If you only watch one Youtube video today….

….please watch this one….

The complete Eurobarometer survey, “Public opinion in the European Union”, sponsored by the EU’s own General Communication Directorate, can be found here.

The Devil finds work….

Having little else to do this morning, apart from fielding a complaint from my eurozealot neighbour and his harpy of a wife about this flag….

….which has been fluttering gaily atop my summer house roof since Sunday, I thought I’d have a little fun with Old Holborn’s Labour List Automatic Quote Generator (scroll to bottom of homepage).

The results are startlingly accurate….

Q: What is David Milliband’s position on pubs?
A: Millibands, eh? Chimpy wants Cuba for the oil! As a baby seal, I am crestfallen. Imperialists!!!

Q: Does Harriet Harman’s equality legislation help or hinder the country’s return to economic prosperity?
A: Why do you say legislation!? We’ve seen this before, in Tibet. Bu$h lied about THAT too!!! (Or is that supposed to be a secret!?) This is an outrage!!!! What next!!!? If you aren’t dissatisfied about this Boy King, then you must concede you are a Replicant empty-HEADED gopher of Rupert Murdoch!!!

Q: How can anyone ever trust Labour again after it reneged on its promise of a referendum on the EU Constitution?
A: Constitution, eh? Say goodbye to gender parity and free health care!!!! So long!! I reject neocolonialism AND COLONIALISM!

Depressing, isn’t it, that you get more sense out of an insensate piece of software than you do from Labour’s grass roots?

The left has suddenly remembered England

There’s quite a sensible piece by Eddie Bone in the New Statesman today, or very nearly.  The basic premise is that Labour should devote a large part of its time in opposition to rediscovering itself in England, and reconnecting with the English political base that it lost through its badly drafted and deliberate policies of devolution and imposed multi-culturalism.

All fine and dandy, a welcome return to democratic principles, you may think, but as several comments below the piece expose, eradicating the loathing for England that is hard-wired into Labour’s orthodox Fabian DNA will be no easy task.  This is what the ersatz reformers are up against….

An ‘English Parliament’ would not work; it would simply return a perpetual Conservtive majority and that is not good for democracy.

Whats needed is a radical shake up of the Constitution. Greater powers to Regional Govts rather like the ‘lender’ in Germany, and a Federal Structure for the UK, to recognnise the uniqueness of Scotland wales NI and the English Regions.

Which raises two points….

First, while this blog recognises that the Conservative Party as currently constituted doesn’t represent English, or British, interests at all, but those of an unelected bureaucracy in Brussels, what is “bad for democracy” about a perpetual majority for any party if that’s what the people decide?

And second, it’s not hard to see what the commenter is thinking here. This “radical shake-up of the Constitution” would emasculate England still further, consigning even the idea of an English nation to the history books and devolving what little control of our own national destiny we have left to the socialist empire that has been the dream of the homogenisers since Robert Schumann first proposed the European Coal and Steel Community in 1950.

In reality Bone’s proposal holds no hope for those of us who wish to redress the manifest imbalances created by Labour’s cynical gerrymandering, and nobody should be taken in by it.

They chose to despise England and everything she stands for, so now they’ve suddenly remembered we exist, now they need us, they don’t get to represent us.

Albert Roux, a great Briton

Tear down the blue rag!

Here’s a more exciting flag for you, Kirsty….

This blog’s chief complaint about the EU flag is that they really could make it a bit more absorbent and less scratchy.

The apple never falls very far from the tree

Off-message news from the BBC….

"Oink, son." "Oink, Mam, Oink, Dad."

The leader of Denmark’s main opposition party says she made a “big and sloppy error” by giving incorrect information to the Danish authorities about her husband, Stephen Kinnock.

Social Democrat leader Helle Thorning-Schmidt was speaking after the Danish tabloid newspaper BT had accused her husband of evading Danish taxes.

Mr Kinnock is the son of Lord Kinnock, the former UK Labour Party leader.

When it comes to playing fast and loose with public money, of course Stephen had the finest education money can buy.

That blasted horse has gone and bolted again….let’s lock the stable door

Remember those heady days….ooh….about a month ago when the Coalition came up with a cracking wheeze to make us feel that they actually represent us and that our vote means something? Remember the ‘Programme for Government’?

Well, with what some might think is indecent haste (surely they can’t have prepared the answers before launching the programme), they’ve answered our questions, so in the interest of spreading the joy around a bit let’s take a closer look at this revolutionary exercise in open government. Dear reader, I give you the Coalition’s Response to public comments on the Coalition Government’s approach to Europe….

We understand that so many of you feel jaded and sceptical about the EU. Speaking about the EU in Parliament, the Foreign Secretary said he knows there is “a profound disconnection between the British people and what has been done in their name by British Governments”.

Correct. We want a referendum on our continued membership.

We want to deal with this.

Excellent! Here’s an idea; why don’t we have a referendum on our continued membership or the repeal of 1972 European Communities Act?

That is why we have said we will not agree to any further transfer of sovereignty or powers from the UK to the EU during this Parliament. We are committed to ensuring that the British people have their say on any future proposed transfers of powers to the EU. So we are introducing a law to ensure that any future EU Treaty that transfers competences or areas of power from the UK to the EU will be subject to a referendum.

Further transfer of sovereignty? Setting aside for a moment the fact that Parliament, in ratifying the European Constitution Lisbon Treaty, replaced a millennium of Anglo-Saxon Common Law with the Code Napoleon at a stroke,  What sovereignty would that be, and at precisely what point did EU opt-outs cease to be “cosmetic”?

As a result of our EU membership British firms can sell their products and services in the 27 countries which make up the Single Market. That’s 500 million potential customers.

So all trade with the EU would automatically end if we withdrew?  That seems a pretty bold assumption to make given that our balance of trade within the EU is negative.

Doing things through the EU helps in other ways  too: from the laws that protect our birds as they migrate between the British Isles and Africa,  to working with other EU countries to get our collective voice heard in world affairs.

Ah yes, the birds, high minded stuff. What do you suppose Deborah Dark and Michael Turner think about the birds?

The Coalition Government wants to listen to what you have to say on this issue and, where there’s room for improvement, act on it.

Ripper! Have I mentioned a referendum yet?

The ratification of Lisbon was no less than an act of High Treason. Our right to a referendum must be upheld by Parliament and then we should decide what to do with the perpetrators. Mealy-mouthed platitudes on a website are no substitute for democracy.

Brits 2, Czechs 0