#GE2015-Playground Politics

We were in a pub in Lancaster on Thursday night around 10 15 when we witnessed the first couple of lefties with faces like slapped arses. Oh how we laughed, they had just heard the news that the exit polls had predicted a Tory majority. You'd think the crusty old bearded sandal wearers had just been told that they would have to take cyanide with their next pint.

This election has shown the childishness of the left, and by that I mean Labour, Greens, Lib Dems RIP, Scottish Nazionalists and Plaid Cymru. Constantly repeating the mantras "end austerity" and "we need progressive policies" are trite and meaningless, they all did it.

Constantly banging on about ending austerity begs the question how? And none of them, especially Labour, bothered to answer that. There are only two ways to end austerity their way, tax and borrow, and both would plunge is into crisis and leave billions of debt for future generations.

Those are two ways to end austerity that would not lead to prosperity. The only way to get us out of the economic mess is now austerity plus. Cut, cut and cut again. We can't slag off the feckless for squandering their money then running up massive debts going to Wonga for a payday loan then elect a Wonga government. The only way forward is to keep taxes down and axe spending which will stimulate economic and business growth which will then create wealth and jobs. Put simply if you keep borrowing against your home you have to cut your outgoings or risk losing your home. Similarly with government because, contrary to the apparent belief of the economically illiterate lefties, government money doesn't grow on trees.

Nicola Sturgeon has been treated like some kind of political sage in this election. In reality she is a nasty, simplistic, soundbite specialist who, if she was English and talked as she does about the Scots as does about us would be attacked for racism and xenophobia. All we heard was the mindless chant of "progressive, progressive, progressive". This word can mean any number of things depending what you want people to believe. It can mean slow and gradual, as in "a progressive decline in the number of people active in politics". It can mean favouring change or innovation as in "the Bauhaus was a progressive school of art". It means all things to all men. The ultimate soundbite.

The Scots over the last two years have bored the arse off the rest of us with their bloody referendum and their incessant whining and obsessing about England and Westminster. Their claim to have been ignored and left out at Westminster doesn't bear the lightest scrutiny. They are liars. These politicians were Scottish:

Tony Blair
John Smith
Robin Cooke
Gordon Brown
Donald Dewar
Douglas Alexander
Lord Irvine
Alistair Darling
George Robertson

They are the ones I can remember as being cabinet members under Blair/Brown. I am sure a little research would uncover even more Scottish ministers.

The Scottish Nazionalists are like the rest of the left, they lose then throw an almighty tantrum as if they have been the subject of some underhand conspiracy. Look at the filth in London yesterday, attacking the police and daubing graffiti on war memorials. The left has been infantilised by political correctness. You lost the election, accept it as we had to accept Blair/Brown bombing the crap out of Iraq and bankrupting the country when you won elections.

Throughout the election campaign the left proved how vacuous and juvenile their arguments are. I lost count of the number of times I saw totally baseless accusations of racism and homophobia directed at Nigel Farage, a man I detest but he is definitely neither of those things.

The left think they have a monopoly on wanting to help others. On numerous occasions during the campaign I heard patronising lefties declaring how they supported Labour because they cared about the NHS, cared about the unemployed, cared about the mentally ill, cared about the unemployed. They never got round to telling us what the reality of voting Labour would be for these groups they care so deeply about. Two of the worst offenders were Steve Coogan and Eddie Izzard. At least Coogan admitted he was minted and came from a nice, cosy middle class background.

As for the lefties' constant lies about the Conservatives and the NHS let's put that one to rest once and for all. I would love to see the NHS privatised but it's not going to happen. I was aware of Labour lying about the Tories and the NHS in 1974, they've lied about it ever since and enough gullible people fall for it every time to make the lie worth repeating. Blair/Brown were the biggest ever privatisers of the NHS with billions of pounds stacking up as debt for future generations through PFI in the health servce and the university sector. But I suppose it's easier fro the untellectually challenged to ignore reality, they probably blame Thatcher!

I voted Conservative as the best of a bad bunch and to keep Labour/SNP out. I hope Cameron now holds true to his word on a referendum on EU membership, although I think we could lose and end up staying in. But that might be good for UKIP if you look at the SNP after losing their referendum.

