EU Elections 2014; time to finally vote for the BEST MEP candidates?

[Isitmebut]

To most people in the UK the European Elections in May 2014 will either be a big yawn, a chance to protest about Europe, or chance to protest about UK domestic policies – and if recent turnout figures of 38% in 2004 and 35% in 2009 are a guide, it will be apathy that determines your constituencies MEP’s.

But how many people are aware that they may get a say in our membership of the E.U. - and that whether we stay ‘in’ or ‘out’ of the EU - they are sending their regional representatives to Brussels on huge salaries and expenses, averaging around £182,000 a year.

Indeed, one senior UK MEP who shall remain nameless, but is still in office, told the Observer in May 2009 that he had already claimed close to £2 million just in expenses, way back then.

So what I have trouble getting my head around, is just how expensive the protest vote can be, not just in monetary terms, but also in the quality of muppet, of any political party, we send over to Europe to represent out interests.

So while I ‘get it’ that in the past, a EU membership protest vote usually meant that the town fruitcake could get the taxpayers jolly to heckle a foreign bureaucrat, or two, on your behalf, but to but to reiterate the point, and a similar shock could await the independence referendum in Scotland, what happens if there was a surprise ‘yes’ vote and we are being represented by a bigger bunch of half wits, on far bigger remuneration packages, than the usual suspects in Westminster?

So IF/WHEN an E.U. Referendum is guaranteed by law, on every practical level, isn’t it far better to have VOTED for the best MEP candidate within a constituency, to PROMOTE the interests/views of that constituency, REGARDLESS of which UK political ‘tribal’ colours they wear – rather than take pot luck that around 37% of the voters get it right?

Remember no one party can wave their expensive MEP magic wand and GUARANTEE that the UK leaves Europe, as only a parliamentary majority in the house of commons of 326 seats, against the ‘never will leave’ political party’s, could even BEGIN the process of changing the necessary laws.

Isitmebut the EU has morphed from a useful Common Market of several large industrial trading nations to an ever larger expensive and inefficient Federation of Europe, that needs to change to be internationally competitive.

But whether it changes or not, ‘the people’ have to be trusted to have their say, and the only practical way I can see that EVER happening, is via an all party politically binding Referendum in 2017.

What are your thoughts?

It would have cost them only £4m to dredge the Somerset Levels. What has happened is disgraceful.

How about some heads rolling for a start to show us that they get it - not get their salaries and perks and bath plugs - but get what the people are thinking and saying.

'Cameron can lose every MEP seat and it won't make a jot of difference to his job security'

You haven't got a clue. Do you think he is some sort of King who can ride above everything, some untouchable superhero?

He has feet of clay just like everyone else and if he loses every MEP seat, then he will face a leadership challenge from within his party, just as Thatcher did.

Stop sucking up to your betters and praising their every mistake and tell them the truth. The Emperor Has no Clothes, and if he carries on like this, he won't have many votes either.

'£31m to Turkish wind farms'

Not only do they spend taxpayer money on subsidies to their chums here to erect windfarms, but they actually use our taxpayer money for windfarms abroad too. Did that help prevent the floods?

'£31m to Turkish wind farms'
Why no £4m to the Somerset Levels?

Madness.

But the good news is it is coming to an end.
There is a party that will overturn the trough and they will have to stop feeding off the taxpayer.

Isitmebut

But the hell does ANY government inheriting a £150 billion overspend do all of that, when their national debt will be £1,500,000,000,000 by 2015 – when the only way to start paying that off, apart from more economic growth, is for LESS of everything else on the wish list?

It could start by cutting spending. The Conservatives have put as much on the national debt in 4 years as Labour put on in 13.

'David Cameron has been given a six-week deadline by rebel Tory MPs to publish a clear plan for clawing back power from Brussels if he is to avoid a “disaster” in the European elections this spring.'

....

MPs are privately furious at the leadership’s flat rejection of their proposal and believe that Mr Cameron’s "out of touch" attitude could pose a threat to his own future.

“The Prime Minister is completely at sea over Europe. His heart is not in it,” one MP said. “The fact is that he has had to be dragged kicking and screaming to every new position he has taken.”

The European Parliament elections take place on May 22, one year before the general election.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the MP said: “If it’s disastrous, there could be repercussions for the leadership. Would it be too late to change the leader before the election? No.”

