Tapestry Talks

Be At The Centre. Where's that?

Lord Saatchi gave a speech stating that elections don't need to be won from the centre ground as all main parties seem to think.  Is he right?  Iain Dale thinks not.  He says it is essential to pitch for votes from the centre ground or you are destined to lose an election.  But is the location of the centre ground as certain as it is claimed to be? 

The centre ground is claimed to be where all three main parties are currently pitching their tents.  I'm not so sure it is actually there at all. 

The current 'centre ground' happens to coincide with the tent positions that are acceptable to the media - BBC, Murdoch and so on, and to the consensus view of civil servants and so on.  I'm not so sure the current 'centre ground' represents the popular view.

People are far more concerned by crime than are the media or government departments, for example.  The average voter would be in favour of much harsher punishments for criminals, for example than are acceptable to the cultural elite that controls our bureaucracy.

The BNP is able to attract large numbers of supporters by promising to deal with street crime effectively - and by that they mean corporal punishment.

I think the centre ground now simply means backing the policies that have been established by the cultural marxist elites over the last 30 years - the elites that control media, the EU, the judiciary and the civil service.  These people are well dug in and don't want any change.  Any political party that proposes substantial change is demonised or their leaders are assassinated (thatcher/IDS etc).

Ordinary people are sick of it all, and would want to move on to effective measures to deal with crime and other aspects.  That's the story I hear as I talk to folk.  Am I the only one?  I doubt it.  It's just that Cameron does not want to enjoy the same fate as IDS and Thatcher and so he's playing another strategy for dealing with the very powerful forces that hold Britain in their grip.

People do want change - urgently - but no politician dares to offer it.  The BNP do but are hopelessly unhinged on race and religion to be a serious help.  UKIP should move towards a stronger position on crime - increasing prison populations, corporal punishment and so on.  They might be amazed at the results.

The media dictates what the centre ground is at the moment, not the voters.

Milk Is Not Oil

Farmers cannot come and go. It takes a liftetime to build a healthy herd of good milking cows. They cannot turn off the taps and say to supermarkets 'pay up or we go'.

Farmers have no other market, especially as they are unable to develop any by increasing output. They are banned from selling milk from the farm, although there would be big demand if they were allowed to do that. Consumers love to buy good quality from the place of production. The taste is so much better.

Milk is not oil. You won't find a farmer's equivalent of OPEC. Farmers are committed to producing milk. Period. Supermarkets can swap around, and merely instruct that they are paying lower prices. The power's uneven in the relationship between buyer and seller.

The concerns of the utimate consumer for healthier organic food (best produced in small family-sized production units not from intensive corporate farms), the environment, the future of the countryside (do we want large units with 1000 acre fields, no hedges left, all cows inside never seeing the sun, the ploughing up of meadows and the use of sprays on pasture), welfare of animals (being hauled long distances to slaughter), the survival of the industry are all being squeezed out of the equation.

The Modernisers Are A Clique

Hazel Blears in The Times today attacks Cameron for being surrounded by Old Etonians.  Labour's attack will bother men.

It's the follow up to the 'big fist', searching after a male support base.

Cameron is weak up North and with men compared to women. He needs to broaden the Party's public image away from Public School and South East accents. Female and black candidates is all good and fine, especially if they are the best ones. Women voters are better at looking at the person they will vote for. Men are tribal.

The Francis Maude Chairmanship seems to be all about creating a clique and a style which will not resonate with male voters. Cameron must bust the Party open to a broader respresentation at the top. Blair and Prescott knew what they were doing in terms of electoral appeal, mixing up the classes.

Brown's a weak force in comparison, although electorally he's playing Cameron's weakness as being too monocultural as his strategy. Conservatives must broaden their appeal regionally and across classes. The middle ground strategy has its place, but not in exclusion to other quite obvious steps that need to be taken.

The modernisers are a clique in the end of the day, and should be mixed in with others.

Eurozone Growth Collapses - Again

In the UK growth is ticking away nicely, but the eurozone next door is getting into a worse and worse mess.  Inflation in the eurozone is rumoured to be far higher than reported, with most Germans and French comparing the purchasing power of their old currencies unfavourably with the Euro equivalent, typically saying the value of money has halved.

Their economies depend on manufacturing and exports but they have created a reserve currency  in the Euro which moves according to financial considerations and not according to trading conditions, and  their manufacturers cannot compete any more.  The results are collapsing confidence, and a ghastly creaking sound as the Euro moves closer and closer towards its inevitable collapse.  Milton Friedman famously gave the currency 15 years.  City Firms are advising clients of the eventual collapse of the Euro.  Events are catching rapidly with these forecasts.  No wonder so many are coming to London and the SOuth east to find jobs.

http://www.ukip.org/ukip_news/gen12.php?t=1&id=2721

Secret World Government Organisation Plans Next War

http://www.ukip.org/ukip_news/gen12.php?t=1&id=2715

What are these jokers up to this time?  Were they behind the Iraq War? - Bush, Murdoch, Blair are all members.  The world is run by a secret organisation that denies its own existence.  And we thought we were living in a democracy.

