Why are all bureaucrats faceless?

Why are all bureaucrats faceless?

I know a couple of people who worked for the EU, and they certainly had faces, otherwise I would have struggled to recognise them when we agreed to meet up!

One of them worked on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) - "Bloody Brussels, telling us what we can, and can't, grow!" - and he explained it to me like this:

Most farmers are independent businesses, and grow what ever they like, and because they're independent, they've no idea whether the other farmers are growing the same things, or different things, so they don't know if there will be a glut, or a shortage, of whatever they're growing, so they won't know what price they'll get.

What the CAP sets out to do is work out how many oranges, carrots, cabbages, etc, the population of the EU needs each year, and suggests to each farmer, based on climate, soil type, etc, what they should grow, to provide their share of the overall EU food basket. That way, the right number of oranges are grown, where it's easiest to grow them, in Spain & Italy, and enough potatoes & apples are grown in the UK, where the climate's better suited.

All the while, the 'faceless bureaucrats' are recording yields, checking climate changes, changes in dietary trends, researching new strains & farming techniques, with an aim to providing as much of the EU shopping trolley that it can, at the cheapest prices, with as little waste as possible. The EU also negotiates the sale of any excess, and negotiates globally to get the best prices for the stuff we can't grow economically ourselves, like bananas.

As I said, all farmers are independent, and can't be made to grow what they're told to, so they are paid 'subsidies' (bribes!) to grow what the EU wants them to grow, which is paid for out of the profits realised from such a well structured approach to massive scale agricultural management.

If we leave the EU all that goes, and we're living in hope that all the UK's farmers don't suddenly decide: "I'll grow nothing but beetroot this year" - unless, of course, all you want to eat is beetroot! One thing's for sure. With the UK out of the EU, they will redraw the food basket to exclude us, reducing the numbers of oranges grown in the southern members, for example, and we will only get access to any surplus, if they get the numbers wrong, so prices will go up significantly under the simple principles of supply & demand.

Another excellent reason for voting 'remain', and recognising the fact that the bureaucrats, faceless or otherwise, could be doing something that keeps plentiful supplies of meat, milk, cheese, fruit & vegetables, in our shops, at the best possible prices!

Let's talk about immigration.

So, I've told you my views on the economic arguments for remaining in the EU, but the polls suggest that immigration is the most important issue to the majority of voters, so let's talk about it:

Across the UK, according to 2014 figures, 13% of the population was born overseas.

In London, where I live, from the same figures, 37% of the population was born overseas.

In the London mayoral election this year, only 3.6% of those who voted, voted UKIP.

Douglas Carswell of UKIP won the 2014 by-election in Clacton, receiving 59.7% of the vote.

Only 4.3% of the population of Clacton was born overseas!

So, immigration is not an issue, fuelled by immigration!

Immigration is only an issue in areas of acute poverty, like Clacton.

In prosperous areas, like London, where immigration is nearly nine times as high as in Clacton, immigration isn't an issue!

Immigrants are blamed for taking jobs, doctors appointments, school places, from Brits.

Let's start with jobs:

In the 1980s, Harry Enfield created a character called 'Loadsamoney'.

'Loadsamoney' was a plasterer, inspired by reports that plasterers were in such short supply, that they could command £1,000 a day for their services, Around this time I was on jury service with a 20 year old plasterer from Bermondsey, and he confirmed that he could, and did, earn this sort of money. 12 years ago I worked for an FE college, where we couldn't get teachers for Plumbing, and other building trades courses. Why teach it, when you can earn a fortune doing it?

Then, we won the Olympics, and craftsmen from all over Europe descended on London to build the venues, thank goodness, because we wouldn't have built the Olympics without them. It was a real struggle finding a plumber in London, 10 years ago, without paying through the nose. I now know 2 in my street. Maybe that's why Londoners don't seem to have a problem with immigrants.

Doctors appointments:

The UK has 2.71 doctors per 1,000 of population. Of the 27 EU nations, only Slovenia, Romania, & Poland, have fewer doctors. Greece has more than 6 doctors per 1,000 of population. Greece!
That's why we can't get doctors appointments, we haven't got enough doctors.
That's down to the government, not immigrants!

School places:

We don't have enough schools, but under this government, the only new schools are free schools, or academies. Free schools & academies appear where the sponsors want to build them, not where the need is. Local authorities are crying out to build more schools in areas of increasing population, but they can't.
That's down to the government, not immigrants!

The government, and the right wing press, have been happy to let immigrants get blamed for the government's shortcomings, instead of placing the blame where it should be. That's why Cameron is struggling to get the Remain message across, as he has to fight back against the arguments he's been happy to see peddled with such enthusiasm.

Why you should vote to remain in the EU

Let's start with the economy because, it's all about the economy!

The Leave Campaign have a bus that says we pay £350m a week to the EU.

We don't.

We get a rebate, that was negotiated by Margaret Thatcher, that means we pay £248m a week to the EU.

So, we actually pay £12.8 billion a year to the EU, of which we get back about £6 billion in grants to individuals and businesses. A lot of this is payments to farmers, as part of the Common Agricultural Policy. The Brexiteers have said they will continue to support the recipients of grants currently received from the EU. The EU also take £1 billion of our contribution to redistribute as International Aid, which is counted towards the UK Government's target of spending 0.7% of GDP on aid, so presumably we would spend that anyway.

So, in conclusion, we give the EU about £6 billion a year, which we don't receive back.

Still sounds like a lot of money doesn't it? This is money that the Brexiteers claim could be given to the NHS. An attractive proposition, indeed!

But it's not that simple. £6 billion a year would be soaked up by a 0.4% reduction in the economy. In simple terms, any shrinkage in the economy results in less stuff being sold, so fewer people are required to make it, so more people lose their jobs, so instead of the treasury getting money from them in taxes, they have to pay it out in benefits.

The best economic forecast says that exiting the EU would reduce the UK economy by 2%. This means that, instead of having £6 billion extra to give the NHS, we would be £24 billion out of pocket, which we would have to find from public sector cuts and tax rises. The annual budget for the NHS is about £116 billion, so we could reduce that to £92 billion?

The worst forecast, or the one the IMF published today, suggests the negative impact to the UK economy would be 5.6%. This would mean that we're £84 billion out of pocket. That would reduce the NHS annual budget from £116 billion to £32 billion. How does that sound?

Many have said that economists have got it wrong in the past, and may be wrong here. True, however, the trade figures with our EU partners are not subject to conjecture, they're published as fact, so it doesn't take a genius to work out the contraction of the available market, to calculate the figures on. The best 2% contraction estimate is based on us getting a Norway-style deal, which would still mean we pay the EU, and accept free movement, etc, so no net financial benefit. And would we get a deal? Both sides have to be willing to deal, to reach a deal, and German finance minister, Wolfgang Schauble has said he will not do any deals with the UK post-Brexit,