Sunday, 7 February 2010
'Scandal of Tory Lord Ashcroft donations' in The Observer
Gordon Brown has thrust the issue of Tory party donations to the centre of the election campaign by declaring that the secrecy surrounding its biggest financial backer – Lord Ashcroft – is "a scandal".
In an exclusive interview with the Observer, in which he spoke at length of the need to restore faith in politics following the controversy over MPs' expenses, the prime minister attacked the lack of transparency over the peer's financial links to the Tories, saying it was profoundly wrong.
Delivering his strongest comments yet on the "Ashcroft question", Brown said it was now the duty of journalists and opposition politicians to "press these people for answers". "It's a scandal that we haven't had proper answers about where the [Ashcroft] money has come from and what the status of this person is."
Click on link to read story
Goodbye to your child tax credits?
A new report shows that George Osborne's plans are badly flawed and would mean taking child tax credits away from couples each earning over £16,000 per year
When announced at last year’s Conservative Conference it was claimed that the plan would only hit those earning over £50,000. In January when George Osborne’s sums were called into question by Treasury data, the Conservatives reaffirmed their plan in a dossier stating; “Our estimates that this policy would save £400m were verified by the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies”. However those claims have been dealt a blow this week with the IFS claiming the actual saving would be far less. With tax credits making a real difference to thousands of families, the reality that George Osborne’s plans would mean parents each earning over £16,000 would lose out will come as a shock. The revelation comes after weeks of uncertainty over Tory tax policy which has left families wondering what the real effect of Tory family policies would be.-0-
Saturday, 6 February 2010
How few votes will decide the next General Election?
Time to change the voting system.Go HERE for the full story.And Eric Pickles woud have us believe that FPTP = a fair voting system - LOL -0-
'In the fight for Labour's soul, this is the day of reckoning' | brilliant article by Polly Toynbee in The Guardian
- guardian.co.uk, Monday 25 January 2010 23.00 GMT
- Article history
Alitmus test awaits the cabinet when it meets tomorrow. Will it push through the amendment to set a referendum day beyond the next election for introducing the alternative vote? It's a stand-up-and-be-counted moment, a test of character and intent for any would-be leader of the Labour party.
To hold a referendum on the alternative vote (AV) is an exceedingly modest reform: it gives voters the choice of listing their votes in 1, 2, 3 order instead of putting a simple X. It gives a little more chance to smaller parties when supporters can vote Green or Ukip, knowing that if their first choice fails, their vote is transferred to a second-choice backstop to keep out their most detested main party. It won't be for this election, but for the future – opening the door a crack to pluralism and choice. For us old campaigners for proportional representation, who want to make the number of seats more fairly reflect the votes cast, AV is a poor substitute – but still far better than nothing. It eases the two-party stranglehold from which voters will be even more alienated after the unappealing Cameron/Brown contest.
Last October Gordon Brown lobbed into his conference speech a promise to put a referendum on AV into the manifesto. Frankly, it looked odd coming from the chief roadblock to reform, who with John Prescott, Jack Straw, Nick Brown and other reactionary old tribalists stopped Tony Blair's brief flirtation with PR and Paddy Ashdown. But reformers gladly welcomed his surprise conversion to this modicum of change. The boldest cabinet reformers – Alan Johnson, Ben Bradshaw, John Denham, Tessa Jowell and Peter Hain – succeeded in accelerating the plan: the cabinet agreed to pass a law before the election, paving the way for a referendum after it.
This sends out a strong friendly signal to the Liberal Democrats. If the Conservatives win, they would have to repeal the bill to stop a referendum – embarrassing and probably impossible to get through the Lords. The cabinet appeared to agree, and Gordon Brown summed up that they had agreed: this would expose the Tories as anti-reform and anti-choice for voters.
Ed Balls, children's secretary, and Jim Murphy, Scotland secretary, raised objections: leave it for the manifesto, as this would distract from issues of more immediate concern to voters. Reformers should have been alerted by the silence from some fierce opponents – notably the chief whip, Nick Brown. They set about stirring up their supporters in the party and bending Gordon Brown's ear: usually the whip's job is to push through cabinet decisions, not to undermine them. Newsnight's Michael Crick blogs that Balls had a private word with the prime minister, which he vigorously denies – but many private words pass between the PM and his chief man.
Balls is angry that the Vote for a Change campaign will this week parade trucks through his constituency bearing big posters with his face and the slogan" "Don't be a Block'Ed. Ed Balls talks change but doesn't want you deciding how he gets his job – Demand a fairer voting system." The trucks will be called off if Balls urges the cabinet to put the AV amendment tomorrow – the last day to get it into the constitution reform bill.
Polly Toynbee brilliantly nails the sheer hypocrisy of Labour in raising this pseudo version of Fair Voting with Brown being responsible or preventing such a reform in the past.
