Holding online conversations with Americans as I am want to do now and again, it never ceases to amaze me just how many of them are hyper-patriotic to an ethos of "USA" and yet often very anti-government to the point where part of the issue of wanting to own guns is almost as a warning to central government that they will not be controlled by their own armed forces if it ever came to a situation when the government decreed it so - I often get the feeling that (especially with Obama) they are just one wrong word away from another civil war and if it kicks off its going to start in Utah, a state that seems to have an above average mix of chip-on-shoulder, very far right republicans for whom central government is an unnecessary expense.

Ultra-patriotic but the patriotism being directed to the flag rather than the country, its a very strange mix and something that we cannot compare our union of countries to at all.

Ah right, just thought we were posting random facts.

Mainland Europe is hugely open. I frequently travel by both car and air from Germany to the UK and back. And have never once been stopped and searched at customs.

Countries or counties?

Ah yes, counties...

Countries if you want to extend it to the Union of Europe for even that does not reflect the armed response that mid-america is prepared (so they say) to take against its own government whilst still defending the flag.

There's always something a little horny about bat crazy women

Apparently, Farage is willing to join with the Tory party for the next election so long as they dump Cameron and install Boris as leader



If true, he may as well join the Monster Raving Loony Party instead.

It would finish that party's credibility.

Good electoral tactics from Farage.

At the moment, UKIP are a real problem for the Tories. In the absence of some form of alliance, UKIP will deliver a Labour majority at the next election by leaching the Tory vote. A genuine electoral pact where the Tories agree to not field a candidate in strong UKIP areas could deliver a handful of seats for UKIP and UKIP standing down from challenging in Tory marginals will give the Tory MPs chance to stay in post. This could end up in a Tory-UKIP coalition.

However whilst Farage's tactics sound superficially like a great way to unite the right and block Labour out, they will split the Tories apart. The areas where UKIP are most likely to win are not going to be in Labour or Lib Dem areas, they will be Tory areas - how many sitting Tory MPs are going to willingly stand by and hand their seat to UKIP? Their only option will be to defect.

Also by stating the terms "this offer is only on the table if you ditch Cameron and install a leader right wing enough to be acceptable to us", Farage is trying to flush out a leadership challenge. Cameron is now going to have his hands full keeping control in his own party because the right wingers are going to be more emboldened now, I wouldn't be surprised if the next two years he is reduced to the state John Major was in, being constantly 'briefed' against by his own side with the papers cultivating constant speculation about a challenge.

UKIP divide opinions amongst Tory voters and they also will amongst Tory MPs - there will be some who would be quite happy to jump ship if they thought they would win a seat, as UKIP represent views they also hold but feel they can't share too loudly in the current Conservative party. But there will be a lot of other Tory MPs who would be horrified at the idea of having anything to do with UKIP and might end up leaving and forming another party or trying to stand as independents.

Farage has the potential to do to the Tory party in the 2010s what Roy Jenkins and his mates did to Labour in the 1980s.

What is missing from the above on the negatives of such a pact is it would represent a clear shift to the right. To win general elections as Blair realised you have to attract the centre. Any such pact would risk alienating the very voters who tend to decide elections.

And in a further rather obvious response to UKIP, Lord Lawson, writing in Murdoch's [iTimes[/i today, says the case for exit from the EU is clear.

Mind, I love the bit where he accuses businesses of being lazy and prepared to sit on their laurels, trading with the EU, when they should be out there, trading with China. "Globalisation" is the game, apparently.

Their support is not confined to Tory heartlands, I am currently working a lot in the North East and Merseyside, predominently in areas of high unemployment and there are UKIP posters in a lot of windows in Labour territory and the main issue is also the one that the Tory faithfull are afraid of, immigration. Like it or not, it's an issue to many working class people as they see (rightly or wrongly) there jobs being swallowed up by immigrants.

I stayed in a Days Inn off the A1 a while back and the manager told me that it was 90% full of long term contractors from Eastern Europe who had been employed directly by an agency back home to work on a large construction project up the road. These are the things that worry the ordinary men and women the most and to many of them, UKIP have the answer.

He's not the BNP and forced repatriation, those workers would still be here working (rightly).

Some people have it in their head he's racist and hates foreigners?
I'm fed up to the back teeth of being told i'm a closest racist for supporting them too by Mr Clarke.

And lost how many seats to UKIP?
You seem to failed to notice that my question was actually to please explain how a shift to the right by the tories would spell trouble for Labour.

