Letters Sent

July 24

Dear Sir,

I am absolutely flabbergasted to hear about plans to axe the Coldstream Guards. If one day's subs to the EU and foreign aid were cut we could save this regiment.

Quite frankly this proposed move is treason. That is the only word for it and I would put the Government in the Tower of London.

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom

July 19

Dear Sir,

Oh dear, bad news for the greenies. The recent volcanic eruption in Iceland  - in just four days - apparently negated all efforts in the past five years to control CO2 emissions.

And there are 200 active volcanoes in the world so quite frankly chaps you are never going to win the emissions battle.

As I've always said claims of man-made climate change are just that, claims and not actually a fact. And there are many scientists and institutions who are not onboard the human-caused agenda, including Professor Ian Plimer, a member of the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Adelaide.

As well as highlighting the volcano situation Professor Plimer has also pointed out that the bush fire season across the western USA and Australia this year alone will negate efforts to reduce carbon in our world for the next two to three years.  And it happens every year.

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom
UKIP MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire, England

July 14 - To Australian newspapers

Dear Sir,

I am slightly confused that your Prime Minister feels she knows more about climate science than Professor Ian Plimer.  Or, is the real truth, it is all about screwing more money out of the taxpayer.

The British government took £24 billion last year in green taxes, all of which disappeared into our centralised debt ridden economy.

What a scam the whole thing is.

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom

July 14

Dear Sir,

I have received a number of emails from your readers on the subject of global warming and ocean temperatures. Some even suggesting I do not understand the science. So let me explain.

To simulate the influence of the Sun on the oceans, it is necessary to experiment with light whose peak wavelength is in the green sector of the visible spectrum: for it is this short-wave radiation that is capable of penetrating several feet beneath the surface and thus causing warming. 

The surface tension of water does not act as a barrier against this short-wave radiation. There is, after all, a good reason why swimming in the tropics is more comfortable than swimming in Bognor or Brighton.

Long-wave radiation from the Sun (accounting for around half of its incoming radiation) does not penetrate more than a fraction of an inch, and causes little oceanic warming.

Since the warming that occurs from greenhouse-gas enrichment is in the long wave, peaking at around 15 microns, that warming cannot of itself also warm the ocean. Instead, as the atmosphere warms, the altitude at which incoming and outgoing radiative fluxes balance, known as the "characteristic-emission altitude", rises. 

However, for well-understood reasons the temperature lapse-rate (the decline in atmospheric temperature with altitude) remains constant, so that the Earth's surface - sea as well as land - warms up. 

On this point the official theory seems to me to be correct. The true debate is not about whether CO2 and other greenhouse gases can warm the air, land and ocean, but about how much warming they will cause. 

Here, the official theory that there will be substantial warming arises from the ingenious exaggeration of several distinct parameters whose product is final climate sensitivity - the warming to be expected from a given greenhouse-gas increase. Remove the exaggerations and it is at once apparent that we are in for 1 Celsius degree of warming, at most, in the whole of the present century.

I say "at most" because it is near-certain that the net effect of temperature feedbacks (changes in temperature that occur precisely because temperature has been changed as a result of some influence or another, such as our adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere) must be somewhat net-negative, so that the feedbacks attenuate the original warming rather than amplifying it. The IPCC's notion of strongly net-positive feedbacks is not really tenable. 

You may care to repeat the experiment, but this time using thermocouples mounted at various points in the water within the bucket so as to get an accurate profile of the rather small but detectable changes in its temperature as you heat it from the surface. For comparison, you could also stand the bucket out in the garden on a hot, sunny day and measure how much the sunlight heats the water. 

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom

July 13

Dear Sir,

We all remember the English fervour that swept the country during the recent World Cup and national pride also swells whenever our cricketers or rugby players do the country justice.

But now there are EU moves to stick their stamp - the "ring of stars" - on the jerseys of athletes of member states in major sporting events.

Those behind the European Project slowly, but surely, continue with their homogenisation agenda and miss no opportunity to bury national identities under the banner of the EU.