Click on link to read Polly Toynbee's full article
Glum Councillors - a chuckle
Cllr Michael Doherty: on the road again
A local newspaper reports that eight vehicles have crashed in one spot of the Quigley’s Point to Carndonagh road known as Northy’s Corner. Whilst Cllr Michael Doherty was speaking publicly about the accidents another occurred at the same spot.
“If this corner doesn’t qualify as a dangerous bend, I don’t know what does,” said Cllr Doherty standing at the corner … in the road … with his back to the oncoming traffic.
THIS WONDERFUL TUMBLR SITE SAYS:
This blog will doggedly collate images of councillors looking glum whilst pointing at holes in the road, wearing hard hats or presenting oversized cheques.
Lets celebrate the work of our local elected representatives!
Tweet suggestions to @glumcouncillors
email glum@politician.com
HOPE YOU HAVE SOME EXAMPLES TO SEND THEM!
BBC News reports - Blogging loses appeal for US teenagers, says survey
Blogging among adults overall remained steady at roughly 10%A US study has indicated that younger internet users are losing interest in blogging and switching to shorter and more mobile forms of communication.
The number of 12 to 17-year-olds in the US who blog has halved to 14% since 2006, according to a survey for the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
It suggests they prefer making short postings on social networking sites, and going online on mobile phones.
But the study also found a modest rise in blogging by those aged 30 and older.
Article says micro-blogging is more popular - now what is that?
'Something profound has been lost' - Aida Edemariam's article in The Guardian
Clare Short believes she was right not to resign sooner over Iraq: 'If I'd wanted to be popular, I just would have gone'. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe
For once, the timing couldn't have been better. It wasn't just, as Clare Short points out, that the Chilcot inquiry gave her a full three hours, "so I could say the whole thing"; it was also that she's standing down at the next election, and "it felt really good to go out and sit there and say my piece, put it on the record," before she leaves.
And say it she did, with demotic directness: Tony Blair had conned her. The attorney general misled the cabinet – which, in any case, consisted of informal cups of coffee, rubber-stamping, and backbiting. The idea that she might be sending people into an illegal situation had "thrown her into a tizz". Britain should be ashamed of its behaviour, and the special relationship urgently needed to be rethought. It was a potent brew of inside information, scornful conviction, and plain speaking, and at the end, for only the second time in the last nine weeks, the audience clapped.
Read in conjunction with Martin Bell's article in the Times this article starts to show ways in to analyzing the nature of the corruption in our political system.
The Bell article is HERE - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7015718.ece
Click on link to read the Clare Short article.
Opposition to Digital economy bill - clause 17 in dispute |
Digital economy bill clause 17 in dispute
14/01/2010
Opposition to the Digital Economy Bill is reaching boiling point after several members of the House of Lords announced their intention to oppose the controversial Clause 17 of the Bill.
Lords Razzall, Clement-Jones, Whitty and Lucas all say they'd oppose the inclusion of Clause 17 – that is, the three strikes disconnection policy.
Lord Puttnam and Lord Bragg tabled an amendment which would see any changes to copyright laws subject to parliamentary scrutiny.
The Lords' dissent will be welcome news to many technology companies, which are concerned that about making copyright law in the UK uncertain.
Ricky Tomlinson - you are making a mistake - be independent!
Ricky Tomlinson said that he may give up acting to run at the general election for the hard-left Socialist Labour Party Photo: PALuciana Berger was selected as the next Labour candidate for Liverpool Wavertree despite having few connections with the city, to the outrage of party activists.
Miss Berger, a friend of Tony Blair's eldest son Euan, has admitted in newspaper interviews that she is unaware of Bill Shankly – Liverpool FC's most celebrated manager – and does not know who performed local anthem Ferry Across the Mersey.
Ricky - stand as an Independent - Labour and the Tories are as corrupt as each other.
All the help you need to be Independent as a prospective parliament candidate is HERE - http://www.stevenford.co.uk/links.html
Thursday, 4 February 2010
Are we going to waste the opportunity created by the MPs expenses scandal? - Wake up everyone!
Martin Bell provides us with an excellent summary of the wretchedness of the MPs expenses saga in The Times;Martin Bell opens his article with;
It took Sir Thomas Legg to remind us that the scandal has not gone away, that the system of MPs’ expenses was indeed deeply flawed and that too many of our Honourable Members appeared to be in public life for what they could get out of it. The culture of deference claimed many casualties, chiefly the reputation of the House of Commons.
Having been elected to Parliament on an issue of trust back in 1997, I am reminded by the Legg report how much worse things are now than they were then. I wish to admire MPs. I want them to be men and women of competence and integrity. The Parliament of 2005 showed shortages of both. As far as I am concerned it cannot pass into history soon enough. It will be unmourned by all but its inmates.
