That person will then be our new, unelected, president.

Many years ago I heard a joke about a group of people taking part in a study of sexual behaviour. They were asked for those who had sex every night of the week to raise their hands. A number with big grins on their faces did so. Then those who had sex once a week to raise their hands – a reasonably happy bunch did so. Next it was the turn of those who got their oats only once a month, a not so happy looking bunch raised their hands. Finally, it came to those who only struck lucky once a year to raise their hands. One small chap raised his hand grinning from ear to ear and jumping up and down said “yeh, that’s me”. The puzzled person conducting the survey asked him why he was so happy when he only had sex once a year. The chap replied: “Tonight’s the night!”

If you see a happy looking bunch of Eurocrats, well for them tonight’s the night, the rest of us mere mortals may look even more glum tomorrow.

VOLUNTEER FOR NOW AND GET STUCK FOR LIFE

The government has announced that residents of Greater Manchester will be able to apply for an ID card and registration on the National Identity Register from 30th November. The Home Office claims the cards will be secure, though similar cards issued to non-EU foreign nationals were recently cracked and cloned, and police admitted that printers until recently available in high street IT stores were able to produce replicas.

The prime selling point now offered is that they will be convenient for young people. But any application involves the individual 'voluntarily' joining the National Identity Register database, being finger printed, and becoming subject to all present and future regulations issued under the Identity Cards Act 2006.

Phil Booth, NO2ID's National Coordinator, said: 'The Home Office line that ID cards are cheap and convenient is preposterous. Volunteer for a 'thirty pound' ID card and as part of the package you get a government file for life. Once registered you have the obligation to keep a Whitehall database about you up-to-date, whatever it costs, for ever. To believe that is easier than the existing passport, let alone any of the officially endorsed proof of age cards that you can buy for a tenner, you would have to be an imbecile - or a government minister.

WORSE OFF IN THE EU

As the EU grabs even more power with its success of foisting its Lisbon Treaty upon us long suffering mortals who have to live with the day to day reality of the EU, which is less utopian than the EU would like us to believe, we are constantly being told we can’t leave because of the ‘benefits’ of membership – although they seem quite elusive.

One of the many not very beneficial parts of being in the EU is the sheer financial cost. Families years ago were told that their grocery bills would cost less with membership – but somehow less turned into more and thanks to the EU absurd Common Agricultural Policy average grocery bills cost an additional £25 on average. Now families are being warned of another cost of EU membership.

According to the well known and highly respected economist, Ruth Lea, who has carried out extensive research on behalf of the Taxpayers Alliance to study the costs and benefits of EU membership, has said that £10.8 billion of our money could be clawed back should Britain leave the EU for a less formal relationship, such as that of Switzerland. The benefit to this looser relationship to the Swiss is that they have access to EU markets with free trade, it co-operates with the EU in areas of their own choosing and also has access to non-EU markets denied to us as full EU members.

Ms Lea said the desperate state of the public finances has made a rethink of Britain’s contributions more urgent than ever. She stated: ‘British taxpayers pour huge amounts of money into the EU’s coffers and really don’t get a good deal in return’.

The full impact of the financial burden of EU membership on every single family in this country, at a time when most families are struggling to make ends meet, is £428 per year. We really are worse off in the EU.

WHAT A CLUCKING TO-DO!

What do you do if you keep a few hens who lay more eggs than you need for your own personal consumption? A) do you have a chat with the owner of your local village stores to come to a mutual arrangement to make a few bob on your surplus, or B) fill in reams of paperwork and be inspected by Government officials dressed in gear that looks as if they have come to deal with the great plague? The answer is obvious, we’re in the EU, it’s B, of course.

This then is what happened to Lady Dilhorne, a clinical microbiology consultant who obviously knows a thing or two about the safety of foods, and her home laid eggs. All she wanted to do was to sell her surplus of around six boxes of eggs a week. However, when she put in a simple request for this arrangement to the Department for Environmental Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) she hit an EU created bureaucratic wall, namely the EC Laying Hens Directive.

She was told to complete loads of forms about her hens, where they were kept, what they were fed on and much else. She was instructed how to weigh and clean eggs and then her hens were inspected by an environmental health officer whose only duty was to ask her how she cleaned her kitchen and where the eggs were packed.

All in all she had two three hour visits from inspectors who have classed her kitchen as a packaging station and her as the business manager of Professor Eykyn’s Class A Free Range Eggs. DEFRA said: “All Class A eggs sold at retail level within the EU are legally required to be marked with a code identifying the establishment, country of origin and method of production. What a clucking to-do!

