#TheBigPicture

Once again I’m on the air debating this week’s issues on the political radio show, the Big Picture, on URN. I am putting this up a few minutes before we start, at 6pm. Please listen in.

Tonight we have a Conservative Majority with Luc Chignell (Country and Western fanatic) and James Constantine on the show.

Up for debate tonight is the David Cameron's alleged Cronyism in Number 10, Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats future (this will be amazing fun) and the Privatisation of the Probation service.

You can send it texts to our show on the URN homepage and are able to listen to us on there too. Make sure you quote #ThingsElliottSays. Here is the link http://urn1350.net/ .

Over The Pond

Today the growth figures for Europe came out. What a mess, is the best description of what is going on.

The best news is that Germany received 0.1% growth in the last quarter, although they probably lost 0.2% from serve snow. Essentially it's not going well, the German economy has lost 1.4% growth in 1 year. The Germans should be a lot higher than this seeing as they're the biggest economy in Europe. The recession in  the rest of Europe is going to hit them hard, I wouldn't be surprised if they go into one as well.  

 The German economy narrowly missed recession today. That may not happen in the Future.

France entered its third recession today, which shows how well Hollande's policy of tax the people till 'they're bled white' (to quote Clemenceau) is going. The problem with the French economy is that it is very inefficient and has been so for a long time. Three hour lunch breaks and some of the strictest employment regulations in Europe says it all. There is very little work because of government intervention and no actual desire form the French people to knuckle down. They'll pay for this very hard, 10.6% unemployment is nowhere near the peak.

Hollande's vision of what makes a good economy is rather clouded. My advice is not to be so wet.

And what of the rest of Europe? Nine members of the Eurozone are in recession. Spain has 27% of its population unemployed. Recently Greece has been re-classified as an emerging economy in line with Botswana or Tibet. There is no hope within the Eurozone because countries are reluctant to overcome their inefficiencies which a single currency demands.

The ECB cannot really help much eithe,; earlier this year it lowered interest rates to 0.5%. That's fine if there is credit in a country but there is none in Europe at this moment because of the ongoing crisis. The wacky smash and grab policy of raiding people's savings will not help this problem. I'd watch out for a banking crisis in the next few years.

The European Economy is getting to a point where countries in Europe are doing worse than some in Third World Africa. 

How do we compare then. Well we have just better growth than Germany of 0.3%. We haven't had a recession since the days of Gordon Brown as the one last year was recently discovered to have never happened. The only way is up for the moment. Nor do we have the problems of a single currency or any of the financial controls placed upon us by being in the Euro. So I think we'll do fairly well compared to Europe in the next few years. This is in spite of having a trade policy that makes it so difficult to trade with anyone not on the continent. And Nick Clegg thinks Europe is the economic future, Greece can't even ship in medicine, most African states can. 

Comparatively the UK economy is doing well. Once we get over the hurdles of our debt we will be doing better than the rest of Europe.

Crunch Time

Today the EU Referendum Bill has been published today. The Majority of the Conservative Party, including many Cabinet Ministers, were going to vote for the Queen's Speech amendment against Dave's wishes. He had to do something and he made the right decision.

So what does the future lie in store. Douglas Carswell today said that all he wanted from David Cameron is an acceptable situation; where Carswell could say to the PM 'that will do'. The moment this Bill gets brought forward there is virtually irrefutable proof that the Conservative Party wants a referendum on the EU. Some MPs like Ken Clarke will vote against this Bill because they still secretly want us to join the Euro, but I would think over 95% of the Party will back it.

'That'll do, Prime Minister. That'll do.'

But is this Bill enough? Well it promises the referendum in 2017, yet the majority of opinion wants it just before 2015 or on the election day itself. Personally I think just before will be better because, despite the money saved if it is on the same day of the General Election, it will be very hard for people to concentrate well enough on two major campaigns on one day. I thus personally think some MPs will still push forward with the 2015 plan and try with amendments to get it in, a sizeable number will sign up to this but not the majority of the Party. 

The main question is will this Bill get through in this parliament? I think taht because of the electoral pressure currently on the Lib Dems they will allow government time to be used for the Bill. However, the Lib Dems will not support the Bill itself, despite being the only party that promised it in 2010*.

The Lib Dems are Liars. Cleggers should be ashamed.

However, the big question is will Red Ed back the referendum? He may have to even if he doesn't support it. He'd be on the wrong side of history and he must know that. A few Labour MPs will  back the Bill anyway and Red Ed could offer a free vote on the matter. But I think he will be indecisive, which may pan out worse than not backing the Bill.

