Iceland

I've promised to keep some personal updates coming and it seems a nice idea to turn this blog into a kind of journal/ photo album to remind me of things in the future.  So here's a nice reminder of our Iceland trip a couple of weeks ago and some thoughts/ reflections on the place.

Iceland Trip 3/11/14 - 5/11/14

Flying Birthday Visit

I'd been to Iceland for 4 days once before, in July 2001.  I wasn't sure whether going in late autumn would be such a cunning idea, given the length of the days and what I assumed would be really bad weather.  Mind you, it had rained pretty much the whole time in July and hit a maximum of 13C AND it was Ste's birthday on 4 November and you can't really change when that falls.  He might be a queen, he's not the Queen, so doesn't get two birthdays.  So, off we went just for 2 nights, just literally to go somewhere cool (perhaps in both senses) to celebrate his 22nd.

I wanted everything to be really special, so we had valet parking (oooh get us) and then continued proceedings with free food and drink in the Manchester airport business lounge.  It was Ste's first visit to one, and one he made the most of.  I think he managed to pack away four bacon rolls, which is probably a good proportion of some poor pig's entire leg.  We flew Icelandair, which was really calm, classy and lovely.  I was surprised it was only a 2.5 hour flight, given we started a bit further north than London to start with.

Free food \o/ Free Food \o/

We arrived about 3pm to the most utterly brilliant blue skies and sunshine imaginable.  Iceland's landscape is like no other.  There are volcanoes, lava fields, the dramatic coast line, and miles and miles of unspoilt nothing.  It was spectacular to see it all so clearly.

I'd looked into packages with the various excursions I wanted to do included, but decided a hire car and doing it ourselves would be much more flexible, and more pleasant than hanging around for transfer buses etc.  So we picked up our little VW Polo and our first stop was the Blue Lagoon, which is between Keflavik airport and the capital Reykjavik, just under an hour away.  The first thing I checked was for the snowflake symbol on the tyres: yup, it has snow tyres and they were going to come in handy quite unexpectedly the following day.

Blue Lagoon

The Blue Lagoon is a dream location.  It's a large man-made pool with water from the neighbouring geothermal plant, and it's surrounded by blackened lava fields.  The water comes out of the ground at absurdly high temperatures and pressures, but by the time it reaches the pool it's "only" around 39C.  That is the most delightful temperature on a day where it's 2C, as it was for us.   There's a typically beautiful Nordic glass, wood and steel complex where you get changed, can shower and eat... and then step straight into the milky blue water of the lagoon.  You can see the sun going down behind Ste and the steam coming off the water.  Heaven.

Blue Lagoon Posterboy!

People advised me on Twitter that the "in water massage" couldn't be missed, so I thought what the heck, it's his birthday and we've come all this way.  So I booked us each one, not knowing what to expect.  It's pretty much what it says on the label: you lie on a table in the water for the first part, then they transfer you to a float while they massage your head, shoulders and face.  You're wrapped in a warm towel the whole time, and when you're on your back it feels like you're in amniotic fluid.  You finish up in some kind of trance: it's an amazing, amazing experience.

Ste back in the womb

The water at the lagoon is very rich in silica and other minerals: apparently it's extremely good for people with various skin conditions.  You can scoop it up off the bottom of the pool, or there are barrels of it where you can paste it all over your face.  We of course couldn't resist the opportunity of this and had to do a double-selfie.  Look at the colour of the sky behind us: during the 3 hours we spent there it went from brilliant sunshine, through sunset into the most perfect clear night with stars visible with zero light pollution.  The Lagoon stays open until 8pm off-season and up to 11pm in the summer.

SMILE: It's Halloween!

Reykjavik

By the time we headed on to the hotel to check in the temperature was down to about -2C.   The roads are smooth, straight and easy to drive on and we checked in about 8.30pm.  We stayed at the Hilton Nordica, which I can't praise more highly.  Hiltons can be a bit [a lot] characterless and bland, but this one had some real Nordic design flair about it, including the stunning 11 storey central spiral staircase.  They upgraded us to a gorgeous junior suite too, which is always guaranteed to get me to write a nice review on Tripadvisor. Yes, I am that cheap/easy. 

