HardPounding YI Podcast on all things UKIP & Beyond: Episode 2 OUT NOW

The HardPounding Podcast is back for a second installation. On this episode we have myself, Harry Aldridge and Sean Howlett as hosts.

The topics covered include tokenism and ethnic minorities in political parties, the UKIP television broadcast in May of this year and the legalisation of drugs issue.

Click here to download the podcast.

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Violent protests in Greece

Protests in Athens turned violent again yesterday with ordinary Greeks protesting against their government's attempts to plunge Greece even further into debt to avoid the inevitable default on their national debt.

Greece has already been bailed out once and with the latest proposed bailout, will owe the EU and the IMF €110bn just from the bailouts.  The current proposed EU bailout of €12bn (plus a few billion more from the IMF which the UK will be contributing to despite Cameron's Cast Iron Promise™ that we would not be part of another Greek bailout) is conditional on the Greek government implementing a €28bn EU-approved austerity plan which 70% of Greeks oppose.

The Greek government finds itself in a quite unique position in that the Greek people aren't asking their government to sort out their economy, they're demanding that they default on their debts and bankrupt the country.  And why not?  There is no way out of this for Greece, they will have to be bailed out over and over again until they default.  They will be paying back the EU and the IMF for generations, if they can ever afford to pay them back at all.  The British government has indebted our children and our grandchildren bailing out the Scottish banks but the Greeks are burying their grandchildren's children and grandchildren in debt.

The only way out for Greece is to default on its debt, reject the EU's austerity plan, refuse any more bailouts and leave the Euro.  You can't grow an economy if people don't have money in their pockets and you can't deal with rampant inflation or crippling exchange rates if your currency is pegged at a rate that suits Germany.

Dear Iceland, just say "Neitun þakka EU!"

Iceland is still not sold on EU membership with the immoral EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) the main stumbling block.

70% of Iceland's exports are from fishing and the EU's draconian and shambolic CFP would decimate Iceland's economy.  Forget about the Icelandic banks going bust, they're small fry compared to the fishing industry and you can't eat krónur.

The CFP imposes strict quotas on the amount of fish a fisherman can catch with swingeing fines for catching over their quota.  Such is the inflexibility of the CFP (it doesn't allow a fisherman to go over quota one month and then under the next to average their catch out) that a million tons of fish a year are thrown overboard dead to avoid paying the fines.  And this policy was supposedly brought in to help conserve fish stocks!

The EU is "negotiating" with Iceland over the CFP which will be a careful balancing act ensuring no material changes are made to what is on offer whilst spinning superficial, temporary concessions as agreeing to Iceland's "red lines".  The Icelandic government is sold on the idea of EU membership because it has no idea how to get the country out of recession but the ultimate decision lies with the Icelandic people who will have to agree to EU membership.  They'd be insane to join the EU but as we all know, the EU doesn't take no for an answer and they'll just keep on asking again and again until they get the "right" answer.

Tory "Mainstream Euroscepticism" means ever closer union

A group of 14 recently elected Conservative MPs have written to the Financial Times to set out what Conservative Home calls "mainstream euroscepticism" which basically amounts to continuing membership of the EU, ever-closer union and a refusal to listen to the majority of the general public when they say they want out of the corrupt EUSSR.

We have to rely on the Tory chief apologist, Tim Montogerie, for snippets of the letter as it's behind the Financial Times paywall (according to the Chair of the Propaganda Committee Montgomerie the letter was sent to the FT to show how important it was) but from what he says their "mainstream euroscepticism" can be summed up as:

• We must take the taxpayers’ side in resisting further bail-outs;
• Liberalisation of trade;
• The principle of subsidiarity;
• Wholesale reduction of the waste for which the European Commission is responsible;
• Above all we must start getting some value in return for the significant sums that UK taxpayers contribute to the EU’s budget

You just couldn't make this up.  This "mainstream euroscepticism" is more eurosceptic than the party line remember but it's basically a re-hash of Wee Willy Vague's "in Europe, not run by Europe" rhetoric that means bugger all, as evidenced by the string of EU power-grabs since the ConDem's came to power.

