Consensus versus Democracy

There are some issues on which the whole nation needs to pull together - such as in war, when defending our existence against an enemy seeking to overwhelm or destroy us.

When we have internal disputes, even conflict, however, it is only by obtaining the majority democratic view of a free society that we can have some assurance that we, the people, will not be brought to heel by a government or establishment dictatorship.

That is why I cringe when I hear self-interested MPs or vested interest groups say that the only way to handle an issue which is becoming too hot to handle, is not by courageous democratic debate, but by "all parties coming together in a non-partisan way".  

That is the route to putting all power, unchecked and unscrutinised, into the hands of bureaucrats and subservient politicians, or, worse, at first into the hands of an elite clique and then of a demagogue.

Raucous debate across the floor of the House, and widely varying opinions during election campaigns, is a better way, the British way, than cosy, closed door coalition.

EU Benefits Ruling

A "win" on one issue in an EU court is not a restoration of our sovereignty or a "victory" - hooting hurrah for this result is understandable but the next EU legal decision may equally go the "other" way.  They are deciding - we are ruled.

FORMER LIBERAL DEMOCRAT TO BE UKIPSCOTLAND ENERGY SPOKESMAN

RENEWABLE ENERGY EXPERT AND FORMER LIBERAL DEMOCRAT TO BE UKIPSCOTLAND ENERGY SPOKESMAN

Michael Haseler, a renowned renewable energy sector researcher and leading commentator on the futility of wind power, is to be UKIP Scotland’s Energy Spokesman.

Announcing the appointment, UKIPScotland Chairman, Mike Scott-Hayward said “Mike Haseler is a well known and respected commentator on energy matters and is a core contributor to the Climate Change debate.

“His brief for UKIPScotland will be to cover all Energy issues affecting Scotland – energy security which requires nuclear power and cannot rely on wind; the realities of the adverse impacts of EU directives and consequent distorting subsidies which leads both to desecration of our landscape and to increasing fuel poverty; and achieving the best balanced and efficient use of resources.”

Australian born Mike’s family moved back to Britain and settled in Cheltenham where he attended the local Grammar School. He went to University in St Andrews and took a degree in Physics & Electronic with a module in Philosophy. He then joined Timex where he worked in Research, Development & Test on the Sinclair Flat Screen and Sinclair Spectrum.

He took an MBA at Strathclyde and then worked in a textile Mill as a quality and engineering manager.

After marrying he moved to Watford with his wife where he stood for the council as a Liberal Democrat.

Following the birth of their first child, Mike and his wife moved back to Scotland where he worked as a systems analyst.

Mr Haseler joined the Scottish Parliamentary Renewable Energy Group. As part of a SMART award, he carried out research into the renewable energy sector and became concerned at the lack of economic benefit from existing policy. He started campaigning to secure more jobs from wind energy and that led to him joining the Green party who chose him to stand at the 2003 Scottish election.

His career led him to start producing and installing weather monitoring equipment for wind farm site assessments.

Mr Scott-Hayward explained: “It was whilst doing this that he discovered the real horror of wind energy on local people and birdlife and he chose to leave the wind sector since when he has been a campaigner against wind and in favour of energy policies based on real science, not global warming alarmism. He formed the Scottish Climate and Energy Forum.

“As time progressed he came to recognise the value and sense of UKIP’s policy, and I am therefore delighted today to be able to announce that he will take the lead for us in Scotland on Energy.”

Mr Haseler, accepting the appointment, said “I have three children and I really care about the kind of world they will inherit. I left the Lib Dems as I saw the damage being done to UK industry by the EU.

“Now, seeing how the Scottish Government's zealous implementation of the EU diktat has caused these bird mincers to spring up everywhere, I am sure we have to leave the EU.

“I look forward to working with UKIP because it is the only party that wants to leave the EU and is rapidly growing in both Scotland and the UK.

"I know UKIP is the only party to base its energy policy on real science. This science tells us that the small rise we expect from CO2 will not be a significant problem and may even be beneficial.

