Reform Is Pointless.....Without Control Of Our Money

There is a general national mood for reform of the way we are governed at present, I never thought it would be a global recession coupled with the expenses row that would bring it about.

However there are two types of Reform being proposed at present, one is that of the three main parties tinkering around the edges, setting up scrutiny committees dah de dah de dah- and the other one from frustrated members of the public who want this ‘Rotten Parliament ‘ cleared out now, not next month, not next year but now with a General Election.

Both presuppose that the ‘system’ will plod on much the same as before with a few bolt ons, a ‘recall’ system which I think is a given now that it has support from just about everybody, and fixed term Parliaments which is also gaining strong support. I think Cleggy has got it right, no summer hols until you sort this out, and involve the people in a Referendum on the Constitution- NO MORE TOP DOWN EVER- I am firmly in the STV/AV+ camp and have been for thirty years, I am not terrified of everybody having a say in how the country is run, and would have the Swiss Cantonal system here tomorrow morning. Switzerland and Germany run effectively with devolved power, and we desperately need a written Constitution with checks and balances in favour of individual Liberty against the State, not one that presupposes vice versa as Straw would have.

All of this chat is very well, but the one major reform above all else is the way we finance Government.

What should we pay to central Government for-

The Libertarian view is only two- Defence and Foreign Relations. Number of MP’s needed 100 tops

Everything else can be delegated to the County level, including tax raising powers.

( You will not get somebody risking robbing you blind if they are standing next to you in Tesco’s checkout, and no need for second homes and 800 inch TV’s)

How do you raise Revenue-?

The system that currently operates where the State deprives you of your money before you get it (PAYE) has to end, if you had to write out a large cheque every year you would think about what it was being spent on and would be interested in politics, rather than feeling you had been mugged and could do nothing about it.

The system where companies large and small are under the obligation to act as unpaid Tax collectors has to end, along with it the threats to companies from the hirelings of HMRC. Companies are set up to make profits for the shareholders, NOT to be an extension of the State. End deductions at source for Court fines, the Child Support Agency, this is nothing but a burden on industry, if the State is going to impose these sanctions let the State collect the money. The insidious use of private enterprise to do the States bidding must end, ie Tesco’s and ID cards.

Lastly not one, not one organisation should be in receipt of a penny of the public purse unless the Board are elected. This goes for the Police, including the Chief Constable, every Quango, Private enterprise like ACPO and the fake charities.

Deprive the State of Money, it will wither and die, the corruption happens because it can, because they are taking our money without consent and under the threat of violence or loss of Liberty.

You can only change your Constitution through the destruction of your Society caused by War, or in times of Economic Stress/Crisis. This moment in peacetime will not come for decades, we should not waste this time.

Reform: A Westminster red herring

I wrote yesterday about Cameron and his big plans for constitutional reform, last night Nick Clegg waded into the fray with even more outlandish suggestions which quite frankly scare the pants off most people who read it.

All this talk of massive reform is frankly a con, a red herring. Discovering that the majority of our 646 MP's have been caught with their fingers in the till does not warrant such massive changes to the way in which this nation works.

Outrage at theiving politicians does not need the kind of reform suggested by Cameron and Clegg to correct. Its a massive red herring to deflect attention, a method of saving their own butts and bringing in a sweeping pro-EU agenda that voters have already rejected, regionalisation. So they are trying to do it on the back of public anger.

What this crisis does warrant is putting our MP's back in the box. Stripping away some of the self serving powers that they have accumulated, putting them on the same level as everyone else, making them subject to the same laws and enforcing that, making them work in an open and honest way, making Westminster completely transparent.

Cameron's talk of moving power to the regions is merely a cover for more EU integration, moving power bases to unelected bodies, quangos and charitable trusts. It does nothing to address the bigger problem of returning lost rights to the public, dismantling the Big Brother state, nor about strengthening the sovereignty of the individual.

I do not want to see 'Power' merely moved to the local level to harass and subjugate the population further. I want to see a massive programme of repeal.

Not a single reform should be allowed to take place until we have repealed the European Communities Act. We need a referendum of EU membership, not just Lisbon, and we need it now. That's the kind of reform we need.

If we want constitutional reform lets have reform, but lets make sure we do it because we want to, in our own time, in our own way, and lets make sure that its our constitution that we are dealing with, not the one dictated by the Lisbon Treaty or because these Party leaders are being told to move it forward by the EU, nor any kind of reform overseen and managed by the EU.

And please remember that with all this talk of written constitutions enshrining rights, if you ever have to ask permission, it not a right, its an entitlement. One which the State believes can be bestowed at its pleasure, rather than yours at birth. The 'right' to demonstrate peacefully outside Parliament is a good example, its been reduced to an entitlement, with police permission.

The State has taken too much power already. Lets start paring that back, pruning away at the powers that the state have never been given, but have merely taken. So before we begin to go down the reformist road, lets have that programme of repeals, lets return the rights, Liberties and freedom to the people first.

Parliament belongs to the people, not the politicians. Time to take it back.

Repeal before Reform.

Cameron the PR man is The Great Pretender

Little Jennifer looked up despairingly at her mother, tugging desperately at her mother's arm and interrupting her mid evening viewing of the now out of date Location, Location, Location and her own shattered dreams.

"Is that nice Mr Cameron going to save us all from the big nasty Mr Brown mummy?" she enquired, "Is he really going to let Daddy work as much overtime as he wants to buy me toys, and is he going to let me choose my own school, because I want to be a train driver when I grow up, and will he make the nasty man from the council stop taking all Daddy's money, and will he keep our post office open so that I can save my pocket money there, and will he make all those silly teachers in school stop scaring me and my friends, because they keep telling me that the world is going to end unless I report Daddy for driving a big car, and tell them what we had for dinner last night and whether you switch out my light when I go to bed, and will he stop the nasty nasty policemen from arresting Daddy every time he goes to London because they say he did something nasty 10 years ago and its in their database, even though he didn't do it.....?

"Please darling, stop crying now. Nice Mr Cameron will pretend to make it all go away so you don't see it any more. Now that the banks are Nationalised, Daddy can borrow the money for your toys rather than work overtime for it, because Mr Cameron is frightened of the even bigger badder man in Brussels so he can't let Daddy work overtime. He might let you choose your own school darling, but the silly man in the council will still have to tell you what you can learn. Daddy needs his big car because we live in a road that hasn't been repaired for 10 years, but the silly teachers have been told to ask you anyway, its not their fault darling, but Mr Cameron cant do anything about that because he is frighted that those nasty people in Brussels will tell him off".

"There, there darling, we can play a game, shall we play we can pretend. Lets pretend its all gone away and the nice Mr Cameron did it for us".