We had to endure 5 years of the Lib Dems RIP in coalition with 58 MPs. The Tories now have a clear majority with the SNP having 56 seats, 2 fewer than the Lib Dems RIP had in 2010. UKIP got 3.8m votes and 1 MP the SNP got 1.5m and 56 votes. The SNP took part, as a regional party, in free and fair national elections to a body they want to leave. They should now be shunned and sidelined in Westminster as UKIP should be in Brussels for the same reasons.

Cameron is offering a referendum on the EU and the abolition of the Human Rights Act. That's a good start. Slash the waste in the NHS and elsewhere in the public sector, cut taxes and you may be en route to convincing us that the true Conservative Party is on its way back. If the infantile left continue rioting and generally behaving like political misfits we will know that the government is doing a good job.

David Morris MP, Morecambe and Lunesdale Constituency

Yesterday we had yet another tedious questionnaire from our MP David Morris. We receive so many from his 'team' I tend to think of him and his 'team' more as a polling firm, a poor man's MORI, than as a Member of Parliament.

Consultation is one thing, but when I have asked his position on a couple of serious issues his response has been that he will wait and see what his constituents think. Now forgive me but I thought MPs were elected on what they, and increasingly their parties believed. It seems that Morris has no opinions, beliefs or principles other than to get re-elected. I can't help thinking that if he polled his constituents about the slaughter of the first born in every household and they wanted it he would probably campaign for it.

As he seems to have no beliefs I won't be voting Conservative in May next year.

More Tory Lies Or Just Plain Idiocy?

When Cameron said that we would not be paying the £1.7bn extortion money to the EU on December 1st  I wondered why he didn't just say that we wouldn't be paying it full stop. I had a good idea that he was bullshitting, as he usually does.

Then last week the Tories claimed to have won a great success, they claimed they had had the amount to be paid halved, after hard negotiation. That's not actually true.

The Tories have agreed to pay half the extortion money, correct. The other half is being paid by us losing £850m from our rebate next year.

Now I'm no mathematician but £850m plus £850m equals £1.7bn. Which is the exact amount the EU demanded from us.

UKIP-Nutjob Alert

When I first heard Tories proclaiming that a vote for UKIP would let Miliband and Labour in I wondered if that was the best they could do. But UKIP do have a habit of proving that they are truly on the lunatic fringe. Well, look at Nigel Farage for starters. Somebody who tries so hard to be 'a character' only proves himself to be a completely mad, egocentric, attention seeking berk.

Now UKIP councillors in Norfolk have proved that this problem is apparent throughout the party. The nutters UKIP councillors on Norfolk County Council have gone into alliance with Labour, the Greens and the Lib Dems and a Labour leader has been installed. The Tories are the largest group on Norfolk County Council.

Forgive me but I am not aware that supporting that motley crew of statist misfits is very libertarian, which UKIP claim to be. Did the people of Norfolk who voted UKIP really expect to find their county council led by a Labour councillor because of the support of UKIP councillors? I doubt it.

Furthermore, on Twitter I saw a UKIP member asked what the party's position was on the legalisation of marijuana. The UKIP member replied that the party would hold a referendum to find out what the populace wanted. Oh right, so would they hold a referendum to find out if 51% of the population wanted murder legalised? What a cop out to avoid answering a question on a controversial issue. Again, if UKIP was truly a libertarian party it would support the legalisation of marijuana, and be honest about that.

Like wanting out of the EU but wallowing on the gravy train, UKIP are just proving themselves to be the most cynical of the political parties rather than an alternative. Making the right noises to attract protest votes on a range of issues, but offering nothing of any substance. Their policy of massively increasing state expenditure, but cutting taxes, would bankrupt the country faster than you could say Gordon Brown. They aren't bright and I would warn anybody to look beneath the surface if you think these nutjobs are a credible alternative to the LibLabCon.

The Centre Ground. What is it?

Modern politicians are grey, bland nonentities. That's not a mind blowing statement, it's actually pretty much a given. The pitiful mess that was the election of Police and Crime Commissioners last year, and the poor turnout at last week's county council elections, wonderfully underline that point. People no longer trust our politicians, and the more disliked they become the more they cry about staying 'on the centre ground'. But what is this sacred 'centre ground'?

The centre ground seems to be a political euphemism for doing very little that anybody could actually disagree with. It is the ultimate in political correctness, don't upset, offend or disagree with anybody. Those on the centre ground are basing their political careers on not rocking the boat by having a firm belief that somebody else may oppose. European Union? We know it's not working so we'll renegotiate. Immigration? We can't do anything about that because of the EU, but we'll pass some minor tinkering legislation that sounds good. Sick of murderers and other serious criminals being released early, often to reoffend? We'll clamp down on criminals, we'll take their tellies off them. And so it goes on. It pisses everybody off.

