I have watched the video recorded on the day of David Campbell-Bannerman’s lacklustre defection to the Conservative Party twice now and both times it made me seethe with anger, not just the words he is using but also that we have let him make this claim. This is the claim he made that UKIP is just a pressure group.

You can fly the party flag and you can get defensive but take a step back like I have and take a look at this party as it stands. We have MEP’s defecting, other MEP’s threatening the leader with legal action, yes that’s right Miss Andreassen. We have no clear leadership are spokespeople are all over the place and we lack a clear consistency in policy external to EU, I know we are going through a policy review and we have the able hands of Lord Moncton at the helm of that ship so I have faith.

I am not a member of UKIP just to make friends and I don’t take any prisoners so I have no qualms about getting this off of my chest. We are in a bit of a mess at the moment on almost every front. I know this is not the main reason why DCB upsticks and sold out but it would have been playing on his mind. He is a blatant careerist and goes where the streets are paved with Euro’s… whoops, I meant gold.

It has been said time and time again and likely will not happen for a while put this party needs a top down overhaul. I don’t mean for one second to replace the Chairman Steve Crowther and our illustrious leader Nigel Farage MEP, I think they are a very good partnership and offer us a strong leadership. I also feel for them as they are being constantly scapegoated.

No, I feel that many of our MEP’s are out there defending their own interests and not for the good and strength of the party. I do feel there are some MEP’s in the party that want to see UKIP as just a pressure group. I have blogged on this before but in the advent of selection lists that transpired as genuine positions in politics we have given many supporters and members an elevated position that comes with a hideous salary, a lot of free time and expenses you could druel over. We have given them toffee to scoff and many don’t share it out.

No, I feel that we need a radical revolution otherwise I think this party will stagnate. I fear that this may already be happening what with disappointing local elections. The first thing we should do is strip out the dead wood that is weighing our party down. There are many people in paid positions and also one or two MEP’s who are not pulling their weight. When you are put on the selection list for the European Elections it does not mean that you can’t be tipexxed off. Many have got into this arrogant position where they feel that the party needs them more than they need the party. I’ve got news for these people, we really don’t.

There are many, many bright lights shining through this party. I already wrote an article stating that Harry Aldridge should be an MEP, click here to read more. There are budding, innovative and above all else extremely dedicated members who could do a brilliant job in lieu of existing members. I feel it important for the future of the party that we are seen to change adapt and give genuine talent a fair chance of shining through.

We need to be beacon of honesty, transparency to the political class. I believe, among many of my peers that being a politician should not be a career and a job for life. If you are genuinely creating an impact and be seen as an inspiration to the party and to politics nation and often continent wide then there is a justification in long servitude, but if you are seen to go with the flow then sorry but there are better people equipped to do the job.

A regular adaption and change should not however upset the order and stability within the party. It should be at the discretion of the branches and members. When they cry for change then give it to them. Its part of my obession with localism that the local and regional branches have a positive voice on the central organisation of the party.

I think and hope that the next European Elections are going to bring a massive in terms of who is representing us and Britain in the European Parliament. I also think its going to bring a huge change to the attitude and composition of the party. I predict that we are going be deselecting at least three of our MEP’s, providing we get an equivalent share by the electorate they will be replaced by far more dedicated and competent members.

Another thing that I think will help us to shake the pressure group stigma is to sort out a good list of party spokesman on certain topics. One of our more heavily used taglines, said many a time by his Farageness is ‘we are the real opposition’. Well I am sure even the most politically illerate readers would understand the party opposite always creates a shadow cabinet. I think we should do the same.

We should create a UKIP healthcare spokesman, UKIP finance expert etc. These should be visible and job titles should be awarded. I also think it is a fair case for saying that these don’t necessarily have to be people directly employed by the party or MEP’s. If you are seen to have vast knowledge or experience in a certain policy area then providing a good share of the membership agrees you should become the spokesperson. This will allow our dedicated team of press officers to have these highly qualified spokespeople to sell to the media.

If UKIP are seen to have a wealth of talent and not just a bunch of old anti EU cranks then this will help us commensurately. Of course we all know that media outlets like the BBC are institutionally biased against us. This doesn’t mean that we should be rolling over and giving up, no, we have to be wiser, stronger and more professional. We have the power and ability to do that. If I didn’t think we did, I wouldn’t be a member.

I think another thing that will help us out is if we release the shackles around Young Independence and allow us to roam free. I am very proud to be accepted into Young Independence and I feel it is in absolutely superb shape with its captaincy led by Harry Aldridge. If I am perfectly honest Young Independence is in better shape than not only the party but the Conservative Future.

