Ukraine's tough road to peace

THE decision of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to sign a controversial European Union bill could see the crisis in the country enter a new stage.

The failure of former President Victor Yanukovych to ratify the deal was one of the primary instigators leading to his overthrow in February.

The bill is widely unpopular amongst pro-Russian supporters who want to see closer ties with their powerful neighbour, something they fear increased links with the EU would prevent.

President Poroshenko's decision comes along with his announcement of plans to bring the burgeoning civil war in Ukraine to a close.

Announcing a 14 point peace plan the new leader is stepping up attempts to bring the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk back under government control.  

Under his proposals a 'peace corridor' would be set up to allow those who had disarmed to leave the embattled regions, changes to the constitution to decentralise power, an amnesty for anyone "without blood on their hands" and, perhaps most controversially, the closure of the Russian-Ukrainian border.

Without support from Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, it seems unlikely that any moves would help calm the current situation.

World leaders have called on President Putin to help de-escalate tensions and support the path to peace. The pleas may fail to have much affect though as reports warn of an increased build up of Russian forces along the border and Russian tanks being used to support the pro-separatist movement.

NATO Chief Anders Ramussen has warned Russia that any attempt to intervene in the crisis could lead to tougher international sanctions against the country.

Elsewhere in the country a spokesman from the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe has confirmed that they have been in contact with two teams who were abducted in the Eastern region last month. Any chance of a peaceful solution to the situation which meets with international approval may well hinge on the safe return of the OSCE observers.

The United Nations currently estimates that 356 people, including 257 civilians, have been killed in fighting since the 7th May.

President Poroshenko may find that his attempts to bring stability to the country and prevent further bloodshed will be a hard fought battle. His signing of the EU bill on the 27th of June is a strong statement but may be meaningless if he cannot show that a peaceful resolution can be reached with his opponents. 

 

Time please for EU elections

DRIVING through the small village of Walton in Somerset the placards for the United Kingdom Independence Party are the only ones to be seen.
Somerset provides a snapshot of the dissatisfaction voters are feeling with the main parties. Following the devastating floods which hit the county during the winter residents protested about the lack of action the government had taken to prevent the chaos.
As politicians enter the final day of campaigning ahead of local and European elections polls have shown UKIP looking set to win tomorrow's elections.
Despite a number of high profile scandals, accusations of racism and yesterday's carnival debacle the inexperienced party's lead seems undiminished.
For a party to come from relative obscurity, and with little in the way of workable policies, would have seemed unlikely only a matter of years ago. Some commentators have referenced discontent among the electorate as the primary cause of the party's dominance. Looking at the comparison in data between people's choice for the EU elections and the General Election in 2015 it seems clear that it may only win as a protest against the other parties.
A lack of serious opposition from Labour and the Conservatives seems likely to have shifted the balance of power though. From the electorates perspective only Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrat party has really taken on Nigel Farage's UKIP, splitting the choice into a clear pro or anti Europe stance.
Already the main parties have geared up for the election in 2015, leaving the battlefield of the local and EU elections relatively unopposed. While Nigel Farage has become a near permanent fixture on the news, Prime Minister David Cameron and Labour leader Ed Miliband have remained relatively quiet.
Political parties know that they have to marshal resources where they are going to be most effective. Based on current trends it seems as though they are happy to leave Europe to the right wing party and focus on ensuring that it does not gain any more power within the country.
With Europe becoming an ever more contentious issue among voters a decision on Britain's future in the Union will be a key area of debate in 2015. By ignoring tomorrow's elections the main parties could be playing a dangerous game handing a win to UKIP for the future of Britain.

