OUR KIDS THEORY

Derek & Bruce Bennett in younger days.

At last, a bit of time for blogging in between preparing for election and other things, such as finding time for the odd pint in the pub with our kid.

"Our kid", by the way, is a term used in the Black Country for someones brother, and last Sunday while enjoying a pint in my favourite watering hole, the Lyndon House Hotel, somehow or other our kid, Bruce, and I got on to the topic of England and its place in the world.

He was musing about how England is often seen as an oppressor nation lording it over the Scots Welsh, Irish, and our present and past colonies, but few really look at what the English have done for these countries over the years.

Although the Scots claim the North Sea oil to be theirs, the way the sectors in the North Sea are divided most of the oil rigs are situated in English sectors, but brought on-shore in Scotland, it is English, not Scottish oil. So as the Scots can't claim that oil as their own and finally devolved completely from England, as a lot of Scots Nat's want, they would be left with very little without the English as a benefactor as we currently are. The same applies to the Welsh and Northern Irish, it is English taxpayers money that keeps them going.

Our kid also pointed out how the French and other European colonists just abandoned many of their colonies and left them to their own devices, whilst the English made sure that our colonies were supported and left with a democracy and a good infrastructure. If some of these colonies have gone wayward since, then it is not the doing of the English yet we still seem to get the blame for their problems.

If you look through history we did do things wrong, Liverpool and Bristol became very wealthy cities on the back of slavery and the human misery that vile trade created, but that trade was helped by many Africans themselves - the Arabs carried on slaving after we had seen the error of our ways. Again the reason Slavery was abolished was thanks to the English with figures such as William Wilberforce leading the fight against it.

I remember an old cartoon from years ago in which a Scotsman says "Scotland for the Scottish", those around him shout "Yeah, right on", then the Welshman says "Wales for the Welsh", much to the agreement of those present and the same thing for the Northern Irishman with everyone agreeing. Then the Englishman says "England for the English", they all shout: "Racist pig!". Our kids theory is that England and the English are a very put upon nation.

Bruce & Derek Bennett enjoying a beer in the Lyndon House Hotel, Walsall.

£800 MILLION MORE

In these days of hair shirts and austerity, it would be expected that the British Government would be looking for savings - but when it comes to the EU austerity evaporates pretty quickly.

British contributions to the European Union have long been a sore point amongst Euro-skeptics, and in recent years a growing number of British people too. As the Government pile on extra taxes on cider, fags booze and squeeze the wealthy and middle class in its recent budget, the one saving it could make is our payments to the EU. However, it has recently been discovered that the suffering British taxpayers, in order to satisfy the obsession of the political class in the UK, have been forced to pay the EU £800 million in payments than expected.

Due to the recent budget figures contained within it show that Britain is expected to pay the EU £6.4 billion this year rising to £7.6 billion in 2010-11.

The figure, as pointed out in the Daily Telegraph (25th March 2010) for 2009-10 of £6.4 billion is more than twice the £3.1 billion given to the EU in 2008-09.

These rises are due to the effects of the cuts in Britain's annual rebate which had been hard won by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984.

A spokesman for Open Europe, Mats Persson, said of this increase to the UK payments to the EU: “It’s extraordinary that, when virtually every single government in Europe is forced to cut its public expenditure, the EU sees fit to increase increase its own. Surely we can think of better ways spend £7.6 billion a year during the worst recession for a generation?” In the meantime we all have to dig deeper into our pockets to find £800 million more.

PREPARING FOR ELECTION

Lord Pearson speaks to UKIP members.

The reason there has been little blogging on this site in recent days is due to too many things to do, not down to the fact the EU has stopped producing its reams of legislative nonsense or that Gordon Brown's dire Government has begun to make any sense, sadly. 

Life has ben going on as usual, the EU is still poking its unwanted nose in our affairs, such as telling our Government to start introducing spending cuts. Although we all know this needs to be done, it should not be the business of an unelected foreign elite to tell us. And on more sheer nastiness from this Government, it is now planning to foist its unwelcome and unwanted ID cards onto our pensioners if they want free bus travel. The great idea is to get rid of bus passes for those over sixty and force them to carry an ID card which will be accepted as a bus pass - how devious can they get.

One of the events that has kept me from bogging was the UKIP spring conference in Milton Keynes on Friday 19th March.

Milton Keynes is not much of a place, but the UKIP spring conference was certainly a lively event. This was the first major party event for Lord Pearson, UKIP's new leader, who gave he keynote speech at the end of the day. Before that, however, UKIP members were given a presentation on the party manifesto for the forthcoming general election, also the theme the party is going with which is 'Straight talking'. UKIP are proposing a whole raft of manifesto ideas from simplifying taxation, benefits and bringing those on the minimum wage out of the tax bracket all together. It has manifesto plans for education, immigration and plans to help British businesses and manufactoring - no longer can it be said UKIP is a single issue party, that doubtful privilege rests with the Liberal Democrats, Labour and Conservative parties who remain quite happy to be governed by the EU which means they can do little or nothing about all the other problems that blight us.

