Robin Hood Based Satire

Have to say this tickled me.

Hat tip - Alan over at Nottingham Graffiti.

Hung Parliament

So we have hung Parliament for the first time in a while. On the plus side that won me a few drinking vouchers from Mr William Hill esq.

However, it's very clear to me that our voting system is not delivering what the electorate demands. 23% vote for the Lib Dems and they only get 57 seats, 29% vote Labour and they get 258. And that's before we take into account the skewing effects of tactical voting, of which I suspect there was a great deal nationwide from the widely varying swings.

So I would like to ask all readers of this blog to visit this campaign and sign their petition

WWW.TAKEBACKPARLIAMENT.COM

Let's keep up the pressure for electoral reform.

PS. It seems that there are over 3000 avowed racists in Nottingham who voted BNP and that was with no candidate standing in Nottm East. They got 5.7% in my manor, Nottm North. This is very disappointing.

The General Election

You may have noticed that we have all been invited to choose a new UK government this Thursday. At times like this I like to allow myself a bit of off-topicness and talk about who I think we should vote for. If nothing else it will let you know something about my political beliefs and perhaps put some of the views on the blog into context.

I should say that I'm not a member of any political party and don't see any real point in joining one. In terms of voting I'm purely generally tactical and one of the biggest issues closest to my heart, animal rights, doesn't really have any party doing it any justice.

Lets start with who I can't face voting for -

Labour

I simply can't justify voting for a party that is comfortable with the use of torture. I do believe that New Labour has done some useful things such as the minimum wage, gay rights and the Human Rights Act but it's ironic in view of the latter that they have also presided over some serious loss of civil liberties in the name of the war on terror. And there's that torture thing again. It would also be nice to not be at war with someone for five minutes.

Conservative

Well, I still haven't forgiven them for the Poll Tax. And they sold off the public sector to the lowest bidder (something New Labour has embraced along with the hated PFI). Lets also not forget the the Tories weren't exactly hot on civil liberties themselves despite their criticisms of Labour, anybody remember the Criminal Justice Act? And they happily sold lots of weapons to Saddam Hussein, despite knowing full well about his gassing the Kurds, and were a little too chummy with apartheid era South Africa.

Essentially they're a mix of frustrated landed gentry and swivel eyed uber capitalists and judging by some of the recent reports about Phillippa Stroud, Chris Grayling and Julian Lewis, they haven't quite got rid of the homophobia gene yet either.

UKIP

Oh come on, you're joking aren't you? Bunch of 19th hole bores with empire delusions.

BNP

Lets be frank here. If you vote BNP you're a racist. No excuses about New Labour betraying the working class please, if you vote for them you're a racist. Probably a homophobe too but I don't think it's essential. You have a responsibility to look at their policies, the types of people who join them, their record and their history and if you do that, you will see that they are a racist party and therefore voting for them makes you a racist. End of.

So lets now have a look at the parties I can just about stomach voting for -

Green Party

My own belief is that the environment is the biggest issue we face by far and for that reason alone, if I could I would vote Green. yes there's still a bit of the hippy about them occasionally but I'd be happy to put up with that and they do a good line on social justice too. I think it's a tragedy that the Green Party is such a small political force in the UK and a factor in that is no doubt our election system.

Liberal Democrats

They have a firm commitment to proportional representation and that makes them potentially worth voting for. They also have some very able people involved and have the advantage of being the only mainstream party that isn't the Conservatives or Labour. You can laugh but at the moment that's a real selling point. I think the two party system that has dominated British politics has been disastrous and needs to be stopped. I know most of this reasoning is tactical but I make no apology for that and in fact, I've done two of those 'pick your party from the policies' questionnaires and it came out Lib Dem both times. Although none of them mentioned that their science spokesman actively campaigns in favour of animal testing...

Conclusion

So, what have we learned today?

Essentially my heart says vote Green and my sensible side says vote Lib Dem. I happen to live in Nottingham North constituency and the Greens aren't standing there so that makes my decision fairly easy, I'm voting Lib Dem. However, every Lib Dem I've ever voted for in the past has either lost or defected so I'm willing to consider large cash offers from any Lib Dem officials who'd prefer it if I kept my clearly jinxed voting record at home ;).

So, my recommendation would have to be vote Green if you can and Lib Dem otherwise.

Collins Connections

I'm already starting to tire of writing about JoCo but the truth is he gets everywhere so it's difficult to avoid. He's been in the news a bit recently but more on that later.

I doubt that many people have noticed but 'One Nottingham' seems to have been surviving with an 'acting' Chief Exec for rather a long time. Andrew Belkin left back in October 09, about 20 minutes after JoCo installed himself as Chair (there's usually a change in Chief Exec when Collins rocks up as chair of an organisation) and Nigel Cooke, who was previously the 'Head of One Nottingham Team' took over pretty much straight away. Approaching May 2010 and he's still there with no news of any effort to start a recruitment process proper.

Cooke was previously an Assistant Director (what would be called a Director now) in Neighbourhood Services at NCC but I don't think he survived the cull in 2004/5 when they all had to reapply for their jobs. But as you can see, he seems to be doing alright now.

It just so happens that Cooke is one of JoCo's oldest bezzy mates. Obviously no need to rush into a transparent recruitment process when you've already got the right man for the job in place.

Moving on to Notts Police Authority. Collins is apparently Chair of their 'Change Management Board' which I didn't know about before. They've recently appointed a new 'Change Manager' Alan Given. Given was previously Chief Exec of Nottingham's 'Crime and Drugs Partnership'. Guess who the Chair of that organisation is? Yup, it's Mr Collins.

Yesterday, the 'Post' reported on the dismissal of Jason Zadrozny, Lib Dem PPC for Asfield, from the Authority on the grounds of lack of attendance. For some reason JoCo was wheeled out to justify the decision which suggested that his fingerprints were all over the decision. Zadrozny is apparently a genuine threat to Labour in the election so it's a weird coincidence that a Labour member seems to be involved in his removal from the authority, a story that can only help Labour's chances on 6 May. Mind you, more fool Zadrozny for giving them the opportunity.

So more's the pity that any efforts that JoCo has made for the common Labour good appear to have gone unrewarded. Despite running what the 'Post' describes as a 'vigorous campaign', (which wouldn't have affected any of his 'proper jobs natch) culminating in a trip to Birmingham for his interview (my God they're really putting him through the mill), he failed to secure the nomination for Nottingham East.

Fact; of the three meetings of Nottingham CDP in 2009 of which I can find the minutes, it appears that JoCo didn't make it to any of them. Prior to stepping in as Chair he was the Vice Chair.

Election Posters a Go Go

The Labour Party has invited people to help them design a series of election posters. In a not entirely unanticipated move this has caused some to take the opportunity to make a few spoof versions. There's some good ones here.

In the spirit of adding a bit of a local flavour Here's my suggestion to be used should everyone's favourite council leader decide to run for Nottingham East, as has been rumoured.

Back to doing some non-childish stuff another day, maybe.