Debate on withdrawing from the EU

Due to the success of an e-petition there is to be a debate in the Commons regarding the withdrawal from the EU. William Hague , a
keen supporter for Britain leaving will speak on Thursday and David Cameron a staunch supporter will speak on Monday. Since Angela Merkel
stated at a meeting today that any change to the Treaty was not taboo, it was obviously said to accommodate changes because of the EU
crisis. How come Britain could not halt immigration or deny Prisoners the vote.????

Lord Wolfson is offering £25,000 for the best ideas on how to resolve the EU crisis. He is anti-EU as far as Britain is concerned but doesn"t want the EU to disband

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Judge: UK Not Bound By Human Rights Court

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8:42am UK, Thursday October 20, 2011




The most senior judge in England and Wales has said British courts do
not need to abide by the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights.







British judges are split over rulings by the European Court of Human Rights




The Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge said that while courts should always take the rulings of the Strasbourg-based court into account, they are not bound by them.


His comments will fuel the controversial debate over the Human Rights Act, as a commission set up by David Cameron looks at the case for a British Bill of Rights.


But in giving evidence to the Lords Constitution Committee, a split
over the issue emerged between two of Britain's most senior judges.


Lord Phillips, the president of the Supreme Court and
a former Lord Chief Justice, told the peers: "In the end, Strasbourg is
going to win so long as we have the Human Rights Act and the Human
Rights Act is designed to give effect to that part of the rule of law
which says we must comply with the convention.

I would like to say that maybe Strasbourg shouldn't win and doesn't need to win

Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge







"If we have Strasbourg saying, 'You can't do that', it raises some very real problems."


But Lord Judge said: "I would like to say that maybe Strasbourg shouldn't win and doesn't need to win."


He went on: "For Strasbourg there is a debate yet to happen - it will
have to happen in the Supreme Court - about what we really do mean in
the Human Rights Act, what Parliament means in the Human Rights Act,
when it said that courts in this country must 'take account' of the
decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).


"I myself think it's at least arguable that, having taken account of
the decision of the court in Strasbourg, our courts are not bound by
them.







Kenneth Clarke says differences of national approach are ignored





"We have to give them due weight and in most cases, obviously, we would follow them but not, I think, necessarily."


The Prime Minister's decision to set up a commission to consider a
British Bill of Rights came after the Government lost a legal challenge
to the ECHR ruling that the UK's blanket ban on prisoners voting was
unlawful.


Speaking in April, Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke warned that the
ECHR has been "rather too ready to substitute its own judgment for that
of national courts".


It was failing to give enough weight to the domestic legal system and
was not allowing for "genuine differences of national approach", he
said.

The EU: Yes, No, Maybe?

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Jon Craig

October 18, 2011 4:58 PM

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A
copy of the Commons motion demanding an EU referendum has fallen into
my hands and it's a bit more subtle than a call for a straight In/Out
vote.
The Tory MPs backing the motion, which will be debated on
October 27, are proposing that voters should be offered three options,
which could neatly be summarised as "Yes, No or Maybe."
The motion, which will appear on Wednesday's order paper, reads like this:
"This
House calls upon the Government to introduce a Bill in the next session
of Parliament to provide for the holding of a national referendum on
whether the United Kingdom
(a) should remain a member of the European Union on the current terms;
(b) leave the European Union; or
(c) re-negotiate the terms of its membership in order to create a new relationship based on trade and co-operation."
MPs
backing the motion so far include Philip Nuttall, Peter Bone, John
Redwood, Steven Baker, Andrew Bridgen, Christopher Chope, Douglas
Carswell, James Gray and Mark Reckless.
No doubt there will be more by the morning.
The
thinking behind the three-option referendum, I'm told, is that calls
for a straight In/Out referendum would easily be defeated, the proposers
believe.
But Government business managers may well attempt to
scupper the vote, I'm told, by ordering the so-called "payroll vote" -
ministers, whips and PPSs - not to vote and declare the result
meaningless.
A lot of Tory MPs care passionately about this.
Do the rest of us?

Panda

Thank you for posting this.

I care passionately about having a Referendum - but I wasn't aware that this was going to happen - thought it would be scuppered before it reached deciding yes,no, maybe!

Angelique wrote:Panda

Thank you for posting this.

I care passionately about having a Referendum - but I wasn't aware that this was going to happen - thought it would be scuppered before it reached deciding yes,no, maybe!

