Multiculturalism, Libertarianism and the Laffer Curve

Just when we had finally got the foul taste of New Labour cynicism out of our mouths, up pops Ed Balls to remind us of just amoral, scheming, cowardly and unprincipled his party was during the 13 long and dismal years they were in power.

Balls is well aware that New Labour only brought in the 50p tax rate in the twilight of Gordon Brown's administration. The intention, of course, was to damage the incoming Tories who would almost certainly have to cut the rate in order to stop capital flight abroad.   They could then easily be painted as 'the party of the privileged' by Labour  (admittedly not hard to do when the Tories really are led by a cabal of very wealthy toffs who patently have problems concealing their snobbish disdain for the masses). And so it all proved.

So much for the Politics, how about the economics? Ever since Nigel Lawson cut the top rate of income tax from 60% to 40% in the 1980s, whenever this political hot potato is mentioned there comes a repetitive and rather futile debate of the famous (some would say notorious) "Laffer Curve": namely the point at which tax revenues start to decline because the wealthy, feeling themselves overtaxed, either stop working, hide their assets or even leave the country altogether. 

The debate is futile because both left and right simplify the economics to a grotesque degree. The Left completely refuse to listen to the argument  and continue to state, in their usual dreary zero-sum-game way, that any kind of rate cut must lead to lower tax revenues. The Right, equally absurdly, claim that any size of rate cut would result in  higher tax revenues. Plainly there is a middle ground where an optimum amount of revenue is raised.

That is a pity, because the most interesting things about the Laffer Curve is that the shape of the curve rests on primarily two independent factors: (a) the relative amount of friction in transferring your assets or your location of work and (b) the perceived justice of the amount you are being asked to pay in tax.

In an age of instant electronic transfers and communication, the transfer of wealth has never been more frictionless, acting to decrease the tax rate at which maximum revenue is obtained. As for the morality factor, this is very much a cultural issue: as a rule, people are much more happy to pay high tax rates for redistribution towards people they judge to have similar values and affinity with themselves. Therefore, culturally homogenous societies find it much easier to live with high rates of taxation for the wealthy than multicultural societies do. A good example of this are the Scandinavian countries, who until recent years combined impressive wealth-creating economies with eye-watering, almost marxist levels of government spending and taxation. This was possible because their societies had exceptional levels of internal cultural homogeniety. 

The shape of the Laffer Curve, therefore, varies substantially in both time, as friction in wealth transfer changes inline with technological change, and also in space, between different nations and cultures. Even more interestingly, the second "morality" factor also applies to people at much lower levels on the income scale than the super-rich: people on modest incomes get very angry indeed at the idea of being taxed in order to pay benefits to those they judge to have very different cultural values to their own. However, lacking the ability of the global rich to simply transfer their assets and move with them, this wider electorate  instead becomes progressively more libertarian in outlook and starts to vote accordingly.

In a British context, recent cultural changes spell very bad news indeed for those such as the palaeo-socialist Owen Jones who pine after that old time religion of "tax and spend". The growth of an international Metropolitan super-class who have no particular loyalty to Britain or the British on the one hand, plus mass immigration, multiculturalism and the growth of a social underclass on the other, combine to create the conditions for libertarianism, not socialism, to flourish. If you want evidence of that, just look at the genuine outrage generated by Channel 4's programme "Benefit Street". Witness, also, Jones' obvious bafflement as to why his 70s Bennite tribute act, The People's Assembly', is not maturing into the mass movement he was certain it would.

All of which leaves politics in a philosophical quandary: the culturally homogenous society that underwrote the formation of the modern Welfare State is gone forever, and reform of that system, however welcome, is plainly not enough. Instead we need to think long and hard about the society we want to be: to what extent do we strive for cultural uniformity, reversing the absurdities produced by decades of multiculturalism, in order to preserve a measure of social justice and harmony; how we can change the tax system in truly innovative ways; how to counteract our dangerous economic reliance on the London City-state; the degree to which a truly libertarian society can be made to work without introducing the dog-eat-dog rapacity it's critics claim it would, and so on.

There are no easy answers, but we had better start thinking of solutions now. Muddling through is no longer an option.

