Well, it appears as if Phil Woolas is on his way out of the door, and I for one am not upset. He is undoubtedly the architect of his own misfortune and really has nobody else to blame; he was ultimately responsible for publishing lies about his opponent and has thereby lost the right to represent the constituency of Oldham. I seriously doubt he will be missed in Westminster, he never struck me as particularly good at his job when he had one and given the alacrity with which Harriet kicked him out of the Labour Party I suspect this view is shared by the party hierarchy.
There does however seem to be a strand of opinion doing the rounds within the hallowed walls that even if it was right that he should go, the method of precipitating his departure was wrong; that judges should not have the power to interfere with the will of the people who elected him. This argument may have some merit were it not for the fact that his lies undoubtedly had influence over the result. If his majority had been huge it might not have mattered but seeing as more people voted for candidates other than Woolas and the winning margin was so small there was a pressing need to rerun the election without the lies and half truths.
Amongst the “great and good” at Westminster there are many who believe themselves to be beyond the laws that govern normal mortals and that in matters such as lying to the electorate or trousering expenses to which they have no right, they should only be answerable inwards to their fellow MPs. As we have seen with the expenses scandal there seems to be a marked reluctance to recognise the anger in the country about the behaviour of Parliamentarians and their seeming inability to come to terms with this anger. It is long past the time when we need to wrest back power from this self serving elite who are in the unique position of being able to write their own rules. They fully understand that with every erosion of their status, with each clawing back of power their ability to run Parliament as a cosy little club for their own benefit is diminished; their self awarded authority stripped away and they do not like this one little bit.
Parliament has no power other than that given to it by the people and it is for the people to determine the extent of that power, to vary it and reduce it as the people see fit and the mechanisms for doing so are the ballot box and the courts. As Cameron takes us towards fixed term Parliaments the need for the courts to have the ability to challenge Parliament and its members increases. When I hear MPs saying that the Courts do not have the right to look into their affairs the red mist descends, of course they have the right, without the courts who would protect the rights of the citizen against the state.
We have had the unedifying farce of Messrs Morley, Chaytor and Devine parading through the courts claiming that the laws as they apply to mortal man do not apply to Parliamentarians and they should not be subject to the normal court processes that apply to us if we have been accused of theft; thankfully this has now been adjudicated upon by the Supreme Court who have rightly decided that they are not above the law and I look forward to their trials with anticipation. I trust that if found guilty, incarceration will immediately follow.
Thursday, 11 November 2010
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Labour gets a spine.
Ever since Gordon Brown ascended to the top of the greasy pole, one thing seems to have characterised the Labour Party both before the General Election and afterwards, a seeming inability to come to a quick unambiguous decision. This was first evident when Bottler Brown vacillated over when to go to the country; a decision which arguably cost him his job. This failure on the part of Brown to take the big decision dogged his time as PM and seems to have continued under the omni-absent Ed Milliband who has managed to keep very quiet over Woolas, Livingstone’s support of the non-Labour candidate and the Labour Lords.
It is not my intention to intrude upon the private grief of the Labour Party at a time when the dishonesty of many of their Parliamentarians is making so many headlines so I will restrict myself to praising Harriet Harman for her decisive actions in declaring that liars have no place as candidates for Parliament and kicking Phil Woolas into the long grass. I do so hope that this will set some form of precedent not only within Labour but also other parties so that our future MPs are honest trustworthy folk not given to mendacity and self enrichment.
So once again Harriet, congratulations on injecting a bit of backbone and decisiveness into Labour.
It is not my intention to intrude upon the private grief of the Labour Party at a time when the dishonesty of many of their Parliamentarians is making so many headlines so I will restrict myself to praising Harriet Harman for her decisive actions in declaring that liars have no place as candidates for Parliament and kicking Phil Woolas into the long grass. I do so hope that this will set some form of precedent not only within Labour but also other parties so that our future MPs are honest trustworthy folk not given to mendacity and self enrichment.
So once again Harriet, congratulations on injecting a bit of backbone and decisiveness into Labour.
Tuesday, 2 November 2010
Michael Gove, you are going too far.
This is certainly a strange day for democracy; we hear this morning that those who have been convicted of the most heinous of crimes are to be given the right to vote in elections for Parliament, on the grounds that it is their human right to be allowed the vote. These are the people who have taken away the human rights of others by murdering them or raping them or invading their homes or stealing their possessions, not a thought for the human rights of the victims of crime only the perpetrators.
