Happy St George's Day

General Election 2015-Morecambe and Lunesdale, Amina Lone, Labour Party

On April 10th I blogged about our declared candidates here in Morecambe and Lunesdale constituency and remarked how our Labour Party candidate lived around 70 miles away in Gorton, Manchester. It seems she has goofed by attacking the 'Tory' candidate for living outside the constituency, 50 yards outside.

This hypocrisy was picked up this week by the Daily Mail. What they didn't pick up on was the fact that Ms Lone represents Hulme ward on Manchester City Council. Hulme is around 5 miles from Gorton, so she doesn't even live in the ward she represents.

I wonder how many candidates claim to live locally when they mean within a few miles of their constituency/ward rather than in either?

Local champions they claim. I'd check if I were you.

General Election 2015-Green Party

I've honestly tried to take the Green Party seriously, but come on, their manifesto reads like a twelve year olds first effort at drawing up a manifesto for the school mock election. There must be a hell of a lot of people suffering Nutterly Bennett style 'brain fades' to have come up with that drivel.

Looking on the bright side Caroline Lucas is likely to hold on in Brighton, or 'Brain Fade Central', but elsewhere they are unlikely to win a seat. This is good because they are probably second only to the Scottish National Party in terms of hard core authoritarianism. Tie this with Nutterly Bennett offering to work with SNP MPs and there is potential for an alliance that would rival those cuddly chaps in North Korea. But thankfully the prospect of some kind of coalition involving the Greens and the SNP is about as likely as the Green Party manifesto being taken seriously.

So, if you fancy ending up living in a cave, trying to light a fire of twigs for some heat and light then vote Green.

General Election 2015-Morecambe and Lunesdale

Well the full list of runners and riders is now in for the Morecambe and Lunesdale Constituency for May 7th. I have to say, for a marginal constituency that could have a serious bearing on who forms the next government it isn't exactly inspiring.

There is David Morris for the Conservative Party, likely to be signing on come May 8th after wasting the last five years on the Tory benches in the House of Commons. You may remember him as the MP who in one year claimed nearly £76,000 in expenses. That's around £1,460 per week!

The Labour Party have a councillor from Hulme in Manchester called Amina Lone. She's spent 20 years fighting poverty apparently, so nearly 15 of those years were fighting poverty caused by her Labour Party government.

The Greens and the Lib Dems have candidates too, but we've had no leaflets from either since the last election and I can't remember their names. To be honest if they can't be arsed popping a leaflet out until the election address is delivered by Royal Mail I can't be arsed looking their names up.

There is a UKIP candidate, Steve Ogden who has a bike shop in Morecambe.

There is also a candidate who has no party name and doesn't even have 'Independent' in the box for party name on the Notice of Election. A quick internet search suggests Michael Dawson, if it's the same one, could be the founder of the Northern Party. To be honest, if he can't be arsed popping 'Independent' in the box, or omitted his party name by mistake, I can't be arsed voting for him.

So there we have it. Please wake me up on May 8th.

General Election 2015-Liberal Democrats

I know we shouldn't speak ill of the dying but come on, the Liberal Democrats? I think the last five years have shown what many involved in politics have known and stated for decades, that the Liberal Democrats are unprincipled political whores who would sell their souls for short term political gain. Oh, sorry, they did sell their souls for short term political gain. Remember them scurrying like rats through a sewer after the last election from Cameron to Brown begging to join their gangs? Not one of British politics sunnier episodes and look at the last five years, no wonder they are set for meltdown.

The next time you hear a Lib Dem taking the holier than thou moral high ground remember David Laws being suspended from parliament in the expenses scandal. Forgotten about that? Follow this link for the full story .

Remember Mike Hancock, Liberal Democrat MP for Portsmouth South? Well he got himself into trouble for 'making inappropriate advances to a vulnerable constituent'. Follow this link for the full story .

Dodgy donations? They're aren't as pure and innocent as they claim about donations either. Remember Lord Strasburger? If you don't follow this link for the full story .

Ibrahim Taguri, prospective Lib Dem candidate for Brent Central stood down last month in another donations scandal. Follow this link for the full story .

I'm not sure I've ever quoted from the Daily Express before but there is a cracking article from that newspaper about the sordid sex scandals of the Liberals/Liberal Democrats over the decades. From Gladstone 'saving' prostitutes to recent Lib Dems hiding their sexuality and so on. Follow this link for the full story .

