Tag Archives: petition

#PostOfficeScandal: Vennells hands back CBE after petition takes a million signatures

Paula Vennells: was she shamed into returning her CBE? Why was she given it in the first place?

The former chief executive of Post Office Limited, Paula Vennells, has handed back her CBE after a petition calling for her to do so was signed by more than a million people.

It is an entirely symbolic gesture. Neither she nor any other Post Office employees – or staff at Fujitsu, the company that provided the faulty and insecure Horizon software that was used to wrongly incriminate hundreds of sub-postmasters – are facing any charges of wrongdoing related to what happened.

And her statement suggests that she knows this.

Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!

She has said: “I continue to support and focus on co-operating with the inquiry and expect to be giving evidence in the coming months.

“I have so far maintained my silence as I considered it inappropriate to comment publicly while the inquiry remains ongoing and before I have provided my oral evidence. I am, however, aware of the calls from sub-postmasters and others to return my CBE.

“I have listened and I confirm that I return my CBE with immediate effect.

“I am truly sorry for the devastation caused to the sub-postmasters and their families, whose lives were torn apart by being wrongly accused and wrongly prosecuted as a result of the Horizon system.

“I now intend to continue to focus on assisting the inquiry and will not make any further public comment until it has concluded.”

Vennells was a strong supporter of Horizon while sub-postmasters were being prosecuted and during their court case to prove that it was at fault and not them. She avoided giving evidence at that court case.

It seems likely to This Writer that she has spent the last few years preparing ways to justify her inexcusable behaviour when she does appear before the public inquiry that is belatedly being held into the circumstances of the scandal.

But – as stated explicitly in the TV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office – as chief executive, the buck stopped with her. It was her responsibility to know everything about Horizon and how it was being used to criminalise sub-postmasters. She should not be able to evade her responsibility for what happened to them.

When she does appear before the inquiry, This Writer hopes she will be forced to explain one significant aspect of the scandal.

We know that the Horizon software wrongly made it seem that sub-postmasters were stealing tens of thousands of pounds from their Post Office branches – money that never actually existed.

We have heard that, because the software was insecure, staff at Fujitsu were able to enter any sub-postmaster’s account and change the figures to falsely make it seem they had stolen money. This, it seems, is what made it possible to commit the most widespread offence to justice in UK history.

It seems clear to me that these were deliberate, pre-meditated acts.

The question I want answered is simple: why did the Post Office and Fujitsu do it?

What was it all for?


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/

6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical

7) Feel free to comment!

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

‘Strip former Post Office boss Paula Vennells of CBE’ petition passes a million signatures

Paula Vennells: why was she given a CBE in the first place – and should she give it back, now that a million people have demanded it?

Here’s a good question: how many people nominated disgraced former Post Office boss Paula Vennells for her CBE? And how many of us have to demand that she be stripped of it before that actually happens?

I ask that because a petition calling for her to hand it back has passed one million signatures now – including that of This Writer.

Having been through a lengthy (four-year) court case involving another public figure, I would also like to question the circumstances in which she was nominated.

Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!

My opponent was given an MBE shortly before the case went to trial. Ms Vennells was given her CBE in similar circumstances.

I question whether this is a tactic to make these people less vulnerable to justice? “They’re members of the Establishment now; we all have to stick together” – that sort of thing.

I wonder how many other undeserving recipients have been given honours for the same reason – and how many should have their award reviewed in the light of what’s happening here:

More than a million people are demanding a former Post Office boss is stripped of her CBE following her involvement in the Horizon scandal which saw hundreds of subpostmasters wrongly convicted.

Paula Vennells oversaw the Post Office while it accused around 700 subpostmasters and mistresses of fraud and theft, denying faults with its Horizon IT system which was eventually found to be behind discrepancies in the company’s finances.

Following the release of Mr Bates vs the Post Office – an ITV drama which tells the story of injustice based on evidence from a faulty computer system – over 1,047,000 have signed a petition urging the government to remove Ms Vennells’s CBE.

The petition itself states:

Evidence has been produced that the Post Office engaged in a mass cover up which led to the wrongful prosecution of 550 Post Office Staff many of whom were subsequently jailed, bankrupted and in some cases, sadly took their own lives.

