Trust Me, I'm A Tobacco Controller

One of Brussels' more prominent tobacco control industry NGOs has been taking to Twitter this weekend to engage with vapers on the sticky problem of a TPD which includes ridiculous terms.

You can read the threads here, but you must remember that she is on your side, right? We know this because she keeps saying it.

Amongst all the convoluted explanations as to why the EU just can't drop their stupidity and leave us all alone, was this revealing contribution.

@GreenPetticoat @FLAHAULT I know. Personally I think having a safer alternative could lead to a justification of a ban on smoking tobacco
— Monika Kosinska (@mikakosinska) December 7, 2013

Because, you see, at the stroke of a pen smoking would then cease to exist. There is no point in history where prohibition hasn't worked brilliantly and, well, it makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

But worry not. Monika doesn't see e-cigs going far anyway.

Apparently, vapers should take the deal on offer in the Tobacco Products Directive or it's only going to get worse.

@GreenPetticoat @FLAHAULT New process will be in new EP, more technical & w/ better prepared Council. A much harder scenario to win.
— Monika Kosinska (@mikakosinska) December 6, 2013

@GreenPetticoat @FLAHAULT You have all the cards on your side right now - this will not be the same when the cards are drawn again.
— Monika Kosinska (@mikakosinska) December 6, 2013

Just in case you don't know what that deal is currently:

- Allows only single-use cartridges.  No refillable units or tanks will be permitted
- Allows only flavours already approved for use in NRT
- Limits nicotine density to 20mg/ml maximum with no justification
- Limits nicotine content of any container to just 10mg/unit
- Bans all advertising in press or printed publications (except trade), on radio, TV and other audiovisual services and the internet
- Applies onerous and unnecessary warning, labelling and leaflet requirements that may be impractical and are disproportionate to risk deterring smokers who may wish to switch
- Bans cross border distance sales (internet etc)
- Allows only electronic cigarettes “that cannot be operated or opened by children” – something that does not actually apply to cigarettes and matches!

Those are just selected highlights, by the way, see the full list here, where the author points out:

Make no mistake, if implemented this proposal bans every product on the market today and would severely limit options for future products.

So how e-cigs are supposed to take off is anyone's guess. Under the current proposals, no-one would know they exist, if they were allowed to exist at all.

Monika's insistence that e-cigs should not be removed from the TPD and regulated separately has nothing whatsoever to do with the e-cig section stalling the TPD badly. Nope, and her extensive sympathetic Twitter chats over two days have nothing to do with the fact that vapers have been heavily noticeable on social media either. This process has been three years in the making, but there is nothing suspicious in Monika being best friend of the massed ranks of vapers just 10 days before a pivotal vote. She's on your side, remember?

She revealed something else too.

@Johnedwarddiver @Lollylulubes @FLAHAULT Not at all: population measures needed in place before substitutes are effective
— Monika Kosinska (@mikakosinska) December 6, 2013

@Johnedwarddiver @Lollylulubes @FLAHAULT ie smoking bans etc (ones aimed at the whole population rather than at individual groups)
— Monika Kosinska (@mikakosinska) December 6, 2013

@Johnedwarddiver @Lollylulubes @FLAHAULT Because there's no incentive to switch w/out understanding what you're doing is harming you &others
— Monika Kosinska (@mikakosinska) December 6, 2013

So smoking bans aren't about protecting bar staff after all then, just a European and global policy designed specifically to force smokers to quit? Glad she finally cleared that up.

There was some pathos on offer though. Please have your hanky ready.

@CaeruleanSea Also v quickly public health accused of being a front for pharma - that's hard for people who believe they are the good guys
— Monika Kosinska (@mikakosinska) December 7, 2013

Yes. After years of accusing any member of the public opposed to tobacco control of being a paid stooge of Big Tobacco - a tactic that is still used daily by people she defends elsewhere in her charm offensive - Monika doesn't like it much when the understandable accusations are turned back on her.

Oh per-lease. Cry me a river, lady.

To be fair, she explained a lot about why the EU is so intransigent. In short, they are paid to regulate, and regulate they will do, come hell or high water. Apparently, it's up to us to find a way of not being regulated as odiously as they would prefer.

There were, however, some points made which received no reply. EU NGOs seem to have no answer to what many would consider plain common sense.

@mikakosinska @ecigaretteforum @Twigolet Sorry, I fail to see what's abusive about pointing out that I didn't elect you to regulate my life.
— Fergus Mason (@FergusMason1) December 7, 2013

@JoLincoln2 @CaeruleanSea @mikakosinska @FLAHAULT Inform. Encourage healthier lifestyles. But don't ban/punish.
— John Diver (@Johnedwarddiver) December 7, 2013

Well, quite. Sadly, that's the kind of language Brussels eurocrats will never understand.

Dalli, The Bahamas, And Millions Of Mysterious Euros

In October last year, e-cig trade body ECITA wrote an article about the summary dismissal of John Dalli, EU Health Commissioner at the time and drafter of the appalling Tobacco Products Directive currently slithering its sleazy way through Brussels

To recap, he was sacked personally by EU President Barroso after the anti-corruption body Olaf found what they called "unambiguous circumstantial evidence" that he - through intermediaries - had solicited €60m in bribes from snus manufacturer Swedish Match.

Four months later in February, a lone comment popped up under the ECITA article with a teasing nugget of info.

Edward Butters says:
February 18, 2013 at 6:33 pm 

Would anyone be interested that John Dalli visited the Bahamas with his daughter in Aug and Sept 2012. Rented a seaside million dollar mansion and had discussions with Bahamians about transferring tens of millions of $’s to the Bahamas? More info available.

