Fib Dem Clegg misled voters in run up to election

Last night's BBC documentary Five Days That Changed Britain, about the negotiations which produced the Con Dem coalition proved to be quite revealing.

Many of us have been rightly saying that the Lib Dems have ditched their principles for power, but the documentary proved that they were not even honest with the voters before the election.

Nick Clegg admitted that he changed his mind about the timing of spending cuts before the election, even though he was telling voters that to bring in cuts now would be "economic masochism" (More on this story in the Guardian)

I hope this latest revelation will cause the exodus of even more Lib Dem members.  They have been betrayed by their leader, and will pay dearly in the next election.

Who can trust a word the Lib Dems say in the future after this betrayal?

Why I'm supporting Ed Miliband for leader

A month ago today I blogged in support of Diane Abbott.  I still very much support Diane's policies and will give her my 2nd preference, but after a month of campaigning and having watched several hustings online I do not believe Diane is the right person to lead the Labour Party.

I don't feel she has proven that she can be a unifying force to lead the party into the next election, and unless we are unified we will not win the next election.

I therefore decided to back Ed Miliband.  I feel he offers the policies which I can unite behind:

Equality and dignity in work – tackling the gap between rich and poor, campaigning for a living wage and a high pay commission for both the public and private sector.
Rebuilding prosperity – supporting new industries, training opportunities and taking on the Coalition’s cuts and unfairness.
Building a sustainable future – putting climate change at the centre of everything we do, including our economic future.
Foreign policy based on values – not simply our alliances, learning lessons from the mistakes of Iraq.
Fairness in education – excellent schools in every community and fairer funding in higher education.
Protecting individual liberty – support for measures like CCTV but opposition to unnecessary state intervention in people’s lives, like excessive use of stop and search powers.
A 21st century democracy – support for the Alternative Vote, reform of the House of Lords, votes at 16 and more power for local government.
Building a movement – more voice for party members and a culture change in the way we do business, with women comprising 50% of the Shadow Cabinet.

Letters in local press opposing Lib Con NHS "reforms"

I got the following letter in The Press today, there was also letters from York Labour councillors James Alexander and Ruth Potter, which you can read here

THE Tory/Lib Dem coalition has obviously never heard of the saying: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Last month, the Commonwealth Fund judged the NHS to be the second-best health-care system in the world and top for efficiency, yet despite this the Government wish to undo the improvements made over the past 17 years, and fundamentally reform the way the NHS works.
It makes no sense whatever to scrap primary care trusts (PCTs) and put GP groups in charge of funds. Such a move will create a postcode lottery for health, and the fund managers will be less accountable than the current PCTs.

Like many of the other changes and cuts we are going to see over the duration of this Parliament, these are based on Tory ideology, and not what is best for the public sector and its users. The only people who will benefit from these changes will be private health providers, as waiting lists grow and those who can afford to switch to private health care.

It is imperative that we join the battle to save the NHS before it is too late and join the campaign against the proposed reforms.

Andy Burnham on Lib Con NHS reform

In today's Independent on Sunday Andy Burnham writes a very important article challenging the Lib Con reforms on the NHS.   I strongly recommend that everyone who is concerned about the direction the government are taking the NHS in reads this article.  It clearly highlights the major flaws of a plan which could end the NHS as we know it.

Andy Burnham is not my first choice for Labour leader, but he has been excellent on calling the Lib Cons to task over their reform plans.

The end of his article is a rallying call we should all respond to:

So, my message to patients, doctors and staff who hate these plans as much as I do is this – get ready for the mother of all battles. Labour will bring forward a campaign over the summer to show the strength of opposition to these plans before the health Bill arrives in Parliament in the autumn.

We will defend our party's finest creation with everything we've got from a Bill that threatens to unpick its very fabric.

I would also recommend you join the following two Facebook campaigns:

Hands of our NHS

National General Protest Day to Save the NHS 

Why is Diane Abbott the only Labour leadership candidate to oppose Trident?