Increasingly when I see Clegg and Cameron, looking like bland genetically modified versions of Blair, I feel like throwing a heavy object at the telly. They are patronising zombies with about as much passion as a pair of beached jellyfish. If they represent the centre ground it's time we rocked the boat and dumped them overboard.

I have never known a time when politicos despaired quite so much about the mainstream parties in England. I don't include the Lib Dems in that, they have never really been more than political whores prepared top sell their grannies to get a town councillor elected, they epitomise the centre ground, so they don't count. By mainstream I mean Labour and Conservative. Few socialists I'm acquainted with regard the Labour Party as a party they can actively support. Few conservatives I know regard the Conservative Party as a party they can actively support.

John Major garnered 13m votes in 1992, then the Tory Party moved to the centre ground. In 2010, despite being up against a generally loathed and ridiculed Gordon Brown, Cameron's Tory Party could barely muster 10m votes. Welcome to the centre ground Dave. You stay there while the rest of the country looks for something else. Problem is, while you sit on the centre ground the ever growing vacuum you create will be filled by some potentially very dangerous opportunists.   

David Cameron-Unprincipled Coward

Clueless!

So David Cameron has bottled out of his long awaited speech on our relationship with the European Union. No surprise as he is the most unprincipled, spineless and cowardly Prime Minister we've ever had to suffer. He makes Blair look like a man of substance. OK, that's going a bit far but you get my drift.

So he hides behind the crisis in Algeria. What is he planning to do, pull his trollies on over his trousers a la Superman, fly under his own steam to the desert and single-handedly free the hostages?  With a ludicrously high number of government departments, ministers, junior ministers, advisers and bureaucrats don't tell me that, in this modern age of communication, Cameron couldn't delegate and still make his much trumpeted speech. No, the man is a charlatan and the Tories should bin him immediately.

The truth is that Cameron is scared witless of the EU and is terrified that it will be his downfall, which it must be if he continues to lie and hide his real beliefs on our relationship with the EU in order to pull the wool over the eyes of the electorate. The man is beneath contempt.

I Smell Political Bullshit!

Prize for the most fatuous political bullshit of the year so far has to go to George Osborne for the following statement on why he, a multimillionaire, is happy to give up child benefit:

"I'm giving up my child benefit from today so that my children-and yours-aren't saddled with our debts forever". 

Job done then. But bloody hell, how much has he been getting in child benefit?

In a further bout of political bullshit induced nausea I got a phone call today from an ex-UKIP member asking me if I had the details of their regional office so he could rejoin. Interestingly he managed to get my new mobile number but couldn't find the number of UKIP's regional office. Says it all really.

Anyway he wanted to rejoin because they are doing so well at the moment. Stop the bandwagon, I want to clamber aboard. When I asked him how he'd come to this conclusion he told me how they were on 16% in a current opinion poll. I see, job done then, they've cracked it. Wonder what went on at the last election then when polls put them on double figures but they could barely muster around 4% in the election? Oh aye, an opinion poll is meaningless crap whereas elections actually see people get elected. Big difference.

My prediction for the next two years? The Tory media will continue to 'big up' UKIP and their threat to the Tories so that said Tories will return to the Tory fold for fear of handing the next election to Miliband and co.

If that fails there will be a series of exposes of Farage's sordid personal life involving allegations of excessive drink and Eastern European ladies of a very generous nature to Western European gents with big fat expense accounts. At least one other UKIP MEP will be caught claiming huge expenses for not turning up and another one will make an admission about unmentionable sex with an animal in a former colony when he was a callow youth.  

Not forgetting the home front a UKIP local election candidate will hit the news by advocating the chemical castration of homosexuals and the beheading of anybody caught wearing a burka.

Seems pretty much like business as usual then.

Little To Blog About

I suppose it was inevitable when the grey man himself became Prime Minister and then Geek of the Century was elected Labour Leader that things would become mind numbingly dull.

That's largely why I'm finding it difficult to blog much at the moment. No big characters, no big ideas and all the political nutters seem to be obsessed with how much tax coffee shops have paid or should pay in tax. Big deal, the less tax we pay the better, then the state may stop bombing foreign countries then spending billions on foreign aid.