The initial Post Office investigation in 2012 failed to find any issues and as a result in 2012, Second Sight, an independent investigative firm were brought in to investigate complaints that the Horizon system used in post offices was inaccurate, buggy and could ‘lose money’. Despite pledging full co-operation initially, Post Office subsequently withheld documents from the investigation and Paula Vennells later failed to answer a select committee when challenged on why these documents had not been produced as requested. The damning report, marked as ‘confidential’ stated that the Horizon system was ‘not fit for purpose’ and among their discoveries were 12,000 communication failures every year, software defects at 76 branches and that the system was failing to track money from lottery terminal, tax disc sales and cash machines properly. It concluded that rather than investigate the cause of such errors, Post Office instead accused sub-postmasters of theft. The Post Office dismissed the report which was subsequently leaked to the BBC in 2014.

Despite Paula Vennells assertion that Post Office “have been working with Second Sight over the last few weeks on what we agreed at the outset. We have been provided the information” to Parliament at her select committee appearance in 2015, the lead investigator for Second Sight, Adrian Bailey, when asked if this was the case said categorically, “No, it is not” which meant that he could not access files to back up his suspicions that Post Office Ltd had brought cases against sub-postmasters with ‘inadequate investigation and inadequate evidence’. The requested files had still not been handed over to Second Sight 18 months later.

In March 2015, on the eve of the Second Sight report publication, Private Eye reported that the Post Office had instructed Second Sight to end their investigation, destroy all paperwork and scrapped the independent committee that had been convened.

In 2019, a class action case, Bates & Ors v Post Office Ltd, was settled by the Post Office in favour of the 550 sub-postmasters for over £58 million.

Mr Justice Fraser, the judge in the case concluded that the approach of the Post Office: “amounted, in reality, to bare assertions and denials that ignore what has actually occurred, at least so far as the witnesses called before me in the Horizon Issues trial are concerned. It amounts to the 21st century equivalent of maintaining that the earth is flat.”

Mr Justice Fraser, so concerned by what he had seen in the case, has passed a file to the Director of Public Prosecutions. In the Lords, Baron Arbuthnot of Edrom said in November 2019: “My own suggestion is that the government should clear out the entirety of the board and senior management of the Post Office and start again, perhaps with the assistance of consultancy services from Second Sight, who know where the bodies are buried.”.

Having been handed a CBE for services to the Post Office, and moved out into other senior positions in government and healthcare, it is only right that this award is now withdrawn through the process of forfeiture.

Paula Vennells has subsequently refused to answer questions from these staff as well as the media and has refused to apologise for the cover-up, misery and trauma caused which has brought not only herself but the Post Office, the honours system and government into disrepute.

Source: Petition to strip former Post Office boss Paula Vennells of CBE passes 1 million signatures | ITV News


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/

6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical

7) Feel free to comment!

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Sign the petition for reform of rapist-ridden (?) police

This seems self-explanatory:

The full petition states:

“Cases of abuse of women by police are all too often making headlines. An investigation conducted by Refuge into alleged cases of abuse of women by police-perpetrators, shockingly revealed that, of the total number of cases of officers accused of violence against women and girls (VAWG) between 2022 and 2023, only 24% were suspended while under investigation.

“How can women feel safe coming forward to report abuse when so little is being done to root out abusers from within policing’s own ranks?

“The government must act now to prove that their promise to make violence against women and girls a strategic policing priority is more than just words on paper. We’re demanding they take action to root out every ‘bad apple’ effectively and swiftly to restore public confidence in policing.”

It states: “How many more bad apples? Together we’re calling on the Home Secretary to enforce mandatory suspension of all potential abusers, until and only if, they’re cleared following investigation.”

And the petition reads: “To: The Home Secretary

“Please implement a consistent suspension policy across police forces in England and Wales, where all police officers and staff accused of violence against women and girls are suspended pending the outcome of an investigation.”

This Writer is thinking of recent cases in the Metropolitan Police, in particular, and of the finding that the culture in that particular service means that rape is no longer treated as a crime in its area.

So I’ve signed the petition. Will you?