Unfortunately that nearer the truth than you think, with only a week to go before the EU elections, elections to a supranational body that no-one in the UK except politicians have agreed to, we have a major constitutional speech by David Cameron, and he seems to be doing a lot of pretending.

He says a lot does our David Cameron to keep the Jennifer's and the parents of this world happy, except what they really need to know.

Cameron knows that he cannot speak about or discuss the EU, because to do so will bring the whole rotten deceit out into the open, so in a speech delivered like a true PR man, along with questions from the audience and an interactive twitter session, the subject of the EU is never mentioned. If the questions were asked (yes I asked), they were never answered.

When you want people to vote for your party in the EU elections, why wont you discuss the European Union Mr Cameron?

He speaks of reform, he speaks of change, as if the UK has not been through enough change over the past 30 years, he does indeed speak of yet more change, but this time it is different. A PR man he may be, but an Obama he is not. He tells us that he wants to give more power closer to the people.

So what exactly does that mean, what will it give to you, the voter. Well the answer is, simply nothing.

What it does do however is put into place the last part of the redistribution of power, started by Blair in 1997, designed to move 'power' away from National Government to Regional Governments under the EU. The final element of destruction of the nation state in favour of an EU of the Regions.

Lets take a look at Cameron's speech, and see just how it maps onto the EU agenda, so that you can decide whether Cameron is really trying to help you, or to help himself and the EU achieve their goals.

He begins perfectly well, firstly outlining what is wrong in his own party, and to be quite honest I have no interest in that, other than to join the long list of complainants who wish to see justice served on those who have misappropriated taxpayer funds rather than the limp wristed approach of repayment and de-selection. Like any good PR man, and lets not forget that Cameron is a PR man by trade, he then goes on to identify where the anger in the nation lays, or to be more accurate where he thinks it lays.

His summing up of the problem areas is extensive and fairly accurate, even though every one of the problems he outlines can be accurately mapped to the Fiscal Equalisation plan set by the OECD, who are more than quite open in their assessment of the consequences.

"Fiscal equalisation is an explicitly redistributive programme, and as such is highly controversial"..... "is likely to dominate any other aspect of potential arrangements such as efficiency, transparency or else sub-central autonomy".

So yes, Cameron is spot on when he identifies the problems even if he fails to mention the cause but then he hits a problem. He tells his first outright lie when he identifies this:

We rage that the local post office was shut down because some bureaucrat or management consultant in a distant glass tower decided it didn't make enough money...

His first outright lie and his first avoidance of directly mentioning the EU. The public are not stupid, they already know that the EU issued a directive for the break-up of National postal services, in all 27 member states, and that they must become supranational in make-up, thereby allowing regulatory control to fall under the EU remit and removing it from national control.

Its a shame, because he was doing so well up to this point, but a lie is a lie.

Previously the subject has just been ignored, but not even blushing at that, Cameron the PR man pushed on, moving to the Lack of Responsibility that we all know and meet every day. This section of his speech is faultless, to the point where I think he must have been reading the Libertarian Party blogs all week whilst preparing for this speech, especially when he gets to the Social Breakdown section. Its perfect.

But his solutions are not.

He does little if nothing to explain how we have moved in the period of a week from catching MP's with their fingers in the till to the need for major constitutional reform, from internal party politics to national despair.

There was always the air of engineered events when the Telegraph broke the first of a long tirade of exposures of the dealings of MP's. The Telegraph and Guardian were so quick off the mark with requirements and 'solutions for change' that the suspicion of a put up job just made the alarm bells ring out loud right across the nation. A manufactured crisis for political purposes, and so it is, and here it is according to PR man Cameron.

The Redistribution of Power.

Camerons opening passage:

"Our philosophy of progressive Conservatism – the pursuit of progressive goals through Conservative means – aims to reverse this".

This should tell you all you need to know. Progressive Conservatism. This is where Nudge comes in.

With the Conservatives new best buddies the Fabians, and their board appointments to Demos, the Conservatives are about to attempt to pull off the biggest sleigt of hand that Britain has ever seen, or 'not seen' as they hope. They intend to continue the work of the Labour Government but with such a huge sugar coating you wont even be able to see it. Its called Europe of the Regions, and Cameron is going to continue on the road to regionalisation and the slow death of national government until its totally irreversable and better off being scrapped.

Right, lets now get to the nitty gritty. Lets look at what he said:

To reverse our social atomisation by giving people the power to work collectively with their peers to solve common problems.

Ah, collectivism, a good Fabian precept for all that is to follow.

We need a massive, sweeping, radical redistribution of power.

From the state to citizens; from the government to parliament; from Whitehall to communities.

From Brussels to Britain; from judges to the people; from bureaucracy to democracy.

Through decentralisation, transparency and accountability we must take power away from the political elite and hand it to the man and woman in the street.

It is that redistribution of power that I want to focus on today.

Sounds really good doesn't it, its almost the same as the Libertarian Party are calling for, but there is a huge difference.

Cameron does not talk of sovereignty, or of rights, or of governing, he speaks of power, power under the guise of democracy. You will see it right throughout his speech, devolving power, political power, individual power, but never consensual governing. Libertarians are about consent, consent of the individual for those elected to govern by consent, not to have power. Just bear that in mind as we wade through his speech.

Cameron says:

"Politicians, and the senior civil servants and advisors who work for them, instinctively hoard power because they think that's the way to get things done".

Then says:

Every decision government makes, it should ask itself a series of simple questions:

Does this give power to people, or take it away?

Could we let individuals, neighbourhoods and communities take control?

How far can we push power down?

Again, see the wording, its not about giving people back their rights, liberties or consent to govern, its about who should have the power or control.

He speaks of education, moving the power (its so repetitive, but important):

Our reforms will take the power over children's education out of the council's hands and put it directly in parents' hands, so they have control.

We will end the state monopoly in state education, so that any suitably qualified organization can set up a new school...

...and any parent who isn't happy with the education their child is receiving can send their child to a new school...

...backed by state money, including a new extra payment for children from the poorest families.

This is the kind of redistribution of power that will be the starting point for a Conservative government: transferring power and control directly to individuals.

Here he speaks of 'State money' and again about redistribution of power.

One of the fundamental problems and reasons for the rage that Cameron has totally ignored, and is a sure sign of those who still believe in state control and wealth distribution is the use of taxpayers money and calling it State money. There is no state money!, it's taxpayers money.

Even in this short statement on education he shows how he believes in state control, as he could end the state monopoly on schooling any time, but he still wants to retain the power over who would be qualified to set up a new school, which means more regulation and no giving up of that state control.

If he really wanted to devolve that 'power', he would give parents the right to decide on the educational qualifications of those who taught their children.

As late as only last month, Cameron was talking about the NPfIT and the NHS spine network. Patient records are a very contentious issue, and people naturally view their records as private, yet Cameron was calling for the Government to scrap or curtail the spending from Government, yet give all the data to Google to handle.

