The Human Rights Act Speaks for itself

These are the main articles from the European Convention of Human Rights, which must be retained in British Law

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/46637


Every person has the right to life, liberty and security; their private and family life should be respected, and they have the right to get married. No-one should be subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and has the right to a fair trial.

No-one can be enslaved; or suffer discrimination due to sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.
People should have the freedom of thought and religion; and in accordance with law freedom of expression, association and assembly.

UKIP will cost jobs

Whilst I am pleased that Derek Childs, UKIP MEP for the East Midlands, remembers the export papers I offered him for my last shipment to the USA; it is a pity that he failed to look at them. I wonder if he also forgot about the small business woman in the audience who so eloquently told him how the EU's abolition of export paperwork had helped her small business grow thanks to the ease of exporting to what is now the largest trading bloc in the world. UKIP not only seeks to impose this costly and bureaucratic burden on every business in Britain, they would also place us outside the emerging EU/USA Free Trade Area area – isolating British businesses from the 2nd largest trading bloc in the world. It is time UKIP were honest, and came clean about the businesses that will close, and jobs that will be lost due to their isolationist policies. It is hardly surprising that the October 2013 survey carried our by the Engineering Employers Federation found that 85% of their respondents wanted to stay in the EU, a figure matched by the CBI September in which 78% voted to stay in. In fact not a single credible business group in Britain wants to leave the EU. It is a pity that the vocal minority who want to damage British interests by undermining our global trading links listened to British businesses.

Leave the EU for Constipation

In my most recent debate with UKIP I presented my opponent, East Midlands MEP Derek Childs with a dodgy dossier. It contained all the paperwork I had to fill out to export some apparatus to the USA. The equipment in question is a specialist device used to measure the elasticity of skin known as the Linear Skin Rheometer (LSR), and it has been used by cosmetic companies to evaluate the effectiveness of skin moisturisers, pharmaceutical companies to test the efficacy of medicated bandages for older people prone to skin tears, and in fundamental research in support of potential tissue engineering therapies. So it is clearly a VIP, at least Customs & Excise think so.
As the apparatus was sent on loan, I had to apply for a UK passport for it, known as a Controlled Export Procedure. Having proved that the LSR was British the passport duly arrived and was included in the Airway Bill Pouch. The USA has one of the most secure borders, for goods at least, in the world. So a British Passport for dumb equipment is not enough. Along with it I had to include 4 copies of a standarised invoice, declaration of country of manufacturer, and a statement of its harmonised code. Also required were some very intimate details, a description of the LSR in terms of height, length, breadth and size; which goes far further than the data required for a Human British Passport.
During its vacation the LSR developed a fault, and a part was returned for repair. Not an easy process as it was deemed to be an illegal immigrant! I had to apply for a Visa for it to temporarily enter Britain for TLC, using Inward Processing Relief – which has nothing to with constipation. When the illegal immigrant left Britain to the USA, I had to inform the authorities. Finally it all come home. I had to alert Border Patrols in advance to look out for this British return; which they duly did, examined its passport which was cancelled and the LSR was allowed entry to the UK. I dread to think what happened on the 4 occasions it passed through American Customs, but foreign countries have their own social mores, culture and bureaucracy.
Needless to say this is a not a pain free process. In all the LSR crossed 8 Borders during its vacation, and each crossing cost money and time.
To send an LSR anywhere in the EU requires only 1 piece of official documentation. It is called a postage stamp, you lick it and stick it to the outside of the parcel.
Derek seemed disinterested in my woes, he would not even look at the paperwork. Yet it is this burden of horrendous and costly red-tape that he, UKIP, and many Conservatives want to impose on Britain's businesses. If they have their way not only will our export costs to our biggest trading partner go through the roof, we would be outside of the new USA-EU Free Trade Area.
Derek's response was to re-open the Commonwealth Preference and trade with Australia! Australia however have the worlds 3rd largest market on their doorstep, China, and the major economies of Japan and Far East to deal with. They have also gone on record as wanting the UK to remain within the EU. I think Derek should talk to the Australians first before trying to take us back to a long-lost past.
The reality is that taking the UK out of the EU will be disastrous for business, leading to a huge burden of red-tape, insolvencies and job losses.

The UK is not isolated, as UKIP seem to want

Nigel Farage's Radio 4 interview on UK foreign policy was a display of utter incompetence. He was wholly ignorant of Operation Palliser, in which British forces successfully assisted the end of the bloody conflict in Sierra Leone; a military operation that did have the support of law and was in our National Interest. He also failed to recognise the value of International Cooperation to combat Somali Pirates, in which the EU's operation NESTOR will play a major role by training Horn of Africa regional naval forces to take over naval law enforcement currently being undertaken by NATO. His final gaff was the absurd claim that the UK's foreign policy is determined by Brussels, when last week's key vote in the House of Commons on Syria demonstrated to all that the UK, and its Parliament are the ultimate arbiters our foreign policy and military interventions. Perhaps he could instead explain how standing isolated from our allies is good for Britain's security?

Poo to Fracking

Gas Extraction Licences (methane from coal) have now been granted for a vast swathe of Leicestershire, from Wymsewold (the whole village is included) to Melton Mowbray. Fracking  and Coal Gasification, despite their appalling environmental impact, are attracting huge sums of taxpayers money – yet an alternative source of clean renewable gas fails to grab the headlines. Some industry experts are claiming that 10% of the UK's gas requirements can now be met from poo, and like all new technologies it can only get better. Sewage, household, agricultural and industrial organic waste can all be processed by anaerobic digestion (AD) into methane; yet the majority of this valuable, and undoubtedly renewable resource, is processed by oxygenation, and eventually released into our rivers and seas. What a waste of waste! My congratulations to Prince Charles, who's AD plant at Poundbury is the largest in the UK. Unlike fracked gas, which once burnt will be gone forever, poo will be a continuous resource for centuries to come. Let us hope that our County and City Councils will stop fracking coming here, and instead join forces to develop a household waste and sewage processing centre that will truly keep the fires burning.

UKIP's record of waste

UKIP has 11 MEPs; they might have had more but 2 have been jailed since 2007 for expenses fraud. That's 18% of their total representation wasting public money. What a contrast to the 0.7% of GDP that we give to fight disease & poverty, investing in education and essential infrastructure in developing countries.

George Osborne's Fracking Policy - Go North for Growth

May I congratulate George Osborne on his innovative solution to the North-South divide. By offering subsidies for gas fracking he has delivered an awesome planning blight on a swathe of prosperous Southern England, from Dorset to Kent. Who now would want to invest or buy a home there. Also let us not forget that there are proven oil and gas reserves beneath Charnwood Forest, which thanks to the County Council's Mineral Policy mining companies are now free to exploit. In contrast the North Eastern and Tees Valley Local Enterprise Partnerships have hailed a £66 Million investment programme into wind turbines as the start of a £7 Billion boom in renewable energy construction and engineering. It was so well put by Lord Howell, but it is the South East that will become desolate, with economic growth in the North East.