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The threat from UKIP falters as inexperience shows through

WITH little more than a week until voters cast their ballots in European and local elections new polls show a shift in the views of the British electorate.
Two seperate polls have placed the Conservative party ahead of opposition Labour for the first time in two years. ICM has placed the Tories ahead with 33 per cent of the vote, compared to Labour's 31 per cent. Meanwhile a second poll commissioned by Lord Ashcroft has Labour lagging two points behind its Conservative opponents on 32 per cent.
It is the place of the Liberal Democrats and the United Kingdom Independence Party which has been most notable, however. Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrat party has seen its place as Britains' third party threatened by the right wing UKIP, under the leadership of Nigel Farage. In three out of four key polls the Liberal Democrats have failed to break the two digit mark while UKIP have accrued between 14 and 15 per cent of the vote.
Despite appearing flustered on the BBC Sunday Politics programme over his party's manifesto promises Mr Farage has dominated the news in recent weeks with his anti-European rhetoric. A recent poll ahead of the European elections put UKIP ahead with 31 per cent of the vote.
While UKIPs rise has concerned some political commentators its inexperience and right wing views may not translate as well in local, and particularly general, elections as they do for those in Europe, seen by many in Britain as an opportunity for a protest vote without affecting the country.
The apparent inability of some members of the party to engage in the political process and face opposition comments has highlighted the lack of ability the party actually holds in more mainstream politics.
Emphasis has been placed on the lack of political sense by some members of UKIP, which claims in its manifesto that it wants to see more front line policing and prioritises fighting crime, after one of its councillors called the police on blogger Michael Abberton for posts he made on social media. Officers informed Mr Abberton that they had to respond to the complaint despite no laws being broken and requested that he remove the tweets, something he was unable to do after they have been reposted by numerous others.
The posts allegedly relate to Mr Abberton posting a political swipe at UKIP in which he highlighted potential reasons to vote for them including its pledges to raising income tax for 88 per cent of the poorest in society and scrapping paid maternity leave.
Recently Mr Farage has attempted to reinvigorate the party's reputation as a political force by refuting accusations of insitutional racism within its ranks. UKIP, which campaigns on an anti EU, anti-immigrant agenda has been wracked by racist comments from its members and allegations of xenophobia over its attitudes to anyone entering Britain. These claims have been further supported by the departure of one of its youth members Sanya-Jeet Thandi today.
Ms Thandi has been used by UKIP as a figurehead in its campaign to appear inclusive. Leaving the party today, however, she stated of concerns over its "aggressive anti-immigrant rhetoric."
Writing in the Guardian newspaper Ms Thandi stated: "The direction in which the party is going is terrifying. UKIP had descended into a form of racist populism that I cannot bring myself to vote for."
In a further damaging statement Ms Thandi urged UKIP supporters to not vote in the upcoming European elections.
Despite recent populist polling figures it appears as though reality is catching up with Mr Farage's party. As the cracks appear it seems more likely that once people have used it to highlight their discontent with the establishment it will sink into obscurity once more.

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The rise of the right

AS EUROPE gears up for the May 22^nd European Elections the rise of right wing politics has become increasingly noticeable. This is not isolated to the European Union though.

In America the Tea Party Movement has made inroads into mainstream politics. The United Australia Party may not be seeing the gains of some right wing parties, however, it is starting to have an impact on the political establishment. Despite, or possibly because of, being led by a comedian Beppo Grillo’s Five Star Movement in Italy has surged forward, challenging the old guard of the Democratic Party and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia. Nowhere seems immune from the politics of fear these groups play upon.

It was only a few short years ago that groups such as the American Tea Party Movement, a group which United Kingdom Independence Leader, Nigel Farage, has revelled in being compared to, were seen as fringe and dismissible. In the current political environment they are starting to pose a problem for the main political parties.

In America and Britain it seems unlikely that the establishment could be overturned by these groups. In 2015 UKIP may gain a couple of seats, this would be a far cry from the number they would need to put them in a position of serious power though. The threat they pose is by splitting the vote of the more moderate parties and diverting the debate away from areas where it needs to be focused.

For countries such as Italy and Germany, where coalition governments are more frequent than in the US and Britain, these parties can have a genuine influence on the way the country is run. For groups such as Tea Party or UKIP, however, they are fighting against an entrenched establishment where it is a near certainty that one of two parties will be in power.

This has not stopped them from shouting their causes from the rooftops, however. It is perhaps even more of incentive to create ever more outrageous and right wing agendas for these groups than ones which know they may have a chance of power, and therefore would have to meet their manifesto pledges.

