Luciana Berger - the nauseating face of the political class

Labour blow-in Luciana Berger has been in a spat with one of the local councillors in her Liverpool constituency ("They've found me a safe seat in Liverpool? Where's that? Wasn't that where the Beatles came from?") before she's even been able to remember the major street-names.

Berger of course is the poster-girl for the new breed of political class who are driving voters away from the Labour and Tory parties in droves. Like most of her contemporaries, she was privately educated (Haberdasher Aske's) and from a Labour political dynasty. And no, she's never had a proper job or done a single day's proper work in her life. It was student politics, then a bit of expenses-experience with a health quango before Parliament.

She was screwed into one of  Labour's safe Liverpool seats for the 2010 election by the party's London HQ against local opposition. As Wiki records "In the run-up to the General Election, the Liverpool Echo tested Berger with a four-question quiz on Liverpool life and history. She scored two out of four, not knowing who performed Ferry Cross the Mersey and not recognising the name of former Liverpool F.C. manager, Bill Shankly."

It's Berger and her like that that are worth 10,000 votes each to UKIP and the alternative parties; the sickening and nauseating 'jobs for the boys and girls' nepotism by the dying private clubs of the main parties being truly out of favour with voters.

PRISM story tops the day

The story shared by the Washington Post and the Guardian of how the US security services enjoy unhindered access to the internet activity of the customers of the world's largest internet corporations should surprise no one. If you weren't already aware that every single word you type on that keyboard is known to some security official somewhere you should be. US security officials have responded by calling the reports 'irresponsible' - not untrue, note - and claiming that the US's security has been damaged by disclosure that the government is snooping on everyone's email. 

It's not just the septics, of course. Our own MPs, both Tory and Labour, are pushing for even greater access to our private information under a new 'snooper's charter' but at the same time seeking to restrict radically our access to information on their own pay and expenses, and our ability (through Leveson) to share information on their badger-watching activities or to share photographs they have posted of themselves in their underwear or dressed in rubber or leather harness.

And at a time when we've lost not only Tom Sharpe but Oliver Bernard, the last and most human of the three brothers. I remember too fondly an afternoon session in the French back in the 90s with Dan Farson, Sandy Fawkes and both Bruce and Oliver - in reality the invective was poison - all of whom are now dead. I mention this only because they shared a common loathing and mistrust for anyone who presumed to know better than they what was good for them - including the presumptive and impertinent interference by the government in our private affairs. Still, the revelation that it is the US that is the world's first Police State fills me with hope; if there's a people anywhere in the world who will not stand for this, it's the Americans.  

Osborne a Moron - official

Whilst I'm waiting for the boy's latest genius wheeze to add a further 20% to the value of my home here in London, there's equal satisfaction to be had from the comments of Soc Gen's Albert Edwards;

"I don’t think Andrew Bridgen at Fathom Consulting was strong enough when he described George Osborne’s scheme as “reckless”. I believe it truly is a moronic policy that stands head and shoulders above most of the stupid economic policies I have seen implemented during my 30 years in this business. It ranks above some of Alan Greenspan’s very worst blunders. And when so many highly regarded commentators speak out against it, only to be totally ignored by George ‘I know better’ Osborne, he may really deserve to be called a moron."

So what do they think the EU is?

It's always good to see the beaker people over at the Grauniad running about like puppies every time they discover fire. Today it's Seumas Milne who is granted the rare flashes of insight;

But the real corruption that has eaten into the heart of British public life is the tightening corporate grip on government and public institutions – not just by lobbyists, but by the politicians, civil servants, bankers and corporate advisers who increasingly swap jobs, favours and insider information, and inevitably come to see their interests as mutual and interchangeable. The doors are no longer just revolving but spinning, and the people charged with protecting the public interest are bought and sold with barely a fig leaf of regulation.

 It defies rationality to believe that the prospect of far better paid jobs in the private sector doesn't influence the decisions of ministers and officials – or isn't used by corporations to shape policy. Who can seriously doubt that politicians were encouraged to champion light touch regulation before the crash by the lure and lobbying of the banks, as well as by an overweening ideology?

Britain is now an increasingly corrupt country at its highest levels – not in the sense of directly bribing officials, of course, and it's almost entirely legal. But our public life and democracy is now profoundly compromised by its colonisation. Corporate and financial power have merged into the state.

And what of the European Commission and the European Parliament, where the merger has not only gone further but is increasingly more explicit? A Europe run for the huge corporations by the huge corporations, with national governments bought and sold and free market competition crushed?

