The United Kingdom Elections 2010

[Beskar]

Because Banks will enjoy the free-ride under the Tory government even more than the Labour bail-out.

[Furunculus]

I don't disagree with that analysis - where I part with Mr Hannan is on the contention that the current Conservatives will be any different, since fiscal responsibility appears to be something of which they are terrified. My link was to demonstrate that Tax'n'Spend is by no means confined to the Labour Party.

oh i agree BG, i am a fairly severe critic of the new cuddley variety of conservatism, given that i take the view that it is the conservatives job to repeatedly clean up the utter shambles that labour leaves the economy in every chance it gets, and i expect the electorate to have the wit to realise the necessity.

so dressing up as labour-lite is infantilising the electorate and at the same time less eeffective at their core task in government; fixing things.

Because Banks will enjoy the free-ride under the Tory government even more than the Labour bail-out.

as long as they continue to make vast amounts of money, who cares?

it was Browns vaunted tri-partite scheme of financial governance that on introduction immediately failed the first crisis that was presented to it; you remember when he proudly boasted he had broken the cycle of boom and bust?

[Furunculus]

Welfare reform likely under the tories:

General Election 2010: The Tories have just the man to find more jobs for British workers
Iain Duncan Smith's ideas on benefits reform could overturn Labour's dismal legacy, says Fraser Nelson


By Fraser Nelson
Published: 8:04PM BST 08 Apr 2010

When Gordon Brown launched the election campaign by insisting that he would "tell the truth", it was clear that he intended no such thing. His campaigning style is to pick a falsehood and repeat it. Eventually, interviewers grow tired of correcting him and his message is hammered into the electorate's subconscious. Yesterday, he produced a figure that he would like us all to know: that even after the recession, some 2.5 million jobs have been created since 1997. His economic stewardship, therefore, has been a triumph after all.

His problem lies in the word "created". A better one would be "imported". Unpublished figures sent on request to The Spectator show that 98.5 per cent of jobs created for working-age people since Labour came to power are accounted for by immigration. Britain's boom was great news for the unemployed of Gdansk, but failed to transform Glasgow. And this cuts to the heart of what is, arguably, the greatest and most deplorable of Brown's economic failures: failing to find (as he memorably put it) British jobs for British workers.

To deal with a problem, one must first recognise it – and there are precious few signs of this happening. I have never believed in claims of a great conspiracy about immigration, simply because it is beyond the organisational skills of this Government. When John Hutton was Work and Pensions Secretary, he told me that immigrants accounted for only "2.5 per cent of the workforce, even less". He was quite adamant. The real figure was 12 per cent. He was genuinely in the dark: his civil servants had not briefed him because such data is not produced.

One has to work in Westminster not to know the seismic impact of immigration on Britain. A third of London's population is now foreign-born; most babies born in the capital have immigrant mothers. On the city's local radio yesterday, a phone-in was being conducted: why is it that, when you buy a cup of coffee or a sandwich, you are never served by a Brit, of whom 780,000 in London are on benefits? Why is youth unemployment so high, yet demand for immigrant labour so strong? Why do employers prefer foreigners?

There is an answer here, and it does not lie in racist employers or workshy Brits. It is a question of financial incentives. If an unemployed Pole gets a job as a barista in Starbucks, even for 15 hours a week, his situation improves dramatically. A young man in Britain would be just £10 a week better off than if he stayed at home on benefits. Why break your back for an extra tenner?

The situation is even more pernicious for young women who leave school with low qualifications, because the alternative to low-paid work is pregnancy. A woman with one child and on benefits has, on average, more disposable income than a hairdresser or teaching assistant. With two children, it's more than a receptionist or library assistant. With three, it's a lab technician, typist or bookkeeper. So there should be no mystery about why Britain came to have so many children in workless households (one in five, the highest in Europe). The young mothers, and the young men on benefits, are walking down a road to dependency paved for them by the state.

This is a peculiar definition of compassion. What Beveridge denounced as the "giant evil" of idleness is now being incubated on a mass scale by the very welfare state designed to eradicate it. As Britain positions itself for a recovery, this raises an ominous question for a prospective Conservative government: will it do any better? If the economy is to recover, might it simply suck in more of these industrious, hard-working immigrants while leaving between five and six million British people on out-of-work benefits?