As a last word Tory MPs, make sure you back this Bill. 

Crunch Time for Red Ed on Europe. If he makes the Wrong decision it could be over for him.

*They're great at keeping promises these Liberals, they give decent politicians a bad name.

Weekly Poll Lowdown

So it's time for the first weekly poll lowdown in a while having finally fixed the voting problems. I asked what you thought is the best way for the PM, our good friend Dave, to counter the spread of UKIP. And you believe brining forward the EU referendum is the best way to stop the pressure of UKIP and to make our party overall more in touch with the population. 20 of you voted, so we got a very decent spread of ideas.

Bring forward the referendum on the EU	50% (10)
Introduce better immigration control	5%(1)
Carry out more spending cuts	0% (0)
Introduce more tax cuts	10% (2)
Spend more on the economy	5%  (1)
Do nothing, UKIP will go away one day	30% (6)

Before I move on to what I think I want to say why 30% of you are wrong for thinking UKIP will go away. Within a decade or so I agree that UKIP probably won't be here. It's a party made around one man and some rather populist policies that in time will be seen to be as realistic as Nick Clegg's pledge to vote against any rise in tuition fees. In the meantime however they will do bad damage to Conservatism. A loss of activists and splitting our vote is just the start. In safe Tory seats in the East UKIP now have a large proportion of council wards, will the constituencies go purple in 2015 too? Possibly not, but a well organised local UKIP could cause huge problems.

One other thing I'd like to say is that virtually all of UKIP's vote is based on immigration, as Lord Ashcroft's polling has shown. Its fairly visible when canvassing as well and this leads people who don't like the immigrants for one reason or another, even if they have never voted in their lives, to come out and vote for UKIP and it's populist policy.

So what should we do. I actually agree we should bring forward the referendum date, but the solution is to get the economy going with tax cuts mostly. Why do people care about immigration as a nation at the moment? Some of it is generalisation and hate for the rapid change, which is not acceptable and should be tackled. But the main bug bear is economic strain. Whether this exists or not the solution to this problem is to create more jobs and have a growing economy. If we do so people will be much happier and more opportunities. Give people a positive reason to vote Conservative.

Let's make sure the economy is on the up

The reason why I choose to tackle the economy rather than the of route problem of UKIP vote is because we are more likely, more practically and more quickly going to be able to grow our economy than leave the EU and its open borders policy. I do not believe that Dave would support a referendum on the EU before 2017, but to rub salt in the wounds the Lib Dems and Labour will also block the proposed vote in the House of Commons later this week.

Wearing Out the Leather in Wollaton West

A couple of days ago I was out helping in the Wollaton West by-election. The Conservative Candidate for the seat has been selected and it is none other than ex-NUCA President James Spencer.

James is a great chap, really nice and hard working. James is eurosceptic and willing to talk about the problems of immigration which many are not. Wollaton West is a Conservative seat, about the only one in Nottingham, so this is a crucial by-election so any residents who are reading this must come out to vote on 6th June. Equally NUCA people we need your help. Any offers for telling and campaigning at any time up to and on 6th June will be greatly appreciated.

James Spencer, the Conservative candidate, taking a break from knocking on people's doors asking for issues to help solve.

So on Saturday I was doing some canvassing with Andy, members of Nottingham Conservatives, James, and Rowena Holland. Rowena is the prospective MP for Nottingham South a marginal seat which the Conservatives must win to be in government. We focussed on the houses around Appeldore Road and it went very well. There were lots of Conservatives and not too many Labour supporters, the main opposition.

We had good weather to start with but it got progressively worse, even worse than last time we went out. A proper typhoon raged over us and we were very nearly drowned near the end of the day. So we went to the pub where we saw the UKIP candidate canvassing people who were previous Labour voters. UKIP is trying to appeal to everyone and is actually being successful in bringing out people who have never voted in their lives. But we are quietly optimistic that James will get in but we will work every day to make sure so.

Everyone working hard canvassing on people's doors.

So people of Wollaton West and NUCA members get out on election day to hep bring the Tories one step closer to government. 

On Da TAB

Have you seen the TAB today. Well I wrote a piece about the aftermath of that pointless referendum as a sort of follow up from my recent blog post (see http://thingselliottsays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/hollow-victory.html).

Here is the link to the TAB article itself. Enjoy. http://nottingham.tab.co.uk/2013/05/11/womens-network-refuse-to-accept-abortion-defeat/

Star Wars

The work of Mr @Alex_Potts. Where is Henry and Andy? Could I not be the Death Star or something? I like Sarvie the most, somehow the hair trailing on the floor makes it work so much better.