I find it surprising and disappointing that only one of the five contenders for the Labour leadership is willing to oppose the replacement of Trident.

I can understand that as a former Foreign Secretary David Milliband may be accused of double standards by carrying out a u-turn on policy, but the other candidates should reconsider their position.

There is no logical reason behind defending Trident.  According to CND:

• 58% of people say that "given the state of the country's finances, the Government should scrap the Trident nuclear missile system" in an Independent/ComRes poll of September 2009 (Table 7)

• 54% of the public say Britain should "no longer have any nuclear deterrent" in a Gurdian/ICM poll of July 2009 (Table 8)

• Only 30% of the public would spend £20bn on Trident when offered alternatives of spending on nurses salaries or affordable homes, in a YouGov poll for The People newspaper from July 2009 (Page 4)

• 72% of the British public, in a poll in March 2007, did not support the government's plans to replace Trident - More4/Populus poll.

• 59% of the British public oppose replacing Trident when presented with the cost of £25 billion just to acquire a replacement system. (The equivalent of building around 1,000 new schools at current prices) - ICM poll, July 2006

• 73% of Scottish people thought it was wrong that £50 billion might be spent on a replacement for Trident.
• 64% were against nuclear weapons being based in Scotland for another 50 years. ICM poll carried out for Scottish CND, January 2007

I would imagine if potential Labour voters were polled there would be an even larger percentage supporting the scrapping of Trident.  I therefore cannot see why it would be politically damaging to call for Trident to be scrapped.  Do Andy Burnham, Ed Balls and Ed Milliband really believe that it is in the country's interest to renew its nuclear deterent?

What's more, unlike when the issue of Trident first came up 2006 before the recession, we really cannot afford to be wasting billions on such a weapons system.  By scrapping Trident renewal we could save thousands of jobs in the public sector, surely on economic grounds alone this is a more sensible option.

Although Trident is not the only important issue in the leadership campaign, having a candidate who is clearly against renewal and is also questioning the mission in Afghanistan gives us a clear signal as to which direction they will take on foreign policy in the future.  That is why I am supporting Diane Abbott.

Tabloid homophobia raises it's ugly head again

Two tabloid newspapers sunk to new depths today with homophobic opinion pieces on the recent ruling by the supreme court to allow asylum seekers who are gay not to be sent back to countries where they will face the risk of persecution.

The Daily Express produced this gem:

In the article they quote Supreme Court judge Lord Rodger, who comes out with the following hideous stereotype:

He said: “Just as male hetero sexuals are free to enjoy themselves playing rugby, drinking beer and talking about girls with their mates, so male homosexuals are to be free to enjoy themselves going to Kylie concerts, drinking exotically-coloured cocktails and talking about boys with their straight female mates.”

The Daily Star produced an even worse headline with 'NO ROOM FOR GAYS'.  In the article they claim asylum seekers will go gay to gain asylum, by saying:

Some people will do whatever it takes if it means a cushy life in Britain.

We must challenge this hideous excuse for journalism when we see it.  It is designed to promote homophobia and prejudice towards asylum seekers.

The Tories and their Lib Dem poodles plan to take us back to the eighties with their wreckless cuts

Many in the public sector were shocked when Osborne announced in the budget that he wanted 25% cuts across all departments except Health and International Development.  We all knew cuts were coming but this felt far too deep and would result in many job losses and poorer public services.

To then hear yesterday that Danny Alexander wanted departments to plan for 40% cuts was a real punch in the guts to public sector workers.  Many will now be seriously worrying about their jobs, as such drastic cuts could result in hundreds of thousands of jobs being lost from the public sector.

The only two departments which will not be hit quite so hard are Education and Defence.  Yet Defence is the one department where the most obvious cuts lie, in Trident and Afghanistan.  These cuts could be made with little effect being felt by the British public.  The chances are that in Education it will be seen more politically acceptable to make higher education face the largest share of the cuts, which would be an attack on a sector which is already in great financial difficulty.