Needless to say, of course, as well as the logo on the jerseys the EU flag must be flown during such games. And, as was revealed earlier this month over European Regional Development Fund grants, swingeing fines get doled out for disobedience.

When I see our boys representing our national honour on sporting pitches of whatever sport I want to see England emblems and not the "ring of stars"; they are representing our country not a non-existent United States of Europe.

Yours faithfully,

July 10

Dear Sir,

For the first time in my seven years of office the EU has come up with something sensible!  

MOTs on a 4-2-2 system -  as in the first MOT after four years and then every other year - instead of a 3-1-1 system.  I look forward in 2018 to something else sensible!

Yours faithfully,

Godfrey Bloom 

July 9

Dear Sir,

Consultation is a much devalued word these days.

It's a wizard idea seized on by public bodies which hand out the sop of consultation like sweeties. The period allowed varies from weeks to months but it seems to me that the original plan then goes ahead anyway.

Sure, there may be some tinkering around the edges but the clue to the end result is often in the original declaration of intent.

Latest example - North Yorkshire County Council's plans to switch off two thirds of street lights for part of the night to save £400,000.

We all appreciate that savings have to be made but to appease the greenies and EU targets the council also sells it on the line that nearly 2,000 tonnes of carbon emissions will be saved. I'd have been more impressed if light pollution was the hook.

The council rightly recognises there will be public concerns about the plan and is committed to "full engagement with local communities" and consultation is to be central to the delivery of any savings.

Only 'non-essential' lights will be switched off but if they weren't essential why were they installed in the first place. How many muggings and crashes will be needed before their value is revealed?

My doubts about the value of consultation were confirmed when I read in the  explanatory council statement that the Executive has already agreed that the first area to have lights switched off would be the A63 Selby bypass and the scheme is likely to be completed later this year.

What's happening about consultation over that apparent fait accompli?

Yours faithfully,

June 27 - Goole Courier

Dear Sir

As usual the climate alarmists resort to personal abuse when their dodgy hypothesis is challenged.  Let me put just a few facts into the arena. 

As a member of the Environment committee in the EU parliament it is my job to assess these facts in the interests of my Yorkshire and Lincolnshire constituents. 

We know that the globe has been warmer in the Minoan, Roman and Medieval periods.  We know carbon dioxide in the atmosphere precedes not follows historical periods of global warming.  

We know that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is but 0.001% of the total CO2 held in the ocean, surface rocks, air, soil and life.  

We know that the University of East Anglia has been tampering with the truth on computer predictions.  We know there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995.  

We also know there are significant numbers of independent academics led by amongst others Professor Ian Plimer and Professor Robert Carter who challenge obviously flawed warming hypothesis.  

We know our electricity bills are soaring and jobs being lost to this unscientific lunacy.  Yes Dr Froom and Mr Cooper, it is about money and ignorance.

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom

June 22

Dear Sir,

A desire to leave the EU or at the very least to have a referendum on the subject is not restricted to those of a particular political persuasion.

UKIP is, of course, the leading advocate for escaping from the tentacles of Brussels but I know supporters of other parties, including Labour, who also want Britain back under British control.

And for those Labour voters, the news that Ed Milliband has confirmed his love for the highly expensive EU at the cost of our freedoms and bank balance, will not sit easily.

A letter from his 'correspondence unit' reveals, “Mr Miliband does not believe that a referendum on UK membership of the EU is appropriate at this time.”

And I have no doubt that in his book it will never be appropriate at any time. There is no way he wants a referendum as he knows quite well that the majority of people in this country want out of the European Union.

We are all too well aware of the terrible hardship caused to local people by financial cutbacks yet bailing out struggling Eurozone countries has cost us more than we have saved and every day our membership of the EU costs us £45 million.

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom MEP

June 20

Dear Sir,

If you are one of the millions who had hoped to see a return to weekly rubbish collections then no doubt you will be disappointed by the latest government u-turn. 