We are a well organised, very well networked bunch of warm blooded young political activists. I do not agree with a lot of the policy within the party and I do not treasure many of the views held by the elders in the party, and I can comfortably say nor do most of Young Independence.

We are not just a conservative collective. There is a strong libertarian feeling bubbling over the walls of Young Independence towers and it is thrilling and exciting to be part of. I will give you an example of the thoughts coming from our group. Providing that there is no welfare state then people should be free to immigrate and migrate at their will. This is a libertarian idea and I am sure that many of you reading this do not agree.

I think we should still be affiliated but I do think that we should become far more independent and seen to be visibly different. UKIP is the party of today and Young Independence is the party of tomorrow.

But this is politics and this is democracy. We don’t all have to agree, and with the inherent freedoms we have within the party you can speak your mind. Although I do think that we should be seeing what the membership believes and what they want the party to do or to be seen to be doing.

This may be costly but I think we should send a questionairre to everyone who holds UKIP membership and furthermore a second to Young Independence. We should then use the data we get in return to feed into the policy review and it also shows us where we are on the political spectrum. It may throw up information we might not expect. We may very well be a largely libertarian party or centrist. I am fairly sure the results will not be showing that we are left wing (I indeed seriously hope not).

This then allows us to work out a battle strategy and it allows the leadership to show the membership that they are listening and they are incorporating the grass-roots support.

We need to be identifying branch by branch and region by region big future contenders and giving them projects, responsibilities and keeping them enticed and active. UKIP in my own experience are very good at going quiet at times and as a erratic soul by character I tend to get very restless.

We need to embrace direct democracy, we need to embrace localism and we need to be seen to regard liberty and democracy as an integral part of our parties policy. Harry Aldridge has already argued the case for UKIP becoming a libertarian party and I quite agree, click here to read more.

These are just my humble opinions. Please comment on it and get a lively debate going. I don’t believe anyone is entirely happy with where this party is at, at present.

Now forgive me for my youth and naivety but were the teenagers of times gone past seen as as such alien beings, uncapable of manners etc?

I only  ask this question because I encounter this situation possibly three or four times a week, be I knocking on someone’s door to fix a telephone line or just buying my lunch in a supermarket. It perplexes me so much so that I have to get it off of my chest.

When I come into an older or more often than  not a middle aged persons view in a situation where we haven’t met and a strange look comes across their faces and its like I can see the cogs turning in their head. It is exactly like they think to themselves ‘oh here comes a young’un, he’s gonna be rude so I am too’.

For example only earlier I was buying my lunch in one of the large supermarket chains *cough* TESCO *cough* and when it came to the laborious task of queing and paying things changed. I saw the sales assistant smiling, laughing and joking with the two older people in front of me in said queue but when it came to my turn her attitude instantly changed.

She became instantly more rigid, no smiling and I would almost say timid. Any of the readers of this site will know that I am in no way a threatening person to behold. I can only assume it was because of my youthful looks. But my question is, why did she feel she had to behave in such a different way?

I suppose one attributing factor is the countless youths who are indeed physically incapable of manners and common decency. I do I am ashamed to admit know a few of these people, but does it not suggest a why sociological problem?

People it seems have already believe that my generation are less friendly, less happy and outgoing than others. I don’t know whether its because my generation are still of a tender age or because of the changes to the world we are growing up in. Less and less people are going out to socialise with each other and on the same breath more and more are staying in on computers talking to effectively strangers from far far away.

I do not for one second think that this is 100% awful and damaging but it does represent problems. Granted by new technologies like Skype and MSN you can connect at little or no price to people the world over and with sites like ‘Facebook’ and ‘Twitter’ you can connect and meet effectively total strangers. You can have a friend like over the four figure mark from every obscure nation sprawling the whole globe but at the same time you may struggle to count with your fingers close friends you physically meet with on a regular basis.

I am only twenty years old but already I worry for people younger than me. The whole internet online console gaming hit me just when I was at school leaving age so thankfully I think I escaped, but my twin brothers who are both fifteen sadly were not so lucky. They spend hour after hour playing ‘Call of duty’ or ‘FIFA11′ with their friendship group. The truly sad thing is they all live within two squared miles of each other yet choose to stay at home and play online games with each other. I cannot understand and have expressed to them quite openly that instead of virtually kicking a football to each other on ‘XBOX Live’ they could be physically doing it at their local park, especially on a nice summers day. Thankfully they are healthy, Max is a cross country national runner and Isaac plays Sunday league junior football but many are not.

I think the advent of being able to speak only to the people you want to and avoiding the awkward social situations of reality many of my peers and people younger than me are increasingly struggling to cope with other people in day to day life. While I absolutely love the internet for politics and news it does we do pay a price for it and sadly I think society does aswell.

