UKIP overtake Labour!

Dear supporters,

With polling day now less than a week away, today's Populus poll for the Times shows UKIP on 19% of the vote. We are in clear second place and well ahead of Labour and the Liberal Democrats nationally. The poll merely confirms what UKIP activists across the country have been seeing for themselves on the streets. We are getting a fantastic reaction on the doorstep. The UKIP vote is increasing. The Labour vote is collapsing and the Conservatives are wavering. With Nigel Farage's excellent Question Time performance on Thursday and an overwhelming response to our final Party Election Broadcast, we are certainly on a roll.

We can expect our opponents to attempt to throw all kinds of insults and accusations at us in a desperate last-ditch attempt to claw back votes. But UKIP have been a zero-tolerance party on misuse of expenses. No party is immune from scandal - it is how we deal with it that matters. UKIP have sent a clear message: no-one can treat the electorate with contempt and remain a UKIP MEP.

If we can hold firm, and manage one last push over the next few days then we will achieve the goal stated by Nigel Farage at the start of this campaign - to beat the government across the country at a national election. This has never been achieved by any 'fourth' party in history and could be the focal point for forcing a general election.

If you've been out campaigning, please keep up the good work - whether it's leafleting, street stalls, internet forums or just persuading family and friends to vote UKIP - for a few more days. It may seem like a tall order but with our current momentum, we only need a further 5.5% swing from the latest poll to topple the Conservatives and win the European elections. How could they then deny us a referendum on EU membership?

We had planned to make no further appeal for funds during this campaign as our supporters have already donated massive amounts of money. But one last push now could make a massive difference to the future of our party, and our country. If you are in a position to help, please donate here or call Freephone 0800 587 6 587.

Yours,

Paul Nuttall (UKIP Party Chairman)

Jonathan Arnott (UKIP General Secretary)

Join our campaign for a General Election

Green Party: Get Britain Working!

The Green Party launches today its campaign for the English local elections on the theme: Get Britain Working.

The launch comes in the week that a YouGov poll indicated that 34% of the public are considering voting Green in the Euro-elections - only days after a poll by ComRes in which 43% said they were likely to vote for one of the smaller parties. Both local and European elections will be held on 4th June.

Adrian Ramsay, deputy leader of the Green Party, said today: "The Green Party's local policies are intended to support our Green New Deal plan for a million low-carbon jobs to tackle the recession and the climate crisis at the same time."

"But when we say Get Britain Working we also mean get the nation's communities working in every respect. That includes making sure we have the services communities need, from the local post office and police station and local shops to an accessible health service, including a free NHS dentist."

"Some of these things require action at national level, but local councils should use whatever powers they have to protect and support local communities and foster the local economy."

He concluded: "The Greens are the only party offering a fresh alternative to all the sleaze and greed. But we're also the only party putting forward a positive vision for Britain and for our local communities. We hope people who are disillusioned with the bigger parties will consider voting Green not just as a protest, but because our councillors have a pretty good track record and our policies are what most people want."

On 4th June. the Greens will be fielding 781 candidates - up from less than 585 in the previous equivalent set of elections (1) - and are "quietly confident with regard to gains."

The Green Party currently has a total of 119 primary authority councillors - a number that increases steadily every year, and has trebled in the last decade - including strong, well-established council groups in places like Brighton, Lancaster, Norwich and Oxford.

The Green Party's key policies for the 2009 local elections are:

- Work to address the causes of crime and anti-social behaviour, including poverty, joblessness, poor housing and the lack of community facilities for young people.

- Prioritise sustainable job creation, with the main areas including home insulation, public transport infrastructure, renewable energy, local food production and/or farmers markets, and green waste management.

- Work to ensure all subcontracted council employees, such as school cleaners, are paid a Living Wage.

- Fight the closure of essential services in our communities, such as post offices, libraries and police stations.

- Oppose the further privatisation of services through contracting out, as this has led to a loss of accountability and reduced service quality.

- Oppose the privatisation by stealth of schools through the Academies and Trusts agenda.

- Work to introduce free school meals for all children.

- Improve the local economy by supporting small businesses and farms and by encouraging residents to support shops in their local community through 'buy local' campaigns.

- Invest in the upkeep of existing allotments, parks and green spaces, and make better use of under-utilised spaces near to where people live and work.

- Scrap new road-building to enable investment in public transport, cycling and walking, including safe school travel programmes.

UKIP Launches Euro Campaign

This morning Nigel Farage UKIP Party leader demanded that the European Elections campaign actually discussed the issues of Europe. Speaking with other leading UKIP candidates Deva Kumarasiri and Marta Andreassen.

He said, “The three traditional parties are all avoiding the issue. They know that the elections in June are about our relationship with the EU, but they are afraid of discussing it”.

The reason is clear. All recent polls now say that a majority of the British people now want a different relationship with Europe. Trading with our friends on the Continent but not being governed by them”.

Marta Andreassen, the former chief Accountant of the European Commission, “We must have a national debate on issues that are key to our relationship with Europe. That it costs £40 million a day is just not good value for money, particularly in the depths of a recession but no-one knows it”,

Deva Kumarasiri, the former Nottingham postmaster said,

“Immigration is out of control, and while we remain in the European Union there is little our government can do about it. This is why the three parties are terrified about the subject, because they know they are powerless to protect our borders. Under the current rules Romanian criminals get free entry but Gurkhas with whom with have a historical and honourable debt of honour are turned away. Nobody in our country thinks this just.”

Farage continued, “All the parties are complicit in the petty, nondescript fraud against their own constituents, but it is only UKIP that, when such things came to light, acted decisively to lance the boil. The others cling on to their bath-plugs and bags of taxpayer funded maltesers.”

On June 4^th there is a clear choice. A vote for the political elite, the status quo that has between them got us into this appalling financial situation, or a clear message of opposition to them and their fellow travellers in Brussels”.

UN unites with European soccer stars to 'Red Card' global hunger

The biggest stars in professional football and millions of their fans will to score a goal against global hunger in the first-ever Europe-wide soccer weekend to draw attention to the plight of the nearly 1 billion hungry people worldwide, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced today.

Over 200 European football clubs in top flight leagues – including the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Italian Lega Calcio and German Bundesliga – will play their matches over the weekend of 20-22 March as part of the "Professional Football against Hunger" campaign.

This initiative was launched last October with the Association of European Professional Football Leagues – made up of 29 Member Leagues and Associated Members comprising over 900 professional football clubs – on the occasion of World Food Day at FAO headquarters in Rome.

The money raised from the campaign will finance FAO TeleFood micro-projects designed to provide solutions to poor families and communities by giving them the know-how and means to produce their own food.

The funding, a maximum of €7,000 each (almost $9,000 at today's exchange rate) per micro-project, is used to purchase physical resources, such as fishing equipment, seeds and agricultural implements.

A variety of projects have already been financed through the scheme, from helping families raise pigs in Venezuela, through creating school gardens in Cape Verde and Mauritania or providing school lunches in Uganda and teaching children to grow food, to raising fish in a leper community in India.