Yellow Ken
Considering he has been the best Chancellor of the Exchequer during my (admittedly short) life-time, Ken Clarke really can get up one's nose.
In last Thursday's Spectator, Ken Clarke argues that a coalition with the Lib Dems after the next election would be rather a good idea. He seems not to properly consider the possibility of actually winning outright, which I consider to be the preferable option at this stage.
None-the-less, what really irked me was reading this item:
"I'm sure the undesirability of linking ourselves with small, very embarrassing allies, who will keep taking up positions which are quite unacceptable, will persuade him."
He was, of course, talking down Cameron's chances of forming a new alliance in the European Parliament and is confident that it will not be achieved.
I suppose we should not be surprised that the exact same argument is being used with equal confidence by those who believe that Cameron cannot stay within the EPP and with greater validity too. As Roger Helmer MEP has pointed out, our EPP partners are pretty extreme folk as it is. The EPP's resident consigliere, Silvio Berlusconi, as if not in himself a good enough reason for us to leave the group, is now politically linked with Signora Mussolini, heiress to the fascist wing of Italian politics.
This would not be too dissimilar to a Tory London councillor joining a group that comprised of crooked Ken Livingstone and Little Miss Mosley.
This is to compound the fact that our German EPP buddies, the Christian Democratic Union, ran a fairly nasty anti-immigration campaign recently and that our Austrian couterparts, the Austrian People's Party, are in coalition with a far-right party that goes by the name of the Freedom Party. Set up by former Nazis, these are the sort that give nationalism a very bad name.
I wonder why Ken is so keen for us to continue to sit with them? Perhaps our local MEPs here in Yorkshire have an explanation.
In last Thursday's Spectator, Ken Clarke argues that a coalition with the Lib Dems after the next election would be rather a good idea. He seems not to properly consider the possibility of actually winning outright, which I consider to be the preferable option at this stage.
None-the-less, what really irked me was reading this item:
"I'm sure the undesirability of linking ourselves with small, very embarrassing allies, who will keep taking up positions which are quite unacceptable, will persuade him."
He was, of course, talking down Cameron's chances of forming a new alliance in the European Parliament and is confident that it will not be achieved.
I suppose we should not be surprised that the exact same argument is being used with equal confidence by those who believe that Cameron cannot stay within the EPP and with greater validity too. As Roger Helmer MEP has pointed out, our EPP partners are pretty extreme folk as it is. The EPP's resident consigliere, Silvio Berlusconi, as if not in himself a good enough reason for us to leave the group, is now politically linked with Signora Mussolini, heiress to the fascist wing of Italian politics.
This would not be too dissimilar to a Tory London councillor joining a group that comprised of crooked Ken Livingstone and Little Miss Mosley.
This is to compound the fact that our German EPP buddies, the Christian Democratic Union, ran a fairly nasty anti-immigration campaign recently and that our Austrian couterparts, the Austrian People's Party, are in coalition with a far-right party that goes by the name of the Freedom Party. Set up by former Nazis, these are the sort that give nationalism a very bad name.
I wonder why Ken is so keen for us to continue to sit with them? Perhaps our local MEPs here in Yorkshire have an explanation.
By Al Gunn
LUUCF President
Candidate for Leeds City Council