In short, I'm bored.

Police and Crime Commissioner Elections-November 15th

In the run up to the last few elections I've pledged to boycott, abstain, spoil my ballot paper or whatever. But when push came to shove I always caved in, held my nose and voted for the least scary option.

This time though I have followed through and spoilt my ballot paper for the PCC elections on November 15th. I have a postal vote you see. I wrote 'just another gravy train' at the top of the ballot paper and 'muppet' next to the name of each candidate. If nothing else it may give the poor counters a giggle when they have the boring job of counting. Mind you, they won't be too bored this time as turnout is likely to be an all-time low, so they'll probably be done in half an hour.

However, just because I've told them what I think doesn't mean I shouldn't hlp those who may wish to join in this charade of democracy. So here is a useful link to a website that links, when you enter your postcode, to details of your candidates.

I only found it today but it made me even more convinced that abstaining is the only way. My candidates look like a right bunch of oddballs, loonies and fruitcakes.

When Voting Becomes Collaboration

These are strange times indeed. Have politicians ever been quite as despised as they are now? Have protest movements ever been as hysterical and puerile as they are now?

Let's start with the wailing and gnashing of teeth about individuals and businesses not paying enough tax. In the sixties the protest movements would have wanted to pay as little to the state as possible, so that they weren't feeding its war machine in Vietnam for example. Today there is faux moral outrage at people and businesses paying, perfectly legally, as little tax as possible. I suppose those headbangers at UK Uncut are happy to pay ever more tax to fund an increasingly paramilitary police force and ever more morally dubious foreign adventures by our military. Those that pay tax that is.

Another about turn by the lefties is attacking Andrew Mitchell for shouting at a bobby. I howled with laughter at seeing the type of nutters who turn a march into a game shoot, with the police being the game, suddenly wanting to string up evil bastards who call the police names. Suddenly they are fanatically pro-police-nothing to do with Mitchell being a 'posh Tory' of course.

Then you have a government that nobody elected. Yes, I know how our system works and that if a big enough group of MPs can band together and cobble a majority then they form a government. But does that mean it is right? I certainly didn't vote to have idiots like Clegg and Cable lording it over us.

Then, as I've said before hundreds of thousands of us have signed petitions, campaigned and marched for a say in our relationship with the European Union. What do we get? The introduction of Police and Crime Commissioners! I don't remember thousands and thousands of people campaigning for PCCs.

But it isn't enough to blame the state. I've been actively involved in politics since schooldays but eventually became disillusioned with the ever increasing apathy of the public. In many cases it was because they had no idea how the sytem works. They didn't understand that at a local level activists are volunteers who give their time freely to leaflet, stand for election and canvass the voters, admittedly in ever dwindling numbers. In many cases they didn't know the difference between a councillor, an MP and an MEP. So eventually I walked away from active politics.

Back in the 1980s I attended a meeting addressed by Enoch Powell, one of several times I was fortunate enough to hear him speak. During questions he was asked how he felt that people should vote in the upcoming European elections. His immediate response was: "I wouldn't soil my hands on a European ballot paper".  He then explained that taking part in the process was akin to validating it.

In many recent elections I have voted for the least bad option. I have not voted for any party from conviction for many years. But now is the time to say enough is enough, beginning with the elections on November 15 for the PCCs. They are a sham, another gravy train for the political class and I do not accept their validity and am no longer prepared to validate what I no longer believe in by holding my nose and plonking a cross in a box.

Furthermore there is no longer a party in this country that I feel able to vote for. They have lied, cheated and broken promises for far too many years and the forging of this despised cioalition was the final straw. In future I will not be voting as I am no longer prepared to vote for something I do not believe in. And before people cry about people dying for my right to vote, they did not! They fought and died for our freedom and that includes the right to vote or not to vote.

I will no longer be voting as voting has becone collaboration.

More Tory Bullshit-The European Union

The Conservatives really must think we're a nation of halfwits, which really gets me angry because I don't believe the vast majority of UK citizens are anywhere near as stupid as your average Tory MP.

100 Tory MPs have signed a letter asking Cameron to offer us a referendum on the EU in their manifesto for the next election. No, don't worry, you've not been in a coma and just woken up back in 2009 somehow, oh no, they're still at it. Whenever the Tories want to garner a bit of support they put on their Eurosceptic masks. But then, when in power, do more to sell our country down the Brussels plughole than any other party ever has.

