*Sigh*

Our rulers seem to have decided that the parliamentary expenses brouhaha is so bad that it can only be put to rest by implementing whatever policies they already wanted to implement.

The ideal solution would be an Irish-style single transferable vote system in which voters elect the person, not the party. But even alternative vote plus – as first advocated by Roy Jenkins in 1998 and now backed by Alan Johnson – would ensure most MPs have a personal constituency link with their voters, as already occurs in Germany and Scotland. Labour made a promise more than a decade ago to hold a referendum on the Jenkins proposals. If the government won't call a general election, let us have this referendum in early September, as the culmination of 100 days of reform.

Together, over the next 100 days, we could achieve nothing less than the total reinvention of British politics.

That Nick Clegg really is a chancer, isn't he ? If there's one thing that the expenses scandal DOESN'T show, it's the need for electoral reform - which might be needed for other reasons, but not for this one.

Indeed the strength of constituency feeling is one of the reasons why, for example, the lovely Julie Kirkbride is feeling the heat at present in Bromsgrove. Electorally, I think she may be able to hang on in there - although the Lib Dims might put up a battle, but every new story leaves Cameron looking less like Mr Decisive and more like Mr Wobbly.

She fights on though - she fights to win.

Like millions of women I am a mother who works. Like millions of other working mothers I have put in place networks to ensure that my child enjoys security and consistency while I work demanding hours and do the best job I can...

But a wider issue gives me great concern. What effect will stories like mine have on mothers who aspire to be MPs? We want Parliament to be more representative and that includes women with school-age children.

Just before this story broke, I spoke to a woman journalist thinking of entering Parliament. Her main concern was the effect it would have on her children. I assured her it was possible to combine an MP's life with being a good mother, as long as she organised her support structure well.

That must continue to be the case - or Parliament risks taking a step backwards.

So it's all about Jimmy being able to go to sleep in his own little room again, is it ? Worth a try I suppose. And Mr Cameron wants to maintain a bit of diversity in the ranks. If she was a bloke her feet would not have touched the ground. Her husband's didn't.




Elsewhere, as has been written on mass immigration:

... where would you like to go ? To Scotland or Wales, with their strong Nationalist parties ? To Ulster, where Sinn Fein/IRA are still killing people because their forebears were immigrants four hundred years ago ? Or to a country whose national flag should really be emblazoned with the word 'Sorry !'. No choice, really, is it ?


Sir Andrew Green was saying pretty much the same thing five years back.


Now it's finally filtering down to Parliament. Immigration is overwhelmingly - and disproportionately - to England :

Scotland's perception of itself as an increasingly multi-ethnic and diverse country will be challenged today by official figures that show almost all of the net international immigration to Britain since 1991 has gone to England.

Between 1991 and the 2007 a net 2.14million migrants came to England. But in Scotland for the same period net foreign migration was a paltry 105,000.

In effect, the statistics mean that England absorbed 20 times more international migrants than Scotland even though the population is only 10 times larger. England also took 11 times more migrants than Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland combined, even though its population is only 5 times larger than these three parts of the UK put together.

Squander Two on Cameron

"I don't even care why Cameron has said what he's said and done what he's done in the last couple of days. He's right, and he's doing what's right. Sure, you've got to worry about how consistently a man with no principles can be right, but this thing's big enough for the rest not to matter so much. And it's also big enough to significantly shape the behaviour of the party. Overnight, the Tories have become the most principled party, and clearly not because they wanted to, but because they've been forced into it by Cameron. Well, OK, then. I'll take him as Prime Minister."

Discuss.

"How can I be a racist when I’m black?"

'Anti-racist' Lib Dem councillor blots her copybook. Her 'coconut' jibe is doubly offensive - to the (Asian) Conservative councillor at whom it was directed, and in its implication that white = bad. She's accusing Ms Jethra of being a traitor to her skin colour - an accusation that levelled by a white Lib Dem councillot at another white councillor would see them drummed out of the party once people had stopped laughing. Whatever happened to the colour of a man's skin being no more significant than the colour of his eyes ?

