http://www.takebackparliament.com/

Sign!

Whatever the final result – and at this time of the morning it’s still unclear who will end up in Number 10 – there are real issues coming out of this election.

First is a sense of real joy that the repugnant views of the BNP have been so roundly rejected. The result in Barking and Dagenham was a high spot of the night where Margaret Hodge (for whom I don’t have that much time) humiliated Nick Griffin (for whom I have absolutely none).

Second is the “locking out” of voters. No! We don’t need an enquiry into this and it isn’t down to massive failures of the process and it isn’t undemocratic. All those people who turned up late in the evening? You could have got a postal vote – it’s only a tick on a form! The polling stations were open for fifteen hours! Get your lives together and stop blaming others for your own failures.

Most important, though, is the state of our electoral system. Continue reading The REAL outrage … →

… remember a few things.

Remember the Winter of Discontent, the Three Day Week and the Miners’ Strike. Remember the Poll Tax, the banking failure and the inner city riots.

Remember that since the Second World War we have seesawed between two political forces who only have their own vested interests at heart – who shout and scream at each other like playground bullies – who mislead and dissemble purely to make us believe that they have a monopoly on truth and wisdom – that only THEY can deliver us from evil into the kingdom that runs with milk and honey. THEY will then throw all their promises out of the window and spend the next five years exercising absolute power.

Remember that, for sixty-five long and tortuous years, this model has NOT WORKED.

Remember that the two main parties will try to frighten you into believing that the sky will split asunder and rain blood unless there’s a decisive victory for THEM.

Tomorrow, I beg you, think for a moment and then vote tactically for a hung parliament.

Maybe only then will THEY stop lobbing brickbats at each other and start talking about the problems that WE need to be solved.

I was going to write a small rant about Gordo’s unfortunate (but understandable) gaff, but I can’t do better than Mallin – so you can clickie the linkie and read his here.

Our electoral system has always been something of a sick joke. First past the post rarely, if ever, produces anything apart from government by the largest minority – sometimes not even that. And that’s the way the Labservatives like it.

They’re quite happy to have a two-horse system whereby we switch and swap every decade or so. They’re quite happy to have absolute power, with its concomitant corruption. They don’t want anyone else jumping on the seesaw and disturbing their little game. Meanwhile, like piggy in the middle, we listen to their empty promises, their weasel words and we suffer their excesses.

The great stumbling block to the leaders’ debates in the past has always been whether or not the “third” party leader should be included. The fallout from Thursday shows just why the Labservatives have always run scared of giving the “third man” an equal footing. Continue reading The “Third” Party →

The first real bribe of the election campaign has been announced.

To the accompaniment of fanfares and hurrahs the boy David and his pre-pubescent would-be Chancellor (Baby George) have unveiled their plan to support marriage through a “tax break”. (It also, apparently, applies to we partnered poofs!).

We’re in line for £150 a year – or £2.88 per week – but ONLY where one partner does not use their full personal allowance, i.e. earns less than £6,475 per year.

Ooo – quick, I’m off to write my resignation and apply for a part time job at Lidl.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies has said “The incentives to marry – or not to divorce – provided by a policy whose maximum benefit is £150 a year must surely be weak relative to the other costs and benefits involved”. I’d go further and say “It’s pants”!

Conservative sources have said that “the tax break was designed to be a symbol and message – in other words a gesture. There are a few of them I’d like to make in your direction, lads, if that’s the best you can come up with!

Today the worst kept secret for many a year in British politics was finally out. No prizes for guessing this late in the day as government ministers have been dropping May the 6th since before Christmas!

This is now the fourteenth general election since I was born. Obviously, I was a bit young to appreciate Wilson’s landslide in 1966, but I’ve been following the damned things since 1970. I used to find the general election fascinating, but I’m now struck by an immense feeling of “here we bloody go again”!

Watch out people.

We’re now in for four weeks of saturation coverage, where even the suited and booted party leaders’ very bowel movements will be subject to in-depth analysis by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight.

We’ll have four weeks of empty promises – Continue reading And … They’re Off … … … →