Good day for UKIP's Lord Pearson

Lord Pearson, the UKIP leader in the Lords has had a pretty good day today.

Firstly there is this letter in the Guardian spelling out the infantility of arguments that 'If we leave the EU we will not be able to do business any more and millions will lose their jobs which is the basic pro-European, 'don't ask, don't question' line.

The letter from Charles Kennedy and others (30 January) confuses our membership of the EU with our access to the single market. We could retain the latter without the former because:
1. We have 3m jobs exporting to the EU but it has 4.5m jobs exporting to us. We are its largest client. 2. The EU has free-trade agreements with 63 countries worldwide and another 63 on the way, so why not with us, on satisfactory terms? 3. Switzerland, not in the EU, exports three times more per capita to the EU than we do. 4. Only 9% of our GDP goes in trade with the EU (in deficit), 11% goes to the rest of the world (in surplus), and 80% stays in our domestic market. Yet Brussels overregulation strangles all 100% of our economy, and handicaps our exports to the countries of the future. Leaving the EU would create jobs, and restore our democracy.

More interestingly is the list of signatories to the letter, all of them well aware that Malcolm is a UKIPper.

Lord Pearson (UKIP)
Lord Stoddart (Ind Labour)
Lord Palmer (Crossbench - and magnificently Convenor, Lords and Commons Cigar and Pipe Smokers' Club)
Lord Stevens (Conservative Independent)
Lord Vinson (Conservative)
Lord Willoughby (UKIP)
The Earl of Liverpool (Conservative)
Douglas Carswell MP (Conservative)
John Cryer MP (Labour)
Mark Reckless MP (Conservative)
Philip Davies MP (Conservative)
Austin Mitchell MP (Labour)
Philip Hollobone MP (Conservative)
David Nuttall MP (Conservative)
Kate Hoey MP (Labour)
Gordon Henderson MP (Conservative)
Kelvin Hopkins MP (Labour)
Graham Stringer MP (Labour)

Secondly the Telegraph refers to all the hard work he has put in proving the inherent bias in the BBC programming over the EU issue by referencing the work of his thinktank, Global Britain.

An analysis by Eurosceptic think tank Global Britain found that over the past six years, just 0.04 per cent of the coverage on Radio Four’s flagship Today programme was devoted to the potential benefits of withdrawing from the EU.