I had to explain simply the scales of the political spectrum we have. On the far left is communism where the state feeds, dresses, pays and every other control over your life and on the far right you have anarchy, which is where you are but a being. You have no laws, no police etc. That means that you have absolute freedom. There is of course variations and you need to find where you are best placed along this line. I am libertarian, which is not hugely far away from anarchy but where property laws, freedom of speech, migration etc are safeguarded.

It took just a couple of minutes explaining the analogy before he realised that the right were not the BNP style racist or Tory bastards as the metropolitan elite and the Guardianistas love to see us as. We are seen as fascists and rich toffs and for us liberty minded people it is so impossibly frustrating.

It does not help when he have planks like Lembit Opik saying this on his Lembit4London website Also, I’ve got a pretty clear and well reported political philosophy – left of centre and libertarian. Clear and well reported policy is not what I see it as, its two of the opposites together. The last time I heard such nonensense was during the student fees riots when the protesters were calling themselves socialist anarchists which does not make a scrap of sense whatsoever.

We really, really need to stop bogging ourselves down with issues like immigration where the left can rinse us and it simply makes the whole right illiberal. We need to take our word back.

Of all the commotion and noise created by the frankly ridiculous mess that footballs governing body is in, it gets me thinking, is it typical of all supranational agencies?

Within FIFA there is an overbearingly top heavy structure and phenomenally centralised power. Remind you of anything? It reminds me of almost every international body and most noticeably European Union.

There is something about football and footballers especially above other sports and organisations whereby they cannot seem to avoid scandal and are especially bad at keeping it under wraps. My view is because a) its great gossip and b) they are not in a position of direct political power and thus do not need a wide-reaching team of spin-doctors, press officers, advisers and whips.

In FIFA’s case this week its been just plain old traditional corruption. Mohammed Bin-Hamman the head of Asian Football has been accused of I am sure you have heard of bribing senior figures in world football for votes for president of FIFA. When the proverbial hit the fan and the media got there fervent mits on the the story and lapped it up merrily, Bin-Hamman claimed that Sepp Blatter the current president knew all about it, which undoubtedly landed him in it. Surprise, surprise captain indestructible survived these claims. Bin Hamman was however not so lucky being suspended and having to withdraw his candidacy for Wednesdays election.

This caused a media storm spanning the world over and led to claims, pleas and recommendations with one common theme, for change in FIFA. The president of our nations football governing body the FA, our very own Duke of Cambridge, Prince William Mountbatten-Windsor urged Sepp Blatter and the FIFA congress to postpone the pending elections to allow for another candidate to bid for presidency.

What was the result of this I may wonder? Well it was a lightning fast reply with no being the primary factor. This left our boy Blatter fighting claims by the world press that FIFA was in a crisis, at a press conference he said ‘crisis, what crisis?’, hmmm interesting! Another claim was that it is was too cliquey and centralised, again which he fervently denied. How can he deny its too top heavy when he is the only candidate for the ruddy presidency?

As I’m sure you are all wondering whether he was re-elected and I can confirm that yes he was.  I have no doubt that Bin-Hamman will get a ticking off and be back in his post within a month. Justice should have been served and real change should have been offered in light of these events, but defending their cushy positions and the status quo and ignored the will of footballs supporters and financiers of FIFA (Adidas and Coca-Cola) aswell I might add.

Another place where justice is not adequately served and where a fair trial is not had is the International Criminal Court in the Hague. It is wrong on a few levels. One being that it does not provide fair trials and does not offer the justice demanded by a tyrants victims and second is that it insults the judicial capacity of that nation state.

When I say about not having justice served, I refer you to the arguably most high profile case in The Hague, which was the trail of Slobodan Milošević, the former president of Serbia & Yugoslavia. To say that the trial was a shambles is an immense understatement. I don’t see how anyone could ever contemplate holding such a trial again or for that matter claiming success out of a trial whereby both the judge and the defendent died after an insanely drawn out period of 5 years with a heart stopping $200million per annum UN funded budget.

It is a very insular self righteous institution parolled, policed, governed and orchestrated by this new wave of ‘human rights lawyers’ who like some sort of widespread disease are judge, gury and governer of the world. Judicial activism has already allowed our country to be run from the European Court of Human Rights and our own courts by institutionally left wing judges, who are surprise, surprise unelected.