Cameron said the Tories would also look closely at the National Programme for IT - the controversial and expensive NHS modernisation programme.

Echoing last September's policy review, he called for a decentralised approach to replace the highly-centralised project.

Cameron singled out the "Electronic Patient Records system" as an example of Labour's wasteful spending. Imagining how the Tories might have implemented such a project, Cameron said: "You don’t need a massive central computer to do this. People can store their health records securely online, they can show them to whichever doctor they want... But best of all in this age of austerity, a web-based version of the government’s bureaucratic scheme services like Google Health or Microsoft Health Vault cost virtually nothing to run."

This is serious Nudging, no loss of government authority over your records yet making people believe that by using Google or Microsoft their records would be far safer. Its not about the money stupid. Its about rights, its about privacy, its personal. Cameron's work seriously smacks of Corporatism.


Now we move on to Local Power, and now it really begins to get interesting, and really disengenious.

He opens this section with:

But it's not always possible to give power back to individuals, and in those cases, we need to do the next best thing: redistributing power to neighbourhoods and local government.

Its the power thing again, and to bring that home, he does not mean giving you more say, he means instilling that power in bodies over which you have no control. Look:

Our plans for housing will give real control over the size, shape, look and feel of their community back to local people. ...through new Local Housing Trusts, neighbourhoods will themselves have the power to build the homes they want.

Trusts, Charities, Quangos. The unseen government. The people who run them may be local to you, but you can bet your last pound they wont be answerable to you. Do you have a direct say in your NHS trust?, or your local Housing Association?. More corporatism at play. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

He also says:

And we're going to empower local councils by cutting right back on all the interference and instructions from central government - the rules and restrictions, the targets and inspections.

But where are the repeals of the laws that so many Conservative councils have been abusing and the source of much of the anger from voters, such as RIPA and other Terror legislation and the Fixed Penalty Notices issued on a whim by council employees (yes, 80% of all reported abuses are Conservative controlled councils).
Where are the promises of removing abuses by councils of the racketeering by such organisations as Solace. None, not to be acknowledged, not to be discussed.

And it wont be will it, because Cameron is going to give them even more 'Power':

Newly empowered councils will be able to keep the proceeds of any activities that boost local economic growth...

...and through a new 'general power of competence' will be able to do literally whatever they like as long as it's legal – creating solutions to local problems without getting permission from the centre.

Well lets face it, all that snooping is legal, local authorities having access to your bank accounts, phone, fax, internet records is legal, raising revenue because you overfilled your bins is legal, the fixed penalty notices are legal, speed cameras are legal and lots more. This is where the anger is Cameron, this is where people have lost trust. Will Cameron abolish all this?, Nah, because you know and I know its all about power. The power to control you.

Cameron said it himself:

For the last few weeks I've been up and down the country campaigning, meeting Conservative councillors. ...Of course we can trust them with more power and control.

Yes of course we can. That really does tell you what this is about, power..

But the biggest sleigt of hand that Cameron delivers in this section is this:

We're going to get rid of pointless and unaccountable regional government and bureaucracy, and we'll end the central ring-fencing of local budgets.

Why is this a sleigt of hand? Here Cameron is doing a Gordon Brown, reannouncing something that was announced earlier and forgotten, but let me explain.

The only reason Regional Assemblies are pointless is that they have already been announced to be abolished (July 2007), but what was not abolished and what Cameron again failed to mention, are the EU controlled RDA's, who have assumed the powers of the Regional Assemblies already, each year spending millions upon millions of your tax money and exerting a huge amount of control over local and Unitary authorities.

But, here again we see Cameron avoiding talking about anything EU. He will not discuss the fact that Local and Unitary authorities already work into the unelected RDA's, this transfer of power will just codify their existence, mopping up those authorities that have avoided this so far.

Understand that the RDA's are the central focus of the British regions of the EU. So again, not to be acknowledged, not to be discussed. How many people have heard of the RDA's? How many people understand just how really powerful these RDA's are? Not many, because our politicians flatly refuse to discuss matters EU. Cameron the PR man is no exception.

So lets do it for him. Lets talk about the EU and how their influence is going to shape Cameron's policy. No, let me rephrase that. Cameron is going to implement the EU regionalisation policy and he thinks you wont notice. Cameron the PR man doing The Great Pretender.

Cameron speaks of a small parliament, reducing the number of MP's from 650 (at the next GE) by at least 10%. Douglas Carswell wants more down to 500, and others are calling for that figure to be as little as 150. So lets look at the numbers and the reasoning behind it..

MP's are currently elected on the basis of approximately 73,000 constituents, boundary changes occur when a constituency get a bigger or small population, with a recent boundary change seeing the number of MP's rise from 646 currently to the 650 for the next election.

However, note carefully Cameron's words.

So at the election we will include proposals in our manifesto to ask the Boundary Commission to reduce the House of Commons, initially by ten per cent.

Initially. As power is devolved out to the regions, the need for MP's in the centre will decrease, logical yes, but devious. Nearly all the other EU states have parliaments with a figure of 150 representatives. We know how the EU loves conformity and uniformity, so it not unreasonable to assume that this will be Cameron's final target figure.

In the UK, there are 133 NUTS/Level 3, 37 NUTS/Level 2 and 12 Regions or NUTS/Level 1. We know that Level 2 will eventually be abolished and with a few boundary changes it is easy to see how a figure of 150 representatives can be reached, eventually giving us 138 Level 3's and 12 Regional Governors/Ministers. But he wont have to get there until 2020.

The interim move, will have 443 MP's drawn from LAU Level1, 37 from NUTS Level2 and 12 Regional Governors/Ministers, giving a total of 492, closer to the Carswell figure of 500.

If you are unsure what NUTS/LAU's are there is an explanation here, along with the figures for the UK, and in case you were wondering who put this together, it was of course the EU, and their spreadsheet is attached at the bottom.

Cameron will continue these changes using the salami slicing method, lots of Nudges and lots of spin. We know this is occurring because we already have an example of how lies and spin are being used to cover the real agenda by the present government.

I know that Dan Hannan and Douglas Carswell effectively wrote an awful lot of what Cameron is telling us today, but I just know, and you know that whilst we remain in the EU it can never be put into action.

So where is the promise, the cast iron promise of a referendum under all circumstances to decide whether we stay in or come out. There isnt one. To watch him squirm and evade when that question was put to him by Andrew Marr, leaves me with no doubts that the option for us to vote on the EU is not even on the radar let alone the table.

Cameron has publicly stated several things over the past year.
He has stated that he is not a Libertarian, but here he is today outlining what under normal circumstances I would call a Libertarian manifesto. With all deference to Hannan & Carswell and their work 'The Plan' which Cameron has used extensively here, I think you have just been suckered..
He has also stated that he wants to occupy the ground held by Tony Blair. We all know where Blair was taking us and it isn't good.



