STRAIGHT TALKING #2 February 2014
Roger Helmer’s electronic newsletter from Strasbourg
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Two Strasbourg weeks in February
Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that this is the second February newsletter this year. The Treaties require us to have twelve Straz sessions a year, and in an election hear we lose May – so two weeks in February, whether we need them or not.
Farage vs. Clegg: The Great EU Debate
I’m not sure whether Nick Clegg is merely foolhardy, or actually suicidal, but he’s challenged Nigel Farage to a debate on the EU. No bets on who’s likely to win. But this is good news for UKIP: we get an opportunity to make our case in a national forum, in what will be seen as a gladiatorial contest. And Nigel will be able to knock down the arguments for the pro-EU case, one-by-one. Read it here.
An economics lesson for Viviane Reding
European Commissioner for Justice and Citizenship Viviane Reding was in the UK recently, telling us about the huge economic benefits that the UK derives from EU immigrants. Her calculations don’t seem to include the fact that an EU citizen working in the UK means (broadly speaking) a displaced British worker on welfare. Add in the unemployment costs, and there’s no way that EU immigration is a net benefit overall (though of course industry does have a need for specific skills).
But while she was visiting, the news broke of Switzerland’s narrow referendum vote to impose quotas on EU migrants. Straight to the microphone, Ms. Reding declared “Switzerland cannot expect to keep the benefits of free trade without accepting freedom of movement”.
This is a good example of a principle embedded in EU thinking: that the “four freedoms” of movement of capital, goods, labour and services are inextricably linked, and you can’t have one unless you have them all.
But this is, of course, nonsense. What does Ms. Reding think a free trade area is? What does she think NAFTA is? Indeed what does she make of the many FTAs which the EU itself has with countries around the world? Take Korea. We have an FTA with Korea, but we certainly don’t have free movement of people. We are negotiating an FTA (plus) with the USA. It’s called TTIP. But if you told US lawmakers that it had to include free movement of people, so that North Africans in their hundreds of thousands could go to Spain, wait for an amnesty, get an EU passport, and go freely to the US, they’d run a mile.
Reding’s statement is ill-informed and absurd. She should consider the insight of that great and recently deceased economist Milton Friedman, who said you can have open borders, or you can have a welfare state. But you can’t have both, as we in Britain are learning these days.
The Real Climate Deniers….
On Feb 7th, the BBC World at One ran a long interview with Julia Slingo, Chief Scientist at the Met Office. It was an amazingly soft-ball affair. The interviewer practically invited Ms. Slingo to set out her position, with no attempt at challenging questions, and no contrary opinion. Hopelessly biased.
I meant to blog in protest, but before I had chance, Tim Montgomerie was there ahead of me, with an excellent piece.
He came up with a brilliant sound-bite that I shall plagiarise shamelessly: “The real climate change deniers are those who deny that the AGW theory has failed”. He’s right, of course. Do we believe the theory, or the thermometer?
…and the wicked indoctrination of school children
The Telegraph of Feb 11th carries a story about a teacher struck off for man-handling a five-year-old. But the point that stuck in my craw was that the event was a “non-religious Christmas concert based around global warming”. What on earth is the point of a “non-religious Christmas” anyway? And why dedicate it to the new religion of global warming? This is wicked intimidation, and represents a prima facie breach of the 1944 Education Act. Few things genuinely shock me these days, but this report did.
Remarkable campaigning results
I have written on my blog about my wind farm protest meeting on the Romney Marshes, after which I didn’t get home to bed until 1:00 a.m. on Friday morning (Feb 21st). But fortunately my next appointment was not until 9 o’clock, when nine of us (including all five E. Mids MEP candidates) set off in a VW people carrier (think of the emissions we saved by using a single vehicle!) for press events in Derby, Leicester and Oakham. In each case we were met by enthusiastic groups of party members with banners, balloons and a high degree of commitment, and the interviews with the media seemed to go well. Photos on my web-site: www.rogerhelmer.com .
One of our members Andy McWilliam had brought along a personal cheque payable to UKIP for a goodly four-figure sum (not counting the pennies!).
In Oakham, a member had brought along his daughter, in her twenties, to do some photography for him. At first she seemed strangely reluctant to engage with the project, but by the time she left she said she had been astonished to find that Ukippers were such nice people. I’m afraid the relentless anti-UKIP propaganda from the Guardian et al has created a degree of prejudice in some quarters!
Then I joined the team, including MEP candidate Barry Mahoney and Cllr David Sprason, on Saturday morning on a street stall in Hinckley. I never cease to be amazed by the positive reception we get from the general public. Of course we get the odd refusal, and we even had one man walk by insisting that “he’d never vote for that Nigel Farage” (and of course in Hinckley, he won’t get the chance). But overwhelmingly, we were warmly greeted. To the standard “May I give you a UKIP leaflet for the euro-elections in May?”, we got (repeatedly) “Thanks, but I got one last week”; “Thanks, but I have one already”; “I don’t need one dear but I’ll be voting for you anyway”, and perhaps best of all (and again several times): “No thanks mate — Oh, hang on, is it UKIP? Yes, I’ll have one”.
We can’t afford to be complacent, or to make silly mistakes, but I must say that I am facing the May 22nd election with increasing confidence.
