Con MEP wants GP charges - and no, it's not Hannan

DAVID CAMERON'S "wholehearted commitment to the NHS" came under fire from one of his own side again last night as yet another Tory MEP brought into question the very ideals of the health service.

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Only last week the Tory leader made a key-note speech in which he reaffirmed his personal belief in "the principle of a healthcare system that is free at the point of use, based on need and not the ability to pay" - a principle that has once more been undermined by an errant MEP.

Speaking on last night's Channel Four News Dr Tannock said:- "I would be totally in favour of small co-payments, ie. small payments being

made if you turn up to things and perhaps small fines being levied if you don't. "We need to look at these issues again, I know they are controversial but I don't think that people who are in a job would actually be against, say, spending £10 to see their GP or being fined £10 if they don't show up to an out-patients."

The latest row follows the storm of controversy which erupted when Dr Tannock's colleague Daniel Hannan described the NHS as a "60-year mistake" which he "wouldn't wish on anybody".

Mr Hannan was in the news again earlier this week after the release of a video in which he said Enoch Powell - he of the 'Rivers of blood' speech - was his "key political influence".

• Health Service Journal: Lansley denies GP charge plans
• BBC News: Profile of Daniel Hannan

NHS-hater praises Powell; Cameron silent. Again

TORY MEP Daniel Hannan's North American lecture tour continues apace, with yet another YouTube appearance which sees him sucking up to the Redneck Right.

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Having dismissed the NHS as a "60-year mistake" which he "wouldn't wish" on anybody, he's now put his foot further in it by lavishing praise on, go on, take a guess... yes, that's right (or should that be far-Right), sixties radical racist John Enoch Powell, MBE.

Hannan cited Powell as his key political influence, describing him as a man who understood "the importance of national democracy" and "why you needed to live in an 'independent' country" in an interview with loopy libertarian outfit Reason TV:-



Enoch Powell, the man who in his infamous 1968 'Rivers of Blood' speech spoke of "charming, wide-grinning piccaninnies" (c/f Boris Johnson) and said "the black man will have the whip hand over the white man"... the words of the hero of the hero of the Tory grassroots-Right.

And David Cameron's reaction to all this? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not a jot. Compare this to the instant dismissal of Nigel Hastilow, Tory PPC for Halesowen and Rowley Regis, who was forced to resign in November 2007 for saying Powell "was right" on immigration.

Yet more indecision from the Tory leader, yet more double-standards; dismiss Hastilow and Edward McMillan-Scott but do nothing about Hannan.

In his interview, Hannan also indulged once more in his favourite hobby, namely doing down the NHS, saying that "overall it is not nearly as good a system" as the US's. That's the 'system' in which 50 million people are left without health insurance and would be left to die should they fall ill.

What does this man have on Cameron?! He really is the gift that keeps on giving!

• November 2007: Cameron hypocrisy #1:- Nigel Hastilow
• August 2009: Cameron hypocrisy #2:- Edward McMillan-Scott

The Wanker

CHRIS GRAYLING'S likening of the streets of Britain to The Wire is as misleading as it is fanciful, and leads one to wonder whether he's ever seen an episode of it or is merely talking street in order to sound hip.

Take last night's episode, for example, which featured:-

• A detective planting evidence on a dead man to try and implicate a suspect

• The same 'bunky' making music with a 'ho' in some car park after going on an all-night bender

• Police swigging hip-flasks full of Jameson's Irish Whiskey while on duty

• A rookie female detective investigating a triple-homicide all on her own

• The chief of police doctoring crime figures in order to impress the Mayor

• The Mayor leaking this to the press and lining up his stooge as Commissioner

• A couple of 'Mopes' torturing an old man to death to find out their rival's hideout

• A church minister laundering 'cheese' and taking a cut for himself

• Senior officers writing-off the murders of homeless people and not investigating them properly

Sound familiar? Reminiscent of your town or village?!

Corrupt police, politicians and preachers, is this really what the Shadow Home Secretary, the Shadow Home Secretary, thinks of Britain today?! This isn't some irrelevant swivel-eyed whack-job we're talking about here, but the man who could conceivably be our next Home Secretary.

