Tag Archives: Independent

Independent candidate update: Emma Dent Coad (Kensington & Chelsea)

Emma Dent Coad, as seen through the eyes of art.

Emma Dent Coad is an Independent Parliamentary candidate for Kensington & Chelsea – and she has a GoFundMe site where you can learn all about her work in the constituency and put some money toward her success.

She was the constituency’s MP at the time of the Grenfell Tower inferno, and worked hard to help the survivors of that tragedy.

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If you remember her good work, click on the link below to help; if you don’t, click on the link to find out about it and then help.


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Sam Gorst: another Independent announces general election candidacy

A former Labour councillor in Liverpool who helped form a group of Independents to beat that party in last year’s local elections has announced that he will be a candidate there in the next general election.

Sam Gorst will represent the Liverpool Community Independents in the city’s Garston & Halewood constituency, where he will be hoping to oust Labour’s Maria Eagle:

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Pamela Fitzpatrick: wrongly-expelled former Labour councillor is now Independent election candidate

Going independent: Pamela Fitzpatrick.

The people of Harrow West have a new political hope in the form of former Labour councillor Pamela Fitzpatrick – who will be standing there as an Independent candidate in the next general election:

Ms Fitzpatrick was formerly a member of the Labour Party, and applied to be the party’s General Secretary after Keir Starmer became leader.

Instead, she was expelled from the party on the flimsy grounds that she had given an interview to the proscribed left-wing newspaper Socialist Appeal – a year before it was branded a menace by Starmer and his cronies.

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There was no way Ms Fitzpatrick could have known that she was talking to anybody who would be branded undesirable by Labour’s leaders when she gave the interview, and her retrospective expulsion for that reason sparked outrage when it became public knowledge in November 2021.

She seems well-placed to defeat Harrow West’s current – Labour – MP, Gareth Thomas, a Blairite and a member of Labour Friends of Israel who has held the seat since 1997, albeit with a greatly reduced majority since 2019.


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Keir Starmer, Wes Streeting, Labour – all useless. Vote Green/Independent?

Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting: they should rename their party ‘No Labour’.

Keir Starmer and his shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting provided ample examples of reasons not to vote for their Labour Party during the Sunday morning media round today (January 14, 2024).

I doubt I even have to provide much commentary on the following. It speaks for itself.

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Here’s Starmer on why he supported attacking one of the world’s poorest countries:

Here’s a response that puts his words in context:

Starmer’s support for the attack represents a massive u-turn in his own personal commitments – as Laura Kuenssberg pointed out to him. His response was beyond parody:

So, in Keir Starmer’s world, air strikes are not military operations. This may explain why he has not condemned Israel’s carpet-bombing of Gaza that has killed so many thousands of men, women and children.

Here’s Starmer on why his use of a private, highly-polluting plane is perfectly reasonable and Rishi Sunak doing exactly the same is outrageous:

So he’s happy to pollute, even when there are scheduled flights, and even when a telephone conversation would probably be perfectly appropriate. Now we know.

Green Party deputy leader Zack Polanski made the facts clear for us all:

Closer to home, Starmer showed that he fully supports the Tory government’s persecution of refugees and asylum-seekers:

Streeting supported Starmer – and the Tories – when he was interviewed by Trevor Phillips:

Streeting also defended Starmer’s u-turn on having Parliamentary votes before military action:

Streeting is a member of Labour Friends of Israel. Here he is, explaining why he doesn’t want to pay attention to the genocide hearings at the International Court of Justice (notice his about-turn on calls for an Israel/Gaza ceasefire):

Meanwhile, Starmer’s party is losing the support of its own elected representatives because of its determination to stand with genocidal Israel:

And the wider public?

All of this is a huge bonus to the smaller political parties and independents – or would be, if they were allowed to have a voice in the mass media. Apparently they aren’t:

It goes for Independents, too. How many people in Kensington and Bayswater know about this?

Why not?

Perhaps it’s time to give a platform to people who have something to say.


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More defections from Labour as the shine goes off of Starmer

Labour: this illustration would be more appropriate if the flag was torn.

Six councillors in Hastings have quit the Labour Party to form an independent group.

Here’s their statement:

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The statement makes their reasons for quitting abundantly clear:

Our view is that standing up for Hastings, and especially for our residents, will be much easier as independents.

The national Labour Party no longer provides us with the policies, the support or the focus on local government that we need, given the many local issues we are committed to tackling.

These are not rats leaving a sinking ship. They would be better-described as rescue crews manning the lifeboats.


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HS2: isn’t this track-less railway now also pointless?

HS2: it has cost too much; it doesn’t do what the Tories said it would; and it doesn’t go where they said it would either. And this critical cartoon was published in the usually Tory-supporting Telegraph.

What better symbol of the last 13 years’ Tory government could there be?

HS2 – the long-planned high-speed rail line from London to the north, that was only ever intended to cut 20 minutes off travel times, has already cost three times as much as its original budget. And now we learn that it may not even reach either of its original destinations:

Simon Harris, below, makes the obvious points:

That’s right; the extra time it would take to travel from London to Old Oak Common would negate any time saving on the HS2 line itself, meaning the reason for spending around £100 billion on it (up from slightly less than £33bn in 2011) is also negated.

Some have taken the announcement humorously…

Some have taken it philosophically…

And, on the subject of failing and disconnected rail infrastructure in the north, some have simply done better:

Jamie Driscoll’s achievement demolishes arguments against voting for Independents and the so-called “smaller” UK political parties.

