The stench of Harman's hypocrisy assails my nostrils again.
First she want to erode the economic efficiency of the nation's businesses by a lunatic proposal to 'close the gender pay gap'. That pay gap is there for a very good reason; employee remuneration in the absence of taste discrimination (i.e. other than in 'mom and pop' businesses and the public sector, both of which practice taste discrimination) is based on a construct of qualifications + experience + employability factor; given that qualifications and employability are equal, women will always earn less than men because their aggregate experience is less. Their aggregate experience is less because they spend time out of the workplace having babies. This is the economic reality of life - to distort it, as Harman proposes, makes industry less efficient and less competitive. But being a Socialist, she really doesn't care.
Secondly, the recent 'you know where to find me' comment thrown at the plebs after she failed to exchange her details following a vehicle accident. This was Lady Harman in her most haughty the-rules-don't-apply-to-me Socialist elite form.
And now I'll lay odds on she'll oppose Cameron's proposal to raise the universal retirement age to 66 from 2015 - because by that time the retirement age for women will still only be 63 under the Socialist inequality agenda. Cameron has ruled out on 'Today' a 3 year jump for women on the cusp, but this won't deter Harman.
The woman is Lunatic Labour at its most moon-howling dribbling incontinent rug-chewing worst, living in a fantasy world utterly divorced from ordinary people and ordinary lives.
I wish, CoffeeHousers, that you could hear what has just happened. Many of you say the punters don’t care about Lisbon. Derbyshire asks who wants a referendum on Lisbon: clap if you do, she says. The noise is deafening. “Absolutely, because no one has told us what the Lisbon Treaty is about,” says one of the punters. Who wants a post-ratification referendum? Silence. Please note, Mr Cameron, even the Eurosceptic British punters do not want a pointless post-ratification referendum. What’s the problem in ruling it out? Even Bill Cash doesn’t see the point.
It has become fashionable to declare that the public doesn't care a jot about Europe, and that therefore it's pointless making it an election issue. Just as it was fashionable to declare that low poll turnouts were due to voter apathy - indeed, there are even a few fools from the political class still opining that this is the case. On the latter point, Helena Kennedy's 'Power' inquiry provided overwhelming evidence that people were not at all apathetic, and that the main reason they stayed away from the polls was that they loathed and distrusted the parties and the political class. Not a reality that some of that toxic breed still care to admit.
Now as to Fraser Nelson's second point above, on a post-ratification referendum, I think the audience's silence was down to a badly phrased question. YouGov's latest poll for Sky News on 5/10 of a panel of 1,102 gave the following responses to the following two questions:
If Britain wanted to amend or repeal the Treaty once it had been ratified, it would need to seek agreement from all other EU member states. Assuming unanimous opposition to the Treaty would be difficult to achieve, Britain may be left with two choices. Firstly, to accept the Lisbon Treaty as it is, and secondly to leave the EU altogether. With that in mind do you think a Conservative government should or should not offer a referendum on the Treaty to UK voters once it is ratified?
Yes they should offer a referendum - 60% No they should not - 16% Don't know - 25%
If it were to come down to a choice between accepting the Lisbon Treaty as it is or leaving the EU altogether which would you prefer?
Accepting the Lisbon Treaty - 30% Leaving the EU altogether - 45% Don't know - 26%
Which hardly supports Fraser's view that 'even the Eurosceptic British punters do not want a pointless post-ratification referendum'.
My concern is that neither side in the debate has as yet produced a succinct and legible precis of the key issues in a form that a quarter or more of the electorate who currently 'don't know' can understand. A good starting point are the balanced summaries produced by Civitas For and Against.
Europe isn't a non-issue for the electorate. It's a key issue. The voters are not uninterested, just uninformed. Let's move the debate to the next stage.
William Rees-Mogg calmly summarises where we now stand with the EU in this morning's Times.
It has been a pan-European conspiracy involving the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, Lord Mandelson, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. These people share responsibility for the drafting, re-drafting and re-naming of the treaty. They worked together to prevent Britain having the promised referendum, knowing that the British would vote “No”.
