There for the taking

With only a week to go to the euro-elections, attention is beginning to shift to the creatures we are to send to Brussels, supposedly to represent us in the heart of evil but, in fact, to represent the EU to us. And, if our MPs are turning out to have feet of clay – or some of them – the tiny spotlight that is illuminating our MEPs suggests that many are every bit as foul and grimy as the worst of the domestic species.

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European elections

"If the established parties have their way, the prospects for change in Brussels vary between fat chance and no chance," says The Sun. In truth, that applies no matter what party gets MEPs elected. All we are doing is choosing which pigs get their turn at the trough. And, as The Sun tells us, it is a very big trough - a "whopping salary" of £83,282 taxed at just 15 per cent.

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Is the data that The Sun has presented not taken from David Craig's books ??
If so, then there's been a few newspapers, the last few days, taking excerpts from his book....at least the others have the decency to acknowledge their source.

The Sun acknowledge sources? That would make a change.

The silver lining to the expenses scandal. If only the electorate would be woken up from their slumber and take note about how their taxes are being abused!

My God! The Empress of Blandings. Isn't she beautiful?

Certainly better looking than most MEPs ... and a damn sight more useful.

Pigs are the only farm animal that has no use until it's dead. Unless you're a French truffle-hunter of course.

Keep them in their original habitat ... in woods and they'll keep down the undergrowth - one of the traditional mechanisms for preventing forest fires. That aside, even if they have uses when dead, that still puts them into a different league from MEPs. I recall a book called "101 uses for a dead cat". If you tried the same for MEPs, you would have a job filling the first page.

Scratching pigs' backs is very therapeutic. Ask Mr Baldwin. Or Lord Emsworth. But we do not communicate with the dastardly Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe.

Who goes into a caff and asks for an MEP butty?

Or a Hannan burger?

Members of our local campaigning group takes part in something called the "Democracy Hub" - a Local Council initiative which was set up to encourage voter participation in elections (each local council is now obliged, by law, to form such groups). To this end, the Council had sanctioned a public debate on the EU elections, to be held at our Town hall last Friday night. The event was organised by a scrupulously impartial organisation which specialises in electoral education and which had invited candidates from every party to take part. And - with the Councils blessing - the BNP candidate was included in that invitation.

24 hours before the debate was due to take place, Richard Corbett (Labour), Edward MacMillan-Smith (Conservative) and the Green candidate threatened to withdraw if the BNP candidate was present. Fair enough, you might say - no-one should be obliged to take part in any event they're not comfortable about - except that all the candidates concerned accepted the original invitation without conditions.

Rather than give in to their bullying (and to his immense credit) the organiser cancelled the whole debate stating that 'impartiality' could no longer be guaranteed.

But the most surprising thing was the response by MacMillan Scott who, when asked why he had withdrawn at the last minute admitted that he 'did not attend the hustings in Grimsby last Thursday 21st May as it is Conservative Party policy not to attend an event with BNP representatives unless representatives from the other main parties are also attending. As Labour MEP Richard Corbett declined the invitation, Edward felt it would be inappropriate to participate'.

(I must admit that I was so incensed by this that I immediately emailed asking him if he would stick his head in a gas oven if Richard Corbett did the same! .. petty I know but I was mad).

I suppose one can sort of understand the party rationale behind their decision to call off, but what really got my goat was that all three of the candidates involved simply couldn't grasp ..

(a) .. that it is totally unacceptable in a proper democracy that the mainstream parties should attempt to thwart the democratic process by so obviously colluding in this manner (indeed, even though the event was cancelled on a perfectly correct point of 'democratic principle' Richard Corbett was so furious that he accused the organiser of 'racism').

(b) .. that during pre-election hustings, no legitimate candidate is above another.

(c) .. how cowardly and un-democratic this stance would appear to the general public.

(d) .. that their actions were self-defeating in that it will encourage even more people to vote BNP next Thursday and that the only way to counter the BNP threat is to get on a platform and defeat them face-to-face in open and honest public debate.

It's the ARROGANCE of the Corbetts and MacMillan Scotts of this world which grates.
And so stuck up their own backsides are they, they don't even 'get' that either.
JO
p.s. Godfrey Bloom (UKIP) was the only candidate prepared to face the BNP candidate on the platform. Diana Wallis (Lib Dem) had appointed a lowly Scunthorpe Councillor to attend the debate in her stead and the English Democrat candidate did a disappearing act when I tried to contact him for a comment.

Does anyone know of a comparison of MPs voting behaviour versus their rating on the sleazeometer?

In particular, those MPs who voted to deny the Electorate a referendum on the Lisbon Constitution?

Cameron's 'nazi' rant against the BNP is a typical piece of arrogant bone-headedness. The BNP has been campaigning quite heavily for the Euro-election and most voters have, for probably the first time, actually met and heard members of the BNP. Given that the general public is reasonably aware of what real nazis are, I'm sure that Cameron's rant will backfire and add a few tens of thousands to the BNP's tally, assuming that there is no tampering with the votes.

Allan...

"assuming there is no tampering with the votes", that is a hell of a big assumption, isn't it.

Derek