Ahead of the pack, but pipped by The Sun which went to press earlier, Booker breaks into the great pasty debate with the news on the EU link, details all too familiar to EU Ref readers.

One nice little detail offered by Booker, that has not found into way into many newspapers, it that the original decision to impose standard-rate VAT on fish and chips and other hot takeaway foods came in the 1984 Budget. It was then a Tory chancellor, Nigel Lawson, who decided to impose VAT, a move which, over the years, would raise billions of pounds.

In fact, though, under the Sixth VAT directive (most recently updated as 2006/112/EC), that move was probably even then contrary to EU law, in that only some but not all hot takeaway foods were taxed.

View full article here

Re. the increase in postal charges:

Have just finished reading three books by Wing Commander H R 'Dizzy' Allen namely, The Legacy of Lord Trenchard, Battle for Britain and Who Won the Battle of Britain ?. Preparation for reading The Many Not the Few. Read Bungay also The Most Dangerous Enemy OK but a bit of a hagiography.

Anyway was going to post the three Allen books to a mutual acquaintance in Witney which is 20 miles away but the postage is now £6.50. It'll only cost me two thirds of that in petrol.

Yet Amazon can charge postage and packing at a rate less than I get just for postage! Bulk rate, for sure ... but parcel post is getting too expensive to use!

I have put the link to you posts about the "pasty tax" on my Facebook. Funny enough, some of my friends (and mine are actually people I know!) who are pro-EU have not commented! In the past I have been slated by them for "going on and on about the EU" and they have dismissed the truth out of hand. After, the evidence in the "pasty tax" debacle, might they now realise that the EU has spread its tentacles in all our lives in any way you may care to think of?

The Sun has the biggest mass readership in the country so it would be difficult I would assume for the rest of the media to ignore.

I loathe the government(s) of Lib/Lab/Con more and more each day. I know you are no friend of Farage, Richard, but if UKIP had any sense they would pick up on the EU "pasty tax" because although it is a national-level scandal, everywhere has local takeaways that are affected.

UKIP should have made a meal, so to speak, about the breast implants as well. All they did was steal some of my work. They are behind the curve far too often.

It wouldn't be UKIP and we'd probably all be members.

Trooo

There is little doubt that the ordinary Royal Mail customer is subsidizing TNT, DHL, Amazon etc. In fact we're definitely subsidizing junk mail which really annoys me. The Royal Mail should be given back to the people to sort out. I bet if it was set up with a charter and run run by volunteers (the actual postal workers get paid of course) it would work...... In fact give it to the WI to run - they'll definitely kick some arse.

Excuse my "West Country" slowness, but how does the word "simplify" in this context prove a Brussels link?

Watchet

Then why not join UKIP and bring your undbouted commitment and knowledge to bear? I do not say this with any hint of sarcasm. I am a member and agree the party needs a massive overhaul - of course getting the message out about the EU's vile influence on every aspect of our lives is never going to be easy with a media from the BBC down (if it is possible to go below the BBC) either uniterested or sucking on the EU tit, but whining on the sidelines is not going to change a thing. Get involved, UKIP does have a presence in the public consciousness and with more active input from commited anti EU people could do the job.

Kowtowing to the EU's deficit-reduction targets is having its predictably destabilizing effect - this time in Spain. See the article below, accompanied at its end by a dozen-plus pictures from riot-torn Barcelona:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/spanish-r ... as-arrived

Watchet

They do understand.

What they don't want to admit to is that they have a small hand in proposing what eventually comes out of the EU as legislation, and that they have a hand in drafting what eventually comes out of the EU as legislation, and that they have a big hand in agreeing to what eventually comes out of the EU as legislation.

Friends who are pro EU??!!##! - what a tolerant and forgiving person you must be.

Some former acquaintances of mine - who were pro EU 'now live in Coventry' - recant or be damned in so far as I'm concerned.

None of my friends are pro EU.

My interpretation is by using inverse logic, anything the EU simplifies becomes fiendishly over complicated - hence simplification symbolizes, has the 'imprimatur of Brussels' [I do believe].

Because when they are introducing EU-based law, they always tell us that they are "simplifying" existing law.