Sunday 28 March 2010

Still Quiet On The Western Front

Sorry, blogging still quiet, I've had a very busy week for one reason or another, so blogging has taken a back seat. I hope to resume in anger this week, especially now that the official election campaign is not far away.

The picture on the left is my car - only 3 weeks old - after some knobhead idiot in a red mark III Golf decided on Saturday that he would ram me (well my wife - she was driving) off the dual carriageway because we happened to be in the way of him trying to undertake someone else. I'm still trying to trace him.

All credit to airbags and the 'all-new Astra' safety measures that we walked away with nothing more than a couple of bruises.

In the meantime I would like to refer you to this post by Mark Wadsworth, via Witterings from Witney of yet another EU impact on our lives, in this case regarding the clocks changing, which hitherto I was unaware of:
As I have pointed out in a detailed comment on Mr Ellwood's article, this is a matter of EU law - Directive 2000/84/EC - which cannot be changed unilaterally by the UK government.

The UK government does not have the freedom to do what Mr Ellwood wants, which is to move clocks forward by one hour for the whole of the year, unless it also moves them forward by an additional hour for the agreed period of summer time:

"Article 1: For the purposes of this Directive "summer-time period" shall mean the period of the year during which clocks are put forward by 60 minutes compared with the rest of the year."

The concluding passages of my comment may seem harsh, but I'm fed up to the back teeth with UK politicians, especially Tory politicians, abusing their positions of trust by deliberately pulling the wool over the eyes of the public about the EU:

"If Mr Ellwood is unaware that this matter which so greatly exercises him is subject to existing EU law, which cannot be changed unilaterally by the UK, then he's unfit to be a government minister. On the other hand, if he is aware of the EU law but he deliberately chooses not draw the attention of readers to its existence, then he is unfit to be an MP, let alone a government minister."

I stand by that.
Is there nothing we can do on our own anymore?

3 comments:

  1. Ta for link TBF - pleased you both not injured. As (a) Golf was involved, maybe you should be looking for a driver named Woods?

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  2. Thank you WFW. Though the damage done to my car was not done by an angry wife with a golf club :-)

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  3. Ta for link. In my Fun Online Poll, there is a slender majority for sticking with BST all year round.

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