Thorium
So far as I know, thorium (as a nuclear fuel) seems to be a good idea. A number of UKIP members have written to me recommending it.
However I don’t believe that we in UKIP have the resources or indeed the need to champion revolutionary technologies in energy. We are all in favour of innovation, but it is up to technologists and companies to commercialise these new ideas. We’re a political party, not a utility company. In broad principle, the market should decide which technology to use. Governments should strive to be technology-neutral. We have a tough enough job to convince people about nuclear power, never mind getting into the detail of which fuel and technology to use.
Thorium may well be as good as uranium, or perhaps better. But because we in the UK have fifty years of experience and investment in uranium technology, the barriers to entry for a new technology are likely to be large. Frankly, we as UKIP should be putting our efforts into getting elected, not into championing one nuclear technology over another.
I think the job is to emphasise established technologies like nuclear, coal and gas (including indigenous shale gas), while keeping an open mind on innovative solutions.
Utter farce in the Industry Committee (ITRE)
On Monday Feb 24th I was on my way to Strasbourg, hoping to vote in a 7:00 p.m. meeting of ITRE, on a report on plastic bags, plus a second report on Telecoms in Europe. On a good day with the 2-hours plus bus ride from Frankfurt airport, I get in to Straz around seven. Needless to say this time it was more like quarter past, and I particularly felt for the staff who’d worked on the voting list, if I was going to miss the vote.
But when I arrived in Room WIC 200, there was a lively debate on whether to vote at all. Under parliamentary rules, amendments should be available in the parliament’s 20+ languages. If not, and if at least 10% of the members object, the vote cannot go ahead. That applied in this case.
But there was great anxiety about the two reports, because with the election close, they’d be lost if not voted. On the plastic bags vote, we were supporting an amendment to reject the whole report, so we would have been happy to see the report lost.
But there followed an absolutely farcical debate on whether we should proceed with the vote despite the rules. Had we done so, I was prepared to apply to the Chairman of the Conference of Committee Chairmen (I’m not making this up – honest) for a ruling that the vote was ultra vires, and therefore null and
void.
Madam Chairman, Mrs. Patricia Toya, an Italian Socialist, was utterly unable to make a decision, and the debate – the row – went on until twenty past eight. At one point I interjected: “Madam Chairman: If, as seems to be the case, you are totally incapable of making a decision, may I propose that you vacate the Chair in favour of someone who can make a decision”.
Eventually we voted not to vote at all. Probably 150 people in the room for an hour and twenty minutes, to achieve precisely nothing. Welcome to the European parliament.
EU officials sent back to school
Last week, 50,000 Eurocrats were told to get back to their old schools in their home countries before the European Elections to be “EU ambassadors for a day”. The European Parliament promises to pay two day’s Daily Allowances and two days special leave to any EU official who wishes to go back and talk about the virtues of the EU to their compatriots.
This is wrong. EU propaganda should not be allowed near vulnerable children without a counter argument. And Michael Gove should not be allowing this activity in Britain. It represents a prima facie breach of the 1944 Education Act.
Human Rights in North Korea
The United Nations has published a study of the human rights situation in North Korea. In a sense it tells us little that we didn’t already know, but the account is heart-rending nonetheless. The prison camps, the banging on the door in the middle of the night. Collective punishments: whole families taken off to slavery in retribution for a real or imagined offence by a single family member.
I spent four years in South Korea (1990/94), and have since served on the European parliament’ delegation to the two Koreas. I have visited the North twice. I understand the potential of the Korean people, and it is heart-rending to think of the cruel suffering, and the waste of potential in the North. It is also deeply frustrating that there is little more that we can do than hope for the best.
The centenary of WWI
Given the centenary of WWI coming up Jonathan Sheppard has been trying to encourage people to plant their own poppy “field” as a small commemoration.
People can purchase a hamper which has 100 packets of 2 g of the Flanders poppy seeds (equates to over 20,000 seeds in each packet) for £175 plus postage. Since many people may not want 100 packs, there are individual packs on the website for £2.00. Find it here.
Pity the landlords of Skegness…
… and others in the holiday industry who’re doing their best to make a buck — like hotels, cruise operators and car hire firms. They struggle to make ends meet through the low season, often pricing at a loss to keep some kind of income stream in the winter. But they depend on the summer trade, hopefully at a profit, to end up square on the year. But as soon as they do, they’re accused of “profiteering from the school holidays”. It’s no good Michael Gove demanding restraint from holiday firms and criticising “term-time pricing”. That’s just how markets work. And not many landlords in Skeggy drive Rolls-Royces.
Culture Corner
I’m struck by the way that almost unknown composers can be enormously rewarding. Maybe like me you’d never heard of Carl Czerny, a Czech/Austrian composer from the early 19thC. His Concerto for two pianos is astonishingly good. Or there’s John Field, an Irishman from a couple of decades earlier than Czerny, who wrote some delightful stuff. He seems to have invented the Nocturne, a form further developed by Chopin. Field’s nocturnes are gentler and less flamboyant than Chopin’s, but none the worse for that. Well worth a down-load.
Conclusion
That’s it from Strasbourg for this second February session. Please remember to visit my web-site, & my blog. And follow me on Twitter: @RogerHelmerMEP Also have a look at the UKIP MEP web-site www.ukipmeps.org
