When Will Politicians Learn?

[Rob 3,152]

I'm getting fed up with the main parties wringing their hands and giving bland explanations why they didn't do as well as they thought they should in the elections. All say they failed to get their message across. None of them mentioned (or maybe are in denial of) the fact that they ignore anything the public says as a matter of course. Tories and Labour promise a referendum tomorrow (which never comes) when considered expedient to garner votes. Liberals vehemently oppose one. All are afraid of putting something to the public where they can't control the outcome. Little wonder therefore that the largest tranche of voters went for an alternative that has the potential to bypass the parties that promise a vote at some future time (hopefully on someone else's watch when they can't deliver) and give a different party the chance to strive for something the others are afraid of.

It's not about little Englanders wanting to keep immigrants out. UKIP or many of those who voted for it are not rascist, something which has backfired on the left wing orchestrated charges of fascism across the continent. Eurocrats in Brussels continue to revel in their padded troughs. The main instigators of environmental legislation, with typical political hypocracy continue to relocate the whole circus to Strasbourg every month and back again. People have been calling for another referendum on Europe for a long time, but each time the party in power defers the problem the less chance there is of the public believing them when they repeat the promise. Chickens have finally come home to roost.

As an aside, I was doorstepped on two occasions during the campaign when asked what concerned me most. Managed to come up with a generic stock answer. 'That you might get elected around here'. It saved a lot of wasted time and can be applied to all parties. All they wanted to know of course was whether I was going to vote for them or not.

I think it is a good thing the main parties are cra**ing themselves.

Edited May 28, 2014 by Rob

[Colin G. 147]

Couldn't have put it better myself, but you just know that this thread is going to descend into chaos!!

[DaveG38 405]

Just to echo what the opening post says, but with a specific example. Ed Milliband gave his well-reported Thurrock speech yesterday and for once I actually sat and listened to it. Frankly I was appalled. To start with he was telling his audience that he was committed to listening to the voters and understanding their concerns and then later he confirmed that he had nothing to offer regarding the EU except that he wouldn't pull the UK out, and so far as immigration went, well it was all good for us and the best way to deal with it was to make the immigrants lives better, by enforcing the law on for example minimum wages.

In other words, he's going to listen a lot, ignore it all and then plough along in his own way regardlerss of what anybody says to him on these two very hot topics.Worse still in my view, was that when you listened to all his waffle and stripped out the goo and dribble there wasn't really anything left. No policy changes, no concrete measure he would take. It was all just the usual platitudes with nothing of substance for the audience whatsoever. Compared to Nigle Farage we was clueless about how to engage the attention of the listeners.

[Peter 615]

I don't know the Euro % turnouts but the general election will be won by the party that produce the most spin.

My money goes on the Tories.

Milliband and Clegg are not the strongest of characters & Farage looks a one day wonder.

Interesting times ahead.

[Peckris 579]

Two things that scream loud to me.

1. Europe badly needs reforming - many of the charges laid at the door of Brussels aren't entirely fabricated by the sub-editors at The Sun, The Torygraph, or The Dail Fail. It has to be done, and the sooner Brussels wakes up to that fact, the better.

2. UK has to stay in Europe. It's as simple as that.

[Colin G. 147]

Peck I think most people would agree with 2, but unless 1 gets addressed rapidly, then more people see us "getting out" as the only option. The fundamental problem is that the people who have any hope of reforming Europe have no passion to do so, and even if they did, the bureaucracy would prevent it from changing quickly enough.

[Rob 3,152]

Peck I think most people would agree with 2, but unless 1 gets addressed rapidly, then more people see us "getting out" as the only option. The fundamental problem is that the people who have any hope of reforming Europe have no passion to do so, and even if they did, the bureaucracy would prevent it from changing quickly enough.

There are many reasons why the incumbents in Brussels and Strasbourg will do nothing. The benefits accruing to individuals working for the EU are many times the level of benefits received from the national systems. Politicians will have no reason to cut themselves off the gravy train that is offered to those that are past their sell-by date on the domestic political scene. You only have to look at people like Neil Kinnock and his wife to see how well they have done out of it.

Most appointments to Brussels are done with a nod and a wink. Every country might have an allotment of positions it is allowed to fill, but anyone liable to rock the boat would almost certainly be vetoed by other nations. i.e. there is simply no means of getting a contrarian into a position of power, nor indeed is there a position to fill for the man/woman who would question the workings of the EU. We aren't talking about the MEPs just voted in who may or may not discuss europolicy and vote on the bills they are presented with, but the Commission hierarchy who are accountable to no one. That's where the real power lies and is self-sustaining. Available only to those dedicated to make the EU work, it offers neither mouthpiece nor earhole for the disenfranchised citizens of the EU who oppose the staus quo.