Not often you feel the need to photo a hotel staircase

An added bonus for us of the Hilton for me was the unexpected surprise of finding that Reykjavik's best vegetarian restaurant is literally a minute away, across the road.  It's called Glo and serves huge, healthy, organic, delicious veggie meals in a really stylish environment.  I hate veggie restaurants that look like grotty student dives where a free helping of food poisoning comes with every meal, so this was bliss.

Even better there was a gaggle of chatty lesbians having supper, which added to the atmosphere.  Iceland is famously LGBT friendly (they had the first out lesbian PM, social democrat Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir back in 2009) and it's worth just noting that we didn't have a moment's awkwardness checking into the hotel or at any other time in the visit.  In fact, the only time we've had any awkwardness anywhere about being a same sex couple was in a supposed trendy urban hotel in Shoreditch (the Hoxton: yeah you deserve to be named and shamed, fuck you) and in a tea rooms in North Wales where presumably if my partner had been a sheep all would have been fine.

We pottled down to the centre of Reykjavik after supper for a walk round.  Almost 2/3 of the country's 325,000 inhabitants live in and around the capital, but it feels like a small, cosy, typically Nordic town.  The houses are brightly painted, often with metal or wooden sides, it's prosperous, tidy and safe.  90% of all buildings in Iceland are heated by free, endlessly renewable geothermal power, so the air is clean.  Although the country took a real battering during the 2008 economic crisis, GDP per capita is still $50,000 and unemployment is under 4.5%.

Hallgrímskirkja. Try saying that when you're drunk.

My favourite building here is the parliament building: the Alþingi.  It's the world's oldest parliament, dating back to 930, but the building it's located in looks like a British provincial town hall.  It's so wonderfully understated.  I started boring Ste about the linguistic meaning ("All" means everything, or great in old Germanic, and a "thing" is a meeting) but the sub-zero temperatures were making his eyes glaze over.  I think it was the temperature, anyway.  The Hallgrímskirkja Church towers over the capital from every angle and is a futuristic 1930s art-deco design.  It's looks all very Gotham City.  Apart from that, Reykjavik is charming enough, but to be frank it's not a reason for visiting the country.

BIRTHDAY BOY

I woke Ste up at 6.30am, which is always guaranteed to go down well.  You can see how full of beans and the joys of life he is in the photo below.  The point of the card is that it contained his surprise: "This card entitles the lucky birthday boy to a 1.5 hour Husky Ride Experience with Dog Sledding Iceland.  Begins at 10.00am on 4 November 2014. Bring gloves, a coat and a camera!"  The cuddly husky that accompanied the card is the one I photographed for the front a few weeks before and ordered from Moonpig.  We later christened him "Grauman" after the cutest, naughtiest, husky in the pack that pulled our sleigh.  He had to wear a cone when he wasn't out working, to stop him from licking his balls, which is always endearing.

It's awake! Birthday Boy :-)

The husky ride was 1.5 hours drive from the hotel, in the south of Iceland.  It was still pitch black until well past 9am, which is interesting.  One of the main arguments against Britain going onto double-summer time (i.e. being in the same time zone as almost all the rest of the EU) is that the Scots don't want it to be dark in the morning in the winter.  Iceland is far further north than Scotland, and by rights should be an hour behind us because of their geographic position.  Instead they've chosen to be in the same time zone as Britain, so that it stays lighter later in the evening.  The flipside of that is it's dark in the mornings, and they're apparently happy with this.  Today, for example, sunrise was at 10.40am in Reykjavik and sunset was at 3.52pm.  If I had the choice I'd do just the same.  Sunrise in London today would be at 8.42am and sunset at 4.56pm, if we did the same thing Iceland does.