Hey ho. Maybe they'll discover a use for the wheel next week.

Just more bent politicians

Did anyone really imagine that after the mass-culling of bent MPs from the Rotten Parliament that Westminster would transform into an exemplar of probity? No, of course not. The game has changed - and not getting caught is now the name of the game. To make things fair, and to balance the list of Lobbyists, Levenson will no doubt now back an official register of undercover journalists, fake sheiks and investigative reporters and make it an offence to gull an MP. 

And no one really imagines that if UKIP were at Westminster things would be much different. Already somewhere I'm sure a newly-elected UKIP Councillor is pocketing a fat brown envelope in return for believing that what his ward really needs are a few more bloody windmills built by Romanians. 

And still there are out there strident voices urging us all to support them all the same; a bit like salesmen convincing us that blue asbestos is just the stuff from which to make children's play equipment. Oh yes, they aver, Labour and Tory sleaze, corruption and fraud is completely different. Labour mostly go for money, while for the Tories it's deviant sex. Or maybe LibDems. Just shuffle back into line you lot and support detached millionaire confection Dave for top fruitcake. 

It's gone way past that of course. We'll all vote UKIP in 2014 to deliver such a kicking to Dave's curly icing that will be felt right through to his Angelica bits. And that's about as adult and responsible as it gets.

Blair MUST stand trial over Iraq

A year before the invasion of Iraq, long before the UN had completed its programme of weapons inspections, long before the Parliament of the United Kingdom had considered the matter, long before even the publication of Alastair Campbell's fraudulent and false 'dossier' and long before the exhaustion of diplomatic means, Blair wrote letters like an infatuated schoolboy to the American President assuring him that the the UK was committed to support an invasion of Iraq for the purpose of regime change. 

Fine. Except such actions are more than embarrassing - they're almost certainly illegal, contrary to international law. 

The Mail reports Cameron's refusal to release the Blair letters and attributes it to a deal for electoral support. Rubbish. Cameron and Blair are from the same mould - and Cameron is as committed to all members of the political class being immune for their actions as is Blair. Cameron is with-holding the evidence because he doesn't want to set the precedent of a politician being held accountable for his actions.   

Blair, whose 'peacemaker' role as ME envoy has become a risible parody of all the past failures there, must stand trial before the International Court to achieve what the Septics call 'closure' on Iraq. Or he will go to his grave with the 'war criminal' tag firmly attached.

A Zero-growth future?

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard's grasp of the dire state of the global economy never fails to make a dismal and depressing read to cheer me up, and his current column in the Telegraph is a corker. All that Osborne's tsunami of QE has achieved, it seems, is to have made the obscenely wealthy even richer and sent the Gini coefficient soaring. Everyone else is struggling with static incomes but increasing outgoings - a condition that suits the political-corporate class very nicely, as a population concentrating on keeping its head above water doesn't have much time for riotous behaviour. Until things reach a tipping point. 

Post-war politicians have had it easy, with continuous economic growth modulated only by the business cycle, and since the business cycle and electoral cycles are at differing frequencies each party has had a Buggin's turn of good and bad. But what if zero to low economic growth is the norm? What if, like in the century before the Black Death, wages remain at the same levels for 150 years? Where are the technological changes that drive economic growth? (no, a new model of iPad really doesn't count unless it flies alongside you and you can have an intelligent conversation with it).

Our grandchildren may have to learn to live in a very different economic world.

"UK will debate proposals, then obey them"

When the war correspondent Alan Moorehead reached Brussels shortly after liberation, he found the city's zoo being used to hold alleged Nazi collaborators. "What will happen to them?" he asked. "They will be given a fair trial, then they will be shot" came the answer. 

It seems the character of the Bruxellois hasn't changed a great deal in sixty years. The Speccie publishes the EU's programme for the latest stage in its takeover of national governments; "National ministers study the AGS and adopt conclusions" is this Winter's task for Cameron's government, and in June of next year Cameron is instructed that "national ministers discuss the Commission's budget recommendations and adopt conclusions"

Osborne is nothing but a foolish and incompetent dilettante who shouldn't be let near running a tuck shop, but at least he's our idiot. I've no confidence that the foolish and incompetent zealots from Brussels will be any better at running the UK economy than 'Boy' Osborne but why on Earth should we give them the chance? Why are all 27 EU nations included in surrendering their budgets to Brussels, not just the Eurozone masochists?

