Voting TaKtiX

I recently discovered that my (soon to be former) MP has a blog, on MySpace. It’s actually not awful, for a MySpace blog, but today, he’s speculating Blair Resigns? :

something is definitely in the air. I don’t know what it is, but if Blair announces his resignation by the end of this week, you read it here first.

So the Westminster bubble says something is up. It would, of course, be a good thing for him to go. Here’s just hoping the constitutionally illiterate morons don’t make much running with getting Brown to got for an early election, we need to give the man time to mess things up utterly.

No idea who he is, but Steven Skelton has an excellent article at Make My Vote Count about electoral reform and the rise of the BNP. It’s nothing I haven’t said before, but it’s very well put together and all in one place.

Busy. Unable to comment on this delusional, totalitarian, and borderline racist crap about ID cards properly. Fortunately, Gareth and Tez Burke have done so already. Go read.

Donald’s on form:

STATEMENT: If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
QUESTION: Do you have curtains?
STATEMENT: They’re to stop anyone perving over intimate moments with my wife.
QUESTION: You do know that as soon as they upload your STD records on that health database, the whole of Whitehall can see everyone you’ve fucked since freshers’ week?

Write To Them. Or chase down a Swiss grandad.

Damn stupid idiotic centralising authoritarian fools. Technology will solve all our problems. Especially if it’s a technology that we don’t really understand and will subcontract to a bunch of incompetents like Capita et al…

Unity mails me pointing to his latest article here:

The Police raid two houses. In one they discover “a record haul of chemicals used in making home-made bombs”, in the other the find “rocket launchers, chemicals, and a nuclear or biological suit”.

It’s a terrorist plot, right? It’ll be all over the national news in a shot?

Wrong on both counts, apparently… because the two men caught with this nifty little haul of equipment aren’t Muslims, they’re BNP supporters, one of whom stood for election in Colne only last May.

Um, rocket launchers and chemical suits? Leon, Jamie, Fridgemagnet and bat020 have more.

A politician says something not at all offensive about running his consituency surgeries, and a policeman gets reassigned, both are screamsheet headlines. BNP members get arrested in an apparent bomb plot conspiracy? Where’s the headlines?

Tom Watson asks:

Seriously, I’d be interested to know what people think about this stuff. Is it a new way of communicating or just clever marketing and spin?

Both, I think. As Paul Walter observes:

Does he think we were born yesterday? If you were going to do a videcast would you do it while you were doing the washing up?

It’s obviously staged and intended to make him look like a ‘normal’ person, right down to the flat not being 100% clean and tidy. But, essentially, while it is a little cynical, it’s a sign that politicians are learning and adapting to the new media environment. (more…)

Remember this time last year, when they kicked the lifelong party member out of the conference for being honest? Well, guess what? This year?

They’re not even letting him onto the conference floor. That’s despite him now being elected to the NEC (via).

In other news, Gordon Brown is rumoured to be planning to announce plans for a constitutional convention, complete with full written constitution. Maybe Helena Kennedy managed to get to him? So, the question is, is it posturing, is he a genuine reformer, has he been putting up with Tony’s authoritarianism, or is it something he’s going to fuck up completely?

Why is it that even when they’re saying exactly what I want to hear, I don’t believe a word this lot say? Time will tell I guess. (via)

When I started writing at NLE, I wasn’t a member of any particular party; I was fairly disillusioned with the whole process of party politics generally and partizan sniping as a specific. Far too often, politics and politicians seemed to be about what you were opposed to, not what you were in favour of. The more I wrote, and read the thoughts and opinions of others, the more my views and opinions were refined.
(more…)

Tired of the Govt? (Anyone not already tired of them needs to smell the coffee). We are. Rachel is as well. THE RULES OF THE GAME HAVE CHANGED:

We won’t talk of causes, we’ll talk of effects.
We’ll whip up a horror of radical sects.
(We don’t want to talk about why they are vexed)
The Rules of the Game Have Changed.

Go read the rest

From new blogger Sammy Morse:

Personally, I doubt Blair will last 12 months or anything like it. Until he goes, civil war will reign in the Labour Party. Unlike Blair, too many people in the Labour Party have an interest in not losing the next election for that to happen. Unless they’re really, really stupid. And I don’t think they are. … Brown will be a disaster as Labour leader. If Brown really had the capacity to be leader, he would have become so after the Granita restaurant, after Blair was clearly out of step with the country on the war, after Labour lost 50 seats at the General Election, etc., etc. He didn’t because he has no killer instinct and no real leadership skills. Brown likes to skulk in the corner and avoid difficult issues

He goes on to analyse the state of the parties, the poll rankings, the likely effect on the next election, etc. It’s one of those “I wish I’d written that” posts, well worth a read.

In addition, Caramel Betty asks “what’s Charles Clarke up to?” and has re read his resignation speech:

However, I do not think it would be appropriate to remain in government in these circumstances and return to the backbenches, where I will be a strong and active supporter of this government and the leadership of Tony Blair for his full parliamentary term.

Do we detect a note of “well Gordon’ll never give me a job” in the Safety Elephant’s behaviour? In the meantime?

Keep an eye on Jack Straw over the weekend. Have fun in the Middle East Tony…

Jack Straw - Cretin?

Right, it’s fairly well established around these here parts that we don’t think much of the current Government. However, we now have conclusive proof that Jack Straw is an idiot:

we have a problem in the House, which is called researchers trying to prove a point and the result of these websites called TheyWorkForYou which simply seem to measure MPs’ work by quantitative rather than qualitative measures.