Well, I was certainly interested. So, with the help of @TheMorrigan1972, tracked the guy down to ask a few questions. Sadly, he wasn't too thrilled with talking to a mere blogger so I pointed him in the direction of EU-centric journos who might be motivated to write it up, but not before teasing out a couple of juicy alleged tidbits about the case.

Today, however, The International Tribune has revealed this shady trip to the Bahamas on its front page.

What made Mr Dalli so tired during those meetings in Cyprus, however, is now finally clear. He had flown more than 16,000 kilometers, or 10,000 miles, for a weekend in the Bahamas as part of a quest to move tens of millions of dollars. 

Asked about the previously undisclosed trip on July 7-8 to a Caribbean island known for its secretive banks and sun-swept beaches, Mr Dalli said in a telephone interview Friday that he had gone to meet unidentified friends. He said he returned at least once in the summer as part of efforts to arrange financing for a philanthropic project. 

Barry Connor, a Bahamas resident who rented Mr Dalli’s family a villa on the island, said he recalled being told by Mr Dalli that he planned to transfer “large amounts” of money for an unspecified venture. 

Asked about sums of up to $100 million, Mr Dalli said that the money was not for him, that he was acting on behalf of other people who wanted to set up a “trust” and that the project was “very personal”.

The Times of Malta has picked up on it and is reporting that ...

OLAF, the EU anti fraud agency, may reopen its case against former Commissioner John Dalli after it learnt that he travelled to the Bahamas last summer as part of a quest to move millions of dollars, the International Herald Tribune reports today.

Dalli, of course, is denying that he has done anything wrong. Again, it is simply that the world is out to get him.

“This is all conjecture without any sense... people are still trying to smear me,” Mr Dalli said.

Maltese blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia has been running a series of interesting articles all day on this development, with her summation of Dalli's explanation being the best bit in my opinion.

No doubt, two of the world’s most reputable newspapers are in a conspiracy with Saviour Balzan’s Queen of Bile, evil bloggers, gOnziPN, Giovanni Kessler, Jose Manuel Barroso, the nasty European Commission, and the mysterious agents who hacked Dalli’s email account and called him J Dalli BA. 

I am sure his psychiatrist – a man I mention because his medical certificates were so much in the news when he certified Dalli unable to get on a plane because of ‘psycho-social’ problems – has a name for this disorder, which unites persecution mania with the ability to convince oneself that one is absolutely innocent at all times, even when one is not. 

Enough of this nonsense. Really, enough.

It certainly does seem to be a 'scandal' which has more in and outs than a 24 hour multi-storey car park, but the whiff surrounding Dalli still won't disperse. No wonder they made him 'step outside' the EU building that day in October ... or, as Galizia puts it.

This is enough for the European Commission to open a fresh investigation/case against him. 

And quite frankly, they should sue us for inflicting somebody so substandard on the Commission in the first place. Damn shame he got through the grilling.

Now, I have no idea if Dalli is guilty or just incompetent as a natural result of the EU's daft appointment criteria. But there is little doubt that controversy seems to follow him around wherever he goes ... and that it is always about money. Probably why the tobacco control industry have gone very quiet about their initial hilarious conspiracy theories, he certainly isn't someone I'd personally feel confident in backing with my reputation. Indeed, Private Eye could perhaps dig up something juicy themselves if they weren't such a sad shadow of the organ that used to embarrass establishment years ago.

Meanwhile, the tobacco products directive Dalli wrote continues to be adopted despite serious question marks still hanging over his integrity; despite Dalli ignoring the consultation on snus and justifying it on the basis that there are responses hidden away at the back of his sofa (hmm, millions of mystery euros 'privately' hidden away rings a bell, doesn't it?); and despite his showing he knows absolutely nothing about e-cigs.

The entire directive has been an exercise of incompetence, chicanery and dodgy dealing from start to finish; a damning indictment of arrogant EU self-regard and waste. Can we leave yet?

Jewel Robbing Spotted In The Sunday Express

The Sunday Express has developed my article on Tuesday to produce this front page today.

You can read the whole story here, which details madness towards alcohol learned directly from the tobacco control template.

So many astonishing quotes in there, but here's a taster.

[Professor Peter Anderson, of Newcastle University, said:] “Alcohol is a carcinogen and I doubt that the alcohol industry would want to be caught out producing and selling a carcinogen without warning its consumer. 

“We know cigarettes cause cancer, and cigarette packets carry warning labels that cigarettes cause cancer. 

“Consumers surely deserve the same information on drink bottles."

Let me, at this point, remind you of something Deborah Arnott said last year.

The “domino theory” i.e. that once a measure has been applied to tobacco it will be applied to other products is patently false.

Of course, dear. Nurse!

See also: Previous jewel robbing spotted in the Mail, on the BBC and in the Guardian.

Two Drinks This Month? You Hazardous Drinker, You!

Following on from yesterday's news of a ramping up of the prohibitionist assault on booze, you might be interested - or, more likely, staggered - to read this document from an EU-funded anti-alcohol group, published in December (emphases mine).

Using the European Food Standards Authority guidance on exposure for human consumption of carcinogens in food and drink products, with a margin of exposure set at 1,000, no one should drink more than about 50 milligrams of alcohol a day, equivalent to 20g or two drinks a year. 