As Cameron lied about a referendum in the last election, and the debate about a referendum in the House of Commons was lost, what is the point of MPs writing him a nice letter asking him to offer what he has promised in the past, and then reneged on? It's more Tory bullshit, don't fall for it.

If those 100 Tory MPs threatened to resign their seats immediately, precipitating 100 by-elections unless he called a referendum now, then I might have some respect for them. But please stop treating us like the idiots that you are, because we're not.

Memorandum From The Prime Minister

MEMORANDUM

FROM: Dave

TO: Giddy

CC: The Cabinet (but not that Asian woman)

SUBJECT: The Fat Tax and the Pikey Tax

Dropped another gooly here haven't we Giddy? You told us that only fat, poor people who can't read and don't bother to vote bought lunch at that cheap bakery place. As soon as you sat down after the budget my mobile vibrated, yes Theresa it was my phone vibrating in my pocket, and my stockbroker texted me in a terrible rage. Apparently his office girls were in uproar at the thought of their sausage and bean melts being taxed.  Law of unintended consequences Giddy, drop the idea now.

The second text was from my accountant. His secretary ran in sceaming that she wanted a pay rise to cover the tax on caravans. It seems she takes something called a Bailey Champagne Pageant to the Dordogne every summer. I told you that was a dubious proposal didn't I? I told you that the caravan tax would hit more than pikies and Margaret Beckett didn't I? I also told you it wouldn't raise much money as pikies don't pay UK tax, they're all registered in Ireland I believe.

So, as my accountant and stockbroker count as 'the public', please announce that following 'public consultation' we have reviewed elements of your budget and are dropping your fat tax, and the pikey tax.

If you don't fancy facing the media can I suggest Ken is always good in front of the cameras, even if he is Secretary of State for Justice. And Ken, don't stab us in the back when you do the media stuff, we'll be watching.

Finally I would like you all to think of better ways to tax the lower and middle classes, preferably ways that we can claim are for their own good. At least one written idea to me from each of you by close of play on Friday please.

LOL

Dave

Baroness Warsi

The Tories politically correct mascot.

Is anybody really surprised that yet another politician is mired in accusations about expenses? To be honest the system is a sham in the first place.

Whenever I have held a position involving expenses claims I've had to produce receipts. If I didn't have a receipt I was given a reasonable opportunity to explain why, usually I'd lost it among all the other crap I gathered in my car. Why are our political leaders allowed to just claim allowances, such as a fee on top of salaries, just for turning up to do a day's work? It seems that she 'forgot' to declare rental income from a flat she owned in London and claimed in the region of £165.00 a night in accomodation expenses while staying in the spare room of a friend.

I've heard the usual pap on t'interweb from Tories defending her. It's funny how much they sound like the Labour politically correct brigade when one of their own is in the shit. I've actually heard her defended with the argument that it would be somehow wrong to hound out of office the country's top ethnic minority politician. What a deadheaded argument that is. It's almost as pathetic as the defence of David Laws on the grounds that being on the fiddle is OK if it's being done to hide your true sexuality. If guilty she should be out of public life, pronto.

Another Tory has questioned the motives of her accuser to make excuses for her. Who honestly cares what the motives of the Tory doctor are in accusing her? If she is guilty then end of story, throw the book at her. If somebody accuses another of murder because they have fallen out does the motive of the accuser lessen the offence of the accused? No it doesn't.

I've always seen Warsi as a Tory politically correct token with very little talent and, like the Coalition, nobody actually voted for her. What better a chairman for the current Tory Party than an ethnic minority woman with a northern working class background? All she's lacking is a disability. Oh yes, and ability.

Apathy And The Right To Vote

Our politicians have become so bland, uninspiring, sometimes corrupt, often disingenuous that they are driving people away from involvement in politics. In millions of cases they are driving people to abstain from voting.

We didn't have local elections last week, but all the friends and family I've spoken to who did have elections live in Manchester, and they didn't vote because they didn't have a candidate or a party standing for election that they trusted. In Manchester city centre ward turnout was just 13 per cent. Manchester as a whole had a turnout of 26 per cent, Salford 27 per cent.

In 35 of the 215 wards across the Greater Manchester councils fewer than one in four people bothered to vote and in 134 wards the turnout was under 33 per cent. Only three wards registered a turnout of over 50 per cent, and they were all neighbouring wards in Oldham. The highest average turnout was in Trafford with 37 per cent.