UKIP Weather

Nigel Farage presents a light hearted weather forecast for the BBC. This is political genius.

Labour will punish success with 50% tax rate

Ed Balls-up has announced that Labour would reintroduce the 50% top tax rate if it wins the next election.

Announcing his intention to bring back the punitive top rate, he said that it was "fairer" when the country is broke to take a bigger share of peoples' wealth as a punishment for their success.

Introducing punitive taxes that punish wealth generators simply drives them away. France have introduced a 75% tax this year and lost a number of wealthy businessmen and celebrities as a result. Most notable of these is Gérard Depardieu who left France for Russia to avoid the super tax. Others have gone to Belgium and Switzerland and even London.

UKIP's flat tax is the fairest tax of all. The tax free allowance would be raised to take the lowest paid out of the system altogether and every taxpayer would have to give the same percentage of their income to the Treasury. Nobody would be punished for being successful and of course a simplified tax system reduces costs meaning less of the tax raised is wasted on administering the tax system.

Farage calls for handgun ban to be lifted

Nigel Farage has said that the ban on handguns should be lifted and ownership managed by a licensing regime the same as for other types of gun.

As you would expect, this has drawn both criticism and praise but what are the facts?

Possession of a handgun was banned in 1997 following the Dunblane Massacre when a man accused of inappropriate behaviour toward young boys walked into a primary school, killed 16 children and a teacher and then committed suicide. Following the ban on handguns, the number of handgun crimes increased for a few years before going back to the same level as before the ban. The number of handgun crimes remains the same 17 years on from when they were banned.

So, the ban on handguns hasn't reduced the number of handgun crimes, nor has it made the public any safer. What it did achieve was forcing around 20,000 people to give up their legally-owned handguns and forced the GB Olympic pistol shooting team to train abroad because the legislation was so badly worded. In 2011/12 there were 42 handgun-related deaths. By comparison, there are over 1,000 knife crimes in London alone every week.

The ban on handguns was a poorly thought out knee-jerk reaction to a tragedy that made politicians look good but has failed to achieve what it was meant to. The statistics speak for themselves: the ban on possessing a handgun was unnecessary and hasn't improved public safety. It's time to put aside the emotive but factually devoid arguments of the small but influential gun control lobby and make the sensible decision to lift the ban.

Lords scupper pointless EU Referendum Bill

The Lords have killed off David Cameron's much vaunted but futile EU Referendum Bill with over 80 pointless amendments tabled to waste time and a vote to change the wording of the referendum which means that it needs to go back to the Commons and will almost certainly run out of time.

We're all in this together, comrades.

The law was pointless anyway because Labour would repeal it after the next election. The only way to guarantee an EU referendum is to hold one before the election in 2015 because the Tories are not going to win the next election and even if by some miracle they managed to scrape a win then who in their right mind would trust Cameron not to repeal the law to avoid a referendum anyway?

Labour's Lord Foulkes tabled most of the 80 or so amendments and most of them were complete nonsense. His intention was to scupper the bill in spite of the overwhelming public support for an EU referendum because his personal politics is more important to him than representing the wishes of the electorate.

The only vote we are going to get on our membership of the EU is through the ballot box both in May this year for the EU elections and even more importantly in the 2015 general election. Only UKIP can deliver an EU referendum.

Swale borough councillors refuse to resign despite moving 150 miles away from their ward

Husband and wife councillors, Jean and Alan Willicombe, have attracted criticism from residents and some of their fellow councillors for refusing the give up their seats on Swale Borough Council after moving 150 miles away from Sittingbourne where they were elected to Lincolnshire.

The Willicombe's claim that they can still represent the interests of the people in Woodstock ward despite having no daily exposure to the problems and needs of the people they were elected to represent and that it would be unfair to make the taxpayer pay for a by-election when the seat is disappearing in 2015 due to boundary changes.

This sort of thing is quite rare but sadly not an isolated occurrence or even the most extreme example. In 2003 a councillor refused to resign after she moved to Bermuda just 3 weeks after being elected to Maidstone Borough Council. In 2010 a Telford & Wrekin borough councillor refused to resign after moving to Spain. A UKIP councillor in London tells us that at least three councillors in Merton have moved out of London but still sit on Merton Council.