Maybe the next time Mr Grayling is asked whether Britain really is like The Wire, he'll think twice before answering "Well I think the answer to that is yes."

As they say on the streets of Baltimore, what a c***!

• BBC Two: Watch 'The Wire' tonight at 11:20
• Wikipedia: All you need to know about it

EU membership well worth the cost

THE Daily Express front-page article on Britain’s net contribution to the European Union contains several misconstrued statistics if not outright lies designed to reinforce their readers’ anti-EU prejudices.

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Among the misleading assertions in the report is the line in the fourth paragraph that states as fact that “Britain gets the least back from Brussels of all the 27 EU nations” – a ‘fact’ debunked in the penultimate paragraph of the very same article, a sentence of which reads “Britain is now second only to Germany when it comes to net losses to Brussels.”

There is also no mention of the benefits of European Union membership, political as well as financial - though not always immedaitely quantifiable; one is left to conclude that each family is throwing £257 down the drain, that the country will write a blank cheque for £6.2 billion to Brussels this year and get nothing in return.

Such unadulterated false accounting could not be further from the truth.

According to the United Kingdom Government's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, as of 2003 alone:-

• EU Gross Domestic Product (2002) was £110 billion higher than it would have been without the Single Market

• EU GDP (1993-2003) was £588 billion higher due to the Single Market - an extra £3,819 per household

• Three million British jobs were linked to exports to the EU - one tenth of the workforce

• Sixty million customs clearance documents no longer needed to be completed - reducing bureaucracy, costs and time

• There is greater choice and lower prices due to deregulation of the UK optical sector

• Books cost less and there are more titles following the ending of the Net Book Agreement

• The price of replica football kits has decreased dramatically after an EU investigation into price-fixing

The benefits of membership can only have increased in the subsequent six years - data for which will be made available in due course - and will continue to increase upon Europe-wide ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, as it did following adoption of the Treaty of Accession, which grew the Market to the east.

Far from being a 'sell-out', membership of the European Union has resulted in funding for thousands of projects in many of the most deprived areas of Britain, rebuilding communities, creating jobs and boosting economies.

The biggest sell-outs of all are those calling for withdrawal, the cost of which would make £6.2 billion look like peanuts.

• The European Movement: Telling the truth about Europe
• Open Europe: Telling lies about Europe

Cameron's failure to axe Hannan over NHS assault raises fresh questions of direction and leadership

TORY MEP Daniel Hannan's cowardly and unpatriotic attack on the NHS, which he told American TV viewers he "wouldn't wish" on anybody, represents a real challenge of leadership, real leadership, for David Cameron - perhaps his most significant yet.

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In choosing not to discipline the über-Thatcherite shill, describing him merely as "an eccentric", Cameron risks undoing all the hard work he and his Shadow Cabinet colleagues have done over the past four years to drag the image of the Tory party away from the heartless, selfish individualism epitomised by Hannan towards the caring, compassionate Cameroonian Conservatism that has served them so well in the polls.

It also shows up Cameron once again as having one rule for his mates, and one rule for others - as witnessed by his handling of the expenses crisis: forcing out one-nation Tories like Douglas Hogg and Sir Peter Viggers while refusing to sack the likes of Michael Gove and
Alan Duncan.

Although Viggers and Hogg may not elicit any sympathy spare a thought for Edward McMillan-Scott, the pro-European MEP dismissed by Cameron for having the temerity to oppose the ill-conceived Tory alliance with far-Right factions in the European Parliament - in particular McMillan-Scott's defeat of Polish extremist Michal Kaminski in the Brussels
vice-presidential elections.

That's Michal Kaminski, described by former Europe Minister Denis MacShane as a "right-wing politician whose views on Jews, on gays, on immigrants, on President Obama would place him at the very rough end of BNP politics in Britain."

And this is a man Cameron would rather were vice-president of the European Parliament than one of his own?!