The judge and jury appointed for what is undoubtedly going to be another example that supranational activities don’t and should not work especially as regards to justice . John Laughland said this of the trial (quoted from Dan Hannans blog);

In the conviction of General Krstic in 2001, both the fact of genocide and the requisite mens rea are affirmed.  It is regarded as proven that “Krstic’s superiors” intended to commit genocide – Krstic was Mladić’s lieutenant.  In Krstic’s appeal in 2004, where reference is made explicitly to “the intent on the part of General Mladić to execute the Bosnian Muslims who were to be transferred” (paragraph 87), Krstic’s reduced sentence is justified on the basis that the Trial Chamber had not proved that he knew of General Mladić’s intent and shared it.  But that intent, and the actus reus, are never in dispute.  It is therefore literally impossible for Mladić now to have a fair trial since the Tribunal has ruled on his guilt already.

He does seem quite the scoundrel, and the evidence stacked against him suggests that he is guilty. But the clue is in that sentence, suggests, like presumptions and asuumptions. Lest we not forget that to assume, makes an ass out of u and me (did you see what I did there?). Presumptions, assumptions and the torrid memories of the conflict are not enough to lock this swine up and throw away the key. If he is accused of such disgusting acts against humanity, we the seemingly good people prosecuting him should act with impecable manners, efficiency, proffessionally and humanely. If we don’t offer a fair trial and if we don’t act humanely we are not as bad as him, but not much better.

The second afore mentioned point was that it insults the judicial capacity of that member state. This man is claimed to have committed such atrocities in this country, it should be seen as a means of ensuring upmost justice and fairness that he be tried there. As long as it can be ensured that a independent jury be selected and a fair, level headed judge and the correct lawyer presentation, free of corruption then it should be conducted in Serbia.

It also allows the victims of such evil deals to close another chapter in their struggle to cope with that has happened and what they have lost. They should not fall foul of the arrogance of the UN that they are the best to try such beats. A court is a court is a court so long as its fabrication meets such treasured mechanisms like trial by jury and double jeopardy.

I go back to the top. There is such anger that there is no justice within FIFA, that things are not appropriately and fairly dealt with in something that is only a sport, yet there is no questions asked, very little anxiety or even anger at an instituion set up primarily to ensure justice that is so spectacularly failing.

Update: a Daily Mail poll shows that 93% of readers think that Sepp Blatter should resign from his post as FIFA President

Fantastic news, yet another simeball leaves UKIP and paves the way for yet still more change. Its a line we have had to grow reasonably used to in UKIP, but why?

I have of course read Nigel Farage’ book ‘Fighting Bull’, I believe anyone with even the slightest interest in UKIP and its beginnings should read it. It is noble, it is inspiring. Every chapter every line makes me sympathise with the great man leading our party. I admire Nigel more as a role model than a politician. He is a man that doesn’t shy away from controversy, he is a man connected with people. He drinks, he smokes and he does things normal people do, not what the political class expects him to.

There is however one thing he doesn’t do, he doesn’t embroider himself in scandal, he is not a liar and by god is he a dedicated and steadfast asset to this party. From the day UKIP began to now he has not changed his stance. He has had to relent and to adapt to the change and the growth of the party, but the rhetoric is still the same.

He is the beacon of light and what any aspiring politician should look up to, as long as he is not a careerist. Nigel will likely never be a minister, he won’t mind me saying this will likely never be the Prime Minister but he is a glorious politician. This is because what he talks about he genuinely believes in and will not change his views to advance and to help his own gains. This is what UKIP wants from its public ambassadors.

One of the main reasons why I joined the party as recently as a year ago was because I admired its origins. It was a group of people from all classes who cared about one thing. Britain’s exit from the European Union. It has changed because rightfully so it has grown into a party with policies and energy.

I joined because it has created its own politicians. The people for whom longer serving members and our forefathers who had campaigned tirelessly, donating every pound they had spare, knocking on doors in all weathers, fundraising to get us a public and european presence wanted change. As the demographics of this party suggest a huge number of these and still are elderly citizens in the twilight years. These are people who had seen the political geography of this country change and wanted action to protect my generation and the future of my children.

A huge number did not want politicians just to fly the ‘get out of Europe now’ flag, they wanted to be the first to elect a new political class. They wanted politicians who were normal people. They wanted to elect the best candidates to do the job, for the first time in many, many years it didn’t matter whether you were a chippy or a lord you could represent. This of course was as long as you believed in the party and could handle the job.

Initially the euphoria of having MEP’s cemented and glued the party together (well as much as a political party could be), but after a while the cracks started to show. This was because they now weren’t just a campaigner but an actual politician. A new world was opened to them and a nigh on £100,000 a year salary to boot, courtesy of our European overlords. This undoubtedly changed many of these people for the worse. Greed, arrogance and selfishness overtook the weaker MEP’s and caused huge problems. They started to lose interest in the people in the party and began to be lost into their glorious political careers. Many and I am ashamed to say still do not attend regular regional meetings and lend their support to events and campaigns by the people who work so hard to elect them.