Yesterday I heard somebody attacking those people who didn't vote, using the hackneyed old argument that people died in wars for our right to vote. No they didn't. I doubt many soldiers have marched into war thinking they were doing it so that those who survive them can vote. Many may have gone into battle to defend democracy, our way of life, our territory or simply because their government told them to, but not so that I could vote for Fred Smith in my local council elections.

The right to abstain is as much a part of democracy as the right to vote. I have no wish to vote Conservative, Tory or Lib Dem. Is it really democratic to force me to hold my nose in an election and vote for a party I don't believe in when there are no credible candidates?

Unless I have a candidate or party I can trust I will also be abstaining in future. It seems to me that one of the greatest contradictions in a so-called democracy is compulsory voting. Compulsory voting is the only way rotten politicians can give themselves a veneer of democracy.

Watch out, they're looking at tax-payer funding of political parties because we don't want to financially support them on a voluntary basis. Compulsory voting will be next.

Local Elections 2012

A strange few days, especially as here in North Lancashire we didn't have any elections despite having more than enough elected representatives. We have town councillors, borough councillors, county councillors then MPs and MEPs. But I still stayed up far too late on Thursday night watching the results come in. I'm not going to ramble on too long here, there is more than enough coverage in the media, but I'm bound to chip in my two penneth.

UKIP bombed again. I begin with them as I know them best having stood in three parliamentary elections for them, numerous locals and a European election. Although they gained a reasonable percentage of protest votes in places, they just cannot convert that into seats, and their London mayoral candidate couldn't even muster 2% of the vote. They got no seats in the London Assembly.

Elsewhere I heard Farage, more of a problem for UKIP than he is an asset, claiming they didn't win seats because their support is not concentrated enough. More bullshit from the bullshitter-in-chief. They don't win seats because they have no coherent local or national policies other than getting out of the EU. It's like a form of Tourette's, UKIP candidates can't fight in a local election without blurting out Brussels, the European Union or that certain vote loser the 'EUSSR', which does set most ordinary people's nutter alert off. Even the dimmest voter knows a local councillor can do bugger all about Brussels.

Where UKIP, or any other party does well locally, is where they fight hard and long, not just popping a leaflet through the doors at election time. UKIP rarely do that although they have had some success, for example in Staffordshire Moorlands, where they did campaign hard and long on local issues. With the resources they should have at their disposal, one of their main reasons initially for taking their MEP seats, they should be running highly effective campaigns. But their MEPs have gone native, another huge problem.

The other problem for UKIP is that they claim to be a libertarian party but aren't. If most of their members looked at what libertarianism actually is they would be horrified. Of course to many people today libertarianism is a nice flag of convenience, that is the case with UKIP. Apart from the EU the membership would split down the middle on any other serious issue. That's why it is, and will remain, a single issue party.

Miliband needn't get too carried away, Labour did well despite him not because of him. Labour would be in terminal trouble if they hadn't done as well as they did on Thursday. It doesn't mean they can win a general election, otherwise they would have sent the Tories into terminal decline which, despite good results, they didn't. Deep down people know that the bankers were a contributory factor to a Labour economic mess, they aren't stupid enough to fall for Labour blaming it all on the bankers.

Despite tying Clegg up, gagging him and sticking him in the cupboard under the stairs for a fortnight the Lib Dems got bombed. Ironic as most parties look to emulate the kind of local campaigning the Lib Dems have always excelled at. But they've paid the price for selling out. Can't say I'm sorry. They may have been the best local campaigners over the years but they have lacked fundamental honesty at a local level, often prepared to sell their grannies for a few more votes.

It's the price the Lib Dems are paying for actually getting involved in power instead of just sitting in the House of Commons griping and whingeing. For years the Lib Dems have been all things to all men, but now they are in government and can no longer hide. What people are finding out is that they are a party of misfits, with the likes of Vince Cable, Chris Huhne and David Laws showing them in their true colours in the national spotlight.

So to the Tories. I liken them to the Church of England. They liberalise and lose support. So they liberalise a bit more, and lose a but more support and so on. Cameron couldn't win a general election when Gordon Brown was Prime Minister, I doubt he could win one even with Miliband leading the Labour Party.

