when Phil Woolas says that they need a law to halve the deficit so that civil servants know they’re serious about it!

If it’s not enough to have two Lab/Tory talking heads on tonights’ This Week it’s even more unfortunate that Diane Abbott is allowed to parade her deliberate ignorance or subconcious ignorance of the Lib Dems on that show.

I complained before about that programme’s lack of airing of a Lib Dem counter-balance when it came to the Economy – now Diane Abbott said `the thing is for Labour voters there are other places where they can go – the Greens in Brighton, BNP in Burnley` yet Andrew Neil never picked her up on the following:

Burnley has a LIBERAL DEMOCRAT RUN COUNCIL, 5 LIBERAL DEMOCRAT COUNTY COUNCILLORS and may soon have a LIBERAL DEMOCRAT MP.

I’ve sent an email to the BBC asking for this to be clarified and to invite a Burnley Liberal Democrat on to the show to explain how one can SUCCESFULLY kick the BNP out of town.

when they need an item on the `to do` list to remind them to be fiscally responsible.

What’s the matter – can’t they do it by instinct?

I refer to Lynne’s article on female representation in Parliament.

Of course there needs to be more female representation as well as everything else – yet it shouldn’t be at the expense of quality. My mind flicks back at the amazing Patsy Calton and how she achieved her parliamentary ambitions.

With the best will in the world, and Lynne must surely know this, you can have all the wonderful literature in the world, loads of people phoning and knocking on doors yet if there isn’t the WILL, the wholly focussed `Boudicea like` determination of the woman being promoted there won’t be the momentum to put that woman over the top.

To be a target candidate is no different to being a warrior. You’re competing against at least one other `narrative brand` and unless that woman is whole-hearted about the project and at least spends some ruthlessly focussed time in the constituency it’s all a bit like a lucky casino player. Your luck might be in, it might not.

Too many times I’ve seen this happen – a great campaign yet the woman was nowhere to be found. The second problem is not listening to the agent. Or is it a problem that the whip-cracker is male – perhaps we should be promoting more female agents?

Lynne complains that the Commons is 80% men. Why then do women vote for male candidates? Surely, it’s in their grasp to put themselves forward and ask for female electors to vote for them. Could it be that most women, having looked at the 1997  female Labour intake and their ineffectual ways, have decided that they are not that bothered about whether their MP is male or female and are really looking at party policy?

Perhaps at the Council level women differentiate more between male and female candidates particularly in all-out elections.

So, if I were a female target candidate with the ability to do the job I’d make sure I could devote the time and energy to do so as well as performing to that level. Yes, it might sound unfair – yet I have never been to a selection meeting where the fact that someone is female has cropped up as a question. Indeed, I once worked in an inner city two-member ward where both of the candidates were women (and very effective they were too – women who were the main social motivators in that ward came out in force).

That’s why the gender-balance task force stuff doesn’t wash with me. Not because I don’t want women to be elected – just that if you do want to be elected as a Liberal Democrat you have to have the bloody-minded warrior-like attitude to go with it – whether you are a man or a woman.

I think we should be going to town on this case. Otherwise the Tories will as like them we voted against the statutory instruments that made this a strict liability law.

Chris Huhne asked a question that was published in Hansard.

Furthermore Harry Cohen MP (the Labour 2nd home hanger on I mean `person to step down at the next election` (see also this convoluted dogs ear of a posting) wrote on his blog about this issue.

Furthermore, he wrote the following on his blog:

Figures recently released by the Home Office show a significant increase in the sentences handed-down by the courts for possession of a firearm since changes introduced by Labour in 2003 – changes which both the Tories and the Lib-Dems voted against. Since that law change the proportion of convicted offenders getting immediate custody for carrying a gun has risen from 24% to 63%.