Peter Bone is shafted in constituency recall vote. By-election to follow

Peter Bone: he’s lost his seat over claims of sexual impropriety.

This is pretty much the size of it:

In brief, Peter Bone has lost his Parliamentary seat representing Wellingborough, triggering a by-election that is not likely to take place before February.

MPs had voted to suspend him from Parliament for six weeks for breaching the code of conduct for MPs, making it possible for constituents to demand a recall petition. This was signed by 13.2 per cent of eligible voters – well above the 10 per cent required for him to lose his seat.

Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!

According to the BBC,

An investigation by Parliament’s behavioural watchdog, the Independent Expert Panel, found Mr Bone had broken sexual misconduct rules by indecently exposing himself to a staff member during an overseas trip.

It also upheld five allegations of bullying, including verbally belittling the member of staff, physically striking him and throwing things at him.

Mr Bone appealed against the investigation’s findings, arguing it had been flawed. However, his appeal was dismissed.

This Site covered those allegations here.

Bone has denied the allegations against him and may choose to contest the seat in the coming by-election.

Others have already formed their own conclusions:


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/

6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical

7) Feel free to comment!

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

The news in tweets: Saturday, July 22, 2023

Keir Mather: is this Red just another Blue?

By-election fallout 1: new Labour MP falls at the first hurdle

Labour’s newest – and youngest – MP, Keir Mather, has made his first contributions to national politics. Here he is being introduced to the nation:

A fresh start for the people of Selby and Ainsty? It sounds good – but is it just words?

After all, the very first thing he did was endorse Keir Stürmer’s decision to continue the Conservative policy that limits child benefit to two children:

So he 100 per cent supports a Conservative policy. And this is the change we need?

This Writer doesn’t think so – and I see that many others agree with me.

Here‘s Steve Walker: “Sir Kid Starver’s clique’s stranglehold on candidate selection is why we’re getting this privileged, fresh-from-the-petri-dish vapid Stepford Wife candidate parroting this miserable shit. People with character, integrity, principles and a capacity for critical thought need not apply.”

Mrs Gee #UpTheWorkers tweeted: “This is what Unite union members’ money is helping into Government.” To Sharon Graham, the union’s general secretary, she added: “There is not a cat in hell’s chance these people can be pushed left once elected. The time is now. Make them come up with policies for trade unionists/working class people if they want our money/votes.”

Kerry-Anne Mendoza suggested: “Do they breed these creatures in a little nest of pods somewhere? They all look and sound identical to me ‘Fiscal rules…blah blah…tough choices…blah blah…forensic…'”

She added: “A privately-schooled, Oxbridge graduate whose entire career consists of a brief stint at the CBI isn’t a political breakthrough for British working class youth. Keir Mather embodies exactly the opposite. Privilege seeking power. It’s embarrassing we have to point this out.”

Phil Gould tweeted in similar vein: “This is a New New Labour Nexus 1, a first-generation AI politician, programmed by the Tony Blair Institute. Empathy free, self-destructs after one parliament. One full charge lasts two PMQs or one full QT appearance (having to repeat programmed answers requires more power).”

Chris Williamson tackled the subject matter: “The new Labour MP for Selby and Ainsty backs the 2 child benefit cap citing the “economic mess” as justification. But that logic is flawed, Keir Mather. The government issues the currency so can’t run out money and can use taxes to control inflation. So there is no justification for leaving kids in poverty.”

And let’s not forget:

But then, what can you expect from a privately-educated Oxbridge graduate whose career consists of a stint at the Confederation of British Industry and a bit of time as a researcher for Wes bloody Streeting?

It seems his “career politician” credentials are proved by the following claim:

Still, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and Keir Mather has nearly a year and a half to prove his detractors wrong – or prove himself a puddinghead.

By-election fallout 2: Uxbridge and Ruislip Labour chair quits – because of Keir Starmer and not the election result

The chairman of Uxbridge and Ruislip Constituency Labour Party has quit his role and the party altogether – but he’s saying it’s not because of the party’s spectacular failure to win the constituency’s Parliamentary seat from the Tories.

David Williams said his problem is with the leadership of Keir Starmer. Here are his tweeted messages:

Fair enough – he didn’t want his resignation to have a negative impact on his (soon-to-be former) party’s performance, and rightly so because this could have been used by others to attack him.

