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Archive for the ‘Reform and Change’ Category

For all the fuss, I suspect that the outcome of the General Election will still be a Cameron Government, the situation is rather more like the vote in Northern Ireland yesterday over Policing and Justice. For all the fuss made by the Unionists, interventions by George Bush and so forth, the vote got a substantial majority as it had to.

Sure there are doubts, quite serious ones: For Sinn Fein, they needed Policing and Justice to be “local” to undermine the “British Rule” slur put out by dissident Republicans to justify illegal behaviour. The Unionists understood that but doubted whether it would undermine the ‘die-hard’ elements… but really there was little choice in the matter, for good or ill, it was an inevitable step forward albeit it, into the darkness.

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Over recent months and likely to continue over the next year or so there is lots of Media coverage concerning the “Recovery” and or the threat of a “Double Dip” Recession. Now whilst I am no economist, it does rather strike me that people are looking down the wrong end of the telescope on this one, my gut feeling is that the whole “system” and our approach to it needs to change radically and that is what this and a following essay is about but first a couple of samples from the Press:

Real Unemployment: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7257667/Eight-million-people-economically-inactive.html

The Double Dip: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/hamish-mcrae/hamish-mcrae-recovery-was-never-going-to-be-easy-1908331.html

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To my mind, the most disturbing feature of the MPs “Expenses Scandal” has been the obsequious behaviour of the Media in being unprepared to tackle the real issues involved head on, like politicians themselves, they appear too scared of the “public outrage”.

This public outrage I suspect, has as much to do with with the pomposity of the Labour Government and in particular one Gordon Brown who it is now clear, made a total horlicks of the UK economy whilst Chancellor whilst boasting that he had abolished Boom and Bust. In addition, this Parliament has effectively been dead since sometime during 2008, there should have been a 2009 election and political clear out of Westminster then.

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We all like a clearly defined villain, someone we can all hate without fear of contradiction that we as individuals have made a mistake. There have been two stories in the past year running in the UK that have both these elements: MP’s Expenses and Banker’s Bonuses.

In both cases I believe that the “Perceived Wisdom”is totally wrong, worse a “cover up” and President Obama’s threats to limit American Banks in both size and scope, probably foolish and his message is more ‘politically populist’ than the sound of common sense. The reality behind both of these stories is something called complacency…

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Although obviously a Labour supporter, a regular contributor to the Independent is John Rentoul who often writes very interesting articles that concentrate on trying to analyse the issues rather than trotting out left wing propaganda, he is always worth reading.

His article in Sunday’s edition is very well worth a read: “How many years out in the cold?” Sub heading; “Labour is likely to lose the general election. Its main concern now is damage limitation “ http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/john-rentoul/john-rentoul-how-many-years-out-in-the-cold-1870275.html

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Someone called Liz Hoggard wrote an article extolling the benefits of legally enforceable, all women lists to become MPs. In my opinion, this woman is a total smug metropolitan media person with hardly a clue on her very best day.

This woman has neither any pride nor any shame and is typical of the NIMBY, chattering classes, generation she belongs to, vacuous in both mind and spirit, I’m aware that the Indy has financial problems but allowing a daft cow like this to write is surely not the “answer to their prayers” plus the above picture is likely 15 years out of date too.

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I was moderately amused by an editorial in today’s Independent which basically called for David Cameron to spell out all his policies and how he was going to achieve his goals. It struck me as a very silly idea as the man is not in a position to know just how bad things are and will not until he gets to Downing Street.

If we add in the fact that despite the scale of the financial crisis that has hit this Country, it was only a couple of days ago that the Labour Chancellor Darling, said openly that following the election, massive cuts in public spending will be required.

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There was an interesting article in today’s Independent by a chap called James Fishkin who quite amusingly calls himself “James S Fishkin” presumably to try and overcome a rather odd surname by adding some kind of gravitas to it.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/james-s-fishkin-the-58-ideas-that-could-hold-the-key-to-bringing-the-election-alive-1861198.html

Yes I am being disparaging because I went and looked at the web site of this outfit and was less than impressed because it misses the fundamentals of reform and political progress but judge for yourself my reasoning will follow. http://www.power2010.org.uk/

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Some days ago we learned that the three main political parties – Conservatives, Labour, LibDems, have agreed to hold TV Debates during the run up to the General Election which of course has immediately led to protest from the various Celtic Nationalist Parties as well as UKIP and presumably, the BNP.

The real question though is whether it adds anything to British Politics or is it just something that excites the ‘Media People’ only. I must be honest and say that my viewpoint starts with a healthy dose of total scepticism. I am sure the first one will be watched by many though even then, only the committed and/or angry and the following ones by very few.

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An odd thing today, two drippy people trying to attack the Prince of Wales over his quite determined lobbying of Government Ministers on his pet interests by writing letters to them, frankly neither is worth reading, both write disconnected drivel but if you will, links as follows:

One Paul Richards,a professional Labour Lobbyist and very lightweight indeed: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6960833.ece

Andreas Whittam Smith who writes for the Independent, fuller in content by why did he write it ? http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/andreas-whittam-smith/andreas-whittam-smith-prince-charles-and-the-looming-constitutional-crisis-1844147.html

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