The answer does not lie in tightening borders, even if we could. The problem is not supply of overseas workers – the problem is demand for them. So the way to solve this problem is to reform welfare so that work actually pays. This will arguably be the most important task of the Conservative government and could end up being David Cameron's most significant lasting legacy.

Many of those about to be elected for the first time as Tory MPs have been radicalised by the scandal of welfare ghettoes – seeing the unemployed as the victims of an uncaring socialism, which uses statistical manipulation to deal with unemployment. Iain Duncan Smith has led the field here. A trip to the east of Glasgow (the most heartbreaking example of state-induced poverty) led him to set up the Centre for Social Justice, to propose new ways of dealing with the problem. And he has recently proposed a measure which could end this scandal at a stroke.

He would introduce a single benefit, aimed at ensuring that work always pays. Part of it involves reducing tax on low-paid jobs – on the principle that if a woman gets up at 4am to clean offices, the state has no claim on a single penny she earns. Part of it would be in-work benefits, giving a boost to low wages. It would mean tearing up the Department of Work and Pensions, which has more "clients" than Ireland has people.

Just over a year ago, Cameron looked set to deliver this. He had, in Chris Grayling, a man utterly dedicated to welfare reform. But the agenda died when Theresa May was sent in and Grayling was promoted to be shadow home secretary. With a nine-year track record of achieving precisely nothing in Opposition, May is spectacularly ill-suited to what should be the toughest task in government. It is not enough for her to have David Freud, a banker turned welfare adviser, in the wings. There is only one man appropriate for this job.

Duncan Smith wanted to stay on the back benches, to be a Wilberforce-style campaigner rather than be part of a cabinet. But now there is a compelling case for him to head a new Department of Social Justice – set up on the explicit basis that the welfare state is bankrolling the worst type of injustices. It should replace the Department for Work and Pensions, and provide a single universal benefit.

When Tony Blair was elected, he was deadly serious about "ending welfare as we know it". The economy was stalling for lack of workers in the late 1990s – some bus companies were even trawling homeless shelters to find people to train. Then, around the turn of the decade, immigrants started to flood in. They provided an easy answer. Why go through the political agony of welfare reform if you can pay the poor to live in edge-of-town council estates and let immigrants expand the economy?

Mass immigration gave Labour the option not to deal with welfare reform. The party took it, and the result can be seen in the welfare ghettoes of Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Glasgow – and in the Babel-like atmosphere of the Olympic village, with workers from around the world, but local unemployment as high as ever. Cameron speaks convincingly about wishing to heal the "broken society": in Duncan Smith he has someone with an agenda to do it. We will see, after the election, if he will dare to put the two together.

Fraser Nelson is Editor of 'The Spectator'

[Subotan]

and this matters........... why?

Well, being called the Taxpayers Alliance, you'd think that they'd actually pay tax, seeing as they're standing up to big mean Mr. Taxman with his briefcase, moustache and bowler hat.

[InsaneApache]

Well tax is institutional theft. Anyroad, everyone in the UK pays tax in one form or another. Even my 3 year old grandsons.

[Furunculus]

Well, being called the Taxpayers Alliance, you'd think that they'd actually pay tax, seeing as they're standing up to big mean Mr. Taxman with his briefcase, moustache and bowler hat.

seeing as they spend their time exposing the true scale of taxation and the waste therein i don't see any fundamental paradox between their stated aims and the non-dom status of some of their members.

it simply isn't a problem...............?

[rory_20_uk]

Unless Non-Doms avoid purchasing anything in the UK (from services to utilities and goods) they are paying a fair whack of money. Definitely not as much as the Government would like, but that is mainly due to the excessive taxes that they try to obtain.

Most tax at the higher levels is easily reducible - get share options as opposed to a larger salary. Suddenly it's Capital gain tax (18%) as opposed to Income tax (40-50%). I don't earn enough to really make that worthwhile, but in the future I'll definitely be asking to be paid in this way.

[Furunculus]

Unless Non-Doms avoid purchasing anything in the UK (from services to utilities and goods) they are paying a fair whack of money. Definitely not as much as the Government would like, but that is mainly due to the excessive taxes that they try to obtain.

