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		What's Old - Archived stories from the "What's New" section [  July - December 2009  |  January - June 2009  |  July - December 2008  |  January - June 2008  ] [  July - December 2007  |  January - June 2007  |  July - December 2006  |  January - June 2006  ] [  July - December 2005  |  January - June 2005  |  July - December 2004  |  January - June 2004  ] [  July - December 2003  |  January - June 2003  |  July - December 2002  |  April - June 2002  ] British bikers driven round the bend - Friday 15th December 2006 Motorcycling has been backed into a corner by the ignorance of Europe, say biking enthusiasts who joined the Conservatives' call to drop plans for "draconian" new licence legislation. Letter to the Editor - Financial Times - Thursday, 14th December 2006 Malcolm Rifkind argues that the EU's Single Market has been a huge success, so it makes no sense to have an "in or out" debate (FT, 13th December). Has he not read Commission Vice President Gunther Verheugen's estimate that regulation in the Single Market is costing EU economies €600 billion a year?. Letter to the Editor - Nottinghamshire Evening Post - Thursday, 14th December 2006 John Gretton (Letters, 7th December) is sticking to his spurious claim that the EU produces only ten percent of our laws. So readers have a choice. They can take John Gretton's word for it, or they can accept the official view of the British and German governments, both of which put the figure at over 50%. Local MEPs hail Airport's name change - Monday 11th December 2006 East Midlands MEPs Roger Helmer and Chris Heaton-Harris have today welcomed the decision by Manchester Airports Group to restore the original name of East Midlands Airport. Top Lincs student in Brussels - Wednesday 6th December 2006 Top Lincolnshire Student Mark Darby has been at the European Parliament in Brussels this week on a visit hosted by local Conservative MEPs Roger Helmer and Chris Heaton-Harris. Your local MEP: Hot or not? - Wednesday 6th December 2006 East Midlands Conservative MEP Roger Helmer has today been named as the most effective British MEP at communicating with his constituents through the media. Letter to the Editor - Financial Times - Friday, 24th November 2006 Your report (Nov 23rd) draws attention to industry's concern that no major political party is adequately reflecting business interests, and in particular that David Cameron's Conservatives had decided to reject the UK Presidency's compromise agreement on REACH, the EU's Chemicals Directive, and to call for a stronger "substitution principle". ECJ says no to cheap mail-order drinks - Friday, 24th November 2006 In a pre-Christmas blow to festive cheer, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled against the right of EU citizens to place cross-border orders for cheap cigarettes and alcoholic drinks from countries with lower duty rates, without going in person to pick up their orders. Barometer ban threat averted - Wednesday, 15th November 2006 The traditional British barometer has been saved once again as British Conservatives led the European Parliament's vote to defeat a proposed law to outlaw the use of mercury in the ancient weather instrument, East Midlands Conservative MEP Roger Helmer said today. Letter to the Editor - Nottingham Evening Post - Wednesday, 15th November 2006 Mr. Gretton bangs on about all the environmental good he says the EU is doing (Letters, Nov 13th). Of course, like most jurisdictions in the Western world, the EU over the last thirty years has introduced a great deal of environmental law. Some of it is perfectly good. Some of it has been disastrous. Letter to the Editor - Leicester Mercury - Wednesday, 8th November 2006 Mr. S. Wild (letters, Nov 7th) thinks that "the euro is brilliant, but perhaps too modern for the likes of Mr. Helmer". He is wrong -- it is not a modern idea at all. In fact the first monetary union was the Latin Monetary Union, founded in 1865 by France, Italy, Belgium and Switzerland, That union had collapsed by 1927. Letter to the Editor - East Midlands local newspapers - Monday, 30th October 2006 I should like to thank the 3898 East Midlanders who signed up to the Lush Cosmetics campaign against animal testing. I have their postcards on my desk, and I am 100% behind their campaign, and I have worked with a number of animal charities, like the Kennel Club, to try to reduce animal testing. Letter to the Editor - Financial Times - Thursday, 19th October 2006 Europe Minister Geoff Hoon (letters, Oct 18th) says "Current research suggests that 3m British jobs depend on membership of the EU". This is simply untrue, and if Hoon does not know that it is untrue, he ought to know. Letter to the Editor - Daily Telegraph - Thursday, 19th October 2006 Peter Scott (letters, Oct 18th) asks about EU funding to maintain British cathedrals, having seen renovation work in Segovia, Spain. He writes as if EU funding came down like manna from heaven. It does not. It is taxpayers' money. It is our money. And every pound we receive from Brussels costs the British economy at least £2.60. Letter to the Editor - East Midlands local newspapers - Thursday, 19th October 2006 After all the