UKIP has claimed that they will fight back against unlimited immigration from the European Union, while failing to address how they will do this, or exactly how far reaching the levels of immigration will be. In its EU election manifesto for example UKIP claims that the Office of National Statistics estimates from 2010 that the UK population will rise by 3 million by 2020 through immigration. The ONS actually forecasts a growth of 4.9million, of which 56 per cent would be from ‘natural increase’.

Additional figures provided by UKIP also fail to take into account the rate of emigration from Britain by naturalised citizens. The same story is repeated in America with the Tea Party Movement. Statistics are taken out of context, or fabricated. Both groups use volume and self proclaimed righteous anger ahead of genuine debate and solution.

In part this rise of the right wing has come about from the groups themselves. An increase in communications technology has made it easier for them to reach the electorate, and by repeating the same phrases enough they have instilled them into the minds of people as fact.

An increasing level of fear and disillusionment in the system has given them the crack to force themselves into. Membership of the more mainstream political parties has diminished over the years, with approximately only 1 per cent of the UK belonging to a party,  as people lose faith in the process. Fear of terrorism and crime is also on the increase, which gives certain right wing elements the fuel they need to feed the fire of xenophobic attitudes.

On May 22^nd the British electorate, and others across Europe, will have their say for who represents them in the European Union. For right wing groups the world over it will be seen as a test of whether volume and propaganda has swayed the people over debate and solutions.

A political presence

The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) has had to cancel its Freepost service after receiving faeces to their offices. While I disagree with UKIP on almost every topic this was never going to be the way to make a political statement.

We are fortunate in Britain that we are able to have freedom of speech, to hold widely differing views and to argue those views. We live in a democracy where we can choose our elected representatives based on what they stand for, something denied to millions of people around the world. It is this which gives us the ability to participate in such childish pranks but it is also this we gives us a moral duty to not do so.

In our political system if you disagree with someone’s point of view then you are free to debate it with them. Changing minds through discourse, that is surely the basic premise of any free thinking political system. Sadly, however, we as a populace seem to have forgotten how to hold an argument, how to hold a view for that matter. We seem to be only interested in meeting the intellect of the lowest common denominator. We have dumbed down our society so much that we have forgotten the very principles upon which it was founded.

We have forgotten that millions of men and women have fought and died to preserve our right to free speech and freedom of political protest. We have forgotten that our leaders used to be intelligent men, and rightly so. We valued honour and intellect. We may have disagreed with someone’s views but we had the character to respect their right to have them. All of that seems to have been lost somewhere along the way.

Instead we now have celebrities telling us that the system is broken and we should stop voting. We should stop voting? We should sacrifice the right which so many people would still die to just have a glimpse at, which so many already have, as a form of protest. If the system is broken then the way in which we change it is by voting, by choosing better leaders.

Nigel Farage’s greatest selling point is his “voice of the common man” approach. People like him because he makes them feel on the same level. Surely our leaders should be the best and the brightest. They should be men and women of conscience and intellect, they should be brighter than the majority and we should feel that we can respect them.

As it stands at the moment we have very few such politicians in place. This is not the fault of the system though, this is the fault of us the electorate. We voted these people in. We chose them, we gave up on wanting the best.

If you want to prove that UKIP is wrong, something which does not take the best and the brightest by any means, then join in the debate. Show how flawed their ideals are, show why they are wrong, show that you have a better plan, don’t act in a way which would have your peers in primary school look down at you for immaturity.

Catching up for festive period

Well it’s that time again when we say goodbye to one year and welcome in another and what a year it has been for all of us here in wet and soggy Somerset. Looking back it has seemed like the better half, little bit and I have barely had a chance to stop. First off we celebrated Liz’s Diamond Jubilee, 60 years in the same job and no matter what Charles says she doesn’t look like she has any plans to retire yet.

Everyone threw a big party for her which was all going swimmingly until Philip had to be taken off to hospital, he really hasn’t been well this year.

Sports day went brilliantly, you may have caught some of it yourselves. Cousin Mo really showed his stuff and Jess won gold in her events. Bradley, you remember him he was the one who got the new bike last year, has had a brilliant year in cycling.