Now we hear that Michael Gove is proposing to sack teachers who are members of the BNP; why for God’s sake? The BNP is a legally constituted political party the same as the Conservative or Labour parties and as such their members and supporters should have the same rights to express their political opinions as the next person. They are not members of a proscribed organisation and whilst that remains the status quo they should be entitled to the same rights as those who hold different political views. What next, will we be proposing a ban on teachers belonging to Labour or SNP or some other party that the government does not like, I do so hope not but fear that this is yet another erosion of personal freedoms.
Don’t get me wrong, I loathe the BNP and the policies they espouse with a passion, but by withdrawing from them the right to work in teaching or the police or the NHS or wherever all we will succeed in doing is to drive them underground. We need to expose them to the light of open unbiased public scrutiny where the fallacies behind their rhetoric can be demolished and their credibility such as it is destroyed.
Michael, you burst forth into the national consciousness earlier this year promising a massive reduction in central control of our schools with decision taking to be devolved to a local level and now hardly six months into your job you are proposing to dictate to schools who they may and may not hire. Please rethink this awful authoritarian throwback policy.
A teacher is supposed to be a professional, and as such there is no place for him or her to be expounding their personal beliefs in front of a class of children, that is wrong and to be deprecated irrespective of those beliefs and any teacher who is found to be attempting to politicise children should be disciplined but it is wrong to arbitrarily punish somebody for their beliefs if they are making no attempt to preach them.
Please Michael, no more blanket bans on groups of people instead allow local head teachers and boards of governors to deal on a case by case basis, that is part of the reason for having them in the first place.
Now we hear that Michael Gove is proposing to sack teachers who are members of the BNP; why for God’s sake? The BNP is a legally constituted political party the same as the Conservative or Labour parties and as such their members and supporters should have the same rights to express their political opinions as the next person. They are not members of a proscribed organisation and whilst that remains the status quo they should be entitled to the same rights as those who hold different political views. What next, will we be proposing a ban on teachers belonging to Labour or SNP or some other party that the government does not like, I do so hope not but fear that this is yet another erosion of personal freedoms.
Don’t get me wrong, I loathe the BNP and the policies they espouse with a passion, but by withdrawing from them the right to work in teaching or the police or the NHS or wherever all we will succeed in doing is to drive them underground. We need to expose them to the light of open unbiased public scrutiny where the fallacies behind their rhetoric can be demolished and their credibility such as it is destroyed.
Michael, you burst forth into the national consciousness earlier this year promising a massive reduction in central control of our schools with decision taking to be devolved to a local level and now hardly six months into your job you are proposing to dictate to schools who they may and may not hire. Please rethink this awful authoritarian throwback policy.
A teacher is supposed to be a professional, and as such there is no place for him or her to be expounding their personal beliefs in front of a class of children, that is wrong and to be deprecated irrespective of those beliefs and any teacher who is found to be attempting to politicise children should be disciplined but it is wrong to arbitrarily punish somebody for their beliefs if they are making no attempt to preach them.
Please Michael, no more blanket bans on groups of people instead allow local head teachers and boards of governors to deal on a case by case basis, that is part of the reason for having them in the first place.
Europe, get out of our lives.
Once again we are being subjected to a piece of European interference with our laws about which there is little if anything we seem able to do. They now wish society to extend the right to vote to those who have repudiated the norms of civil society by committing crimes against the laws of the land. They wish thieves and murderers and rapists and drug pushers to have the same rights as law abiding citizens when it comes to electing our representatives in Parliament and on Councils. This is a decision that flies in the face of common sense; after all they are locked up because they are a negative influence upon society at large.
We lock criminals up for the very good reason that they are not fit to live amongst the rest of us by virtue of their anti-social behaviour and as such they should forego the rights and privileges the rest of us enjoy whilst they are incarcerated.
This latest piece of Euro garbage follows hot on the heels of last weeks debacle at the European council when we were effectively told that whilst we here at home must endure cuts in services and higher taxation to help restore our economy, our unelected Euro Politburo need more money for new offices and higher wages and more staff and it seems there is precious little we can do about it under the present treaty arrangements.
I have no desire to live in a country where we must work until we are 66 or even 70 so the indolent French and Greeks can continue to retire at 62 or 60 or whatever, if they want that luxury then they should pay for it, not me or you.
The time has now come for our Parliament to say NO to these increasing demands upon our wallets and NO to these impositions on the way we rule ourselves. Don’t negotiate with them, don’t argue with them, just say no and keep the cheque book in the pocket. Europe needs the UK far more than the UK needs Europe.