Husky Ride

So after a nice long hotel breakfast we drove off, in the dark, and arrived at the isolated farm where the huskies spend their time when they're not up on a glacier for the summer season, or on lower snow covered land in the winter.  This meant it was a ride on a sleigh with wheels, over dry land.  It was pretty much the same experience (particularly the "cold factor" given the 1C temperature and rain) and we had 8 dogs pulling us.  Working in those temperatures for them is apparently the equivalent of us running a half marathon in the tropics: they can't be pushed too hard as it really is warm for them.

Husky Ride!

They're technically Greenlandic Dogs, rather than Siberian Huskies.  Each can pull up to 200kg on their own, so they made light weight of us, even despite breakfast and Ste's bacon rolls the day before.  We were seated and the lovely musher stood behind us and talked to us throughout about the dogs.  Here's a short video of the part of the proceedings!  At the end we got to meet all the dogs in person, including one who had been the star of David Guetta/ Sia's mesmerising She Wolf video, filmed in Iceland. Apparently she's all full of herself now she's a movie star.  Below is real life Grauman back in his run.  Bless him: he was SO happy pulling the sleigh, and so miserable when he had his cone put back on his head.

Poor Licky Balls :(

Doing dog-related is bound to make Ste incredibly happy, and I think he thought the day's treats were over after we'd given the huskies cuddles.  Instead I told him to get in the car as we had more places to visit.

Geysir

We left the south coast behind as the rain really set in late morning.  It was around 1.5 hours to our next stop, which was north and a lot higher geographically.  I hadn't really thought that it would snow, but all of a sudden the rain changed to sleet, then a few kilometres on to thick white snowflakes.  The roads are untreated, and this would cause utter chaos back home.

Winter Wonderland

Everyone is driving on winter tyres though (including us, remember?!) and I was amazed at how the little Volkswagen handled with them.  Going up hills or around roundabouts, all through fresh snow, proved to be no issue whatsoever. The scenery became beyond beautiful, especially with the snow.  It was even better than I'd remembered it from my trip before in 2001.

We stopped for lunch at Geysir, which gives its name to all geysers in English - it was the first hot water spring of this type known to Europeans.  I was really impressed there was no entry charge to pay: you just park and wander up freely.  It's actually a collection of springs and sulphorous pools bubbling out of the ground, with Strokkur doing all the money-shot work, as Geysir himself has temporarily stopped blowing water.  Apparently he will start up again after the next earthquake in the area. 

I

In the meantime Ste decided to play with his little geezer in the car park, which I thought made quite a charming pic.  The geysir "blows" about every 5-8 minutes and there's always a massive "ooooh" from the assembled crowd, followed by a "did you get it?".  The snowy sky doesn't do the scene justice: if you are here on a sunny day the photographs are absolutely stunning.  That said, do click here on this link to me videoing the whole thing with Ste's obligatory "did you get it?" at the end.

That guy is smoking!

Gullfoss Waterfall

From Geysir it's only around half an hour to Gullfoss, the next surprise on the trip: Iceland's Golden Waterfall.  It's the largest in Europe and apparently more impressive than Niagra.  It's a three-staged staircase that ends up in a 100 foot drop and was magnificent in summer.  In winter we just stood entranced for ages (well, between selfies anyway).  I feel this is worthy of several photos for the album, so here we go:

The main "Staircase". Look at the cold in my eyes!

To get an idea of scale, those are two people on the right

Double Selfie. No he isn't far taller than me. He's on a rock.

Our trusty little Volkswagen Polo hire car.

Afternoon Tea

It was now late afternoon, so we drove back through the Þingvellir National Park the 2.5 hours or so to Reykjavik for Ste's last birthday treat.  The whole way beautiful view after beautiful view greeted us.  It stopped snowing, the sun came out and then dusk arrived.  We got back, had a hot shower, and then it was time for Icelandic Afternoon Tea at the Hilton.

We do love a good afternoon tea!

I obviously had the veggie version, but we're not convinced that Ste didn't have both reindeer and puffin for his.  I particularly love the way Ste is mainly vegetarian when I'm not around, and then sensitively eats anything that breathes when I'm present. And SORRY KIDS, if Father Christmas doesn't make it this year with all your presents you'll know why.  Ste ate Rudolph.