I personally think David Campbell-Bannerman perfectly encapsulates this new wave of politics in UKIP. He is one of the rotten eggs that has tarnished the UKIP basket. The new change in politics has been tarnished by the greed and single minded careerism displayed in his actions today.

I for one am glad he has gone, I do not however think he is the last to go in such a storm and indeed I go as far as to say he is not the last that should go. I just hope and pray that he has one shred of credibility and stands down as he promised to do in 2009. We need a change in UKIP and his resignation will bring that.

This brings me to who I think would be perfect to replace him. We need someone who is going to offer this change, who is going to bring a breath of fresh air into what I think is becoming an increasingly tumultuous and stagnant party. I can think of absolutely no one in the party who could replace DCB better than YI’s very own chairman Harry Aldridge.

He is so, so, so qualified for this position. He is perhaps one of the first young people to have joined this party many years ago. He has watched so many come and go, he has seen successive leadership and party changes yet his dedication to the party and its objectives has stayed firm, even more exciting is his wish to steer the party in an exciting new direction.

Harry is not just young but represents a whole new political force. He is a self made man, a businessman who has not come from huge wealth and has not studied for years in a university racking up huge debt. He is someone who works hard for what he has and is prepared to carry on doing so until he achieves his destiny. He has proved himself capable of elections and even more importantly he has the resounding backing, support and admiration of the youth of the party Young Independence.

He is a libertarian and is very keen for UKIP to embrace classical liberalism, he is a brilliant tactician and is not just a valuable asset to this party but I would go as far as to say extremely capable at the tender age of 24 to lead this party, not that he or YI would want to challenge Nigel (yet ).

I would struggle to find any member of Young Independence who doesn’t agree with me and I urge you to come out and support him. From working with him on the recent ‘Rally Against Debt’ I can say he is the kindest, most honourable and professional person I have ever come across. He also I must add has not ask me to say this nor expressed any intention to challenge. This is my opinion only.

I am still reading through the news and opinions on the ‘Rally Against Debt’, because I like the other organisers want to see what we did wrong so that we can rectify and build on it later on.

Having been featured on pick of the week on Political Pundits (proudly I must add) I had a browse at other articles. One is entitled ‘Rally for Apathy‘ by William Prothero. One of its criticisms among others is the fact that the supporters likened this too much to the march for the alternative. The words he used were ‘they were trying to “out-Left” the Left. If you’re playing a game of “my gang is bigger than your gang” then the Left will always win. Not because their views are more representative of the wider population – the majority of Britons and Europeans support cuts – but because they have deep trade union coffers and hordes of trade union thugs. If they want to send 250, 000+ people to London to cause a scene, they can’

He also said this event was a massive failure. I from quite clearly a biased view do not think it was a massive failure, nor did nigh on every attendee, there was not one person there who would have said it was perfect and there are still more who would criticize something, but it was the first, there was always going to be teething problems. In a Twitter debate Chad Noble of ‘No2EU’ quite rightly said its like trying to judge ‘The Beatles’ on ‘Love Me Do’. I have already explained numerous times that the date was chosen as only an indicator y time and we were not expecting it to grow as quickly as it did. We had many other factors working against us.

He made however a very, very good point, a point that may have helped us boost the numbers. Those of us libertarian, classical-liberals, Thatcherites any other sort of right of centre political activists would have to agree that on the whole our press are pretty wet. We have a few papers flying the flag for the right, but at best they are half mast. ‘The Telegraph’ and ‘The Express’ and at times ‘The Mail’ our our only press for those of us that think the right is right.

There does not seem to be a strong right wing press and media force in this country. Not when you look over the pond and see networks like ‘Fox’ who are lets say, very, very right wing. They seem braver, more comfortable and clearly permitted to speak their minds politically. This has a very positive effect on people who share their same political thinking. People like something they can connect with. An anchorman adding his two penneth worth in on a news story (so long as its not state funded *cough* BBC *cough*) makes for more interesting viewing.

We are starting to improve but there is not as of yet an adequately strong enough right wing presence on the internet. There are great blog networks like ConHome and of course the one I am on now IndHome. These are fanstastic but rarely do the Tories wander over to us and perhaps more but still not often do we wander over there. Its because ConHome is obviously for conservatives and Independence Home is clearly for UKIP’ers and YI’es. Not to forget also is Liberal Vision is for liberty minded LibDems.

Apart from Twitter and Facebook there is not a network where all of us with right of centre views to share, blog, promote, advertise, upload media and perhaps in my view the most important of all, organise events. This is another thing that the Americans have got nailed to a fine art. My favourite is the Right Network but there are many more.

