Cameron delivers on EPP pledge

In case you missed it, David Cameron has carried out a truly Eurosceptic coup. No, he has not pledged to leave the EU (a move which the chatterati claim would be extremist and suicidal but which in fact would be enormously popular with the British electorate). He has, however, made the European Parliament more worthy of the name Parliament: he has given it an official opposition.

Up until now, the European Parliament was dominated by groupings (alliances of parties from various nations) that were all broadly in favour of deeper integration. The biggest of these, the European People's Party, is nominally centre-right but is as pro-EU as the Lib Dims.

Now, thanks in no small part to some masterly statesmanship from Cameron, Hague and others, we have a European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) grouping. This group is opposed to the EU superstate project and provides, for the first time ever, a solid opposition to the project from within.

Most of the liberal media chose to focus on the Conservatives' new bedfellows in the ECR: we were told they were homophobic, racist and so on. This commentary chose to ignore that two governing parties (those of Poland and the Czech Republic) sit in the ECR and that Italian neo-fascists sit in the EPP, which the Tories have now left. But there is no accounting for naked bias in the press.

The ECR will fight expressly for free markets, low taxes, energy security, the importance of the family, national sovereignty, commonsense immigration law, an end to excessive bureaucracy and more. The way the European Parliament works means that it will hold the balance of power in many debates.

This is a great leap forward for conservatives in Europe. Finally, we have a voice in Brussels. Cicero is a hardened Eurosceptic but he admits, and perhaps other conservatives will too, this: if the ECR can help turn the EU into a loose coalition of trading member states, restore power back to nations and boost conservative causes, perhaps EU membership can become a good thing.

Yes, you read that correctly.

EU to regulate City

Despite Alistair Darling's protestations (something for which the man deserves some respect). This is because firstly, as we all know, loose regulation caused the banking crisis and secondly, the EU has a stunning track record of making things better by regulating them.

Nothing to do with the feckless Continentals being jealous of the powerhouse that is the City. No, can't be that.

Innocent victims of our justice system

The murders of two brilliant French students with promising futures by a pair of crack-addled human scumbags has moved even the visionary Jack Straw to apologise for the failures that let one of the pieces of filth free before he had finished being 'rehabilitated'.

The interesting thing about these murders is that they have not provoked the outcry that a miscarriage of justice tends to do. Why? The two students, after all, were victims of our pathetic justice system.

One of the murderers was given a warning by a probation officer for tying up a pregnant woman, a crime for which he should have had his back scarred with a birch. Nonetheless, the official warning probably left him shaking in his criminal boots. So much so that before long he was out there being a valued member of the community.

When an innocent man is hanged, it is tragic and irreversible. The same is true for the victims of killers released when they should not have been. Why is the tiny chance that an innocent might be executed used as an argument against the death penalty, when the quite large chance that a released criminal will kill at random is just accepted?

As with all idealist left-wing policies, the con of rehabilitation without punishment does not actually solve the problem - it just shunts it somewhere else. So that, rather than take on the grim but necessary responsibility for severely punishing criminals, the authorities prefer to enact nice and cuddly programmes then cross their fingers. It takes guts to pull the lever that hangs the guilty, while it takes simple cowardice to release the convict and hope against hope that he will be a good little boy now.

Doubtless the scumbag in question will be put behind bars for a laughable prison term. Before too long he will be free again. There is, of course, only one thing the judge should say and will not be able to: 'you will be taken from here to a place of execution and there hung by the neck until dead. May God have mercy on your soul'.

May the criminal filth and scum have mercy on us. Because we are truly at their mercy.

Eat here

Fast food and sound politics: what's not to like?

On the BNP's victories

From the Daily Mash.

Voters reject the EU (and Labour) again

One of the most telling indictiments against the EU's project for a European superstate is that almost every single time voters are asked whether they want it, they reject it. The Constitution was rejected by French and Dutch voters then in its Lisbon Treaty guise, rejected by the Irish.

The Euro elections on Thursday brought a resounding result for Eurosceptics. Turnout was awful, reflecting the extent to which voters feel disconnected from Brussels. Of those who did turn out, they gave their votes overwhelmingly to the Conservatives, UKIP, Greens (yes, they are moderate sceptics) and, sadly, the BNP. Across Europe, centre-right parties gained while in Holland, Geert Wilders made a breakthrough with his PVV (Party for Freedom).

The BBC's David Dimbleby, usually very even-handed, unfortunately insisted last night on asking silly questions along the lines of "given free market capitalism has failed, why have so many people voted in favour of it?". The answer, of course, is that voters are not that stupid. They know that the free market works, and hasn't 'failed'.