I have no wish to live in an EU region, I have a country and I wish to regain it. Unfortunately Cameron's plan comes nowhere near fulfilling my idea of a safe, secure, free and independent UK.

Cameron is not a man to trust, in fact, Cameron the PR man is The Great Pretender.


Can you do better than Cameron and his discredited Tories? If you want to stand as an MP in the next General Election against these self serving politicians, then send an email to contact@lpuk.org and help us work towards solving the problems of the UK. Stand as a Libertarian Candidate and let Cameron know that this kind of trickery and the Conservatives are finished.

If you want to see the restoration of Sovereignty, the re-assertion of the Rule of Law with the reduction in coercion and the increase in consent that this brings, there is only one choice - The Libertarian Party, UK.

Dave Has Gone All 'Libertarian'Again

“… so many people increasingly feel that the state is their enemy not their ally.”

David Cameron

I have never felt the State to be my ally, not while it is dipping in and out of my wallet, my company's wallet,money that could be better spent in expanding the business, training young people, investing in the future insteading of funding faux jobs in the public sector and a moutain of troughing MP's.

Can it only be nine months ago since Cameron stood up in front of the Tories and said I am not a Libertarian, pooh poohed 'The Plan' by Carswell and Hannan, in favour of caring sharing Conservatism, ie Tory MP's sharing our money with their Ducks,Mistresses, Wives, Secretaries, Boyfriends, not neccesarily in that order.


Destiny Dave is in a blue funk, his personal destiny to be PM is under threat by the backlash to come. How long this reforming zeal is going to last who can tell, on past performance with Blue/Green politics about six months.

The first red line he drew was his repudiation of Libertarianism. This was deeply welcome to all those Tories who detest Brown's leviathan state and the daily intrusions into our freedoms - but have long been concerned at the "libertarian" label being slapped onto the party of Queen and country, of service and traditional communities, by swivel-eyed ideologues* who are as hostile to true Toryism as are Marxists. Cameron reinforced this later when he said
"We are not an anti-state party."

1st October 2008- Daily Telegraph

Different to what he said a year earlier

What he said today was complete flim-flam, he believes in a strong State with him at the top of the pile.

* Thats us

Appeal For Election Fund

The election is drawing ever nearer, the hot money is now on October 2009.

We urgently need to raise £10 000 to support our candidates, that is merely the equivalent of £12.50 per paid up member ! Please give £15 out of your May or June paypacket to make this happen, it will be going into a designated Election Fund

The artwork and text for the leaflets is done and paid for.

Rob Waller and myself are updating the database so that we can start putting out monthly newsletters and appeals letters.

If you can spare more please give more, if you are unemployed,an OAP or Student and cash is beyond tight, give that other form of capital your time, it is just as valuable

UPDATE

Thanks to everybody who responded with Donations this afternoon, absolutely brilliant start.

I hope to have a widget up soon showing money as it comes in

The punishment must fit the crime (that you were cleared of).

MPs outraged as it is revealed they will not vote over police storing innocents' DNA

OK, so you take a borderline fascist idea that will give the state near total surveillance over citizens lives, you plan to pump billions of tax payer money into this scheme, you try every trick in the book to bring it in through the backdoor, all to the publics' anger, as well as opposition from both Tories and the Lib Dems, and then you find that the ECHR has decided it's illegal. It should be dead, right? No, what happens is this:

Yesterday the criticism mounted as the Home Office admitted it plans to rush the reforms through Parliament using a 'statutory instrument' which will be rubber-stamped following 90 minutes of discussion by a Labour-dominated committee, with no debate or vote in the House of Commons

Ya hu. Or, you could scrap the whole thing. Ever consider that? No? Well, at the very least do what Strasbourg ruled you should do and stop taking the DNA of people cleared of their charges. The EU may be a load of rubbish, but you guys support it, so follow its rules.

Miss Smith's officials sparked further anger by saying the procedure was necessary in order to comply with the Strasbourg ruling as quickly as possible - effectively claiming there was not enough time for MPs to debate the matter.

Oh, you are, are you?

But the Home Secretary sparked outrage over so-called 'Big Brother' powers earlier this month when she unveiled new rules, which will still allow the police to keep innocent people on the database for six years, or 12 years if they were arrested for but cleared of a serious sexual or violent offence

Not good enough. The last part, in italics, is doubly insulting. So, if you didn't commit a minor offence, you're "only" going to have your DNA taken for 6 years. But, if you didn't commit a sexual/violent offence, that makes you more guilty than a person who didn't commit a minor offence. Once you've been charged, it's assumed you're guilty, even if the courts disagree.

Even the tabloid papers have a higher burden of proof, what with their history of demonising paedos and murderers before they've even set foot in court. We now receive punishment based on the seriousness of non-existent crimes. This is an insane, abusive move, that completely bypasses Parliament.

The LPUK has not one but two solutions to prevent this sort of abuse of the law- we will scrap the proposed database, along with ID cards, but will also review the statutory instrument system.

Recall of MP's and other Constitutional Matters

The Libertarian Party has been advocating for the last year that to regain control of MP's and to ensure that they retain their independence from Party whips that all MP's should be subject to a recall, for us the proposal has been 5000 electors.

Then guess what the big new idea is from the Lib Dems

I have not got a problem with this as it is an idea enshrined in US Constitutional Law, however we cannot have piecemeal 'top down' reform of a non existant 'codified' written Constitution.

There has to be a Constitutional Convention, not this usual half arsed British way of dealing with something so important. Certainly nothing like the Rights and 'Responsibilities' owed by the citizen tp the State that Labour want.

LPUK Shop

Some of you may already be aware that we now have an LPUK shop where you can buy a selection of merchandise.

But for those of you who don't we are now officially launching it. The shop, provided via SpreadShirt, has passed our quality control tests. That is, the merchandise arrived and was of a good quality. This is not surprising as the company is German.

Currently we have a limited range of products, but we hope to expand this over time. You can currently purchase t-shirts, badges and mugs. T-shirts are available in all sizes and many different colours.

All profits from the shop go towards funding the Party and the order process takes between 10 and 14 days to complete.

And finally here is an example of one of the fine products you can buy from the shop...

OH on Tour

Actually got on the 6pm news this time !