A HOWLING FROM HEFFER

There are lots of famous political quotations, but the two most apt and oft used were said by two Harold’s.

Harold McMillan, or ‘Supermac’, as he was called back in the 1950’s, famously said: “Events dear boy, events.” That other Harold, Harold Wilson, said, as we all know: “A week is a long time in politics.” How right those two were.

It’s uncanny how someone in politics can be riding high one moment and within a short space of time they hit rock bottom, political events can happen so fast they are left stunned and dazed by what has happened. Now its David Cameron’s turn to be hit by events in a short space of time.

Just weeks ago he was riding high and looking unstoppable, then suddenly – wham – he was hit by the EU. The events that have taken place around the Lisbon Treaty have hit him in the political goolies and left him on very shaky ground. To get more of a measure on his situation Simon Heffer has written a very astute article in the Daily Telegraph which was published today (11th October 2009). I suggest you read it, Cameron, as he points out, is “Howling in the night”.

HAGUE DECLARES THAT TORIES DON’T CARE ABOUT BRITISH SOVEREIGNTY

William Hague, the EU and British sovereignty not a Conservative priority.

Now we have it from the horses mouth, the Tories don’t care about saving British sovereignty as the EU problem is not a priority to them. This was stated on Sunday by William Hague who, as the then Tory leader, campaigned in the 2001 general election with the slogan ‘Keep the pound’ (for a bit). The Tories have never been serious about protecting Britain’s interests against the EU’s wishes for total domination – and a future Conservative government led by David Cameron, surrounded by Europhiles, will be no different.

According to William Hague the state of the economy is far more important than British independence. He claimed that the party remained Eurosceptic (can you believe) but would not get into a “bust-up with Europe” and went on to confirm that they would take their time over negotiating opt-outs in a number of areas and the passing of a sovereignty Bill. This, of course, was obviously being said to appease the rank and file membership of the Conservative Party as there is no way they will be able to negotiate any opt-outs and a sovereignty Bill will not be worth the paper it is written on.

However, without leaving the EU, which under a ratified Lisbon Treaty, there will be no way the Tories will be able to deal with any major issues, not least the economy, as the most important levers of power will pass to the EU. A Tory government will not be allowed to give a boost to British based businesses or give them an advantage in any way as that will be seen by the EU as ‘unfair competition’, trade agreements and foreign policy will pass into the remit of the EU – we will not be able to promote Britain on a world stage as the EU leaders will no longer be representatives of their own nations but representatives of the EU instead.

Ted Heath was the Tory leader who blatantly lied to the people to take us into the then Common Market and Cameron is proving the Tory leopard has not changed its spots as he is deceiving the British people now. The Tories have proven they don’t care about British sovereignty.

NO JUSTICE

Whatever you do please find the time to read the latest article in the Daily Telegraph by Philip Johnston, who in this bloggers opinion is one of the Telegraph’s star commentators.

In absolute clarity he explains exactly how the British legal system is about to be undermined and destroyed by the EU now that the Lisbon Treaty has been signed. There will be no justice in the EU.

THE EU CALLS IN THE SHRINKS

If the rantings of this blog seem a bit on the head banging side, then that is probably because this blogger, aged 61, should face a psychological test, or so the EU would have it.

In what the Daily Mail refers to as a ‘Reggie Perrin’ test, every worker in the EU over the age of 45 should be tested to identify those at risk of a mid-life crisis. As usual, the EU wanting to sort out these multitudes of crises will be creating a much larger crisis for an enormous number of small to medium sized enterprises who will be affected by what is yet to be another of the EU’s mad meddlings.

It would seem, as the Daily Mail puts it, the aim of this proposal is to “spot troubled employees who are thinking of quitting their jobs because they begin to doubt their own abilities in middle age.”

British businesses are not at all happy with this proposal as the cost and burden implementing this scheme could cripple them, pensioners groups said the idea was insulting to older workers. Once again this is a prime example of how EU proposals could do great harm to the large numbers of smaller business who collectively employ the largest number of workers whilst the large multi-national companies will have the resources to cope with such measures. This is another example of a not very level playing field thanks to the EU.

The proposal states: ‘If older workers are to stay in work, it is vital for firms to introduce an anticipatory mechanism as early as the middle of a workers career, to avoid workers becoming at risk.’

Naturally, as with so many of the EU’s wondrous brainwaves, those who will have to put their hands in their pockets to pay for this will be the firms themselves and the poor old taxpayer whose pockets are getting ever deeper and wallets ever thinner as the EU calls in the shrinks.