...

The trigger for a leadership challenge could come if the Tories fall to third place in a national poll for the first time in their history, behind Labour and the UK Independence Party, which is expected to perform well in May.

A poll on the European Elections by YouGov last week suggested that such a defeat for Mr Cameron was likely. Labour would receive 32 per cent of the vote, Ukip would get 26 per cent and the Conservatives would lie in third place on just 23 per cent, it found.

Another Conservative MP said: “People are talking about whether the PM should go if the Euro elections are a disaster. These discussions are beginning to rear their head again, for the first time in months.”

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/10581924/David-Cameron-faces-Tory-deadline-over-Europe.html

Claig….sorry, I just scanned through several of your last posts, and in answer to the inherited £150 BILLION a year annual budget deficit, and £1,500,000,000,000of projected National Debt limiting policy options, you’re ranting about £31 million here, £100 million there, and MP pay rises they didn’t ask for, awarded by an independent body – as I say, not in the real world, when getting your ahead around the enormity of what they are SORTING OUT, rather than FURTHER reckless spending increasing that burden for future generations for decades to come.

Could you show me any grown up national budgeting by Ukip, going through every Ministry and itemising their cuts and new spending plans – and are they in favour of increasing the national debt or lowering it – as surely their members/voters need to know this when blindly asking for 'change'?

Re the European Elections and Cameron, I have made an obvious point that if people were voting on what MEP’s can actually do about the EU and/or European issues, Ukip wouldn’t get one vote, so I’d forget what any stupid Conservative Mp’s are saying about Cameron’s future based on that result. As if their constituents don’t point out the obvious about trying to apply constant (brainless) pressure, people like me will go down to Westminster, kick them in the goolies, and get bragging rights appearing in court for assault. Who says Ukip’s got ALL the thugs? lol

Flatpackhampster ….the Conservatives in 1997 left annual budgets that would balance the UK’s books by 2002/3, which Brown agreed to adopt in order to placate the capital markets who were concerned that New Labour would be the same as the ‘tax high, spend badly’, Old Labour.

And in 2002/3 our spending/income as a nation roughly balanced and Brown had the option in front of him and this nation to start PAYING OFF our National Debt – but he chose the big honking State full of Quangos etc – and instead of reducing our debt he started borrowing £30-£40 billion a year to finance his ideology, which always lasts until they run out of everyone else’s money.

Enter the coalition in 2010, who would loved to have inherited their 1997 UK national books, never mind what they budgeted for by 2002/3, but unless they missed the huge ‘default to 1997’ button at the Treasury, they began with the £150 billion deficit, so your point re what they have done over 4 years versus Labour’s 13-years, is frankly ridiculous

The last figure I saw for that annual deficit was just north of £100 billion, and the projection to reduce the deficit was looking far more favourable as the measures they took early in their term to BOOST the private sector, resulting in 1.3 million new jobs since 2010, was paying our debts down faster.

You think your 1s and 0s and your £1,500,000,000,000,000 ... are the 'real world'.

But the 'real world' is the people of Wraysbury and the Somerset Levels up to their necks in water because dredging was not carried out which would have cost £4m - and yet £4m was spent on the Ethiopian Spice Girls.

Now in the world of 1s and 0s, we are told that "money is no object".
But the people in flooded areas, seeing their homes under a foot of water, have been reported as saying, it is "too little, too late".

Now the Dutch engineers have been called in, "but it is too little too late"

They tell us that they are cutting the £1,500,000,000,000,000 ... and making savings, but when people open their Daily Mail to be
apprised of the facts and the truth, they discover that our taxpayer money was given to Colombian farmers to help solve the flatulence problem in cattle in the name of 'saving the planet'.

Daily Mail readers, even though a more caring, charitable and generous bunch it is difficult to find, do not then say "too little too late", why didn't they spend more of our money to combat 'climate change' and 'save the planet' by "reducing the amount of methane escaping through belching and flatulence"? Instead, they quite reasonably say what John McEnroe often said, "you cannot be serious!"

“The Prime Minister is completely at sea over Europe. His heart is not in it,” one MP said.

That is why they will be wiped out in the May Euro elections. "His heart is not in it".