As we prepare for election, sadly, there will most probably be less blogging on this site as time will be limited. However, that does not mean the fight has been given up, just stepping up a notch.  More spring conference photos HERE.

Nigel Farage giving his usual rousing talk to UKIP members.

A LETTER TO THE TELEGRAPH

Guess whose got a letter in today’s Daily Telegraph, yes, yours truly. As you can see below, or if you use the link (scroll down a bit) you can see it is on Lord Adonis’s announcment regarding the reduction of the current drink drive limit, but he just happened to have forgotten to inform everyone that it also conveniently brings us into line with the EU – well fancy that – what a coincidence.

SIR – George Pitcher (Comment, March 15), who laments the possibility of a lowering of the drink-drive limit from 80mg to 50mg per 100ml of blood, may be interested to learn that this proposal by Lord Adonis will, once again, bring Britain into line with the rest of the EU.
Once again, this has nothing to do with what we need or want in Britain, but compliance with the EU.
Derek Bennett
Walsall, West Midlands.

A SPRING DAY IN EUROLAND

Pink Floyd once sang in their song 'The Another Brick in the Wall': Hey, leave them kids alone". This is a concept the EU has not fully understood and is hell bent on brainwashing as many children as it can into believing EU propaganda.

In what sounds like a spin-off from the spoof 'Springtime for Hitler' song from the show 'The Producers', the EU has launched a web-site called: 'A Spring Day For Europe'. Within it we have all the EU's favourite topics such as global warming and how the EU has single handidly saved Europe from wars since 1945 (no mention of course about what went on in Serbia and Croatia).

The one nice thing to know about this is that most kids seem to know bullshine when they see it and have a healthy disregard for it. With luck it will rain on the spring day in Euroland - or should that be La, La Land?

GREAT SCOTT, IT'S THE PORN DEMS

Scene one in Lib Dem Naughty Films latest production, directed by the Liberal Democrats latest rising star, pornographer Anna Arrowsmith. The camera is rolling as a scantily clad female gardener is wielding her secateurs pruning her roses.  Pan right to the randy male workman, complete with false mustache, played by Lib Dem Naughty Films latest male star, Edward McMillan Scott whose previous roll, which he played with gusto, was of a European assassin known as the 'Jackass', whose mission was to destroy the Conservative Party in the European Parliament.

Suddenly the scantily clad gardener reaches out to snip a rose almost out of reach and for no reason at all the workman's trousers fall down.  "Cut" shouts the director - oops, McMillan's Scott's career is over as soon as it began.

What on earth have the Liberal Democrats come to?  It is hard to know what  can be worse, is it having Porn film director Anna Arrowsmith of Easy on the Eye Production as a Parliamentary candidate, or that great steaming Euro fanatic twit, McMillan Scott MEP as its latest recruit?  

It can't be much fun being a Liberal Democrat these days with such people lowering the tone of the party and a nonentity such as Nick Clegg as your leader.  No doubt, as the Lib Dem's spring conference in Birmingham unravels, we will all see its latest production, fantasy politics.

AN INTERESTING MORNING

On the morning of Wednesday 10th March I drove down to Hereford to attended and take part in a debate about EU membership at the Hereford College of Technology.  

My opponent was a Liberal Democrat and we were both asked to speak for fifteen minutes to a room full of students about why we were either for, or against, EU membership. I was asked to be the first speaker on and given fifteen minutes to give my reasons why I am opposed to EU membership and my opponent followed with his fifteen minutes.  

In my talk I concentrated on how the EU undermines and is destroying our Democracy, how unacountable the EU is and how many laws it makes and inflicts upon us, I also highlighted the EU arrest warrant and the plight of Andrew Symeou who is currently wasting away in a Greek jail awaiting trial on little more than circumstantial evidence.  My opponent spoke about the single market and unifying standards across the EU.  We were asked questions and made our points then the teacher asked the students to write down 'Yes' if they wanted to stay in the EU, 'No' if they wanted to leave or 'Abstain' if they were undecided.

The result was 8 abstentions, 3 yes and 14 very satisfactory no's, which naturally pleased me.  When asked why they voted the way they did the general consensus from the students was that most of what we had spoken about had gone over their heads but they felt we should not have EU laws imposed upon us.  One girl also made the point we were giving the EU all this money and yet our solidiers in Afghanistan were short of funds for vital equipment.  All in all, an interesting morning in Hereford.