This leaves voting for a party such as UKIP or the continental outsiders as the only vehicle available to voters wanting to change the system. The problem could have been deflected much earlier simply by listening to the person in the street. Sure the public are as divided on the issue as the Liberals and UKIP, but with politicians repeatedly poo-pooing the calls of the voters for a referendum there can only be one outcome - a knee jerk reaction that will likely over-react in comparison to the result that could have been achieved had the public been kept within the circle. It is the alienation of voters that will bring down the politicians who treat the likes of joe average with so much distain. Put bluntly, if someone wants to debate a matter, I will engage, but if they tell me to f*** off, I punch them on the nose. Politicians have made their call, now it is up to the public to regain control of their employees by hiring and firing as required.

Edited May 28, 2014 by Rob

[Peckris 579]

I hate the 'gravy train' as much as you do Rob, but do we know how much it is as a fraction of Europe's economy, supposedly now the largest in the world? A tiny tiny bit of 1% I'd say, not that that is a reason to not reform it.

If UKIP - now being the biggest British party in the Euro Parliament - turn their attention to reform rather than the 'knee jerk' reaction of "let's get out NOW", they could actually see a lot of what they complain about knocked on the head.

[Rob 3,152]

It may only account for less than 1% of the economy, but it has a profound effect on the other 99%. The rules prohibiting preferential support for indigenous businesses runs contrary to most people's sense of fair play. If you can't look after your own, then nobody else will do it for you. That applies to the EU, and is why the French regularly issue directives prohibiting foreign control of 'strategic industries'. They are looking after no.1 and in that respect I think they are right. If our politicians are unwilling or unable to pursue a similar course, then I believe we would be better off outside led by someone who does care about this country.

I'm not sure about UKIP engaging with the Commission. Immigration from EU countries must be unrestricted under the agreed rules, so leaving is the only way to circumvent the rules.

It's a moot point whether we would be better in than out. There will be a lot of pressure to water down the financial sector given the shenanigans of the past few years, but that is our main breadwinner. The French would like to cart off some things to Paris, the Germans want to move it to Frankfurt. If either happens we will be in deeper mire than we currently are. If we leave, the Euro countries will set up their own operations and work hard to bring the EU financial businesses under internal control. That means we are better in than out. The flip side of the coin is that without control from Brussels we would be free to expand areas where the EU currently favours one country over another. It has long meddled in industrial policy, depriving potentially viable businesses of finance which it willingly pours into keeping people under or unemployed. If Brussels decrees there are too many hairdressers for example, then any financial aid is determined by a country's adherence to their dictats limiting the expansion of said profession or type of business. Their attempts to manipulate supplies has resulted in mountains of surpluses at various times, much of which is subsidised. There are too many vested interests to change that particular system.

Basically, the whole thing is a mess. Initially well intentioned, but now a juggernaut out of control.

[Geordie582 18]

When Will Politicians Learn?

NEVER ! Simples!

[Accumulator 52]

Work's been so busy that I've not had a lot of time recently, but have just read this thread. Totally agree with your first post, Rob! The metro political elite have been operating in the vacuum of their Westminster bubble for far too long. The last labour government oversaw a massive change to our country, with unlimited immigration and no attempt at integration. The coalition have done no better. Alongside this, we have the growth of the EU superstate, something the British people never signed up to. I might not agree with everything he says, but I have the utmost respect for the man who has almost single-handedly stoop up and told it as he sees it. Good on Nigel Farage for not collapsing under the most extreme vilification from the establishment-backed mainstream media!

[Gary1000 41]

The problem with Nigel Farage is that he is UKIP and a bit like the dog chasing the car, If he caught it would he know what to do with it. The same has often been said about the Liberals over the years. I think the biggest problem is career politicians, just in it for what they can make.

[Peckris 579]

The problem with Nigel Farage is that he is UKIP and a bit like the dog chasing the car, If he caught it would he know what to do with it. The same has often been said about the Liberals over the years. I think the biggest problem is career politicians, just in it for what they can make.

Absolutely right there, Gary.

[Accumulator 52]

The problem with Nigel Farage is that he is UKIP and a bit like the dog chasing the car, If he caught it would he know what to do with it. The same has often been said about the Liberals over the years. I think the biggest problem is career politicians, just in it for what they can make.

Absolutely right there, Gary.

I agree with your point, but then so does Nigel Farage. I would say...

1. If it hadn't been for Farage, who would actually have done anything? It's easy to criticise him, but who else was prepared to speak out? There was no evidence whatsoever that the 3 'mainstream' parties intended to tackle these problems at all and we were blindly following a route to greater European integration and an acceleration in the immigrant population. Of course immigration is a good thing, but it needs to be controlled and planned for.