However, it should come as no great surprise as in many parts of the UK offering a weekly bin collection would see many local authorities fined as a consequence of the EU Landfill Directive. This piece of legislation financially punishes local councils if they generate too much landfill. 

Weekly collections would mean more landfill which would result in more fines at a time when local councils have had their budgets cut. 

Yet again we see how a Brussels-created policy affects millions of people in the UK who simply wanted their bins emptied on a weekly basis. 

The Conservative Party has campaigned on the promise of a return to weekly rubbish collections which now will not happen in many parts of the country. 

The irony of it all is that the EU Landfill Directive was written and proposed by Caroline Jackson, the former Conservative MEP for South West England, back in 1999.

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom 

June 20 - Spenborough Guardian

Dear Sir,

As Mr Alan Carcas is so keen to know what I do and how I do it may I refer him to my website (www.godfreybloommep.co.uk) which carries all my speeches and appointments. 

 I think he will find my work rate above the average and as a retired professional financial economist rather better informed.

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom 

June 14

Dear Sir,

I was horrified at one of my local schools, a senior physics teacher admitted he did not believe a word about man made catastrophic global warming. 

However he continued teaching the rather unlikely hypothesis that man made CO2 was somehow a pollutant. It was for him ‘to get them through the exam’. Not to educate them in the traditional sense. 

Young people joining my staff are astounded how they have been misled. The class room is not the place for politically inspired junk science. They can get enough of that from public sector broadcasting.

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom 

June 10 - Email to Ilkley Gazette

Dear Sir

Mr Hoyle makes one valid point in so far as there is a strategic question whether we need a parachute capability.  However until we decide otherwise they must be paid for the considerably higher training requirements than a line regiment.  I do not deal in emotion, well not too much, I am an ex-serviceman myself.

As to the expenses account, I am not sure what Mr Hoyle is implying, I get my train, plane and hotel bills covered, what else does he think I get?

Yours faithfully

June 9 - Sent to Anglican and Catholic press

Dear Sir, 

I was saddened to learn that the Algerian Protestant Church Association has been ordered by the High Police Commissioner 'to close down all worship places around the country once for all, the places which are used now and the places which are under construction.'

I gather that the order goes on to say that the authorities will make sure that the order is obeyed and applied, 'otherwise severe consequences and punishments will be applied.'

This order seems to be another move by the authorities to enforce Ordinance 06-03 which compels all non-Muslim religious groups to register with the government in order to hold worship services. 

Many Christian groups have tried to register but have been unsuccessful, as there seems not to be the administrative processes in place to enable registration. 

The authorities in Algeria have already done their best to close down anything that looks like a church. There is also a law that forbids groups of more than quite a small number of people meeting together but there are always ways and means for Christians to get together to worship and they cleverly circumvent this particular rule.

My thoughts are with those in this and all oppressed countries as they continue to spread the Gospel.

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom

June 9

Dear Sir, 

As I have long predicted the loony greenies and their fellow travellers have ensured with their bizarre energy policies the costs will fall on the most vulnerable.  

As wealthy land owners and businessmen wax fat on wind turbines, a long since discredited source of reliable electricity, the little people have their bills loaded.

We must demand exactly how much of our bills now and in the future go on making politicians feel important at world conferences.  Incidentally it is now an unchallenged fact that there has been no global warming since 1995.

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom
UKIP MEP for Yorkshire & North Lincolnshire
Environment Committee in the European Parliament

June 6 - Daily Express

Dear Sir, 

Your reviewer, Caroline Jowett, clearly not a trained economist, argues Alan Greenspan believed in ‘unfettered capitalism’. Oh no he did not. He believed in state mercantilism. Not the same thing at all. 

It is the Fed and other central banks which are the problem. Not capitalism at all, capitalism would not have fallen for ‘too big to fail’ and made the tax payer pick up the tab. 

With unfettered capitalism, i.e. a free market, the problem could not have arisen because there would have been no one to print money that did not exist in the first place.