Hints emerging this morning suggest that the Czechs won't hold, and within weeks the cultists will declare a new European State. This depresses me beyond measure. I love Europe and loathe the EU. There is nothing in the EU worth the loss of British sovereignty - a sovereignty we have fought a thousand years to defend, for which generations of British men have shed their blood.
If our absorption into this EU State had been decided democratically by a clear majority of the British people, I would learn to live with it; I would argue the rightness of it, but would accept its legitimacy. As it is, the traitors within have worked to prevent our having a voice. I will therefore never accept the suzerainty of Brussels. Never.
Now is the time when all true British men must ask themselves what is their nation worth - and ask whether we have the courage and tenacity of our fathers in defending our nation from the depredations of an alien suzerain.
Renegotiation is no longer enough. The debate must now move to our complete withdrawal from the structures of the EU.
If you live in London you may have had a leaflet from the Council through the door inviting you to participate in 'Black History Month'. It is, of course, a highly selective history. It won't tell you that Africans had a history of capturing and selling slaves that preceded the arrival of the first Europeans by centuries, that the culture of Benin was founded on slavery, and that of the 11 -15 million Africans transported across the Atlantic in slavery, all but a few tens of thousands were enslaved by fellow Africans, not Europeans. It won't tell you that when Europe abandoned the Slave Trade in the 19th century, the Africans went back to selling their slaves to the Arabs. It won't tell you the trade in slaves amongst Africans is alive and well today.
And when disseminating more recent black history, it certainly won't tell you how the Trade Union movement and the Left in Britain fought to uphold the Colour Bar against the nasty capitalist bosses who wanted to employ West Indians, Africans and Asians.
The Englishman has found a wonderful piece in the Scotsman on how Labour saint Manny Shinwell incited riots and racist mob violence against black workers in Glasgow; "Newspaper reports tell how he spoke to 600 sailors and it was quite a rabble-rousing speech about black and what he called Asiatic, or Chinese, sailors. This led to around 30 black sailors being chased by a baying mob down James Watt Street. They tried to take refuge in a sailors' retreat in Broomielaw, but the mob smashed all the windows and they were turned out on to the street." Good old Saint Manny.
In 1954 Birmingham Council's bus company was short of over 1,100 workers, including 550 drivers and 480 conductors. The Council bravely decided to ignore the 'no blacks' agreement with the unions, and recruit black conductors for the first time. The fury of the local unions knew no bounds. They demanded a ballot to decide the issue, against the advice of officials in the Transport and General Workers' Union. It was only when an interim agreement was struck to limit black crews to 10 per cent of the workforce that the drivers backed away from demanding strike action. And despite the TGWU's stand on the principle of accepting black crews, one regional secretary acknowledged that the basis of opposition lay in the belief that ‘white busmen are afraid that the status of the job will be lowered ... that it will become a nigger's job'.
John Lord, a full-time official of the TGWU, not only advocated the need for immigration control but also proposed that preferential treatment for white workers with regard to promotion should be enshrined in law. On the Midlands Advisory Council for industry, Lord continually carped about 'coloured workers' in Birmingham. But he was especially critical of Birmingham City Council's decision to employ black workers on the buses. He claimed that the introduction of 'coloured workers' had failed to remedy the chronic labour shortage, since even more white employees were now leaving in protest at this policy.
And I've blogged before on how London Transport, with a white workforce even more racist and militant than Birmingham's, openly boasted on recruitment posters that 'we don't employ blacks'.
The Englishman was spot on; scratch a Socialist and you'll find a bigot.
Decades ago when I kept hens in the orchard of my Suffolk cottage, I recall a new girl friend gagging on the richness of the first real egg she had ever tasted - factory eggs from hens fed largely on fishmeal being universal in those days. Now, no child under sixteen has ever seen bacon rashers with rinds on them. Supermarket bacon is pumped full of water with brine and dextrose to blow it up to twice its natural size, but as the rinds don't absorb it they are discarded. Strange that we should spend so much Sterling buying Danish and Dutch bacon-flavoured water.
I mention this because I am shortly to eat the last of my real bacon for the week (below). This lot came from Borough Market, but there are farmers' markets and real food shops all over the place now so no-one should have the excuse of not being able to taste real bacon - for some younger ones, for the first time in their lives. And like the difference between real coffee and instant coffee, once tasted there's no going back.