Agreed with every word of that, except the kingdom bit.
We could, of course, revert to Northumbria (or similar) as well as being part of a federal Europe, thereby gaining the best of both worlds, protection by belonging to an entity that is larger and more powerful on the global stage coupled with the local decision-making (subsidiarity) that federality allows.
UKIP, of course, would have us believe that we can be a nice little prosperous nation off the coast if we just stop putting money into the EU but omits to mention the fact that we'd be ruled economically by EU rules anyway, either that or lose most of our trade.

The EU is going through a hard time, now is the time to re-adjust it, get the format and structure sorted (including the currency and the ECB) and start deepening it rather than widening it to more countries (which can maybe continue later).

Despite the vast sums we pay into Westminster (which many are saying doesn't represent them), I don't hear Farage saying we should pull out of London.

Who has said that here?

BTW, you haven't responded yet to the stuff about the UK being a federation with differing laws etc.

This is from the chancellor who sold off BNOC and thus removed any chance of oil revenues being used at they have been in Norway that oft quoted example of how to succeed outside the EU.

I have read what Lawson said and it is just amazingly naive. Whether he wants us to trade with China or not the fact remains we do roughly 50% of our business with the EU and this won't change just because he thinks it should. He may as well be saying lets go back to trading with the Commonwealth!

As such in or out of the EU we will be subject to the same rules and regulations as we are now in order to trade with Europe. We would still have to make a large capital l contribution toward the EU, just as Norway does (they are the 10th net largest contributor to the EU budget) but we'd have no say in the rules and regulations we would have to abide by. He must know this, so what is his agenda?

In fact Farage must know this as well so how come he isn't constantly put in the spot and challenged on these issues?

What seems more and more evident to me is that the economic crash was invented by the financial sector, which in turn has given more power to those in the financial sector by placing them in high up positions in governments, particularly in Europe, to ensure that a financial crash wont happen again. Most took their own money out as it started to slide and have bunged it back in at the bottom.

All the while, UK politicians bend over and do whatever banks tell them to - give them some free money, implement new regulations which fall way short of the recommendations.

This love in between politicians and banks seems to benefit only themselves. But, the clever bit is that the parties can have a little argument about whether the new regulations are correct, amongst other such important matters, which makes it look like they stand on opposing sides and makes the public take sides.

We're more bothered about arguing a cause for our chosen political party (whether we know which politician is standing for our area or not) that we completely miss the politics. We fight for our parties because we feel like we should, and we do it for them for free. We do it because it is engrained into our perception of politics. How many times have we seen on here the phrase "I've always voted ..."? A good example of this was the recent police commissioners elections. I spoke to so many people that voted for a party instead of voting for a candidate. Many people simply didn’t know who was standing and couldn’t be bothered finding out. It was far easier to just tick the same box as usual.

The people we are voting for (in the majority) are career politicians. They decided they would be a politician foremost and picked a political party where available. They are not actually bothered about policy or making a difference. Policies are manufactured to create an illusion to the electorate that they are actually voting for something - a good example is the Tories referendum on the EU.

We are unfortunately all guilty of party politics, and there is not really an obvious solution. Luckily we have been kept busy with a financial crash, operation yew tree is having a good go at keeping us occupied as well.

I think his agenda is purely City of London based, he doesn't like the idea of transaction taxes.
So his answer is to pull out of the EU and sod everything except the City.

He also thinks (despite not being a climatologist or a scientist of any kind) that the predicted effects of global warming are wildly exaggerated.

He thinks what he wants to think, and doesn't allow inconvenient facts to get in the way.

Yep. I read their manifesto out of interest and to educate myself on their policies. As I've said before I was not born in this country and it wasn't an EU country for that matter either. When my mother brought me back I was made a ward of court aged 22 months. I had to have permission from the courts to leave this country when we went abroad on holiday. I kept up with my US citizenship because I (mistakenly) believed that it would have no bearing on me living and working here as I'd been here since a baby. I started school at 4 years old, got my NI number at 16 years old and started paying taxes at 18 years old. I bought my own house with a mortgage and had a good, steady job, all without problems. Then I became ill, had to go on numerous benefits to survive and keep a roof over my head. UKIPs manifesto states that even with Indefinate Leave to Remain (which I've had since 22 months of age) I would be entitled to zero benefits, nothing, a big fat fook all. I would have had absolutely no income coming in whatsoever and with £200 in the bank I would have been out on the streets.

In 2004 I got my British Citizenship so this would never happen to me, but if UKIP did ever get in government its a day I've been scared of for most of my life.

I did see his comments on that but does he think the City of London won't be affected by or would somehow be immune to what goes on inside the EU?