As it was, he found himself having to re-fight an old battle with an out-of-her-depth BBC reporter.

Watch the interview and you’ll see that he made mincemeat of the false claims:

Why does this public sector worker get a 45% pay increase while the rest have to put up with real-terms cuts?

The King is getting a publicly-funded 45 per cent pay rise, it seems:

He’s a public sector worker – like doctors, nurses and teachers, and the discrepancy between what he can demand and what they are told to take has not gone unnoticed.

Fortunately, we have people who can turn it to advantage:

Yes indeed. Let’s see government pay negotiators explain this away – if they can!

Petition of the day: demand free school breakfasts for all


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/

6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical

7) Feel free to comment!

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

70,000+ demand Labour restore whip to Corbyn. Will Starmer say they’re ALL anti-Semites?

Jeremy Corbyn: no, he wasn’t signing the petition for his own reinstatement in the Parliamentary Labour Party – in fact he was writing about Jews including Roza Robota, Szmul Zygielbojm and Anne Frank, in the Holocaust Educational Trust’s book of remembrance. Anti-Semite? Don’t make us laugh, Starmer.

Remember This Site’s article yesterday (May 20, 2023), ridiculing Jewish Labour Movement chair Mike Katz for praising Keir Starmer’s handling of “cranks”, “racists” and “extremists”?

I quoted his comments about Jeremy Corbyn as an example of this, in which he claimed of the most committed anti-racist in Parliament: “His reluctance to show any remorse and his continual denial and downplaying of the problem makes him the author of his own demise and negates any claim he can make to actually being anti-racist.”

And yet on the same day Vox Political published its article, more than 70,000 people were revealed to have signed a petition demanding that Starmer’s Labour restore the party whip to Mr Corbyn.

It also demands that the Labour Party in the Islington North constituency be allowed to select their own candidate for the next general election, after the party’s National Executive Committee supported a Starmer motion barring Mr Corbyn from standing.

According to the Morning Star,

The Islington North MP and former Labour leader had the party whip withdrawn after saying anti-semitism within Labour had been “overstated for political reasons” and was blocked from representing Labour in the next general election earlier this year by an unrelated motion to the NEC claiming he would undermine Labour’s chances of forming a government because he led it to defeat in 2019.

LAAA national organiser Matt Willgress criticised Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer for breaching a campaign promise that local party members should select their candidates for every election.

Young Labour activist and Arise volunteer Fraser McGuire said it is clear that many Labour members and supporters want to protect party democracy and allow Islington North CLP members to select their own candidate.

He said this would “undoubtedly” be Mr Corbyn.

Campaign for Labour Party Democracy co-chairwoman Rachel Garnham said it was unsurprising that tens of thousands feel “aggrieved by Starmer’s hypocrisy and top-down approach to candidate selection.”

An Islington Friends of Corbyn spokesperson said people are “angrier than ever about the continuing injustice” against Mr Corbyn and the constituency.

This Writer feels sure that these people won’t be voting Labour in a future election, if they don’t get their way.

What will Keir Starmer do in response – brand them all as anti-Semites?

Of course, the petition makes a nonsense of Katz’s claim that Starmer had properly handled “cranks”, “racists” and “extremists” in the Labour.

Instead, it strongly suggests that Starmer has vindictively attacked honest, hard-working Labour Party members whose only crime was standing up for the positive values the party was formed to represent – rather than the perverted, narcissistic, power-for-its-own-sake policies of the current leader.

And we haven’t even touched on StarmerLabour’s anti-black racism yet. Look for that in a future article.

Source: Over 70,000 sign petition demanding Labour restore the whip to Corbyn as mass support continues to grow | Morning Star


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/

6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical

7) Feel free to comment!

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Will you sign the petition to have Michelle Mone ejected from the Lords?

Petition: Lady Mone.

This should be a no-brainer for everyone who opposes Conservative Parliamentarians being on the take:

The petition states:

The Guardian newspaper reports Conservative peer “Michelle Mone and her children secretly received £29m originating from the profits of a PPE business that was awarded large government contracts after she recommended it to ministers.” Isolation gowns provided by the business were deemed unfit for use, all while our NHS heroes were putting their lives on the line – including by wearing DIY PPE to protect themselves and the public.