This sort of behaviour, whilst legal, is morally wrong and the legislation covering the eligibility of councillors needs to be changed so that the criteria must be met continuously to remain a councillor. All too often the LibLabCon political parties will field candidates that don't want to be councillors and don't intend to stick around for a full term just to keep up the numbers. It deprives residents of effective representation and is just inexcusable.

Conservative Councillor suspended for alleged racist comments

A Conservative councillor in Enfield has been suspended from the Conservative Party while he is investigated for allegedly making racist comments on Facebook.

The Crown Prosecution Service dropped its case against Cllr Chris Joannides earlier this month but he now faces a 5 week investigation by the Conservative Party's board. He had the whip removed almost a year ago by his local party.

There's no 24 hour rolling coverage of the investigation by the national media you would expect if he was a UKIP councillor as yet but I'm sure it's being prepared as I type.

Left wing extremists assault Nigel Farage in Kent

Nigel Farage was attacked by left wing extremists in Kent yesterday, culminating in a physical assault using a placard which the police are investigating.

The "Nasty Little Nigel" protest was organised by Bunny La Roche who recently resigned from a full time rent-a-mob job with the Socialist Workers Party where it appears she was thoroughly detested by her comrades to form a militant group called Kent International Socialists. Comrade La Roche is the Kent branch of the fascist UAF and has links to other extreme left wing groups. Her Facebook profile lists her "inspirational people" including the mass murderers Lenin, Trotsky and Marx. She attracted criticism even from her own comrades when she shouted "when are you going to die" at a 75 year old BNP councillor.

Comrade La Roche was helped in organising yesterday's violent protest by communist Green Party councillor Ian Driver, perhaps inspired by his party's MP, Caroline Lucas, who was arrested for her involvement with a violent protest against a fracking company last year by left wing extremists. The violent protest also attracted support from the fascist UAF, SWP and Labour activists.

Nigel was left shaken but unhurt after being hit on the head with a placard - an attack that could have had serious consequences as he is still recovering from an operation on his back for injuries sustained from his plane crash in 2010.

The police are apparently looking to identify the person who carried out the assault. The YouTube video below showing the assault being committed in slow motion should help, particularly as the two policemen who saw it happen will be easily identifiable by their colleagues (their numbers had been taken off which seems to be a worrying but common practice just lately).

It's time something was done about these dangerous, lawless left wing extremists who think that violence and vandalism is an acceptable way to make a point.

Take A Chill Pill, Dr. Stanley. @timothy_stanley

Tim Stanley writes in the Telegraph, advising UKIP supporters to cool the invective, lighten up a bit and "take a chill pill".

He has half a point.

Some of the obsessive commenting by UKIP supporters on blogs can be a bit over the top and occasionally comments can be downright nasty. Dr. Stanley rightly points out that some of the comments left on the UKIP Facebook page after Nigel Farage's suggestion that the UK take Syrian asylum seekers are not the kind we would want to be associated with. It is also true, as I blogged yesterday, that some of the more paranoid assertions made about a political/media conspiracy against UKIP can be better explained as purely commercially driven.

Stanley also complains, not without justification, about many of the personalised attacks made about him after he posted a light-hearted video mocking UKIP and suggesting how it should conduct itself in 2014. However, his complaints would have considerably more validity if he hadn't included in the video a remark about the UKIP council candidate Alex Wood, who was cleared of allegations of racism by both the police and UKIP last year. For Stanley to use his position on national newspaper to insinuate, however obliquely, that this unfortunate young man could indeed have Nazi sympathies  is unworthy of him and more than a little hypocritical given how touchy he is about attacks upon himself. He should also remember that the invective too readily dished out by some UKIP supporters is an understandable, if regrettable, reaction to the considerably amount of bigoted insults thrown at those with UKIP or even traditional conservative sympathies by fashionable MetroLibs during the last few years.

Here in case you needed reminding, is a selection:-

"Swivel Eyed Loons"
"The Turnip Taliban"
"Strange People"
"Closet Racists"
"Little Englander"
"Xenophobe"

Finally, Stanley declares somewhat haughtily that he "won't vote for a party that attracts bigots". Here he is just being plain silly. Any party that has strong convictions will attract bigots and fanatics to its fringes, who distil it's core beliefs to an extreme degree. In the 1980s, for example, both the Labour and Conservative parties had problems with bigots who took the parties core convictions too far: Labour with trotskyite entryists of Revolutionary Socialist League (aka Militant); the Tories with the "Blue Trots" within the Federation of Conservative Students.