People understand that they can't solve all the mess that Labour left behind with their note that "there's no money left" etc, but the least they expect is that their heart is in it. They haven't even got the courage to be beastly to New Labour. They won't even criticise their luvvies. Cameron couldn't even wipe the floor with Gordon Brown in the leadership debates.
Gordon Brown? "You cannot be serious!"

Pickles is champing at the bit to be beastly to New Labour but they won't let him off his chain. Muzzled, nobbled, gagged.

That is why Farage and UKIP are popular. Farage has got "heart", his "heart is in it", he has got conviction, he believes in something. People vote with their hearts, with emotion and passion. To bother to walk to a polling station requires that you care and want something better. It requires "heart". Those who don't bother to vote have given up, they have lost "heart" and lost faith in any possible change.

Farage has enough "heart" to be beastly to New Labour and to be beastly to Herman Van Rompuy and his band of petty bureaucrats. They even fine Farage for daring to be beastly to Van Rompuy.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/7352572/Nigel-Farage-fined-after-Herman-Van-Rompuy-slur.html

But that won't stop Farage, he won't lose heart, because he believes in something.

The first step to get change is courage. Where there is a will there is a way. We will solve the deficit problem with courage and heart. But it will require being beastly to some of the people who landed us in the mess.

"people like me will go down to Westminster, kick them in the goolies, and get bragging rights appearing in court for assault"

I can see that you are angry at the Tories, and you have good reason to be, but there is no need for any of that talk.

Just vote UKIP in the May Euro elections. That's what we are all doing.

Claig…so many words, so little to say, especially as all you are doing is quoting Ukip propaganda we have gone over SEVERAL times now, and shown you are factually incorrect, or overly stress yourself over Turkish Farmers (no doubt Muslim) when the BIG question is come May 2015, of the two political parties GUARANTEED to form the next administration, who is trusted more Labour or the Conservatives

The £1,500,000,000,000(£1.5 trillion) National Debt by 2015 is OUR REAL world, because this country has to service that debt, via government bonds via the capital (capilalist?) markets, and when our current cumulative national debt (approx £1.3 trillion) is costing us over £50 billion a year In INTEREST, despite Uk Gilt yields that have been well under 2% in yield – how would 5% - 7% interest rates on £1.5 trillion eat into our annual budgeting, whether we have managed to reduce the current £100 billion a year deficit by 2015, or not.

And that 2% Gilt interest rates are DUE to Osboune tackling our problems, as pre the 2010 general election, when Brown was telling Darling he should be say ‘what deficit/debt?’ we had to pay the markets/investors just over 5% of our 10-year Gilts – which was a bit MORE than Italy had to pay investors to take on their risk – who then had to pay over 7%, while ours went below 2%

In the REAL WORLD, come 2015 and Labour CAME BACK to form the next administration, and needed Ukip to form a coalition – how would markets price those apples into our bond yields – where Labour can only spend more than we can afford, the private sector (taxpayers) fed up of Milibands threats leave the country, while Farage only makes threats re the EU?

A Labour administration, whether on their own or in coalition would DRIVE UP OUR INTEREST RATES, initially at via government bonds, and as they form an effective floor in bank lending rates, businesses and consumer rates will follow.

Ukip without a policy “way” that they stick to, never mind experience when we really need it, are a huge future UK country risk to government bond investors - and as we approach 2015 and the result will be so uncertain, the markets will start to price in the Labour and Ukip post 2015 election risk – and on £1.5 trillion of debt, that will work out expensive to every taxpayer who has to pay back all that debt over decades

If you THINKS that the likes of pension fund investors would touch UK debt with a barge pole on a coalition between Labour (run by trade unions) and Ukip (giving power to the people), when we already had £1. 5 trillion of debt, is living in communist Utopia, not the real world.

'stress yourself over Turkish Farmers'

No, Colombian farmers. Keep up.

