The people who work for us

Edition 1214 of 'Private Eye' caught my eye in a "Gavel Basher" article on MP's expenses. As the vast majority of the house voted in a series of debates to keep their controversial expenses system and ignore the important parts of the salary reform system proposed by Sir John Baker, the MPs who objected were shouted down. One Liberal Democrat MP was called "sanctimonious and arrogant" for criticising MP's who claimed travel expenses for a second home when they lived twenty minutes away from Parliament.

David Maclean (who also proposed the disgusting act that reduced transparency in the house) actually said: "I've had pay freezes in the past and look what good that's done us". I find that to be bizarre and non-sequitur logic. It is basically saying that if MP's are not doing a good enough job, they should be paid more!

His self-indulgent, self-pitying whine continued:
"He compared our salary to that of a head teacher. Our salary was £60,000 and the head teacher was on £71,000. ..........There is therefore no doubt that we have fallen considerably behind those whom the SSRB considered our comparators. "


It would be interesting to see if the 'head teacher' in question had to pay for his or her own petrol , stationary and "extra costs" from that 71 grand. I'll happily wager they did. David didn't, he claimed 147,000 pounds in expenses last year. Of course, that would average his salary out to just over 72 grand, above that of the teacher.

Maclean continued:
none of those people—except a colonel in Afghanistan—is working long hours. Most of them are not doing 70 or 80 hours a week. Apart from those on the very front-line who are making tactical decisions involving life or death, most of them do not have the responsibility that we have of voting on issues that do include life or death,

Yes, poor overworked David who has voted in a grand total of 55% of debates this year and has almost as many holidays as the head teacher. Perhaps he uses all that time off to write letters, hence his 1,000 pound stationary allowance.


Perhaps the best quote of the bunch came from Patrick Cormack MP who actually claimed: "There are people in catering who get paid more than us". I'd be remarkably interested to know which caterer gets more than 63,000 pounds plus an insane amount of expenses (140,000 in his case) each year, sadly Patrick did not give specific details.

Another Lib Dem MP proposed that MP's submit receipts for scrutiny by a separate committee. Another MP actually rejected this by claiming .......wait for this....."If you hire a lock smith and submit the receipt for public viewing, it could help a thief to break into your home". As Nigel Farage likes to say: "you couldn't make this stuff up!"

How do we let people get away with such shameless corruption? And how can we - the next wave of politicians - ensure we don't become like them?

One of the debates is available to read here and is a textbook example of duplicity and doublespeak amongst politicos. Note how they unctuously praise the idea of transparency and auditing proposed by John Baker, then vote to ignore it and use their own system instead.

I've set up a new Facebook nationalist group:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=23754362369

UKIP have re-launched their web site. Most of the files are the same, it's simply the presentation and layout that have changed. It's a long overdue renovation. The old site was a mess and first time visitors who simply wanted to know who UKIP are and what they stand for could be confused and put off. The new site has easy access to introductory articles and creates a more modern and positive impression of the party.

The Free England Party have a petition campaign to request that the Prime Minister takes note of the growing discontent amongst the people of England with regards to the union and lack of recognition of Englishness as an ethnic identity and nationality.

The petition signatures are still being accepted here.

Immigration

It's hardly newsflash material that immigration is out of control but when you read a damning report from the House of Commons Library with the 'official' statistics, it really does bring home the seriousness of the problem.

Let me save everyone the trouble of reading through a dreary document by giving the information that matters: our population is projected to reach seventy one million by 2031 and two thirds of that growth is directly attributable to immigration. In other words, enough people to fill London plus one other major city will come to the UK.

And that's just a government 'best guess'. BBC Panorama and other media sources have already exposed the world of illegal immigration that is so vulnerable thanks to our lax border controls, and of course illegal immigration is uncounted.

A quick run down of the costs associated with immigration is also cause for concern. The Met police spent over ten million pounds on language services last year, the government is throwing over thirty million into community work to 'reduce tensions' and the police have raised concerns about multi occupancy housing ranging from littering to an increase in violent crime.

Of course most immigrants are good people who just want to work for a better life, they are not to blame, our government are responsible for letting immigration go unchecked This is not a racial issue either. The report also confirms that forty seven percent of Asian people and forty seven percent of black people surveyed said immigration was too high. The total score was sixty eight percent.

How did our government ever let immigration get so out of control and what can we do to fix it?

The report is here:


http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2008/rp08-065.pdf

Reasons for EU withdrawal

I'm going to keep a running tally of reasons to withdraw from the EU (European Union) starting from today.

1) Corruption in the budget

For thirteen years, auditors have refused to sign off the EU budget. It beggars belief how little uproar this has caused. (link)

2) Lack of transparency

The EU have pushed a new measure to state that "documents" (i.e. anything that can be seen by someone making a Freedom of Information' request) as papers on the official register only. In other words, if you don't want anyone to see it, simply don't place it on the official register! (link)

3) Lack of democracy

Only one chamber in the EU has legislative initiative and that is the European Commission. Each member state's European commissioner is selected by the government. In other words, they are unelected. The unelected minister from Sweden - chosen by a government I cannot vote for or against unless I emigrate to Sweden - has more power over my life than the Englishman I voted for in the European elections last time. (link)


This is just to get started, I'll be keeping a regular update.

The English question

Known to some as the "West Lothian Question" (after the locality of MP Tam Dylall who was the first person to raise the issue in Parliament), the 'English question' is the titular reference to the imbalance in UK parliament. Because Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own parliaments (though the later two have little power), the Houses of Parliament MP's who come from these countries have the ability to vote on matters that affect England but not their own country. In other words, people from other countries are deciding how England is governed.

It can cause problems and protest. For example, university tuition fees in England have been set by a vote from the House, whereas Scottish citizens are not eligible to pay the same fees. Some fear that if the problem continues and becomes exacerbated, tensions could rise more.

What is the solution to the problem?

The Popular Alliance believe in having "England only" voting days in parliament where matters that affect only England are voted on only by English MP's. This idea seems nice enough, though it could cause confusion in a government ruling by a clear majority. If losing the vote of non-English MP's challenges the majority of the ruling party, it could create problems.

The English Democrats favour an English Parliament with the same power as the Scottish Parliament and a referendum on further devolution or even dissolution of the Union. The only downside here is that the English Parliament would, logically, dominate other parliaments as well as adding an extra layer of expense.

The Free England Party, however, argue for a dissolution of the UK on the grounds that it "has served its purpose" and propose a "Council of the Isles" based on the Nordic model. This is a drastic and radical step, but one that can be argued well.