The fact that the LibLabCon parties are not occasionally embarrassed in the way that UKIP is not a sign of strength but a testament to how bland, directionless and anaemic those parties have become. The trick, of course, is not to let the bigots or extremists take power within the party so that bigotry becomes institutionalised. In the 1980s, for example,  what really did for Labour was not that members of the Revolutionary Socialist League  existed within the party but that they held real power as sitting councillors in Liverpool.

UKIP will continue to attract occasional oddballs, eccentrics, aggrieved hotheads and sometimes people who are downright nasty. Occasionally the party will be embarrassed by them. However as long as such people are filtered out from achieving real power then little harm is done, apart, perhaps, to the egos of Metropolitan journalists who find the ferocity of their attacks too hot to handle.

Perhaps Tim should follow his own advice. Take a chill pill, Dr. Stanley.

Why Does The Daily Telegraph Seem To Hate UKIP?

It is a question 'Kippers often ask themselves - why does a conservative-leaning paper like the Telegraph constantly publish articles seemed aimed only at baiting 'Kippers, despite that the fact that that it's readership seems, judging from the comments sections, to be heavily pro-UKIP? True, the Telegraph has given house room to our very own Michael Heaver, and his fellow columnist James Delingpole is unfailingly supportive, but the majority of columnists such as Dan Hodges, Toby Young, Iain Martin, Tom Chivers and, of course, Dr. Tim "chill out" Stanley are at the least condescending and sometimes overtly hostile.

Over the months and years, the resulting exasperation has been replaced with widespread belief in UKIP-leaning circles that the mainstream media are "out to get" UKIP. These suggestions can be found not least on the Telegraph blog pages themselves, where angry 'Kippers daily stake out previously True Blue Tory turf, utterly dominating the comments section on virtually every political article.

No doubt the near-total domination of the what was previously known as the 'Torygraph' - and much else of Tory real estate in cyberspace besides - is profoundly demoralising to the remaining Conservative Party activists and their supporters, but it carries with it the danger of self-validation: many 'Kippers really do believe that their opinions are majority ones, and that the fact that comparatively few columnists and writers are solidly pro-UKIP is evidence of an evil LibLabConspiracy at work.

In fact, despite the slavishly pro-political class writing of Benedict Brogan and Matthew D'Ancona (spelt with a 'W' by many of our unkinder brethren), it is much more likely that  Telegraph editorial policy is driven by crass commercial considerations: although most people are well aware that newspapers rely heavily on advertising revenue to survive, few appreciate just how powerful advertisers are in driving the direction of the newspaper and even the editorial content on a daily basis. (This latter phenomenon can be most clearly seen in the Daily Mail, where many articles are brazenly written around selling items of women's clothing.)

The ideal demographic for advertisers is the affluent and the young. The affluent for obvious reasons, and the young because they are seen to be more impressionable, which is vital consideration in building and retaining loyalty to a given brand. In this respect, us Kippers are seen as pretty poor criteria, coming as we do disproportionately from older, less wealthy demographics. The fact that we seemingly dominate the comments section is not at all helpful to the Telegraph's relations with it's advertisers who will instead be putting remorseless pressure on the paper to attract a younger, hipper - and, perish the thought -  Cameroon-supporting, MetroLib, readership.

Hence, I would suggest,  the recent influx of younger, more MetroLib writers on the Telegraph comments pages. The result is somewhat embarrassing and confused, of course - like a middle-aged Dad trying to look hip at his teenage daughter's party - but there is method to the paper's madness. Meanwhile, the Telegraph seems to have hit on an ingenious twist to it's somewhat cynical editorial policy - publish endless clickbait articles rubbishing UKIP, which simultaneously generates many more advertising impressions as furious 'Kippers descend on the comments section, and at the same time drawing the approval of both Conservative Central Office and the younger readers the paper wants to attract and retain.