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom

June 4 - Letter to The Times

Dear Sir,

I read Mr Kaletsy’s article with complete incredulity. I remember many years ago when he was regarded as a serious economist. The figure of 17% current ‘renewable’ energy in Germany is wishful thinking. 

The increase in CO2 emissions as a result of nuclear decommissioning will wipe out any potential savings. Doesn’t anybody do any homework these days before putting pen to paper?

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom

June 4 - Letter to The Yorkshire Post

Dear Sir,

I read with some interest Mr Timothy Kirkhope’s article in your paper last week. As I spend significantly more time in the constituency than most MEPs perhaps I could put him right on what real people in business are thinking. 

They do not require ‘co-ordinating’ or indeed patronisation of any sort by quangos and bureaucrats but the wholesale abolition of regulations and penal taxes. 

The region contributes as its share of our membership of the EU over £650 million per year. A start could be made if we kept it in the region and reduce business rates for which businesses get very little. 

As to Yorkshire Forward, no redundancies there so far, perhaps a modest cut back in their champagne budget? 

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom

June 1

Dear Sir,

Oxfam have predicted significant food price increases in the next 20 years, a threat to poor people all over the world.  They are probably right, but not for the reasons they cite.

Periodical global warming historically leads to rising cereal crop yields, as there has been no significant global warming since 1995 it would seem there will be no relief from that scenario.  

However the massive shift to turning agricultural land over to bio fuel production, in short burning food has already seen a dramatic increase in food prices.  Add to this the forthcoming increases in energy prices, mainly self inflicted by a misunderstanding of politicians on its causes and effect, poor people are in for a bad time.  

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom

June 1

Dear Sir,

When he applied for permission for a wind farm on his 3,000 acre estate in Yorkshire, Sir Reginald Sheffield, who is David Cameron`s father in law, ignored local protests.

He now enjoys a nice income from his eight 400ft, turbines with, I understand, the possibility of installing more.  Subsidised by taxpayers, that is our, money.

Now we hear that he objected to an abattoir being opened within half a mile of his stately home near York on the grounds of smell, noise, and the potential adverse affect on the tourist trade to his estate.

Many other folk were in favour and permission has been given for the abattoir, which will boost the local economy. He has the right of appeal, but I  don`t think he will get much support from the locals.  You could call it poetic justice, or the biter bit.

Yours faithfully

May 31

Dear Sir,

Coalition economic policy is doomed to failure.  The only possible way out of the appalling national debt, which is significantly higher than any of the main parties are admitting, is by significant and sustained growth.  This cannot happen until public sector spending is drastically reduced from the 50% of GDP at which it now stands.  A reduction to at least no more than 20%.

We simply must grasp as a nation that public spending takes money out of the economy, it does not put it in.  

The Town Hall bureaucrats, the NHS Chief Executive, the massively over paid BBC Executive contribute nothing.  It is the butcher, baker and candlestick maker who create wealth.  If you do not work in the private sector or you are a welfare recipient you are part of the problem not the solution.  

Our children and their children will look back on my generation with scorn as they buckle under the burden of unnecessary debt we have left them

Yours faithfully

May 27

Dear Sir,

It is an outrage that thousands of paratroopers face a pay cut of as much as 10 per cent.

This desperate attempt by the Ministry of Defence to save more money is a terrible body blow to our brave soldiers, including the those who have just returned from Afghanistan.

Chopping the Para Pay bonus may well save the MoD more than £4m a year but many of the paratroopers take home little more than £1,000 a month and losing £180 a month will hit them hard. And they are already subject to a two year pay freeze and face possible redundancies.

The morale of our soldiers who are prepared to pay the ultimate price for this country is touching rock bottom. They deserve respect, thanks and a decent wage - not a kick in the teeth by short-sighted penny pinchers.

Yours faithfully

May 26

Dear Sir,

Animal welfare is one of my biggest post bags so I offer some information and urge readers to please spare a thought, and a couple of bob, for the UK animal saving charity SPANA?