Cameron has a huge problem, he doesn't seem to actually believe in anything. He seems to be a chief executive reacting to circumstances, whereas we really need a captain who can actually set a course and fight his way through the storms and the choppy seas to get us to our destination. He seems to have the kind of faith in Osborne that Blair had in Brown, and look what a shambles Brown made of the finances. He has no real vision, just woolly waffle about 'big society' and.... Oops, can't think of anything else.

The Tories need to start listening to real people, including their real members, rather than the media luvvies and metroplitan elite they seem to be obsessed with. I've lobbied enough Tory conferences in recent years to know that their members, on the whole, don't like Cameron's policies but see him as the best of a bad bunch, their equivalent of Tony Blair. At least they're back in Downing Street so they are holding their noses at the moment. When their best hope for winning the next election is that Miliband remains Labour leader you know they aren't confident in their own leader.

So what the Tories need to do now is to learn from Thursday and toughen up. Yes they got a mid-term thumping, but they can avoid a general election thumping next time around by reconnecting with the traditional conservative support that has turned its back on them in the past two decades. But that leads to the next problem. The Tories aren't overly blessed with potential leaders are they?

Stuff The Coalition. Here Comes The Lancashire Democratic Front!

Lancashire Democratic Front on training exercises

On my way back from Mass this morning, while Bob at the Munch Box was griddling the bacon and sausage for our Sunday treats, I was thinking about the government. It didn't put me off my brekkie, I have a very tough constitution and enjoy my food too much, but I did decide that I would abstain at the next general election. What set me off on this train of thought?

Take Syria. Assad and his dad before him have ruled that place for all my living memory, and as far as I know have not been elected. So when a gang of misfits kick off our government recognises the rampaging nutters as the legitimate government, even though they are trying to come to power by killing a few thousand people. Seeing how our government fawns over what we used to call terrorist groups it's no wonder nutters have kicked off all over the Middle East. But for every government action there is a reaction.

Now then, if you're stuck with a government that wasn't elected the Western powers will back you if you take up arms against your oppressors. Look at Syria, Libya et al. Now forgive me but did you see the choice 'Poxy Bunch of Nobhead Tories and Lib Dems in Coalition' on the ballot paper in 2010? Neither did I. Just like Syria and Libya we have a government that not a single one of us voted for. Surely we should rise up against this unelected bunch of misfits.

I am now considering starting the Lancashire Democratic Front. Surely if it's good enough for Libyans and Syrians it's good enough for us, and we really do need to get rid of this government for the sake of our sanity. If you would like to join me please get in touch. I would ask for donations of military hardware but a joke like that in this nanny state we live in could land me in Strangeways or Guantanamo Bay.

2012 And Some Things Never Change

So 2012 has arrived and a couple of things stand out.

Scousers are still wallowing in self pity, this time about something somebody is alleged to have said to Margaret Thatcher about letting the place rot in the early 1980s. Instead her government spent millions and millions on the crap hole, but still they whine and whinge and wallow in victimhood.

Secondly Arsene Wenger is whining that the referee cost his team three points at Fulham last night, nothing to do with his dodgy defence, oh no, it was the referee. I'm just amazed Wenger has never managed Liverpool, they seem made for each other.

Over Christmas I've been pondering the state of politics and reached a couple of bizarre conclusions. I've decided Clegg was right to go into government with the Conservatives. I don't like it, I don't like it at all but what was the alternative? Ignoring the nightmare option of a LabLibDem government it would have meant the Lib Dems sitting on their bums on the backbenches like they have for almost a century, firstly as Liberals latterly as LibDems, with no influence just giving us the occasional belly laugh. So what did LibDem voters want? Their MPs just warming a green bench and nothing else or an MP who at least has strong influence and maybe a little power? It's called living in the real world.

Then I looked back at the last year, much of which I had spent wondering about a new political party, maybe being formed or maybe starting one. That option looks increasingly bleak sadly, so what do we do those of us who might be regarded as right of centre? There isn't a realistic party at the moment that we could join, so over Christmas I wondered about rejoining the Tories, as some I know have done. Is it better to sit on the sidelines sniping or better to get in and try to make a difference?

Let's be honest the only political party with a chance of standing up to the EU is the Conservative Party. But it needs large enough numbers of us to get back involved. We can all stand by our ideological purity and bang on about the EU from within a minor, largely irrelevant party or pressure group, or we can actually get stuck in within a party that could make a difference. As with Clegg and the Coalition it's about making tough decisions in the real world.

