Farage smears Ashton as being in the pocket of “enemies of the West”

In all honesty I don’t see the point of re-publishing a two-day old circular e-mail with a bit of commentary and context thrown in.

I thought the purpose of blogs like this was to generate new things that might be picked up by the mainstream media.

Rory

I hadn’t seen this story until reading LFF today and i think sean kelly is spot on.

It’s relevant in the context of the UKIP leadership elections, the results of which were announced today, plus I don’t believe many people will have gone through the entire transcript of the debate (which takes time, as does translating some of the contributions) and seen the comments of Edit Herczog and Seán Kelly, which I think illustrate quite vividly the contempt in which Farage and British Euro-sceptics generally are held by our friends on the Continent.

I’m not one to just reprint emails or press releases as fact without going through the publications/transcripts/documents myself.

Shamik Das – You say: “which I think illustrate quite vividly the contempt in which Farage and British Euro-sceptics generally are held by our friends on the Continent.”

But not unpopular in the UK where UKIP knocked the Labour Party into third place and only 2% ahead of the Lib Dems. As an ex-Labour voter and a person who knows how much Labour are hated and Gordon Brown detested by normally Labour voters I’m surprised they even came third.

My point is that Ashton has never received a single European electors vote – not one. Even though she was nominated by Gordon Brown, the unelected and most unpopular Prime Minister in British history she can’t be voted out by a single European electors vote. How “progressive” a system is that – you guys should be going nuts about it!

No one in Britain cares what these European non entities think or even knows who they are. If you think that being “an increasing desperate right winger” is an insult, especially with Labour third behind UKIP and with two BNP MEP’s elected on Labour’s watch AND Cameron well ahead in the opinion polls I think you may be wrong Shamik.

I do agree though that is has been translated for us without us having to suffer watching it ourselves which is good.

Providing the selected parts posted here represent the “mood music” of the debate and not a politically biased view….

Hi Anon, you’re more than welcome to read the whole thing:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+CRE+20091125+SIT+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN

On the elections, yes, they were disappointing, and yes, Baroness Ashton hasn’t been elected, but then neither has Lord Pearson, and he’s now the UKIP leader.

Hi Shamik – Thank you for the link to the whole document; your generosity knows no bounds and as much as I’d like to start reading the item immediately I have to temper my enthusiasm since I have to work tomorrow – can’t wait though. Thank you though.

Regarding Lord Pearson it’s true he wasn’t elected but then he only holds the office of Leader of UKIP which has no power.

Mind you Ashton only has the power of a toothless jellybaby so I suppose I can only concur with your opinion.

Which is good.

Have a good weekend Shamik and I’m sure our posts will cross again in the future.

Anon – can i ask you when you were ever a Labour voter? It’s hard to believe from your posts that you were.

Liz – I voted Labour in the last three elections, Greens once in the locals and Lib Dems twice. I don’t tell lies.

I’m old school Liz and believe that people should say what they mean and mean what they say. I think there should be an idealogical difference between Left and Right and clearly at the moment there isn’t.

It’s why the government can use our money to bail out the banks yet leave Woolies workers unemployed. It isn’t right.

I go along with Tony Benn on his weather vanes and wind socks thing and think that it should be applied in life as well as politics.

It is therefore unacceptable for a Labour MP to send their children to a private school or to be part of a “Tory Toffs” campaign when Harriet Harman, a countesses niece is Labour’s deputy leader.

It is hypocrisy and without then actually personally experiencing how useless comprehensive schools are then no REAL effort will have to be done to bring the worse schools up.

It’s John Prescott playing croquet(?) and then smearing the name of the woman he had the affair with so she lost her job. That’s not fair, simple as that.

The problem with Labour activists is, for some reason you not only support the unsupportable actions of this government, you actually try to defend them – to excuse them. You guys are so out of touch it hurts.

Did the government act on your behalf when they tried to refuse entry to the Gurkha’s to the UK, men that have fought and died for our country?

They didn’t act on mine Liz.

So here’s the thing for me. If something is wrong, it is wrong and the wrongdoers need to be told it is wrong. Excuses should not be made for it.

When people sit back and say things like “I’ve ended boom and bust” in a pompous, grandiose and arrogant manner and it goes without challenge by a critical friend, they will do it again. And again.

