Tag Archives: representation

How can Labour clean politics by mirroring the Tories?

Blue Labour: under Keir Starmer, a once-great socialist organisation has become nothing but the Substitute Tory Party.

This is the dilemma facing voters who want change at the next UK general election:

It’s a valid criticism. The truth of it is partially in the quality of the people Keir Starmer is attracting, after his changes (This Writer can’t call them reforms):

And the truth of it is in what Labour will do, if it takes office after the next general election:

In other words, Labour would follow Tory policy until such time as the economy improves (and you can bet that the economy won’t improve enough for Keir Starmer to introduce any socialist ideas, or indeed any measures that would improve the lot of the “ordinary working people” he claims to represent.

Think about what Labour has already said it will not do:

Add to this the fact that Labour won’t build more houses:

This is while 1.2 million people are waiting for social housing.

Then again, Labour will continue the privatisation of the National Health Service in England, even though 7.4 million people are waiting for NHS treatment as a result of this progressive mismanagement.

Keir Starmer himself seems to believe he is above the concerns of the people he reckons should be voting for him.

We saw him, last week, shutting up young environmental activists who tried to speak out during his policy announcement on how Labour wanted young people to be able to express themselves in speech. And he lied to them; after promising to meet them after his own speech, Starmer ran away.

Is it because he hates “tree huggers”?

He’s not interested in “hope and change”, you see:

The economist Richard Murphy has highlighted that Starmer’s “tree huggers” comment indicates not only that he isn’t interested in new economic and policy thinking about the issues the UK faces as a country, but that he and the rest of the Shadow Cabinet are far more right-wing than Ed Miliband – and Ed (bless ‘im) is himself hardly the socialist his dad was.

In the article, Mr Murphy states:

This is the attitude of a prospective Labour Chancellor who  questions whether we can afford to save the planet because it is instead better to crush the well-being of millions with unnecessary interest rate rises.

Reeves says she and Starmer are as one on issues. I suspect that for now that is true. It is deeply dangerous that such a reactionary pair are in that position and are described as the Opposition when it is so apparent that their goal is perpetuation of the status quo.

Link that with the words of Ian Hodson, below:

The consensus is clear: Labour is now nothing but a Substitute Tory Party. We should call it the STP from now on.

That’s one reason why this claim by the party’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, is hard to take seriously:

Labour is itself riddled with cronyism.

Look at its attitude to the scandal of Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list: where once Labour had planned to get rid of the House of Lords altogether, it has shelved the idea – and in any case would want to keep the honours system and the possibility of gifting a place in the second House of Parliament to its… cronies.

It is clear that Keir Starmer’s (and Rachel Reeves’s, and even Ed Miliband’s) party will not be representative of the people of the UK and will not give us the change we desperately need – in fact it will deliberately frustrate any such aim.

It can do this because of the current “First Past The Post” electoral system that ensures each of the two largest parties in Parliament have “safe seats” that they can expect to win at every election. Knowing that, cronyism ensures that these seats go to those who most strongly support the right-wing views of the leaders – never mind what they’re saying to the voters. They don’t have to listen to us.

And that’s why the UK is regressing; our so-called leaders aren’t interested in building a dynamic, go-ahead nation with a restored economy – they just want to ride us all into ruin and then take what they can for themselves.

The answer is clear to those of us who can see it. We need to change the voting system to root out the rot.

Don’t vote Labour at the next election. And don’t vote Tory either.

Vote for candidates who support proportional representation.

Vote for independents who understand the needs of your constituency.

And make sure everyone you know does the same. Starmer’s treachery means it is your only hope.

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If this is really the state of the UK, should we concentrate on voting for Proportional Representation?

The ballot box: at the moment, your vote doesn’t count for much because the ‘First Past The Post’ system means there are many ‘safe seats’ in Parliament, that go to the same parties at each election. The result is stagnant politics. Could proportional representation be the answer?

Interesting thread from economist Richard Murphy – showing that he, at least, is trying to think about the current political climate in a constructive way.