This in my view is one thing that I think worked beautifully at Rally Against Debt. It opened an absolutely brilliant oppurtunity for all on the right to network. I am seeing people now Tweeting each other who had not met before the event. Yes it didn’t have the same impact as ‘March for the Alternative’, but it has opened the door for us to catch up or some might say rewind the clocks and try and set up a network or organisation or movement to have all on the right together on things that affect us.

This is why I badly want RAD2. In addition I want to help find a way to create a UK Right Wing network. I don’t want to do it alone, I need help, email me jake.patch@gmail.com

I know this is a highly contentious issue and one in which tends to rile a huge proportion of this population, more often than not those who have a left leaning. This is of course the welfare state we have found ourselves in.

This morning I had to install a telephone line (its what I do for a living, not a hobby), at a terraced house which was split into five seperate bedsits. For data protection reasons I cannot tell you the exact location but its not needed nonetheless. It was a nasty job if truth be told. I am not going into details because a, many not from telecommunications would not understand and b, you in all likelihood would not care. In the bedsit there were three I would say under 25 year old people from 9 in the morning until one o clock. I am not just being naive and guessing that they were collectively on a day off as employment search support and jobseekers came up regularly.

They may well be searching for a job but for the 4 and a half working weekday hours I spent in and around the property I didn’t see them pick up one paper and look in the job section, I didn’t hear one of them pick up the phone and ring for jobs. I also didn’t hear them once mention how they are going to find a job.

If it was me who was out of employment I would be knocking on every door, I would be online all day sifting through job sites. I would be ringing recruitment consultants, and in the meantime I would be on a farm relief milking, muck spreading or taking any work to see me through. But is that just me that would do that? Is it just me that would try as many avenue’s as possible for employment than to take someone else’s hard earned money as a means to live?

Moving on from that job and reaching the point in the day where the taxman has taken his fill (around 1pm) I decided to take my hard earned lunch. Afterwards I picked another installation task up, This turned out to be another bugger of a job.This took me around again 5 or 6 hours (I am not a slow worker it was just a nightmare). This was a lady of whom I would speculate at being late 50′s and early 60′s. She was just moving into a flat above a community centre and needed new service. Whilst I was there she had to rush off to attend to a couple of errands,

Upon her return we had a nice chat and it transpires that she works in charity. Not just charity but she is actually the director of Taunton Voluntary Action which is an organisation set up in Taunton (obviously) to promote people and ‘development of a vibrant, effective and influential voluntary and community sector locally’. I was so impressed with what she was doing. I had a chat with her about the ‘Rally Against Debt’ and my views on the welfare state, she totally agreed.

I was in essence saying to her that I don’t think we need a welfare state, especially the bloated size it is now. If you were to put our welfare state on a BMI chart I would say it would come out as clinically obese. I was saying to her with the response of nods and the odd smile that for every service the welfare state offers a charity or non profit organisation could do better and with a much more personal touch. I said that I literally see that no benefit to monopolised welfare when there are so many that want to offer help and support for nothing or little money.

There are in my opinion two tremendous benefits to the scrappage of the welfare state. The first being that if their is not yet a charity or non profit organisation in existence to offer a service that the state previously offered then it may inspire many to fill the gaps. In every walk of life people want to be remembered and noticed. This would be an attractive proposition. We have a long history of rich philanthropists donating to charitable causes.

The second being that it gives some a real buzz to life. It is something else to feel proud of. It is to many them giving back or contributing in society. It can both be great socially but also charity work is hugely rewarding. We have a great many charities in this country. Why not them undertake the provision of welfare and take it off of the states hands.

People who are receiving help and support and in many cases a roof over their heads by someone who has donated to do this through their caring of humanity or by someone dedicating their life or their free time to help people improve their lives tend to be far more enthusiastic engaging and inspired to get their lives back on track, or if this is not possible are exponentially more grateful. Those in a position to change their lives tend to do so far quicker.

I don’t advocate the end of the welfare state just because of the economic impact but it just makes for a more free and closer society. The state has removed from the people in a monopoly styled manner one of the greatest tools for social and community cohesion. People less fortunate than others are helped by the opposite. Not only this but because the state deals with all provision and decides how much this will cost it actually creates problems because there are people in their view effectively living off of their own money.

It is one of the issues that angers British people the most and this anger is in my view starting to boil and if not addressed properly and effectively could cause far greater problems in the future. I simply don’t see it as an option to reform this system. It is too unfair and it is too bureaucratic to ever rectify. The idea of a welfare state is a failed project it has not on the whole benefited the masses but enslave them into poverty.