There is a suggestion that this group - who claim they could have got 100 MPs to sign the letter if it wasn't for those pesky kids they weren't too worried about their jobs as private secretaries to other MPs and they'd had more time - are in some way risking the wrath of David Cameron which is, of course, a nonsense.  They're toeing the party line, refusing to even contemplate leaving the EU as most voters want.  Tim Montgomerie also seems quite impressed (relieved?) that up to 100 Tory MPs could be sympathetic to the idea of "mainstream euroscepticism".  Which is all well and good but why do they think 100 Tory MPs putting their names to a letter calling for the UK to remain a member of the EU despite a large majority of the electorate wanting out is any better than 14 of them signing one?

There is only one party espousing "mainstream euroscepticism" and it's certainly not the Tories.  Having the view that we should leave the EU is apparently "impossibilism" (another "Montgomerieism") and not something that has a place in the europhile Conservative Party.  There's only one way we will every get out of the EU and that's with UKIP MPs fighting for withdrawal in Westminster.

Ne nos indúcas in tentatiónem, sed libera nos a Euro

Nigel Farage led a funeral march past the EU Commission building on Friday while a priest administered the last rites to the Euro.

After the stunt he answered questions from the media about UKIP, the EU and Greece in particular.  He predicted, once again, that the Euro would not survive in its current form and that Greece would require a third bailout if it wasn't allowed to default on its debt now.

There is a concern that a Greek default would cause bank failures across Europe and of course that is always a risk, you would have to be naive to suggest that there was no risk involved.  But risk isn't just a measure of the likelihood of something happening, it's a combination of the likelihood of it happening, the impact if it happens and the control you have over the factors affecting the likelihood of whatever it is you don't want to happen to happen.

Greece will default eventually, it already has unsustainable levels of public debt.  Greece will require a third bailout and that will expose the banks even further.  Nigel said it's better they default and the banks get half of what they're owed now than they default after a third bailout and the banks get nothing and he's right.  I've worked in insolvency and debt recovery, I'm not entirely clueless in these matters.  Ok, it wasn't dealing in sovereign debt or debts of millions of pounds but the principle is still the same - you can keep throwing good money after bad trying to get all our money back or you cut your losses and get what you can before their house gets repossessed.

The best thing Greece can do is default on its debt and start again.  It's what people do when they're so far in debt they could never hope to repay it and it's what Greece should do.

EU foreign office now on 62 UN committees

Not long ago, William Hague was frightfully annoyed at Baroness Ashton's success at getting her EU foreign office the right to speak on behalf of all EU member states at the United Nations.

He promised to ensure that the EU foreign office's involvement in the UN was "strictly limited" to attending the General Assembly.  A Cast Iron Guarantee™ from Wee Willy Vague made in the House of Commons to concerned MPs from both sides of the floor.

Now the EU foreign office has got itself onto 61 more UN committees and Wee Willy Vague's Cast Iron Guarantee™ to "strictly limit" the EU foreign office's influence in the UN has been proven to be as worthless as David Cameron's Cast Iron Guarantee™ to give us a referendum on the EU Constitution/Lisbon Treaty.

The Earl of Dartmouth, UKIP MEP in the south west of England, warned that "the EU is diminishing Britain's influence in the world" whilst the Tory Minister for the EU and one of Cameron's close circle of europhile advisors, David Lidington, described the EU speaking on behalf of the UK in 62 UN committees despite Wee Willy Vague's Cast Iron Guarantee™ he wouldn't let it happen as a "simple technical change".

Can you help identify the Grimsby Slasher?

The woman in this video caused hundreds of pounds of damage to UKIP posters during the election campaign in Grimsby last month.  Humberside Police are appealing for help in catching the Grimsby Slasher.

Where do the LibDems and Nick Clegg really sit on UK Sovereignty? Here we see all...

The president of the LibDems MEP group in Brussels talks about his contempt for Her Majesties Government. A government that includes the LibDems and Nick Clegg! The LibDems' president also talks about his contempt for the people of the UK retaining sovereignty over their affairs, and calls on the UK government (which includes Cleggs LibDems) to transfer UK soverign rights and responsibilities to the EU.

Dynamite - someone really must confront Clegg with this.

In the mean time write to your LibDem MEPs (if you have one) and get their explanation of why they have a president that holds Nick Clegg's coalition government in such contempt - or does maybe Nick agrees with him? maybe just keeping it quiet?).

This site makes writing to you MEPs (and other elected representatives) simple http://www.writetothem.com/

No petition is going to save the UK from the EU.

UKIP received almost 1 million votes in the 2010 General Election.

