The 'Chicken Run' video

This YouTube film is of the Chicken protest last week in Strasbourg. It contains impassioned oratory, and high farce - and your correspondent getting rather hot under his suit whilst remonstrating with the Parliament's Head of Security. The point is of course that while those who are pushing through the Constitution use the language of democracy, what they are doing is using the tools of technocratic totalitarianism.

New Facebook Group

A new Facebook Group has been set up.
Gawain Towler for North Dorset

Pop along there, take part and tell your friends. The UK Independence Party is here in North Dorset and has every intention of building our prescence and effectiveness. The people of the Constituency deserve nothing less.

Busy week

This week has been spent chasing around the Strasbourg Parliament, doing everything in my power to undermine the institution. To that end I was able to start the entire story of the misuse of funds by Euro-MPs,

Robert Galvin, who is head of unit, internal audit and is based in Luxembourg.

Well informed rumours are suggesting that the silence surrounding this report is well warranted. One comment from a senior official has been passed on to me, "the reason that we cannot make this report open to the public is that we want people to vote in the 2009 (european) elections".

That of course could be Chinese whispers but my scource is normally pretty accurate.

From what I can guess the activities of some Members of the European Parliament will make the Conway affair look like pretty small beer.

This story was picked in almost every media organisation in the following few days, as can be seen here and here.

Elsewhere I demonstrated in the Parliament against the Parliament's vote in favour as reported in today's Sunday Telegraph,

EU Parliament votes not to take any notice of the people's wishes

There were surreal scenes in Strasbourg last Wednesday as the European Parliament prepared to ratify the Lisbon Treaty by a huge majority. (It says something for the reverence in which we hold that parliament that not a single British national newspaper bothered to report the fact.)

Dressed in yellow chicken suits, three protestors against the refusal of EU governments to allow referendums on the treaty were chased round the corridors and up and down the staircases of the futuristic building by 15 burly security men trying to arrest them.

When Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party and one of the 50 MEPs of different parties who have been leading the pro-referendum campaign, was summoned to this fracas, he was interviewed by a television crew.

Pointing out that no officials had intervened last month when the parliament was invaded by anti-GM Greens dressed as bananas, he asked why it was only pro-democracy protestors who had to be silenced?

At the end of the interview, Anne-Margrete Wachmeister, head of the parliament's audio-visual unit, gave orders that Mr Farage' s comments must not be broadcast.

Overhearing this, Shirin Wheeler, presenter of the World Service's Record programme (and daughter of the distinguished BBC correspondent Charles Wheeler) intervened to say that, unless this order was withdrawn, the BBC would withdraw its parliamentary coverage from both Strasbourg and Brussels. The official backed down.

Meanwhile in the chamber itself the battle continued. When it was proposed that the parliament "would respect the result of the Irish referendum", the only one to be allowed on the treaty, only 129 MEPs (including one Tory, Nirj Deva) supported it, while 499 (including four Tories) voted that the wishes of the Irish people should not be respected. But what if they vote in favour of the treaty? It is good to know that our democracy is in such reliable hands.

In the picture I am the chicken on the right.

I also revealed that Tories had failed to vote in favour of a referendum, and some had even refused to support an amendment that caled for respecting the result of the Irish referendum.

Dorset lags behind in wealth

Figures released yesterday put Dorset just three percent above the EU average for income. This is a pretty poor show when you consider that countries such as Poland and Bulgaria are included in the figures.

Virtually the only other parts of the UK with worse figures are Devon and Cornwall who are below the average. We discover this at a time when Dorset's services are being cut because the Labour government believe that just because it is beautiful it must therefore be rich.

It is a disgrace that the fire service and policing are being cut in Dorset in order that resources can be transferred to other areas in the country that are significantly better off. The cuts are just prejudice from the government that wants to shore up its own support base while treating rural England and Dorset in particular with contempt.

Of course if we were not subsidising the EU to the tune of £138.6 million per day net then the county and the country would be far wealthier.

February Meeting: Charlton Marshall

The North Dorset UKIP Association met as it always does on the first Thursday of the month at the Charlton Arms in Charlton Marshall.