Freedom of Speech

REDMOND-BATE Appellant - and -DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS Respondent Case No: CO/188/99

The quote is

"Free speech includes not only the inoffensive but the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative provided it does not tend to provoke violence. Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having. What Speakers’ Corner (where the law applies as fully as anywhere else) demonstrates is the tolerance which is both extended by the law to opinion of every kind and expected by the law in the conduct of those who disagree, even strongly, with what they hear. From the condemnation of Socrates to the persecution of modern writers and journalists, our world has seen too many examples of state control of unofficial ideas. A central purpose of the European Convention on Human Rights has been to set close limits to any such assumed power. We in this country continue to owe a debt to the jury which in 1670 refused to convict the Quakers William Penn and William Mead for preaching ideas which offended against state orthodoxy"

John Wick & The Very British Revolution or I Think We Have Had A Military Coup And Nobody Noticed

The one thing that has astounded me was the ease with which shadowy figures with links to the security services, the military and special forces have accumulated the dirt on the 'Rotten Parliament' and have dealt the political classes the Coup De Grace

I believe we have had the modern equivalent of Monck's 1659 crossing of the Coldstream, The Monarchy had been flashing signals at No 10 for the last few months, a very public, private meeting with the Governor of the Bank of England followed by the Chief of the Defence Staff on the 25th March, whilst Brown was absent making a fool of himself abroad. Since that date there has been some very 'frank exchanges of view between the Palace and No 10


One can only hope that a new era of professionalism and diligence will now take root as our parliamentary system reforms itself.

As a man who served Queen and country in the Armed Forces, I feel proud to have played my part in what the Telegraph rightly describes as “a very British revolution”.

John Wick appears a 'sound sort of chap' who could be relied up to run a black op, against the unelected Brown, who afffected a Palace Coup against Blair. Vince Cable was talking of a British Coup the same day.

The stealth like disposal of McBride courtesy of Guido Fawkes on April 11th, by the judicious use of leaked emails.

Was the 'tipping point' for 'others' to take action the events in Luton on March 12, when it became apparent that Brown and Jackboot Jacqui had lost control of the Streets as well of the economy.

When you have senior Policemen like Hartshorn talking of the summer of rage as early as February 12th this year, and Peter Oborne publishing the Triumph of the Political Classes on 17th September 2007, the writing has been on the wall.

The Convention on Modern Liberty earlier in the year, that I attended, it all gels

Have we just lived through a coup backed by the Security services that has effectively destroyed the political classes without a shot being fired ?

If we have Brown is now barely clinging to power, and the weak Cameron is not going to be awarded the top job with a faux 'landslide' majority.

All eyes on June 4th, when we get to play our part in bringing an end to the 'Rotten Parliament'.

We should all work towards a society that values individual Liberty over sleaze,secret cameras, and an overblown State. Our day is coming !

How to attack the BNP

The left are obsessed with the idea of pointing out the bloody obvious about the BNP. Don't vote BNP they're racists and homophobes, etc, etc.

Everyday there seem to be more and more rants about the BNP being racist.

They've even set up ANOTHER fancy campaign called Hope Not Hate.

However there is one massive flaw with all this. The people who will vote BNP don't give a... about racism. They're not voting BNP because the BNP are racist or even that they themselves are racists.

A lot of people will vote BNP because they've had enough of the main parties and because they like BNP policies.

So shouting racist at people isn't going to help. How we should attack the BNP is by attacking their policies.

An example might be -- the BNP WILL MAKE YOU POORER.

Just look at this policy...

Globalisation, with its export of jobs to the Third World, is bringing ruin and unemployment to British industries and the communities that depend on them.

Accordingly, the BNP calls for the selective exclusion of foreign-made goods from British markets and the reduction of foreign imports. We will ensure that our manufactured goods are, wherever possible, produced in British factories, employing British workers.

What will be the first consequence of this policy? Well, if you reduce competition by blocking foreign imports prices will rise. So if people vote BNP they are voting to make themselves poorer.

It's simple.

So I ask people to go and read BNP policy and start attacking it. But not because it's racist or homophobic -- but because it's moronic and will make the people of this country worse off.

Because that is the only way we can win against the BNP.

Sovereignty will leave the Commons with Michael Martin

British Sovereignty will leave the Commons with Michael Martin. It seems that the Europhiles have another victory by removing the last vestige of sovereignty from the Commons. Subtle, smoke and mirrors, but most important.

Two days ago I questioned the motives behind the extraordinary revelations by the Telegraph, exposing the excesses of the MP's and Speaker. Yes, they needed exposing, but I questioned the timing, I questioned the real motivation. I suggested then that this was part of the bigger EU plan to destroy the Authority of Parliament (updated this morning), it seems that Brown has qualified my theory and done the work of the Europhiles with his announcements on 'reform'. Subtle, smoke and mirrors, but most important.

Michael Martin, his abysmal work done, is now expendable, as are all those who have allowed their greed to prevail over their oath, and allowed others to to steal like thieves the goodwill and vested interest of Britain and its Parliament. I have no qualms in referring to them as Traitors.

As Michael Martin leaves for the last time on June 21st, the power of his office will set firm within the executive, and his authority will be given away to a quango to oversee the MP's who file into the house to rubber stamp fresh deliveries of directives from Brussels.

One senior Conservative David Davis proclaimed that the new speaker will be 'the most powerful in history' adding: 'This is a time for the House of Commons to find a new voice and that voice may not be the voice of the existing establishment.' Mr Davis is most telling with that statement.

The role of speaker will be reduced to that of a process manager, merely there to tick the boxes, stop the children squabbling and calling the order of business for the day, pre-set by the executive's Leader of the House.

Richard North on the EU Referendum blog sums this up more succinctly than I..

Before he goes, it seems, Speaker Martin is determined to complete the task of emasculating Parliament, destroying the last vestiges of the doctrine that it is "sovereign in its own House".

Thus, according to reports, Martin is set to push through radical change before he steps down, with the Cabinet this morning set to place the House of Commons "in the hands of independent regulators rather than the House itself."

As to future Speakers, the nature of their role will change. There will no longer be a Speaker who is in charge as chief executive. He will be procedural and ceremonial.

Even in the manner of the Speaker's resignation, we see Parliament showing its weakness rather than its strength. As my co-editor observes, this has not come about at the behest of the House of Commons as it ought to. Clearly, the prime minister has told him to go.

"Thus, the House has not managed to impose its authority even over him. This was a small test and they failed. The Speaker is still the Executive's bully boy; it's just that he is no longer useful to them."

And, with his departure, we see not the House instigating its own reforms, but the Cabinet – i.e., the Executive – using its satrap to impose changes. Thus we are to see – if this travesty goes ahead - the "mother of parliaments" deemed no longer capable of running its own affairs, its management to be vested in "independent regulators" – unelected, of course, and financed by the government. Speaker Lenthall would be turning in his grave.

However, since Parliament has largely been relegated to "procedural and ceremonial" matters, it is only appropriate that the Speaker should be allocated a similar role. But a Parliament which is no longer in charge of regulating its own affairs – and thus dis-empowered - can no longer lay claim to regulating the conduct of government.