When constantly patrolling the #rallyagainstdebt hashtag on Twitter there is an argument that constantly comes up. This is the argument that state spending and control breeds freedom and liberty. This is an absolutely crazy statement to make and actually makes no sense at all.

There are a few layers to this nonsense. The first being that if the state makes the decision to spend money on something they have to pay for it. The money that they use to pay for this good or service, be it tarmac for a road or a teacher in a class room, that is funded by taxes. Taxes of course come from wealth creators. I am not teaching the readers of Indhome how to suck eggs because you all know that the private sector breeds the jobs, services and companies that are tax liable. The decision of taxation is made by the government or the council or other relevant public institution. The decision has thus not been made by the financier. There is no freedom in that at all.

The second point is when this decision has been made and they have taken in some way or another your money from you to fund the teacher or the healthcare provision or the road then that is it, you have paid for the service along with all other taxpayers. Because of this the state has then monopolised that good or that service.  This in turn breeds other problems.

This makes it very unfair on other companies within that sector. This means that because for example the NHS holds the monopoly on the provision of healthcare a private company can then only grab a small sector of the population who are prepared to pay again. This means that for the customer of this service they have in essence paid twice over, doesn’t sound very free to me. Its also even more unfair when you talk about education. Education is one of the most important components of a nation and is held very dear to the parents of children. The state has taken the decision to publicly fund this and monopolised this. Around 80% of this country has to be educated in public institutions whether they like it or not. The other affluent 20% they can afford to pay privately. This means in essence that if you didn’t agree with the national curriculum or the quality of teachers shy of changing to another state school which is often difficult and costly you have no choice. That is not fair.

Another thing that many of the left don’t understand is that because the state has decided to monopolise some of these services the private companies supplying materials can rub their hands together in glee. Because their are basically only a small handful of consumers companies can charge what they like because the public sector companies will pay. This brings huge waste and accumulates debt. It also locks others out of the market and really affects their profit making positions. Another point of lack of freedom.

When you factor in all of this waste and bureaucracy and lack of choice, you get to a pretty rubbish situation. Especially when their are answers. Germany’s systems of having to have health insurance by law and the poorest in society having their healthcare provided is a great solution.

Douglas Carswell’s and Daniel Hannan’s ‘The Plan’ book shows a way that you can ask your councill how much they spend on your childs education and then receive the money in a voucher format that would be accepted at private institutions. Their studies have shown that this would rarely have to be topped up and if it did would only amount to around £500 per annum. If this were to become the norm then the private schooling institutions would find areas for savings to allow anyone to enter.

There are so many reasons why the state should not be monopolising. No one is truly better off. We are not in a cruel and twisted people in this country. We on the right do not just care for our own, we have a general interest in others and the future of the country, we just don’t that state control and socialism is the answer to this. We believe in allowing parents and people the right to chose what products and services they use but still with provision and assistance for those who simply can’t afford it. The idea that anyone who is slightly politically right leaning would be happy about throwing people out into the street is absolutely ludicrous. We worry that the quality of state monopolised services are not up to scratch.

Pictures of the scenes unfolding at the Rally Against Debt

This has been my first chance to post on here since returning from London and escaping the Westminster Village I have grown to love but also yearn to change. To say it was a hectic period of time is a massive understatement.

As one of the organisers, along with the Young Independence chairman Harry Aldridge and adviser to the Farage Annabelle Fuller, I am going to of course speak from a biased view. But my view it is nonetheless that I am immensely proud of what we achieved on Saturday and look on with excitement to the future of the cause.

I know that the left have been (and were always going to) rally their online troops in a collective Facebook, Twitter, Blog and press hate campaign, but what I am surprised about is the level of desperation they have reached on this. The hashtag and nearly every left wing blog has features this, reporting the event as a spectacular failure. A spectacular failure that spent the lions share of Saturday 14th May on the BBC homepage no less.

Every paper from the Guardian to the Telegraph were lining up to interview the organisers and the attendees at the event. The BBC were out in their full force and the press coverage at the result was in my opinion was very positive. Nigel Farage said words to the effect that with next to no time and sod all money what we have achieved was amazing.

This is not an article to glorify my position but what has to be remembered is that this event went from conception to execution in 6 weeks. Within those six short weeks we had the Royal Wedding, the Alternative Vote referendum and local elections which hampered how much we could promote. We were also perhaps foolishly chose the date on the eve of exam season.

We had the help of the almighty TaxPayers Alliance with organisation and without their able assistance with their absolutely magnificent press and media department, the promotion would have been slim pickings. And without such people as Emma Bennett and Maria fort (of the TPA) doing much of the heavy lifting then the event would never ran have swiftly as it did. We also have to say a massive thank you to ‘The Freedom Association’ for their promotion and for having so many to be stewards at the event and perhaps most importantly their words of advice on this event and the possibility of future meetings.