It was good to see so many from outside the Constituency there. Discussion centred on the days extraordinary news that the Government's own lawyer had informed a court that "manifesto pledges are not subject to legitimate expectation".

The court case was one taken by a Brighton member of UKIP, Stuart Bower who was attempting to claim breach of contract against the Government for failing to uphold its manifesto commitment to hold a referendum into the European Constitution/Treaty.

Whilst everybody has known for many years that you cannot trust the paper these promises are printed upon it takes things to a new level of arrogance when the Government announce it in a court of law.

Other things discussed include the latest leafleting campaign and the North Dorset pub Survey... more of which later.

Bourton Wind Farm meeting

UKIP North Dorset Constituency Chairman John Baxter and I turned up on Friday to the public meeting about the Silton wind farm proposals at Bourton School.

A very impressive turn out, and not the first. There must have been between 250-300 at Bourton and on Wednesday evening a similar number turned up in Milton on Stour.

Given that the first anybody knew about the proposal was a couple of weeks ago when some people were approached to affix noise monitors on their buildings. Of course nobody was told why, but after asking the question it had become clear. Ecotricity (or Eco trickery as it was dubbed at the meeting to load applause were back).

In 2003 the firm, wholly owned by the former traveller Dale Vince, had lost its attempt to put two turbines up in Cucklington a mere couple of miles away. Now they were back with a vengeance.
They want 6 and they are to be as tall as Salisbury cathedral. And they have been clever, by moving to Silton from Cucklington they cross the county border from Somerset to Dorset and therefore opponents will have to start all over again. Of course the fact he is trying to build 6 goes against his own beliefs. Here he is interviewed in the Guardian,

"We only deal in small projects of two to three turbines and ensure the local community are comfortable with the scheme".

But his attitude to local people is better explained when he says,

"You can't be in wind without having problems with planning. On-shore schemes are in the hands of local councillors, who don't read the details of applications, don't understand government policies and cave in to local pressure groups,"

What does he mean by this, who are these disreputable local pressure groups that he dismisses? The local people of course.

The meeting was addressed by Campbell Dunford, Chairman of the Renewable Energy Foundation, who was involved in the successful Save the Vale campaign. Mr Dunford gave a very good overview of the utter inappropriateness of wind energy and the way in which it is the most inefficient and highly subsidised form of energy yet online.
As he put it wind farms are a form of "Socialist post-imperial grandeur... There is little point making a sacrifice which is absolutely futile".

Building wind farms in the light of all the meteorological and economic evidence is as much use as putting, "go-faster stripes on the side of my car".

Quite.

Gillingham Town Council will be discussing the 'scoping' document for this proposal tonight. UKIP North Dorset will report on further developments.

Local UKIP oppose new wind farm

Gawain Towler, the UK Independence Party PPC for North Dorset today gave his full support to the Save the Vale campaign against the planned new wind farm between Milton on Stour and Bourton.

"Ecotricity just don't know when to give up. Wind farms are inefficient, massively subsidised and devastating to the local landscape", he said. "To have six massive turbines marching over the Vale would create enormous disturbance and for what? Turbines in general produce less than a third of the energy they claim due to the simple fact that the wind does not blow in the right way the right speed or at all for a majority of the time. Traditional electricity generation has to be maintained in order to cover for it".

"Worse still are the contemptuous comments from Ecotricity Director Dale Vince" said Mr Towler."He obviously doesn't give a damn about local people. The way he dismisses their concerns is disgraceful. He demands that they be less selfish. Maybe he shouldn't be so greedy to pick up public subsidy".

Mr Vince said "This is about climate change. We have to accept that we need to make some kind of change and we have to accept that we can either make a positive change or we’ll get a negative one by default.

"People have to be less selfish. It is the nature of the beast that we have to make wind energy in the countryside – where some people are lucky enough to live."

Commenting on the potential impact to local tourism, Mr Vince added: "Evidence actually shows that wind turbines don’t degrade tourism, they enhance it because people like the way they look.

"There won’t be a noise issue. Noise is an objective thing that can be measured and controlled."

Noise may be measurable, but that won't help the people who live and work underneath it.

There will be a public meeting about these plans at Bouton School this Friday 8th February at 7pm.
Photo taken by Don Brownlow