There goes the neighbourhood. Hairy Moneyballs posted something on her blog which wasn't total bollocks!
If you are an eBay user, you may already have received the following e-mail. If you have, as a believer that everyone should be able to buy and sell on the internet, I would urge you to sign the eBay petition.
The petition is in regard to attempted protectionism being forced on the auction site by certain 'brand' companies. eBay explain it as follows:
EBay was built on a simple idea – that we could empower people by building a global trading platform where practically anyone could buy or sell practically anything.
Well, actually, eBay was built on the idea of making lots of money on the back of a vital free market (of which they shouldn't feel ashamed), but forget that for a second.
But that idea is now under threat from certain brand owners and manufacturers who are trying to turn back the clock and block the sale of their products on online marketplaces and other websites across the EU.
Ultimately, what is at stake is the right of sellers to compete fairly in the wider online marketplace, and the right of buyers to be able to access the best possible deals from the widest possible selection of goods.
We are therefore calling on European policymakers to amend EU competition law to stop these unfair trade practices.
Hairy is giving her backing to eBay and (no, please. I can't say this, it's not natural) I agree with her.
One of the infallible rules of life was that if ever one was starved of delusional cockwaffle, a quick trip to Hairy's place would fill that void. This principle has now been shaken to its very core. Black is now white, up is now down, chalk is now cheese (Liam Donaldson is still a cunt, though). If she posts more articles like this, I might even be reluctantly forced to go back to reading Paul Flynn for laughs ... yes, it is that worrying.
I'd never viewed Hairy as a free-market advocate before. Perhaps it was all the talk of positive discrimination and interference into such important issues as women being told to stop buying shoes that they wish to wear. Shows how wrong one can be.
Seeing as she is turning a bit libertarian, perhaps she might begin arguing for the abolition of the CAP which enables the EU to impose tariffs on the import of produce from non-member states. Not only that, it artificially creates waste via internal subsidies, thereby leading to dumping of surplus on impoverished nations. Without the CAP, Fairtrade (which, in turn, hypes prices to EU residents), so beloved by Labour, quite possibly wouldn't be necessary, as Dizzy argued in February.
Go on, Hairy, call for an end to it. A referendum on Lisbon would do the trick just as well. Be free, Hairy. Now you have dipped your toe in the water of the free market, embrace freedom from EU oligarchy, the biggest threat to the free market of them all. I dare ya.
One other aspect hits you when reading such lucid thoughts from Labour's second-rated London EU trougher. To receive the e-mail, she must therefore be an eBay member. I wonder what a generously-proportioned 80s throwback feminist buys on there with our taxes? Something like this perhaps?