Currently, Europeans drink about 27 grams a day, some 540 times the exposure level. Ignoring alcohol’s cancer causing role, and just considering other health outcomes, no one should drink more than about 0.3 grams of alcohol a day, equivalent to 9g or about one drink a month. Currently, Europeans drink about 90 times the exposure level.

Now, please someone try to make an argument that these people are remotely rational human beings because it's not - I repeat, not - a parody.

This project - I'm sure you won't be surprised to find out - is heartily encouraged by the EU ... using your taxes.

The AMPHORA project has received funding from the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement nº 223059 - Alcohol Measures for Public Health Research Alliance (AMPHORA).

It also won't come as much of a shock that four of their 'collaborating institutions' are from the UK.

They go on to make some recommendations, notably these.

6. All alcohol beverage containers should carry consumer warnings that alcohol is a toxic substance, and in particular a carcinogen.

So, a skull and cross bones on every bottle of wine, then (and plain packaging, no doubt).

7. Low risk guidelines for drinking alcohol are, in general, too generous for health safety and should, in general, be reviewed downwards.

To 'one drink a month' or 'two drinks a year' presumably.

And there we all were thinking that the current guidelines of 8 cans of Stella per week (less for women) were ridiculously low!

It's not about health with alcohol either; it's about eventual prohibition but with better planning than last time, no matter how much they lie that it isn't.

* Image above was promotion of this documentary series on PBS in America, I can heartily recommend it as I did in my review of 2011

No Man Might Buy Or Sell, Save He That Has The EU Mark

As you can imagine, the transport industry (yes, it's one of Dick's boring transport posts) is no stranger to over-enthusiastic regulations. When the subject of red tape comes up, I often find it amusing to detail the incredible hoops our company has to jump through to perform even the simplest of jobs and watch as the jaw of the person I'm conversing with drops in astonishment.

As such, I thought no daft new regulation or rule emanating from Westminster or Brussels could surprise me any more. However, today I was proved wrong.

In addition to the layer upon layer of legislation with which we are already forced to comply - some understandable, some not - our sector has recently had a brand new type of inspection imposed on us. It involves all of a certain type of vehicle being checked over for much of what is already checked in one or more of the seven inspections each vehicle must go through per year. Except this latest one is quite absurd.

For example, we have had vehicles failed, so effectively taken off the road, for trivia such as a factory-fitted - and therefore already EU compliant - air conditioning knob being 'too sharp', and one inch of a seat belt being slightly frayed, amongst other trifling reasons. Another insurmountable failure was for not producing a certificate for an alteration which has never needed certification before,  which we can't now get because the company ceased trading three years ago.

But, as I found out today, one of the other fail criteria is so unutterably crazy as to be almost disturbing.

A number of our vehicles have been failed for having windows (it need only be one) which bear the wrong safety mark. Instead of the new EU mandated logo (pictured left but which, for the UK, is E11), ours bear the previous British Standards (BSI) kite mark.

It doesn't matter that these have been working for seven or eight years for us,  the new rule is retrospective so they're off the road. Since we deal with specialist vehicles, all parts are priced at a premium so we were looking at a hefty bill if we are to replace so many pieces of glass - as we were told was the only solution by the testing centre - at around £200 each.

It begged the question why BSI kite-marked glass was no longer considered safe, whereas EU marked glass is. It is only thanks to this curiosity that we found that there is absolutely no difference between the two, it is the same standard of glass ... it just isn't marked correctly. The mark, and not the safety of the glass, is why our vehicles have been deemed unroadworthy. Unless the EU mark is visible on the glass, we cannot trade with that vehicle.

Yes, it's a relief not to have to shell out so much money, but it's still staggering that we are being forced - at pain of the vehicles being banned - to pay £50 per window to have the BSI mark erased, and the EU one etched on.

I've learned my lesson. I shall never again be arrogant as to assume I've seen it all from insane tax-funded bureaucrats.

Now Feminists Can Hate The EU Too

Via Timmy at Forbes, it's good to know that even a right-on bunch like the EU Commission are capable of producing patronising rubbish at times.

I mean, what were they thinking here?

The red dislikes bar at the YouTube link shows that this is one particularly spectacular waste of EU funding.

It's not the first time tax-funded failures have insulted women to get their views across either. There's obviously so much cash around that their common sense has been obliterated by the need to spend on, well, the first thing that pops into their tiny minds, it would seem.

Still, at least the rest of the EU is hunky-dory on their watch, eh?

Cheap At Half The Price

Via Gawain, we find that the EU have been 'nudging' the European media with the EU Health Prize for Journalists.

The aim being ...

... about getting journalists around the EU to write articles for their respective outlets that promote the EU line.

The EU Health Prize for Journalists is awarded to stimulate high-quality journalism that raises awareness of issues related to healthcare and patients' rights. The Prize is part of the "Europe for patients" campaign, highlighting 12 health policy initiatives. All these are bound by a common goal: better healthcare for all in Europe.

Or as John Dalli puts it "to stimulate high-quality journalism, with particular focus on the European Dimension" So successful is it that 358 hacks from the 27 submitted almost 500 articles. Given the prizes amount to 13,000 EUR that is bloody good value for money at 26 EUR per published article.

Indeed it is.

As you might expect, there was a special category set aside for articles which address smoking. Or rather, the stopping of it. The short list is here, and the prize winner concerned a day in the life of a Polish dentist.

Isn't it nice to see another way that your taxes are used to denormalise you, eh? This time by effectively buying column inches on your behalf. Oh yeah, and did I mention that John Dalli, who initiates all this stuff as the relevant Commissioner - and like all of the anti-smoking organisations he bows to - is entirely unelected?

