Godfrey takes tilt at windmills

Wind turbines blighting our landscapes were slammed by UKIP Euro MP Godfrey Bloom at the party's national conference.

He told the delegates at the Southport Conference Centre at the weekend that it was "nonsense" to blame a rise in Co2 for global warming.

Mr Bloom, MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire, told the packed audience that wind turbines "as big as Big Ben" were causing distress to people all over the country.

"I find that very difficult to cope with because we know they don't work. I think it would be marvelous if we could harness the wind - but we can't.

"Germany has 19,000 wind turbines but not one conventional power station has consequently been de-commissioned," he said.

Mr Bloom challenged claims that the science on the issue has been settled and said that 800 international scientists and their institutions do not agree it is settled. He also pointed out that Inter-governmental Climate Change Panel is a political organisation and not an independent scientific body.

Instead of global warming in fact the world's temperatures are falling while Co2 keeps rising, he added.

Mr Bloom told the enthusiastic audience that he is currently working on the subject with fellow UKIP MEP Derek Clark, a former science teacher.

Far from the issue being settled "the debate is only just beginning," he said.

School report a disgrace, says Clark

Revelations that 500,000 children have left primary school, since Labour came to power, without the basic tools of literacy are shameful, according to UKIP education spokesman Derek Clark.

The East Midlands MEP said: "This government and its predecessor has nobody to blame but themselves. Not only have they abandoned tried and tested methods of teaching and teacher training, in favour of dogmatically inspired social engineering, but they have blighted half a million young lives.

"When I was a teacher, I would have marked the DCFS with a 'F minus - see me'.

"It is about time that this government did indeed see me and the rest of the country and leave as soon as possible."

Work directive risks lives, says Clark

The Labour Government is putting patients' lives at risk by playing the role of 'Good European' with the controversial working time directive, warns UKIP MEP Derek Clark.

Mr Clark, UKIP's East Midlands MEP, who sits on the employment committee in the EU ,says the UK is enforcing the directive even when it is not obliged to.

"Why is the UK Government trying to assume the validity of the working time directive when it was one of the first to claim retention of the opt-out," he asked.

"The UK remains in that position with the support of an ever-growing number of EU member states who are reaching the conclusion that they do not want the EU to dictate the number of hours that its people may work.

"Five years ago, only four member states wanted to retain the right to opt-out. That number is now 15 out of 27 members so what does that tell us?"

Mr Clark said that by restricting the number of hours that doctors in the NHS can work would seriously jeopardise the welfare of patients.

"This experiment in the NHS is flawed," he said. "And its the patients who will suffer when surgeons who want to follow their progress through admission, testing, diagnosis and clinical care, will be told to go home and hand the job over to a colleague.

"In this sort of scenario, there will always be a risk to the more seriously ill patients."

Mr Clark's comments followed a series of articles in the UK press slamming the introduction on August 1 of the working time directive in the NHS which will limit doctors to working an average of 48 hours a week.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, John Black, President of the Royal College of Surgeons said imposing the directive would wipe out half a million hours of available doctors' time and would see patients as guinea pigs.

UKIP applauds new Taxpayer Alliance study

Getting value for money from your MEPs?

"According to the new TPA's study "Best and Worst MEPs revealed", all UKIP MEPs are scoring overr 50% and Derek Clark must be applauded for coming 7th." said Paul Nuttall, UKIP Chairman, "And this is despite UKIP's policy of spending as much time as we can in the UK, not staying in Brussels picking up expenses".

"It is interesting to see that not a single Labour MEP in in the top ten and their leader Gary Titley is on only 9%. Glenys Kinnock the junket queen is even worse at 8 per cent", he went on.

Common sense in the Rose Review

"Finally some sense in primary English teaching", said Derek Clark, UKIP education spokesman. "The forthcoming Rose review calls for children to be taught proper English at last".

The review commissioned by the Department for Children, Schools and Families led by Sir Jim Rose, formerly of Ofsted is published on Thursday.

Mr Clark went on, "It is about time. Fashionable theory has called for all children to be educated purely colloquially. There is nothing wrong with dialect, but not everybody in Devon can understand someone from Newcastle and vice versa."

"It is vital that our children can communicate, that surely is what their education is for. What is astonishing is that only now is a government advisor actually saying what sensible people have known for ever".

Deva Kumarasiri, the Nottingham sub postmaster who refused to serve customers unless they spoke English, has been sacked from his job.

Derek Clark, UKIP MEP for the East Midlands said that this was an outrage. "It´s a question of same country, same laws, same currency, same rights, so we have the same language as well.

"We´ve recently had the case of a young girl in Peterborough who couldn´t get a job in the local factory because she didn´t speak Polish." Clark continued. "We protested at that and were accused of racism. Am I going to be accused of it again because I´m defending an Asian sub postmaster who is standing up for the British language and British values?".

As Mr. Kumarasiri said when the original row started: "I've always thought I'm a British person. We have a situation now where British culture is going down so I decided it's time somebody had to put it right.

"My feeling is that when you move to a different country you have to respect the flag and the language, but that has gone. I give my country a service and it's necessary for me to learn and understand the language."

Full marks to Mr Kumarasiri who has worked out what it is to be British, what it means to be part of this country. What a pity his bosses haven´t!