Hysterical liars of the week

Check out this front page, from the Daily Express (the paper that even the Daily Mail thinks is barking mad):

Is it true? No, of course it isn't.

FURY erupted last night after a European Union plot to “carve up Britain” by setting up a cross-Channel region was exposed. 

Senior Tories condemned plans to merge southern England and northern France into a territory called “Arc Manche” complete with its own flag. 

Brussels chiefs have already earmarked millions of pounds for lavish projects designed to give the zone its own “identity”.

It's simply an hysterical bit of utter rubbish which - shamefully - appears to be dictated by a Conservative Government minister in the run-up to the local government elections. Propaganda of the very worst sort - ruined only by a) being lies and b) the Express's plummeting readership. This sort of stuff is why the British press has such an awful reputation.

Tory Cabinet Minister Eric Pickles yesterday revealed details of the plan inherited by his Whitehall department from the previous Labour government.

The Communities Secretary said: “Labour ministers have been caught red-handed conspiring with European bureaucrats to wipe England off the map and replace our historic boroughs, counties and cities with transnational Euro-regions.

It's an infrastructure and tourism idea - the EU hasn't got the right to merge countries! I notice too that in the 'minds' of Pickles and the Express, 'southern England' and the UK are the same thing - as I've long suspected. As is traditional with this kind of 'journalism', we get several paragraphs of confected outrage from weirdo extremists (Douglas Carswell, Nigel Farage, the Tax-Evaders Alliance), before we reach the shocking truth about this fiendish Euro-plot: far from being:

“a bid to subvert the St George’s flag and the Union Jack”

it's actually:

a series of cycle routes seeking to link northern France and southern England… a £2million travelling exhibition of “contemporary” artworks and even a bizarre international tour by circus clowns costing £5.5million

Those evil Euro-Clowns!

However, I have news for the Express and for the Conservative Party. There WAS a serious plan to merge the UK and France (again - let's not forget that under the Normans England and the bits of Britain it controlled were outposts of Normandy, and the Plantagenets claimed to be Kings of France and Britain).

The final "DECLARATION OF UNION" approved by the British War Cabinet stated that:

France and Great Britain shall no longer be two nations, but one Franco-British Union. The constitution of the Union will provide for joint organs of defence, foreign, financial and economic policies. Every citizen of France will enjoy immediately citizenship of Great Britain, every British subject will become a citizen of France.

So which traitorous nutter wanted to declare an Act of Union between Britain and France, in 1940? Why, it was that dangerous Europhile, winner of the Charlemagne Prize for his contribution to the European Ideal, advocate of a United States of Europe ("We Must Build A Kind of United States of Europe" - Zurich speech, 1946) and, er, Conservative Prime Minister and war hero, Winston Churchill!

And that's not all: another Conservative PM, Anthony Eden, considered it again, in 1956!

Let's see what Pickles and the Express have to say about that…

You spin me right round

Politicians think they're very clever.
They also think we're not very clever and can't do joined-up thinking.

A case in point. The new government doesn't like taxes or public services, so they've come up with a cunning plan: if your local government wants to put local taxes up, they'll have to hold a referendum (not if they want to cut taxes, you'll notice).

They wheeled out Sontaran Eric Pickles to talk about this stunningly boring but important subject on the Today programme on Radio 4.

Eric Pickles

Sontaran

Unfortunately, little Eric decided to wax lyrical about democracy and referenda, as you can hear on this MP3 recording. He even evoked Winston Churchill on the joys of democracy.

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Here are the key quotes:
'it's up to you, you decide'.
'we think it's important as part of the Big Society that decisions are made locally'
'I'm quite in favour of local people making local decisions…I don't see a problem in referendums… we can have a decision on all kind of things… It's part of a package of measures of passing things locally'.

But. But, but but but but but but.
It's only a couple of days since I wrote about the Academies Bill, Clause 3, Amendment 8. It asked the government to hold a referendum of parents whenever a school applies to become an Academy. My Scarlet Pimpernel MP Paul Uppal, and all his Tory colleagues, voted against this simple and relevant democratic proposal. He also voted against a simpler clause to compel schools to consult parents.

(On a wonderful related note, the Tory Scum announced a couple of weeks ago that 1000+ schools had applied to become Academies. Today's news reveals that in reality, only, er 153 actually did so: either they're Lying Tory Scum or the Secretary of State for Education is in fact hugely innumerate).

I feel another letter coming on.

Dear Mr Pickles and Mr. Gove,

I listened with fascination to Mr. Pickles on Radio 4's Today programme (30th July 2010), extolling the joys of local democracy and referenda, with specific reference to 'The Big Society' and Council Tax.

Mr Pickles also stated on a video (http://www.communities.gov.uk/newsstories/newsroom/1658293) that

"This is a radical extension of direct democracy, as part of a wider programme of decentralising power to local communities. Power should not just be given to councils, but be devolved further down to neighbourhoods and citizens."Given the new government's enthusiasm for local democracy, could you please explain to me why your government and its parliamentary supporters (including my MP, Mr Paul Uppal) voted against the amendments in the Academies Bill calling for (respectively) referenda or 'consultation' with parents and other interested parties prior to an application?

Mr Pickles was very persuasive on the reasons why ministers in London should surrender authority: why is it therefore the government's policy that a headteacher can decide alone whether to apply for Academy status, and the Secretary of State for Education's decision alone on whether to accept the application?

Is this a case of democracy when it's convenient and autocracy when it isn't? I notice, too, that there's no provision for Council Tax referenda when reductions are proposed. 

Yours,

[Plashing Vole]