Been away for a while – about which I’ll write under another heading – but I’ve been dragged back, a-seething and a-cursing, on account of the crap oozing out of the British press about the European Union. If no one else but a couple of my mates read this, at least I will have given them the chance to think like an adult about probably the most important thing in their lives for the next fifty years or so. Or maybe less, given that most people I know won’t live that long. But while you’re here…
Apart from the usual Torygraph, Dave’s Times and Daily Mail anti-Europe crud, the ‘other’ wing is at it as well now. On the BBC website on the first day of the summit, they managed to mention, amongst all the heavy-duty budget allocations, “And 62.6bn euros (6.4%) would go on EU administration, including staff salaries. “ And then failed to mention the significance of this number, or, indeed, its relevance.
Not least, I suspect, because it wouldn’t be a popular (or populist) road to walk down, expecting one’s licence payers to follow. So here’s ten points that might help you to stop pointing at ‘Brussels’ yelling that ‘eurocrats’ are taking our money.
- First, I challenge you to find any – any – organisation, company, government, charity, corner shop, amateur dramatics society, school, in the world… that spends just 6.4% of its budget on its own administration.
- Next, consider that less than half of that is spent on staff wages. So now go and find an example whereby the staff cost just 3% – in BIG words: THREE PERCENT – of the total budget.
- Now consider those staff – the ‘eurocrats’. Every single one of them has to pass examinations that would leave you gasping for breath: these people are filtered and filtered until what is left is the very, very best of the best. Consider that a good degree and at least three languages are the very minimum required, even before you would be allowed to apply.
- OK, you’ve got the staff, but now you need to keep them all in one place – the dreaded Brussels, that cursed den of The Iron Sausage, Lair of the Central Scrutinizer, where the devil’s acolytes work to make your life as bad as can be (sorry – went into a Zappa Zap). How do you do that? How do you convince the very best brains on the continent that they have to leave their country, their extended family, their entire lifestyle, to go and work for the good of 450 million arseholes who only want to moan and bitch about how much they’re earning FROM OUR TAXES?
- The EU is undemocratic, wasteful, riddled with fraud… and all that other shit Euro-Septic carp on about. To save myself some typing, take a look at these EU myths.
- Talking of Euro-Septics, consider Nige Farage, and take a look at what he wastes your time with. Consider that Mr Farage’s take-home pay, per month, is 14,000 euros. In BIG words: FOURTEEN THOUSAND EUROS. That’s not including benefits, subsistence, transport etc. It’s not including payment for his membership of the Fisheries Committee… which he has never attended in THREE YEARS.
- See how he was OWNED by Guy Verhofstadt.
- It’s not just you: some of our right-on heroes are taking lazy pot-shots too. A while back, Hugh Dennis was on Mock the Week, during which he made a funny, audience-whooping rant about how ‘Brussels’ was to blame for not letting the UK government deport Abu Qatada. In fact, it was the European Court of Human Rights, which is based in Strasbourg and is not connected in any way to the European Union. Hugh, you’re a funny bloke, and thanks for all the laughs… but a lot of people out there will simply take that stuff as fact and repeat it and repeat it until it becomes ‘true’.
- The crisis we find ourselves in was NOT anything to do with the EU: it was your and my governments deregulating the banks and allowing them to shit on our heads from a great height. Now those very same governments are applying the ‘austerity punishment’ to their own citizens, while letting those who fucked us up get away with it… and you/we all hate them for doing this to us, don’t we? In the meantime, the EU has been trying to increase its budget in an attempt to stimulate all of our economies, invest in innovation and generally make things better… but somehow you dumb bastards have been brainwashed by David, Angela and their gang into blaming it all on the EU! You’re all fucking MAD!!!
- What is it good for? WAR. Until the 1950’s one part of Europe had been at war with another part – or parts. Since the arrival of the Common Market and its evolved current version, there have been no wars in Europe. Think that’s just a silly coincidence? OK smartarse, you just watch as and when the whole shit-bag falls apart, and see how many of your children survive the conflagration that follows.
Yes, there are problems with the EU, as there are with any corporation, company, government etc. But this thing is much too important to just let go: we need to take a good look at it and see how to make it even better. Here’s one…
Stop the silliness of moving the parliament from Brussels to Strasbourg for one week every bloody month. In fact, that alone would save all we need to save. Job done.
Now someone else has to go and convince the French.
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