Bring on the referendum.

Real European values

This is an edited version of posts I tried making last week

The landscape here in this part what the EU is terming the 'Alpe-Adria' or Alpine Adriatic region is dramatic. Steep-sided valley sides with crystal clear rivers rushing between them, with tractor-activity on the flat valley floors but otherwise 45° farming the old way - livestock - with woodland coming in when this is impractical, up to the tree-line. Just a brief word about the tree-line: if there has been an increase in atmospheric CO2 levels, these high trees will benefit. At 2,500m trees grow very slowly due to low CO2 concentrations, and woodland is consequently extremely cheap. More CO2 means quicker growth and, er, more CO2 'locked in'. And an economic benefit in terms of increased timber production. 

Environmental quality is really important here. The mountain water is pure enough to drink, and they aim to keep it that way right down to the lakes and reservoirs, so only saily boats or electric-engined craft are generally allowed here. This extends to restricting Nitrate fertilizer use to prevent the run-off that has polluted so much UK water. And if you want instant popularity here, say 'Monsanto' and spit (hygienically, into a container, for safe disposal). They don't like GM, hate the big farming-pharma companies, loathe corporate farmers and love their bees. They could almost be Greens except that you won't find one single bloody windmill anywhere. Not one. Despite all those high mountains and strong winds, the entire skyline remains undespoiled by those useless, absurd, alien objects. 

If Hungary is securing 'Home, Work, Family, Health and Order' with the cudgel then Austria uses 'nudge' to promote much the same values. With the memory of Vichy France replacing 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity' with 'Work, Family, Fatherland' as a national slogan perhaps in mind, there remains a certain sensitivity here towards anything too prescriptive. It's an odd contrast. As is the almost universal regard for the memory of Jörg Haider I encountered. Five years ago in Lambichl near Klagenfurt he piled and rolled his government-issued car. His death had a sort of JFK impact - of great potential cut short, and like JFK he was swiftly popularly canonised. This video is typical. Quietly, and after half a bottle of Schnapps, even an eminently sensible Ing.Dr. Frau will whisper to you that he was killed. 

There is no question about the Roma and the Sinti. They are not wanted here under any circumstances, and all means of keeping them out are regarded as fair. Generally they are picked up on the way in at the borders by the traffic cops, who rarely fail to find fault with their vehicles or documents. Those that get through are watched and caught. Handgun ownership for household protection is common here (each person is allowed one full-calibre pistol or revolver plus another up to .22 calibre) and with the Glock factory nearby, you can pick up a 3rd-generation 9mm Glock G17 for about €300. This may also be a deterrent for any ill-minded Roma.

The attitude to the EU is as ambivalent as everywhere. The strongest 'for' reasons, in order, are Security, Trade and Economy, International influence and the strongest 'anti' reasons in order are Interference in domestic matters, Corruption and pro-Corporatism. The CAP, under which (it is quoted here) France, with 15% of the EU's farmers, gets 70% of the budget, is seen as in need of urgent reform. Small, mixed, traditional farms are the norm here - not by themselves productive enough to sustain a family, but hugely valuable both for cultural and environmental reasons. A secondary income stream from employment, tourism or niche marketing of specialist products is needed to make these small farms sustainable - and if we can do it, they say here, why can't the bloody Kermits?

Oh, and finally smoking. Yes, the Austrians say, it is a bad thing and people should stop. But they must also be free to smoke if they want to. So smoking is banned in public (government) buildings only - but not in bars, hotels or restaurants. If you want a smoke-free coffee, go to the Bahnhof cafe or the Rathauskellar. This is eminently sensible and actually works very well. 

It all makes one really wonder why our politicians and civil servants are so bloody stupid. 

"Um, those are what we call clouds, sir"

Losers

Don't read too much into the barbaric events in Woolwich. All it really proves is that a couple of young black jihadists can run another person down in a car then finish them off. And these losers in their cheap Chinese polyester clothes didn't even have the nous between them to get a proper firearm. However, as tool-using primates with opposable thumbs, they did what they could. They might have used rocks or pointed sticks if they'd been unable to get hold of steel weapons. That Islam provided them with what they imagined was justification for their barbarism remains the real problem; with no recognised spiritual hierarchy to definitively interpret the Koran otherwise, Islam will always provide the enemies of our peoples with an excuse for violence against us. 