Or, as Gawain points out.

Look, if the BMJ or some other Health publication wants to run a Journalism prize across Europe, not problem at all. But it is wrong for such an award to be sponsored by the EU, with taxpayers money.

Quite.

Competitive Tendering: A Personal Anecdotal Update

Last Spring, some may remember a piece here on public sector competitive tendering; the way that it now arguably costs the taxpayer rather than saves; how it is a right royal boon to Puddlecote Inc; and how, despite that, I still fundamentally despise its EU-led, self-serving administrative pomposity on principle. Go read it if you have time, as it is a pre-cursor to this latest chapter.

You see, in that article I explained how our competitors had been whittled away in the past seven or eight years. Where there used to be around 120 of us battling for the opportunities from public sector contracts, at time of writing last April it was down to just under 40. We were successful in being accepted for that particular framework, but things have moved on somewhat since.

In what, at times, resembles a game of oneupmanship, a different authority re-tendered their available work in our field ... with even more administrative pre-qualification than that described, at the back end of last year.

This time, incredibly, it demanded a submission of nearly 10,000 words, which took me six full days to compose, along with comprehensive vehicle listings; profiles of all staff, along with full CVs in certain cases; and a pricing structure questionnaire running to five A4 pages. This, for an industry populated mostly by industrious working class people not adept at understanding, let alone regurgitating, middle class Sir Humphrey-speak.

Again, it would seem that many of our competitors have thrown their hands in the air and walked away from the whole process (I can tell you that there were times when our own office urged me to do the same). We ploughed on though and, from what we can gather, our competition has now been whittled down by a further 40% or thereabouts.

We thought that would be it, but oh no. Word has reached us that 'presentations' have been hastily arranged for the surviving short-listed firms, with just two days to compile them. We are expected to present - for 40 minutes including Q&A - exactly the same information I spent a week and a bit detailing in shark-jumping detail at the turn of the year. It's like they read all the reams of paperwork and said "Yes, very good. Now, tell us it all again over tea and biscuits.". Fortunately, we are large enough to devote one person's time - muggins's - exclusively to this hoop-jumping exercise, but others have no such luxury even if they were willing and able. There's the small matter of them actually performing the paying employment which keeps their businesses alive, you see.

Remember, there is still not a penny of work on the table yet. This is all just to be placed on a framework agreement for the opportunity to bid.

Anyway, I suppose that's a round about way of telling you that there might not be much content here in the next two or three days, as I'll be busy building an entirely unnecessary Powerpoint slide show to justify the budgets of the concerned authority's procurement division. While I enjoy writing in all kinds of settings, I'm afraid priority goes to doing so where I have the chance of being paid, and that ain't here.

Oh, silly me, I nearly forgot to mention. The said procurement division, as I understand it from someone who retired from there last year, used to comprise 12 staff. They now boast 75.

Still, there are upsides to all this effort, though not for the taxpayer natch. Firstly, there was certainly more wriggle room when it came to pricing this lot up, there being a big drop in competition and all. And one question required of the presentation is dead easy to address, that of our ability to bring in staff to cope with the extra demand. The constant stream of applicants through our doors - from former competitors losing work the whole process inflicts on them - means we won't even have to spend anything on recruitment advertising.

I can only finish with the same denouement as last time.

Remember, our industry is just one small part of public sector outsourcing. Every supplier, in every field, is being put through this.

Competitive tendering is supposed to act against monopolies and cartels, yet EU legislation is actively encouraging them in every town hall up and down the UK.

Sadly, this is the big problem. Whereas the rules on competitive tendering were designed to empower the little guy in providing a service to drag costs down amongst the bigger players, burgeoning administrative demands - through red tape handed down in so many areas it would require a new article just to list them all - means that the public sector is profiting at the expense of efficiency and increased savings to the taxpayer.

It's never been better to be a big fish, and never been worse to be a small one trying to get a first fin on the success ladder. Fortunately, the government are furiously working on the problem, as their incredibly busy Red Tape Challenge Twitter feed shows.

Sigh.

Competitive Tendering Is Plundering Your Pocket

Since it's that time of year, I'd like to explain something about the council tax bill which landed on your doormat recently.

You see, I have been trawling through a public sector 'competitive tendering' opportunity today. I place the description in inverted commas because there is nothing very competitive about its 200 bloody pages.

To illustrate, I'll go back around a decade to when such things really did pit suppliers against each other in a cut-throat mechanism which drove down costs to provide value for the taxpayer buck. It was a time when large operators were capable of being usurped by a one-man-band offering a quality service at a homemade price. The more providers, the lower you had to pitch to be sure of getting the work.

Those days are long gone.

About five or six years ago, in our experience, the regulatory burden began increasing at an alarming rate. Health and safety was ramped up to quite absurd levels and quality thresholds were set which were impossible for small outfits in our industry to comply with. For example, a company like ours - with a tad more financial breathing space by virtue of our larger size - were able to implement all of the ridiculous (and not even mildly more protective) demands placed on the vehicles which would be acceptable to the authorities concerned. The little guy had no chance - unlike us - of throwing a load of cash at new, or adapted, vehicles to cope with the latest over-weening directive imagined by local authorities, none of which would have any effect on overall safety or provision of service.

We thrived as a result, while dozens of our competitors threw the towel in and went and did something else instead (that's if they did anything but sell their rig and roll up to the local social security office, of course). Happy days for Puddlecote Inc, but we were - as economics dictates - charging far more to the authority.