The big question is what the government thinks is going to happen to all those public sector workers they make redundant.  There is no abundance of job vacancies in the private sector to absorb such job losses.  Without a doubt these actions will lead to the highest levels of unemployment and poorest levels of public services in decades.  It will take us back to the dark days of the eighties.

Despite the rhetoric these cuts are not unavoidable.  There are numerous commentators offering examples of less harmful measures to deal with the deficit such as:

• Scrapping Trident and leaving Afghanistan
• Raising capital gains tax to 40%, as this would not affect the poorest in society
• Leaving the NI rise for employers in place
• Scrapping the married couples tax allowance
• Hitting the banks harder, who after all are primarily responsible for the mess we are in
• Bring in a higher tax level for those earning over £100k

These drastic cuts have to be fought.  I am not a person who calls strike at the drop of a hat and was not prepared to vote in favour of industrial action over pay this year, but there comes a point when we have to make a stand.

The only answer to these drastic actions is for all public sector unions to join together and work on co-ordinated industrial action, before it is too late and we end up with millions on the dole and third-rate public sector.

At the end of the day there are alternatives and these cuts have more to do with Tory ideology than being faced with no other option.

Interim cap on non-EU migration bad news for Higher Education

There are many reasons why the Libservatives cap on migration is a badly thought out policy, but the reason which concerns me the most is the effect it will have on Higher Education.

Universities and colleges are already facing hardship, closing departments and making wide spread redundancies, and this is before the implementation of the 25% cut on the Department of Education announced in the budget.  With the cap on migration it will also limit the amount of non-EU students who can attend UK universities.  This will have a devastating effect on university funding if it loses the income from overseas tuition fees.

To quote the article from the BBC News article on the interim measures which are being introduced:

Tim Finch from the Institute of Public Policy Research, said the measures were just a stopgap and would have a detrimental affect on the higher education sector.

He added: "Do we really want to have restrictions on foreign students at a time when the higher education sector is facing funding cuts and is going to rely on the fees that those students bring in?"

According to the Guardian there are 250,000 non-EU students.  This wreckless move will have a devastating effect on higher education.  I hope when the full policy is implemented the government think twice about include non-EU students in their cap, or we may begin to see the closure of whole universities rather than just departments, as there will simply not be the demand out there for the current number of student places.

Do you believe this man when he says 'We're all in this together'?

I feel nauseus each time I hear him say 'we are all in this together'.  The government has a majority of millionaires in the cabinet completely out of touch with real life.

The Lib Dems put out the following poster during the election:

They have now let down those who voted for them who believed they would not raise VAT.

VAT hits all regardless of income and raising it to 20% will hit the poorest the most, where as capital gains tax was only raised to 28%.  Raising this higher would have been fairer as the it would not affect the poorest in the country unlike VAT.

On top of this public sector workers are faced with a pay freeze for two years. Considering RPI is currently over 5%, this is in real terms a significant pay cut.  On top of this many are likely to lose their jobs in the public sector due to real terms cuts across all government departments of 25% over four years (with the exception of health and foreign aid).  How can making thousands of workers redundant and putting them on unemployment benefit help the economy?

The Tories have always been in favour of rolling back the public services and now they can use the fig leaf of the economy to do just that.  Harriet Harman was right when she said that the budget was driven by "ideology not by economics". 

Why I'm supporting Diane Abbott for Labour leader

Today Diane Abbott launched her campaign website at http://www.diane4leader.co.uk

I was very pleased to see her reach the required amount of nominations to enter the race.  If Diane becomes leader of the Labour Party we will see a real difference between Labour and the Con Libs, a difference which I believe will bring many more people back to the Labour Party who have either stopped voting or voted for minor parties in recent years.

I stopped voting Labour after the Iraq war and refused to vote for party again until Blair had left office.  During this time there were still many Labour MPs who inspired me, who voted against the exceses of the Blairite era, such as Diane who voted against the Iraq War, tuition fees, Trident and ID cards.  These are not radical views, a large amount of the electorate were against these policies.