She's an ignorant woman too, arguing that whiteness is the reason why a councillor wouldn't be interested in commemorating slavery at taxpayer expense. Doesn't she know about the thousands of white slaves shipped from Bristol to the Viking kingdoms of Ireland after the Norman conquest, and the saintly bishop who fought against the trade ? As William of Malmesbury put it :

‘You might well groan to see the long rows of young men adn maidesn whose beauty and youth might move the pity of a savage, bound together with cords, and brought to market to be sold. It was a damnable sin, a piteous reproach, that men, worse than brute beasts, should sell into slavery their own lemans (sweehearts or lovers - LT), nay, their own blood.’

Eventually the saint’s preaching was so successful that not only did the people of Bristol abandon the trade and become ‘an example to all England’, but they blinded and drove out one slave trader who entered the city.

Frozen Washing on the Curate's Line

The Martyrdom of St Yazza :

"tell me you aren't ashamed at what our country has become when a middle aged muslim woman of Asian descent can be treated like this. She was questioned at length by plain clothes police officers who never once told her who they were or why she was being questioned."

I listened to the video, most of which was a moan about how "I love this country but ...", then we got to the facts. She was taking an internal flight, there was a mix-up and her tickets weren't kosher for the flight she was trying to board, so she was taken aside and asked a few questions. No abuse, no threats, no shouting.

I had a similar interview leaving Heathrow for NY on Pan-Am, a year after Lockerbie. I'm presuming the Libyan visa in my passport was the catalyst. They were perfectly polite, I answered their (reasonable) questions and away I went.

This really is a tsumami in some Earl Grey - and Iain Dale, what's all this about "we should be ashamed" ? Are you arguing that middle-aged, middle class Muslim women should be exempt from the (tedious but probably necessary) airline security checks the rest of us go through ?

I love Yazza like I love Melanie Phillips, but both can on occasions see "oppression" when it's not there.

There's enough of the real thing about without nonsense like this.

What a strange way to spin a story.

The UK’s official statistician weighed into the debate about foreign workers yesterday by highlighting the growing numbers of immigrants getting jobs while the British workforce declines.

On the day that figures showed the number of people unemployed at a 12-year high, the Office for National Statistics chose to reveal that the number of foreign workers increased by 175,000 to 2.4 million last year while the number of British workers fell by 234,000 to 27 million.

Karen Dunnell, the National Statistician, sought to focus public attention on the contrasting fortunes of foreign and British workers as the country slipped into recession. Her intervention came as construction workers took part in wildcat strikes at power stations in Nottinghamshire and Kent, angry about jobs going to foreigners.

I see. The figures aren't the important thing, it's that they were released. Que ? I think FWIW that it's 'deeply unhelpful' to characterise telling the truth as a move in some political game. Obviously that's the way Sam Coates, Richard Ford and David Brown see it.


There is no end to Labour sleaze.

LORD TRUSCOTT, one of four peers named in the “lords for hire” scandal, has taken at least £70,000 in allowances for overnight accommodation in London while staying at his home in the capital.

Truscott, 49, now receives £28,000-a-year tax free by telling House of Lords’ authorities that his main residence is a modest flat in Bath, Somerset.

He uses the allowance to maintain a £700,000 flat he owns in Mayfair, central London, with his Russian wife, Svetlana. He bought the property in Bath months after becoming eligible to claim the allowance.

Lord Paul of Marylebone, the billionaire steel magnate and Labour donor who is nondomiciled, is one of a number of other peers who take advantage of the perk.

The deafening silence on the issue at PMQs yesterday seems to be confirmation that they're all at it.

THE financier who has been appointed to protect taxpayers’ money in Britain’s bailed-out banks is a former trustee of a secretive Liechtenstein bank accused of facilitating massive tax evasion.

Glen Moreno, who chairs the powerful body that oversees the government’s £37 billion shareholding in the banks, was paid hundreds of thousands of pounds during a nine-year association with Liechtenstein Global Trust (LGT), a private bank based in the tax haven.