Bye bye Rudolph, Donner and Blitzen

With that it was time to snuggle up in the world's most comfortable hotel bed, watching TV, and getting an early night for our 8am flight back to Manchester the following day.  Ste gave me the most incredibly perfect birthday in Beijing in April, so I did my best to return the favour.

Iceland, EEA and Schengen

After we returned the car and checked in at the airport, I mused how irritating it was that we had to go to a separate section of the airport reserved for US and UK flights.  Yes, Iceland is in Schengen and has signed up to the EU free movement of people as part of its membership of the EEA.  Anyone from within the EU can live and work here and claim its no doubt extremely generous social benefits if people were driven to do such things (they aren't). 

I thought about all those things you hear about Britain being a special case (We're an island! Our space is limited and our resources would be put under unbearable strain! They would all come pouring over to take advantage of our benefits!) would seem to apply far more so to a socially minded country like Iceland with just 325,000 inhabitants. Yet you can take a flight from Warsaw or Budapest to Reykjavik with no passport check and there's no equivalent of entering Fortress Britain.  In fact Iceland relies hugely on immigration to get the skills it requires and has no issue about the passportless European free travel zone that Schengen represents.

2014: A Year for Travel

This year was a phenomenal one for me with foreign travel.  I keep a little record of where I've been to each year and a grand total (currently 65 countries visited ever).  A "good year" averages about 14 countries a year for me.  Three times I've been to 17 countries in a single year.  2014 was a new record: from China to New Zealand to Iceland to Australia to all round Europe, I visited 22 countries this year.

World Domination Plans continue..  65 countries and counting!

It was the year in which I visited the land of the red earth, and the land of ice.  And on that note I'll leave these two beautiful images of similarly sized massive lumps of rock that sum up my 2014 travels for me.  The first photo was at Ayer's Rock (Uluru) in Australia in February.  It was 40C.  The second was at the Þingvellir National Park in Iceland in November.  It was -2C.  What a contrast.  The world holds so many treasures: here's to much more exploration in the coming years!

Fire

Ice

EU Budget

The right wing press is having a field day.  The papers are full of headlines such as "One Step Nearer to the EU Exit", "Britain closer to quitting EU", "Cameron defies wealth tax" etc.  The language of the press is one of war.  War against our closest neighbours and most important trading partners.  Our prime minister banged his hand down on the table, went red and puffy in the face and spoke of his anger and said "I'm not going to pay that bill!"  Certain backbench Tories screamed that the demand was "illegal" and he was told to ignore it.

Judging by Twitter, Europhiles are left wringing their hands in despair, almost giving up the fight.  This is a gift for the Eurosceptics, must be an inside job by a UKIPer at Brussels, total idiocy by the EU, makes it hard to defend them etc.  Certainly a chunk of Labour is seeking to out Tory the Tories, as they have done on immigration, by rushing to get behind the populist call to stop Brussels in its latest outrage.  Let's just turn the pan off boil for a moment and look at all this a bit more dispassionately.

PM "goes to war"

We're being Singled Out

The first general reaction yesterday seemed to be that Britain was being singled out by "Brussels" by arbitrarily having a bill slapped on it to pay a great deal of money in a completely unreasonable space of time.  People were asking if this was deliberate spite by Brussels, or whether it was designed to push us out.  In total it was, perhaps predictably, a typically UK centric reaction.  It is of course the one that's being carried through in the tabloids. 

I looked at the story and asked myself whether any one else had been given a similar demand.   It turns out that 11 of the 28 member states have in fact been asked to pay more.  So clearly it's not just us.

Our figure, €2.1 billion, is however far larger than any other country's.  Except the British economy and population is far larger than say the Netherlands': we have 64 million inhabitants, they have 16 million people.  So I took the figures that were being reported and did a 3 second calculation.  We are being asked for €2.1 billion extra; the Netherlands are being asked for €642 million (I had to go to the Dutch press for that as the reaction was so uniquely UK-centric at first).