Most tax at the higher levels is easily reducible - get share options as opposed to a larger salary. Suddenly it's Capital gain tax (18%) as opposed to Income tax (40-50%). I don't earn enough to really make that worthwhile, but in the future I'll definitely be asking to be paid in this way.

same thing we used to do when i ran a company; pay share-holding execs a salary of ~£15k and a dividend around the same figure, again taxed as capital gains.

[al Roumi]

Most tax at the higher levels is easily reducible - get share options as opposed to a larger salary. Suddenly it's Capital gain tax (18%) as opposed to Income tax (40-50%). I don't earn enough to really make that worthwhile, but in the future I'll definitely be asking to be paid in this way.

I take it that's not as an NHS doctor...right?

[rory_20_uk]

I'm not an NHS doctor anymore.

I might do a bit of GP work now and again, but I work pretty much full time in Pharmaceutical Consultancy. So, a future in Big Pharma is a definite possibility...

[al Roumi]

I work pretty much full time in Pharmaceutical Consultancy. So, a future in Big Pharma is a definite possibility...

My GF works in Pharma on clinical trials - is "Pharmaceutical Consultancy" related, or does that mean you're a drug rep?

/off topic

[tibilicus]

as long as they continue to make vast amounts of money, who cares?

it was Browns vaunted tri-partite scheme of financial governance that on introduction immediately failed the first crisis that was presented to it; you remember when he proudly boasted he had broken the cycle of boom and bust?

Spoken like some one who obviously believes in his free market principles. I don't mean that in a bad way, I myself believe the free market should be free to some extent. I just don't think after the recent crisis that the banks can go on being unregulated. It is possible to regulate without suffocating the free market, we just haven't tried it yet.

Also isn't it the banks desire to make huge sums of money regardless of the risk factor in investments that got us into this mess in the first place?

Well tax is institutional theft. Anyroad, everyone in the UK pays tax in one form or another. Even my 3 year old grandsons.

Tax isn't bad, it's the way our tax system works.

Someone earning over £40,000 (I think that's right) qualifies for the highest tax band of 40%. That means he or she has to pay the same % of tax as someone earning £100,000, someone earning £1,000,000 would only pay 10% more.. I would much prefer a system where there's another tax band and from £40,000 to £55,000 your only taxed 30-35%. Even more ironic is that most people earning £100,000+ can afford to pay some one to get them out of paying a large sum of tax. That basically means that the middle/upper middle class are left to pay the tax burden. The people on lower wages are closer to minimum wage so are unlikely to be taxed much and the rich just don't pay.

Who would of thought that the middle class were actually the oppressed ones in the class system.

[al Roumi]

Who would of thought that the middle class were actually the oppressed ones in the class system.

Lets face it, they are also (historicaly and currently) the only group that really has the initiative and capacity to control and effect change. The vast majority of MPs (senior MPs) must be from middle class backgrounds.

[InsaneApache]

You've obviously never worked in the public sector. I did 10 years as an LGO and I can tell you the waste is phenomenal. When I had a business, if I done what I did as an LGO, I'd have gone bust in six months. The public sector does not generate any wealth, quite the opposite. The private sector generates all the wealth and pays all the taxes. You can't count any public sector tax returns as wealth creating as it's just money sloshing back and forth in the system.

I'll tell you a funny story that happened twenty years or more ago to illustrate a point. One morning the 'phone rang in the office and when I answered it was the rates officer. He informed me that we hadn't paid our rates and that if we didn't pay in full he would have no choice but to send the bailiffs in. Now bear in mind that both the rates officer and I worked for the same authority.

Anyway I send, "Go ahead matey boy, send the bailiffs in, you don't frighten me with your threats, you jumped up little Hirohito", and slamed the 'phone down, laughing my head off. Talk about the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing! .

Just to illustrate a point.

In fact councils are so determined to get their money from other councils that they pursue their cases all the way to the Parking Adjudicator.

But the craziest, stupidest example has to be an appeal by Islington Council (Case number 2070232277) heard by the Traffic Appeals Service between June and September 2007.

In this case Islington Council had not only issued a parking ticket to itself, but then pursued itself at the Parking Adjudicator and then asked for costs against itself! (The craziness doesn’t end there because to ask for costs the council must believe that it acted wholly unreasonably or vexatiously against itself!)