The disclosures are an embarrassment for Gordon Brown, who last week criticised offshore tax havens and called for international action to stamp out tax evasion.

What with James Crosby, Gordon seems to be an expert at hiring foxes as poultry management consultants. But it's this that really bothers me :

The SNP has demanded an inquiry after it emerged that a record of everyone who voted in last year's contest in Glenrothes has gone missing.

All of the major parties, including Labour on election night itself, had predicted that the Nationalists would win the seat, which borders Gordon's Brown's constituency.

Instead Lindsay Roy, Labour's candidate, swept to victory and dealt a stunning blow to Alex Salmond, the First Minister and SNP leader, who had confidently predicted victory.

The result was a huge fillip to the Prime Minister, who broke with convention and risked his political credibility by joining the campaign trail with his wife, Sarah.

Thus far UK electoral fraud has been confined to Ulster Republicans and other minority communities with a tradition of same, although I wouldn't put it past some well-meaning liberal types to lose a few boxes of BNP votes and think they were protecting democracy - after all, we've all been taught what happened in Germany. The worst the Labour leadership (as opposed to their local party machines) have done is to turn a blind eye. This would be different, and a very worrrying sign for our democracy. I hope and pray that Mr Cock-up is responsible here - but it's not good that we can even entertain the idea of Scottish Labour taking the Mugabe route to electoral success. Not so long ago it would have been unthinkable. It isn't now.


Oh, forgot to say. Remember the liberal myth of Superbowl violence, which inspired our PC police into campaigns against World Cup Domestic Violence ?

Meet the rugby equivalent - Six Nations Domestic Violence 2008. And Rugby World Cup 2007.

Police are launching patrols in the south Wales valleys during the Rugby World Cup to allow them to respond quickly to domestic violence.

Reality trumps satire yet again.

Your (Alleged) Vote Frauds Tonight

The two-knocked-into-one terrace with 24 bedrooms and 27 registered voters.

A would-be MP is being investigated by police after it emerged 27 people are registered to vote at his house. And officers are also probing claims a prospective councillor has five people registered at his home who are also listed at other properties in the same town. Both Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate Mohammed Afzal Anwar and Labour Pendle Council candidate Mohammed Tariq have insisted they have done nothing wrong.

Police launched their investigation after separate allegations were made to Pendle Council and Lancashire Constabulary by the Liberal Democrat and Labour parties in Pendle.

Mr Anwar said there was nothing untoward about the number of voters living at his terraced home which is 214 to 216 Manchester Road, Nelson, and consists of two houses knocked into one. He said that 27 people were registered to vote at the property, but that not all were resident in this country at any one time. Mr Anwar said no postal or proxy votes would be requested for the property. He said that he had discussed the situation with election officials at Pendle Council.

Mr Anwar said: "There are different people who are living in different parts of the properties. There are certain people who go abroad from time to time. One or two are students who have been in Poland for example. And other people are going (abroad) and coming back. There will be no postal or proxy votes issued from this address."

His election agent, Coun Tony Greaves, said the property was inhabited by Mr Anwar, his father, three brothers, their respective families and "contains 24 bedrooms."

Only two people registered at the addresses, who were currently resident in Pakistan, were not entitled to vote, said Coun Greaves. Labour party officials asked Pendle police to launch a probe amid claims that not all residents living there should be entitled to vote.

The claims followed Liberal Democrat allegations over Labour candidate Mohammed Tariq, who is standing in Whitefield ward in next month's Pendle Council elections.
He is accused of having five people registered at his Portland Street home who are also registered at other properties elsewhere in Nelson. Pendle Labour group leader Mohammed Iqbal is Mr Tariq's election agent and said the prospective councillor had done nothing wrong. He said: "I have looked into Lord Greaves's allegations concerning Mr Tariq. They seem to centre round two members of our candidate's family." Police confirmed that they were investigating allegations of electoral fraud in Pendle.

A Free Media

I found myself in Harare, capital of Zimbabwe, a few weeks ago, and I was horrified by the political bias in the state controlled press.