It’s Margret Becket on Question Time believing she has a RIGHT to steal tax payers money for her plant pots and getting the mood of the nation wrong.

And not one of the Left wing blogs is annoyed about any of it – the apathy is the reason Cameron will storm into government next year in a landslide.

If more people Labour supporters criticised this government, they might start to behave properly and then might actually become electable.

As an ex-Labour voter I can tell you they are deservedly unelectable. Now who will represent the poor people of our country Liz?

If readers of this blog think sitting around telling each other how great they are and how bad the Tories are, will win elections (and affect other peoples lives) they are sadly mistaken. You are inactive activists.

You need awkward twats like me who just keep banging on and on and on. That’s how you get a Labour government Liz. That’s how you can help less fortunate people in our society – you can do nothing in opposition.

I’m right about this Liz and readers of this blog are wrong as you’ll discover BIG TIME next year.

Oh and you Climate Cooling Deniers are wrong as well……

@Anon

“And not one of the Left wing blogs is annoyed about any of it”

Absolute rubbish. I was appalled by the expenses scandal – LFF just hadn’t been born yet. And i’m sure a host of other left-wing blogs could point to their coverage of the scandal too.

Will – I bring up expenses just to illustrate a point about the state the Labour Party is in, not to make a point on expenses. Yet.

Labour looks like an opposition, it feels like an opposition in it’s responses to any question – even if it holds the moral high ground.

On Any Questions last week Harman was effectively asked if cabinet members should have hands free mobiles issued – it was a fun, light hearted and mischievous question and she should have answered as such.

But of course we got the “I can’t answer – I’ll answer the magistrates next year blah blah”. Firstly it isn’t true – she could have answered something like “Well I’d love to answer that but I’ll wait until my solicitor gets here” kind of thing.

But no, we got the “Ed Balls Drone On ‘Til They Can’t Take Anymore” answer. The audience let her know how they felt. Lighten up. Life’s fun.

You say you were appalled by the expenses well what about taking the vouchers parents use for child care issue? The massive debt the government is getting us into. Post Office closures… anything.

Will you should frequent the right wing blogs more, get your angle on their stories and batter both the Tories and Labour with it.

Alistar Campbell getting slapped down by Micheal Howard was a great Guido feature and that links back to media manipulation by Blair, McBride and Co which takes you onto the freedom and response times of the modern communication and hence this blog. Now that makes a much better story than “Grant Shaps ate porridge this morning” and is way less partisan.

“Jonah Brown the Prime Mentalist” is also a great Guido feature.

This is a great blog Will (I love it dude) but it seems too uncritical towards Labour and when the election is over next year a lot of people in the blogosphere will be looking for some where to go and this could be it.

Finally my point on Labour is that they are Reactive and need to be Proactive or just do LESS. Get off the TV Gordon Brown, people don’t like you, the polls show it and no one has the guts to tell you – well they should.

If that last post seemed personally aimed to you Will as in a private post rather than public here just pull it dude and this one.

Anon – i am not new labour’ biggest fan – i marched against the iraq war etc and feel uncomfortable about Britain’s presence in Afghanistan etc however i do think like it or not we needed tony blair et al to get into government and i am the first to acknowledge that new labour came in with such high expectations and hope but yet failed to act on all this maybe out of timidity than anything else.
However it is important to remember that they did some good things eg minimum wage – remember the hostility to that from tories et al? Social chapter, progressive maternity and paternity rights etc . Friends who work in the voluntary sector and are not new labour cheerleaders are glad of the money and energy put into frontline services over the last ten years etc and are already seeing the effects of loss of labour control in their local councils to the drying up of funding etc.

It’s not a perfect world and opposition is not an option if we want to effect positive and progressive change.

Liz – Thanks for the response – I’d actually done my usual essay like reply, the internet at home was down and I just lost everything and even though I refreshed the page it’s gone.

I’ll post tomorrow when I get a chance – you raise some points I agree with and I’d like to expand on them later.

Have a good weekend. (Don’t take me too seriously Liz, I don’t)

Anon – I am glad that we agree on some things…

Maybe at some point in the near future you might even reveal your real name!!……?

Liz – James