In the fullness of time, I suppose, the new body – which we could call the Parliamentary Regulatory Agency Temporary (or "Offtrough" for short) – will have to be brought under the control of the about-to-be formed European Parliamentary Regulatory Agency. Clearly, under the Single Market, different rules cannot be allowed for different national parliaments.

Then the take-over will be complete, with Speaker Martin being remembered for his scorched earth policy which finally destroyed the very idea of an independent parliament in Westminster.

I do not and will not accept the rule of Brussels.
I am not a European citizen as the EU is not a state.
I am British, a citizen of the United Kingdom.

I take the vow now that I shall seek all legal and peaceful means to retain the absolute Sovereignty of the United Kingdom as a nation state, and the sovereignty loaned from the people vested in the House of Commons, unless and until the people of the United Kingdom agree to political union with others through the ballot box.

The lines are being drawn one by one by this Government. They shall draw no more for me to cross.

I Don't Need Protecting ! The Good Old Cause

Today's Telegraph has a very stirring photograph of a Civil War Re Enactor standing in front of the statute of Cromwell.

However the flag he is carrying is that of the Protectorate, the coat of arms in the centre is that of Cromwell. We do not want protecting by a 'strong man' with warped religious convictions, we want Liberty and Freedom.

The Slow Collapse Of The Labour Years

So Speaker Martin has gone. There is much talk of this being a historical moment, it is nothing of the sort, it is just another limb falling of a rotting corpse that is the decaying version of Parliamentary Democracy as practised in this country.

Even now the pundits are placing bets on who is going to be the next speaker, like it is some bloody game of cricket. The edifice the is the 'Rotten Parliament' is giving way under grass roots pressure for sackings, jailing (and worse) and a new political settlement.

Whilst the current crop of bloated pigeons strut around their gilded cage huffing and puffing about the dignity of Parliament, outside the cage is a cold wind blowing. The anger of the electorate.

Also there are the hungry cats of the independents and minor parties watching and waiting.

If Cameron thinks he is going to run this country as a shoe in, with a 'faux' landslide he should start thinking again.

We want a bonfire of Laws- not Green Blue State Conservatisim. Carswell and Hannan have been the most impressive politicians in the last three months, Cameron weak and unprincipled

We want less Government, abolition of Quangos, Simple and Less Tax,fewer MPS,elected Chief Constables, Impeachment of Blair for lying to Parliament and dragging us into a wrongful war, the shopping list is huge, but above all accountability.

Brown's days are now numbered in weeks

Expenses Protest -- Saturday 23rd May

I will be going to this protest on Saturday in London to peacefully, but publicly, register my disgust at the expenses scandal.

I shall be there from 12pm, probably with my partner but not in any V get up, and it would be nice to see a few other libertarians there too.

I cannot emphasise enough how important it is that we publicly express our feelings about this rotten parliament. Because if enough people turn up we'll get on the news. And that makes it even more difficult for the sniveling retches at Westminster to ignore us and deny our right to a general election.

So if you do live in or near London please come along. And if it's too far for you to travel pass this message on -- via your blog, Facebook, Twitter or any other means.

Here's some rousing propaganda to get you in the mood...

And I hope to see you on Saturday.

H/T Old Holborn

40% say none of the above

I was at the PPC selection meeting for the LPUK yesterday in London.

We have a good crop of candidates across the country for a general election, I will be visiting the LPUK in Scotland to do the same exercise.

We had some exceptional speakers in Gregg Beaman and Andrew Hunt on their experiances on the door step currently. It is not looking good for the failed Conservative/Labour/Social Democrat consensus.

Most are now looking for a new constitutional settlement, and an end to a tinkering around the edges of a failed system of governance.

This all costs money, and every week I will be appealing for more members and more money

A request

Well, I'm back from my holidays. Did I miss anything ?

Just joking of course, the papers reach the isle of Wight as does the Internet, and I had plenty of time to brood on the MP expenses scandal. It's all much, much, worse than I imagined.

So I'm sending the following letter. A few notes, first of all I'm addressing an office as well as an individual so the language is bound by a series of conventions. To the modern eye it reads a little strangely - but its really no different from expressing yourself in a computer programming language where every statement ends with a semicolon.

Secondly, the prerogative I'm referring to does exist but hasn't been used since 1834 according to wikipedia. Time for it to be used again I think.

Thirdly, I'm sending this by conventional means, but I'm publishing here too. There are many layers of personnel between the letter box and the eyes I intended it for, I judge the chances of it reaching those eyes as middling at best. By all means repeat the text elsewhere if you think it worthy, feel free to add your own name to the bottom.

Her Majesty the Queen
Buckingham Palace
The Mall
London
SW1 1AA

May it please Your Majesty.

I am sure Your Majesty has followed the recent revelations regarding the expenses drawn by members of the House of Commons with deep concern; I am equally sure that Your Majesty is aware of the strength of feeling of much of the country regarding the situation.

Some MPs have been foolish, many have been venal, one or two have now drawn the attention of the police. So many stories have come to light of poor behaviour on both sides of the house that the moral authority of the current parliament to lead and to legislate is now irrevocably destroyed.

Unfortunately, this has occurred at the worst possible time. The country is facing an unprecedented financial and fiscal crisis, potentially the worst since the second world war. It is a crisis that deepens on a daily basis. The current members are deeply distracted and appear to be unable to govern themselves properly, their ability to govern the country is moot.

As I write, there is more than a year to go until a general election must be called. An election would give the public a chance to pass judgment on individual MPs and a renewed house would be able to address the many real and pressing matters that face the country apart from MPs expenses. Many MPs have demonstrated that their self interest trumps the public good, and it is unlikely that the election will happen until the last possible moment. While the country waits, the damage spreads.

Your Majesty has the personal prerogative of dissolving Parliament on Your Majesty's own authority without recourse to others. Although this power is rarely used, it is available to Your Majesty. I believe the current unprecedented situation facing the country, combined with the doubts as to the probity of parliament, demands that Your Majesty considers exercising it for the good of the nation as a whole.

I have the honour to remain Your Majesty's humble and obedient servant.

Andrew Dwelly

There's also a petition. I think petitions in general are all too easily ignored however, a letter is a little harder to ignore. A million letters even harder.

The Justice Minister appears to not know the meaning of the word.

Further to Guthrum, below, if the revelations in the Telegraph are true, then Shahid Malik MP, Justice Minister, appears to not understand the meaning of Justice, nor does he appear to know right from wrong.

Let us cut to the chase. MPs are elected in no small part to make, amend and repeal our laws. They need to know what is right without reference to Law so that new Law can be formed or bad law amended or repealed. They should have an understanding of right and wrong at the very core of their being, in every fibre of their bodies. Justice and Rule of Law should run through them from head to toe like a piece of Brighton Rock.