' a coalition between Labour (run by trade unions) and Ukip (giving power to the people), when we already had £1. 5 trillion of debt, is living in communist Utopia, not the real world'

You are living in a fantasy world. Labour is not run by the Unions. Bob Crow has disaffiliated his union from the Labour Party, even though his union were part of the movement that started the Labour Party over 100 years ago, in disgust that it does not stand up for working people.

ttosca is right. Labour follow the same neo-liberal economics as the Tories. There is not a lot of difference between both parties. They are all in it together. And that is the real reason that the Tories cannot criticise the New Labour luvvies who head up most of their quangos and that is why they appoint 'tsars' who are ex-Blairites instead of real Conservatives with Thatcherite values. They can't let Pickles off his chain to savage New Labour and give them what for because they agree with New Labour and approved the same policies of giving UK taxpayer money to Colombian farmers to help combat 'climate change' by reducingh the flatulence and belching of their cattle.

What you are missing, is that under UKIP we will no longer have £1.5 trillion of debt, because we will be on the way to leaving the EU and will no longer need to pay billions each year to them. We will scrap the 'Climate Change Act' which acts as a brake on our industries and puts prices of fuel up for the people. We will slash the quangos, and the Labour luvvies will be on the dole or on workfare. Hopefully, and I don't know UKIP's policy on this, they may even put a stop to this plethora of phoney 'charities' and start getting tax back from some of them.

Farage has said if you are a bureaucrat you won't be voting for UKIP because you won't like it, but for the rest of us it's win-win.

You're not a bureucrat, are you?

Are you one of these quangocrats on a 3 day week?

It's over.

Video of Farage in full flow.

"Europe Is Now Run By Big Banks, Big Business, And Big Bureaucrats"

Can you imagine if Farage was in Parliament? Galloway is a good orator but he is harmless because he does not get to the truth. Farage does and he is leading a party that now has the highest approval ratings of any party in Britain. The puppets are having palpitations.

"With Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras settling into his role as EU President, UKIP's Nigel Farage stunned the "Goldman Sachs puppet" with a 150-second tirade of truthiness he has likely never experienced. Farage sacrastically remarks how Greeks "will be dancing in the streets" at Samaras' 'successful' negotiation on MiFiD reminding him that "60% of youth are unemployed and the neo-nazi party are on the march." Europe is now run by "big business, big banks, and big bureaucrats," Farage goes on, suggesting the smarmy-looking Samaras should "rename his party from New Democracy to No Democracy." People do not want a United State of Europe, the outspoken UKIP leader explains, they want a "Europe of sovereign states," and concludes ominously, "the European elections will be a watershed."

www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-15/nigel-farage-booms-europe-now-run-big-banks-big-business-and-big-bureaucrats

Re Farge’s Red Ukip message, that really is lame from an ex City oil speculator, and is total rollocks. Every business sector will lobby politicians, and so do trade unions who financially sponsor most of the Labour MP’s in parliament, so what? This is just Farage trying to throw Labour supporters who don’t understand that the State can’t create full employment, the private sector can, some Red meat.

I’d have thought that this Corporations/employers are the enemies head-up-bottom attitude would have changed, after that hatred, via militant trade unionism, drove most British manufacturers to the wall, but didn’t in Germany or Japan, who understand business's need to make profits and are thankful for the jobs.

Not only that, Germany heavily flirted with communism pre 2ndWW, but there was something about having the Red Army of Russia come in to Berlin and kill and rape the population, that got those ‘Russians know best’ ideas out of their head - and I have found many German domestic goods on the market, but can’t remember a single ‘workers rights over everything else’, Russian one.

Oh and the Zerohedge website is a global banking/government anarchist ‘buy gold it’s going to £10,000 after the crash’ joke: if that’s where Farage has to go to get heard, things are looking down for him.

German unions sit on teh boards of their companies. There is a partnership between bosses and workers. It is called Mitbestimmung (codetermination).

"A management system thrust upon Germany after World War II by the victorious British occupation authorities is helping the Germany economy recover from the Global and European Financial Crises faster than any other European country, including Britain.

It is called Mitbestimmung , which translates literally into English as “codetermination”.

The German codetermination law underpins industrial and company policy in that country.

It requires that between one-third and just under half of companies' supervisory board members are representatives of workers, while the shareholders appoint the remaining part of the members serving on German supervisory boards.

In fact public companies and even large private companies are required by law to have two boards of directors.