And for those of you who like to stock up their store cupboards with tins, packets and boxes from the French hypermarkets but for whom the weakness of Gordon's pound makes a car trip unattractive, we've got French Click (no connection) - delivery free within London for orders over £35. If you can't cook without Knorr Pot Au Feu stock cubes or Sel de Guerande, and prefer real French coffee to the pale Tesco imitation, have the taste for a kilo of real garlic sausage or a wheel of unpastuerised Reblochon, this is the place for you.
Markets work. And not a Suricata suricatta in sight.
As Dan Hannan blogs, Very well: Alone. Or not quite alone. In a reversal of 1938, it is now Britain that looks to the Czechs for a breathing space. If they hold out, we'll get a referendum.
Cameron is right not to answer the 'What if they don't?' question. You can be sure that the most senior Tory counsel are applying their legal minds to this question and no doubt there will be options - there always are. The national right of self-determination forms the bedrock of all international settlements, a right defended by the UN, and no amount of Labour's totalitarian laws can alter this.
Pressing Cameron to answer now is akin to asking a general to reveal his battle plans to the press. As he represents our only realistic hope of overturning Labour's treasonous accession to the Constitution Treaty without a referendum, we must place our trust in him. He will be well aware what the Tories' chances of a second term are if he fails.
It was only a matter of time. Anyone who has seen the X-rays of the drug stuffers and swallowers filled with sausages of cocaine will have wondered what if the packages were not drugs but high explosives. And now the Jihadists have set-off their first bowel-bomber to spectacular if messy effect.
Western technology will rapidly counter even this. Within weeks, all airport entrances will be fitted with multi-waveband signal generators that will detonate the Jihadists before they reach an aircraft. A few exploding Muslims won't keep the Brits from their Winter skiing.
There's a huge unanswered question over any future referendum on the EU here in the UK; who can vote?
Current arrangements are that all EU citizens registered to vote in the UK can vote in local and European elections. Only UK and Commonwealth citizens can vote in general elections or by-elections. There are two massive problems with this in practice; the first is that the standard of accuracy of our electoral registers is of third-world standard, the second is that even illegals and overstayers can vote.
Firstly, the Commonwealth. I believe the Commonwealth has the potential to be as important as Europe in terms of our trade and prosperity; the scope for defence and reciprocal arrangements is also huge and beneficial, and the global Anglophone alliance a source of strength. I fully support the tradition of young single people from the Commonwealth spending a year or two in the UK, whether working behind bars or as management accountants for one of the temp agencies or in the NHS. However, I've never understood the need for Commonwealth citizens to have the vote here, or for UK resident citizens to have the vote in Nigeria or Tonga. Since Labour abolished exit controls, and as there's no link between the electoral registers and the immigration database, it's quite possible for illegal overstayers or those with fraudulent identities to infect the probity of our voter base. So we must end the right of Commonwealth citizens to vote in the UK.
Secondly, the extent of fraud and error on the registers is massive. In 2001 the Labour government introduced postal and proxy voting on demand. In 2003 and 2004 the Electoral Commission called on the government to tighten checks on postal and proxy voting - and was ignored. The results have been clear to see;
On 4/4/05 a judge declared void two local election results in Birmingham because of Labour postal vote fraud and said the evidence of fraud "would disgrace a banana republic"
On 8/4/05 a Labour councillor in Blackburn was jailed for stealing 233 postal votes
On 14/4/05 the Head of Birmingham's electoral team was suspended following the discovery of 1,000 uncounted postal votes
In May 2005 police were investigating 25 cases of electoral fraud in 19 constituencies
In April 2006 police were investigating postal vote fraud in Tower Hamlets, six other London boroughs and Birmingham
In May and June 2006 police were called to investigate intimidation and vote rigging in Surrey, Coventry, London and Birmingham.
In 2006 Michael Pinto-Duschinsky gave evidence to a Commons Select Committee that there were 3.5m people registered on the electoral register who shouldn't be. In 2007 the Electoral Commission used NOP to estimate the extent of false registrations; in some voting districts, it was estimated that electoral registers were only 60% accurate.