I’m not saying he’s absolutely right, but here’s his Twitter thread and I invite your comments:

This Writer wholeheartedly endorses that last comment!

(Sadly the BBC seems to be among those few.)

So there it is.

Is this the beginning of an answer? To bring in proportional representation so the next government we elect (after the one we elect in 2024 or 2025) accurately reflects the mood of the electorate at the time?

If so, I fear people may be put off by the fact that this would put us on an extremely slow path to reform.

To those people, the answer might be: slow reform is better than no reform at all.

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It’s Keir Starmer hypocrisy time! Send in your own favourite clips!

Here’s another hypocrite moment: Starmer took the knee for Black Lives Matter but to him it meant nothing more than a photo opportunity. He attacked the organisation shortly after as a “moment”.

Seriously, send links. I know there are a lot of them out there!

For now, let’s have a look at this moment on Good Morning Britain when Keir Starmer was asked if Diane Abbott would be suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party indefinitely, as Jeremy Corbyn was, if she is found to have been anti-Semitic – for “consistency”. Of course, Jeremy Corbyn has not been found to have been anti-Semitic, so it wouldn’t be consistent with anything.

In the same clip, Starmer refers to an “independent” disciplinary process. But he personally wrote the motion to exclude Jeremy Corbyn from being a candidate in general elections, and he has admitted that he personally intervened to have Diane Abbott suspended. So there’s no independence about the process at all:

Also unearthed on April 27:

Also:

So he wanted proportional representation to be brought in as a new electoral system a few years ago but, now that Labour might be able to win a big victory in a general election, he reckons the First Past The Post, largest-minority-vote takes-the-seat system is okay.

Please send links to more evidence of hypocrisy if you have it. Let’s keep this going!

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Boris Johnson earns £1m in six weeks, but taxpayer gets his bill for legal fees | The Times

Money, money, money: but Boris Johnson never seems to use any of his own – it’s always yours.

This is the story – and I should have got to it before The Times, of all places:

Boris Johnson has earned nearly a million pounds in just over six weeks – but is claiming public money for legal representation at the Partygate inquiry – and the amount seems to be limitless.

Sadly, the story is behind a paywall, so this is all I can show you –

Boris Johnson has earned nearly a million pounds in just over six weeks, it has been revealed. The former prime minister registered more than half a million po

– plus the link below.

His earnings were mentioned in a previous Vox Political piece, here.

And his public-money funding for Partygate is the subject of this article in the Graun, although it’s covered by many other media outlets if that one isn’t your cup of tea.

Entitled arseheads like Johnson really take the biscuit, don’t they?

He’s taken a million quid on the side – that’s additional to his MP salary, and has anybody actually seen him in the House of Commons lately? – but he wouldn’t dream of using any of it to fight the Partygate allegations.

He’ll happily take it from you and me instead.

That’s how they stay rich and you stay poor.

Source: Boris Johnson earns £1m in six weeks, but taxpayer gets his bill for legal fees | News | The Times

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MPs in safe seats are more likely to abuse the security by taking second jobs. Proportional Representation, anyone?

 

Geoffrey Cox: he has a safe seat, so he felt perfectly comfortable taking a second job and treating his Parliamentary work as a hobby.

 

Suddenly proportional representation is looking like the wise choice after all – isn’t it, Britain?

Some might say the result of the 2011 referendum on whether to introduce proportional representation for Parliamentary elections in the UK was a dire warning of the corruption that we see in government today. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

The bid to introduce a fairer voting system was resoundingly defeated by a 68 per cent of votes against to only 32 per cent for, on a turnout of 42 per cent of the electorate.

I wonder if the survivors of the other 58 per cent of registered voters at the time regret not bothering to turn up now they know that the result meant a continuation of “safe seats”, allowing the MPs who occupy them to corrupt themselves with second jobs with impunity.

You see, the current First Past The Post system lends itself to tribal voting, meaning that areas that traditionally vote for a particular party are likely to see that party’s representative into Parliament at every election, because there only needs to be enough of them to see off all the other contenders individually.