With competitors shorn from the market, and our costs increased by compulsory demands from the provider, we got paid more ... for doing the same job. We also did a lot more of those jobs, at a higher price, than before. Our proportion of the market increased, and the prices we charged for the larger percentage of that market, were necessarily higher solely due to the actions of the tenderer.

In just a couple of years, the reponses to competitive tendering exercises had been more than halved, with the pool of approved suppliers slashed by bureaucratic ideology.

The latest opportunities, received last week, are prefaced by a preamble which states that they are looking to make 20% savings in light of instructions given to them by their 'leader'. You'd be forgiven for thinking that he had told them to massively ramp up costs.

Reading through the documents today was a jaw-dropping insight into the dream world of public sector morons.

Method statements, framework agreements, key performance indicators, robust performance management systems, equality and diversity policies, performance evaluations, environmental advancement, partnership milestones, sustainable procurement narratives, race and gender statements, service quality monitoring, volume forecasting, operational delivery reviews, governance structure audits, outcomes recording methods, business continuity plans, and contingency planning systems.

All of the above must be installed before we are even allowed to see the work we may be able to bid for, if approved. And, of course, there is no guarantee - by their own admission - that it will be of any quality.

As far as we are able to ascertain from those fellow operators we are friendly with, the competition has just been halved once again. Like before, we are large enough to gamble on all this, but others have fallen by the regulatory wayside.

Of course, once again costs have no way to go but up, and with less competition, we are likely to get more of the proportion of work available. The taxpayer gets shafted while the public sector office fills its boots with council tax cash.

And the end result? Well, they can say that greedy private sector businesses are ripping off the taxpayer and that competitive tendering - introduced by Thatcher IIRC - just doesn't work.

Clever, huh?

Remember, our industry is just one small part of public sector outsourcing. Every supplier, in every field, is being put through this. Raising costs, and punishing your bank account with every monthly council tax instalment as a result.

It can't be avoided, either. You see, the whole process is run according to the Public Contracts Regulations 2006, which - as I'm sure will not in the least surprise you - is the UK enactment of European Directive 2004/18/EC.

Competitive tendering is supposed to act against monopolies and cartels, yet EU legislation is actively encouraging them in every town hall up and down the UK.

Seriously. We need a referendum, and quick.

Less Government = More Jobs

Via the UK Libertarian, here's an amusing video illustration of the obstacles state and local government place in front of business start ups and job creation. As a business owner myself, who has been prevented from taking on more staff this year directly attributable to petty bureaucracy, I fully recognise this. Davy's preamble explains it very well, although I'd add 'and the EU' at the asterisks to fully tailor it for the UK.

Although it is America depicted in the video, the situation is exactly the same here in the UK. When people say the Government needs to create jobs because the market isn’t doing so, show them this short movie; for free-market capitalism to work effectively it needs competition AND free entry into the marketplace. Whenever Government* creates a regulation or a license or a rule it makes it harder for the poor person to better themselves.

It’s not capitalism or the Market that causes the widening gap between rich and poor, but rather the Government*.

Footnote: US bureaucracy also stops kids setting up traditional lemonade stalls these days, too.

Can We Leave Yet?

Via Rosie, it appears that the new communist experiment the EU is becoming increasingly unpopular.

The European Commission says fewer than half of voters across Europe are in favour of the union.

The “Eurobarometer” survey – conducted in May – found only 49 per cent of voters backed the EU, four per cent fewer than last year.

Trust was lowest in Britain where only 20 per cent of voters have faith in EU institutions.

Hardly surprising, really, considering that out of a population of just over 500 million, only 27 unelected commissioners get any significant say in how the EU public are entitled to live.

It really is well past time that we were allowed to voice an opinion about whether we want anything to do with this bloated, venal, eugenicistic, hideously-expensive, self-serving mega-quango. We are supposed to be living in a democracy, after all.


The Campaign for an EU Referendum are hoping to bring about just such an opportunity, by holding the coalition to their word that any petition that secures 100,000 signatures will be eligible for formal debate in Parliament and, that the petition with the most signatures will enable members of the public to table a bill eligible to be voted on in Parliament.

Their campaign bus (see above) will be touring the country from September, collecting signatures in the UK's major cities, but they are also targeting 10,000 responses from the blogosphere. You can register your interest HERE.

I very much hope they reach their target, as I can't wait to see how the oleaginous Cleggerons will contrive to wriggle out of yet another much-trumpeted empty liberal promise.

£350,000 Well Spent

I see London Labour MEP, Hairy Moneyball, has been talking of issues vital to all Londoners again.

Last week I read an inspired campaign in my local paper about a group who successfully lobbied Sainsbury’s supermarket to remove sexist labelling from its children’s dressing up clothes. The clothes reinforced the typical gender stereo typing of roles including labelling a nurses outfit as ‘Girl’ and a pilot, soldier and superhero outfit as ‘Boy’.

The kind of stereo typing by a supermarket giant like Sainsbury’s is especially dangerous because the public trust and recognise what they are told by the brand it is therefore a powerful voice and has the ability to reinforce such messages. In this instance the message sexist labelling sends to children and young women is, that their aspirations will always be limited.

No it doesn't, you daft fucking bint, it's simply a reflection of the natural fact that little boys tend to prefer dressing up as a pilot rather than a nurse, and that little girls would much rather don an Elizabeth Swann dress than an Incredible Hulk one.

Isn't it comforting to know that Hairy is using her extra wide seat in Brussels, for which you pay around £350,000 per year, to highlight matters so essential for the prosperity of the capital?