You may not have heard of it because its work is carried out in the poorest countries of the world helping look after working animals, such as horses, donkeys and mules.

They understand that working animals ensure that families can make a living. If an animal falls sick or is injured, then the family it supports may go hungry and fall deeper into poverty.

They offer completely free veterinary care and their education programmes teaches owners and children how to better care for and respect their animals.

SPANA also treats working animals in emergency and conflict situations around the world.

It does not receive any government funding and is entirely reliant on the kindness and generosity of individual supporters.

I personally believe this is a very worthwhile charity and would encourage people in this country of animal lovers to give whatever they can spare to assist it. Their website is http://www.spana.org

Yours

May 24

Dear Sir,

I wonder how many readers heard the response that the Prime Minister gave in Parliament, when an MP asked why the Air Ambulance has to pay VAT on its fuel but the lifeboats don't?

David Cameron merely replied that it was because of a European Union ruling. There should then have been uproar in the House about how the British government meekly kowtows to Brussels, but of course there wasn't. 

How woefully pathetic our Westminster parliament has now become, if it is powerless to let the vital Air Ambulance service off paying VAT on its fuel. Shame on all MPs.

But then they are now just automatons so conditioned by the system that they fail to spot the outrageous injustice in all of this. 

They are meant to represent us, the voters who put them there, but, instead, they do what they are told by the likes of Blair, Brown and Cameron. They actually gave up representing the wishes of the British people in 1972.

That is why UKIP fights the three main parties. We will keep fighting them until we get our national sovereignty back so that we can, once again, be ruled by a properly accountable Parliament in Westminster – and let the Air Ambulance off VAT on its fuel.

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom 

May 18

Dear Sir,

A report about cold homes and health commissioned by the Friends of the Earth may come as a shock to today's medical professionals and environmentalists. But people with an ounce of common sense have always known that cold weather causes deaths and ill health, especially amongst the elderly.

The report is merely an attempt to make FoE look like it is concerned about people. But their concern is hollow: it suggests that the elderly and poor, working families should have to wait for a handout, or for someone to install insulation in their home.

The real problem is high energy costs -- the result of the failure of governments and opposition parties to create forward-looking energy policies for the UK, and their complete surrender to environmental pressure groups such as FoE.  It is sheer hypocrisy for the Friends of the Earth to highlight the human cost of high energy prices when it is a situation they have helped create.

I and my colleagues have been pointing out the terrible costs of high energy prices and environmentalism for many years.  With energy prices set to rise yet again, and the UK's Climate Change Committee proposing yet further price rises in the future, we will shortly see that this country's daft green policies have created a problem far worse than climate change was ever going to cause us. 

Yours faithfully
Godfrey Bloom 

May 13

Dear Sir,

Perhaps the BBC has decided to record Question Time in front of an audience of convicts so it can include politicians in the audience as well as the panel.

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom 

May 12

Dear Sir,

And so it continues. The relentless creation of wind farms, blighting both our beautiful land and seascapes.

I was pleased, briefly, to read that the Committee on Climate Change has called on the Government to scale back plans to build thousands of turbines off the coast of Britain.
But my pleasure was short-lived as they instead want more built onshore.
To sugar coat the increasingly bitter pill, announcements of such developments are sold to us as creating jobs. Heaven knows jobs are in short supply, particularly since our manufacturing industry largely vanished.
But building wind turbines is not the answer, either to employment or energy problems. There is certainly money to be made but that's by the developers, often foreign companies, who receive huge subsidies to ensure the ridiculous EU CO2 targets are met.
The fact of the matter is that wind farms are totally inefficient. Recent research by the John Muir Trust, concluded they often only work at 10% of their capacity because of a lack of wind.
And more and more people realise this, after all you can't fool all the people all of the time.
Let me give you a couple of examples of the inefficiencies -  all of Scotland's wind farms, running at 24% capacity for their full 20-year lifetime, would forestall  0.00002 Celsius of "global warming". That's 1/50,000 of a degree, or 1/2500 of the threshold below which even the most modern instruments and methods are unable to detect a change in global temperature. At a cost of tens of billions.
And the Thanet Wind Array, the largest offshore wind farm in Europe, is receiving £1.2 billion in subsidy - it will forestall negligible global warming.