The decision of Mr. Adjudicator Gerald Styles on 13th September 2007 clearly points out that the council cannot sue itself but the fact that he clearly did not collapse laughing and managed to dictate his decision is a tribute to his professionalism.

http://www.appealnow.com/parking-tic...s-release-001/

Now if anyone thinks this would happen in the private sector, I have a bridge I'd like to sell them.....

[rory_20_uk]

My GF works in Pharma on clinical trials - is "Pharmaceutical Consultancy" related, or does that mean you're a drug rep?

/off topic

There are loads of jobs in the Pharmaceutical Industry. I don't directly work for a big pharmaceutical company, I work for a company who is brought in to different companies to provide extra people to work on specific projects. The reason for this is we can staer relatively quickly rather than getting a full time position, and can be removed as soon as the work ends. The downside is that per hour we cost more.

For me the advantage is I get exposure to all areas of the industry which will help later on.

Drug reps speak to doctors mainly or other persons to try to get them to prescribe the product. They have a basic degree and are purely in sales. I can do a variety of things, from writing the materials they use, to providing medical knowledge onto getting the drugs approved in the first place, as well as a load of others.

[Furunculus]

Spoken like some one who obviously believes in his free market principles. I don't mean that in a bad way, I myself believe the free market should be free to some extent. I just don't think after the recent crisis that the banks can go on being unregulated. It is possible to regulate without suffocating the free market, we just haven't tried it yet.

Also isn't it the banks desire to make huge sums of money regardless of the risk factor in investments that got us into this mess in the first place?

i am not against a regulated banking system, but that regulation must maintain britain as a competitive place to do business............. as well as mitigate the impact of cyclical financial trends. ;abour don't have much credibility here.

yes it is, but they should not consider themselves too big to be allowed to fail.

[edit]
what gordon's treasury was doing when people began to speculate on a house pricing bubble:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance...t-the-economy/
[/edit]

[Subotan]

Well tax is institutional theft

Yes because burglars provide you with an education system, free healthcare at the point of use, an armed forces etc.

[InsaneApache]

The other side is that burglars don't put you in prison if you refuse to let them pinch your stuff.

[Beskar]

Now if anyone thinks this would happen in the private sector, I have a bridge I'd like to sell them.....

Oh, they do it all the time. They are just not accountable for their actions, and the government ends up paying for it.

For example, that one where the banks kept asking themselves for a loan, and chased itself up on the loan and after years of finical neglect, cause a global-wide recession with governments all over the world having to bail them out.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

The other side is that burglars don't put you in prison if you refuse to let them pinch your stuff.

But are you allowed to, and allowed the means to, defend your property?

[Furunculus]

Oh, they do it all the time. They are just not accountable for their actions, and the government ends up paying for it.

For example, that one where the banks kept asking themselves for a loan, and chased itself up on the loan and after years of finical neglect, cause a global-wide recession with governments all over the world having to bail them out.

wow, what parallel universe do you live in?

so this had nothing to do with central banks keeping interest rates too low for too long to keep the boom years rolling (read: bubble years expanding), at the same time as quango mega-banks like fannie & freddie were encouraged to get into social lending at the bottom of the property market (read: take non-commercially viable risks), in order that social engineering objectives could be met?

this of course not helped in britain by a tri-partite scheme of financial governance that failed the first time it was tested (thanks Gordon) that worked under the assumption that the timeless cycle of boom-and-bust was broken (thanks Gordon) and a regulatory regime that allowed banks to grow to the point where their failure would represent an existential threat to the economy of the country (thanks Gordon).

yeah, it was all the fault of nasty money grubbing capitalist scum! what utter bull [insert random smiley here]!

[gaelic cowboy]

wow, what parallel universe do you live in?

so this had nothing to do with central banks keeping interest rates too low for too long to keep the boom years rolling (read: bubble years expanding), at the same time as quango mega-banks like fannie & freddie were encouraged to get into social lending at the bottom of the property market (read: take non-commercially viable risks), in order that social engineering objectives could be met?

this of course not helped in britain by a tri-partite scheme of financial governance that failed the first time it was tested (thanks Gordon) that worked under the assumption that the timeless cycle of boom-and-bust was broken (thanks Gordon) and a regulatory regime that allowed banks to grow to the point where their failure would represent an existential threat to the economy of the country (thanks Gordon).

yeah, it was all the fault of nasty money grubbing capitalist scum! what utter bull [insert random smiley here]!