The problem is, our police and government are incapable of the sort of proactive combing-out of physically dangerous Jihadists that targets only the threats; they still insist on measures that hurt us all. Let's be honest - the Seventh Day Adventists are never going to hijack a petrol tanker, the Hasidic Jews aren't going to kidnap the Prime Minister and the Zoroastrians ain't going to fire-bomb Catterick. 

No doubt there are a vast majority of peaceful law-abiding Moslems in Britain. That doesn't mitigate the fact that hundreds of hostile, violent, immature Jihadists who pose a real threat are hiding like fish in the waters of the Islamic population. Let's have the police and Security Service bait some hooks.

I'm still here!

Apols all - my plans to blog from the mountains on my mobile have failed miserably despite daily efforts. And to be frank I'm completely out of touch with the news, immersed in local culture (read: a barrel of most at my elbow) and chasing all sorts of hares .. back to normal service soon, meanwhile 

Oxford products of first-cousin marriages?

Looking at the mug shots of the convicted Pakistani kiddy-fiddlers from Oxford, and again at those of the convicted Telford Pakistani sex gang below, it cannot but strike the viewer that they do not exactly radiate any impression of individual or collective cerebral capacity. To be blunt, and possibly offensive, many carry the look of what we used to term 'the retarded'. 

The look is not confined to Pakistan, of course. It is still common in isolated areas of Kentucky and Louisiana, and until the 20th century could be seen in parts of North Norfolk and Wales. It is, of course, the common result of a prevalence of first-cousin marriages, and particularly of parallel cousin marriages (son to brother's daughter) that produces the highest volume not only of serious birth defects but significantly increased rates of imbecilism and feeble-mindedness. This is the most common marriage relationship amongst Pakistanis. 

Back in February 2008 Labour Minister Phil Woolas shocked his constituents by mentioning this 'elephant in the room' - he was moved by the large number of hideously deformed babies he'd seen who were the result of such relationships. In August 2010 Channel 4 screened a documentary entitled 'When Cousins Marry' that further exposed the dangers of "Preferential patrilateral parallel cousin marriage". A comment at the time on the programme's website was

As a Teacher of children with severe special needs, working predominantly within the asian community, I am very pleased to see this issue being publicly raised. Along with the distress the child may suffer throughout it's life as the result of a first cousin marriages, society has a huge financial burden to bare in providing the necessary support. These include a huge range of medical interventions, paediatric care, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, specialist teaching support, respite care, transportation, building adaptations etc, etc etc.

If deviant sexual behaviour amongst the retarded but otherwise functioning young men from such relationships is now costing us to maintain some 250 of them in prison for the next fifteen years or so it may just be a cost too far. Should we now give serious consideration to banning such relationships in the UK, as many parts of the US has done, to lessen the incidence of these benighted imbeciles in our society?    

Housekeeping - spam

With apologies to all contributors I've had to turn the comments verification thingy on; the sheer volume of spam recently, between 50-100 a day, is making it increasingly hard to police manually, and I'm going to be rather busy over the next week.

We'll see how it goes.

Unofficial Conservatives win record poll share

The Unofficial Conservatives have scored an unprecedented 18% in the most recent ICM / Guardian poll, which also shows the three main parties all 4% down. I'm talking about UKIP, of course. The response of Tory stalwarts, which started by telling UKIP supporters that they were all mad, has switched to something (in Tory eyes, anyway) more subtle - telling them they're wrong. Cameron is doing marvellously on Europe they say; and anyone who patronises the ROH in Covent garden will know how effective his immigration crackdown is; his refusal of a work permit for an American counter-tenor last month was masterly. And suggestions that he is too much like the despised Blair are simply absurd; Blair went to Fettes whilst Cameron went to Eton, Blair's only worth £8m whilst Cameron's worth £12m, Blair lives in the Agaland of Bucks whilst Cameron's country home is in Rayburn shire, Oxon. They couldn't be more different.

Ed's £4m London home is a quite normal asset for any unemployed young man to have acquired, say Labour's apologists, and besides he needs it for entertaining now that he's become interested in politics. And London's full of poor people, yah? So it keeps him in touch with common people. He spoke to someone in a shop recently. 

And Nick is at pains to point out just how hard he and Miriam try to distance themselves from the Tories; in avoiding Osborne & Little wallpaper for their London home, and having to use the more expensive Zoffany instead, they spent an extra quarter mil in decorating. How's that for political dedication? 

Suggestions that they all keep bumping into each-other in the same fashionable London restaurants, shows, parties and first-nights are silly, they all say. Their diary secretaries keep in close contact to ensure this doesn't happen.

