Millennium3

Yes, the main point is that a government's primary responsibility is to the people - not to some concept of a European State, the Financial Markets or to the Bildebergs!

steve fowler

Agreed Millennium3!

Millennium3

Taxpayers foot bill for Ed Balls 'junket'

By Miles Goslett, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:35am BST 12/08/2007

Cabinet minister Ed Balls spent thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money attending a private meeting of one of the world's most powerful and secretive organisations.

Mr Balls, widely regarded as Gordon Brown's closest adviser, travelled to Canada for the four-day conference of the shadowy Bilderberg Group of businessmen and politicians when he was Economic Secretary to the Treasury.

The cost of the trip, in air fares, hotel bills and expenses is estimated at up to £5,000.

The group's rules insist that "all participants attend in a private and not an official capacity".

However, a Treasury spokesman said Mr Balls had attended "in his capacity as a minister" and confirmed that all expenses had been met from public funds.

Accommodation at the four-star Brook Street hotel in Ottawa, where the event was held in June last year, costs the equivalent of between £79 and £103 a night.

Mr Balls's attendance at the meeting was uncovered by the Lib-Dem MP Norman Baker, who said: "It's difficult to see why the public should pay for this. Mr Balls was not representing the Government, he was representing himself. He should be open and accountable to MPs who ask about it."

Also at the event with Mr Balls, now Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, were the former American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and David Rockefeller, the American banker and philanthropist.

Kenneth Clarke, the former Tory Chancellor, and George Osborne, the current shadow chancellor, were also present, according to the House of Commons Register of Members' Interests. Their accommodation was paid for by Bilderberg's organisers, as was part of Mr Osborne's air fare.

Mr Balls's reluctance to discuss his attendance at the conference ran counter to Mr Brown's recent promises to head a Government that was "more open and accountable", said Mr Baker.

"It doesn't bode well for Gordon Brown's commitment to open government and the end of spin," he said.

Participants at Bilderberg, named after the Dutch hotel where its first conference took place, have been described as the "shadow world government".

It was founded at the height of the Cold War in 1954 by Joseph Retinger, a Polish émigré and political adviser, and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands.

Its ostensible aim was to improve relations between Western Europe and the Soviet Union. However, critics claim that it wields enormous influence in shaping world events.

The group meets annually amid strict security. It has no permanent secretariat. Instead, an anonymous steering committee of two people from the 18 countries taking part sends out invitations to about 120 of Europe's and North America's leading politicians, economists, industrialists, and royals, among them Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.

Journalists are not permitted to cover the event, no minutes are published, and all those invited must promise not to reveal any of its agenda.

While the group does release a list of people it invites, it justifies its secretive methods by arguing that frank debate is possible only if secrecy is assured.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../nballs112.xml

steve fowler

Unless we are prepared to up to these people and take back control of our lives again this will never end!!.

Millennium3

That's for certain.

rjt

Mr Howard speaks with common sense on this issue, he says what he means, means what he says and what is more he then does it. We need more political leaders like him. I have been equally impressed by his criticism of the Barbaric regime of Mugabe in Zimbabwe and his refusal in the face of considerable pressure to allow his cricketers to tour there thus denying the evil Mugabe yet another propoganda coup.

Englishdan

Thats whats happening to me Steve, because I'm speaking out in anger about our country being buried, I'm being labeled a right wing racist which I'm certainly not

steve fowler

Well keep doing it mate the more of us that do the more we will give them a headach they can not keep us quiet for ever!!!.

Britannist

Yes - in contrast to the wimpish and hypocritical response of Blair to the Mugabe tyranny. To think that Labour won votes back in 1997 claiming that it would pursue what it called an "ethical foreign policy". Which, in reality, meant arresting General Pinochet (the Labour left hating him because he helped the UK in the Falklands dispute) but trading and holding friendly meetings with the communist regime which runs China (and which has been criticised around the world for human rights abuses).

John Welch

You're against human rights abuse? John Howard refuses to apologise to Aboriginals for genocide. Criminal law deals with crimes by ethnic groups. Anything further is humbug, unless you want to restore national greatness when women had no vote , Anglicanism was essential and the navy's discipline was flogging.