Just tell Barroso and Van Rompuy and the others to go and take a running jump!
We lock criminals up for the very good reason that they are not fit to live amongst the rest of us by virtue of their anti-social behaviour and as such they should forego the rights and privileges the rest of us enjoy whilst they are incarcerated.
This latest piece of Euro garbage follows hot on the heels of last weeks debacle at the European council when we were effectively told that whilst we here at home must endure cuts in services and higher taxation to help restore our economy, our unelected Euro Politburo need more money for new offices and higher wages and more staff and it seems there is precious little we can do about it under the present treaty arrangements.
I have no desire to live in a country where we must work until we are 66 or even 70 so the indolent French and Greeks can continue to retire at 62 or 60 or whatever, if they want that luxury then they should pay for it, not me or you.
The time has now come for our Parliament to say NO to these increasing demands upon our wallets and NO to these impositions on the way we rule ourselves. Don’t negotiate with them, don’t argue with them, just say no and keep the cheque book in the pocket. Europe needs the UK far more than the UK needs Europe.
Just tell Barroso and Van Rompuy and the others to go and take a running jump!
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
Who to cull, that is the question.
I was talking to somebody yesterday who is employed by a local council and they were unsurprisingly bemoaning the impending cuts that most if not all councils will soon have to implement. Naturally I suppose their focus was on the likelihood of potential job losses and the likely impact on “front line services”. When I raised the subject of so-called non-jobs I was surprised by their answer which was to the effect that these are amongst those least likely to be affected. I was naturally sceptical until the rationale was explained to me.
It seems that most of the normal council workers (housing, finance, IT, planning etc.) are paid for out of general council funds but most of the non-jobs are in fact usually fully funded by central government under a plethora of initiatives, so axing the horde of diversity officers etc. will save the council nothing at all. If they lose the post they will lose not only the salary of the former employee but also the additional money that goes with it to help fund their office costs, HR costs and so on. By simply axing one of these jobs paying say £25,000 pa the council will probably lose another £5,000 to £10,000 of central government money as well.
Cutting this army of LGBT outreach workers etc. will have no impact on general fund expenditure; it will in fact only serve to reduce the amount of money available to pay for front line services. There is no incentive for councils to cull these jobs; in fact there is a positive disincentive because by doing so they will lose the additional funding that comes with them.
It seems that most of the normal council workers (housing, finance, IT, planning etc.) are paid for out of general council funds but most of the non-jobs are in fact usually fully funded by central government under a plethora of initiatives, so axing the horde of diversity officers etc. will save the council nothing at all. If they lose the post they will lose not only the salary of the former employee but also the additional money that goes with it to help fund their office costs, HR costs and so on. By simply axing one of these jobs paying say £25,000 pa the council will probably lose another £5,000 to £10,000 of central government money as well.
Cutting this army of LGBT outreach workers etc. will have no impact on general fund expenditure; it will in fact only serve to reduce the amount of money available to pay for front line services. There is no incentive for councils to cull these jobs; in fact there is a positive disincentive because by doing so they will lose the additional funding that comes with them.
Friday, 15 October 2010
Who should we choose
With the latest expenses scandals hitting the headlines this week with reports that yet another Labour MP is being investigated by the police, surely it is time we had a radical rethink about precisely who should represent us in Parliament. I doubt for a minute that we can find a system which will give us a less corrupt bunch than we have at the moment but surely we could find a system which might inject a bit of competence.
My first and probably biggest gripe is with the lack of real world experience that many of the current crop of political leaders have, with few notable exceptions most of the political top table on both sides is replete with fresh faced professional politicians. Politics is no longer a way of serving your country, it is a career. Schoolchildren openly talk of having a career in politics maybe more with hope than certainty but when I was a child nobody gave it a moment’s thought as a way to make a living when you were fresh from school or university. We all had aspirations to do proper jobs whether it was to go to the pit or join a bank or go to university to study and become a “professional”, we all saw our futures out there in the real world doing a proper job to which our family and friends could relate. We knew we would start pretty close to the bottom but with luck and hard work we knew that the rewards of promotion would follow until we reached the point where our accumulated wisdom and experience would count for something.
Now we are faced with a plethora of ruddy cheeked, identically suited, media trained clones, slavishly loyal to the party which in effect controls their future in their chosen vocation. With few notable exceptions, no longer do MPs represent their constituents in Parliament; instead they represent their parties in the constituency. This country is no longer run from the bottom up as it should be rather it is now run from the top down and is becoming more like an elected dictatorship with each passing administration.