My suggestion to my fellow 'Kippers is not to take this too personally: it is, at the end of the day, almost certainly more about business than a grand conspiracy. In the meantime, enjoy the Telegraph's bizarre daily Danse Macabre, as virtually every day UKIP-hostile articles are published, to be followed inevitably by a tsunami of invective from our more diehard but easily riled supporters.

It is, after all, great fun.

Well, mostly.

Fundamentalist Christian councillor blames floods on homosexuals

A UKIP councillor from Henley has reiterated his belief that the floods we've experienced recently are divine retribution for same sex marriage.

Cllr David Silvester says that the floods are a punishment from God for allowing same sex marriage which the bible says is a sin. He says that "God wants all gay men to repent and be healed".

This has caused quite a lot of negative press as you can imagine and the fact he's a UKIP councillor has been used by some to paint the party as bigoted and homophobic when of course that's simply not the case. This isn't Cllr Silvester's politics talking, this is his religious fundamentalism and his crazy, medieval views on homosexuality are not at all representative of the party.

I would suggest that if Cllr Silvester wants to wage a war of religious righteousness on homosexuality then he should take a look at the Christian Party who have similarly intolerant and antiquated views as his own because he's not the sort of person that I want to be associated with.

Update:
Cllr Silvester has been suspended from the party pending disciplinary proceedings.

The European Independence Party

In case you missed it, Nigel Farage's latest speech in the European Parliament has gone viral in Greece, with hundreds of thousands of Youtube views, and counting.

The speech shows Farage at his inimitable best, exposing the illusion that Greece remains a functioning democracy and castigating it's political leadership for it's complicity in this fraud.

Not surprisingly, the speech has gone down very well with many Greeks, but perhaps what is surprising is that, according to Farage,  many Greeks have asked to join UKIP! Farage, perhaps half-jokingly, responded that  UKIP did have an international branch and that they were very welcome to join it.

But many a true word said jest, as the saying goes. Farage has often stated that his ambitions are now not only to liberate the UK from the EU monster, but all of Europe as well. Although perhaps it would be going too far to think of UKIP  transmogrifying into the European Independence Party, it is not at all hard to see how strong bonds could be formed between the more respectable national liberation moments springing up all over Europe. Post the EU, the strong esprit des corps formed during the dark years of struggle could very well flower into a spirit of genuine political co-operation between parties in the newly independent European states. UKIP already has strong links with the True Finns, and at the last UKIP national conference their leader, Timo Soini, as well as a representative of Bulgaria member of the European Freedom and Democracy Group, Slavi Binbov, gave platform speeches.

How ironic it would be that the EU, which has long had ambitions to form pan-European political parties in order to build a new European consciousness and polity, will end up bringing about greatly enhanced political co-operation throughout Europe, but for entirely the opposite purposes from those intended.

YouGov predict a UKIP win in May

New polling by YouGov puts UKIP in second place for the EU elections behind Labour, the Tories in third place and the Lib Dems in fourth place facing the prospect of losing all of their MEPs.

Crucially, the president of YouGov, Peter Kellner, predicts that UKIP will win the EU elections based on this polling because support for UKIP always increases as the election gets closer. This is quite an endorsement of UKIP's prospects because Kellner is married to the EU's foreign minister, Baroness Ashton and takes every opportunity to suppress UKIP polling.

There is no genuine argument in favour of the UK remaining a member of the EU.

The EU-Lovers keep rolling out the same, bogus, arguments - instead of repeating the well known answers again and again, I thought I'l blog them here, all in one place.

1) Why do you hate Europe?

- I don't hate Europe, I love Europe. I hate the UK being under the power of political institutions of the European Union.

2) If UK leaves the EU, the EU will refused to trade with us, or make it very difficult and expensive.

- Under the Lisbon treaty, the EU is obliged to negotiate free trade agreements with any leaving member.

3) Despite their Lisbon treaty obligations they will put up trade barriers.

- As part of the World Trade Organisation there are yet more limits on barriers to trade. If the EU ignored its own treaty (as if!) they would be answerable to the Rest of the World, under their WTO obligations.

4) Despite all that they would put up trade barriers.

- The UK buys more from the EU than the EU buys from the UK, in any trade war, the UK would end up keeping loads of cash, and the EU would be left with unsold products.