I could go on but there are only so many hours in the day. But next time one of those pious, holier than thou Lib Dems claims that they are not like the other parties just remember , they are actually like the other parties, but with even fewer principles.

The highlight of the last general election night was seeing misfit Lib Dem Lembit Opik lose his seat. The highlight this year will surely be seeing misfit Lib Dem Nick Clegg losing his seat. Bring it on!

General Election-Morecambe and Lunesdale Constituency

Nominations for the general election close on Thursday, if you are wondering who has declared already then click on this link to find the details of candidates in Morecambe and Lunesdale. If you live in another constituency follow the link and then search for your own.

There are many reasons why this election is so mind numbingly tedious, two of the main reasons are closely related, which comes first is debateable. In my view the first reason is that so many people think it's fine to merely abuse politicians and those working for political parties, be they paid or voluntary. The lazy assumption is that they are all in it for the money, or for sheer power and status. This leads to reasonable people increasingly withdrawing from political activity thus leaving politics in the hands of the few, often people who fall into the categories in my first point. It's been almost a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This means that we now have a breed of political activist, especially parliamentary candidates, who are incapable of serious political thought and blindly follow the leader or the party line. Anybody who slightly deviates from 'the message' is likely to be dumped pretty rapidly. This means that there is little serious debate on policy within the main political parties, policy development is done by specialist units of professional politicos behind closed doors in consultation with only the most senior people in the party.

I attended several Tory Party conferences in the 1980s and there were some really impressive policy debates, especially on the conference fringe and ordinary people, rightly or wrongly, felt that they had a voice and influence within the party, but couldn't initiate or change policy.

During the 1980s Labour Party members actually had the power to change policy at their party conferences. It was Neil Kinnock who started the castration of the Labour Party membership when fighting the threat from the militants/trade unions in the 1980s. Labour members now have as much  influence over policy as Conservative members, they can no longer change or initiate policy at their conference.

The main parties now look to the media and the professional think tanks to formulate policy, the wishes of the electorate come way, way down their list of priorities. The EU, capital punishment and immigration are three main areas that highlight how the electorate has been ignored. Poll after poll suggests that over many years the populace has been ignored on these issues. The establishment has taken the view that it knows best.

We now have, thanks to political correctness, the tyranny of the minorities which has been extremely divisive and has fractured social cohesion. This is almost exclusively down to the left and the Labour Party. From 1997 to 2010 Labour had an open door immigration policy which has led to huge social problems, especially in our major cities. Labour/socialists then tell numerous ethnic groups that they are under threat from evil fascists but they will defend them. Guess who said ethnic minorities then support and vote for?

The Labour/socialists have done the same with gays, women, the disabled and any number of other  groups which has led to women only shortlists for parliament and quotas/targets in the workplace and education for assorted minorities. There has been a black lad on the TV news this morning claiming that he wouldn't be voting in the election because there weren't enough black and/or working class candidates. That always makes me wonder what black MPs would do that a white MP wouldn't? What would a working class MP do that a middle class MP wouldn't? Personally I just want the best MP for the job, if that's a black working class woman fine by me. If it's a white, working class gay bloke then fine, I don't care as long as they can do the job.

So to Morecambe and Lunesdale constituency and we hardly have an inspiring group of candidates up to now for the election. We have a sitting MP who seems to have alienated just about every person of a conservative persuasion that I know, more a lap dog for Cameron than a free thinking, get up and at 'em politician.

The Labour candidate is a councillor in Hulme, Manchester but bizarrely described as a 'local champion' on her election material. She also claims to have been running an anti-poverty campaign for twenty years, so for fifteen years she was fighting poverty under a Labour government, rather bizarre too. She also describes herself as a 'Common Purpose graduate'. I find Common Purpose an unpleasant  and worryingly influential organisation but don't subscribe to the wackier conspiracy theories about it that abound on the internet. I'll leave it for you to find out for yourself, there is lots about them on the internet.

So there we have it. Oh yes, sorry I forgot, we also have a Green Party candidate but suspect the people of this constituency are too sane to waste many votes on him, and we have a typically bland Liberal Democrat, neither of them have bothered with  a leaflet yet. We also have a UKIP candidate and I've heard there is a Northern Party candidate, a party of which I know little other than they sound like the bastard offspring of the Greens and Labour with an odd Tory cobbed in for good measure.

It's not an inspiring election, and our choice of candidates at the moment is even less inspiring. Still, two days yet to close of nominations and who knows who might pop up by Thursday.