No, no they're all completely unlike each-other, totally distinctive, all very different, lots of clear blue water between them. Not at all like each-other. Not at all all the same. Got it?

Rerum Novarum again

Regular readers will know that Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum has long been a favourite of mine; its unequivocal condemnation of socialist doctrine and of the interference of the State in personal and family life stands the test of years. Yet it not only condemns socialism but corporatism; making wealth is fine, and retaining wealth so that capitalists and their families may live 'becomingly' with their station in life is also fine, but excess and conspicuous consumption, or wealth for power is not. The wealthy have a duty to use any excess of wealth to the benefit of their fellow man. 

Paradoxically, as the Telegraph (£) reports today, the EU's crisis is driving people to reject the authority of the corporatist super-State and reinforcing the authority of the family and the local community. The role of the churches and their charities such as Caritas have also been enhanced and they have gained authority. The Bishops of the European Community are in conference and due to meet in October under the chairmanship of Cardinal Marx. But don't worry. Cardinal Marx supports Marxism in the same way as Cardinal Sin supported Sin. Rather, it is hinted, COMECE will look back to Leo XIII. 

All the gains of the political class and their corporatist allies over the past decades are being washed away like sand by the tide. Europe is turning away from its politicians, bankers and global magnates; their authority is eroded, their status derided, their pretences popularly ridiculed. The Telegraph reports the Archbishop of Toledo as saying that the roots of the debt crisis lie in the "moral disarmament" of the last quarter century. A `get-rich-quick' culture of "stupid consumption" and "deranged indebtment" has corrupted public life. Children have been brought up to wallow in self-gratification. "This is common to the whole of Western Europe. It goes back to the core issues of moral philosophy, of what we are as human beings. It is here that we must search for a way out of the impasse," he said.

The Devil has all the best tunes

Understanding the far right in Germany takes a paradigm shift in thought. Imagine an earnest group of young folk musicians from Cumbria with a repertoire dedicated to the courage of their grandfathers at Tobruk, ballads celebrating the advance of the Royal Tank Corps at El Alamein and sweet guitar riffs backing songs about their love of their folk customs. This approximates the narrative behind much of Germany's far right; that the Wehrmacht was the finest war-machine ever created, that German soldiers in WWII performed nobly and with outstanding courage against overwhelming odds, that their grandfathers were true heroes. It's as if Nick Griffin were suddenly to produce a Spanish guitar and began to strum chords declaring "I'd like to share something I wrote recently ..." . To us, where the liberal-left seem to have a monopoly of the performing arts, it seems strange indeed.



All this of course is 'wrong' and contrary to the official post-war narrative of guilt and liability established in Germany. Right-wing parties in Germany however have been pulling a worrying number of votes - up to 15%, and enough for the Government to set up a Commission to counter the growth of the movement. In seeking to re-write Germany's recent history, to give meaning to those five million Wehrmacht dead, these young people can perhaps be understood. And the German government will have a hard time of it - there's nothing so hard to suppress as a song, and the Devil always has had the best tunes. 

BBC alone report new Asian child sex ring

Sentences of 18 and 14 years for the two ringleaders Ahdel Ali and Mubarak Ali (top) and others making a total of 100 years for a further seven Asian men have been imposed as a major new trial of Asian child sex offenders - this time operating in Telford, in Shropshire - concludes. The news was the second item on the BBC R4 6 o'clock radio news last night.

Following the mass convictions of Asian men in Rochdale earlier this year for child sex offences, and the scale and severity of the sentencing, the BBC were right in the priority they accorded this news item. The written story on the web site is somewhat harder to find; you need to navigate through to BBC Shropshire to see it. And apart from a brief and well-hidden mention in the online Mail, that's all the coverage the UK national media gives to the story.

The Guardian reports the arrest of a double bass player who allegedly groped someone at a music school, but not this. The Indie wonders whether animated faces in our text messages are dumbing us down but is not nearly so curious about mass long term child sex abuse. The Telegraph warns its readers to get their money out of Spain quickly. 

So why this MSM silence on the Asian sex gangs? We're now filling the best part of an entire prison with Asian men serving hundreds of years for the sexual abuse of white girl-children and this isn't something we should be talking about?

And after Rochdale and Telford, where the hell else has this been going on, and how many more mass-trials of these ugly perverts are we going to see?