"There is absolutely no need to destroy our historic landscape like this. Almost every other country, except the EU superstate, has realised this "global warming" non-science is part of an anti-CO2, anti-industry, anti-modern life obsession by extremists in society. They would lead us to economic suicide.

"We must exit the EU before we suffer the fate of Greece, Spain and all the other countries that have been brought to the edge of economic ruin by the failed European Union”

ENDS

UKIP SUPPORT SURGES IN SCOTLAND - FOURFOLD

UKIP SUPPORT SURGES IN SCOTLAND - FOURFOLD

I welcome the UKIP victories in England's councils they not really a surprise to us - and that is not complacency, it is because we have being experiencing a surge in interest from the grassroots of public opinion since the Corby and Rotherham by elections.

I am having to make time to be able to respond to people asking about us. The rate of enquiries and the level of our rise in the opinion polls outpaces our growth in membership. That is because most people who vote do not belong as paid up subscribers to the parties they support.

Our surge has seen us up by 400% in opinion poll ratings. A year ago, we had a vote at elections of just 2%. Polls last year, after Corby, put up us as high as 8 or 9 per cent. A 400% rise. 

Remarkably, the surge is coming from all parties and from none - people who may not have bothered in the past. The public are fed up with political parties who are arrogant and tell them what to think, want to price evrything, even their beer, to suit a political end.

All we want is a strong and sovereign Britain. Seems that that accords with folk, who know it means leaving the disastrous European Union and sticking together un the UK.  

We want stronger defences back; we want far, far fewer regulations and diktats; we want no wasteful subsidised wind turbines; we want simple effective taxes and fair support of those in need, and we want Britain back.

The surge has led UKIP in Scotland to setting up more branches - Lanarkshire, Orkney and Moray are now in being with a branch forming in the Black Isle as well. 

Next week, we launch in the Borders with Professor Tim Congdon addressing us on the awful costs and heavy financial burden of the EU - 10% of our GDP! That's £147 billion. Ordinary people understand where we are coming from - it's where they come from!

BRITAIN MUST LEAVE THE EU TO SAVE HERSELF

Renowned economist and former Treasury Panel “wise man” who advised the Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1992 to 1997, Professor Tim Congdon, is on a speaking tour in Scotland next week.

Professor Congdon is UKIP’s Finance Spokesman. An economist and businessman, he is a strong advocate of sound money and free markets. For over 30 years, he has participated in public policy debates and in the UK’s public policy debates and is often regarded as the UK’s leading “monetarist” economist and as one of its most influential economic commentators.

The talks are open to the public. Mike Scott-Hayward, the Chairman of UKIPScotland said, “All are welcome. Tim’s talk will explain why Britain must leave the EU. In clear terms, he will show how membership of the EU destroys British jobs and makes us poorer."

The tour takes place at four venues: in Links Hotel 4 Alvanley Terrace, Bruntsfield, Edinburgh, EH9 1DU on Wednesday 8^th May at 7.15 pm; on Thursday 9th May at 11 am at The Royal George Hotel, Tay Street, Perth; then at 2.30 pm on Thursday 9^th May at The Braes, 14-18 Perth Road, Dundee; and finally on Thursday 9th May, at 7.00pm at The Salmon Inn, Bank Street in Galashiels.

Venue details and free booking can be found on http://www.ukip.org/scotland/articles/1442-professor-tim-congdons-mini-tour

Cohesion against the madness of wind as a significant energy source

There are a plethora of anti- wind energy groups.

Some wonder why they are not better co-ordinated and why a new  political party has, despite being little more than a group of single issue lobbyists, has registered?

Don't be confused - the ant-wind lobbies are all united together against wind energy; they have a strong message and Scotland Against Spin does quite well in reaching out to them all. 

As they all, however, lack political clout, some have formed a party.  That doesn't solve the wider issue, because the new party's policies are inept.

The reason for the lack of proper clout lies in the persistence of  political loyalties amongst the lobbyists.  This makes it difficult for the various groups to present a single clear political message.

So,  for most part, they proclaim the need to be "non aligned" in order to keep folk on board.

