In the run up to the elections I am not posting messages that tell people to vote for any particular party, nor over the top and inaccurate attacks on parties.
The site encourages sensible discussion of government policy and options for the future to help inform the general public debate.
Various briefings hint at a big sell out to the EU in the forthcoming reset.
There is suggestion we will surrender most of our fish for years ahead for no good reason.
There is a wish to bind us into more rules and regulations. This is said to be necessary to help trade in items like food. We already import far too much from the EU and all the time we were in the EU we faced a large trade deficit with the EU forcing out our farmers. Bad idea to volunteer for more of that. We lost a lot if market share with beef bans, too small a milk quota and grabts to grub up our orchards.
There is the idea of bringing back freedom of movement for younger people, calling it a Youth Mobility scheme. That would mean more large taxpayer bills to help these young people meet high housing and living costs.
We must try to stop this.
So much for smashing the gangs. New records are being achieved this year for illegals coming across the Channel. The government that promised to close the migrant hotels is paying top prices to secure more of them. Meanwhile they are trying to speed up giving many if the illegals the right to stay, acting as a further lure to many more to come.
We seem to get very little for all the money given to France to police this. Why don’t they puncture the boats before they can leave when they see the shire preparations to sail.? Why do they give them free passage to mid point in the Channel, helping them we are told with life belts and accompanying them with a back up vessel? It would be cheaper and safer to turn them back in the shallows by the shore.
When Border Force or a Lifeboat picks them up in mid Channel to give them free and safer passage to the UK who do they not arrange to arrest and question the boat organiser/ captain on arrival in England? Why are they not interrogated to find out the rest of the gang organising this dangerous business?
Why cant the UK authorities pose as mystery shoppers seeking seats on a small boat from France to help locate and arrest the organisers? We should expect more vigour and imagination in rounding up these boat exploiters. Catching them would be a good deterrent.
April 23 is an important date in any Englishman’s diary. It marks both the birthday and the date of death of our greatest dramatist and poet, William Shakespeare. It is the day we commemorate our country through our patron Saint, St George.
Shakespeare is one of those great achievers that made our history and contribution to mankind special. From Ebenezer’s Garden cities to Brunel in engineering, from Josiah Wedgwood’s pioneering factory and ceramics to Whittle and the jet, from Wren in architecture to Turner in painting England has offered much to the world.
Shakespeare’s genius was in capturing timeless human characteristics and emotions. Jealousy in Othello, violent ambition in Macbeth, the inability to see and understand in Lear’s old age, the difficulty to avenge a crime in Hamlet ,the folly and fun of young love in Midsummer Night’s Dream are all spell binding accounts of modern feelings and events springing from their roots in Elizabethan and Jacobean England.
Shakespeare turned the Globe stage into many exotic scenes, from Venice to Denmark, from a French to an English battlefield, from court to country, from palace to a hovel. Most of the transitions were conjured in audience imagination by the power of words. Bon mots, jests, epigrams, perfect soundbites poured from his quill and enrich our modern language.
What fools these mortals be said Puck. To be or not to be agonised Hamlet. The Fool said to Lear you should not have been old til though hadst been wise. John of Gaunt spoke for England , in words we should all remember. Our land is indeed a sceptred isle, a blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this england.
Any new oil and gas investment is banned. The aim is to close down our industry quickly.
Any factory making petrol and diesel cars needs to be closed by 2030.
No new coal mines allowed. Industry largely dead.
Virgin steel manufacture. Only 2 blast furnaces left. How long will the government pay to keep those going. Industry undermined by high energy prices and taxes.
Aluminium All but one smelter closed by high energy costs
Coal fired power stations. All closed, many blown up to prevent future use
Oil refining being wound down. Grangemouth now shut.
Petro chemicals and chemicals being wound down
Most ceramics production sent abroad
Self employment reduced by hostile tax regime
Fishing industry decimated by Common Fishing Policy and so called Transition
Dairy farming was limited by EU shortage of milk quotas for UK
UK orchards were grubbed up with EU grants
Current farming policy gives grants to stop food growing
UK foreign policy is based on two false assumptions. We can have best friend relationships with the EU , China and the US at the same time. Giving in to the demands of foreign governments buys us friends. These policies instead makes us weak , subject to more unacceptable demands.
Recognising public anger about this the government doubles up on this stupidity whilst changing the words to say this is representing the national interest.
How is it in the national interest to give the Chagos away along with billions? Whose support and favour will that buy?
How is it good to give in to the EU over fish, free movement of young people and accepting their laws? They will just ask for more.What do we get back?
How is it sensible to import more and more energy and food from the EU when we could produce our own?
How is it wise to depend on China for steel, for solar panels, for wind turbines and electric cars?
Why do we say we need to do more damage to our industry to pursue net zero to lead the world when the world does not follow?
As the government mugs pensioners and sets out to take money away from the disabled, it finds plenty of foreign governments to give it to.
There is the large sum for Mauritius to go alongside the shameful gifting of the Chagos islands.
There is the promise of an expensive intervention in Ukraine and new money and weapons for them
There are the large sums paid to France to stop the gangs, only to see the French escort more across the Channel
There are the huge sums on hotels for illegals after promises to close down all those contracts.
There is money for Sudan.
Many voters have had enough of foreign governments first.
As soon as President Trump proposes and imposes some reciprocal tariffs the UK and EU establishment explodes with rage. They are right that tariffs are taxes on consumers in the country that imposes the tax, with some of the burden shifted to the exporters where consumers cut back or succeed in getting some producer offset to the price hike. So knowing this why do they impose some high tariffs themselves?
They have also failed to confess that they impose plenty of non tariff barriers on trade making imports too dear or banning some of them altogether. The single market is a Customs Union, not a free trade area. It aims to stop foreign competitors by rules and tariffs.
Take beef. The UK still imposes a 12% tariff and £1.47 per kg on beef from outside Europe, but we allow free access for Irish beef. No wonder they clean up on imports, avoiding US competition thanks to tariffs and EU/UK bans on some US production. In many cases our tariffs and regulations are a bigger barrier to imports than US restrictions on our exports to them.
Hitching ourselves to the EU more will be back to our EU experience. It meant dearer food and more imports from the EU. They took most of our fish, banned our beef for a long tine, kept us short of milk quota and gave grants to rip out our orchards.
The UK is by history a Christian country. We have an established Christian Church. We also have a long embedded tradition of religious toleration and open access to opportunities for people of all faiths and none.
For this to work well all citizens need to practise that tolerance and fairness. All have to accept that there are national events which will be performed in Christian cathedrals that provide many of our great public buildings. The ceremonies will often be led by the government assisted by the Established Church.
In its turn the Established Church needs to have wise and sensitive leaders. The Church of England has done itself harm by its failure to root out child abuse. It has made itself a left wing intruder into the UK political debate, seeing higher taxes and more public spending as the answer to every problem and equating socialism with moral superiority. It has lost so many followers, with dwindling congregations. It is easier to sustain the case for an established church if it can show good levels of voluntary support.
The Church of England still has considerable inherited wealth. It demands charity tax exemption whilst urging that others with wealth should pay higher taxes. It urges the UK to accept more migrants and provide them with subsidised homes, yet most clergy do not offer their spare rooms to ease the shortage.
This Easter Sunday it would be good to hear the stand in Archbishop break out of the politics of Church decline, and put the sins and hypocrisy of the past behind it. Easter is the Christian Church’s opportunity to put forward its own message as it has no national event to host. Many of us are listening, so what new does the Church have to say?
Let me wish you all a Happy Easter. May you have a great day with family and friends, enjoying the eggs, Easter lunch and the stories of spring.