So that's a demand of €32 per person for the year from every Briton and one of... oh, 20% more than that, or €38 per person, from every Dutch person.

Suddenly it's becoming a bit tricky to see this as a hate campaign directed solely at Perfidious Albion, masterminded by a garlic munching Frenchman and a beer-swilling German, over a waffle in a side street Belgian café, determined to get their revenge for our success at Empire and the War.

It's "Brussels' Fault"

Some people talk about Brussels as if it is some huge amorphous blob made up of foreigner bureaucrats that is designed solely to make our lives miserable.   It is all imposed on us from abroad, with no democratic input whatsoever.  They seem oblivious to the fact that all the important decision making, the really key stuff, is made by a body called the European Council.

Who is the European Council made up of?  It's the heads of state or government of the national states.  Yep: it's David Cameron for the United Kingdom.  It's a tiny body: 28 people for each one of the member states, plus the Council president and the Commission president.  This isn't thousands of foreign civil servants.  It's our democratically elected national leaders setting out the political agenda and workings of the EU. 

The Council determines how the EU works, by creating and amending treaties, and by making decisions.  One of those decisions was made back in 2007 and it was unanimously adopted.  It wasn't anything sexy or exciting: it concerned the method for calculating the annual EU budget, and in particular the dreary way statistics are calculated.  Once the rule is made, it's then over to the hordes of bureaucrats at the Commission, Eurostat and other EU bodies.  Remember every one of these bodies was set up as a result of the decisions of the democratically elected national leaders, to carry out their will.

Don't like the rules?  Blame our leaders, who created them.  It's not the fault of people whose job it is to carry the rules as they have been instructed to.  If they're doing their job poorly they deserve criticism, but if they are applying the rules as they are supposed to, it is hard to blame "Brussels".  Unless you're a complete idiot, of course.

(Picture in no way linked to preceding sentence)

Why the Demand?

Britain has been consistently reporting too low values for our Gross National Income over the last years.  Hence there has been a large adjustments upwards.  It's that simple.  We weren't happy with the way the statistics were calculated by everyone, wanted the system to be fairer, and have now found out we've been underpaying. 

The reason the story has hit the news is that the FT published a leaked draft report on the statistics.  You can read here in detail why the report says what it does, but here it is in essence:

• In May of every year the EU Commission is required to meet with representatives of each state to estimate what their Gross National Income will be for the coming year.  
• Every autumn they meet again to see if there are any revisions to the numbers.  This is a purely mathematical revision.
• It enables the Commission to set the revised figures in stone on 1 December of each year, as it is required to do.

This year, the difference was that because Heads of Government insisted on it, the statistics provided in May were calculated on a different basis.  The aim was to make sure each country calculates its statistics in exactly the same way, to ensure what everyone pays is fair and above board.  It's not a bad principle.  The calculations used 1995 as a benchmark year.

Patrizio Fiorilli is the spokesman for the EU budget commissioner.  He commented "The timing is far from ideal, but there are rules we have to follow."   As for using 1995 as the benchmark year for calculating the impact of GNI figures: “Member states including Britain insisted on this. It is their decision,” he said.

This is a one-off large scale revision: in the UK's case it actually relates to 11 years of underpayment that works out to £155 million a year on average.  It is a historic correction, not an ongoing demand for massive new contributions as many no doubt think.  The Commission confirmed this yesterday: "With all these issues now cleared, future such corrections will again be rather minor, as they were in recent years."

Addendum: What hope is there when the national broadcaster wrongly claims as it did in this report, that it is an annual additional £1.7 billion that has to be paid?  (They've since corrected it):

The Financial Times by contrast described the £155 million figure as "a sum that would barely deserve a footnote in the annual UK national accounts.