Yet more hypocrisy, yet more double standards; stand by the man who talks about the NHS being a "relic" that's "impossible to get rid of" and which "we're stuck with", while removing the whip from a centrist Tory MEP who wouldn't walk by on the other side while his party jumped into bed with the repellent Polski Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc party.

It's time for Cameron to show some leadership, grow a backbone and dismiss the vile, evil Mr Hannan.

• Labour List: Who paid for Hannan's trip?
• Twitter: Official "We Love The NHS" page

Boris + adviser + skirt = £2250 Tory expenses scam

A FORMER aide to Boris Johnson, who has been forced to repay £2,100 in council expenses, faces new charges of a cover up after it emerged the inquiry into his conduct would be held in private.

Ian Clement, the fifth adviser lost by the Mayor in his first year in charge, claimed the money for stays that had already been paid for at the luxury Excelsior Hotel Ernst in Köln and Park Plaza County Hall – the headquarters of Mr Johnson’s Mayoral campaign.

Mr Clement, leader of Bexley Council from 2006 to 2008, further abused his council credit card to treat officials to £100 lunches, among them Tory colleague Joe Pollard – a member of the Audit Committee that will review his conduct.

Cllr Pollard is resisting calls to recuse himself from the investigation.

The 44-year-old had been axed as an adviser to the Mayor in June after it emerged he had misused his City Hall credit card to entertain his
23-year-old mistress to the tune of more than £150.

“The actions of Ian Clement have blown a hole in both local and London Conservatives’ claims of running transparent low-cost administrations,” said Labour prospective parliamentary candidate for Bexleyheath and Crayford, Howard Dawber.

“It’s clear that both at Bexley and the GLA Ian Clement used his work credit card to take out Conservative candidates, MPs and councillors for expensive meals.

“He not only ran up huge credit card bills but spent £7,000 attending training courses in the US.”

The entire Bexley Tory party appeared to be mired in sleaze, added Mr Dawber: "The MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup [Derek Conway], suspended form the House and ejected from the Conservative party for paying his family thousands of pounds for no work is still picking up a full salary, expenses and second home allowance.”

• Howard Dawber: The strong choice for Bexleyheath & Crayford
• August 2007: Johnson's racism revealed

Lies, damened lies and the Daily Express

TODAY’S front-page lead on the Daily Express – LABOUR’S £186BN BENEFITS MADNESS – revealed that in 2009/10 spending on benefits would amount to a quarter of all State spending.

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The “madness” to which the Express refers is, presumably, their belief that the £186 billion, or the vast majority of it, is being squandered: given out to ‘undeserving’ recipients or fraudulently claimed.

When analysed, however, the figures in the Centre for Policy Studies report reveal a somewhat different picture.

Of the projected £186.4 billion overall spend on benefits, only £21.68 billion (11.6 per cent) is forecast to be spent on Income Support, Jobseeker’s Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance – 2.9 per cent of total Government spending.

By contrast, £67.2 billion is set to be spent on Pensions, plus a further £1.38 billion on Pension Credits, amounting to 37 per cent of benefits spending and nearly one tenth of all Government spending.

Only last year the Express were headlining calls for a 45 per cent hike in the State Pension, which, if carried through, would have lead to a total spend on pensions of almost £99 billion – 45.62 per cent of spending on benefits and 12.76 per cent of total Government spending, which would have had to rise four per cent.



Other principal areas of benefit spending include Housing Benefit (£19.63 billion; 10.53 per cent of spending on benefits, 2.64 per cent of overall spending), Child Tax Credits (£15.68bn; 8.41%, 2.11%), Child Benefit (£11.8bn; 6.33%, 1.59%) and Disability Allowances (£6.48bn; 3.48%, 0.87%).

An additional £30 billion is paid out in minor benefits – 16 per cent of benefits spending and four per cent overall – with fraud and overpayments costing at least £2.5 billion a year, according to the report.

Sources:-
• Benefit Simplification (Centre for Policy Studies)
• 2009 Budget Red Book (HM Treasury)
• Benefit Expenditure Tables, Medium Term Forecast, June 2009 (Department for Work and Pensions)