But then every time I think I might rejoin the Tories I hear Cameron come out with some bland soundbite and can't help thinking that some things never change.

Nick Clegg, Wimp Among Lib Dem Wimps

Yesterday we were helping the in-laws move house so my news updates were occasional, usually in my van when I was off to collect more furniture or bedding. That said I did have a good giggle when I heard that little Nicky Clegg had bottled out of attending the House of Commons. It seems that after initially proclaiming agreement with David Cameron's handbagging of the EU, he changed his mind and went into a Ted Heath style sulk. Diddums little Nicky, diddums!

The problem with this Coalition is having to roll over the Lib Dem stone and see the insects crawling out blinking into the daylight, Cable, Huhne, Laws and their like. Not exactly inspiring are they? The  plus side is that the voters can now see what any of us who have fought Lib Dems in elections have known for years, they are fundamentally immoral and opportunistic. It is obvious now to anybody with half a brain that the Lib Dems are going in one direction, public opinion in the opposite direction.

Lib Dems have misled the electorate for years in their local election material and have made ludicrously extravagant promises in their national manifestos, knowing with near certainty that they will not be proved to be a bunch of daydreamers and fantasists by actually being elected. Then bang, they're whoring themselves around Westminster like a bunch of cheap tarts offering to jump into bed with anybody who will have them. Coalition! It's all changed.

Clegg is so Euro obsessed, and so patronisingly dismissive of this country, that if he had any moral backbone at all he would have resigned on Saturday morning when he was awkened from his slumbers to be told Cameron had vetoed a new treaty. But he has merely flip flopped and clings to what bit of power he has because he knows it's as far as he is ever likely to go.

When this government was cobbled together I gave it two years. I still maintain that will be the case. Dave will never win an election on the economy but if the Lib Dems throw a tantrum over Europe, he could call a general election with the EU as the core issue and win it. In the process he would see the Lib Dems wiped out and Labour given such a kicking it will create a few more years of infighting rendering them unelectable again.

Let's face it, the EU is dying and we could reap huge benefits by standing aside and watching it crumble. Several birds with one stone methinks.

Immigration Or The European Union?

I am a completely dedicated withdrawalist when it comes to the European Union. I want Britain out of the EU sooner rather than later, and if that means the subsidy junkies in Scotland, or elsewhere in the UK, decide to break up the Union and beg off what remains of the EU then so be it and good riddance.

But for years the problem has been that Eurosceptics, despite hard evidence, have never understood that the EU comes quite a way down peoples' list of priorities. In most elections even quite hardcore Eurosceptics will not vote solely on the EU question, which is why single issue parties have failed, be that the Referendum Party or UK Independence Party.

The crux of the problem is that if you state that obvious fact to a typical UKIP member you get an instant lecture as to why the EU is the root of everything bad in this country today. Yes, we no longer rule ourselves, but just ranting on and on without listening to people is exactly what we accuse the EU of. I lost count of the number of sympathetic people I took to UKIP meetings who were put off with what they saw as obsessive, often eccentric behaviour.  Like it or not in 21st century Britain sounding like Little Englanders turns people off. They want a party that speaks to them on a whole range of issues, not just the EU.

If we look at the announcement today that Sir Andrew Green's e-petition, about restricting immigration, gained the required 100,000 signatures in a week, compared to the year it took the petition on EU membership to reach 100,000, I think it proves the point nicely. People are much more agitated about immigration than the EU. I do believe that the majority of people would be happy to see immigration restricted and for Britain to leave the EU, but they see immigration as the more immediate problem, rightly or wrongly.

What Andrew Green's e-petition also highlights is that political correctness may have changed the way we talk about immigration, restricting our free speech on the issue by branding those opposed to immigration as racists, but it hasn't changed peoples' deeply held beliefs and concerns. More evidence that political correctness could ultimately drive decent people, with genuine concerns, into the arms of manipulative extremist parties.

More than ever the Coalition has proved the need for a political party that represents the views of the decent majority. A party a bit like the Tory Party used to be. Until then there are millions of us in this country who feel, and indeed are, disenfranchised.

I'm starting to sound like Peter Hitchens now so I'm off!

EU Referendum v Coalition Government: A Message To David Cameron

When you are strong arming your MPs to vote against giving us a referendum on membership of the European Union remember one thing. Well over 100,000 people have signed petitions demanding a referendum, not a single person voted for the coalition government you head.