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.