Euro elections.

You'll notice the lack of a witty title. I'm too depressed to come up with one.

I try to present myself here as a political neutral. However with regards to the far right parties I do take a stance. And it is in firm opposition.

I live in the Yorkshire and Humber region at present. I am appalled by the election of a BNP MEP.

Whats worse is that I am appalled by the number of people voting for them. Some may be protest votes, others maybe only voting on one issue and ignoring all the others, but there have still got to be a large number of people who have chosen BNP in the full knowledge and understanding of what they represent and have chosen irregardless!

I did vote. (I shan't say who for but it was not the BNP) and I encouraged everyone I could to vote. Why? Because a proportional representation system will always favour parties that appeal to extremists since these people will go out and vote while those in the middle ground often don't. This point is clearly shown by Nick Griffin in the North West who got in despite getting fewer votes than last time! How can this system be reasonable? And people want it the General election? Lets just think about that and realise that doing so will give the BNP and other extremist parties and real chance of getting large numbers of people into Parliament. Which would be an outright disaster.

But who is the blame. Well in Hull it's simple. The other parties. No campaigners have called at my house. I have received only a handful of election flyers. Labour said if the Tories get in to Westminster, Westminster mark you, not Brussels which is what we were voting on, it would be a disaster. Lib Dems simply put out their usual flyer of "only the Lib Dems can beat Labour in Hull", completely irrelevant in a region wide election. The Tories were a little better, actually commenting on issues and stating policies that were appropriate to the European Parliament, but since I never even knew we had Tory MEPs in this area their stating what they've done now was perhaps a little late. And the BNP flyer. This was only talking about policy. Now most of it will be unachievable in the European Parliament but the fact was they presented clear policy up front whereas every other party you had to wade through a mass of material to find policies if they were even there! There was little opposition bashing which took up most of the other campaign leaflets and is probably the biggest turn off to politics in the known world.

In our democratic system we do have to say that the BNP were elected freely and fairly and we must respect the will of people in this. But I do not like it and I condemn the other parties for their weak, ineffectual and lazy campaigning which allowed this to happen. Most people given a choice between a person who presents themselves as straight forward and someone who waffles on and says nothing will choose the former even if they know he is holding something back. Shame on you the main stream parties. It is you that allowed this to happen and no amount of blaming the system, blaming protest votes, blaming ineffectual leaders or public influence can excuse you. I can only hope that in the next few months you will find the moral conviction to realise that it your parties that can prevent this getting worse come the general election. And you had better do something about it.

5/6/2009 D-Day for Labour

The 65th anniversary of the normandy landing isn't till tomorrow. But right now I'd imagine that Brown and the Labour party feel a bit like the soldiers on the eve of the battle. The German ones.

Last night the polls closed at 10pm. At 10:01 James Purnell, the minister for work and pensions resigned. His resignation letter was a statement of no confidence in Gordon Brown.

This morning Brown is declaring his reshuffle. Early. And thus far without the major head rolling that was expected. A sign of weakness? The rest of the day will tell.

Also the local elections are not looking good. Labour has lost Bristol and the tories and Lib Dems have both made gains.

More as the day goes on.

PMQs-3/6/2009 The house still on holiday

Not a lot happened to day so don't expect a long update.

After 4 of Cameron's questions Brown had won. After all 6 it was a no score draw. Cameron was toothless in attack throughout. Brown stayed calm and gave measured, if uninformative responses. However on question 5 and 6 he got carried away and launch into his loud angry rhetoric which once again showed that he has no grasp of what the general public wants to hear.

Clegg's questions were not worth the breath he expelled asking them.

Away from that it was a standard question time.

Oh how I wish the speaker had carried out his threat to suspend the house. That would have been much more fun.

Exciting Times ahead

This week will be rather interesting. We have local elections (labour expected to get a kicking), European elections (potentially all the main parties to get a kicking) and a confirmed reshuffle which will see a new home secretary (as Jacqui Smith is stepping down), probably a new communities secretary, possibly a new chancellor and maybe other changes as well.

The possibility of a new chancellor is the most interesting. Since Brown still gives the strong impression of wanting to run the economy from number 10 any replacement would have to be a loyal Brownite and the Tories would immediately construe it as an admission that this chancellor wasn't up to the job.

We'll just have to see.

Politics update

Parliament is in recess this week so no PMQs update. However it is a good time, now the dust is settling a bit, to take stock of the fallout of the last few weeks.

The speaker has forced from office by weight of opinion in the commons (although frankly this was just a scapegoat attempt by MPs). The precedent here, breaking the last 300 years of tradition, is potentially alarming for the power of parliament but of limited significance to the wider public who are largely unaffected by the speakers authority.