The irrefutable problem is that wind is unpredictable. The windmills don't work during heat waves or freezing temperatures and when it gets too windy the resulting power cannot be stored.
Wind turbines are a blight aesthetically and economically. Up to 7% of our energy bills is now going to subsidise what will be regarded by future generations as the madness of our age.

Yours
Godfrey Bloom 

May 6

Dear Sir,

Perhaps I could clear up a popular misconception about speeding.

If readers check with the Road Traffic Laboratory Department of Transport’s official reports they will see that fewer than 8% of accidents are speed related.  Only 4% actually attributed to speed.  

The vast majority of accidents are caused in the manoeuvre turning right, at speed under 15 mph.  Speed bumps and excessively slow speed restrictions increase pollution.  20 mph outside the school gates only then please.

Yours faithfully,

Godfrey Bloom 

May 1

Dear Sir,

As a frequent facilitator of internships I usually reserve them for family, or friends of family and sometimes sixth formers or undergraduates who have impressed me on one of my many visits to educational establishments. I have enjoyed a 100% success rate on this basis.  

However if the leaders of the Lib Dems, Conservatives or Labour really believed in social mobility, which of course they don’t - just look at their own promotion strategies - they would re instate the grammar school, but, heaven forefend!  That might let bright working class children through the gravy portal.

Yours faithfully,

Godfrey Bloom 

April 25

Dear Sir,

I feel the usual vociferous hard core environmentalists would do better concerning themselves with the complete failure of wind turbines in recent weeks.  

The steaming heat wave has seen these grotesque and expensive monsters stand completely still as they did in the weeks of freezing weather at Christmas. 

The people of mid-Wales are seeing one of the last beautiful wilderness areas desecrated by turbines and conventional back up power stations. The Scottish landscape is going the same way.  

The fabulous Yorkshire Wolds will soon succumb to the stupid and greedy.  Perhaps the Prince of Wales can arouse from his slumbers and lead the rescue of our wonderful island.

Yours faithfully,

Godfrey Bloom 

UKIP MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire

Substitute member of EU Environmental Committee

April 13

Dear Sir. 

Full marks to The Co-operative for its Plan Bee campaign which is being trialled in Yorkshire.

It is shocking to read that the UK has lost 97 per cent of its wildflower meadows since the 1930s, and encouraging landowners and farmers to create new ones is to be welcomed.

We all know that the bee population is in decline and it is vital that everything possible is done, not just to halt this dangerous trend, but to reverse it. Without bees to pollinate plants Mankind is in serious trouble.

There are alarming reports that honeybees could be extinct in this country by 2018 and scientists investigating deadly bee viruses are up against the clock.   

Meanwhile it is up to everyone with land, be it hundreds of acres, or just a handkerchief sized garden, to grow plants attractive to bees, butterflies and other insects, which form part of the chain of life.

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom 

7th April 2011

Dear Sir,

Proposals to grant grandparents legal rights to maintain contact with their grandchildren after family breakdown are to be welcomed.

Grandparents play an increasingly important role in these days when so many couples both work. But if divorce or separation happens they can be quickly ostracised.

So often it is the father's parents who find themselves in the wilderness regardless of the harrowing effect this has on the grandchildren. All they know is that the granny and granddad who have surrounded them with love has apparently abandoned them.

The government report which includes proposals to enshrine in law greater access for grandparents is a positive step which hopefully will in future prevent innocent children suffering because of selfish parental bitterness.

Yours faithfully 

Godfrey Bloom 

April 6

Dear Sir,

To read stories about the court proceedings brought by alleged Kenyan victims of torture at the hands of the British it would seem to be literally black and white.

But while this latest hand-wringing goes on about our colonial past, let it not be forgotten just how evil the Mau Mau rebels were in the 1950s.