Average sentence lengths for gun possession are much longer – up 73% from 27.3 months in 2003 to 47.3 months in 2005. The number of offenders getting sentences of 5 years or over in 2005 for firearms possession was four times what it was in 2003 and sixteen times what it was under the Tories. Under them, a mere 13% of convicted offenders for firearm possession went to prison, and then they got a light sentence. In June 1997 they voted against the Firearms Act which banned hand guns. And in May 2003, they voted against the whole of the Criminal Justice Bill which had the five year minimum custodial sentences for unauthorised possession of a firearm.

Those who use or carry guns should be under no illusion that they risk a long spell behind bars. I am pleased the Courts now treat the illegal possession of a firearm with the gravity it deserves.

I take it in his desire to prove `tougher than the Tories` he didn’t think what that first sentence of the paragraph in bold actually meant.

 

 

 

Who’d have thanked it? A dangerously incompetent Prime Minister outfoxing the Sun on…. POLITICS! Lord Mandersdorf deftly brought up the rear (ooh,err, missus).

If you read the comments on any website the sympathy is with Brown and not the person the Sun is using representing. That’s a lost war for the Sun.

Now that the SUN has offended a lot of its readers – shouldn’t it – err – apologise to them?

After all, that’s what it expects in spades of everyone else.

knock on my door at 2.

No thanks.

 

ie about one of Jo Crotty’s interns in Warrington  – they could actually be investigating the current state of play of Warrington South which has become a 3-way marginal. Just a thought.

I would recommend anyone that is politically active to listen to the latest `file on four` (available to the 14/11/089) on high frequency trading. And if anyone had any doubts on the LIBERAL DEMOCRAT policy about seperating the normal retail banking that involves itself with SMES, mortgages and savings etc and the high frequency trading where shares can be traded in milliseconds I’d like to hear the explanations and what their own huge bank balance is.

In the programme it told how there’s a two-tier share trading system between the usual type where you phone up a broker to the ones where institutions trade with each other via computers using algorithms with no people involved. Worse than that these computer systems actually snoop on the first type of traders `to get ahead of them` to make huge profits.

There are also `dark pools` that are off-exchange, if you like, where pension funds trade shares with each other.

In other words companies (peoples jobs) are treated as playthings. Perhaps these people can own up to this and reveal all?

Apparently, these `casino operations` will distort our economy by making banks even more cautious about lending thus creating more unemployment.

And if that worries someone as conservative as Lord Myners it should worry everyone. Pity the message hasn’t sunk in with his boss Gordon Brown who refuted the idea when it was put to him by Nick Clegg. The point is that no regulatory body can properly regulate these operations yet should they go bust they’ll ask to be bailed out.

Is it any surprise that the name of Goldman Sachs reared its ugly head. They have profited greatly from the credit crunch and now are jealously guarding their algorithmic code. Still, perhaps the CEO can explain how that is in keeping with God’s plan for prosperity. It’s certainly not to do with driving down commission  prices for the benefit of ordinary people – just for the super-rich like himself. The last banking crisis seemed to be created by self-delusionists – we don’t want another one.

In my opinion if Gordon Brown doesn’t understand the gravity of what the File on Four programme portrays then he is DANGEROUSLY INCOMPETENT.

If Government means anything it means dealing with things way before the curve (not ten years behind like Gordon Brown). Many people are realising that they can no longer afford the ineffective failings of Labour. They view Labour as old-fashioned, over-powered and over-indulged.

Furthermore, it is imperative that we reform the financial system in the way Vince Cable does so that our broken democracy doesn’t crumble any further. Should wealth inequalities grow wider we will see geographical inequalities grow in an equal amount – that will give assistance to extreme forces to the detriment of the law-abiding majority.

Of course, should that ever happen, the ferrari-driving bankers won’t be anywhere to be found.

If this doesn’t make intelligent people think about Gordon Brown and Labour in a negative light I don’t know what will.

Well done to Cowley Street. From what I can see they knock the two other main parties into a cocked hat. 10/10.