It's Independence Day in Wythenshawe East & Sale

Polls open today in the Wythenshawe East & Sale by-election after what is possibly the dirtiest by-election campaign we have ever seen, with an unholy alliance of Labour and BNP supporters abusing UKIP activists and voters and committing criminal damage.

The police have had to be called to UKIP's campaign headquarters in Sale four times during the campaign because of the hate campaign which has seen a generator stolen from the office, graffiti daubed on the shutters, stink bombs thrown at the office and harassment and abuse of UKIP activists and voters. People in Wythenshawe & Sale have been ordered by Labour and BNP activists to take down UKIP posters from "our houses".

UKIP has seen by-elections where the local Labour mafia believe they own the whole area and have a god-given right to rule it for all eternity but this is the first time that such wanton criminality has been openly used against the party in a by-election campaign.

The result of the election has almost certainly been decided by postal votes, which Labour - with the help of the corrupt trade unions - always has stitched up (literally). With a big turnout there is a chance of toppling the Labour mafia in Wythenshawe East & Sale or at the very least of giving Labour the bloody nose it deserves.

EU cancer drug rules killing children

The EU isn't just killing baby giraffes, according to the Institute of Cancer Research they're killing children with cancer as well.

The ICR says that the EU's scheme of class waivers for cancer drugs should be abolished because it lets companies restrict who their cancer treatments can be used on and too many companies won't test their drugs on children. The ICR says this means there are plenty of cancer treatments out there that could be used on children but can't be routinely prescribed because of the class waiver and children are dying as a result.

Around 1,600 children are diagnosed with cancer each year and about 260 of those die, some of them unnecessarily because of these class waiver rules. About 331,000 adults are diagnosed with cancer every year and that's where the money is for the drug companies. Testing on children is not only expensive but a clinical trial that results in the deaths of children is hugely damaging reputationally. The drug companies are given exclusivity on their treatments if they test them on children but that obviously isn't enough of an incentive so the answer is either to offer better incentives or punish them for not testing on children. They make so much money that punishment is unlikely to work and at the end of the day we can't do without the product they're selling so more incentives are probably the best option. What form those incentives might take I don't know but if we want to cut the caner death rate in children someone needs to come up with something fairly rapidly.

Of course, the blame for poor access to some cancer drugs can't be laid entirely at the drug companies' feet because the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (laughably abbreviated NICE) has a poor record of investing in life threatening or changing treatments in England. It is because of NICE's penny pinching that we can't get some cancer treatments that are routinely prescribed abroad and even elsewhere in the UK. It's because of NICE that elderly people in England go blind when their sight can be saved because the cancer drug that cures the most common cause of blindness in old people is too expensive for English people. The drug companies absolutely need to be taken to task for not making their drugs available for children but the daily injustices meted out by NICE also need to be challenged.

Demographic Instability

A deeply unsettling article recently published in the Daily Telegraph predicts the second age of machines. Unlike much of futurology the thesis of the article, namely that many service sector jobs will be replaced by machines that exhibit a substantial degree of artificial intelligence, is not at all far-fetched, or that far away.

In fact, we can see the process is already starting: at the low skills end of the market, supermarket checkout staff have already been largely replaced by automated checkouts. Increasingly, the advertising you see on the internet and elsewhere is decided by machines that learn and predict your desires, aspirations and fears. In politics, we are entering the era of the data-driven election, already credited as being instrumental in the re-election of President Obama in the United States.

And it doesn't stop there: in three years, Google hope to be testing it's driverless cars - which have already driven huge distances in the United States with a far better than human safety record - in the UK.

Ah, you say, every technological revolution that comes along destroys jobs but in the end creates new ones: just so, but does it create jobs for everyone?

History shows us that the answer, very sadly, is no. The deindustrialisation that accelerated from the 1970s onwards stripped many male manual jobs permanently from Western economies, leaving whole classes of society with poor prospects and social problems that blight our society to this day. The second machine age will be no different, with the carnage this time being inflicted on low and mid-skilled service level jobs. Meanwhile the highly skilled, particularly those with highly numerate skills in science and mathematics, will see their wages continue to rise and wealth will be increasingly concentrated even more so than it is today.

For a society to survive the huge disparities that the second machine age will produce will require a very strong level of social cohesion, as it will necessitate very large wealth transfers from the rich to the poor. Meanwhile, the political class have been busy building precisely the opposite to what is needed, reducing social cohesion and lowering skills through mass unskilled immigration - much of which from Islamic cultures actively hostile to the scientific enquiry needed for wealth creation - as well as dumbing-down education and encouraging the dominance of an international metropolitan superclass which has little or no allegiance to the ordinary people of this country.