BARKING MAD

Derek Bennett and his old dog Tess.

Mrs B and myself will have been married for 37 years this year, during those years of marital bliss there has only been a period of five weeks without a dog in the house.

Our first pooch was a charming lad named Billy who had been abandoned as a young six month old pup and found by my brother.  He was a dog that intended to live life to the full and made sure he did so for all his sixteen years.  He had a great time when my brother also adopted a dog from Birmingham Dog's Home and she came into season and the pair of them got together - I leave you to guess what happened - the result was six pups, one of which we kept and named Monty.

When Billy's time on this earth came to an end, about a month later a stray dog turned up one Saturday evening which we took in so it was back to two dogs, Monty and Sandy as we named her.

Sandy was a lovely lady who minded her P's & Q's and was very well behaved, which was quite a change after living with a couple of yobish lads.  Poor old Monty lasted another year until his ticker gave up and we lost him at the age of 14, leaving us with Sandy.  She only lived for seven years and we were heartbroken when she died of liver cancer leaving us dogless for the first time in our marriage, which was the five weeks without a dog until we found Tess, our current pooch, at a Blue Cross rescue centre.  She is now an old girl who is a bit deaf and set in her ways, but still an active dog - I am pleased to say.

So why all this history of dogs of the Bennett household?  Our doggy tale, after all, is probably similar to thousands of other dog owners up and down the land.  But the Government is set on a course of sheer madness which is going to create havoc for dog owners, their pets and utter disaster for countless rescue centres from John O'Groats to Lands End.

The proposals that dog owners are forced to insure their dogs in case they attack someone, that the dogs a compulsory chipped and that, sheer lunacy above lunacy, dog owners have to take a test before being allowed to own a mutt, is going to bring chaos and heartbreak across the land.

In the days when we had to go to the Post Office to buy a dog licence for 15/- (75p in new pence) only the responsible dog owners would comply while the morons who let their pooches stray never bothered.  Hardly anyone was ever asked to produce a dog licence and it did not prevent cruelty or the problem of dogs being dumped far from home at Christmas or holiday times, leaving the animal rescue centre's to cope with the aftermath.

If this most idiotic of laws, which is now being debated in Parliament goes through, then the problems a fifteen shilling dog licence produced will scale into insignificance to what will happen if introduced.

Dogs will be abandoned by their thousands, rescue centres will never be able to cope as they have a massive influx of dogs which they won't be able to re-home due to the new strict ownership laws.  This will result in lovely healthy dogs being destroyed by their thousands.  Responsible owners will be presented with a financial burden which may be too much for them, especially older pensioners whose dog is their only company, and we could even find, I presume, that dogs will be snatched by the state and killed because someone has refused to comply with this madness.  This is on top of the hundreds of prosecutions and fines that, no doubt, will be awaiting dog owners with these mad measures.

Knowing the rather nasty, Big Brother way this administration works, dog owners could find they come in for some real persecution from overbearing authorities demanding to see their paperwork as dog owners walk their pets in the park or on the common.  None of this is needed or wanted, the vast majority of decent, law abiding people who own well behaved dogs are about to be put through hell because a minority of irresponsible yobs who own pit bulls who do not properly control them.  The whole thing is barking mad and deserves to fail.  With luck the time to push this through this Parliament will run out and a new administration will see some simple canine common sense - but knowing the limited mentality of todays political class I wouldn't bet on it - another dogs dinner law is about to be imposed.

WHY NOT TO VOTE LIBERAL DEMOCRAT

To see what those strange folk get up to in the land of the loony Liberal Democrats, I have registered for regular updates from them, most of these are so full of meaningless drivel thy are not worth reporting. However, I have received this Lib Dim missive below re a new publication why, if we were mad enough, to vote for Nick Clegg's Lib Dems.

Dear Friend,

Today, a book is published called ‘Why Vote Liberal Democrat’.  It makes a compelling case for supporting our party in the General Election. And it's a great read for anyone interested in politics - long-standing Party members and floating voters alike.

You can buy a copy of "Why Vote Lib Dem" here for just £6.99.

The book contains chapters from a whole range of people, all arguing that a Liberal Democrat government is what our country desperately needs.

Contributors include:

Actor, and hopefully soon to be Oscar winner, Colin Firth. Colin says of the Liberal Democrats; “whenever I look for compassionate and intellectually rigorous politics I keep coming back to them.”

TV personality and education campaigner Floella Benjamin; “I am proud to be a member of the Liberal Democrats – the only party with ambition and real commitment to opening up opportunities for all Britain’s children.”

Director of the Power 2010 campaign Pam Giddy; “the Liberal Democrats have consistently called for reform of this ‘rotten’ Westminster system.”