Hi Angelique,

Like you I hope for a referendum, but David Cameron and Nick Clegg are very pro. However, we can thank Maggie Thatcher for keeping us out of the Euro and the way things are going, the EU might split up anyway. The problem is that some Countries like Finland, Norway and Holland
do not appear to have any problems but are being dragged down by the Euro and could well revolt .

Britain was always a reluctant entrant to the EU and we thought we were voting for a Common Market. Instead we are ruled by Europe and
all their Rules and Regulations are infringing on our right to govern ourselves and it should have been left as a Trade agreement.

I for one never wanted us to join the euro as I could never see it working myself with all the different types of economies (and governments) it was trying to contain. You have the German way of having no debts or loans and hard work and then you have the southern European countries (naming no names)

I feel aggrieved as I never got the chance to vote on Europe at all as was too young when the Common Market Vote Happened. Mind I would probably have voted in favour of that just not in favour of the increasing sovereign powers that have been lost to Brussells.

Britain thought it was voting for a Common Market, not a takeover of it"s Governance. It is impossible to have 17 Countries speaking 17 different Languages , cultures, lifestyles etc to work as a whole and to keep expanding with Croatia and Macedonia who are quite poor Countries in comparison to others. Britain had a very healthy Market with the Commonwealth, all that has gone. Add to all that the MEP"s
cost of running the EU and all the perks Staff enjoy and you have to wonder what exactly they do. I read a while ago that the EU"s
Accounts could not be signed off by the Auditors for years because they could not verify the figures.

Good News, 75% of the e-petition voted in favour of a Referendum, David Cameron has to discuss this in Parliament on Monday, faces a hard time.He is not expected to attend the all important EU meeting on Wednesay and Ed Milliband is making Capital of this, saying he should be there fighting for Britain etc.

That lying barsteward Ted Heath got us into all of this...

Angelina, Britain was always a reluctant Partner and as far as I can see Maggie Thatcher was the only PM who fought for Britain"s fair share.

When you have a directive to only sell straight bananas, remember that? then you have to wonder at the mentality of those who dreamt up that rule.

Apparently the meeting in Brussels has resulted in the EU altering the Treaty and David Cameron says this is an opportunity for Britain and
the Referendum seekers to be patient and just see what the new changes are. You can bet they are financial to allow the EFSF or ECB
to bail out those Countries, nothing to do with Human rights and giving back powers to the U.K.

I find it very interesting that local council officials are doing door-to-door updates of the electoral register. I was at someone's house the other day when a man called to check that nothing had changed. I thought, at the time, that maybe the woman hadn't returned her form. Then someone called at my house a few days later, and I know I have returned all the necessary documents. I commented about returning forms and the man said something vague about just making sure the register was up-to-date. I said maybe it was in case we had a referendum and the man said "Or a general election,' with a smile on his face as he walked off.

I've never known there to be this door-to-door business.

AnnaEsse wrote:I find it very interesting that local council officials are doing door-to-door updates of the electoral register. I was at someone's house the other day when a man called to check that nothing had changed. I thought, at the time, that maybe the woman hadn't returned her form. Then someone called at my house a few days later, and I know I have returned all the necessary documents. I commented about returning forms and the man said something vague about just making sure the register was up-to-date. I said maybe it was in case we had a referendum and the man said "Or a general election,' with a smile on his face as he walked off.

I've never known there to be this door-to-door business.

AnnaEsse,at the end of the road where I live, across the road, lives one of the Members of my skittle team. The area was very middle class, all bayfronted windows etc but has changed a lot. She was telling me that in the House next door to her there are 14 people living in the house, all adults several of whom she suspect are illegals. It could be the Councils are checking out the occupants looking for suspected illegals, althought the owner of the property wouldn"t admit it. The other thing they could be checking, if some of these "lodgers" are claiming any benefit and puts this house as his home, but the Electoral Register only shows the Husband and wife as Resident , there would have to be an
investigation. another Friend of mine lives in a very respectable area, but the House on the corner is being used as a Mosque, apparently all
the shoes are left outside.

Panda wrote:

AnnaEsse wrote:I find it very interesting that local council officials are doing door-to-door updates of the electoral register. I was at someone's house the other day when a man called to check that nothing had changed. I thought, at the time, that maybe the woman hadn't returned her form. Then someone called at my house a few days later, and I know I have returned all the necessary documents. I commented about returning forms and the man said something vague about just making sure the register was up-to-date. I said maybe it was in case we had a referendum and the man said "Or a general election,' with a smile on his face as he walked off.

