We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Why pay when you can plunder? More ‘social justice’ from Brussels.
[From UK Times]
WITH business-class air fares paid and an all-day limousine service on tap, Euro MPs had only to pay for the taxi home after dining out in Brussels’ vaunted restaurants. Now they have eliminated even that small cost.
Blithely ignoring charges of “moral corruption”, MEPs have voted to give themselves an allowance of up to €50 (£34) a week to cover the cost of getting back to their Brussels pads after the free limousine service ends at 10pm.
It’s the concern for the poor and needy that makes European politics so progressive.
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What I’m personally finding so troubling about this steady trickle of stories about the way our lords and masters in the EU conduct themselves is that so few Britons seem to give a damn.
Why on earth aren’t we rioting? And if not rioting, at least voting these venal, meretricious bastards out of public office?
What is it going to take before the people of this country wake up to what is being done to them?
That’s just great. I was wondering why I bothered to go to work and earn money. Now I know! My life has meaning after all…
When i was a kid everyone wanted to be a footballer…Having fun while making big money! Nowadays everyone want’s to be a Euro MP…doing NOTHING while making big money.
G Cooper asks why the voters do nothing about the hauteur and arrogance with which the Brussels MEPs and bureaucrats render unto themselves that which is ours.
Surely it is because it is like trying to land a knockout punch on fog? The whole EU edifice is opaque, grey, shadowy. We know the names of none of the players except the few self-promoters – Chris Patten and that dynamic duo, Neil and Glenys Kinnock. I think most of us could not put a face to any of the rest of the tens of thousands of them who are entitled to business class travel, limousine service, taxi fares after 10 p.m. and handsome pensions.
Every once in a while someone we’ve never heard of in yet another department we didn’t know existed announces a “war on waste” (getting rid of the CAP would be a start, BTW) and that is the last we hear of it. We read of massive fraud in a related organisation we’ve never heard of before and that story, too, gurgles quietly down the drain. We read that auditors have refused to sign off on the cooked accounts of some department or other, but the jaganath simply rumbles on with unsigned-off accounts.
People are now so browbeaten by the huge, faceless Brussels ruling machine that they seem to prefer not to remember that every taxi fare for every little leach who “worked” after 10 p.m. (ha ha!) comes out of their paycheque. Every business class ticket (or even every economy class ticket – where the hell are all these people flying to anyway?) comes out of their family’s budget. Every five-star lunch or dinner – is that exact amount less spent on schoolznhospitals at home.
What the hell do all these tens of thousands of people do for a living anyway and why?
It is all intentionally amorphous. We are living in a dictatorship but we don’t know who the dictators are. That, G Cooper, as you already know – but how plaintive that you asked – is why the voters of Europe grimace, feel a fleeting moment of puzzlement, then, defeated, get on with their lives and forget it.
From the comments above, it appears that the MEPs have succeeded.
The populace is docile, resigned, but still [relatively] able to send them cash.
Mission Accomplished
John J Coupal – It is a further indication of how opaque the EU is that I am not at all sure it is the doing of the MEPs. I think they’re just a bunch of cat’s paws. It is the tens of thousands of unelected bureaucrats who pull the strings behind the scenes in Brussels. In fact, I’ve never read of a single law being passed by the MEPs, come to think of it. It’s all “directives” from faceless bureaucrats that get incorporated, undebated, into the lawbooks of the various EU nations. The MEPs are window dressing.
I watched Yes Minister last night. The crux of the story was Sir Humprhey got his way because local town councillors were more interested in money and perks than what their constituents neeeded.
While the EU is extravagent, how many of you look closer to home at the rewards for your local borough and county councillors?
In fact, I’ve never read of a single law being passed by the MEPs, come to think of it. It’s all “directives” from faceless bureaucrats that get incorporated, undebated, into the lawbooks of the various EU nations. The MEPs are window dressing.
Well, the reason for that is how the EU was set up not to be paramount over local parliaments and governments Verity.
Surely you have looked up on how the EU works?
At the very least you ought to know your enemy otherwise you are ill equipped to fight it.
Dave, Surely if its “directives” are required to be incorporated undebated into national parliaments, the EU *is* paramount over local and national elected governments?
Verity, perhaps you should look up how it works then?
This is a problem at the heart of the way the British Constitution works though.
I don’t need to look anything up. The wheels of the jaganath crush everything in its path, including freedom – and the tumbril’s still rolling. The rule of preserving liberty through eternal vigilance was crushed by it, because the people who sought assurances that British liberty would be preserved were ridiculed out of court by that fat, monstrous traitor Edward Heath in his faux ‘upper class’, dismissive accent. People were ridiculed for wanting to preserve the liberty their ancestors had fought and died for for a thousand years. Now, on top of a goody-two-shoes socialist state, we’ve got a bloated, unanswerable communist superstate.