I also greatly respect Diane's position on immigration.  Some of the leadership candidates have chosen to empathise with Mrs Duffy and argue that we were wrong on immigration and that it helped us lose the election.  I do not believe this is the case, and it is good to see a candidate who is willing to challenge the misconceptions about immigration and to focus on the core issues behind discontentment amongst the electorate such as housing and jobs.

I feel it is important that we focus on what Labour did right in the past 13 years such as the minimum wage, equality legislation, Northern Ireland peace process. improved public services.  I feel Diane is best placed to carry on this agenda, and to steer us clear of unpopular policies.

Diane for Leader Facebook group
Diane Abbott Twitter feed

Demonstration against Israeli attack in York

With just a few hours notice around 150 demonstrators attended a protest in York over the Israeli attack on the peace flotilla, which resulted in the deaths of at least 10 peace activists, quite likely many more.

Israel attacks unarmed humanitarian flotilla in international waters

I could not believe the news when I woke up this morning.  Earlier this morning Israeli troops boarded the international aid flotilla to Gaza.  So far it is reported 16 peace activists are dead.  Even for Israeli this is a new low.

This action is in direct violation of international law.  An unarmed ship attacked in international waters.

Many of the activists were Turkish, and the Turkish government have strongly condemned the attack, saying they:

"strongly condemn[ed] these inhumane practices of Israel"

I would hope other governments will now not sit on the fence and strongly condemn the actions of Israel.  If this was any other country there would be international outrage at a unarmed ship being attacked with its passengers being killed in international waters.

David Laws is arguing over semantics

David Laws was entitled to a private life, and his relationship with another man did not need to be made public.  Unfortunately David made an ill judged decision, and he alone is reponsible for the repurcussions.

In his statement on the BBC News website he says:

At no point did I consider myself to be in breach of the rules which in 2009 defined partner as "one of a couple … who although not married to each-other or civil partners are living together and treat each-other as spouses."

Although we were living together we did not treat each other as spouses - for example we do not share bank accounts and indeed have separate social lives.

This is simply playing with the semantics of the term partner.  Many who have come to his defence in the media this morning talk about his great intellect.  Surely a man of such intellect should have realised that what he was doing was at the very least bending the rules.

According to a recent article in the Times he is worth an estimated £1.3 million.  If David had wanted to keep his relationship private, he should have made the decision not to claim expenses to give to his partner for rent. 

Interim Libservative plans for House of Lords are an undemocratic stitch up

I failed to spot the following Guardian article when published last week. It is certainly a worrying move:

Coalition deal 'to bring 172 peers'

The coalition agreement between Conservatives and Liberal Democrats could result in the parties appointing more than 100 new peers, despite being committed to a largely or fully-elected upper house, it is reported.

The agreement, published last Wednesday, states that a committee will be set up to come forward with draft motions by December to create a reformed upper house elected by proportional representation.

In the interim, the document states that "Lords appointments will be made with the objective of creating a second chamber reflective of the share of the vote secured by the political parties in the last general election".

With Labour currently represented by 211 peers, on a strict mathematical calculation, this would imply an increase from 186 to 263 in Tory numbers in the House of Lords and a boost in Lib Dem places from 72 to 167 - a total of 172 new peers.

This is a blatant attempt to ensure the government can push all of their legislation through without facing opposition. The Libservatives claim to be introducing us to the "new politics" when in fact this is the worst kind of example of the grubby old politics.

By awarding Tories and Lib Dems many more peerages it will not reflect the will of the UK electorate. For a start there are 208 crossbenchers and 26 Lords Spiritual there is a chance many of these peers could be classed as being on the right of the political spectrum, particularly when it comes to issues on equalities.

If they really believe in political reform they should make reform of the House of Lords a priority and bring us an elected second chamber as soon as possible, rather than rushing to cram the Lords with political allies.

Lost:The Unanswered Questions

This video sums up many of the questions I had after watching the series finale.  This being said, it was still one of the best series of the noughties.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.