Get over yourself Furrunculus the bankers gambled and lost and all the hand wringing in the world wont change that it was there own fault. I am still shocked at how little they understood the risk potential and completely amazed at how reckless they were at pricing this risk

[Furunculus]

no thanks.

[Louis VI the Fat]

I hear that a British political party plans to levy a billion pound populist tax on banks, to be spend on social engineering, buying a nice amount of votes in the process too.


Care to guess which party this is?

[InsaneApache]

The torys.

In the real world...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

LABOUR has become embroiled in a row about the use of personal data after sending cancer patients alarmist mailshots saying their lives could be at risk under a Conservative government.

Cards addressed to sufferers by name warn that a Labour guarantee to see a cancer specialist within two weeks would be scrapped by the Tories. Labour claims the Conservatives would also do away with the right to be treated within 18 weeks.

Cancer patients who received the personalised cards, sent with a message from a breast cancer survivor praising her treatment under Labour, said they were “disgusted and shocked”, and feared that the party may have had access to confidential health data.

Labour sources deny that the party has used any confidential information. However, the sources admit that, in line with other political parties, it uses socio-demographic research that is commercially and publicly available.
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Meet David Cameron's secret weapon

The postal campaign started last month before the general election was called. This is the first election in which parties have been able to use internet databases and digital printing to personalise their mailshots.

Labour has sent out 250,000 “cancer” postcards, each addressed to an individual, asking: “Are the Tories a change you can afford?”

Many of those receiving the cards have undergone cancer scans or treatment within the past five years.

- In the Labour constituency of Sherwood, Nottinghamshire, two of a group of eight women friends received the breast cancer card. They are the only two to have undergone cancer treatment. One of them, Phyllis Delik, 80, described it as “callous” and “despicable”. The second woman, Shirley Foreman, 58, who received the card a fortnight after undergoing surgery, said: “It is bad taste after what I have been through.”

- In the marginal east London constituency of Poplar and Limehouse, the card was sent to a 44-year-old television producer who had a potentially cancerous lump that turned out to be a cyst. She appeared to be the only person who received the mailshot among 50 neighbours. She said: “It’s crude and insensitive.”

- A card was sent to a woman who has died of breast cancer. Her 33-year-old husband was so upset that he sent a message to the Facebook page of Diane Dwelly, the woman whose case is featured in the mailshot, accusing her of being a pawn for the Labour party.

This weekend Dwelly, 48, from Rugby, admitted she had “probably been used by Labour”. She believed her photograph had been taken for use in a magazine for the National Health Service, not as part of Labour’s election campaign.

The cards are being distributed by Ravensworth, part of Tangent Communications, which has won accounts sending out mail for the Department of Health and Cancer Research UK.

Tangent claims that it specialises in “highly targeted marketing”.

The cancer cards are part of a wider postal campaign targeting various groups. Others are aimed at parents whose children attend Sure Start centres, pensioners and the owners of small businesses.

Labour has so far sent out 600,000 cards. It plans to distribute 4.5m during the election campaign.

Janet Arslan, 40, a graphic designer who also lives in the Sherwood constituency, said: “When I received the breast cancer card at first I thought it was from the hospital.

“I did not think Labour would be that crass to deliberately target a terminal cancer patient like me.”

Damian Bentley, managing director of Tangent, said: “Our company does a lot for the Labour party but I don’t work on that side of the business.”

He failed to respond to a list of questions on how the addresses of the cancer victims were obtained.

Emilie Oldknow, 29, the Labour candidate in Sherwood, worked for the NHS before she became the regional organiser of the East Midlands Labour party. She is the fiancée of Jonathan Ashworth, Gordon Brown’s deputy political secretary and a member of his “kitchen cabinet”.

Oldknow has denied all knowledge of the cards.

“I had not seen the mailshot before and it wasn’t sent out by my campaign,” she said.

In an email to Arslan’s mother, she said her details had been “obtained from the electoral register, which is available to political parties”.

Experian, the data management company, confirmed that both Labour and the Conservatives use its Mosaic database, which divides voters into 67 groups. The databases can use anonymised hospital statistics, including postcodes and the diagnoses of patients, to identify the likely addresses of those with particular illnesses.