discussion about the Conservative Party's position on taxes, I am delighted by reports that Shadow Chancellor George Osborne will be backing the abolition of Stamp Duty on share transactions. No doubt our political opponents so let's get a few facts straight. Local businesses say EU is failing - Tuesday, 17th October 2006 East Midlands Conservative MEP Roger Helmer has today backed calls by a senior Labour official for the East Midlands Development Agency to be scrapped. Speaking on the BBC Politics Show, Cllr Milan Radulovic, the Labour Leader of Broxtowe Borough Council was scathing in his criticism of EMDA and insisted that its administrative costs are too high. Tory backs Labour call to scrap EMDA - Tuesday, 17th October 2006 East Midlands Conservative MEP Roger Helmer has today backed calls by a senior Labour official for the East Midlands Development Agency to be scrapped. Speaking on the BBC Politics Show, Cllr Milan Radulovic, the Labour Leader of Broxtowe Borough Council was scathing in his criticism of EMDA and insisted that its administrative costs are too high. Conservatives bite back on shark finning - Monday, 16th October 2006 Europe's feeble shark finning regulations are now more likely to be tightened, despite attempts by the Spanish MEPs and the European Parliament's fisheries committee to relax them, East Midlands Conservative MEPs Roger Helmer and Chris Heaton-Harris said today. Stop Brown's NHS Cuts! - Monday, 16th October 2006 Northamptonshire – East Midlands Conservative MEPs Roger Helmer and Chris Heaton-Harris today joined forces with local Conservatives from across Northamptonshire to launch a campaign against Gordon Brown's plans to make drastic and sweeping cuts to local NHS services Letter to the Editor - Leicester Mercury - Friday, 6th October 2006 In his intemperate attack on Margaret Thatcher, Eddie Sentence makes great play of the suffering of the miners during her premiership. I very much regret the plight of the miners. I myself have been made redundant more than once in my career, so I know how it feels. But the fact is that no one has a right to a job for life. Times change. Technology changes. Letter to the Editor - Northampton Chronicle and Echo - Wednesday, 4th October 2006 Three points in response to Andrew Simpson's letter of Oct 4th glorifying the Lib-Dems' tax plans. First, Mr. Simpson peddles the old fantasy that raising tax rates on the well-off will generate more revenue which can be used for good causes. But all the evidence from dozens of countries, over decades, shows the opposite. Letter to the Editor - Sleaford Target - Tuesday, 26th September 2006 I was very interested in an article sent to me from the Sleaford Target. It covered an issue regarding MEP Roger Helmer and his stance towards animal rights. Mr Helmer has personally visited our wildlife rehabilitation centre in Isham Northants where we discussed in depth the importance of keeping the breed and release scheme for Barn Owls going after the Labour Government stopped all licensed release schemes in May 2002. Tory youth chairman in Brussels - Wednesday, 13th September 2006 Lydia Smith, who will shortly be going to Nottingham Trent University to study politics, and is Chairman of Conservative Future for Northants, Leics and Rutland, has visited Nottinghamshire’s Conservative MEP Roger Helmer, in the European Parliament in Brussels. Letter to the Editor - Nottingham Evening Post - Monday, 11th September 2006 John Beresford (Letters, 7th August), is simply in denial on aircraft emissions. I gave him established facts on fuel consumption, and he dismisses them without thinking. On one major airline, Continental, average fuel consumption per passenger mile is just about the same as for a single person in a Toyota Prius -- about 52 miles per gallon. That's fact. Cameron calls for India trade deal - Wednesday, 6th September 2006 Conservative Leader David Cameron has called for an EU-India free trade deal. Welcoming Mr Cameron's initiative, East Midlands MEP Roger Helmer pointed out that while the EU has negotiated, or is negotiating, trade deals with dozens of countries round the world, it has conspicuously omitted former British colonies (or "the Anglosphere") from its arrangements. Support for Lincs bomber memorial service - Tuesday, 5th September 2006 Lincolnshire’s Conservative MEP Roger Helmer has joined hundreds of Second World War veterans, their families and members of the armed forces at a service of remembrance for Britain’s Bomber Command. The service which took place in a packed Lincoln Cathedral last Sunday following an ongoing and successful public campaign spearheaded by local veterans. Kennel Club concerned over EU regulation - Tuesday, 5th September 2006 Representatives from the Kennel Club and FRAME, an organisation which promotes research into alternatives to animal testing of drugs, visited East Midlands MEP Roger Helmer in Lutterworth last week to discuss EU regulation, which they believe could result in unnecessary animal testing. What do MEPs actually do? - Thursday, 31st August 2006 East Midlands Conservative MEP Roger Helmer has today launched a DVD chronicling his work as an MEP and is offering free copies to people thorough