The only silver lining to these otherwise highly destabilising developments is that they are actually highly favourable to UKIP. It is often said by the complacent LibLabCon that demographically speaking, UKIP is doomed, as we represent the elderly and the economically insecure. Well, the elderly and economically insecure are about to get a whole lot more numerous. Fundamentally, the new machine age is a new phase in the neo-medieval age this blog has always argued we live in. That age  is about to turn pretty nasty for most people, and we had better have solutions when it does so.

Switzerland votes to end open borders with the EU

Switzerland has narrowly voted to end its free movement agreement with the EU and restrict immigration from EU countries after 50.3% of participants voted to take control of their borders back from the EU in a national referendum.

Since 2007, EU citizens have been allowed to live and work in Switzerland with equal access to jobs and vice versa. About 80,000 people per year have moved to Switzerland from EU countries in the last 6 years which represents around 6% of Switzerland's population. The total permanent immigrant population in Switzerland is about 23% and 82% of Switzerland's population growth is a result of immigration. Two Swiss cantons have a majority immigrant population: in Geneva, the "native" Swiss make up just 37.8% of the population and 48.9% in Basel-Stadt. Switzerland has the highest percentage immigrant population in the world.

Unemployment in Switzerland is fairly low at about 3.4% of the workforce and much lower than its 1997 peak of around 5.4% but it has been volatile over the last few years and understandably there is concern amongst Swiss citizens that jobs are going to EU immigrants when there are people in Switzerland without a job.

The pro-EU lobby tells us that if we swapped EU membership for a free trade agreement like Norway or Switzerland then we would be subjected to "fax democracy" where we are forced to adopt EU rules without any say on making them. EFTA countries are involved in the decision making process so it's factually incorrect anyway but this decision shows that far from having no say on the rules that apply to our country, we would have absolute control over them. The EU says that Switzerland must have open borders with the EU but the Swiss people say they don't so they won't.

UKIP has a policy of introducing Swiss-style referenda that would give us the same ability to pick and choose which EU rules we want to comply with. The Swiss rely on the EU for over half their exports which puts them in a much weaker position than the UK because even the fiddled EU export figures show that we export less to the EU than we do to the rest of the world and that percentage is decreasing year on year. If the Swiss have the courage to rattle sabres with the EU from a relatively weak position then why shouldn't we from a strong one?

Who knew there was an EU directive on interbreeding giraffes?

Copenhagen Zoo is planning to put down an 18 month old giraffe because EU rules on interbreeding mean that they can't allow it to breed with the giraffes they already have.

Animal rights campaigners are trying to save the animal but the zoo have been unable to relocate it. They intend to kill the giraffe with a bolt gun, dissect it and feed the meat to other animals.

Even baby giraffes aren't safe from the EU!

Update:
Marius was put down this morning.

Update 2:
Some anti-UKIP tweeters have criticised this post because the rules on interbreeding are made by the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria which isn't part of the EU. The EAZA make have made the rules but they are implemented by EU Directive 1999/22/EC which became law in England in 2002 (2003 for Scotland, Wales and NI) and further clarified in the British government's Zoo Expert Committee Handbook.

Give your postal vote to the Post Office not the Labour Party

In response to the discovery that the Trade Unions and Labour Party Liaison Organisation is collecting postal vote applications and passing the details on to the Labour Party, UKIP has taken out this newspaper advert:

Cameron shows his contempt for the public and parliament - alcohol minimum pricing.

I just wrote to my MP via www.writetothem.com - may be you should too? (use your own words!)

Dear Simon Kirby,

I was very disappointed to see that the coalition government have brought in minimum alcohol pricing by the back door.

Some time ago David Cameron had made this a 'flagship policy', but (apparently) in the face of public (and so MP) opposition performed a U-Turn and dropped it. (http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23346532)

Now it is reported that rather than dropping it, a way was sought to bring it in with out allowing the public (or MPs) to have a say. (http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26040550)

I cannot express how disgusting I find this behaviour by the government in sidestepping the public and MPs.

David Cameron has a record of abusing his position, which he acknowledges - so much so that he sought to support an EU referendum law, as he knew his word alone would be trusted by very few voters.

This 'back door' introduction of law is a very EU method of working (as per working time directive being brought in via 'health and safely' because UK had an opt-out on 'employment' regulations).