Admittedly, much of the work he did on this happened while he was with Labour, but he and Keir Starmer have parted ways due to a fundamental difference of political views (Starmer is a Conservative cuckoo in the once-Socialist party and Mr Driscoll is a left-winger), meaning that this is an achievement of an Independent.

The conclusion is clear: while Labour and the Tories just flap their tongues and spend your money on nothing, Independent politicians – given power – get things done.


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MP severance pay to double as hundreds of Tories face losing their seats. Coincidence?

Okay, it’s not a backhander… in fact it looks like a bung to Tory MPs facing ejection from Parliament – in plain view of the entire United Kingdom.

Is anybody not calling ‘foul’ on this one?

Here are the headlines:

The details, from The Guardian:

Departing MPs will get bigger payouts for winding up their offices, with the sum doubling to £17,300, the UK parliament expenses watchdog has announced.

MPs who lose their seats or choose not to stand will be paid for four months after leaving office to enable them to wind up their casework and other duties – doubling from the current period of eight weeks.

MPs who lose their seats also qualify for “loss of office payments” – at twice the rate of statutory redundancy pay – and the winding-up payments come on top of this.

They have to demonstrate that they are using their time to work on winding up their offices. MPs’ staff can also qualify for such payments. Ministers get different severance payments for loss of office, with a cabinet minister receiving £16,876.

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) made the change after reviewing arrangements for payments following the next election… prompted by the boundary changes and end of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act in 2022.

Some doubt the sincerity of IPSA’s behaviour:

… and This Writer is one of them.

I’d say IPSA has just delivered proof that it is not fit for purpose.


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Jamie Driscoll: Independent candidate to be North East Mayor speaks on Radio 4

Jamie Driscoll is turning out to be a bit of a breakthrough spokesperson for alternatives to the ‘Establishment’ policies of the Tory/fascists and Keir Starmer’s party, that used to be Labour.

Last week he was invited to speak on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions – and made a lot of sense.

Here’s part of what he had to say:

The rest will be here.

Does it inspire you to look up other independents in your own constituency, to whom you might be encouraged to give your vote – rather than to the so-called Big Two or the Liberal Democrats, whose only policy seems to be to go into coalition with one of the others if they get a few seats in Parliament?


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Rishi Sunak just stops stopping oil – from our favourite correspondent

Over to our on-the-spot (he’s somewhere green) correspondent for a quick rundown of all the facts you need to know about Rishi Sunak’s new North Sea oil and gas drilling contracts:

(I thought you might enjoy this before I get festive about Sunak with an article about how upset the Tories have got about a photoshopped image of him handing over a badly-poured pint of beer – contrasted with the fact that they created a mechanism for pumping out lies about themselves. Coming soon!)


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Is this the secret reason Rishi Sunak announced 100 oil and gas contracts in a global warming crisis?

Rishi Sunak: the face of naked Tory avarice.

It should come as no surprise to anybody that the oil and gas contracts Rishi Sunak announced in the middle of a global boiling crisis come with a suggestion of corruption.

Remember Infosys, the firm owned by Sunak’s father-in-law, in which his wife Akshata Murty has 38.9 million shares? The information on my screen says they’re estimated to be worth £89 million but that is likely to increase hugely now.

You see, Infosys has just “won” (it says here) a $1.5 billion contract with BP – one of the energy firms that will profit from those North Sea oil and gas contracts. People are suggesting that there’s something fishy about it all, and it isn’t just the water:

Now, with Infosys having secured its deal and having now done his deal, Sunak is off on his holibobs – apparently his first in four years:

You may not be aware of this, but Sunak recently launched what’s he’s calling a Business Council, allegedly to “turbocharge economic growth”.

Here’s a bit of information about it:

Infosys already has ties with Shell, as part of a partnership with “two of the top five integrated oil and gas companies, three of the top four oilfield services providers, and five of the top 10 upstream enterprises across the oil and gas landscape”:

The Byline Times article – from July 19 last year – warned us about Sunak’s ties with the fossil fuel industry:

Infosys’ intimate partnerships with regional as well as global oil and gas giants represent a potential conflict of interest for Rishi Sunak.

According to the UK Ministerial Code, ministers are required to fully disclose and explain the business interests of their spouses and families “which might give rise to a conflict” with the duties of Government.

Despite Sunak ostensibly committing to the Government’s net zero goals – now deemed unlawful by the High Court for not going far enough – he also said in the televised debate … that Britain must not move “too hard and too fast” on climate action.

His victory [in the Conservative leadership contest that was ongoing at the time] could represent a win for firms like Shell, which said it expected to revise upwards the value of oil and gas assets it had previously written down, triggering a jump in share prices.

When Sunak eventually released a list of his business interests – correct me if I’m wrong – the connections between his wife’s family firm and the oil companies that have just won very large and valuable contracts were not mentioned.

Scottish news organisation The National has also – just – published a list of fossil fuel polluters and climate change deniers that donate money to the Conservative Party. Have some of these won contracts in Sunak’s recent bonanza?

Taking it in the round, it seems unlikely that Sunak had the interests of the eco-system in mind when he was considering the possibility of new oil and gas contracts in the North Sea.

Indeed, it seems unlikely that he considered the well-being of anything other than his own financial affairs and those of his family.

It seems to This Writer that this entire situation – the contracts, the Business Council, the donations to the Tory Party – requires scrutiny, and by somebody entirely independent of Sunak and his Tories.

Can anybody recommend a mechanism by which this can be secured?


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