The Herald had this banner headline on the front page :

MDC'S CITY ELECTION BID SPARKS OUTRAGE

and the following "story" :

The news that opposition politicians will once again be fighting for votes at next month's local elections has sparked outrage in Harare.

Council leader Musiiwa Chikorobho (ZAPU) said the announcement that the MDC is targeting the area in next month's council election has left him "devastated".

As nominations for the May elections closed yesterday, the MDC had registered four candidates in Harare and two in Chitungwiza.

In Harare, Alex Gweru, of Seza Road, Timba, is standing in Timba township and Alicias Denhere, of Mangisi Heights, Mutare, is standing in Madziwa.

Johane Masowe, of Lon Gutu, Manatsa Town, is hoping to be elected in Manatsa, while Samuel Moyana, of Rhodes Settlement, Chavhunduka, is appearing on the Makomeke ballot papers.

Councillor Chikorobho said: "I am absolutely devastated.

"I think the ordinary people of Harare will be absolutely devastated that these particular people have been able to get a nomination paper signed.

"I think the citizens of this city will be wise enough to see these individuals do not, and will never, represent their feelings."

ZANU-PF group leader Councillor David Phillips said: "It is regrettable the MDC thinks Harare is fertile ground for them.

"I sincerely believe they are mistaken.

"Neither I nor any ZANU candidate will share a platform with them.

"This is a party that deserves no support."

In Chitungwiza, Adie Kembo, of Manicaland Road, Honde Valley, Penhalonga, is standing in the Penhalonga ward and Kevin Netsai, of Tokoloshe Drive, Raphela, Lalapanzi, is standing in that ward.

Two things struck me about the story - the main headline in the weekend edition of the paper.

First, it was essentially a non-story - or a manufactured one. Stripping out the outrage and devastation revealed the fact that two politicos didn't like a third party that was about to stand against them in the elections. Giving them a free front page for this non-story was ostensibly journalism, in practice a non-declarable donation of election publicity that would have cost them tens of thousands to buy themselves, and which would have broken electoral funding rules.

Secondly, and most sinister, the addresses of all the opposition candidates were published - on the front page of the main local daily. The "devastated" ZAPU and ZANU politicos were also standing, but their addresses weren't published. The addresses of all candidates are public, but are rarely splashed (in a negative story) over the front page. It looked as if the intention was two-fold - to remind opposition candidates that "we know where you live - and so, now, does everyone else", and to make it easier for ZANU's politically motivated thugs to attack them.

The editor of the Herald may be a despicable dirtbag, but he's a paid hireling of the government. We in Britain should be thankful for our free press, the tool of no political party - and should be both grateful that this doesn't happen here - and vigilant to ensure that it never does.












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... I say ! Where am I ?


Gosh. I've just had the strangest dream ... sorry, I'm still half asleep ... all about Zimbabwe and the elections ... whatever made me dream that ? ...







Oh Lordy. I've just remembered. I wasn't in Harare. I was in Swansea, this weekend.


And the paper with the front page story was the South Wales Evening Post.

Another One Bites The Dust

When it's not Lib Dem vote fraud in Lancashire, it's benefit fraud :

A councillor has been told he faces jail after admitting a £3,000 benefit fraud. Shear Brow councillor Arif Waghat of Buncer Lane, Blackburn, admitted two offences of allowing or causing his wife Safia Umerji to make false income support and council tax benefit claims. After the hearing, Waghat resigned from the local Liberal Democrat party of which he was deputy leader. If he was to receive a three-month prison sentence or more at the next hearing, he would be disqualified from standing as a councillor under the council's Code of Conduct.

This is the bit I like :

After the case, leader of the Liberal Democrat group Coun David Foster confirmed Waghat had resigned from their party. When asked if Waghat should remain a councillor he said: "It is his decision. I'm sorry he's had to resign from the group but I respect the integrity he has shown in doing that."

The comments are interesting too. Apparently he worked as a benefits adviser for many years. And the mealy-mouthed response of the Tory, and the condemnation from Labour, are all explained when you look at the balance of power on Blackburn Council.