2. The entrepreneur that starts a business is very rarely the right person to run it beyond a certain critical size. It's the same with Farage, and he actually recognises that (he's said similar things many times).

Whether UKIP get their act together as a credible party of coalition government, or whether another party (the Conservatives) modify their position sufficiently to garner the UKIP vote, we shall have to see?

[Peckris 579]

The problem with Nigel Farage is that he is UKIP and a bit like the dog chasing the car, If he caught it would he know what to do with it. The same has often been said about the Liberals over the years. I think the biggest problem is career politicians, just in it for what they can make.

Absolutely right there, Gary.

I agree with your point, but then so does Nigel Farage. I would say...

1. If it hadn't been for Farage, who would actually have done anything? It's easy to criticise him, but who else was prepared to speak out? There was no evidence whatsoever that the 3 'mainstream' parties intended to tackle these problems at all and we were blindly following a route to greater European integration and an acceleration in the immigrant population. Of course immigration is a good thing, but it needs to be controlled and planned for.

2. The entrepreneur that starts a business is very rarely the right person to run it beyond a certain critical size. It's the same with Farage, and he actually recognises that (he's said similar things many times).

Whether UKIP get their act together as a credible party of coalition government, or whether another party (the Conservatives) modify their position sufficiently to garner the UKIP vote, we shall have to see?

You have to ask yourself, WHY do the mainstream parties - in or out of power - become so reluctant to move the UK out of the EU? Could it be that they are educated by whoever it may concern, what would actually happen if we did? I think that businesses recognise the folly of not being part of their biggest market, and though this probably doesn't apply to small entrepreneurs, the major driving force behind our economy is the medium-to-large enterprises.

Of course, when that was the banks, it's easy to say "Just look at the mess THEY got us into" and I'd agree. But there's a lot more to the economy than big banks, and it does seem that big business vote with their feet and lobby frantically to make sure we don't leave the biggest market place.

Having said that, I repeat what everybody knows - the EU needs urgent reform, and there's no better place to do that, than from within. If we left, we would have no voice left.

As for immigration, yes it may need to be curbed, but let's look at the wider net migration figures, which throw a different light on the matter. We are obliged to allow free migration of EU workers, but there's nothing to prevent UK Governments from doing what they're now doing, which is to curb benefits from those are not here to actively take up work. But I don't believe that's the root of the problem anyway - we have the meanest benefits system possibly in the whole of Europe, adjusted for per capita cost-of-living indices. I can't see more than a trickle coming here to abuse the benefits system, unless of course you believe what you read in our completely unbiased, honest, truthful, free press.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Peckris

[bagerap 706]

Is Europe our biggest market? When I was in the freight industry, it was a given that UK exports figures to Europe included all UK trans shipments to the rest of the world via Europoort. Does anyone know if this is still the case.

The last statistics that I have (2008) show that 36% of UK-Eu exports were for onward shipping.

[Peckris 579]

Is Europe our biggest market? When I was in the freight industry, it was a given that UK exports figures to Europe included all UK trans shipments to the rest of the world via Europoort. Does anyone know if this is still the case.

The last statistics that I have (2008) show that 36% of UK-Eu exports were for onward shipping.

It's been variously quoted over the past year or so that the EU itself is our biggest market. Someone recently said "50% of exports", but I don't know how accurate that is.

[Rob 3,152]

It's a statistic. Nuff said.

[davidrj 194]

Poland's reply to UKIP?

Apparently it celebrates 25 years of freedom

[scott 144]

not the french National front then?

[goomolique 3]

Solidarity Movement.

On 4th june it was 25 years since first free democratic elections.

[goomolique 3]

Lech Walesa used 'victory gesture' quite often.

[TomGoodheart 402]

I admit it. I'm a Europhile. I see myself as European as much as British. Yes, the EU isn't perfect. But what institution is? But I believe we gain more from being part of it than not.

We don't often hear from the thousands of Brits living out their retirements in the sunnier parts of Europe whiles receiving their pensions and local healthcare. The thousands working in Europe because they have a right to travel and work. The thousands in places like Germany claiming benefits ... benefits they are entitled to. You don't hear much about European professionals and graduates, working here having accepted jobs below their qualifications. Who in many cases plan to return home once the economy has improved.

Instead the newspapers are full of scare stories about 'scroungers' from the East. Well, we have quite enough home-grown scroungers too. Those who were born here but feel entitled to claim benefits and hang on until they are entitled to buy their council houses. You get those everywhere. People who could work but don't want to.

Does that mean we should just stop people from claiming benefits? Close the gates? Force the unemployed and disabled to 'do something' during the day, rather than sit at home or whatever?