He is right about one thing and that is globalisation is what drives things these days but what he seems to be ignoring is whether he considers it washed up or not an isolated UK would just have to deal with the much larger EU as it would any large global economic entity. That is just like it can't dictate how it does business with China it won't be able to dictate terms to the EU and it will not, despite his comments about lazy businesses, stop being our major trading partner.



Well I suppose if there is anyone out there who wants to make the case for EU membership at least he has given them some nice targets to hang their arguments on. Is there anyone?

Quote ="DaveO"I did see his comments on that but does he think the City of London won't be affected by or would somehow be immune to what goes on inside the EU? ...'" This is another bit of his thinking (and not just his) that beggars belief. If the UK pulled out, EU transactions would flow more and more through Frankfurt instead of the City, the remaining EU certainly wouldn't be sympathetic to the City of London just because the City doesn't want to pay the small transaction tax ... it's OK by the City when the City takes fees upon fees off the top of every transaction incurred by your pension and mine resulting in a typical British pension being a third smaller than an equivalent Dutch one (*) but it's certainly not OK by the City for a state (i.e. the people) to take a modest tax. (*) Multiple sources for this ... I have chosen a Torygraph one ... www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/pers ... Dutch.html

Quote ="DaveO"I did see his comments on that but does he think the City of London won't be affected by or would somehow be immune to what goes on inside the EU? ...'" This is another bit of his thinking (and not just his) that beggars belief. If the UK pulled out, EU transactions would flow more and more through Frankfurt instead of the City, the remaining EU certainly wouldn't be sympathetic to the City of London just because the City doesn't want to pay the small transaction tax ... it's OK by the City when the City takes fees upon fees off the top of every transaction incurred by your pension and mine resulting in a typical British pension being a third smaller than an equivalent Dutch one (*) but it's certainly not OK by the City for a state (i.e. the people) to take a modest tax. (*) Multiple sources for this ... I have chosen a Torygraph one ... www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/pers ... Dutch.html

Quote ="El Barbudo"This is another bit of his thinking (and not just his) that beggars belief. If the UK pulled out, EU transactions would flow more and more through Frankfurt instead of the City, the remaining EU certainly wouldn't be sympathetic to the City of London just because the City doesn't want to pay the small transaction tax ... it's OK by the City when the City takes fees upon fees off the top of every transaction incurred by your pension and mine resulting in a typical British pension being a third smaller than an equivalent Dutch one (*) but it's certainly not OK by the City for a state (i.e. the people) to take a modest tax. (*) Multiple sources for this ... I have chosen a Torygraph one ... www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/pers ... Dutch.html'" Fees on investments have been an issue for some time. Most index-tracking stocks and shares ISA's have low fees (less than 0.5% usually) yet most actively managed funds with so called experts handing the investment charge at least 1% and often 1.5%. For the actively managed fund to outperform the tracker the fund manager has to consistently beat the market by enough to cover their expenses. The trouble is they [iare[/i the market so are kind of doomed to failure unless they are Warren Buffet and few come close to that. They rarely beat it. What the article refers to is you or me sticking our pension funds in the hand of a fund manager and paying the price of high fees. The company I work for contributes to a defined contribution scheme but actively manages which company provides it. It recently changed to one that lowered the expenses to 0.65%. So I ought to be on a par with the Dutch - that is if anyone's pension is worth anything in a few years!

Quote ="El Barbudo"This is another bit of his thinking (and not just his) that beggars belief. If the UK pulled out, EU transactions would flow more and more through Frankfurt instead of the City, the remaining EU certainly wouldn't be sympathetic to the City of London just because the City doesn't want to pay the small transaction tax ... it's OK by the City when the City takes fees upon fees off the top of every transaction incurred by your pension and mine resulting in a typical British pension being a third smaller than an equivalent Dutch one (*) but it's certainly not OK by the City for a state (i.e. the people) to take a modest tax. (*) Multiple sources for this ... I have chosen a Torygraph one ... www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/pers ... Dutch.html'" Fees on investments have been an issue for some time. Most index-tracking stocks and shares ISA's have low fees (less than 0.5% usually) yet most actively managed funds with so called experts handing the investment charge at least 1% and often 1.5%. For the actively managed fund to outperform the tracker the fund manager has to consistently beat the market by enough to cover their expenses. The trouble is they [iare[/i the market so are kind of doomed to failure unless they are Warren Buffet and few come close to that. They rarely beat it. What the article refers to is you or me sticking our pension funds in the hand of a fund manager and paying the price of high fees. The company I work for contributes to a defined contribution scheme but actively manages which company provides it. It recently changed to one that lowered the expenses to 0.65%. So I ought to be on a par with the Dutch - that is if anyone's pension is worth anything in a few years!

Me and that chicken bloke are currently investigating how to divvy up this between us:



and