QUOTE OF THE MONTH [bonus]

‘I must be absolutely clear about this. Britain cannot accept the present situation on the Budget. It is demonstrably unjust. It is politically indefensible. I cannot play Sister Bountiful to the Community while my own electorate are being asked to forego improvements in the fields of health, education, welfare and the rest.’

Margaret Thatcher [the then Tory Prime Minister], speaking in Luxembourg on the 18 October 1979, in reference to the size of the UK’s payments to the EU.

It was Margaret Thatcher’s stand that eventually led to the creation of Britain’s budget rebate. That is the rebate which Tony Blair has been more than happy to start phasing out. He has agreed that the UK’s net contributions to be increased by roughly £2billion each year.

There may be English NHS and care home patients [whose homes may have been seized and sold by the local council] suffering from malnutrition, or cancer drugs being denied to English patients, but all of this is water of a duck’s back to Labour.

Tony Blair is not Margaret Thatcher. He is more than happy to ‘play Sister Bountiful’, especially when he is doing so with English money.