Former Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Ken MacDonald; “The point about the Liberal Democrats is that they have been steadfast in defending freedom – and their consistency deserves support.”

Nick Clegg and our party is taking an offer of fairness to the British people at this election - fairness in taxation, education, job and homes, and political reform. It's an offer that is gathering increasing support at the election draws nearer.

Thank you for everything you are doing to support our campaign.

Best wishes,

Danny Alexander MP

Chief of Staff to Nick Clegg.

When you read through the list of reasons above why we should vote Lib Dem, they are not actually saying anything of any importance, which just about sums up the Lib Dims in a nutshell. 

So, what exactly will the Lib Dim actually do? Will they defend British sovereignty against the onslaught of illiberal EU bureaucracy and laws? No, of course not, just the opposite as they want to embrace the EU and are quite happy to see Britain under the total control of the EU.

Will they protect us from the dreadful imposition of ID cards as they promise? Again the answer is no as this is part of an EU project for an EU-wide ID card and the Lib Dims, despite their protestations, will just comply and do the exact opposite to what they promise.

Will the Lib Dims bring fiscal stability? Silly question, of course not as they will sign Britain up to the euro faster than you can say funny money, that will really bugger what little fiscal stability we have left.

Will the Lib Dems save or create jobs in the UK? No again, under their leadership, if you could call it that, jobs would be lost as the EU takes over and encourages British manufacturers to move to other parts of the EU as we have already seen with Peugeot. The British Government was not allowed by the EU to give Peugeot aid to stay at its Ryton plant in Coventry as this was deemed unfair competition, so it moved to Slovakia with a whopping great hand out from the EU for setting up a new plant there and giving lower paid jobs to the locals. In the meantime British workers were cast onto the scrapheap to sign on the dole.

All this and much more is why no one should ever be tempted to vote for the rabidly Euro fanaticl Liberal Democrats - the most dangerous party in British politics with their extreme pro-EU views.

MORE TESTES FROM THE EU

As proven by the fiscal catastrophe now hitting Greece and other eurozone countries, the creation and introduction of the EU’s euro has got absolutely nothing to do with economics but all to do with EU control. If anyone in the EU had even the slightest regard or care for the people of the once nations states which are now part of the EU, then the very idea of a single currency would have never got off the ground – but none of it is about anything remotely fiscal – it is a means to an EU power grabbing end.

Reported today (4th March 2010) in the Times of Malta, the EU is now setting in place a ten year plan of action (does this remind you of Soviet Russia and its ten year plans?). Its targets through to 2020 are, as reported in the Times of Malta:
• Raise the employment rate of the population aged 20-64 from the current 69 per cent to at least 75 per cent.
• Achieve the target of investing three per cent of GDP in R&D in particular by improving the conditions for R&D investment by the private sector, and develop a new indicator to track innovation.
• Reduce the share of early school leavers to 10 per cent from the current 15 per cent and increase the share of the population aged 30-34 having completed tertiary education from 31 to at least 40 per cent.
• Reduce the number of Europeans living below the national poverty line by 25 per cent, lifting 20 million people out of poverty.
• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 per cent compared to 1990 levels or by 30 per cent if the conditions are right, increase the share of renewable energy in final energy
All this sounds very nice in theory and most people would say: ‘what’s wrong with that, we all want these things (other than the greenhouse emissions bulshine), so why should we not let the EU get on with it. However, as is always the devious way of the EU, such measures and plans are not done with the intention of benefiting the people, but as a means of the EU being able to take more control over the running of the nation states.

As explained in the article the EU will now be monitoring this and it will be up to the EU controlled governments of Europe to ensure they follow the EU’s instructions and targets as the EU will be monitoring and watching them. Those countries that fail will, no doubt, find the EU all too willing to step in and take control. This ten year plan is nothing more than more testes from the EU – to put it politely.

EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND GERMAN FOR THEMSELVES

Angela Merkel, denies German offer to bail out the Greeks.

The great euro disaster rumbles on as there are prediction flying back and forth about the Greeks bailing out of the euro to rescue themselves and returning to the drachma, which they should have never been fool enough to abandon, but then others say they won’t. Then there is speculation about the German’s bailing out the Greeks to keep them in the euro to stop a complete euro melt-down, but now the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has denied categorically that Berlin has agreed to underwrite the Greek bond market. The great euro tragedy has more twists and turns than a Greek odyssey.

As the Daily Mail published an interesting article on why it was every man for themselves when the Lusitania went down, unlike the sinking of the Titanic, the mess the EU’s federalists have got themselves in have put them into panic mode and it would seem that it is every man, woman and German for themselves, especially as the wolves, in the shape of group of speculators with the involvement of George Soros are allegedly prowling around ready to pounce and put the euro out of its misery. I do hope so as I hate to see things suffering.