Dave, the fine print’s beside the point.
Verity writes:
“Dave, the fine print’s beside the point.”
You are, of course, quite right – it definitely is. But it is easier to seek refuge in it rather than address the issue.
So let’s try again – and perhaps this time Mr. O’Neil will address the question, rather than attempting to divert it with irrelevancies about the expenses and intrigues of local councillors? Two wrongs, and all that…
How does he, as a defender of the EU, propose that the hitherto unstoppable levels of corruption and largesse be brought under control? And if they cannot be then why does he continue to believe the EU is a A Good Thing?
Dave O’Neill,
As I believe I have said previously (and if I have not let me state it clearly now), the problems of gross over-government and corruption in the UK will not be solved by leaving the European Union.
However, we cannot begin the process of reform until we do.
How does he, as a defender of the EU, propose that the hitherto unstoppable levels of corruption and largesse be brought under control? And if they cannot be then why does he continue to believe the EU is a A Good Thing?
Firstly, linking largesse and corruption is ridiculous. There isn’t a nation on Earth who doesn’t think their politicians aren’t getting away with Murder when it comes to their recompense.
The corruption is a problem and personally I’d start with the UK using the EU like the rest of Europe and watching the other members squeal like stuck pigs as we also do like the rest. I suspect change would be faster than trying to pull out and the damage I suspect that would do to the UK.
I’ve not universal solution btw, just unlike David I don’t think the UK by itself is any better at resolving the issues of liberty and largesse among our politicians than the EU is.
Dave O’Neill – We know who to hold to account in the British Parliament. The point of my posts above is the Kafkaesque anonymity of the people shifting the scenery and writing the scripts in the EU.
You also seem not to realise that there is dissatisfaction with the EU among citizens of other countries. It’s not just the Brits. We should get out before the coils tighten any further. The last thing we need is the deadweight of a gigantic failing economy round our necks. Five million unemployed in Germany. France has just breached the unbreachable Growth and Stability pact. No one is sticking to the euro rules. It’s sauve qui peu.
We know who to hold to account in the British Parliament.
And yet we don’t seem to do anything about it Verity. Why is that?
I accept that there is dissatification abroad, just like here. There is also quite a lot of quiet satisfaction as shown by the “soft numbers” in every opinion poll and the close nature of the referenda held.
“There is also quite a lot of quiet satisfaction as shown by the “soft numbers” in every opinion poll and the close nature of the referenda held.”
Held again and again and again and again…..
Held again and again and again and again…..
Some have, some haven’t. Your point would be?
I think his point is how the EU just keeps on asking the same question of the voters, until they provide the right answer.
After all, the Treaty of Nice was illegal by their own rules thanks to Ireland, but the Irish people were evidently wrong by voting against their lords and masters in Brussels, and a few billion$ of propaganda later, rubber stumped the correct answer so the Eurocrats could go ahead.
The sooner the EU moves from current affairs to history, the better.
Toryboy, of course it was the elected government of Ireland who kept asking that question. They could have refused.
Perhaps the Irish people and yourselves should be asking that question.
I would love to, but there are a few problems here.
Tony Blair is dead set against it, because he reckons he’d lose.
b) Its a bit of a lose-lose for the eurosceptics, because a No vote means we will be made to vote again in five years time. And if that fails, yet again in another five, ad infinitum, until the eurosceptics “lose”. On the other hand, if the europhiles win, it’ll be done and dusted, the end, until I join the Maquis in 2020.
c) In the words of one Samizdatista, any referendum will be “as rigged as a 19th century tea clipper”. I do believe in democracy, but I don’t believe in Goebbels like propaganda, which is what any plebiscite on Europe will involve.
Again, I believe in democracy, but really, when the trough is as deep as the one Neil Kinnock has his snout in, you could hardly trust would-be EuroPresident Blair to give the matter a fair and unbiased hearing before The People? “Even” the BBC fail to manage that.
Last Toryboy – A referendum would have to be accompanied by the written guarantee that the decision of the voters would be final and there would be no further referenda unless a massive economic or social shift warranted it. Even then, there would have to be a referendum on whether to hold another referendum. The socialists have had it all their own way because people feared looking unreasonable. The same accusation needs to be thrown back in the faces of Blair & Cie. They must be positioned as the unreasonable, overly emotional, posturing party.
there would be no further referenda unless a massive economic or social shift warranted it.
So, Verity, you accept that no referenda can, therefore be binding.
So why all the fuss?