Brussels fiddles while home burns - by Richard... Saturday, September 19, 2009 eureferendum.blogspot.com

Brussels fiddles while home burns - by Richard... Saturday, September 19, 2009  eureferendum.blogspot.com

We learn from Bruno Waterfield that the EU is spending £280 million on building a new palace for its president and staff – ready for when theconstitutional Lisbon treaty is ratified.

Named the Résidence Palace (pictured) after an existing Art Deco building which it replaces, that building in 1940 was used as the headquarters of the German army during the Nazi occupation of Belgium. This is a complete coincidence, and totally irrelevant. But it is kind of appropriate.

Meanwhile, as the "colleagues" lavish money on their grandiose palaces (at our expense), having recently spent £185 million refurbishing the Berlayermonster, poor old Betty is scraping around for the £44 million needed to pay for the huge backlog of repairs to our royal palaces.

Strangely enough, our contribution to the two latest EU follies is about £60 million – give or take – which would be more than enough to restore Betty's palaces to their former pristine glory, with some change left over. Instead, she is having to sell off chunks of the estate, starting with the old stables in the Royal Mews, in the grounds of Hampton Court.

These are expected to fetch £2m, which is chump-change compared with the total amount needed. At least it is a start. But it is a more than adequate reflection of our times that our national heritage is falling into disrepair, with bits having to be flogged off to keep the rest going while our money is pouring into the coffers of the "colleagues".

On this, of course, there should be national outrage, and a very difficult decision to make ... who to shoot first, our own government or the "colleagues" in Brussels (even if both would be preferable, but you have to prioritise). 

But nothing will be said. We will go on paying and, eventually, new broom Dave will take over. And, guess what! We'll go on paying. We really are going to have to shoot them, you know.

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Double standards? - by Richard...

Asked about the "spontaneous" demonstration against the arrival of Nigel Farage, in Ireland to campaign on the Irish referendum, Sharon Waters, a spokesperson for Generation Yes, said that the protest was simply a gathering of private individuals who arrived to make their feelings known.

Ms Waters said there was no place in an Irish referendum campaign for politicians from outside Ireland. And she certainly does not like UKIP, if this statement is any guide. The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), a byword across Europe for right-wing extremism, xenophobia and bigotry, it says, continuing thus:

Generation YES are outraged at this intervention by foreign interests into this crucial debate on Ireland’s vital national interests. We can be sure that UKIP are promoting their own repugnant agenda, with no concern for the welfare of the ordinary people of Ireland. They want to use the Irish referendum for their own ends – to get England out of the EU. They seek to dismantle the Belfast Agreement, reintroduce the death penalty and abolish social security, they prevent disabled people from standing for election on their ticket, and they also deny climate change and the Holocaust. We need to reject these offensive people, and to continue our own progressive, positive relationship with Europe that has served us so well.

But Ms Waters admitted there had been no protest against Lech Walesa, the former President of Poland, who was also in Dublin to campaign for a "yes" vote. Nor would there be protests against José Manuel Barroso, the newly re-elected EU commission president, when he arrives in Ireland, also to campaign for a "yes" vote.

This is, incidentally, the same Sharon Waters who is a campaigner on human rights and environmental issues, most notably for Amnesty International and the Australian Red Cross.

She might also have a word with her colleague, Clodagh Power, on the Generation Yesteam. This little lady has just spent a year at De Paul University Chicago. While she was there, she worked as an intern at the International Human Rights Law Institute and was a volunteer at the Obama presidential campaign at his Chicago Campaign Headquarters.

One can see a glittering future set out for these little lovelies in European politics … just the right brand of total hypocrisy that should go down well in Brussels.