Europe - Not the rock band..

Dear devoted Glums

I read the  'i' newspaper. Yes me 'middle England'. I like it because it's cheap, factual (mostly), has a fair sports section and contains very little celebrity nonsense. It does however have a questionable political stance and is also much loved it seems (judging by the letters published) by Europhiles. This has lead me to compose this entry.

They (I presume left of centre folk) consistently bang on about how we must not leave 'Europe' and that the referendum will prove disastrous for the UK economy. 'We will lose important trade partners' they chime 'The Americans only want to deal with the EU and Britain will stand alone, ignored and  forlorn'
Presumably these  are the same Americans that 'they' chastise at every opportunity for their inhumane foreign policy and eaves dropping across the internet..' as for the 150bn of European trade why precisely will that disappear overnight ? Be honest, it won't will it - but it's the one and only, ill-founded argument.

This unreasoned mantra is lacking any tangible evidence, or in laymen's terms is 'utter bollocks'.
Meanwhile it is incredulous to think that a very minor political party can cause such as stir, present arguments that contain statistics and hard facts regarding EU contributions and yet the mainstream parties can come up the no single  good reason for continuing down the road to complete Euepean Union. How many spin-doctors and researchers does it take to come up with just one single good reason why we continue to be a large net contributor to a parasitic bureaucracy with only its own self interest at heart ?

UKIP for example has never once denounced the principle benefit of being part of what was once know as the EEC - free trade. No reasonable person could wish for trade barriers between near neighbours - what they asking is for someone to put the brakes on this runaway train and think back to 1973 when free trade was pretty much all that was on the table and was all that the British people voted for. NOT the Euro, NOT fiscal Union and certainly NOT political union.

Come on Labour, Lib dems et al tell us why  the EU is so great ? Free trade is a given and not disputed  (since 1973) so you can't have that argument, and none of this clap trap about it being a great club to be in and how we need to unite to defend our economy against the Chinese - poppycock. The EU can never compete with the Chinese and Indians due among other things to the simple fact of punitive labour laws and factory wages.

The answer it seems is a two tier Europe - free trade for all and political union plus fancy infrastructure projects for those who think they can afford it . Meanwhile I can think of quite some uses for that 53 million pounds AWEEK that we put into the Euro-trough for van Rompuy and all his corrupt chums to scoff - the greedy bastards.

Consultants

With the obvious exception of Consultant Surgeons and some Engineering Consultants - those who will tell you the size of RSJ to fit and prevent your house falling down - why do these people exist ?

Management consultants for example. If you are a 'manager' one assumes you have been given a job that requires you to man-manage people (an obvious skill) or manage sales account or similar. Why then, in the name all things holy, will you need a consultant to reinforce the common-sense lessons that your mother taught you aged 6. If you cannot perform common sense tasks you are not fit for the job and should then become one of the managed. Consultants contribute absolutely nothing and yet consume huge amounts of wealth through their insatiable avarice. Until I had met a recruitment consultant I really believed that the most meaningless job was that of the estate agent - silly me.

Insurance - Licensed Bandits

Hello is that Direct Line ?(after negotiating with 5 menu levels in the oh so customer friendly automatic call handling system)
'Yes'
'Good. I was wondering if you can explain why my car Premium has risen by approximately 35% since last year  ?'
'Let me take a look at your details sir.. A different car ?
'No'
'Any new [motoring] convictions or accidents ?'
'No'
'Have you moved house ?'
'No'
'Changed marital status ?'
Five minutes later
'No - absolutely nothing has changed, and what's more I can now get cheaper elsewhere - I've checked !'
' I'll put you through to our customer services'..

'Hello customer services, here can I help you ?'

Pause while I explain all the above - again.

'Well Sir, I get the picture let me see if I can apply some discount to that last renewal quote. How about 5% less than you paid last year ?'
'Thank you, that's fine - now the  why the fuck did we have to go through this ludicrous rigmarole and  how long have you been trying to fleece me in this underhand way ? Eh ??'