(more…)

When we set up here, we decided we’d avoid foreign policy. Partially because we wanted to focus on domestic + EU, partially because, well, quagmire. Especially when our Government seems intent on invading the entire Muslim world and supporting Israel regardless of circumstance. Generally, I agree with Garry (as usual). Specifically, I agree with Ming Campbell.On domestic policy, I still have disagreements with the Lib Dems. On foreign policy, I’ve been broadly in agreement for as long as I can remember. (more…)

My dislike of the Labour leadership is a sense of betreyal. I voted for the bastards before, and I’d like to be able to vote for them again. But, currently, I can’t. Prescott is by no means the only fault, but his perpetuation in office by Blair is completely beyond me. Others, howver, have no sense of betrayal, and have always hated him. Tim Montgomerie at Conservative Home has created a list of reasons to dislike Honest John’s term in government, since the very beginning. Given that many of the policy areas he claimed for himself at the beginning were issues I felt strongly about, and in cases still do, his absolute failure to implement anything decent is worthy of comment. So, using Tim’s list as a starting point, here’s mine:

1. Council Tax rates have effectively doubled for most people in the last ten years, and the short term bribe in the 2005 budget for pensioners was abolished this year.
2. The Standards Board for England is an anti-democratic monstrosity that puts those we elect at the control of quangocrats. Ken shouldn’t have been suspended; it’s teh electors job to fire him, no one else’s
3. Postal voting has been pushed and pushed and pushed. Make no mistake, the facility for the frail and housebound to vote by post is essential. But everyone else should go to the polling booth. Fraud allegations are perpetual, and very worrying.
4. Integrated transport policy? Anyone remember this one? We were going to cut car use (its risen), improve railways (um…), improve availability, etc. Me? I’d love to travel by bus instead of driving most mornings. Not going to happen, even with a half price bus pass from work.
5. Strategic Rail Authority. Yes, well, enough said there, when Transport was removed from his control (let’s face it, he wasn’t up to it), Darling abolished the waste of money that it was.
6. The Thames Gateway city project. Combined with the demolish half the north project. Very little has effectively been done to encourage people to live, work, set up offices in, etc in areas outside of the SE. The SE can’t handle more people effectively, water supplies are limited, housing density growing, etc. The North? Emptying. The SW? Full of second homes, holiday homes, etc. Empirical evidence for the latter? There is no way that my I could, even if I doubled my salary, afford a mortgage on the house my father was born in. Why? Holiday homes. Honest John’s fault.
7. The England Problem. A perpetual topic on here, but John was given the task of sorting out devolution in England. What did we get? Devolution from the centre? No. We got another local government reorganisation offered, with virtually no devolved power, a White Elephant. The boundaries he’s using are over 50 years old and outdated, based on bureacratic, treasury need rather than local lines. Horrible mess. The worst is he’s effectively killed off any arguments for decent, genuine devolution from Westminster to any form of regional or provincial assemblies, which would be a genuine (and to my mind good) solution to the West Lothian Question.
8. The Casino at the Dome. Let’s face it, this is the big one. It appears, on every face, to be genuine corruption, and it’s not just Honest John that it tars. But John is their designated scapegoat.

He’s going to go, and soon. I, like Snoo, do not care who he’s slept with. It’s gossip, tittle tattle, salacious fun. It does raise a concern (did any of them deserve their promotions?), but, ultimately, sex scandal, I care not.

He’s corrupt, incompetent and an utter failure. He has betrayed the principles of his party, he has betrayed the principles he was elected on, and his botched implementation of vital policies has done lasting damage to this country. Time to go John.

On the other hand

Clive at The UK Today:

Now I agree that something doesn’t add up, by I’m more concerned about what is going on elsewhere in Government while Prescott acts as a lighting conductor for all the flak being aimed at New Labour. It may be crediting Blair with too much foresight, but it seems very convenient that John has been kept around in spite of Tracey Temple and croquet on the lawn at Dorneywood.

Prescott seems emminently suited to the role he is now fulfilling, the bumbling leftie northerner who is out of his depth; the fall guy who can be blamed for any number of ills given the wide remit the ODPM used to have.

John? Given most of it isn’t your fault, can you stop being a scapegoat and take Tony with you?

Update:

From the comments, A rather good selection of Prescottisms

Hmmm…

1. Get elected leader of Conservative party
2. Appoint a respected elder statesman to lead an enquiry into renewing British democracy and the constitutional settlement
3. Make a speech proposing a significant constitutional reform
4. Completely forget to even mention it to said elder statesman and thus undermine his whole efforts.

Well done Dave. You impress me less and less every day.

Mr Clarke said the Tory leader would find it difficult to find lawyers who would agree with his plan to replace the Human Rights Act with the new Bill.

Despite heading a Tory task force on constitutional issues, Mr Clarke said he was not forewarned about the plans.

Not the best of plans methinks. In fact, given that the speech itself was completely half baked, I’m given to drawing the conclusion that he didn’t think this one through very well at all.

Mr Clarke said: “In these home affairs things I think occasionally it’s the duty of politicians on both sides to turn round to the tabloids and right-wing newspapers and say ‘you have your facts wrong and you’re whipping up facts which are inaccurate’.”

Said they should have elected him leader. We’re screwed, arent’ we? To get rid of Blair’s New Labour, we need to get people to vote Tory. How can we do that when Dave just hasn’t got a clue and plays to the gallery?