I hope you are as mortified by this evasion of parliamentary accountability as I am.

Of course, by adding this to his record of deceitfulness and deviousness, the public will be reassured that any referendum promised by David Cameron will only ever deliver (by fair means or foul) the result that he wants.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Perrin

First published at http://free-english-people.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/cameron-shows-his-contempt-for-public.html

Help UKIP win the Wythenshawe & Sale East by-election

Voters will go to the polls in the Wythenshawe & Sale East by-election next Thursday with a chance to make history and elect UKIP's first MP.

UKIP candidate John Bickley is a local businessman who grew up on a council estate in Wythenshawe. He has worked for EMI Records, MCA Records, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studies, Psygnosis and Sony and is now in high tech startups. Westminster needs real people who have made their own success, not millionaire lawyers and lifelong politicians and former Labour man John Bickley is just the sort of person we need.

There is still time to help out in the by-election campaign either financially or practically. If you want to help UKIP win the Wythenshawe & Sale East by-election you can find details on the UKIP website.

Tory troll Joshua Bonehill-Paine charged with making malicious communications

Internet troll and Tory, Joshua Bonehill-Paine, has been charged with making malicious communications and will appear in court this week.

EDL supporter Bonehill runs the Daily BALE website and has been behind a large number of attacks on UKIP members, left wing campaigners and their family members. His attacks are usually based on entirely fictitious stories and are intended to whip up hatred from his far right followers. He has previously admitted to being behind a number of high profile attacks on UKIP members, saying that it was his job as a Conservative.

Bonehill was arrested in 2011 for using his Conservative Party membership card to break into a police station in Somerset and steal a uniform and then assaulting police officers who tried to arrest him.

Conservative Party member was part of a child kidnap gang

A Tory defector to UKIP who resigned after he was found to have been a member of a gang that kidnapped a child in Karachi in 2004 has made the headlines today after the press found out about his shady past.

Mujeeb Bhutto defected from the Conservatives to UKIP and became the party's Commonwealth spokesman last year. When his conviction for kidnap and blackmail was discovered he resigned and went back to the Tories with his tail between his legs. The Tories have since said that his membership renewal was not accepted but he received an email from the Conservative Party purporting to be from David Cameron thanking him for joining and an email from the chairman of his local constituency association welcoming him back to the party.

The media gleefully reported the "UKIP Comonwealth spokesman" who was part of a kidnapping gang this morning even though he said he had rejoined the Conservatives. It wasn't until the emails confirming he had rejoined the Conservative Party were published on Guido Fawkes that the BBC backtracked and reported his new Tory membership although the newspapers continue to mislead readers by portraying Bhutto as a UKIPper when he's a Tory.

German Foreign Minister says UKIP is a threat to peace in Europe

The German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has claimed that UKIP and other eurosceptic parties are a threat to peace in Europe.

In a speech in London in which he blames the First World War on European countries not talking to each other rather than Austria-Hungary and Germany invading their neighbours, Herr Steinmeier appears to call for UKIP and eurosceptic parties in other countries to be banned:

History before the First World War was a history of not talking to each other, of nationalisms which could no longer be [tamed] by reason. These dangers have to be forever banned.

In 2011 the EU claimed to have been responsible for 50 years of peace in Europe and was later shamefully given the Nobel Peace Prize despite the continent experiencing almost constant armed conflict throughout those 50 years and the only genocide in Europe since the second world war happening under the watch of EU peacekeepers.

There has been no peace in Europe for 50 years and if Herr Steinmeier is suggesting that the only reason Germany hasn't started a third world war is because it can control the rest of Europe via the EU rather than through armed conflict then that's very worrying and would indicate that Germany needs to be quickly disarmed for the safety of Europe and the rest of the world.

Corruption costs EU economies €120bn per year

The EU Commission has released the findings of a study into corruption in the EU (no, I don't think they were being ironic) which shows that fraud and bribery are costing the collective economy of the EU €120bn per year.

It isn't clear from the reports whether the estimated €4bn a year that is lost to fraud within EU budgets is included in this €120bn but presumably it isn't as an assessment of the level of corruption in EU institutions was dropped early on. It will come as no surprise that the report was accompanied by a call for the EU's fraud investigation department, OLAF, to be given more money. The report says that the quality of corruption investigations varies widely across the EU so calls for more powers and harmonisation will no doubt follow shortly.

