Nigel Farage - rhymes with arrogant twit

Sorry should that read synonym?

The BBC website and news is full of photos and sound bites from one of (in my opinion) the most odious, hypocritical  monomaniacal men. He looks like a cross between a troll, ken (Boyfriend of Barbie) after being partially melted. and rather unnaturally orange.

I don't know what it is about Nigel Farage - the self proclaimed threat to Britian - that winds me up.
(He did declare that UKIP was the greatest threat to the British political system, which is close enough)
He is one of the few people that if they are on TV or radio I will switch it off

For some reason my fellow countrymen and women seem to have taken collective leave of their senses and voted UKIP.

I have to admit to being very tempted indeed to look for a job in Europe, perhaps in a country that appreciates the skills of Engineering and where the EU is appreciated.
Did you know that if I were in Germany, Austria or Italy engineers are respected enough to put the title Engineer on their business cards like Dr or Rev?
I suspect that if UKIP get their way free movement will be restricted and the opportunity to live and work in the EU will regrettably be lost.

Lucky for Britian it seems that UKIP MEP's are notoriously rubbish at actually turning up and doing the job that they have been paid and elected to do, preferring rather to make absurd comments about wasting the aid budget on designer sunglasses and blaming flooding on gay marriage.

The other irony and hypocrisy is that UKIP are against Scottish Independance while being in favour of not being in Europe. Though their success will tend to improve the chances of a yes vote.

I'm very sorry for my closest political party who have been punished by the electorate for being screwed by their coalition partners - the poor old Lib Dems they get their first chance at power in a shared coalition and they get totally screwed over by their partners. In exchange for a referendum in do you want to change our voting system that is flawed to a system that makes no sense and is horrifically complicated (Rather than the referendum that the Lib Dems wanted which was PR) they had to renege on a promise about university tuition fees (which was conservative policy)

I will be keeping tracks on my local UKIP MEP's and following how they act in the EU parliament - having elected these people I think we have a duty to make sure they do the job that we elected them to do and do it diligently and with integrity, something that my previous UKIP MEP did not do.

Any messages will be posted here along with replies (though I don't expect that they will reply given past experience. 

The European Union

One thing that really annoys me in this country is the continual negative sideing  of the EU in the media adn political parties, virtually none of the political parties or media outlets are actually positive about Europe.

This weekend the UK again lost the Eurovision song contest - this time losing to Austria. (Of major indifference to me)

My views on Europe and the EU have changed dramatically over the last 2 decades or so, I used to be a confirmed Eurosceptic, but I guess actually visiting Europe and meeting Europeans, along with working for a company that exports the majority of what we manufacture (sorry should I mention that I am employed in the manufacturing sector!)

Putting these together I was wondering about the old favourite English song - Jerusalem - would go down with our current political overlords or even Nigel Farage (so called leader of the UKIP - United Kingdom Idiot Party)  -

And did those feet in ancient time walk upon England's mountains green:
Er as a matter of fact they did not as those feet were immigrant feet and if they did walk on England's mountains it is surely a shocking indictment of the lax immigration policies of the established parties.
And was the holy Lamb of God, on England's pleasant pastures seen!
Yet another example of the EU farming policies that force our hard working native Britons to choke down foreign imported meats.

And did the Countenance Divine, Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
Now that is just typical lefty pessimism to claim that our hills are particularly cloud covered - the sun will shine brightly once we rid ourselves of this European prejudice
And was Jerusalem builded here, among these dark Satanic Mills?
Jerusalem is not English and the use of the word "builded" smacks of the dummying down of our language, and our mills are a marked part of our industrial heritage which employed children as young as 9 to work for 14 hours a day, which made Britain great, none of this interfering working time directives that Brussels has foisted upon us

Bring me my Bow of burning gold; Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Thanks to EU health and safety nanny stating, burning gold bows and arrows of desire are no longer readily available 
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Again spears that affect the weather are banned and this kind of thing gives rise to rumours that are unjustified lik global warming.
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
Again banned by the EU as being too dangerous a mode of transport - in the good old days we had plenty of chariots that could be driven while ablaze and have blades fitted to the wheels, so much for the EU nanny state that the government has let rule our great land.

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
This is surely unfair to the people literally driven mad by EU legislation
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Knife crime is s symptom of a dis-enfranchised youth with no prospects thanks to Brussels interference
Till we have built Jerusalem,In England's green & pleasant Land
The current political masters have made it impossible to get planning permission to do this having bowed to Brussels, leftist policy of appeasing minorities.

The EU has delivered tremendous benefits to our country and the whole region of Europe - for starters we have not had a war in Western Europe now for nearly 70 years - this must be one of the longest periods that Britian has NOT been at war with one or other of the European countries since 1066!
We also have some of the highest safety standards in the world, so that anything sold in the EU should be safe and meet certain criteria.
The freedom to travel is really amazing and should we choose to, we can live in any EU country.
We have worker safeguards, and also rights. The EU also defends our liberties, forcing Microsoft to offer alternatives to Internet explorer and censuring Google for images on street view and picking up data.

To paraphrase Monty Python's life of Brian - 
"What has the EU ever done for us?" 

I've decided to let out some steam

Unlike my other blog which is a ramble through the bible, this one is likely to be my chance to share some things that wind me up, things I come across that I think are brilliant and generally weird stuff that is either too funny, absurd, distressing, or just irritates me so much that I don't want it to pass without comment.


I'm going to start with one of my perennial favourites, something that is close to my wallet - tax.
A three letter word that allows a bunch of 650 members of parliament, assisted by countless thousands of minions every month to steal nearly a quarter of my wage - yes 1 day a week I actually work for these people.
What really annoys me though is, well there are 2 things - one is they tell me how much they have stolen (sorry taxed - but what's the difference in practical terms? they are taking something that is not theirs - calling it tax just means that they are allowed to and I cannot stop them)
the other thing that winds me up is that according to the government own website income tax is temporary  http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/history/taxhis1.htm
(I cannot believe we pay for some joker at the tax office to write this stuff and for the national archive to look after it)

Yep - income tax was introduced to pay for us to defeat the French under Napoleon - I think , since we have finished paying for world war 2 a few years ago, surely this one was paid for a long time ago!
It is remarkable that for over 170 years our elected representatives have been kidding themselves that, like a chronic smoker and alcoholic "We can stop any time"  while ordering another scotch on the rocks and lighting up another cigarette in the members bar (ironically exempt from the smoking ban)

I make a challenge here and now - I made this challenge to my MP in person.  He came up with some guff about being in coalition and having to sort out the economy - by the way both the parties in the coalition made manifesto promises to abolish income tax in the 19th century, and in what way does tax not help the government balance the books?
I don't think after 175 years that anybody in the country is fooled that income tax is temporary so I challenge you to officially make income tax permanent rather than re-applied every year in the budget
Either that of fulfil your long overdue manifesto promise and abolish income tax - don't keep us in suspense any longer.