It hasn’t been all smooth sailing, well apart from for Ben but enough of sports day for now. Aunty Beeb has been having a few troubles again this year. It looks like Jimmy, he was the one who always smoked those foul cigars and wore too much jewellery, and some of his friends have really gotten out of line. Beeb had tried to keep it out of the press but as Uncle Rupert found out last year that doesn’t work. It turns out that quite a few of the people who belong to their club have being having a spot of bother but we try not to get involved in all that sort of thing.

In a slightly better turn of events Paul finally managed to get most of the squatters out of his father’s house earlier this year, although some of his friends and family weren’t too happy with the decision I can tell you.

Mark’s little internet venture has had a few problems. It seems that some of his investors weren’t too pleased with their payoff. That is just the way this year though, no-one seems to have enough money to around. Then again what’s new about that?

After last year’s holiday debacle in Syria, we checked into it but decided not to go again this year, we thought that a quiet cruise would be nice. Next year I think we are just going to stay at home, it was an absolute disaster. Mind you the captain did seem like a decent enough chap.

I mustn’t forget to tell you the good news it looks like Will and Kate, they were that nice couple I mentioned in last year’s letter, are expecting a baby. It made up for some fiasco earlier in the year when some pics of Kate were doing the rounds we heard.

Anyway that pretty much sums up everything got to crack on with sending out the rest of the cards. That couple we met in America a few years back for instance are still contacting us, apparently he has done well for himself becoming President of something or other, it may have been his golf club for all I know. It amazes me how many people contact you around this time of year with all sorts of info you wouldn’t care about. Anyway bye for now.

EU-broke or just bust

There is something to be said for the recent contretemps which has caused friction between Britain and the rest of the European Union. Then again perhaps the standoff between David Cameron and Angela Merkel over EU spending is not such an unforeseen event.

Cameron has already demonstrated that he is prepared to take a firm stance when it comes to Europe. Likewise Ms Merkel has postured plenty of times before in the belief that she who shouts loudest lasts longest.

The current friction between the British and German leaders is, perhaps one of the more predictable that have been faced over recent years. With so much uncertainty surrounding the euro, and the lack of fiscal control being demonstrated by other EU countries, it is not surprising that Cameron has promised to use the United Kingdom’s veto any type of deal that does not impose a total freeze on spending.

What has struck the writers of this blog, as well no doubt as it has the policy makers at Number 10, is that if Ms Merkel does attempt to cancel next month’s EU budget summit then she will be demonstrating exactly why the Prime Minister, on one of the rare occasions, is right to stick to his guns.

The question must be asked as to what Ms Merkel hopes to gain from cancelling the summit, other than to stoke her not inconsiderable ego, that Mr Cameron could not achieve by implementing his veto. At worst she would leave the EU without any clear direction to focus its energies, at best cancelling the summit could ensure that Cameron’s position is strengthened by demonstrating that he has the power, albeit by proxy, to influence the entire bloc just by threatening a course of action.

What the whole debacle has clearly demonstrated is that the EU is clearly being run by school yard rules writ large. Whereas Ms Merkel could have used the summit as a place whereby leaders could debate their opinions and hope to turn people to their sides through reasoned debate she has decided to take the stance that if people won’t play by her rules then she will take the ball away and ruin the game for everyone.

Whether Cameron actually would use his veto is a matter which can only be judged after the fact. He has already demonstrated that he is not afraid of alienating EU leaders, and UK politicians, over his stance to the bloc. All Merkel has managed is to push him into a corner whereby his only option is to use the veto no matter when or where the summit is hosted. Rather than creating an atmosphere of discussion she has generated a toxic scenario where no-one will achieve anything. If she had taken the wiser path then a reasoned debate could have taken place instead of posturing and strong arming. This unfortunately has become the norm within the EU and its governance. It is also perhaps one of the most crucial reasons why any economic decisions involving the bloc must  be treated with scepticism by the individual states. Ms Merkel has argued to cancel the summit if she does not get her own way, Cameron has argued to veto any decision which is not in line with his feelings, with two out of the 27 acting in such a way how can the EU ever be trusted to succeed on solving an economic debacle on the scale that it is supposed to be tackling?