It means a minority of voters can impose their will – or, more realistically, the real plans behind the lies that their favoured party told to get elected – on the majority.

Do you think most of the UK wants the NHS carved up by a cabal of private corporations? Of course not – around 70 per cent of voters want full re-nationalisation. But that won’t stop the Tories taking it another step towards full privatisation – the exact opposite of what we want – on Tuesday.

By the same token, the individuals occupying those safe seats know that they’re unlikely to be voted out, so they know they can take second jobs and rake in the cash.

As the Guardian article states, the facts “undermine Boris Johnson’s suggestion that voters who disapprove of their MP’s outside work can simply unseat them at an election”.

Either that damned fool spoke without thinking (yet again), or he simply lied. Neither alternative is acceptable in a prime minister but – oh! He’s in a safe Tory seat! So you can’t vote him out.

You see how it works?

Pretty much all of the problems we have with our democracy today stem from the fact that in 2011 the UK voted not to have one.

Clive Lewis’s words (above) are absolutely true – but there is a fatal flaw.

The 2011 referendum was a once-in-a-lifetime situation, forced by the fact that the Tories had failed to win a majority in Parliament and a referendum was a condition of their coalition with the Liberal Democrats.

Now we live in a dictatorship where Boris Johnson lied his way to an 80-seat Conservative majority. Neither he nor any Tory who replaces him will ever allow another referendum because they know it would end the dictatorship they have lied so hard to achieve.

And we’re unlikely to see another hung Parliament for the foreseeable future because the main opposition party – Labour – is currently run by a red Tory wetwipe who probably couldn’t win an election if he was the only candidate.

Public opinion might push Johnson towards a gesture of some sort, but it won’t be much. He has already watered down plans to restrict MPs from holding second jobs.

And this week he can distract us all with the votes on the NHS and on asylum seekers.

Bread and circuses. It’s a tactic that has worked since Roman times – because you’re always going to fall for it. Or will you..?

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.

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Government forces BBC to fund political policies – then demands biased news reporting

131029bbcbias

Former BBC chairman Sir Christopher Bland is right to warn that the corporation is fast becoming an arm of the Conservative Government.

He was referring to the Tories’ plan to make the BBC fund their policy of free TV licences, which follows the transfer of the cost of the BBC World Service and BBC Monitoring to the Corporation. According to The Independent, it amounts to shifting £650m from the Government’s Budget to the BBC.

Not only that, but the Conservative Government has asked the BBC to change the way it reports stories about the militant group Isis – introducing overt political bias into its newsgathering.

Chris Grayling, Leader of the Commons, said the BBC should take the side of the UK – meaning the Conservative Government – in international conflicts.

“During the Second World War, the BBC was a beacon of fact, it was not expected to be impartial between Britain and Germany,” he told parliament.

“Rather subtly and unattractively it draws the BBC closer to becoming an arm of government which is always something that the BBC and government have resisted,” Sir Christopher told BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend.

“It’s the worst form of dodgy Whitehall accounting. It’s transferring social policy onto the licence fees and it’s shifting from direct taxation where it properly belongs the cost of a Gordon Brown giveaway that was doubtful in the first place anyhow.” [In his opinion]

George Osborne, speaking to Andrew Marr, came up with a pitifully weak defence of this offloading of responsibility onto the BBC: That it is publicly-funded.

He said: “The BBC is also a publicly funded, public institution and so it does need to make savings and contribute to what we need to do as a country to get our house in order.”

It doesn’t work like that, George!

If you want the BBC to pay for your policies – in effect, charging our public service broadcaster a tax to provide government policies – you need to give the BBC a say in what those policies are.

The principle is simple: No taxation without representation.

Otherwise, you should leave it alone.

The principle of public funding is intended to ensure that the BBC remains impartial, but you are trying to undermine it. Why?

Would the real reason have anything to do with your friend, Mr Murdoch?

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

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