The re-selection of MPs as candidates for the next election is looking more unlikely in many constituencies. Some of the back benchers taking the worst heat from the Telegraph have already declared they will not be standing. This morning a Tory mp on radio 5 attempted a bleeding heart defence of her claims saying that she was only trying to balance her parliamentary duties with caring for her son. This argument produced a sum total of no sympathy among listeners responding in the phone in programme (there are millions of working mothers who don't get state help, why should she? being the usual response) and by lunchtime the announcement of her readiness to step down was made. No front bencher from either side has yet made a similar announcement but on the whole the spot light has generally turned away from them.

David Cameron has been busy. In an interview on Sunday he said he was opening the conservative candidate list to anyone, whether previous party member or not. This is an idea I feel positively about and also is not a "say anything do nothing" announcement which I am pleased about. On Tuesday he announced his clean up politics strategy. And it is interesting. In a nut shell he plans to

1. "seriously consider" the possibility of fixed term parliaments.
2. enlarge constituencies to make a smaller house of commons
3. publish expense details of high paid officials and expensive projects online
4. allow free votes to MPs on all bills at committee stage
5. limit the use of royal prerogative
6. give backbenchers power over timetabling of bills and electing members and chairmen of select committees

This all sounds good but I have a few reservations. Fixed term parliaments are only good if there is a way to dissolve hung parliaments that are achieving nothing. (This was the problem the US had in the last term where the house and senate were democrat and the president republican). Enlarging constituencies would limit the contact MPs would have with constituents. Otherwise these proposals are good if he sticks to them. The free vote idea has the problem that he would have to enforce it on all parties to make it work. I'm not sure he could achieve that.

PMQs 20/5/2009 - You arrogant %&*@>

I really do try to be fair in my posts here. So i will start with the good bit about PMQs. I actually missed the first half live and had to rewatch it. And in the second half there were good questions which were actually getting proper answers. I was startled but pleased. It seemed that the attempt to improve politics involved using PMQs for what it should be for.

Then I saw the first half and found out why Brown was being so open. Because he had managed to drop a vast nuclear bomb on his head.

The arrogance of the man is beyond believe. Cameron admitedly was playing a bit of sound bite politics, since I'm not certain he'd really want an election now. It would just be too uncertain with the possibility of a ragbag of smaller parties piling into the gulf left by the expenses scandal. (parlimentary scaremongers keep raising the issue of votes for the BNP). But for Brown to stand up and say that he will not allow the British people their voice simply because he might not like what they say is the most undemocratic and downright ridiculous thing he has ever said. And thats up against some stiff competion (saving the world etc).

But this wasn't a slip of the tongue. This was terrifying candidness. Brown has admitted to the house and the country that he is too scared to fight an election. Which translates as he's too determined to hang on to power to realise that he does not have the support of the public. Were this a monarchy and Brown the king and revolution would be imminent with a statement like that!

He could have got out of it. He really could. There are valid reasons not to hold an election. Firstly there's the question of precedent. If a decision by a future government is unpopular, if a few mps get involved in scandels does that trigger an election? This arguement does have something of the "What next?" label about it and it wouldn't have sounded great, but it beats the answer he did give. The problem is, he has basically said he doesn't have faith in the system the elected him to the commons (if not as PM: he still has never had to win a vote on that!) and this represents a basic lack of faith in Britain. Brown is looking less and less likely to have any chance in an election when one happens.

Cameron's tactical manouvre of leaving a question unasked was quite astute. Brown was probably hoping for one last big hit but Cameron stopped him. Well done.

Nick Clegg did well again. He has risen well in the past few weeks to the point that Labour MPs were trying to drown him out, something they almost never do. The banter between him and the speaker was fun, and the dignified recovery from not being initally given his second question showed him in a good light. Brown tried to get in on the act but failed. And then said that reforming the british democracy was vital

You have to wonder how many people he's got trying to find a way to change it so the least popular man wins

Brown comes good

There is a title I didn't expect to write.

Brown made an apology for the whole of parliment in a speech to a nursing union conference today. Watching the speech (which you the reader can here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8043499.stm) I have to say I'm impressed.

Brown looks vary awkward, he kept walking around and not really keeping eye contact. Strangly I found this more reassuring. Afterall the expenses row is not something they can be proud of and if he'd given a polished confident speech I'd have not been convinced by him at all. As it was he seemed genuinly shamed and awkward which was quite appropriate.

He also did better than Cameron. Cameron wanted MPs to apologise for the system. Brown apologised for the loss of trust and the fact that MPs had upset the public. This is the attitude that politicians should be taking. Well done Gordon