Suspects were rounded up and detained in camps but not just so the British could assert their authority for the sake of it but because of the atrocities carried out by the Mau Mau, such as burying people alive. 

They were dangerous and difficult times in Kenya in that era and firm measures were needed. I do not believe compensation should now be handed out to survivors.

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom 

March 31

Dear Sir,

The dubious benefits of smart meters, which are to be fitted for control of domestic electricity, are now, rightly, the subject of media attention. 

Smart meters haves long been a pet subject of the EU which has issued two directives on this issue and has a long term plan to make smart meters mandatory. 

It is not just a UK issue. Whether the expense of these meters is worth the real savings is very doubtful, but few realise that the threat behind these meters is far greater.

In a well-attended meeting on Tuesday 29 March, of the Smart Energy Demand Coalition in Brussels, Fiona Hall, MEP went further and revealed that the EU is planning meters which will monitor and remotely control even individual household appliances.  

Manuel Sanchez, a Commissioner from the Energy department arrogantly joked that huge sums have already been spent in research, and pilot projects in Sweden and Italy, and cited a figure of 5.5 billion euro.. 

He gave every appearance of considering doubtful questions to be highly amusing. Such are those who now rule us.

It seems that our electricity bills will go up, but due to EU directives and regulations, control of our own lives will go down.

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom 

March 1

Dear Sir,

The European desire to put social engineering over insurance underwriting is particularly absurd.  The market tells us women live longer than men and generally have safer driving records.

No amount of politicians agonizing over the situation will change that.
We will all end up paying higher premiums.  But with VAT on them perhaps that is what they want. 

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom 

UKIP MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire
EU Women's Rights and Gender Equality Committee

Feb 20

Dear Sir,

Whilst on the campaign trail in Barnsley last week I had the opportunity to speak to a number of small businessmen.  They were united in their condemnation of the local authority when it comes to helping, or rather not helping, so hindering small business.  

Given that no less than eight executives at the Town Hall earn more than £100,000 per year this is a pretty dismal situation.

Perhaps the ‘Assistant Chief Executive, Information Services’ (package £95,000 pa) might offer an explanation.

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom

Feb 8

Dear Sir,

I notice that the BBC do not seem to know the difference between hunting, shooting and wild fowling. A mistake usually made by Americans. Disappointing in a British public service broadcaster. 

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom 
UKIP MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire

Jan 20

Dear Sir,

Scarborough hosts the UK Independence Party Spring Conference on March 5. 

An exciting range of speakers will include Paul McKeever, Chairman of the Police Federation and Jon Gaunt, London’s favourite radio commentator and presenter.

It is around 10 years since UKIP came to Scarborough where the guest speaker and entertainer was the late great Freddie Truman.

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom 

Jan 20

Dear Sir,

So Education Secretary Michael Gove is urging Hull voters to support the LibDems. What a crazy world we are living in!

He has suggested that if voters are "wise enough" to vote Liberal Democrat at the next local elections students in receipt of EMA will continue to get a travel grant.

Hull is plainly not a Tory stronghold but doubtless his philosophy may will apply to many other places, so Conservative supporters in other constituencies may well find themselves being urged to vote for their strange bedfellows.

I have a much more sensible idea. Vote UKIP and be represented by politicians of integrity and unswerving values.

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom 

Jan 20

Dear Sir,

It was encouraging to read that youth offending work in Barnsley is better than the national average.

An inspection report says that work in the town is of 'sufficiently high level of quality' and the good standard of work following the last inspection in 2006 has been maintained.

Let not complacency set in, however, as the highest of the three assessment markers used by the inspectors was 74%, showing there is still room for improvement.

Though that is not to detract from the dedicated youth workers. They are employed in a very difficult field and the work they do can be the making of otherwise lost young souls. Keep up the good work.

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom 

Jan 10 - Yorkshire Post

Dear Sir,

Not for the first time I read a James Bovington letter awestruck at the sheer triumph of politics over common sense.