Cathy Ashton's EU Country Club

Labour's skills secretary, John Denham, has recently been battling a vociferous lobby bent on protecting publicly subsidised adult education.

The skills secretary faced boos when he agreed to meet campaigners against cuts to evening classes

"People have been changing dramatically how they learn in the past 10 years," he said, and there was a need "to capture" this. If he had to choose between funding courses for people who could not read or write, or "subsidising people who want to learn Spanish for holidays" ... The end of the sentence - words to the effect that the decision was a no-brainer - was immediately drowned.

He is quite right, of course. The state should have no role in funding unnecessary education from taxes.

Interesting, then, that the BBC report the over-promoted Cathy Ashton to be 'considering' taking French lessons at the behest of French EU affairs minister, Pierre Lellouche.

The EU's new foreign policy chief, Baroness Ashton, is considering whether she can squeeze some French lessons into her busy schedule.

Well, according to EU Observer/The Times, she is past the considering stage, and has somehow found a couple of weeks in her packed desk diary which are totally blank.

EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton has accepted France’s playful offer to teach her thе ‘language of diplomacy.’

“I hаνе just been talking to Pierre. I’m delighted. In fact I hаνе already accepted,” she said.

Polish President, Jerzy Buzek was also invited, but was either far more busy, or thought it a bit of a daft idea, or both.

Mr Buzek's spokeswoman Inga Rosinska told the BBC that he would not attend a French course any time soon because he was "extremely busy".

She explained that for work in the European Parliament: "It's not 100% necessary to spend weeks learning French."

Not necessary, but the highest-paid female politician in the world can take time off for non-essential personal improvement, following a 'playful' offer, while more parochial Labour politicians are using the same kind of superfluous language lessons as an example of profligate spending.

And the cost to the EU taxpayer of a two week course, on Ashton's £328,000 salary, just to satisfy some equally underworked Frenchie? Approximately £12,500.

Meanwhile, back in the UK, David Blunkett defends John Denham's stance on state-funded educational jollies with a spot of fairly standard economics.

No one matched the devastating impact, however, of the former education secretary David Blunkett, who began his contribution by declaring that Denham "does give a damn about adult education" but had a difficult balancing act with finite funding.

Isn't it fortunate for Ashton that the EU, being the bottomless tax money pit that it is, doesn't appear to suffer from such financial constraints?

It's all just a big, tax-funded, Brussels-based country club really, is it not?

Hairy Moneyball Comprehensively Pwned

I suppose with a Labour MEP who sees sexism in kids' cartoons, one shouldn't be surprised at yet more feminist claptrap from Hairy Moneyballs, but bitch slaps corrections don't come much better than this.

I have followed the Susan Greenfield story with a heavy heart. The Royal Institution, for a long time famous for little other than being a stuffy old boys’ club, had appeared with Susan’s appointment to see the light. A top scientist and superb media performer, she hit the spot. The image of the Royal Institution was transformed and science made interesting for ordinary mortals.

Yet she has been removed from her post of Director, made redundant supposedly in order to save money. Susan’s decision to sue for sex discrimination is a brave one. I, and I am sure many other women, are right behind her. I somehow doubt if she would have been treated in such a fashion had she been a man, a member of the stuffy old boys’ club.

Yeah, it's sexism, that's what it is. Err ... well, apart from in Hairy's fevered imagination of racist fairies at the bottom of the garden and the bogey sexist in every wardrobe, not really, no.

I was going to just link, but hey, let's reproduce the entire delicious knockout in full, eh? You know how fond Hairy is of getting rid of unfavourable opinions. This particular delusional-lefty buster deserves to be kept for posterity without fear of deletion.

I am afraid the situation regarding Susan Greenfield and the Royal Institution is more complicated than being an issue of sexism and jealousy. That the Royal Institution has been facing financial problems has been known about for some time. Susan Greenfield has come in for sustained criticism concerning her views on Facebook and other social networking sites. The critical problem has been her unwillingness to submit her ideas in the form of a testable hypothesis to a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Ben Goldacre has documented this here.

This is not the first time that Susan Greenfield has been embroiled in controversy. Her statements on cannabis, and her promotion of a computer program that had not been tested against adequate controls have led to the feeling that as director of the Royal Institution she was failing to fulfil the role of promoting the public understanding of science. The science blogger Gimpy has given excellent historical context to this sorry state of affairs here.

What is lamentable about this is that the now-defunct post of Director of the Royal Institution could have been the perfect platform to promote scientific literacy and a greater understanding of the scientific process among the general public. Instead discussion seems to be more concerned about sexism rather than the extent to which Greenfield satisfied the requirements of her role.

P.S. Many scientists (male and female) would object strongly to your description of the Royal Institution as being “famous for little other than being a stuffy old boys’ club”. Humphrey Davy invented the lamp that saved the lives of miners. Without Michael Faraday’s research and the work of a collective of scientists and engineers you would not be sitting by your computer writing a blogpost criticising the Royal Institution. I haven’t even mentioned the fourteen Nobel laureates that have worked there…

I think that's scientish-speak for 'she was shit, and so are you'.

Hairy (OK to use a pet name, isn't it? I feel we have bonded), if there is anyone and I mean anyone, more deluded and irrelevant than you in Brussels - and I include all 27 member states in that - could you please point them out, because you are one hell of an act to follow.