The other organisation given the collective could shoulder was, of course, Labour. Currently demonstrating their gross incompetence in matters of political assassination, the party of smoking bans, pointless wars and astronomical national debt was massacred at the polls, just as it was in the London mayoral elections, the local elections of 2008 and a number of byelections.

The country is finished with Labour. Whether Labour are finished depends on its politicians' ability to develop a spine and give us a General Election. If ever Her Majesty's ability to dissolve Parliament were needed, it is now.

One small victory particularly warmed the hearts of true conservatives everywhere. That was in the northern town of Doncaster, where the new mayor is a member of the obscure but largely sound English Democrats party - though they are anti-British, being in favour of an English Parliament.

Here, voters embraced a man who pledged to cut public funding for homosexual parades, favours an end to mass immigration, wants to withdraw from the EU, will cut translation services for those who cannot speak English, will cut bureaucracy (and his own salary) and hates criminals. A great triumph indeed, and perhaps the template for a future counter-revolution.

D-Day anniversary: heroes outshine mediocre politicians

Putting aside the ridiculous, offensive farce of that pathetic toad Sarkozy not inviting Her Majesty the Queen (who served in the Second World War) to the D-Day commemorations, the event itself was a great tribute to the men who laid down their lives for freedom in Europe.

Tibet

This is too good to be true, surely.

'...the boy chosen by the Dalai Lama as a reincarnation of a spiritual leader has caused consternation – and some embarrassment – for Tibetan Buddhists by turning his back on the order that had such high hopes for him.

Yesterday he bemoaned the misery of a youth deprived of television, football and girls. Movies were also forbidden – except for a sanctioned screening of The Golden Child starring Eddie Murphy, about a kidnapped child lama with magical powers. "I never felt like that boy," he said.'

'Climate change' 'kills' '300,000'

According to Kofi Annan. According to Roger Pielke at the University of Colarado,

'The report is worse than fiction, it is a lie.'

But what's this? Pielke is no climate change 'denier'. He thinks it's a serious problem that needs to be addressed. Is the global warming coalition splitting?

Naturally, such a serious claim of Annan's should be subject to rigourous debate. But it won't be, of course. It'll be accepted and will soon be quoted on Green party leaflets everywhere.

That's because the study of 'climate change' is not a science. It is an accepted a priori fact, and anyone who is sceptical of its claims is looked at in the same way Galileo was looked at by the Catholic church.

This is the problem with discourse. When something becomes accepted mainstream fact, challenges to the underlying theory are dismissed as ideologically-driven or insane. The chief casualty is truth.

Remember: every time you fill up your car, a polar bear perishes. And every time you tell the truth, a lefty somewhere dies.

The significance of expenses-gate

Anyone unfamiliar with the goings-on of British MPs and their expenses is likely to have been living under a rock. But in any case, here is the synopsis: in the 1980s MPs agreed among themselves that instead of a pay rise, which would look bad, they would fiddle expenses instead. This wonderful scam has now been blown apart by a former SAS chap with a disc and a patriotic spirit.

It took a bathplug to bring the house of cards tumbling down. This was followed by duck-houses, moats and all manner of sundries great and small, all paid for by the generous taxpayer. The Telegraph, nominally Tory-aligned (and owned by the belligerent, fiercly Eurosceptic and slightly odd Barclay brothers) has led the way in publishing the embarassing details of expense claims.

What is interesting about this saga is that voters are angry about it. After all, we have lived under a government that has, since 1997, splurged several billions of pounds of our money on three things: pointless wars, the setting up of an oppressive semi-police state and the creation of thousands of public sector 'non-jobs', the only purpose of this last exercise being to shore up the Labour vote via the naked bribery of the plebs.

Perhaps it is the fact that it is far easier to visualise an expenses fiddle. Thinking about the amount of money wasted on the mindless brutalising of Iraq or the shredding of the constitution makes one's eyes glaze over somewhat. Far easier to picture a crooked MP purchasing a packet of Hob Nobs and claiming for it.

The significance of this entertaining episode is that it has broken the fourth wall between the theatre and the stage. When the actors duel with swords or make grand gestures or speak in great soliloquies, the audience is rapt. But when one of the players, unscripted, scratches his backside, the illusion is blown.

So it is with our political class. For well over a decade the voters have believed that their MPs were honourable. They have put up with a lot of rubbish because they were willing to believe that a monster so hideous as Blair was at least doing what he thought was right. This assumption - that politicians may do things with which one disagrees but will always behave honourably - is now null.

Soon the benign virus will spread. The Lords, the quangoes, the local councils, the non-charities - all the battlements of the ruling political class will be stormed. Not by conservative warriors but by intrepid journalists and concerned subjects. Not by ideology but by scrutiny.

In the long run, we will get a humbled political class. And that can only be a good thing.