East Midlands region. Mr Helmer’s DVD invites people to travel with him from Brussels to Strasbourg, and throughout the East Midlands region visiting local businesses, a farm, a school, a Cathedral and even a Cold War era V-bomber. East Midlands EU office meets MEPs - Thursday, 31st August 2006 The East Midlands Region's European Office in Brussels today met with local MEPs Roger Helmer and Chris Heaton-Harris to review current projects following the summer recess. Director Lisa Maltagliati and Senior Policy Advisor Richard Woods met the MEPs in the European parliament, along with Haydn Rees, the European Officer of Northamptonshire County Council, who was visiting Brussels. MEP sees new Buxton investment - Wednesday, 30th August 2006 Derbyshire’s MEP Roger Helmer has paid a visit to the local Buxton Water bottling plant, next to Buxton Station, in order to see firsthand the major new investment which has taken place on the site over the last twelve months. Letter to the Editor - Leicester Mercury - Wednesday, 30th August 2006 Peter Valentine's letter (Aug 28th) is the usual travesty of misrepresentation and down-right lies. He claims that the EU has "kept the peace" for Europe's "peace-loving peoples". What nonsense. For the whole of my lifetime (I was born at the end of the Second World war) the peace has been kept by NATO, by the transatlantic alliance, by nuclear deterrence, by 100,000 GIs in Germany. Local MEPs meet Microsoft boss - Wednesday, 9th August 2006 Local MEPs Roger Helmer and Chris Heaton-Harris have met with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at the Microsoft Campus in Seattle, Washington. Microsoft is facing significant regulatory problems with the European Commission, and has been subject to multi-million pound fines. Letter to the Editor - Leicester Mercury - Wednesday, 9th August 2006 Eddie Sentance (Mailbox, Aug 2nd) says he'd rather see the EU flag flying over our town hall than the Stars and Stripes. But that isn't the choice, Eddie. The real question is whether we want the Union Jack or the EU flag. Letter to the Editor - Various regional publications - Wednesday, 9th August 2006 So the government is proposing massive reductions in speed limits in rural areas. Perhaps we could save even more lives by reintroducing the Red Flag Act, passed in 1865, which required any powered vehicle to be preceded by a man on foot holding a red flag. Roger Helmer MEP receives ALEC’s "international legislator" award - Friday, 4th August 2006 Local MEP Roger Helmer has been awarded the first "International Legislator of the Year" Award by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) at their annual conference in San Francisco. ALEC is a major Washington-based public policy institute that brings together over 2000 conservative state legislators from across the US, together with corporate partners, and is extending its programme to Europe. Shock at Chinese "organ harvesting" - Wednesday, 19th July 2006 A shocking new report has accused the government of China PRC of harvesting the human organs of jailed dissidents, a local MEP has heard today. Medicines for Africa to be dumped - Tuesday, 11th July 2006 A long established Leicestershire charity that helps to save thousands of lives in Africa faces criminal prosecution, thanks to the bizarre interpretation of EU waste rules by officials of the Environment Agency. Commission president ducks questions on EU constitution - Thursday, 6th July 2006 The President of the EU Commission, José Manuel Barroso, has refused to respond to questions from MEPs about the potentially illegal implementation of large parts of the failed EU Constitution. Although the draft Constitution was rejected in referenda in 2005 in France and Holland, and is therefore dead in its own terms, large parts of it are going ahead. Booze cruises: customs officers still being heavy-handed - Thursday, 6th July 2006 Innocent cross-channel shoppers are still having their goods unjustly seized by British Customs officials, despite a pledge from the UK government that their zero-tolerance approach had ended, says Roger Helmer, Conservative MEP for the East Midlands. MEP slams EU's anti US bias - Wednesday, 5th July 2006 East Midlands Conservative MEP Roger Helmer has today attacked a European Parliament report into CIA rendition flights in Europe as ‘speculative and circumstantial’ and claimed that rather than establishing evidence it has merely provided a platform for anti-American bias. A Personal Statement - Monday, 3rd July 2006 I should like to thank all those concerned Party members who have written to Timothy Kirkhope MEP to protest against my continued suspension from the Conservative whip. Some have received replies, and I am concerned that letters from the Chief Whip, at Kirkhope's instigation, are saying that the whip was suspended not for political reasons, but because of my unspecified "behaviour". Letter to the Editor - Nottingham Evening Post - Monday, 3rd July 2006 To celebrate its 50th anniversary next year, the EU is to hold a competition to find a new slogan. The current one, "Unity in Diversity", is apparently past its sell-by date. As MEPs, we should like to invite East Midlands electors to take part.