Shareholders and trade unions elect members of a supervisory board known as the Aufsichtsrat."

www.deakin.edu.au/research/stories/2013/02/04/its-called-mitbestimmung

'if that’s where Farage has to go to get heard'

"UKIP leader Nigel Farage "most popular party leader", says poll"

www.londonlovesbusiness.com/business-news/politics/ukip-leader-nigel-farage-most-popular-party-leader-says-poll/5009.article

It's all going wrong. It wasn't meant to be like this. Half of the Tory Party's members weren't expected to leave the Party. Why did they leave? Was it your reasoned arguments that finally drove them out the door? Was that the final nail in the coffin? Is it over?

Re Farage’s embarrassing rant (in our name) to a new President in the EU parliament; wasn’t that the point I made earlier on this thread, we are IN the EU, we want a vote to decide whether we stay in or out (so don’t know if we have to stay in), are we really electing Ukip MEP’s on mega £££ just to ‘stick it to the man’ in the EU parliament, how productive to our national or regional interest/reforms, is that???

I suppose you thought Farage made an embarrassing rant against Gordon Brown too.

If only Call Me Dave could get anywhere close then he wouldn't be facing defeat at the Euro elections in May.

Pickles could get close but they've gagged him unfortunately because he didn't seem to understand that they were "all in it together". He thought he was supposed to have a go at the luvvies.

Claig…domestic politics are one thing, but when it comes to the politics required to get things done, we need statesmen in Europe, not showmen – clearly those voters for Ukip protesting against a Referendum, or think that an EU Referendum is a laughing matter, chooses the latter – common sense when trying for political reform would indicate that those voters of small turnouts, are wrong. But that’s democracy folks.

As to Mr Pickles, who said after New Labour’s Council Tax rises of over 110% over 13-years ‘enough was enough’, and got the Councils to shed many of the ‘non jobs’ and has tried to freeze Council Tax rises throughout this parliament, don’t worry about him saving EVERYONE money, the whole of Ukip could only dream of helping those needing respite from Labour’s tax increases and overly large local government, as much as he has.

On that I agree with you. Pickles has done an excellent job. He has capped council tax and stopped local bureaucrats squeezing us even more. He has scrapped the socialist councils' bin tax fines. And he was about to dish it out to the New Labour luvvies.

He made one slight mistake in saying that spending aid abroad would help prevent floods here. But we forgive him for that because we know his heart is in the right place and he possibly has to do a bit of sucking up to the whips and drips and Bullingdon Club twits.

Of course you will forgive him, with the no policy, ex city oil trader, son of a stockbroker, all mouth and trousers Farage, all you is elitist name calling. Hmmm.

OK. I take it back, I won't forgive him on that one.

Bovvered????

Claig…Still, Ukip has council representation like Mr Lagoda to drive reforms and river dredging to make you proud.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ukip-disowns-cambridgeshire-councillor-peter-lagoda-following-complaints-he-used-racist-and-offensive-language-9138091.html
"
Ukip has been forced to deny links to a local councillor in Cambridgeshire after he was reportedly made to apologise to firefighters for using “racist” and “deeply offensive” language.

Peter Lagoda was the subject of a formal complaint from one member of the fire service when, during a visit to a station last month, the councillor described his north African sister as a “w*g” and relatives in Germany as “Mongols” whose children had “slanty eyes”.

Lets hope white male Cambridgeshire stays water tight, and he doesn't need the fire service to pump HIS home out.

Found it. Thought so. I just knew it. There isn't one of them that aren't. The puppets must think the voters are really stupid. How many more have they got?

"Cllr Lagoda, a former West Norfolk Conservative councillor who previously lived in Bevis Way, Gaywood, King’s Lynn, pleaded not guilty when the case first appeared before King’s Lynn magistrates on May 7."

www.wisbechstandard.co.uk/news/newly_elected_cambridgeshire_ukip_councillor_and_wife_deny_benefits_fraud_charges_1_2217839

They'll have to get up earlier in the morning to catch the UKIP voter out.

"Power to the people!"

Sorry, just in case you missed it

Cllr Lagoda, a former West Norfolk Conservative councillor

Claig I got it, but from Farage all the w-a-y down, Ukip is clearly full of Conservative rejects and as we fire 'em, you hire 'em.

Yet the information is there, if Ukip made all Member/Councillor checks they say they make, to weed out the more unsavoury elements that are drawn to your Great Leader, they wouldn't get waved in, or would they.