Healthy Food - Cameron Cares

Milk. Farm cost of production 20p a litre. Price paid to farmer 16p. Price in supermarket 80p. 

The All Party Parliamentary Group Dairy initiated by Daniel Kawzincsky, MP Shrewsbury and Atcham, and of which David Cameron is a part, is asking the Office of Fair Trading to look at dairy and other farming industry issues.  And price is the first one that needs investigating.

To reduce cost of production to 16p or less, farms need to boost output. They are not allowed to do this by EU quotas. Catch 22.

The countryside would be altered to large milk units of 1000 milking cows per unit, with animals kept indoors and grass brought to them by machines.

But farms are being sold off at three a day as farmers get out of the industry, other farms are not buying the land, so the consolidation of the industry is not happening.

Wealthy town folk are buying up the land for recreational use. The EU are paying people income for taking land out of production and creating habitat for wild creatures.

It would be better for farmers to receive over 20p per litre to avoid the industry being destroyed.

Many cheese/yoghurt factories need more milk to produce more cheese etc but cannot get it, as farmers are prevented from producing the milk needed, by EU quotas. Jobs are being lost, while processed foods have to be imported for no other reason. Britain has excellent grassland and it is being wasted.

As for the public, they are desperate to buy organic food, but as farmers have little access to abattoirs now as all the small ones have been closed by EU regulation, it is hard for farmers to sell direct to the public at a low price with enhanced quality meat. The small local abattoirs need to be reopened if people are to get the quality of organic meat they demand. The EU regulations that make it too expensive to operate small abattoirs need axing.

The EU have a programme to eliminate farming in Britain which is working. If we want farming to continue in Britain which would provide better quality, and cheaper prices long term, and ensure we have food grown here and not have it all imorted with the attendant strategic implications, we had better do something now while we still can save the dairy industry,

Don't think about socialism for the rich etc. Think about the quality of food you want to eat, and make sure you get it. Supermarkets are not committed to saving farming, or delivering genuine organic food to consumers. Farmers could do so, but they need to be kept in business, and allowed to sell their output direct to the public and not have to sell everything through supermarkets and other mass output channels, which have huge buying power and cynical attitudes to farmers and to their own customers.

Waitrose alone has started to pay their farmers proper prices. The other supermarkets had better follow suit or face a determined grass roots campaign from farmers and consumers who are both not getting what they want from the most important industry that exists - the one that feeds us.

David Cameron is concerned by the problems of the industry, the environmental considerations and the suffering of animals being transported long distances to be slaughtered. It is time for the whole situation to be reviewed. Especially for the public who want better quality safer, pesticide-free food and higher vitamin, mineral and amino-acid content in their food. Left to the current system of cynical exploitation of a weakened industry bu supermarkets and other largescale milk traders, the public will not get what they want without a big push from everyone involved.

If you don't care about farming, you don't care about your own family's health. It's time people woke up to the loss being done to our country by depriving us of our own food production industry.

Modernisers Need To Modernise

Cameron's popularity as reported by Philip Dunne MP Ludlow and many polls should not be confused with Conservative popularity.  The Conservative brand is still struggling while the Cameron brand lifts.

Gord Brown knows that there is a weakness here, and he also knows that most men are more tribal in their politics than women.  If he can colour in the Conservative label as a negative - toffs without balls - he could defeat Cameron.

The changes to the Conservative Party, much heralded by modernisers are in danger of missing the point.  If we had a sprouting of working class regional accents in senior positions, and not another bunch of public school 1970's Maude clones, Gordon Brown would find it harder to exploit the situation.  The modernisers are the ones who need to modernise.

Cameron's Lopsidedness Helps Gordon Brown

Cameron’s progress into the ‘centre’ is lopsided in two ways. Women are backing him. Men are not. In the South, he’s advancing. In the North he isn’t. Gordon Brown is acknowledging that he cannot win the feminine Southern vote aginst Cameron, and so he’s pitching for the male, regional vote, which Cameron is failing to attract.

The Conservatives under Cameron have talked about ‘change’. The feminisation programme seems to be working. The broadening of appeal beyond the heartlands is less successful.

The reason is that the people being promoted and selected are still public school, Oxbridge, South East. Cameron should sack Maude and get a regionally attractive Chairman who will bring Conservative working class Northern supporters into the heart of the Party. The Conservatives have still not changed their class perception and position. Until they crack this open, Brown has an opportunity to exploit the weakness.  Hence the 'Big Fist'  image now being brought out.