Despite all the other issues that were floating around at the time - such as the economy, banking crisis, recession, Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg, the return of the Conservatives - almost 1 million people had a different number one priority. Their priority was an immediate withdrawal from the EU so the UK could be governed once again by our elected MP's at Westminster without bowing to Brussels.

How many signatures on a petition would be needed to give a stronger message than then 919,546 votes that UKIP received? A vote must be worth at least 10 times a signature on a petition, so unless a petition is aiming to collect around 10,000,000 signatures it is just a diversion of effort and distraction.

Don't bother with signatures for petitions - get signatures on UKIP membership forms. UKIP is the only party that wants the UK out of the EU for the benefit of every UK citizen.

Damian Green pretends to control immigration

The Tory Immigration Minister, Damian Green, has announced a change in rules that he says will limit the number of immigrants allowed to stay in the UK.

He says we need to be "more selective about who we allow to stay" and that he intends to "break the automatic link between coming to the UK to work and settling here permanently".  He also says that skilled workers coming into the country "should expect to leave the UK after a maximum of five years" and that "in future, only a tightly controlled minority will be permitted to stay permanently, where it is in the interests of the UK to do so".  He even says that the British government is considering only allowing dependents of immigrants to stay in the UK if they speak English.

Great stuff from Damian Green.  No more Romanian mafioso trafficking young girls into the country.  No more Polish plumbers coming into the country thinking we've still got a shortage and not being able to find work.  No more eastern Europeans coming here even though they have no home or jobs and claiming benefits.  Great job.

Except it won't apply to the EU will it?  The British government are only allowed to be more selective about who they allow to stay as long as they don't come from an EU country.  The British government can only break the automatic link between coming to the UK to work and settling here permanently as long as they don't come from an EU country.  The British government can only make people go home after they've been here five years as long as they don't come from an EU country.  The British government can only tightly control the number of people who are permitted to stay in the UK as long as they don't come from an EU country.  The British government can only require people wanting to stay in the country learn to speak English first if they don't come from an EU country.

Damian Green, like all LibLabCon politicians and their policies on immigration, is a joke.  Half a billion people from all over the EU are entitled to live here, work here, claim benefits here and they can stay for as long as they want, don't have to speak English and even if they commit crimes here they can't be deported.

There aren't enough jobs and houses to go around the people who already live here - we don't need any more economic immigration.  UKIP policy is to ban all economic immigration for five years for everyone, even if they live in the EU.  If we need economic immigration after the five years then it will be restored in a controlled manner, not the unfettered immigration introduced by Labour and continued by the ConDems.

Mobility Scooter Stolen in Blakemore

There really are some sick people in the world and unfortunately it looks like some of them are in Brookside.


Today's Shropshire Star is reporting that a 59 year old man has had his mobility scooter stolen from his back garden in Blakemore over the weekend.

You either have to be very desperate or morally desolate to steal somebody else's possessions but I didn't think anybody was that desperate or devoid of morals that they would steal a mobility scooter from a disabled man.

If anyone has any information on this theft you can contact CrimeStoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or contact me anonymously and I will pass on the information on your behalf.

The HardPounding UKIP Podcast- OUT NOW!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE HARD POUNDING UKIP PODCAST EPISODE 1

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The HardPounding UKIP Podcast is out now. This is the first episode of what is sure to be many more to come. In the show we discuss various topics including UKIP's views on cuts, Marta Andreasen's comments about Nigel Farage, David Campbell Bannerman's defection to the Tories and the Pan European Party debate where we interview Sean Howlett from the YES side of the argument.

Your comments are welcome. Was it too long? Was it too short? Should there have been more topics covered? What topics would you like covered for the next show? Would you like to appear on the show? Would you prefer it in a different file format? Would you prefer to be able to stream it online? Want iTunes integration? Good or bad, we're open to feedback!

Order of topics:

1. Introduction

2. Rally Against Debt

3.UKIP's views on cuts

4. David Campbell Bannerman's defection

5. Marta Andreasen's calls for Nigel Farage to resign as leader

6. The Pan European Party issue

7. Sean Howlett argues why we should vote yes to PEP

8. Outro

Length: 30 mins

Don't forget to share the HardPounding UKIP Podcast with your UKIP friends and family!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE HARD POUNDING UKIP PODCAST EPISODE 1

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