Lady Toynbee like Cnut against the tide

As the Labour tide is turning, as those on the left are just waking up to the real dangers and evils of the EU, Lady Toynbee plants her chair firmly in the sand and commands the seas to retreat. Her Euro-sceptic colleagues on the left are really anarcho-conservatives, says the archetypal hereditary capitalist-socialist, who should learn to love centralist, dictatorial institutions for their own good. The people don't know what's best for them and can't be trusted to make the right decision, declares Lady T; and they should not be let anywhere near the ballot box, especially in the downswing of a recession. 

If we left, Lady Toynbee wails, the same isolationism would sweep us out of the European human rights convention too. Do we want to be Belarus? She asks. Um, what, and be able to expel Islamic terrorists at will? Be able to deport prisoners after their sentences are served? Have the ability to allow our own highly skilled, just and capable courts to make case law? Well, yes please, actually.

Just as Toynbee's purblindness cannot imagine a Britain that for eight hundred years led the World in human rights without any assistance from European institutions, she cannot imagine our unique advantages in global location, language, historical links, economic strength and pre-eminence in international institutions amounting to much without Europe's parasitical deadweight. 

Luckily, those on the left who work for a living and don't belong to Lady Toynbee's privileged left-liberal aristocratic and hereditary mileau have always been as sceptical about voting advice from the Big House as they have been of foreign interference in British ways. And when the Referendum comes - and it will - half of them will vote 'No' to the EU.

Price fixing and energy saving subsidies

Suppose the government wanted to encourage the take-up of wood pellet burners. To do so, it introduces a 50% subsidy on purchase cost. Good news all round, you would have thought; manufacturers sell more boilers, householders buy more and the government reduces the nation's CO2 output. Except, of course, it doesn't work like that and never has done. 

What actually happens is that the manufacturers and retailers of the boilers in the subsidised nations double their price. The government subsidy then goes directly to the retailers. Householders see no great price advantage and don't buy, and the government ends up spending a lot of money with no real reduction in CO2.

Take a look at http://kotly.com/ then take a look on eBay UK. Most of this kit is built not in China but in Eastern Europe; it fully meets CE standards and certification and can be installed in the UK without problem. And it's half the price of the same stuff sold domestically.

What's true for solar thermal above is also true for solar PV, except that most solar PV is made in China. Good news for Euro governments intent on increasing PV take-up at minimum cost to the taxpayer, one would have thought. But no. As Der Spiegel reveals, the reaction of the EU is to impose swingeing tariffs on Chinese PV to protect overpriced Euro manufacturers, fat margins and bloated profits. Yet again money is going straight from taxpayers pockets to fatcat corporate investors, revealing again the green-scam for what it is; a business opportunity for the big boys. It's got nothing to do with CO2. 

£30bn a year better off out

The latest CIVITAS paper estimates the benefits of withdrawal from the EU at around £30bn a year. Of this, it estimates the saving in the cost of regulation at about £20bn. As heavyweights such as Lord Lawson start to get behind the figures, we can expect a strong counter-reaction from those firms who benefit most from regulation - the large corporations.

Take the food allergen labelling regulations. A small high street baker, you're adding a fruit cake to your range. It will take you three hours to make and bake two dozen fruit cakes - but thirty hours to find, research, correspond, query and prepare legal food labels to stick onto the packaging. The Allergen Labelling Regulations, for example, compel you to declare any traces of Celery, Cereals containing gluten, Crustaceans, Eggs, Fish, Lupin, Milk (including Lactose), Molluscs, Mustard, Nuts, Peanuts, Sesame seeds, Soybeans or Sulphur Dioxide.

Of course Megapolis Foods and their ten-acre cake factory has no problem complying with all these regulations; they have an entire department for it. They even pay a lobbying firm in Brussels to persuade MEPs and the Commission's officials that even more regulations are needed. If you bake a million cakes a year the overhead costs of regulation are small; if you only bake 500 they're horrendous. 

The incestuous links between the large corporations and Brussels go much further than this. Brussels regularly uses taxes raised from EU nations to stuff the mouths of the big corporations with gold; just take a look at the UK recipients of the EU grants programme HERE to see who will be opposing any withdrawal from the EU. It won't be Britain's small firms and SMEs, the economic powerhouse of growth and the sector most likely to retain economic benefit in the UK. 

During 2011 big corporations shared an EU bribe pot of €4,509,352,492.66. So when you see the Chairman of Global Foods plc on the TV opposing EU withdrawal, check the database to see how much tax money he's had before you believe him.