I strongly believe not. Our benefits system helps far more people than abuse it. Our immigration and asylum policies benefit the country far more than they are abused. Our 'belonging' to Europe is of far more benefit to us that if we were to cut ourselves off and go it alone.

UKIP is a reflection of a general public dissatisfaction with politicians and the current parties who don't seem to be able to decide whether they wish to run on principles (these are our policies - if you agree vote for us) or pragmatism (we want to get elected so vote for us and we'll do whatever you want when in power). Once the world economy improves, as eventually it surely will since these things seem to be cyclical, UKIP and the reasons it garners interest will be forgotten.

Rather like SNP and Scottish 'independence' I just hope that in the meantime we don't do anything stupid and irreversible that we will regret.

[Peckris 579]

Well said Richard. I whole-heartedly agree with pretty much all of that (speaking as a now-disabled person who's been living in terror that I'll either lose my benefits entirely or else be forced to look for work I can't do anymore - which would be even more a reality under UKIP).

One thing that this week's 70th anniversary of D-Day ought to do, is make people realise that the European Community was founded (yes, initially only as an economic market) in the spirit of all its component nations getting along together and that war between us should never again happen. Yet in that time, the French remain irrevocably French, as do the Germans, the Italians, Romanians, Irish, Spanish, etc - no nation has lost its defining identity. Just as in Britain - the oldest federal state in Europe - Yorkshiremen, Cornish, Brummies, Scousers, Cockneys, etc haven't lost their separate identities in 1,000 years, apart from there being a Starbucks and McDonalds on every High Street!

As you say Richard, there's much wrong with the way Europe is administered from Brussels, but that doesn't mean we should do a Farage-style sulk and get out altogether. Far better that we stay in and help to right the ills, than cut off our noses to spite our face and become an isolated nonentity on the edge of the Atlantic.

I'm also just glad that I'm not the only 'Europhile' in this forum.

[Rob 3,152]

It isn't a simple case of wanting to be in or out on principle. Any change from the status quo is only worth implementing if it gives a clear tangible benefit over the existing situation. To pursue a goal for ideological reasons alone is not good enough as it only incurs unnecessary costs without providing a benefit. Nothing should be sacrosanct, but equally, nothing should be ruled out. This applies equally to the Scottish and European situations.

Much of the damage incurred from being part of the EU is irreversible. Industries at a national level have been destroyed across the Union because of excess capacity, imposed quotas from the EU and the global economy. The global economy is a much more brutal marketplace than the EU, which Brussels has attempted to protect by effectively protecting the larger players in certain industries at the expense of the peripheral ones. So we have the financial markets in this country, cars in Germany and 20 years ago shipbuilding in France and Germany. The fallout from this is that national politicians feel powerless to reject the Brussels edicts because they would lose 'financial assistance' from the central body. They have effectively acted as united state without the political union. As nothing has materialised so far to have a politically united Europe, you are left with countries that have lost indigenous industries and the manufacturing base that accompanies it. The main exception to the rule is France which has unilaterally declared 50 or 60 major players to be protected from foreign interference as they are too important to France. France, not the EU that is. Credit to them for sticking up for their own, even if the EU is not happy because imposed limits on government spending will not be met. Therein lies the rub. You either have to go the whole hog and have political union or reduce the power of the central body to permit the national governments to stick up for their own. What we have is a half way house which in general doesn't serve the man in the street particularly well. In the meantime the old chestnut of the CAP rumbles on. Subsidised farmers continue to receive nearly half of the EU budget, in certain parts of the EU providing an excellent means of laundering criminal income and being subsidised to do so to boot. The main recipient of these funds is France, whose inheritance laws mitigate against efficiency in the farming sector.

If I was German I would be livid at the amount of money I had to pay to keep the rest of Europe underemployed. Germany is where it is because the national ethic is to work hard, do a good job, make things well (even if sometimes over-engineered) and generally live within their means. Much of Europe meanwhile lives in a dependency culture.

If anyone wants to live a comfortable lifestyle, it requires an indigenous industrial base to produce everyday goods and for the citizens of those countries to buy home produced items, money which is spent thereby being recycled within the local economies. The global economy in this case is quite destructive as the main perceived benefit it has in reducing the cost of living has a knock on effect which means that the western economies have a workforce that has priced itself out of the market leading to no work and little industry. Efficiency is mainly to blame as we don't need a lot of people other than to act as consumers.

All in all, the situation is ok(?) if things are rosy, a disaster if they go pear-shaped. People could do worse than buy locally produced goods by choice if the price differential is not too great. Without any numbers to hand, off the top of my head I would think that spending 5-10% more on a locally produced item would reasonably offset the cost of paying someone to sit on their backside watching TV and the repeats, and the repeats of repeats.