When election time comes round again I would like to be able to choose from a list of candidates who have achieved something in their life. Somebody who knows the cost of milk in Tesco because they have to pay for it and not because it is an item on an expenses claim form. I want my candidates to have CV’s replete with accomplishments and experience not degrees in PPE from Oxbridge.
Accordingly I would like to suggest the following ideas for bring back some sanity.
1. No candidate for paid political office shall be allowed to stand until they have spent a qualifying period in the world of real work, be it on the factory floor or the trading rooms of a merchant bank. Paid employment as a political advisor or similar would not count. The realistic minimum would be ten years.
2. Each candidate should provide a detailed CV, similar to that required when applying for a proper job, to each household immediately each election is called. As candidates are normally selected by their parties well in advance it could easily be fact checked before it is published.
3. Nobody should be allowed to be an elected politician for more than four terms at any level.
4. No duplication of representation, I don’t want my MP sitting on the local council as well; concentrate on the one job.
5. Compulsory retirement at the next election after the sixty fifth birthday.
6. No better pension arrangements than are available to the public at large.
7. No resettlement grants when your time is up over and above what would be your redundancy entitlement if you lost a job in the real world.
8. The right of recall
9. Each politician to publish an annual return of their achievements, voting record, attendance, expenses etc.
10. Each politician to hold an annual public meeting in their constituency within 45 days following publication of the annual report.
11. Upon leaving office, no politician to be allowed to take a job which has not been publicly advertised unless there is an established connection prior to first election such as a family enterprise. There may need to be an option to independently scrutinise the recruitment process if the former MP gets the job which the employer will pay for.
12. The removal of all centrally imposed quotas and lists from the process of candidate selection, this to be an entirely local affair, no parachuting in of the favoured few with constituency parties free to choose who they want to represent them.
We need to get choice, scrutiny and accountability back to the voters who in turn deserve candidates who will put their interests ahead of party and career. WE need MPs who will put something back instead of take out.
My first and probably biggest gripe is with the lack of real world experience that many of the current crop of political leaders have, with few notable exceptions most of the political top table on both sides is replete with fresh faced professional politicians. Politics is no longer a way of serving your country, it is a career. Schoolchildren openly talk of having a career in politics maybe more with hope than certainty but when I was a child nobody gave it a moment’s thought as a way to make a living when you were fresh from school or university. We all had aspirations to do proper jobs whether it was to go to the pit or join a bank or go to university to study and become a “professional”, we all saw our futures out there in the real world doing a proper job to which our family and friends could relate. We knew we would start pretty close to the bottom but with luck and hard work we knew that the rewards of promotion would follow until we reached the point where our accumulated wisdom and experience would count for something.
Now we are faced with a plethora of ruddy cheeked, identically suited, media trained clones, slavishly loyal to the party which in effect controls their future in their chosen vocation. With few notable exceptions, no longer do MPs represent their constituents in Parliament; instead they represent their parties in the constituency. This country is no longer run from the bottom up as it should be rather it is now run from the top down and is becoming more like an elected dictatorship with each passing administration.
When election time comes round again I would like to be able to choose from a list of candidates who have achieved something in their life. Somebody who knows the cost of milk in Tesco because they have to pay for it and not because it is an item on an expenses claim form. I want my candidates to have CV’s replete with accomplishments and experience not degrees in PPE from Oxbridge.
Accordingly I would like to suggest the following ideas for bring back some sanity.
1. No candidate for paid political office shall be allowed to stand until they have spent a qualifying period in the world of real work, be it on the factory floor or the trading rooms of a merchant bank. Paid employment as a political advisor or similar would not count. The realistic minimum would be ten years.
2. Each candidate should provide a detailed CV, similar to that required when applying for a proper job, to each household immediately each election is called. As candidates are normally selected by their parties well in advance it could easily be fact checked before it is published.
3. Nobody should be allowed to be an elected politician for more than four terms at any level.
4. No duplication of representation, I don’t want my MP sitting on the local council as well; concentrate on the one job.
5. Compulsory retirement at the next election after the sixty fifth birthday.
6. No better pension arrangements than are available to the public at large.
7. No resettlement grants when your time is up over and above what would be your redundancy entitlement if you lost a job in the real world.
8. The right of recall
9. Each politician to publish an annual return of their achievements, voting record, attendance, expenses etc.
10. Each politician to hold an annual public meeting in their constituency within 45 days following publication of the annual report.