I've never known there to be this door-to-door business.

AnnaEsse,at the end of the road where I live, across the road, lives one of the Members of my skittle team. The area was very middle class, all bayfronted windows etc but has changed a lot. She was telling me that in the House next door to her there are 14 people living in the house, all adults several of whom she suspect are illegals. It could be the Councils are checking out the occupants looking for suspected illegals, althought the owner of the property wouldn"t admit it. The other thing they could be checking, if some of these "lodgers" are claiming any benefit and puts this house as his home, but the Electoral Register only shows the Husband and wife as Resident , there would have to be an
investigation. another Friend of mine lives in a very respectable area, but the House on the corner is being used as a Mosque, apparently all
the shoes are left outside.

Panda, after I posted my comment, I began to think along the lines of what you have just posted. The man who knocked on my door, went on down the road and seemed to be doing all the houses. We have lots of Polish people around here and a large Sikh community. The area where I was the other day has lots of houses made into bedsits. So, maybe the council is checking up on illegals and unregistered people, especially where there is a claim for single person occupancy.

I don"t know about your Council, but ours has come up with a good idea to reduce plastic from landfill sites because it is a big problem now.. From last week every Store and shop must charge 5p for every plastic bag the customer needs. Some Firms and Stores are donating the money saved to Charities . When you think about it, the Stores own shopping bag lasts ages, many shoppers have trolleys and plastic is not biodegradeable. Every household has a wheeliebin and a small container lined with a removeable plastic bag for food waste, also degradable.

David Cameron faced a revolt from Backbenchers over the Referendum, he said it was the wrong time but that changes in the Treaty might
give Britain more power. He will win the vote because LIB Dems and Labour will vote against but lose credibility with his own party.

Demonstrators outside Parliament want out , but a snapshot of the population in Bury who were asked said they weren"t that bothered, an
exporter said he would lose Business and most said there were more important issues like inflation and unemployment.

Does this sound familiar?

Our kids are watching too much TV., do not meet expectations regarding Education and the number of Pupils leaving school without any
Grades is horrendous. We are no longer competitive and all our products are being made abroad. We have a corrupt financial system and
Government which until it is altered will not alter the situation. Both Political Parties are entrenched in their thinking and not prepared to
change the situation or Society.


No, it"s not the U.K., it"s the U.S.A. a guy named Jeffrey Sachs has just written a book called "The Price of Civilisation"

The chances are you haven’t come across Andy Haldane before.
The
Bank of England, where he works, isn’t a particularly extrovert
institution, and Mr Haldane rarely makes high-profile appearances, still
less television interviews. But behind the scenes Haldane, who runs the
Bank’s financial stability wing, is one of the most influential
thinkers in Britain’s policy cosmos.
And in a speech last night
(pdf), Haldane has made a pretty remarkable intervention into the way
the Government is tackling the debt crisis. Here are some key excerpts:
The problem: bankers are too generously rewarded
In
1989, the CEOs of the seven largest banks in the United States earned
on average $2.8m. That was almost 100 times the median US household
income. By 2007, at the height of the boom, CEO compensation among the
largest US banks had risen almost tenfold to $26m. That was over 500
times the median US household income.
Even as their performance tells an entirely different story
The
fall in the share prices of global banks means they are scarcely
different in real terms today than in the early 1990s. And it is not
just investors licking their wounds. So too is the global economy.
In
England and Wales alone, over half a million individuals and nearly
100,000 businesses have found themselves in insolvency since 2007.
Internationally, a growing number of sovereign states face a similar
fate.
If bankers’ pay was based on the performance of the assets under their control
By
2007, their compensation would not have grown tenfold. Instead it would
have risen from $2.8m to $3.4m. Rather than rising to 500 times median
US household income, it would have fallen to around 68 times.
Haldane
has two radical points – the first is that the big problem at the heart
of the banking system is that banks’ owners don’t face sufficient
threat in the event that the bank collapses. In Victorian times, banks
were unlimited liability partnerships: when the institution collapsed,
the owners lost not merely their shares but everything else in their
possession, down to the shirts on their backs. It was a brutal regime,
but it focused the minds of those owners and ensured the management
didn’t take excessive risks. Then, in the late 19th century, banks were
permitted to become limited liability companies. As Haldane puts it:
Joint stock banking with limited liability puts ownership in the hands of a volatility junkie.
While
Haldane doesn’t go as far as to say this means that we should return to
a partnership model in banking (I think it’s worth a try, and wrote so
recently), it’s the most resounding wholesale attack on the very
firmament of banking I’ve read in some time. And that’s before you even
consider it’s coming from the Bank of England itself.
Haldane’s
second radical point is that the Government should reconsider the tax
treatment of debt. At the moment, companies (including banks) can reduce
their tax bill by holding debt. In other words, the tax system favours
businesses that hold debt. This is not a new point. Indeed, before the
election George Osborne said he would reconsider this bizarre rule when
he got into office. There the trail went cold. Says Haldane:
A
case could be made for reconsidering risk-taking distortions directly,
such as the tax advantage of debt. The effects of removing that tax
subsidy could be potent.
Basel III will lower banks’
required debt-to-asset ratio by around 3 percentage points. Given
estimated tax elasticities, a similar change could be achieved by
lowering the tax shield on debt by as little as 5 percentage points.
There
are two ways in which the playing field between debt and equity could
be levelled: removing the tax deductibility of debt interest – for
example, through a system of comprehensive business taxation; or
allowing firms to deduct from profits an allowance for corporate equity –
for example, as recently proposed in the Mirrlees Report (2011).
Consider
what’s happening here for a moment. This is effectively the Bank of
England intervening in tax policy – something which is highly unusual. I
wonder how well it will go down in the Treasury. But this idea – about
removing the favoured tax treatment of debt – is well worth keeping an
eye on. It’s something Steve Cechetti, chief economist of the
highly-respected Bank for International Settlements, also referred to in a recent paper.
Whether that will mean it might make an appearance in a forthcoming Budget is another story.