I have long argued that the corruptions of politics are not occasional and particular but widespread and endemic; but I had never believed them to be practised on quite this scale. It is now known that 390 MPs, more than half the total, claimed and received public money that they are now required to pay back. It is probably unfair to conclude that more than half of them are crooks — some of the mistakes were inadvertent — but that will be the belief of many people outside the political class who do not have a taxpayers’ pot of gold to dip into to make ends meet.
Let us be clear too that these MPs are not victims but the authors of their misfortunes. They were not brought down by a press campaign. They did this to themselves. From Jacqui Smith’s bath plug all the way up to Quentin Davies’s bell tower, these were claims made by MPs on forms signed by themselves. I doubt that a Relief Fund for Distressed Members would become a popular cause for public compassion.............
MY COMMENT:The righteous indignation of everyone is a dust-storm if the energy of that anger is not converted into root and branch transformation of the whole rotten Labour-Tory-Labour-Tory system. Those two parties have robbed the middle-class as well as the poor, for decades. We need a modern, truly modern, democratic and accountable system with Parliaments that truly reflect the voting of the electorate. My own preferred 25 proposals are HERE To read Martin Bell's brilliant article go HERE-0-
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Here are the results of the 2010 UK General Election
Oops - sorry I should have said 2005 not 2010. What a wonderful system though - one party gets approximately one third - they get 356 seats. The other party get approximately one third of the vote - they get 198 seats.
| 5 May 2005 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First party | Second party | Third party | ||
 |  |  | ||
| Leader | Tony Blair | Michael Howard | Charles Kennedy | |
| Party | Labour | Conservative | Liberal Democrat | |
| Leader since | 21 July 1994 | 6 November 2003 | 9 August 1999 | |
| Leader's seat | Sedgefield | Folkestone and Hythe | Ross, Skye and Lochaber | |
| Last election | 413 seats, 40.7% | 166 seats, 31.7% | 52 seats, 18.3% | |
| Seats won | 356 | 198 | 62 | |
Diagram from WikiPedia
Labour playing around with Fair Voting - again.
Monday, 1 February 2010
I thought there was something 'fishy' about PoliticsHome
The Observer associate editor, Andrew Rawnsley, today resigned as editor-in-chief of PoliticsHome.com after the website was sold to Lord Ashcroft, the deputy chairman of the Conservative party.
Rawnsley said that the politics website's non-partisan policy was incompatible with being owned by Ashcroft.
"I became editor-in-chief on the basis that PoliticsHome was dedicated to being a non-partisan site clearly independent of any party both editorially and financially," said Rawnsley, who is associate editor and chief political commentator of the Observer.
"It was essential for users of the site that they could feel absolute confidence in the political independence of PoliticsHome. I do not believe that can be compatible with being under the ownership of the deputy chairman of the Conservative party."
"I therefore greatly regret the decision made by Stephan Shakespeare, the chairman, to do a deal which places PoliticsHome under the ownership of Michael Ashcroft, the deputy chairman of the Conservative party. The site has been folded along with ConservativeHome into a new entity in which Lord Ashcroft is the majority shareholder."
Foolish to allow political dogma to dominate deficit debate - Vince Cable on BBC
Mr Cable said it was foolish to allow political dogma to dominate the debate on cutting the deficit.
“The optimum timing has got to be governed by the state of the economy, which is currently very fragile,” he said.
“(It’s) foolish to have political dogma dominating this debate.”
He criticised both the Conservatives and Labour for a lack of clarity on spending plans and added that the Conservatives had got into a “terrible mess by trying to have some strong political soundbite” on cuts.
If only we could get the parties to stop communicating from within their Triibal Politics rag-bags - not unlike ferret - and start telling the truth and co-operating on what is needed.
If only there could be a coalition government with Vince in a senior position!
Andrew Blick & George Jones ask 'Time to abolish the "Department of the Prime Minister"?' | openDemocracy
One of the most significant but largely unnoticed changes to the way we are governed in recent years has been the establishment inside the Cabinet Office of a semi-official 'Department of the Prime Minister' which, at its peak under Tony Blair, employed more than 700 staff. This shift - detailed in our forthcoming book 'Premiership: the development, nature and power of the office of the British Prime Minister' - has entailed a more active role for No.10 in policy, with significant constitutional implications.
First, Cabinet, through which ministers can make important decisions collectively, has been compromised, through being stripped of a significant portion of the institutional support it receives from the Cabinet Office.Second, lines of democratic accountability have been blurred. If parliamentarians wish to investigate a certain programme or set of activities, to whom should they turn? The minister with the relevant portfolio and legal responsibility for action in the area concerned? Or the Prime Minister, who may well, using his 'Department', have had substantial influence on a particular course of action? Parliament tends to concentrate on the former, but the recent enhancements to No.10 have rendered this approach increasingly inadequate.
The House of Lords Constitution Committee recently looked at this issue, and has reported today.
Is it indeed?
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