The 1 December deadline

The Commission hasn't plucked this date from the air either.  It is the date that is set out in the rules that are followed every year, as described above.   Apparently the PM found out about the issue on Thursday.  The government admits the Chancellor knew on 21 October, but didn't tell the PM until 23 October.  If this is such a massive issue (more on that below) you'd think George would have texted Dave and warned him WW3 was about to break out.  Maybe he didn't have his mobile number.  In turn, the Commission confirmed member countries were told of the revisions on 17 October.  You'd assume someone would have sent an email off to the Chancellor a bit faster than all that.

Our representatives in all this, the people on the ground, are employees of the Treasury.  A good question was whether they realised that there would be a large revision, or whether it was sprung on them.  They are the ones who prepared the statistics for the meeting in May.  It seems a little unlikely that someone didn't notice the massive difference in the GNI figures that led to the €2bn recalculation.

HM Treasury.  George's patch

Labour’s new shadow Europe minister, Pat McFadden, said last night that he had found evidence that ministers must have been aware of the upcoming changes five months ago when they were sent an Office for National Statistics report which stated that growth figures would be used in a recalculation of Britain’s contribution to the EU budget.

Did the Government delay making news public about this expected revision to the UK’s EU contribution because of fears about how it would play out for the Conservative party?” he asked.  Never!  Our PM would never allow a paralysing fear of UKIP to affect something as important as this just because of his party interests.  Surely.

Turning the Tables

The Prime Minister has ruled out paying the €2.1 billion on 1 December.  He hasn't ruled out paying it entirely on a different date.  He really can't: he is part of the club that has agreed the way all this works.  It's not up for him to argue that rules should be bent: a constant criticism of others is that they don't stick to the agreed rules and should do so.  It is also interesting to imagine a situation where it transpired the UK had been overpaying, rather then underpaying.  I can't imagine we'd be throwing our toys out of the pram if that were the case. 

It's the exact position Germany and France are in, for example.  They have been overpaying for years and are entitled to a reduction on that basis.  I don't see why they should agree to give up that refund of money, in the same way we never would.  In terms of the bigger picture, Germany contributes more to the EU budget than the 19 smallest states do combined.  They contribute not that far off double what the UK does.

It might seem instinctively "cruel" or "perverse" that Greece is being included in the countries that is being required to make an increased payment this year given its economic situation.  But hold on one moment: it is being requested to pay an adjustment of €89.4 million.  That is, with respect, chicken-feed in terms of a national budget, even a country like Greece that has been ravaged by the inhuman policies of austerity.  The fact they are being asked for the payment reflects solely the fact that they have been underpaying previously and there is a fair, objective application of the rules across the board.

Another important thing to note is the stat contained in the bottom right hand of the above table.  This isn't the EU conducting a "cash-grab" as has been suggested.  The budget will actually be €419 million shorter on revenues than had been expected as a result of the application of the rules.  Was it the Prime Minister or was it Farage (I genuinely forget) who excitedly said "This isn't fair, they weren't expecting this extra money!" - the fact is they are going to be working off less money, not more next year. 

Sex and Drugs

Some people in my timeline got terribly excited about the fact that our "black economy" was being included in the statistical calculations for the first time, and that this could be responsible for the increased payment.

It is correct that our GDP was given a £10 billion boost after officials worked out that paid sex work represented £5.3 billion for the economy.  In other EU countries such as Germany and Netherlands such work is legal and taxed, and has therefore been included in the statistics for years.  It is therefore fair (as the national leaders agreed) that everything should be calculated on the same basis.  Another £4.4 billion was added from the sale of illegal drugs.  However, our economy is worth $2,900 billion.  These figures represent under 1% of GDP and are hardly responsible for most or all of the €2.1 billion repayment figure.

Still, a headline of "Sex work and drugs lift EU bill" gets the clicks, I guess.

Huge Numbers

It's so hard for us mere mortals to understand numbers involving multiple rows of zeros on the end.  What does a million anything look like?  A billion?  A trillion?  We can only go on the outrage that politicians express and if they sound terribly cross, assume this must be a massive thing.  €2.1 billion sounds like a huge deal anyhow.  Will we ever be able to afford it?