Another example of the way Britain is losing it"s Sovereignty.!!!!


Sunday Mirror loses bid to overturn Olivier Martinez privacy ruling

European court of justice's decision reinforces law under which UK online publishers can be sued in any EU member state

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• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 25 October 2011 14.43 BST
• Article history
Kylie Minogue with then partner Olivier Martinez in 2003. The French film actor successfully sued Mirror Group Newspapers in 2008 over a story about his relationship negatively affecting his reputation in France. Photograph: Doug Peters/PA

The publisher of the Sunday Mirror has lost its bid to overturn a privacy action brought in the French courts by the actor Olivier Martinez.
Martinez successfully sued Sunday Mirror publisher Mirror Group Newspapers in 2008 over an online article about his relationship with the pop star Kylie Minogue. The British publisher took its fight to Europe's highest court and argued that a French judge did not have the power to adjudicate on English-language articles published on a UK website.
However, the European court of justice on Tuesday ruled against MGN. In a landmark judgment for online publishing, the court said that European publishers can be sued anywhere in the EU for articles published on the internet.
Victims of intrusive online material will now be able to sue in their country of residence, as opposed to the EU member state of the publisher.
The ECJ said that claimants can choose to launch the legal action in their country of residence, or the country where they have their "centre of interests".
However, it added that under the EU e-commerce directive, which governs all online services, the publisher of an internet article should not be subject to "stricter requirements" relating to "personality rights" than they would face in their own country if taken to court in another member state.
The ruling in Luxembourg follows the 2008 privacy action brought in France by Martinez against MGN. Martinez won damages against MGN and Associated Newspapers after he successfully claimed that SundayMirror.co.uk and Mail Online stories about his relationship with Minogue negatively affected his reputation in France.
Martinez took legal action in France because the articles could be read by internet users in the country. MGN and Associated Newspapers were ordered to pay €4,500 (£3,920) in damages for each article published.
However, the case went to the ECJ for a jurisdiction ruling after MGN argued that the French courts did not have the power to pass judgment on articles published on the Sunday Mirror website, as it is hosted in the UK and the article was in English, while Martinez lives in the US.
The ECJ said that online material is likely to "increase the seriousness" of infringing content because it can be read in any EU country.
"In its judgment delivered today, the court holds that the placing online of content on an internet website is to be distinguished from the regional distribution of printed matter by reason of the fact that it can be consulted instantly by an indefinite number of internet users worldwide," the ECJ ruling said.
"Thus, universal distribution, firstly, is liable to increase the seriousness of the infringements of personality rights and, secondly, makes it extremely difficult to locate the places in which the damage resulting from those infringements has occurred."
The ECJ said that a person can sue in the country "where the victim has his centre of interests" or their place of residence.
Victims can also sue in any EU member state the online article has been accessed by readers and in the state where the publisher is based "in respect of all the damage caused", the ECJ said.