It cannot identify potential breast cancer sufferers because the disease affects adult women of all ages and backgrounds.

Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, said: “For Labour’s campaign to deliberately distress or scare sufferers from breast cancer is shameful. Because we are going to increase the NHS budget in real terms and cut bureaucracy and waste, we will have the capacity to ensure that cancer patients are seen sooner than they are at the moment and to meet the quality standards that they expect.”

A Labour party spokesman said: “These leaflets highlight the Conservative party’s actual policies on cancer treatment. Cancer is a terrible condition and sadly all too prevalent in our society, which is why some of the 250,000 people we sent this message to are likely to have suffered from it.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle7094308.ece

[Beskar]

All the more to not vote Labservative in the general election.

Also, I liked this summary.

Vince Cable might be old, but he knows what he is talking about.

Last and not least: http://mydavidcameron.com/cameron

This is what we do to our politicians when they make a fool of themselves, America does it all wrong.

[Furunculus]

Britain needs to move away from a Cold War-style posture towards a more relevant armed forces structure. If we are to continue to have the capability to be a force for good in the world we need far greater cooperation with our NATO and EU partners.

Liberal Democrats do not believe that the UK can afford the billions of pounds the Government wants to spend on a like-for-like replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons system. Full-scale Trident is a cold war system that we no longer need nor can afford. We believe that less expensive alternatives should be considered.

no, and no.

[tibilicus]

no, and no.

Why not?

Are you saying no to the close cooperation with NATO and EU partners and no to the disarmament of Trident? If it is just the latter, I agree with you to some extent. I believe it could be cut back to some extent, but I don't particularly endorse the idea of complete nuclear disarmament. No other NATO member is suggesting a complete scrappage of nuclear arms, even America want's a cut back, not a complete scrappage. Which is kind of understandable too, seeming the Americans have a stupendous amount of missiles in their nuclear arsenal. I think there will be a time and a place for complete nuclear disarmament, I don't believe now is that time or place however.

As to the subject of closer cooperation with NATO and the EU, I think it's a good idea. Costs can be shared with other EU members and a vast majority of military operations (in theory) should be ones which our allies also support. I'm not suggesting some kind of binding contract, where if one European or NATO member wants to perform a military operation everyone else is sucked in, but I do think Britain, whilst more than capable of being an independent military force, shoould seek to cooperate with our allies whenever possible.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

He's saying no to "greater co-operation" which is code for "relying on our allies for certain capabilities". Close EU co-operation in the past has produced project Eurofighter, which while much better than it's detractors claim is still a disaster from a contractual/cost point of view. We could probably have had two new British-made fighters for the same price by now.

[Furunculus]

Why not?

Are you saying no to the close cooperation with NATO and EU partners and no to the disarmament of Trident? If it is just the latter, I agree with you to some extent. I believe it could be cut back to some extent, but I don't particularly endorse the idea of complete nuclear disarmament. No other NATO member is suggesting a complete scrappage of nuclear arms, even America want's a cut back, not a complete scrappage. Which is kind of understandable too, seeming the Americans have a stupendous amount of missiles in their nuclear arsenal. I think there will be a time and a place for complete nuclear disarmament, I don't believe now is that time or place however.

As to the subject of closer cooperation with NATO and the EU, I think it's a good idea. Costs can be shared with other EU members and a vast majority of military operations (in theory) should be ones which our allies also support. I'm not suggesting some kind of binding contract, where if one European or NATO member wants to perform a military operation everyone else is sucked in, but I do think Britain, whilst more than capable of being an independent military force, shoould seek to cooperate with our allies whenever possible.

PVC is close to the mark.

I have had the conversation many times elswhere about how we could get a more affordable strategic deterrent, and the end conclusion by people more knowledgable than I is that there are no more economies to be had, we either keep four subs or we ditch the lot as the deterrent is no longer strategic, and i reject the idea that it cannot be afforded. £90b spread over 45 years to provide an absolute guarentee against someone initiating conventional/industrial war against the UK is a piffling sum for such security.

I am all for cooperation with individual EU nations, particularly the useful ones like France, but becoming enmeshed in soggy security frameworks like the EU is stupid, especially when the 'harmonisation' process will certainly leave us incapable of independent action.