No one who is truly active on any political issue, however, can be wholly devoid of a party political view or avoid a party preference; for the thinking majority, innate and natural party loyalties are hard to drop.  

It is impossible to divide one's soul between a blind loyalty and a conflicting political objective. So there in the unspoken coalition of supporters of all parties (all but UKIP supporters) in which each member silently bears the dilemma that the party for whom loyalty is felt, does in practise support, promote and implement the abhorrent wind energy polices.  

The question is, can "non-alignment" defeat the dynamics of that dilemma?  Need it?  Will the dilemma lead to much, or continual, repositioning?

When the opportunity to have an impact greater than simple objection and protest arrives, that is, when standing at the ballot box, each individual will have to face down their own demons.  

Will they vote then for undying loyalties that promote wind and accept the drive from the EU, or will they think afresh and vote for UKIP, against both the stupidity of wind as a significant energy source, and against the continued subjugation of the UK to EU rules?

We will have to wait to see what they do on the day. In the meantime Salmond sails on, the Coalition continues dodging, and the EU seems unassailable.  A huge rise in UKIP members and poll support for our clear message could, however, shock the incumbents into policy change.

Is democracy losing the battle in the EU?

Can you ignore this?

How can you ignore what the Eu and Common Purpose is doing?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8uBxgoLl-s&feature=g-all

Tory Wind Bluff and Bluster

UKIP Scotland Chairman has dismissed a Tory ploy to hide the fact that the Coalition Government is behind funding the surge in wind farms.

"The Tories have now got everyone bothered about the costs of the planning system and about planning authorities being overwhelmed bybturbine applications.

 

"Yes, it is a waste, but let's get back to the real issue - the economic waste of useless turbines, and the desecration of our landscape. The cost of all the wind energy policies far outweighs the cost of the planning burden on councils, and the Tory politicians have cunningly got away from explaining why their party doesn't  scrap the subsidies and stop the whole nonsense.

 

"It's a red herring.

 

"Liz Smith MSP says 'It is extremely worrying that so many of these local authorities are unable to outline to overall financial cost of this.'

"So, can the Coalition Government outline the full costs of what all the subsidies will amount to over the full life of their schemes?  And how much of the country will be covered by wind farms?

 

"The Conservatives can't see the economic wood for the turbines"

A waste of a By Election

Bradford West will have shocked them a bit but it is a shame that the voters didn't send a real message by electing UKIP - that would signal real intent for the people to have a say across the whole of the UK. Gorgeous George is an eccentric nuisance, effective maybe, but not a nation wide movement. The Coalition can survive George.

OPEN LETTER TO ROD CAMPBELL MSP

OPEN LETTER

Rod Campbell MSP
Scottish Parliament
EDINBURGH

Dear Rod,
I write to seek your immediate active assistance on a matter of concern which is affecting communities across Scotland, but not least in my ward, East Neuk and Landward, in your constituency of North East Fife.

The concern is about the divisive impact which the Feed in Tariff and Community Benefit, provided to support the erection and operation of wind turbines, is having within communities.

The position is simple and easily understood.

We are witnessing a deluge of planning applications for wind turbines and wind farms in East Neuk and Landward, and across your constituency of North East Fife. The driver clearly is the financial benefit which accrues from the various forms of subsidy. I, and many others, consider that without those subsidies, the systems would be wholly uneconomic. A false market is being created and that is leading to considerable potential and actual change to our landscapes.

I would be content to deal with applications on their planning merits alone but I consider that the subsidies are bribes which distort reality. I consider that Scottish Executive's planned resultant pressure must even Have an undue influence on the objectivity of Planning Authority officials. They are human.

Communities are being offered wealth, based on those handouts. In East Neuk and Landward, we have witnessed the loss of a Community Council at Largoward, solely due to the division caused by just such a subsidised application.

Other Community Councils are also facing internal divisions and it may in fact be the case that the conflict of interests they now face is making fair representation by them of their communities impossible.