5) We can't eat cash, we can't drive cash.

- But with cash we can buy from anywhere else in the world and/or we can use it to develop native/domestic manufacturing.

6) Even if they did negotiate a free trade agreement, the UK would end up having to conform to all EU laws/standards/regulations but not have any say over those laws/standards/regulations.

- For products exported to any country/area, they must (of course) meet that areas standards. This is an issue for exporters everywhere, already. It has no impact on any activity not related to export to that zone, nor the daily lives of citizens.

7) No, if it impacts trade, it will impact everyone.

- China, USA and the Rest of the World trade with the EU without needing to join it, nor to apply its rules/laws/standards other than to products specifically for export to the EU.

- UK trade with USA and China, we don't apply their rules/laws to everyone, just to the exported products/services.

8) Millions of UK jobs are dependent on the EU.

- Yes, millions may be dependent on the EU, but few are dependent on the UKs membership of the EU.

- Productive jobs in (say) trade, tourism etc will continue virtually unchanged.

- Unproductive overhead jobs (mainly political and bureaucrat) will disappear, 

saving the taxpayer millions of pounds in administrative overheads.

9) OK so why are we still members?

- Remember what I said about political and bureaucratic jobs? It is the people with those unproductive, comfortable, well paid jobs that keep us in, it is they who endlessly deny us a say.

10) But it that were true, they would know they couldn't keep the public in the dark for ever!

- They don't need to do it for ever, every year we stay in the EU, more and more of our wealth, resources, sovereignty are transferred to the EU, very soon now, it will be hugely expensive and complicated to leave the EU.

11) But the government have said that there are no more transfers to the EU - if there were we would have a referendum.

- That is what they said, but only if it required treaty changes. Existing treaties already allow for many more transfers, they have only scratched the surface of actually implementing the terms of the Lisbon treaty.

12) But we would see the transfers happening, it would be reported.

- Often no physical transfer is needed, the EU can expand its work in an area, while the UK runs it down. If the EU expands its embassies and the UK reduces its own then no physical transfer has occurred, but power has been silently transferred.

13) If the established political parties benefit from the EU - even though the people and country don't how can we ever escape?

- Vote UKIP, if UKIP win the 2015 election the UK will immediately start to terminate its membership of the EU.

14) OK!

First Published at http://free-english-people.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/there-is-no-genuine-argument-in-favour.html

Spot the difference? and 'Isle drink to that'

I'm not one for writing / blogging however sometimes the keyboard gets the better of me and I get the urge to share and update on some of the goings on from UKIP Thurrock.

Over the festive holidays I met up with Iain Mckie (PPC) on the Isle of Wight, One - to share stories and learn some things, Two - to build links and Three - to pick up some UKIP beer to take back for some friends (much appreciated by all accounts).

To wander into a PH (Perks Bar, Ventnor) on a wet and cold Saturday and to be greeted by one of the incumbent UKIP Councillors (Graham Perks) was an added bonus. It was Caroline's idea we popped in after we spotted the 'sign' outside! A fantastic venue should you visit the Isle of Wight.

Hope you are not bored yet and if you are wondering where am I going with this one ..... well ...

Matters not what part of the country you or I are from, we can find like minded individuals without trying and in greater numbers., some folks from Tenterden in Kent (UKIP supporters) made themselves known once I made a purchase, nice of Graham to pick up the 'tab' for the second ;)

Outside the rain and wind were howling though the atmosphere inside was most pleasant, encouraging and lucid. How was I to know that Thurrock was once called Thorrock? A 1769 jug and records held from local breweries sealed the history ~ on the Isle of Wight of all places ! Who'd a thought it.

Spent the evening with Iain Mckie, very knowledgeable on energy infrastructure and carbon credits, hoping we can arrange a meeting sometime at 'branch' for Iain to share his knowledge, an invite to speak at their local AGM is being looked at.

Me? ~ well the festivities are behind us and now its for us to make a BIG difference in 2014. Spot the difference? - The tired old three parties are way behind the curve when it comes down to how people really FEEL !!!

Best Regards
Peter Philip Smith
Branch Secretary
UKIP Thurrock

... and thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings.

