Knobhead of the Year-David Cameron?

It's that time of year when I start wondering who will get the Knobhead of the Year award.

There are plenty of candidates this year, such as the committee full of knobheads and out and out nutjobs who gave the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union. Rio Ferdinand is high on the list for boring the arse off us all with his constant whining and whinging about supposed racism in football.

But today David Cameron has enthusiastically joined the fray with a wonderfully bizarre defence of the most ridiculed and unwanted elections in the history of the world, yesterday's Police and Crime Commissioner elections. Only around 15% of the electorate could be bothered wasting a few seconds of their lives to put a cross by the name of a muppet attempting to clamber aboard the latest gravy train for failed and aspiring politicos. Here's what the knobhead said:

'The turnout was always going to be low, when you're electing a new post for the first time,'

No Dave, turnout was low because we're sick of voting for knobheads like you.

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.

Nick Clegg And The Lib Dems Must Go!

After years of sitting in the shadows coming out with pie in the sky twaddle, the Lib Dems are now in a position to show us what they are all about, and it's not very pleasant. They seem to be the world's first ever political party that is desperately working to bring itself down rather than its opponents.

Nick Clegg's motley crew of misfits, and I include Cameron and his Tory wets in that description, are now trying to stitch up future elections by nationalising political parties. By calling it 'state funding' they think they'll get away with it. Clegg has even reassured taxpayers that their taxes won't go up to fund political parties. Maybe not, but when that small local library closes just remember that it has gone to bail out the ludicrous Lib Dems. We're not the idiots you take us for Clegg, we know that 'state funding' means taxpayer funding.

In these times of economic hardship, when services are quite rightly being cut, doesn't it say it all that reality has bypassed the European Union who, rather than cutting budgets, are thieving at least 2% more from UK taxpayers? And now the Lib Dems are planning to grab tax money to pay for their election campaigns, which would represent a 100% increase. No wonder the Lib Dems love the EU more than they do the UK.

Why should my taxes go to pay for political parties I totally disapprove of? The BNP, the Lib Dems, Labour, Tories, UKIP or anybody else. If you aren't popular enough to raise your own money then bugger off and don't expect me to pay. The first test of your fitness to stand in an election is the ability to pay for your campaign. If you can't you don't stand.

With taxpayer funding of parties, just like football's Premier League stitch up, the most well funded parties would be the Tory/Lib Dem/Labour coalition, thus further guaranteeing their current stranglehold on power for years to come. It is already difficult for new parties to get a serious foothold, indeed the only newish party that has made real progress is the Green Party. OK one MP, but it's something no other party has achieved for a long time. State funding will guarantee that smaller parties remain small and ineffective.

The latest proposals also plan to restrict personal donations to political parties to a maximum of £10,000. So when I win my rollover lotter jackpot I will not be allowed to spend the money as I see fit. The state will restrict my financial support to a party I approve of, but will grab my taxes to fund a party I do not approve of.

How very socialist.

Local Elections-May 5th

I'm really enjoying not being a candidate this year in the local elections, it's the first time in years I haven't stood and it's quite liberating.

Today I had a look at the list of candidates in my area, Lancaster City Council. It makes for very strange reading. There is one ward where the Tory will be unopposed and a few other wards where one or other of the main parties hasn't been able to muster a candidate. In my ward we have no Lib Dem candidates and their numbers appear to have plummeted across the authority, hardly surprising I suppose.

We have no UKIP candidates this time, no BNP candidates and no English Democrats. The biggest smaller party is the Green Party, who already have several seats on Lancaster City Council, largely due to the disproportionately large student population, and they have a healthy number of candidates this time.

There is also a good number of independent candidates, be they Morecambe Bay Independents, Free Independents, Really Free Independents, Really Really Free Independents, plain old Independents or whatever. Perhaps we're a contrary bunch in North Lancashire but some independents even refuse to be allied with other independents in a group on the council, a bit like the old Monty Python Judean blah blah blah sketch.

The beauty of Lancaster is the unpredictability. In 1999, when I was elected, we (independents) were the biggest group on a hung council, Labour losing control. I think there have been minority councils ever since with some strange political alliances ensuring some semblance of local authority ticks along. It's certainly healthier than Manchester for example, where they would still vote for a pig if it wore a Labour rosette.

So if you want a giggle on May 6th, just have a look at the results in Lancaster, they're bound to be slightly bizarre. But I'm thankful for that, it makes it more difficult for the big three take us for granted, and that's without AV.

Have the Tories Given Up?

We had a piece of paper stuffed through our letterbox today. It had the photos and contact details of our local Tory councillor, county councillor and MP. It also had the details of the local party secretary, I assume that means he will be standing in the May elections but doesn't want us to know yet, it's a two seat ward. The back of the sheet was blank. Nada, zilch, nowt.

If that's the best they can muster, six weeks away from local elections and a referendum, then I can only think they've given up trying seeing the performance of the Coalition and the shambles in Libya. My beloved sees it differently, she thinks they are cocky enough to think they have to do nowt to win after retaking the seat in the general election.

We'll find out soon, but I suspect Labour could retake the local council seats here come May. But we've had nothing from them yet, or any of the other parties. With any luck they've all given up!

BOMB THE VOTE-Boycott the May Elections!

As a result of the thread on yesterday's eChurch Blog, which I linked to below, the idea of a boycott of elections in protest over yet another military adventure by the UK government has been born.

'Goy' suggested the campaign name 'Bomb the Vote'. I don't usually think boycotting elections is a good idea, but voting seems to do little any more, look at the hybrid monster we currently have in government, so why not? Maybe we are a little late organising for the elections on May 5th but we can certainly sow the seed, and see what happens.

So I certainly intend to Bomb the Vote, and invite you to join me.