So a great clear-out of the registers is also urgently needed. I suggest this takes place very quickly, alongside the 2011 census, with a once-only requirement for UK citizens to provide evidence (passport or birth certificate) of citizenship.
And as to who can vote in any referendum on the EU - whether before or after the Lisbon Constitution Treaty is signed - clearly, this should be UK citizens only. It's still our country.
As Vernon Bogdanor points out in this morning's Telegraph, "In 2005, (the Conservatives) won more votes than Labour in England but 92 fewer seats. In 2010, for the Conservatives to gain the same number of seats as Labour, they need to win around two million more votes."
For anyone who wonders at this third-world bias in our electoral system, look to the glacial pace at which our mummified Boundary Commission moves in re-drawing constituency boundaries to take account of population shifts. The answer isn't to throw out our well tried and tested First Past the Post system, but to put some ginger in the rectums of the gerontocrats on the Boundary Commission.
Below are the worst five most unrepresented and overrepresented seats;
Isle of Wight - 108,000 Daventry - 89,000 SW Norfolk - 89,000 Banbury - 88,000 S Norfolk - 87,000 ~ Montgomeryshire - 45,000 Cynon Valley - 44,000 Meirionnydd Nant Conwy - 34,000 Orkney and Shetland - 32,000 Na h-Eileanan an Iar - 22,000
The Electoral Quota, the number of electors per constituency that should define the boundaries of each seat, is currently around 69,000. In Australia, this is not allowed to vary by more than +/- 3.5%, and in New Zealand it's 5%. If 5% were applied to the UK, all seats with fewer than 65,550 electors or more than 72,450 would be re-drawn. As Michael Pinto-Duschinsky pointed out to the Graham Committee, we're off the radar as far as international standards of fairness go.
It's high time we had a single Electoral Quota for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - either that, or a system by which a Scots MP's vote is worth only 0.75 of an English MP's vote in the Commons. (That's what we call fair, Gordon.)
It's also high time we reduced the number of MPs to around 550 or so. This would give us a national Electoral Quota of 82,000.
And this must be done by 2015. The nation should not have to endure any more than just the next bent and skewed election. It's a disgrace and it needs urgent action.
This blog has long recommended the establishment of Community Settlements to house and care for unsupported single mothers, economic and health migrants with no skills or who arrive here with debilitating illnesses for treatment at our expense, and those of the underclass incapable of productive work. Ours is a Christian nation, and none, whether illegals or the most disruptive underclass scum of the type that hounded Fiona Pilkington to death, should be thrown on the street without food, warmth and shelter.
Our proposals have always assumed voluntary entry into such settlements; when free council housing and levels of benefits that provide a comfortable life for millions of the idle, the stupid, the cheats and the chancers are gradually withdrawn and run down, those genuinely incapable of supporting themselves must be provided with food and shelter, albeit at the most basic level of subsistence.
However, we've never proposed this as a punishment for being a single mum or anything else; women have full control of their own bodies and what they do with them. Including bearing bastards. If they have a supportive family structure that cares for them and their offspring at no cost to the taxpayer, that's fine with me.
Brown, however, wants to force 16 and 17 year old single mums into hostels as a punishment - with no choice or freedom about it.
We should not forget that Oswald Mosley, the last British Nazi to achieve prominence, was a Labour MP and Minister, and that the roots of fascist totalitarianism lie close to Labour; there's not a fag-paper between National Socialism and Fabian Socialism. As Brown continues to triangulate Labour pronouncements with those of the BNP, to which his party is haemorrhaging votes, expect to see more of this sort of stuff over the next seven months.
Paul Waugh reports in tonight's Standard that Blair is set to be named EU President within weeks if the Irish vote 'Yes'.
Fine. That sealed indictment from the International Court in the Hague will that much easier to process, then.
69,456,897 Americans voted for Obama in 2008. That's 69,456,870 votes more than it will take to 'elect' Blair as EU President - for we, the people of Europe, won't get a say. The institution and its offices are as totalitarian and undemocratic as the worst of any South American banana republic.
There are times when I am almost reduced to despair at how low we've fallen. However, I'll pour myself a glass and enjoy William Hague's wonderfully accurate prediction;