Tory activist Toby Young launches Operation Save the Tories

Former journalist and Tory activist, Toby Young, is continuing to flog the dead horse of a UKIP-Tory alliance by suggesting a pact where UKIP voters will support the Tory candidate in one constituency and Tories will support the UKIP candidate in another. He says this is essential to stop Ed Miliband winning the next election.

He calls this great vote swap plan "Country Before Party" but it would be more accurate to call it "Operation Save the Tories". He's on a hiding to nothing for a great many reasons.

Most UKIP voters aren't traditional Tory voters and most also say they wouldn't vote Tory even if there was no UKIP candidate. UKIP is taking council seats off the Tories, Labour and Lib Dems. We don't need the Tories to stand aside for us to win elections and it would be electoral suicide for us to help the Tories win elections when the majority of UKIP voters aren't traditional Tory voters and don't care whether Ed Miliband or David Cameron wins as long as they can do their bit to help UKIP take the fight to Westminster.

My own branch (Telford & Wrekin) has already said that we have no intentions of standing aside for Mark Pritchard MP, even if he talks like UKIPper to try and placate the rapidly dwindling membership in his constituency. After all, we're here to win elections for UKIP, not help the Tories. It would be great to have more branches (all of them preferably) pledge not to stand down for the Tories so Toby Young can stop wasting everyone's time with his pie in the sky plan to try and save David Cameron's skin and we can get on with winning the EU elections this year and shaking up Westminster next year.

Big UKIP win in Haverhill East

UKIP candidate Tony Brown has won the Haverhill East by-election for a seat on St Edmundsbury District Council with over half the vote.

The LibLabCon vote collapsed whilst UKIP's vote share went from zero to 54%.

Party	Candidate	Votes	Vote %	Change
UKIP	Tony Brown	529	54.0%	+54.0%
Labour	Pat Hanlon	240	24.5%	-12.7%
Conservative	David Roach	157	16.0%	-31.9%
Lib Dems	Ken Rolph	54	5.5%	-9.4%

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery ...

This leaflet has some London Tories confused. They thought it was a UKIP leaflet but it's actually been produced by Labour MP for Brent North, Barry Gardiner. He's probably hoping some of UKIP's success will rub off on him!

H/T: politics.co.uk

Patrick O'Flynn appointed UKIP Communications Director

With a certain inevitability, Patrick O'Flynn has taken over as UKIP's Director of Communications.

Inevitability isn't necessary a bad thing. Patrick is currently chief political reporter for the Express until he leaves that role in February to take up his post with UKIP. His appointment will fill the gap left by Gawain Towler who left his role as chief press officer a few months ago to move to another role in Brussels.

Energy: Green Really Is Crap

The late, great Times columnist Bernard Levin once stated that if you placed a man in a hall made up entirely of fake mirrors he will, quite certainly, go off his head.

Just so, and that is what it feels like to discuss energy policy. The whole thing is now so mad that it is intellectually very difficult to challenge - how do you apply even basic logic to an area of policy that has become demonstrably completely insane?

The recent revelation that wind turbine companies were actually paid to turn off their turbines during the recent Christmas storms, because the National Grid could not cope with the amount of electricity being produced, is just the latest chapter in a litany of despair. In itself, it shows the folly of relying too heavily on energy sources that by their nature are ultimately beyond human control: the wind blows, or it doesn't, and there is nothing much we can do about it. Even so, the difficulties of supply management may be acceptable if wind power was otherwise competitive, but of course it is not: as UKIP has shown, the very unpredictability of wind power means that gas turbine backup must always be available for spinning up - or down - depending on whether or not the wind decides to blow. As constantly spinning up backup gas turbine capacity means they run at sub-optimal efficiency, the whole wind package is grotesquely uneconomic.