Further conflicts will arise through the very nature of these small rural communities. Moreover, it is often the case that many of the people who become members of Community Counils also step forward to run Trusts, of various sorts, set up to facilitate, or to gain access to, the subsidised funding packages. The conflicts are obvious.

I understand you were present for a short time at the beginning of a debate in Holytrood on this matter on Thursday 1st December. I hope you will now turn your full attention to this issue, follow the difficulties and debate within your communities and assess the impact which this SNP and Scotttish Executive policy is having.

I suggest you will be well advised to attend a few community council meetings in the East Neuk, the public meeting on the 1st March in St Andrews arranged by Cameron Community Council, and, yes, some sessions of the East Area planning committee.

I will be happy to meet you to elaborate on my concerns about the communities in my ward and in North East Fife in general.

This is, as you will know from the vast correspondence in our local and indeed, increasingly, in national papers, is a growing matter of public interest. I am therefore releasing this as an open letter.

Yours aye

Mike Scott-Hayward
Councillor
East Neuk and Landward

Chairman UKIP Scotland

It started with Blair

We are approaching a period of potentially huge change for the United Kingdom – its possible destruction. Not good news on which to begin 2012. The build up to a referendum which will decide the fate of the United Kingdom has now begun in earnest and the battleground is here, in Scotland. UKIP Scotland is unlikely to be a major player; the media will focus on the establishment and parties with elected parliamentarians – but we can and must be more than observers.

The battle over separatism will be waged over as much as two years and set against the background of the potential, probably pending, collapse of the Euro Zone. Both battles are vital to us and UKIP big guns must deploy here often. The major parties will do so in strength, and we should welcome a strong Unionist fight. Facts and figures and numerous scenarios will be postulated; whilst I believe that ultimately most people will vote based on their emotive roots rather than on sophistry, we must battle to win over the undecided.

The SNP have the upper hand now, the initiative is theirs. It is vital that we all resist any temptation unwittingly to aide and abet separation; the mistake of creating a wholly separate devolved parliament in Scotland, distinct from Britain’s Parliament, must not be replicated elsewhere in Great Britain. Our UKIP policy of abolishing MSPs and replacing them within the Scotland Act with MPs proper is, I believe, right. Indeed, I think an England Act should create devolved parliament on those same lines – existing English MPs sitting for England, with all MPs still together in the House of Commons. We have messed enough with our constitution, an horrendous mistake started by Blair and leading by Coalition complicity towards the unravelling of all thet we have ever been.

Battle for British Unity

It is time that people realise that the Battle for British unity will be fought in Scotland.

The future of the United Kingdom will be decided right here, in Scotland. This is the political battleground. The attack on the UK began when a Labour Government and Donald Dewar created the Scottish Parliament. That was the equivalent of offering the SNP a beachhead and Alex Salmond has long since secured it.

The SNP have carried out political guerrilla raids, creating as many divides as possible, giving away freebies here to cause disgruntlement in England. The Scottish Parliament has been the battlefield tank forcing divides over student fees, prescription charges, and so called free home care. Even Tories in Holyrood have succumbed to the momentum, believing somehow that more autonomous power will mend the widening gap.

The shockwaves are now rippling to the surface, discombobulating the English, many of whom are now reacting exactly as Salmond wishes. We now see the predictable reaction which Salmond wanted as formerly sober minds in England call for an English Parliament.

They would rue it - we all will.

Already, in Scotland, MPs and the proper Parliament are being alienated from the electorate.

Very few people ever go to see an MP about a reserved powers issue - people need to see their highest elected representatives about more domestic concerns: housing, hospitals, pharmacies or schools threatened with closure, vandalism, crime rates and police numbers, yes, even dog dirt. In Scotland, this means that MSPs have the better interface with the electorate while our Scottish MPs become aloof, are channelled towards weighty national and international issues.

These are vital issues but the interaction of Westminster MPs and British subjects in Scotland, and Wales, is waning; the domestic issues that keep MPs in touch, which keep their feet on the ground, are no longer there in Scotland.