The speakers were in my view absolutely magnificent. I don’t think this would be a good IndHome article if I didn’t mention that Nigel Farage was in my view the greatest of all the attendees. His talks on the state of the Eurozone and Great Britain’s liability to bailouts of failed nations achieved the most enthusiastic rounds of applauses and cheers. Mark Littlewood enlighted us with cold hard facts and stated the seriousness of the situation. Given his knowledge of economics and his position of director general at the ‘Institute of Economic Affairs’ I think there is few daring enough to argue with these. Martin Durkin lightened the mood with his fun and interesting facts about national debt. Anyone who wants to be more enlightened to the seriousness of national debt can and must go on Youtube to watch his magnificent documentary ‘Britains Trillion Pound Horror Story’. Bill Cash MP gave us a really inspiring talk focussed on the European Union, with his position as the chair of the European Scrutiny Select Committee he is well read on it. I enjoyed Priti Patel MP’s Euroskeptic talk, she is one of the up and coming budding new conservative MP’s. Maths extraordinare and director of The TaxPayers Alliance Matthew Sinclaire gave us more cold hard facts.

The idea that the figure was only around 350 in my opinion is utter rubbish. There were two petitions handed out during the event and the one asking for no more EU bailouts had over 300 signatures and not everyone signed. A conservative estimate I would say is 500. I am still nonetheless proud and thank each and everone that attended.

It is in my view the start of a whole new movement in Great Britain. With the increased debt the European Union is adding to UK Plc’s bank accounts and the constant government u-turns and inadequate spending cuts the issue of national debt is not going to go away. In and around conservative circles anger at this is increasing which is only going to fuel our cause.

Chad Noble, a No2EU campaigner has likened national debt to the claims of the greens that the future of our youth is damaged by the actions of today. Along with others he has said that the effects (if there are to be) of climate change are going to impoverish and hinder the future of this country. So will national debt. Children born today are born into tens of thousands of pounds of debt and it is entering them into a life of debt slavery. I just don’t see this is as fair and I don’t see it as moral. Those of the left that are so concerned with the effect of the consequences of our industry and our carbon usages should also be concerned by the consequences of profligate public spending. Just remember it is not us picking up the bill.

To summarise I am so happy with what is achieved and fully intend on setting in motion moves towards an RAD2.

I’m sure many of you have heard that an event is being held in Westminster on Saturday called Rally Against Debt. It is what it says on the tin. It’s a demonstration against debt, not just any debt, national debt.

We are in the last furlong of organising this event and a name added late to the list of speakers is our illustrious leader, Nigel Farage MEP. He will be speaking at the event as not only leader of UKIP and the co-chair of the ‘Europe for Freedom and Democracy’ group in the European Parliament on the topic of eurozone bailouts.

This is a great time to talk of such a thing as we know of Greece’ ongoing financial difficulties and the Portuguese bailout request. This is likely to add millions and millions to our nations debt and its also the controversial situation that the UK has found itself in whereby we are not members of the eurozone but are liable to contribute to eurozone bailout packages. This is all thanks to a decision by the previous administration.

Of course in addition to the great topic, he is also a great speaker. Nigel is incredibly well read on eurozone bailouts and even better informed on the European Union as a wider subject. Not known to be shy and retiring and famous for controversial and animated speeches I am sure that he will add his colourful and unique touch to this great event.

He will be at the event for its duration so if you spot him say hello. This is great for UKIP members and more right of centre thinkers also. In addition to Mr Farage other speakers confirmed are.

• Martin Durkin : Documentary maker (creator of ‘Britain’s Trillion Pound Horror Story’ on the topic of national debt)
• Mark Littlewood: Director general of the IEA (Institute of Economic Affairs)
• Bill Cash MP: Conservative MP and Chair of The European Scrutiny Select Committee
• Priti Patel MP: an up and coming Conservative MP from the new 2010 intake
• Paul Staines: better known as Guido Fawkes of very well read blog order-order.com
• Matthew Sinclair – Director of the TaxPayer’s alliance.
  

I’m sure you will all agree that this is a great and diverse range of guest speakers. There will also be a petition to sign saying that you do not wish the UK to be involved in the Eurozone bailout mechanism any more. There will be stalls and ways to gain information on the various organisations lending their support. In addition there will of course be press and media there and a great buzz. It will be an exciting event with much to learn.

Please, please if you are in the area and can travel to the event, be at Old Palace Yard in Westminster, London at 11am Saturday Morning.