11. Upon leaving office, no politician to be allowed to take a job which has not been publicly advertised unless there is an established connection prior to first election such as a family enterprise. There may need to be an option to independently scrutinise the recruitment process if the former MP gets the job which the employer will pay for.
12. The removal of all centrally imposed quotas and lists from the process of candidate selection, this to be an entirely local affair, no parachuting in of the favoured few with constituency parties free to choose who they want to represent them.
We need to get choice, scrutiny and accountability back to the voters who in turn deserve candidates who will put their interests ahead of party and career. WE need MPs who will put something back instead of take out.
Thursday, 14 October 2010
Is Sally a chav or just a silly little girl?
A thought popped into my mind a while ago that Sally Bercow is a chav. Now where did that come from I wondered; after all chavs are from the social underbelly that populates many of our towns and cities and Sally certainly is not that.
She comes from a comfortable middle class background and was educated at the top private school Marlborough College as were those other poor underclass children Princesses Eugenie and Kate Middleton, a good few MPs and BBC journalists, and of course Anthony Blunt the communist spy. So it is fair to say that she had a bit of a leg up in life courtesy of mum and dad. She must also have a brain as she was accepted for Oxford University where she spent a few terms enjoying the life of an undergraduate. Unfortunately she did not graduate though I guess she must have tried hard as she did make out that she had when she applied for a job with a City PR firm.
No, Sally is not your stereotypical chav. She wasn’t born on a council sink estate, she didn’t go to a failing comp, she didn’t leave school without qualifications, so why do I think of her as a chav? I think it is more to do with her mental attitude to life, rather than her actual circumstances.
Chavs seem to have this innate sense of entitlement, if they want it they will have it; no need to work for it just take it. A bit like Sally and her supposed degree which she never actually received but that did not stop her from intimating that she had one on her CV to get a job. I think that used to be called obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception; the normal chav version is called TWOCing or shoplifting.
Typically your average tabloid chav is also renowned for their consumption of alcohol, again this is an area where Sally has admittedly excelled though I suspect her tastes run more to Dom Perignon than White Lightning, and like most chavs ethanol is the source of many of their troubles. Your average chav is likely to pop down the nearest alley for a quick bit of rough and tumble or hoik up her top and show her tits to the CCTV cameras whilst Sally is probably more likely to jump up on stage with a male stripper at Oxford if rumours are to be believed.
Sally, you are no martyr to free speech and despite the above I don’t really think you are a chav though one might be forgiven for thinking that; in truth you are no more than a silly little girl.
EDIT
Well since the revelations in the Standard which seem to be all over the MSM today, The Daily Mail being a particularly thoroughly nasty job, I have seen nothing to make me change my mind about the utterly pointless stupid woman.
She comes from a comfortable middle class background and was educated at the top private school Marlborough College as were those other poor underclass children Princesses Eugenie and Kate Middleton, a good few MPs and BBC journalists, and of course Anthony Blunt the communist spy. So it is fair to say that she had a bit of a leg up in life courtesy of mum and dad. She must also have a brain as she was accepted for Oxford University where she spent a few terms enjoying the life of an undergraduate. Unfortunately she did not graduate though I guess she must have tried hard as she did make out that she had when she applied for a job with a City PR firm.
No, Sally is not your stereotypical chav. She wasn’t born on a council sink estate, she didn’t go to a failing comp, she didn’t leave school without qualifications, so why do I think of her as a chav? I think it is more to do with her mental attitude to life, rather than her actual circumstances.
Chavs seem to have this innate sense of entitlement, if they want it they will have it; no need to work for it just take it. A bit like Sally and her supposed degree which she never actually received but that did not stop her from intimating that she had one on her CV to get a job. I think that used to be called obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception; the normal chav version is called TWOCing or shoplifting.
Typically your average tabloid chav is also renowned for their consumption of alcohol, again this is an area where Sally has admittedly excelled though I suspect her tastes run more to Dom Perignon than White Lightning, and like most chavs ethanol is the source of many of their troubles. Your average chav is likely to pop down the nearest alley for a quick bit of rough and tumble or hoik up her top and show her tits to the CCTV cameras whilst Sally is probably more likely to jump up on stage with a male stripper at Oxford if rumours are to be believed.
Sally, you are no martyr to free speech and despite the above I don’t really think you are a chav though one might be forgiven for thinking that; in truth you are no more than a silly little girl.
EDIT
Well since the revelations in the Standard which seem to be all over the MSM today, The Daily Mail being a particularly thoroughly nasty job, I have seen nothing to make me change my mind about the utterly pointless stupid woman.
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