Unsurprisingly, corruption was most prolific in Greece and Spain where between 60-69% of people said they were personally affected by corruption in their daily life. Romania and Croatia were next at 50-59% and Italy and Slovakia at 40-49%. The UK was low down the corruption list at 10-19%.

The Lords have killed David Cameron's EU referendum bill

Multiculturalism, Libertarianism and the Laffer Curve

Just when we had finally got the foul taste of New Labour cynicism out of our mouths, up pops Ed Balls to remind us of just amoral, scheming, cowardly and unprincipled his party was during the 13 long and dismal years they were in power.

Balls is well aware that New Labour only brought in the 50p tax rate in the twilight of Gordon Brown's administration. The intention, of course, was to damage the incoming Tories who would almost certainly have to cut the rate in order to stop capital flight abroad.   They could then easily be painted as 'the party of the privileged' by Labour  (admittedly not hard to do when the Tories really are led by a cabal of very wealthy toffs who patently have problems concealing their snobbish disdain for the masses). And so it all proved.

So much for the Politics, how about the economics? Ever since Nigel Lawson cut the top rate of income tax from 60% to 40% in the 1980s, whenever this political hot potato is mentioned there comes a repetitive and rather futile debate of the famous (some would say notorious) "Laffer Curve": namely the point at which tax revenues start to decline because the wealthy, feeling themselves overtaxed, either stop working, hide their assets or even leave the country altogether. 

The debate is futile because both left and right simplify the economics to a grotesque degree. The Left completely refuse to listen to the argument  and continue to state, in their usual dreary zero-sum-game way, that any kind of rate cut must lead to lower tax revenues. The Right, equally absurdly, claim that any size of rate cut would result in  higher tax revenues. Plainly there is a middle ground where an optimum amount of revenue is raised.

That is a pity, because the most interesting things about the Laffer Curve is that the shape of the curve rests on primarily two independent factors: (a) the relative amount of friction in transferring your assets or your location of work and (b) the perceived justice of the amount you are being asked to pay in tax.

In an age of instant electronic transfers and communication, the transfer of wealth has never been more frictionless, acting to decrease the tax rate at which maximum revenue is obtained. As for the morality factor, this is very much a cultural issue: as a rule, people are much more happy to pay high tax rates for redistribution towards people they judge to have similar values and affinity with themselves. Therefore, culturally homogenous societies find it much easier to live with high rates of taxation for the wealthy than multicultural societies do. A good example of this are the Scandinavian countries, who until recent years combined impressive wealth-creating economies with eye-watering, almost marxist levels of government spending and taxation. This was possible because their societies had exceptional levels of internal cultural homogeniety. 

The shape of the Laffer Curve, therefore, varies substantially in both time, as friction in wealth transfer changes inline with technological change, and also in space, between different nations and cultures. Even more interestingly, the second "morality" factor also applies to people at much lower levels on the income scale than the super-rich: people on modest incomes get very angry indeed at the idea of being taxed in order to pay benefits to those they judge to have very different cultural values to their own. However, lacking the ability of the global rich to simply transfer their assets and move with them, this wider electorate  instead becomes progressively more libertarian in outlook and starts to vote accordingly.

In a British context, recent cultural changes spell very bad news indeed for those such as the palaeo-socialist Owen Jones who pine after that old time religion of "tax and spend". The growth of an international Metropolitan super-class who have no particular loyalty to Britain or the British on the one hand, plus mass immigration, multiculturalism and the growth of a social underclass on the other, combine to create the conditions for libertarianism, not socialism, to flourish. If you want evidence of that, just look at the genuine outrage generated by Channel 4's programme "Benefit Street". Witness, also, Jones' obvious bafflement as to why his 70s Bennite tribute act, The People's Assembly', is not maturing into the mass movement he was certain it would.

All of which leaves politics in a philosophical quandary: the culturally homogenous society that underwrote the formation of the modern Welfare State is gone forever, and reform of that system, however welcome, is plainly not enough. Instead we need to think long and hard about the society we want to be: to what extent do we strive for cultural uniformity, reversing the absurdities produced by decades of multiculturalism, in order to preserve a measure of social justice and harmony; how we can change the tax system in truly innovative ways; how to counteract our dangerous economic reliance on the London City-state; the degree to which a truly libertarian society can be made to work without introducing the dog-eat-dog rapacity it's critics claim it would, and so on.

There are no easy answers, but we had better start thinking of solutions now. Muddling through is no longer an option.

UKIP Weather

Nigel Farage presents a light hearted weather forecast for the BBC. This is political genius.