Hate Farmers. Eat Shit.

Arthur on Conservativehome wrote

' Security of supply, surely the market will provide. This seems to me to be the problem, that Conservatives face, what do you really believe in. I want the supermarkets to squeeze their suppliers. Archie Norman ex-Tory MP, once ran ASDA, bet he squeezed his suppliers to maximise profits. Jeffrey Stirling ex dep-chairman of the party, fund raiser, once ran P&O sacked all of his UK staff, employed Phillipinos, when asked if he felt that was rather un-patriotic, replied, 'My first loyalty is to my share holders'
A farm is a food factory, that is all, nothing more, nothing less, farms should be treated the same as every other business. What would be done with the vacant land, what ever the landowner wants to do with it. Its their land. they own it, do what they like. Stop believing in socialism for the rich.'

My Reply -

Farmers would love the freedom to sell their wares direct to consumers, Arthur and to increase output, but they are prevented from doing so by stifling regulation. If governments would allow small local abattoirs to function as they used to do, many farmers could bypass the supermarkets and supply a far higher quality product direct to consumers at less than half the price they are paying now.

You buy wine from a particular vineyard. You should be able to buy beef, lamb etc from a particular farm, but while supermarkets are able to control the marketplace they will ensure that all food is anonymous and indistinguishable.

Food should be considered a more important purchase than all others, as health depends on it.

The market is prevented from functioning by government. There is huge unmet demand for genuinely organic, locally grown produce which has high mineral and vitamin content and absence of Polychlorobenzenes, organophosphates and so on. But the system ensures that for the most part you cannot find it.

Arthur might prefer to eat shit, be poisoned, get rickets, and he doesn't care about animals suffering appalling stress. But fortunately and not surprisingly he is in the minority nowadays.

Farmers want to get close to their market, and produce the food consumers want. But people like Arthur who don't give a fig, permit the current anti-farmer propaganda to conceal the grotesque market distortion practised on the food production industry by the government and the EU.

Don't obsess about subsidies which are necessary because of bad government. Think of the health of your families, and how so much illness, cancers, Parkinsons, Alzheimers and so on could be prevented if farmers were permitted to bring you unpolluted food that will make you healthy.

DEFRA - Department For The Elimination Of Farming And Rural Activity

A farmer writes anonymously on Conservative Home about the ridiculous complications in getting his subsidies.  Brave man to write at all.  The government/the EU uses bureaucratic complication as deliberate policy on many occasions. The current approach by Defra is designed to stop farmers from getting their subsidies. That way the maximum number that can be be persuaded to give up farming, will do. Only large farms with lawyers, accountants can cope. The small farmer is being sent to the wall.

This as the anonymous writer says is not the first attempt to wipe out Britain's farmers.

Foot and Mouth was kept secret by Defra/Min of Ag for four months in 2001 ensuring it had the maximum time to spread. It began in sheep. Only when it jumped across to pigs, was it declared in the media. Restauranteurs had seen lamb prices double, and most knew why. They were told not to talk about it.

And once the government announced the outbreak - guess whose fault it was? A farmer- of course - up North who had dirty premises, and who took. scraps from Chinese restaurants.

One possible source was South Africa and the open market to SA meat declared by Blair when Mandela visited, but the media could not have allowed Blair's shiny image to be tarnished back then. He was untouchable.

Foot and Mouth broke out in France and Holland as well as the UK, but it was kept out of the media. French and Germans heard only about a British epidemic. Innoculation was widely used in the rest of Europe, where there were outbreaks and the disease was stopped in its tracks.

But in Britain, innoculation was put out of reach by Defra's compensation rules, and a badly run slaughter programme was put in place, ensuring maximum destruction of animals.

BTW heard about Mad Cow Disease recently? That's because once Organo Phospate doses were reduced to the same level as the rest of Europe, the disease has disappeared. Meanwhile many British farmers have been badly affected by the size of the compulsory previous level of doseage which was four times bigger than the ones used in Germany,and the rest of the EU. Not only millions of animals were made sick. Many farmers were made ill, or died.

That's before you start talking about supermarket cartels which push down prices to a level where it is impossible to make money - especially when combined with the effect of EU quota which prevent farmers from becoming more efficient and producing more.

And contrary to what you read, there are no subsidies on dairy production.

The only crop that is un'quota'd is corn - and the British climate is not suited to growing that.

All in all, there seems to be a deliberate and secretive attempt on the part of the EU who runs British agriculture, to eliminate it. The EU have called the shots here since Edward Heath signed agriculture away at the same time as fishing. It's impossible to state that the EU wishes to eliminate British agriculture openly, so they do it by every other means at their disposal...bureaucratic ones are always the most effective. The Nazis worked that one out.