Risk Is For Government To Decide

Had a boring day? It don't get any better, I'm afraid, cos I just have to embark on an ickle transport related moan (regular readers will remember that that's my thing). It's got a kinda libertarian bent to it, but feel free to go twatter instead, or surf for donkey porn, or whatever your bag is, if you're not into hearing about big trucks and hairy drivers.

It would seem that, despite the incredible mountain of legislation, intricate rules, wounding penalties, and costly enforcement surrounding the welfare of freight drivers, it can all be swept away when government feels like it.

Fears over supplies of fresh milk led to the Government relaxing restrictions on delivery drivers yesterday amid reports of panic buying.

The Department for Transport relaxed EU limits on working hours for drivers of milk tankers and will today review similar changes for road gritters and animal feed suppliers.

Right. Here's a crash course (?) in drivers hours. The EU limits referenced (EC 561/2006) dictate that no driver can drive for longer than 4½ hours without a 45 minute break, mustn't drive for more than 9 hours a day (which can be extended to 10 hours on 2 days in a week). No more than 56 hours a week can be worked, and no more than 6 days a week driven. Daily rest must be 11 hours per night (can be reduced to 9 hours 3 times a week) and weekly rest periods must be 45 hours but can be reduced to 24 if the shortfall is compensated for by the end of the third week following the week you're in.

Got that (and it's only the basics)? I hope so, as even saggy-arsed truckers have to know it inside out and backwards, and be tested on it, as their livelihood can be lost if they get something wrong.

Now, under certain circs, UK domestic hours apply and it all changes. If driving outside the EU, a different set of rules entirely come into play. Quite a fucking mess. And if you break any of these rules, punishments are hefty and uncompromising.

It's for the safety of the driver, you see?

Yet all of a sudden, when government need something done, it's somehow acceptable to expose drivers to dangerous risk? Or is it that the rules are not necessarily a hard and fast gauge of the safe limits of driving.

It can't be both.

Remember too that the rules being discussed here are EU rules. The ones we are told are non-negotiable. They can't be contravened. Yet here is the DfT doing exactly that.

Something just doesn't fit. Yes, drivers need to be protected from excessive demands from employers, but the drivers hours rules as they stand are ridiculously convoluted, require the huge expense of enforcement, and are costly and irritating to all who encounter them.

If they can be relaxed at the whim of government, without any apparent threat to driver safety, why the need for such a rigid and prescriptive system in the first place?

There are cases where hours have been exceeded for emergencies. For example, three coach drivers from Preston once decided that, having been held up by a ferry strike, it was preferable that they get their passengers home rather than leave them stranded on the continent. They were finally exonerated but only after having been arrested, charged, and taken to court for the temerity of exercising common sense.

Government knows best, you see, and only with the arrogant approval of officialdom can these 'vital', unmovable, arbitrary limits be contravened.

So is life ordered. You can't be trusted to make decisions, only career politicians in Brussels or Westmonster are wise enough to do that. Their wisdom is final and must be adhered to ... until they change their minds.

He's Back ...

... and still sticking it to 'em. Check out the bemused look on the face of El Pres - priceless.

EU Work Out The Bleeding Obvious

"July 1 marks the return to our shelves of the curved cucumber and the knobbly carrot," said Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel.

"We don't need to regulate this sort of thing at EU level. It is far better to leave it to market operators."

You don't say! With intellect such as this at our disposal, the £40m per day we pay to the EU is obviously a snip.

"The changes also mean that consumers will be able to choose from the widest range of products possible. It makes no sense to throw perfectly good products away, just because they are the 'wrong' size and shape," she said.

Do you know what? That had sort of crossed our minds too once or twice in the past 20 years.

Good grief.

Calling London

It would appear that Hairy Moneyballs is getting a tad worried. How else does one describe the rancid, dog-whistling bullshit she is spouting of late.

Never averse to barking racist and sexist insults on the flimsiest of evidence, she has excelled even herself with an almost obsessive series of articles, cross-referenced and dubbed 'a dossier', about how the Tories are a closet BNP. Seriously, I'm not making this up.

Her sectionable thinking centres on fourth placed Tory choice for London, Jean-Paul Floru. Apparently he's a froth-at-the-mouth racist, sexist, and child molester, according to the most useless shard of fuckwitted, socialist, lunatic excrement ever to suck up our taxes in Brussels.

Honeyball described Floru as "an articulate libertarian" in May after a debate in Wandsworth. Reading between the lines, he must have slaughtered her on the night (probably not difficult judging from the crap she writes) as she has done nothing since but attempt to portray him as Josef Mengele reincarnated.

I want to highlight the real face of David Cameron’s Conservatives. Let’s be clear. Although the Tories will not win four seats in London, if during the next five years one of the Conservative MEPs moves on to take up another job or leaves the European Parliament for some other reason, then the next person on the list who wishes to take up the position becomes an MEP.

That seems to be a tacit acceptance that the Tories will definitely not do worse than the three they managed in 2004. Only a fool would claim otherwise in the current circumstances. Is it entirely 'clear', though, that Labour couldn't be wiped out enough to hand Floru his seat? We shall see, I suppose.

Should he fail to get in this time, Honeyball's reasoning for Floru being co-opted in the future is laughably tenuous, but she has spent a lot of her time (paid for by us) in researching to rubbish him anyway ... he must have given her a right shoe-ing in Wandsworth, that's all I can surmise.

When Theresa Villiers MEP became a MP in 2005 she stood down from the European Parliament and right wing Libertarian supporter Syed Kamall replaced her as an MEP by moving up the list.

Syed Kamall has attended the Libertarian Alliance conference as a key speaker. The views of his Libertarian friends are deeply unpleasant including arguments against restricting abusive and child pornography.