As a guest lecturer at Cambridge University in the 1990s I was explaining to undergraduates that a single currency without a single fiscal policy was doomed to failure and that the diverging economies of member states would eventually lead to the demise of the weaker and the dissatisfaction of the stronger. 

It has come home in spades, Greece, Portugal and Ireland bankrupt.  Spain and Italy teetering on the brink.  The majority of Germans want the Deutschmark back.  40% youth unemployment in the Mediterranean countries.

The Maastricht Treaty has been torn up.  The rule book thrown away.  I questioned the ECB President before Christmas in the “parliament” in my role as co-ordinator on the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee about his illegal purchase of junk sovereign debt with tax payers’ money. The same mistakes made by the commercial banks in corporate debt that led to the 2008 debacle.

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom
www.godfreybloommep.co.uk

Jan 7

Dear Sir.

As I think most of us suspected, the promise to axe the quangoes was just that. Another broken promise.

Successive governments have devolved government responsibility to the EU and quangocracy for many years. 

Fat cat salaried plenipotentiaries beholden to no one, usually incompetent, mainly granted as a reward for political patronage past or future. They cannot be axed, too many of the great and the good would lose their life style. 

Last year a friend met two such minor quangocrats on the way back from Venice, having been promoting tourism to Barnsley. 

When will a newspaper start a name and shame campaign to get these monkeys off our backs? 

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom 

Jan 7

Dear Sir,

It would appear that Hull trains were cancelled in significant numbers in December to give East Coast Trains priority. It would seem because Network Rail would not send a man with a blow torch to the points at Temple Hirst Junction. 

As a regular user of Hull Trains I have often suspected we are second class citizens where Network Rail are concerned!

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom 

Jan 7

Dear Sir

I read with much interest Dominic Lawson’s rather sad piece on pets. For the last 25 years I have reserved my sympathy for a colleague who told me he “did not understand opera”.

Mr Lawson obviously does not understand the relationship between a man and his dog. Dogs admittedly are self centred beasts but no more in my experience than children.

That great much missed theologian the Venerable George Austin when I asked him if animals had a soul he answered with much diplomacy and wisdom, “When and if I get to heaven I would be surprised and disappointed if I did not find my old dog waiting for me and wagging his tail”.

Says it all, but then if you are not a dog person.....poor Dominic.

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom
UKIP MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire

Jan 4, 2011

Dear Sir,

The European Commission has again entered the negotiations of the sale of the British institution. This time the Royal Mail. This is quite legitimate under EU rules on state aid, if illegitimate in the terms of the British Constitution. 

However I feel I can broker a sensible and pragmatic solution. The poison pill, of course, is the Royal Mail’s £8.7 billion pension deficit. This is almost exactly equivalent to our no strings annual overseas aid budget. 

Re-direct this to the Royal Mail pension fund is option 1. Option 2 is to withhold 50% of the UK contribution to the EU budget, again, almost exactly this sum. 

I offer this solution, without prejudice, gratis, to the trade unions involved, the coalition government and the European Commission. 

Yours faithfully

Godfrey Bloom 
UKIP MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire
Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee in the EU Parliament

January 3, 2011

PRESS RELEASE - POT HOLES LETTER

MEP Godfrey Bloom has written to local authorities in Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire asking for reassurance that dangerous road surface damage caused by the icy weather will be swiftly repaired.

"In view of budget cuts I am very concerned that when the bad weather has passed the motorists in the area will still be left facing hazardous conditions," said Mr Bloom, UKIP Euro MP.

"After last winter's snow and ice, potholes created serious problems and in some areas local authorities were not as speedy at fixing them as they should have been.

"I know local authority funds have been badly hit but it is imperative that the lives of local people are not endangered by large pot holes and nor should their vehicles be at risk of damage," said Mr Bloom.

Ends

For further information 

 North of England press officer - Lynda Roughley - 07845 333764. 
Godfrey Bloom MEP -  07901-710518 www.godfreybloommep.co.uk