On the forum Niall Warry asks ‘Is it true under the terms of the Lisbon Treaty, and the requirement to only have Pan European Parties, that UKIP will have to to be renamed EFD come November this year?’
I have been unable to find out if this is the case, however, if true it does offer an explanation of why Nigel Farage seems to be prepared to risk all on UKIP MEPs remaining in the EFD group as
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An article in today's Telegraph suggests that Brown will win more seats at the general election than Cameron, even though the Tories have a 5 point lead according to a MORI poll taken from interviews during the period 19-22 February.
A 1% swing to the Tories, within the margin of error for a single poll, would give Cameron the most seats, however, as the Party gathers at Brighton tomorrow for their Spring conference, the members must be reflecting on 'how did it all go wrong' given that they had a 20 point lead back in the summer.
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FT Deutschland reports that the European Commissioner for Taxation, Algirdas Šemeta, will propose plans in April for an EU-wide CO2 tax. The article notes that Brussels officials can be’ stubborn’, as this proposal has suffered several failed attempts in the last two decades. A first draft has been seen by the newspaper, and the article notes that the plans include a revision of existing EU minimum rates of consumer taxes on fossil energy products such as gasoline, fuel oil, gas and electricity. On top of that, a harmonised Europe-wide CO2 tax would be introduced from 2013 onwards. Currently only a few countries have such a tax. Roland Stein, a lawyer with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, claims in the article that the CO2 tax will lead to more taxes for consumers and companies.
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Now that campaigning is in full flight for all political parties, it is unlikely that any real sense will now emerge until after the General Election results have been announced. Each party has, more or less, set out its stall and it will be more adjustment than significant new policy which will emerge from now until polling day.
This is also the case because of the nation’s desperate financial
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Commander Ali Dizaei of London's Metropolitan Police today became the most senior officer anywhere in the United Kingdom to be convicted of offences by a court. Dizaei, who was branded a "criminal in uniform" by Independant Police Complaints Comission chair Nick Hardwick, has been jailed for four years after he attempted to frame an Iraqi businessman.
It took a Southwark Crown Court jury under th
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The chief of the UN climate change panel, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, admitted on Wednesday that a mistake in a 2007 report had raised questions about the body's credibility, in an interview with The Guardian.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) landmark Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 said the probability of glaciers in the Himalayas "disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps soone
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Clare Short, the United Kingdom's then-Secretary of State for International Development, appeared before the Iraq Inquiry yesterday, and told the panel that the Cabinet was "misled" about the Iraq War's legality prior to the 2003 invasion. The three-hour session was held in the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London's City of Westminster.
Short, an outspoken critic of the war, retired from
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A recent article in the Western Daily Press branded the closure of the RAF base at Lyneham “one of the most wrong-headed decisions ever taken by Ministry of Defence mandarins”. But is it really?
When one considers the recent disasters overseen by that government department, he maybe overstating the gravity of the Lyneham closure.
A secret internal report on the department’s current difficulti
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