As you can imagine, Kamall's involvement was nothing more subversive than a speech entitled "The Dilemmas of a Free Trade Liberal in the European Parliament", whilst his 'friends' were not arguing against restricting child pornography at all. The document she obviously didn't read before knuckling her keyboard at the behest of her lumpen brain, discussed merely pornography. It was very clear about this, and advocated child pornographers being ostracised by highlighting the difference between the two.

Drive the sellers of dirty pictures and of dirty deeds into the same
market, and those selling dirty deeds will do a lot more business.
But if the law distinguishes sharply between these two trades, the
sellers of dirty deeds will be socially isolated.

Don't take my word for it, read it yourself. It has nothing to do with relaxing restrictions on child pornography at all. And it isn't written by the person she is trying to smear. He probably doesn't even know it exists.

Guilt by association, an association fabricated by lies. It is so very Labour.

Floru's 'racism' is similarly nonsensical. He knows some people in Belgium who Honeyball considers racist. Seeing as Honeyball condemns the immigration policies of the USA, Australia, and Canada as racist incarnate, that's not a lot of racism really.

"The Tories are little better. Their proposed five point system for allowing people into Britain is discriminatory, designed to keep people they see as undesirable out, surely a racist policy if ever there was one."

So why is she spending so much time on this? Could it be that she is worried about her own skin perhaps? To guarantee one seat, London list candidates require 11.11% of the vote. Last time out, Labour managed 24.8% and will surely fall below that after tomorrow.

With Labour polling alongside UKIP, Honeyball must be hoping beyond hope that the Conservatives won't pull in that fourth place candidate. Even her second slot on the Labour list may then become vulnerable.

Every time I read this ridiculous fucktard's blog, it further emphasises that we really shouldn't be in the EU. This vacuous bitch is getting rich on our taxes despite being entirely irrelevant and possessed of a jaw-dropping lack of regard for anyone with whom she disagrees. Her politics consist of throwing indefensible insults around like some naive, psychotic college undergraduate. In short, she is barking, yet she costs us in excess of £350,000 per year.

This is why I am voting UKIP tomorrow, and PLEASE, if you live in London, vote anyone but Labour. Tell your friends too because this woman is fucking embarrassing to our country and an insult to common decency.

Yep, That's What A Labour MEP Should Be Concentrating On Right Now

It must be crashingly boring just rubber-stamping rulings emanating from the unelected EU Commission, so Labour MEP Richard Corbett has found a way to keep himself occupied.

We was robbed! MEP aims to win back 1973 title for Leeds United

In the pantheon of footballing injustices - and it is a long list - the final of the 1973 European Cup Winners' Cup ranks high.

At least it does to Richard Corbett, the Labour MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber, who has organised a petition to have the match investigated over allegations of dodgy refereeing that, he said, cost Leeds United the game.

Uefa pledged to meet Mr Corbett to discuss the petition but stressed that its disciplinary regulations prohibited any prosecution for bribery after ten years had passed.

So, a complete waste of effort, then. I suppose he has to do something to bide his time at our expense, but one would have thought that attempting to change 36 year old history would be considered a bit too loony even for Labour.

With Europe's economy in a bit of a state, shouldn't Mr Corbett be using his time more efficiently? Or could it be that there is an election fast approaching for the Yorkshire MEP? An area of the UK which, I expect, contains quite a few Leeds Utd fans.

Cynical? Moi?

A Quick Dip In The Trough

Had a meander over to Hairy Moneyball's site (now renamed The Moneyball Buzz, to do with her showing solidarity with bees or something) to see what the vacuous Labour MEP, whom we pay £350,000pa, has been pontificating about recently. It's been a while.

It all seems a bit dèja vue though, as she's still got a bee in her bonnet (see what I did there?) about women who wear high heels. She didn't like them in October, nor in November, and she still doesn't like them ... except now you women have really pissed her off.

I am as bemused as Ms Freeman. I am also angry. Four, four and a half, five inch heels are ridiculous. Women cannot function to their full capacity if they are not as mobile as men.

Why did you ladies that like to wear high heels not listen to the trougher the first two times? You might love your shoes, and think you look good in them, but it's just men repressing women, don't you get it? She pronounced on the matter last year.

I do wonder if we are seeing another move to “keep women in their place”. Killer heels should be strongly resisted by all women.

The shoes you like aren't something that is alluring, they are instruments of torture forced on you by evil mysogynists! She also told you this in November, why aren't you listening?

I think it’s more to do with incapacitating women. “Sexy” is all too often construed as pliant, malleable and ultimately weak.

Hairy has the solution though, ladies. All you have to do is go against nature.

Sad though it is, we do not seem to be able to break out of the ancient mindset that what we have is not good enough. We always want to be thinner, taller, have better hair, etc.

Hairy has broken out of that mindset. She doesn't seem to care about any of the above. See? It's easy! Simply follow The Moneyball fashion buzz (ie. be fat, short, and have a pudding bowl) and you too can be a strait-laced, tedious, charmless harridan who sucks up a huge sum of taxpayers' cash to spout tripe on your blog about something that is totally fucking irrelevant to what you are paid for.

After two posts on the subject which attracted no support whatsoever, she finished the third with this ...

Sisters, we must stop doing this. We are all OK. I’d like to have your comments.

Nothing yet in the past 4 days. I'm sure the solidarity with comrade Moneyball will soon come flooding in. If not, what does she care? She's still rolling around in the EU trough. Snort.