It is undoubtedly a lot of money.  Just three days ago, however, it became clear that government borrowing was 10% higher than a year ago.  Its spending last month was £11.8 billion.  That's in one month.  The overshoot in spending was - wait for it - £1.6 billion higher (€2.03 billion) in that single month than it had been in September 2013.  The Tories' careful management of the economy involved an overspend that was a full £1 billion over the expectations of the City.

This sparked ABSOLUTE OUTRAGE.  TALK OF WAR.  CAMERON BANGING TABLES.  RIOTS IN THE STREETS.  WITHDRAWAL FROM EVERYTHING.  Oh. Actually, there was a story in the Guardian and one in the economics section of the Telegraph and everyone just carried on.

It's clear that utter double standards apply, and people just aren't applying critical faculties to this.  The EU payment is a one-off, correcting possibly twenty years of underpayment by us, which was because of the statistics we supplied.  It is in accordance with the rules we insisted on.  The Government is slashing spending left right and centre, quite deliberately taking away payments from the long term disabled, and yet they are overspending to the tune of £1.6 billion in a single month.  Hardly an eye brow is raised.

Where are the howls of outrage on the front page of the Mail or the Express over this?  The simple fact is that the howls in the EU case come from the fact that Johnny Foreigner is seen as making the "unfair" demand, and nothing sells as well as xenophobia in today's toxic Britain.

EU Myths and Lies

Whilst we're on the subject of myths let's get something straight about EU spending.  It is not going on an army of fraudulent, lazy bureaucrats in Brussels, and it does not represent a mountain of gold.

The EU budget was €144 billion in total in 2013.  The member states' national budgets were €6,400 billion by contrast.  It stands at around 1% of the 28 EU countries' GDP, whereas the budgets of national governments represent 49% of their GDP on average.  The EU budget is always balanced, so there is no deficit or debt - unlike with national governments.

94% of what we pay into the EU comes back on expenditure in EU countries on policies and programmes that directly benefit people who live in the EU.  That includes to you and me on all sorts of programmes, regional spending etc - £5.2 billion in the United Kingdom every year.  6% goes on administration.  Less than 0.2% of EU spending goes on fraud.

On top of everything the UK still gets an annual rebate on its payments: a legacy of Mrs Thatcher that is worth over €3 billion a year to us.  That's pure special treatment for Britain.

The Commission estimates that in 2013 the average EU citizen paid only €0,89 a day (£0.70) towards the EU budget.  It points out that's less than half the price of a cup of coffee.  It genuinely is hardly very expensive given the benefits that the EU brings its citizens.  The CBI puts the value of UK membership of the EU at between £62bn and £78bn a year in extra trade and intangible benefits.  This means jobs and income for ordinary people.  €8.6 billion in and over £60 billion back out?  That seems a pretty darn good deal to me.

Final Word: over to Carl

So there we have it.  In summary, we asked for these rules.  We've been paying too little for years.   The chutzpah of David Cameron is amazing.  He truly is a showman: he's successfully convincing people in this country that the EU really is a conspiracy that has unfairly singled out Britain (and pretty much Britain alone) to stump up loads of cash unfairly.  This hasn't been known for months: oh no, it's just come to light.  And it's a massive, massive amount of money with loads and loads of zeros (unlike the amount his chancellor and best mate is overspending on literally a monthly basis) that we can't and won't pay.  And Europhiles and Labour supporters are falling hook line and sinker for this utter tosh.

I have no idea who Carl Hornsey is, but this was retweeted into my timeline.  He puts it all much more succinctly than I do.  I like his style.

Immigration

We've seen a wave of people across the country voting for UKIP recently.  Political commentators are reading all sorts into this and the potential impact on government policy.  Some Tories are calling for action both on an EU referendum before the next general election, and further tightening up of immigration.  Labour has repeatedly said it will "listen to voters' concerns" in this area, fearing that if seeks to argue against this, rather than pander to these prejudices it will lose out at the ballot box.