The same happening in England as well, will make the UK government increasingly remote from the people. The "assemblies" will become the focus and the Union will erode; that is why I say we must not replicate the error of the devolved bodies as constituted.

UKIP has a firm and sensible policy on this: the electorate should elect one MP for their constituency and that MP should be in Westminster most of the time and in the devolved more local parliament for the remainder.

The devolved body, the Scottish Parliament here, would continue as it is, but devoid of MSPs. In England, when Welsh and Scottish MPs are at work in their devolved home, English MPs would deal with England’s devolved issues. That means both UK national and domestic roles remained linked, through MPs who will keep a direct interface with the electorate and, exactly what is needed, excessive government is cut with fewer politicians overall with time on their hands to think of ways to rule us.

UK party leaders must not be tempted to balance the books by adding more overloaded assemblies to the mix - trim out instead - and engage the UK's number 1 enemy, Salmond, here, in the beachhead which he has established in Scotland

Falkland Responds

Thanks to the Fife Herald publishing my call for a referendum in Falkland, local people got up a petition. Now the SNP councillor is delighted!

And I don't mind in the least that he is now following UKIP policy. He might have said thanks!

He will now carry the message of the people to the Council - they do not want "no alcohol" on the village green. We'll see; local Lib Dems are for the ban - one of them, a leading light, even said that I should stay away as he was best placed to decide who should vote in any referendum...........

You couldn't make it up.

Let the Villagers decide.....

The Community Council in Falkland, Fife, wants the Scottish Parliament to approve an alcohol free zone in the viallge.

I think that all the residents of Falkland should be given the opportunity to comment on whether or not the village should be an alcohol free zone.

UKIP policy is to have a local referendum on such issues - it could very easily be organised by the Community Council by simple having a copy of the electoral register to hand, crossing out the names of those appearing to cast a vote, and asking them to fill in a simple slip.

There are always strong views on both sides of this sort of matter and unless there is an over-riding issue, local views should swing the day. A good turnout will soon let all vested interest know the real common view.

RAF Leuchars closure and UK's Defences

Whilst the impact on St Andrews matters locally, the economic implications will be balanced by the use of the base by the army.

The real implications of what the Cameron and Clegg Government, however, is doing is unforgiveable.

From the time he first came forward to lead the Conservatives, in a contest against David Davies, Cameron dismayed me - he showed then in answers to questions about restoring our traditional regiments, that he has a poor grasp of the overall value of the Armed Forces. It is one reason why I left the Conservatives and joined UKIP.

Other politicians have been parochially vigorous but have not put their careers on the line in the defence of the Armed Services overall. This base closure is just another drastic step in a disastrous chain of events which MPS have sat and watched - indeed, condoned.

Coupled with the concept of building aircraftless aircraft carriers, scrapping ships and reducing the Britsih Army to the point where they couldn't fill Wembley Stadium, this new round of cuts puts us in a position now where we will not be able properly to defend the interests and safety of Britons. The Coalition clearly believes our future role is to play a second fiddle within a European Union Force. Holding on to the nuclear deterrent is all that will gives us credibility within that Force. Balance has gone - the impact is greater than any local disruption we may see North East Fife in the base changing from the RAF to the Army. Folk need to look at policies in future and not have simple pavlovian responses when we have the chance to influence, or choose, future governments.

The elephant in the room is the EU

The elephant in the room is the EU. Let us hope that the three wise monkeys will address the issue in their next debate.

The EU dominates our business rules, employment, health and safety – in short, EU directives and regulations, EU membership, loads us with costs– hampers our trade.

The EU per se costs us a fortune – hindering our economy. Our money is used by the EU to give our competitors the edge over us – infrastructure elsewhere is leaving ours behind.

Out of the EU, the money they currently give back to us can initially still be used as now – at less administrative cost and effort, but we can over time make those spends better match United Kingdom needs. And the net contribution beyond that which comes back to us will give us the room to breathe new life into our own British needs. Moreover, there is nothing to stop us agreeing a really free trade agreement with the EU, getting our seat at the World Trade Organisation back. We could seek to establish a Commonwealth Free Trade Area. And much else.