It is not outrageous to suggest that any MPs incapable of distinguishing right from wrong* should step down now. Reason? Incompetence and unfit for public office. In some cases a criminal record will prevent their standing at the next election, but we should not have to wait that long.

There is one problem with this approach - it relies on the guilty MPs having a sense of decency and honour and Party Leaders putting country before their personal position and Party. I am not holding my breath.

* the rules are pretty clear on what they should be claiming, so let us forget about all the excuses about the fees office approvals or blaming "the system".

'The Public Don't Understand' and the Rule of Law

On Questiontime last night I thought the political members of the panel were going to be lynched, the mood of the public was so foul.

If Margaret Beckett said it once she said it twice,three times-'The Public Don't Understand'

Yes- we do you arrogant woman- We do understand only to well. You treat us like ignorant serfs who need to be 'guided' in the correct way to think, you reduce our families to penury with overtaxation that you then waste propping up failed banks, you turn our jobs and factories to dust AND you sit upon the dunghill gorging yourselves on our money.

The People are brighter than you, the lowest chav has more idea of right and wrong than you. The reason engagement with the political process is so low is because people do not want to be tainted with you.

Last night the peasants were shaking with rage, it was on their faces. We are revolting in the truest sense of the word.

Dissolve this Rotten Parliament now.


UPDATE

Two Burglars Caught Red Handed And Photographed NOT given Jail Sentences, seems fair enough to me while the Lawmakers are indulging in fraud and are not even being questioned, let alone arrested.


'As His Honour Anthony Thompson observed this week: "During many years as a Crown Court judge, I always felt contrition expressed after the miscreant had been found out had a hollow ring – even if accompanied by an offer to pay for the return of the benefit obtained. While it afforded mitigation, it could not expiate the wrongdoing."

Telegraph May 15th

" I was given a Police caution, because the Social Security thought they had overpaid me £200- they had not overpaid me"

Unemployed Resident on a Council Estate -Radio 4 May 15th

Some are more equal than others

George Orwell


If the Police are not prepared to arrest these people under the Theft Act 1968 and the Fraud Act 2006, The Mail and the Taxpayers Alliance have threatened Private Prosecutions.

The Police are not going to take any action because Senior Police Officers are in thrall to the Jacqui Smith and the Labour Party, they are their creatures. A directly elected Police Commissioner for the Met, who owed his mandate to the people of London where these crimes were committed, would have no qualms about arresting these people.

It is all about the rule of Law, none are above it

Blame it on the system

I'm really tired of listening to all these political apologists who keep trying to defend MPs.

People like Matthew Taylor who on Channel 4 last night spouted a load of hot air about hard working politicians, pay cuts and system reform.

Excuses about hard work, etc don't cut mustard. But worst of all is blaming it on the 'system'. It is just plain nonsense.

It's a bit like Stalin blaming the famine on the ideology.

"Sorry guys -- looks like the ideology was all wrong. Seems socialism doesn't create a land of milk and honey. We better change the ideology."

At the end of the day, like Stalin, the MPs were responsible for the system. A deliberately vague system. Which allows them, when things begin to hit the fan, to hide behind a wall of smoke and mirrors.

And the reason for this wall of smoke and mirrors is because on every level what they have done is wrong.

In no other job -- from dustbin man to banker -- could you get away with this. If you had a moat that needed cleaning or a drawbridge that needed waxing you would have to pay for it out of your own salary. No-one would ever say to you...

"Don't worry bruv, we'll just slap it on expenses."

MPs are meant to be of the people. They are elected by the people of this country to represent their ideas and do what is in their interests.

So what is most damning about this affair is that instead of acting like representatives of the people. And behaving as the people do and how they would expect. Politicians have been acting as if they were our lords and masters. Taking our money without a second thought and as if they deserved it.

And that my friends must be opposed at every turn.

Labour are bloody desperate

I know this is just an attack on the Tories, but if this is all Labour can come up with I think it shows just how desperate they are.

H/T Daily Referendum

He sacks an aide, no great loss to him, but the MP the aide is married to is untouched, so his power base in the Commons is undiminished and the MP appears to be clean.

There you go, Cameron has just shown himself to be just as immoral and unmoved by all this as any of the other troughers.

Vote Tory and nothing will change.

Update: My mistake, obviously MacKay is an MP, but the point is still that surely both of them should go.

Update 2: Post in haste, repent at leisure! Right, what is happening is that MacKay is resigning as Cameron's aide, not as an MP. In other words, all he is doing is getting the idea in front of the public that someone from the Tories has been sacked or made to resign. MacKay is not doing anything here but allowing Cameron to look like he's doing something when he's really doing nothing.

(Originally blogged here.)


LPUK UPDATE

McKay's Conservative Association has got the knives out for him, Cameron cannot get rid of him, was reluctant to withdraw the whip- Weak,Weak,Weak. Perhaps the Chaps from the Shires can instruct him to resign via the whisky,library and revolver route, or disown him.

Just arrest him

This loathesome piece of detritus represents you, look it says UNITED KINGDOM on the name plate. He has claimed £16 000 for mortgage payments on a mortgage that did not exist. On the Black-Grey scale of criminal offences this one firmly is in the Black under the terms of the Theft Act.

It matters not a jot that he has paid some of it back, this was not a mistake, this 'was not within the rules' it was deception and theft.


If he is not arrested/the whip removed/resigns by the end of the day, the rest of us do not have to obey a single edict of this corrupt Parliament.

We have had the long and short Parliaments,the Rump Parliament, we have even had the Addled Parliament, we are living under the rule of the Rotten Parliament

Nurses want legalised brothels

I have to say I thoroughly support this idea. Seems a sensible place to begin improving the sex trade in this country...

Brothels containing up to four prostitutes should be legalised to reduce rates of sexually transmitted diseases and protect women from violence, according to members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).

Decriminalising groups of prostitutes who band together would make their working lives safer, delegates at the RCN's annual congress in Harrogate heard.

The "stigma" which surrounds working girls means many are afraid to visit their doctors or local hospital and leaves them vulnerable to attacks, as seen with the murder of five prostitutes in Ipswich in 2006.

The vote calling for legalised brothels, by the mainly female union, was described by one delegate as the "good girls helping the bad girls".

Carol Watts, a nurse from Cambridgeshire, who proposed the motion, said: "The simple truth is that there will always be people willing to pay for sex with others without commitment.

"We should acknowledge that that is part of life in the UK and should make sure that there is not an underclass of marginalised women in the country.

However, as with all good ideas there has to be an equal and opposing idea. So it should come as no surprise what Harriet Harman's the Government's response was...

A spokesman for the Home Office said: “We are determined to shift the focus onto the sex buyer, the person responsible for creating the demand for prostitution markets which in turn creates demand for the vile trade of women being trafficked for sexual exploitation.”