We – the undersigned – are calling on the Commissioner for Standards to conclude the investigation into Michelle Mone as soon as is possible. Mone disputes the Guardian’s allegations, but if she is found to have done what is reported, she should be expelled from the House of Lords and made to pay back every penny in profit to taxpayers.

Personally, I’d also include any interest earned on it while it was in her family’s bank accounts.

Are you going to sign?


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/

6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical

7) Feel free to comment!

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Half a million people call for an early general election

Almost six times as many people as voted Liz Truss into 10 Downing Street are demanding an early general election in the hope of having her ejected.

Parliament will have to debate the petition because it has topped 100,000 signatories – and this may create a problem for Truss, who does not have the full support of her party in Parliament (especially after the godawful stink she has made in just four weeks).

The call for an election has been echoed by former Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries.

She tweeted that there was ‘widespread dismay’ at the prime minister – and we can conclude that she meant among her fellow Conservative MPs.

The government responded to the petition on September 20, saying nothing would change: “A change in the leader of the governing party does not trigger a general election – this has been the case under governments of successive political colours.”

But that isn’t the issue now.

The issue now is that the UK’s current – unelected – leadership has crashed the economy and cannot accept its role in having done so, and millions of people think it is time for a new administration.

Source: 500,000 people sign petition calling for early general election

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Why are people petitioning to remove Schofield and Willoughby from their TV presenting job?

One can’t help feeling there’s some malice behind the “queue jump” saga involving Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby.

The This Morning presenters have been accused of jumping the queue to attend the body of the late Queen Elizabeth II as she lay in state in Westminster Hall – a queue that, at one point, it would have taken 14 hours to traverse.

But it seems to This Writer that they were just doing their job – reporting on the event for viewers of their show. They had press passes and were accorded the same access as others who were covering it. And of course, they were there because their producers had told them to go.

Yet a petition demanding their removal as presenters has hit 55,000 signatures.

Here’s a video clip about the controversy:

Personally, I’m sure they have done much more questionable things on their show – supporting Boris Johnson in some of his more idiotic moments springs to mind. Why couldn’t they be pilloried for that?

Source: ITV This Morning fans’ petition to ‘axe’ Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield reaches milestone – Manchester Evening News

Join the call to end the ban on public ownership of buses

Award-winning: Reading Buses regularly invests back into its services and have one of the greenest fleets in the UK.

Greater Manchester has won the right to cap bus fares at £2 for adults and £1 for children after a landmark ruling by the High Court.

The ruling allows the metropolitan authority to regulate bus services there in the public interest.

Liverpool, West Yorkshire and Sheffield plan to do the same.

But the victory has opened up the debate on whether local authorities should continue to be banned from running services for people and not profit.

Even the Tory government seems to have shifted its position on this, believing the ban on municipal ownership is now “ripe for review”.

According to We Own It,

Only 9 municipal bus companies around the UK survived Thatcher’s disastrous deregulation. Because these bus companies don’t have to pay dividends to shareholders, they can invest more into improving local services.

This makes them incredibly popular, with Nottingham City Transport, Reading Buses and Lothian buses all regularly winning awards.

Reading Buses invests an additional £3 million a year into its service and has one of the greenest fleets in the UK.

The power of public ownership has led Reading to have the best passenger numbers outside London, with a 40% jump in just 6 yearsTalk about levelling up.

If the Reading model of public ownership was rolled out across the whole of Great Britain, it would save well over £500 million a year.

And in times of crisis, public ownership can also help insulate the public. In Northern Ireland, the operator Translink, owned and operated by local people, has just frozen fares to protect people from hikes in fuel costs.

Sadly the Tories seem to have lost track of this great idea, amidst all the emergencies they have created over the last year, in order to distract us.

We Own It has launched a petition to raise interest and prompt the Tories to remember the statement they made as part of Bus Back Better, their national bus strategy, launched on March 15 last year.

If you agree that it’s time we all had a bus service that served us, rather than profiting the owners, sign here: End the ban on public ownership of buses now! | We Own It

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook