Archive for June, 2009
Dissolution of Parliament
ballot box
The complete contempt with which Politicians treat the general public was clearly demonstrated yesterday in a debate in the House of Commons proposing the dissolution of parliament.
The SNP and Plaid Cymru, used their time to propose that the House be dissolved, forcing a general election. Politicians argue of course, that this was never going to come to fruition as there was no chance of Labour MPs voting for the proposal and with their majority the proposal would be defeated.
It may have escaped these self serving MPs that large sections of the British Public are very keen on a general election being held immediately. This debate would have provided the politicians who oppose the idea of an early General Election with an opportunity to put forward their case, not just to other members of parliament, but to the General Public.
The very fact they missed this simple truism indicates just how ignorant they are of the Public mood and how they treat the House of Commons as their personal fiefdom. The view was taken by politicians that the opposition benches would support the proposal, the Labour MPs would oppose the motion and therefore there was nothing to discuss and sure enough about 30 MPs attended the debate over the period and all the MPs managed to vote, defeating the proposal by 70 odd votes.
In any other walk of life a discussion about the effective dismissal of all staff, would generate some interest, people may just turn up to argue their case, but not politicians. They would of course argue, the maths was done the matter was simple, but as far as the electorate is concerned the maths isn’t the issue, the suitability of MPs to remain in office was the issue.
The debate was about the dissolution of parliament, which was a debate about the MPs themselves, not the more usual motion of a vote of Confidence in the Government. This should not have been a debate about the suitability of Government, but of the MPs themselves, a quite different proposition. For sure, the outcome remains the same, however the fact that so few MPs, particularly those who had been ‘outed’ as expense fixers, didn’t see this as an opportunity to defend their position is inexcusable.
The debate ended up as a party political divide, when it should have been a free vote. I would have liked to have seen my MP defending his position and justifying why he did or didn’t think parliament should be dissolved, instead he didn’t bother to turn up and voted with the party whip.
Politicians have learnt absolutely nothing. They have no interest in politics, just in their career, why do they then express shock when few people vote?
This situation can not be allowed to continue. MPs need to be accountable and when a debate comes up, which is of great public interest, the least they could and should do is turn up for the debate.
They all managed to turn up for PMQs a few hours earlier. Why didn’t they bother to turn up on a debate of real importance, rather than the knock about stuff of PMQs?
Mainstream media turn a blind eye to this contempt, preferring to concentrate on the story of what did or didn’t Andrew Lansley mean and was he stupid being honest. What trite rubbish, we are not in the process of a General Election, we all know services will have to be cut any party who pretend otherwise we know is lying. Once we have a date for a general election, both parties will have to set out their stall.
If the Media and Politicians are intending to hammer each other for pointing out exactly what everyone knows is going to happen, public sector cuts will have to be made; then none of them have learnt a lesson.
We need to know what each party intends to cut and what they intend to save, then we can make a decision on which party meets our own priorities, pretending it isn’t going to happen is the pathetic drivel politicians have been spouting for years and the mainstream media revel over.
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English bigorty
- Image by Getty Images via Daylife
British and in particular English bigotry and racism, which is endemic is usually portrayed by the Daily Mail and Express in particular, as perfectly reasonable, is suddenly deemed unacceptable when the natural home of English racists, the BNP, comes home to roost.
Why Brown and the Nationalist Socialist Party, more commonly known as the ‘Labour Party’ are so shocked that the Nazis win votes, when they have a slogan which proclaims ‘British jobs for British workers’, beggars belief.
The Conservative Party who spend their life proclaiming that there are far too many immigrants in this country, suddenly back track and decide that isn’t what they meant at all.
The UK has for many years been an endemically a racist and bigoted country; loud proclamations are made of a multi-cultural society, which in reality it is not.
Having spent most of my life living in London, where although the situation is not ideal, there are many different cultures living together in many Boroughs, I recently moved to East Anglia, where with out a doubt anyone who isn’t obviously White British is treated as an invader. Polish are deemed to be evil illegal immigrants, despite the fact they are from the EU and a non white face is of course up to no good.