Of course, all that is just to scratch the surface in the total madness of energy policy: a non-exhaustive list follows:

• Green surcharges have added huge amounts to household energy bills at a time of prolonged recession, greatly exacerbating fuel poverty, and forced much needed manufacturing capacity - and jobs -  abroad. 
• Price rises have been blamed by the public on profiteering by the big energy companies, significantly damaging the reputation of capitalism in the process. Meanwhile, subsidies for wind farms create huge profits for the small minority with landed estates, transferring resources from the poor to the rich!
• Almost unbelievably, Britain faces supply shortages as perfectly good coal-fired stations are closed to meet emission targets. Our energy supply problems are now so desperate that we have recently signed an outrageous deal with EDF to build a new nuclear power station with a "strike" (i.e. floor) price for the electricity produced by the plant that was roughly twice the price of electricity at the time the deal was announced. 
• Thanks to the current obsession with "green crap", Britain has been slow to exploit the potential of fracking to lower energy bills and to power an industrial renaissance.
• The EU has shelved plans to look into Thorium reactors, even though the fuel is both green and much safer than Uranium. This fact has, of course, nothing at all to do with France's heavy investment in Uranium fuel technology.
• Tony Blair, always keen to ingratiate himself with people who in future may give him a nice job or three, allowed state-controlled foreign energy companies to takeover British suppliers, thereby ultimately handing political control of energy production to the French and German governments.

So why has energy policy descended into what can only be described as the policies of the madhouse?

You know the answer already. Such policies could only be dreamed up by an effete and unworldly Political Class, most of whom would never dream of getting their hands dirty in industry and prefer cosy deals with large corporations and interest groups to courage or genuine enterprise.  As long as the get to feel sanctimonious, show off their green credentials  and masturbate their egos, they don't really care if what remains of our industry closes, capitalism is brought into long-term disrepute  and the little people shiver. In the process, of course, many of them also make a very nice living out of it.

Meanwhile, in the relatively sane outside world, Norway proceeds with it's "Thor" thorium reactor trials, and the Chinese are looking to do the same.

To whom do you think the future belongs?

Mirror poll shows overwhelming support for UKIP

The Mirror reports on Lord Ashcroft's polling that shows the Tories have lost 37% of their support and that half of that support has gone to UKIP.

Shockingly for a Labour-supporting newspaper, the online poll following the article is showing massive support for UKIP suggesting that Labour voters are turning to UKIP in greater numbers than previously thought.

Russian warship comes within 30 miles of Scotland

A Russian warship has come within 30 miles of the Scottish coast, stopping just outside British territorial waters just before Christmas prompting the Royal Navy to send the only available warship left on a 24 hour journey from Portsmouth to intercept it.

Picture: Miliblog

There has been much speculation on what Russia's motives might be but it's almost certainly an escalation of the EU's attempts to extend its borders east into Russia's sphere of influence with the attempts to switch Ukraine's allegiance from Russia to the EU. The EU sees Ukraine as the jewel in the crown of the former Soviet states in eastern Europe and with most of the Russian gas imported into Europe via Ukraine, it is of great strategic importance. Expansion into eastern Europe and Ukraine's vast wealth of natural resources is so important to the EU's empire builders that they're prepared to start a Second Cold War over it.

The Ukrainian president says that Ukraine's interests lie with Russia but its government wants to get its hands on EU money (or more accurately, our money). There have been continuous protests in Kiev organised by the europhile lobby and supported by the EU to try and overthrow the president and start on the disastrous path to EU membership.

The fact that there was only one operational warship available for the whole UK is a bit concerning but of course we can rely on the French loaning us that aircraft carrier if the Russians invade ...

Lords warn EU referendum bill unlikely to become law

The House of Lords has warned David Cameron that the bill for an EU referendum in 2017 if the Tories win the next election so Labour can't repeal it might not become law before the end of this Parliament.

The House of Lords Constitution Committee said that their rules "may make it unlikely that the bill would finish the Lords in time for any amendments passed by the Lords to be considered by the Commons on Friday 28 February 2014" which has led David Cameron to threaten to use the Parliament Act to overrule the Lords and pass it anyway.

As has been explained many times by many people, any law requiring an EU referendum in the next parliament is utterly worthless. No Parliament can bind its successor so the law requiring a referendum in 2017 can and will be repealed by a Labour government in 2015. Even if by some miracle Labour don't get a majority at the next elections and the Tories managed to cobble together a government then all we have to prevent it being repealed anyway is a promise by David Cameron and we all know how worthless a Cast Iron Guarantee™ is.

There is only one way that we will leave the EU and that is by voting UKIP.