My response to this that I like immigration.  I think immigration is absolutely essential to the health of a society.  I love seeing people who are of different skin colours and races and hearing those who speak different languages.  They bring variety, they bring different ideas, perspectives and they enrich our country.  Fear of the "other" is to me the most primitive emotion.  In essence it goes back to cave people: "you're not in my tribe, keep out".  I don't believe babies are born with hatred of others in them.  I believe they are taught it, and the more varied and cosmopolitan the range of influences they are exposed to, the less likely xenophobia and prejudice will be.

A nation of immigrants: more so than most in the world

I can argue about history, and how Britain is a nation of immigrants.  We all know full well that wave after wave of new people has settled here since well before Roman times to create over centuries the identity we have today.  Saxons, Jutes, Vikings, Normans, Hugenots, Jews... Each group came in turn and was eventually accepted into British society.  My father's family came from Holland in the late seventeenth century.  I'm sure they were shunned as "weird foreigners" with a funny name and religion who didn't fit in when they settled in Sussex.  My mother is from Germany.  She certainly had a massive helping of prejudice, both from strangers and from my English family, when she moved here in 1961.  Now by virtue of some magical privilege of time, people don't see our family as foreigners and my family has the right to vote, if we wanted, for the likes of UKIP, in order to demand that others are shut out.  It's worth remembering the simple fact that the family heritage of virtually every UKIP supporter will be the same: we are all immigrants to this country.

I can argue about economics, and how both skilled and unskilled labour are a huge benefit to us.  So many successful economies have realised this, from the Netherlands and Prussia inviting in the religiously persecuted in the 17th and 18th centuries to huge benefit, through to more recent "immigration nations" such as the United States and Australia.  Skilled workers are always focused on, but unskilled ones, who are prepared to work hard doing jobs that others feel are below them, are important too.  They do vital service jobs, often for low wages, pay taxes and spend money just like everyone else.  Blaming them for our economic situation is simplistic, stupid and spiteful.  If our unemployment is too high or our growth is too low, let's look at the way we as a society, and successive governments have run our own economy, rather than the knee-jerk reaction of blaming immigrants for our woes.

I can argue about the enrichment of our culture.  People of different backgrounds bring different cuisine, music, art and other hugely broad-ranging influences.  How many anti-immigration supporters' favourite food is a curry, kebab or Chinese takeaway; and how many love downing an East European beer?  I spent my first 12 years abroad and it's not tricky for me to remember just how limited the choice of anything non-British was in the average supermarket in 1983.  It was absolutely striking.  There has been a sea-change in this time, unnoticed, I suspect, by most people.  Modern day Britain is an absolute cultural melting-pot and I adore the very real variety this brings in my day to day life.

Hitler loathed Vienna.  It was too Slavic, too Jewish, too multicultural and too cosmopolitan for his tastes.  When he moved to Munich he declared "Finally, a German city".  After the War, (by now ethnically cleansed) Vienna was by all accounts a stiflingly dull place.  It's how I remember the city in the early 80s on my first visits.  Then, after 1989, it again became the cultural crossroads it always was, and it's a far, far more pleasant and interesting place for it.  For a regular visitor such as me, the change in 20 years is absolutely striking.  It is a brilliant embodiment of how immigration can enrich and change a place in a very short space of time.

I can argue on the grounds of basic humanity.  I don't see what gives me the right to regard all the good fortune I have, by accident of birth, as being my right to the exclusion of all others.  There are people who suffer terrible misfortune and persecution in their own countries: it was the Russian pogroms that brought the wave of Jewish immigration here in the early 19th century despite the spite and hatred spewed out at the time by the right-wing press.  It is the right thing to do for us to take in people who face hardship elsewhere, I am proud to be part of a society that agrees, and I think we will also benefit in the long run.

Ultimately though, UKIP seems to have tapped into a simple emotional, basic response.  Their supporters just don't like immigration.  If they have the right to argue on this simple, basic level, so shall I.  I like immigration.  We have always had it, and long may it continue.  The more of us who agree and who state this clearly, the better.  It is our society, and our country, and we deserve to be heard too. 

70s German slogan: All people are foreigners. Almost everywhere.