I have had far too many arguments in this part of the world with people who genuinely believe that anyone who isn’t white is a scrounger an illegal immigrant and should be kicked out of the country. My only surprise was that the BNP didn’t secure a seat in East Anglia.
My first battle against racism was back in 1977 at the Lewisham march at the age of 13, when for the first time the Police used riot shields, nothing much has changed.
The simple fact is that many English people are racists and of course the BNP achieved European Representation. The Local Council representation was played down, as it didn’t hit the international agenda, but the sight of neo Nazis representing the UK at the European level has suddenly made the media and politicians pretend they actually care about the issue.
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Politicians and the Remembrance Day claims
- Image via Wikipedia
A growing list of politicians is being found to have put forward claims for Remembrance wreaths for fallen Service personnel, the common refrain being ‘it was an error’.
This demonstrates, if nothing else, the absolute contempt with which Politicians respect tax-payers money. The only way this ‘oversight’ can have been submitted, if you believe their excuse, is because they didn’t even bother to look at their claims, having someone else do their sums for them.
You can’t write in something and claim it an oversight, which means that someone else fills in your expense claim form. An expense claim form is something you are absolutely and ultimately responsible for and blaming someone else for it, is not even remotely excusable.
Why would they not look at their expense claims? Because they didn’t care, as they expected whatever was to be claimed was paid and whatever was rejected would always remain secret.
How any scumbag who has claimed for a Remembrance Day wreath, by mistake or intentionally has the gall to remain in office is untenable, it demonstrates absolute contempt for those who fought and died.
To treat a Remembrance Day wreath as something worth a punt on expenses, even to keep the receipt and pass it on to their ‘expense claim form filler’ is disgraceful. The only way that the ‘expense claim form filler’, who incidentally the tax payer would be paying for through ‘staff allowances’ would have had the receipt, would have been if the politician passed it over. If they paid by card they didn’t bother to look at their statement prior to submitting the statement over for completion, without crossing out the items they didn’t want claiming, is laughable.
The word Remembrance, is by itself ironic, the sleaze balls who claimed this money would have appeared to have forgotten what they had on their claim forms, how they can expect anyone to believe they have the capacity to undergo an act of Remembrance I can’t imagine.
British Democracy is discredited, British MPs are discredited, yet they seem to believe they are the best people to work out the way forward.
I don’t want representation by someone who sinks so low as to claim money back for a Remembrance day wreath, they are disgusting morally bankrupt individuals, who should be out of office and out of sight.
I for one will not be performing any act of remembrance on their behalf when they are long gone.
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Politicians’ tax breaks
Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003
Chapter 8
292 Overnight expenses allowances of MPs
(1) No liability to income tax arises in respect of an overnight expenses allowance paid to a Member of the House of Commons in accordance with a resolution of that House.
(2) “Overnight expenses allowance” means an allowance expressed to be in respect of additional expenses necessarily incurred by the Member in staying overnight away from the Member’s only or main residence, for the purpose of performing parliamentary duties—
(a) in the London area, as defined in such a resolution, or
(b) in the Member’s constituency.
While MPs are professing to not be very good at maths and have short memories, when it comes to legislation, they seem pretty clued up.
Tucked away in Chapter 8 of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act of 2003 they managed to remember to exempt their overnight expenses from tax liability and more than that thought top draft the bill loosely enough that it was the House rules that would decide what was and wasn’t to be counted as overnight accommodation.
Chapter 8 of the Act is a fascinating read as it exempts MPs from taxation in areas such as loss of office, Ministers exemption for taxation for transportation, whilst ensuring that other elected officials do net get above their station and are treated as every other tax payer in regard to expenses.
MPs are very good at telling us they are sorry, they didn’t realise and they aren’t very good at administration. They are equally adept at crafting legislation to suit their own ends.
While MPs are busy cleaning up their house, let’s start by repealing section 291, 292 and 295 of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act of 2003.