As we all know the Government's position won't change anything. It won't stop these things it will just add to the risk. And if you add risk you tend to make things more dangerous -- not safer.

So I applaud the RCN for attempting to move this debate forward.

Educationalist nonsense from the Tories

It honestly baffles me why liberals want to support and be members of the Conservative Party.

Just take a look at this nonsense over at Conservative Future...

kNOw Vote is a campaign to raise awareness about this lack of political education. Britain’s future voters remain ignorant about even the fundamentals of party policy.

The campaign is in association with the Media School at Bournemouth University and Channel 4’s Battlefront. We intend to get young people between the ages of fourteen and twenty-four more informed about politics and voting. We will do this through an interactive website which is currently under construction, and hopefully, one day, through schooling. We want young adults to be provided with basic, impartial information about the political system, so that they can make informed decisions when it comes to voting.

We believe that voter apathy in the younger generations is not due to a lack of interest in political issues, but a lack of understanding. All too often you hear young people complaining that the three key parties are ‘all the same’, or that there is no choice. It is vital that our campaign highlights the differences between the parties, that we educate young people not about what the parties used to represent, as parents often do, but what they represent today.

The irony of this piece is incredible. It's exactly the same sort of educationalist rubbish you'd expect to hear from the Labour Party.

"Ignorant people need to be re-educated about the errors of their ways blah, blah, blah..."

Seriously, if you're a liberal and a member of the Tories give it up. You're fighting a losing battle.

Join the Libertarian Party instead.

Veggie days coming here soon

Before I write this post I'd just like to say I love food of all shapes, sizes and colours. And I even have a vegetarian friend. So I ain't no foodist.

But I have to say this looks like a thoroughly stupid idea that will probably come our way...

The Belgian city of Ghent is about to become the first in the world to go vegetarian at least once a week.

Starting this week there will be a regular weekly meatless day, in which civil servants and elected councillors will opt for vegetarian meals.

Ghent means to recognise the impact of livestock on the environment.

This is socialism at it's best. And you've got to love the way the BBC use the term "opt for" rather than "forced to". Because, of course, EVERYONE will want to OPT FOR vegetarian.

Who'd want to be leader of LibLabCon today, eh?

Well, who'd want to be Gordon Brown, ever? But he's a delusional nutter anyway, so he's got no challenges, he's going to get on with the jobby of making the difficult decisions to help this country overcome the global problems inflicted on us by America. Right up until the men in white coats come round.

The buttered new potato has an interesting challenge: he can tough it out, or he can take action. He can sack everyone caught troughing. Which would leave his side of the house pretty much empty.

And Nick "Who he?" Clegg must be clenching his buttocks rather firmly for tomorrow. In a sense, he's the big beneficiary of all this, because even if the SocDems are caught troughing, nobody knows who they are, so no-one will care. I'd be amused if "Wise Old Cable" turned out to be a trougher, though.

But there is a much bigger issue here, and the papers, sadly, are not covering it.

The papers are focussing on the big names, the big insults to the public and the big troughing. They are ignoring the issue that almost every single MP will have at least one expense that would get you or me fired if we tried to pull it, whether it's an honest mistake or not. In other words, there isn't really any difference, other than degree, between house-flippers and pretty much the cleanest of them. Even Hollobone caught my eye with the size of his second home claim.

I would be impressed if fewer than 600 of the 646 wouldn't get the sack if they worked under the same expense regime as I do.

The whole lot of them are getting away with stuff that you or I would not, even if we wanted to. They are partly correct: the system is wrong. But you have to ask yourself: who developed the system. As I read elsewhere today, the system doesn't steal public money, politicians do.

So ... the Augean stables need a good cleaning and our professional politicians aren't up to the job. You know what to do.

(Originally blogged here.)

Developers, Coders, Techies be very afraid -- the EU is coming

It seems that in their relentless war against everything the EU forgot to regulate software developers. But this is going to change...

THE EU IS ABOUT to create a software house's worst nightmare by making them responsible if their code does not work or is insecure.

Under a new European Commission consumer protection proposal software will be covered by the same laws that apply to cars or toasters.

Commissioners Viviane Reding and Meglena Kuneva said that the law will plug a gap in EU consumer protection rules which at the moment do not cover software licensing.

So that's Microsoft screwed then. Maybe not a bad thing -- but there is a much bigger and more important side to this.

Which is -- like most things EU -- it will screw everyone. All developers, coders and techies will suffer. Because who's ever heard of a piece of software/code that doesn't have problems with it?

And who's ever heard of a piece of software that is 100% secure and believed it?

No-one. The point about good software is it takes time to get right and then forever to keep up with changes and security issues. And this process -- despite Microsoft -- has worked very well without the need for regulation.

But who thinks trivial matters like that will stop the EU?

Wisbech Standard -part of the cosy relationship between the press and the established three party system

The LPUK expects to be ignored by the mainstream press, but when a local candidate, Andrew Hunt, is ignored by a parochial newspaper like the the Wisbech Standard you just know that it is either just laziness, ignorance and a cosy attachment to the Labour/Conservative/Social Democrat alliance that is currently screwing us over second homes,their porn,bath plugs and killing their moles.

It is laziness because a lot of journalists on local papers just cannot be arsed to dig around, thus local corruption goes uncontested for years.

It is ignorance, because most local hacks have not got the brain power to sense a new feeling of disgust in the public mood, and whats the point this town has 'always' voted blue/red/orangy yellow (tick which ever box)

The cosy attachment is that the fourth estate no longer sees itself as being a critical eye (with the late conversion of the Telegraph)on the state of British politics, it is just part of the acquiescent propaganda machine serving a state that fleeces us on a daily basis.

There was once an excitement in local politics- the low turnout will prove it is moribund, and part of that is due to the moribund press coverage of elections.


Wisbech South Division

Andrew Peter Hunt - Libertarian Party
Simon John Edward King - Conservative
Mark David Plumb - Labour
Verity Jade Colbert Roscoe - Liberal Democrat
William Schooling - UK Independence Party

The Expenses Farago Has Brought An Election Nearer

The disrepute that the current crop of free loaders has brought to Parliament, means that more people are more open to the concept of 'less government' and the date of the next election has moved nearer.

The LPUK needs to expand its election chest- times are hard but better than funding Geoff Hoon's property empire or Jacqui Smith's porn and bathplugs

Shortly we will be putting a fund indicator up, so please make your donations no matter how small.


Do you remember Matthew Taylor a Government spokesmen at No 10 saying that the Web was 'fuelling a crisis of confidence in politics', That was in 2006.

In 2006 The media was largely sown up by the Labour Government after 'seizing control' of the BBC in the aftermath of the Kelly Affair.

The Fourth Estate, the Press were under the thumb of the likes of Damien McBride.

Finally the Telegraph has broken ranks.

In 2007, the LPUK was born out of a total frustration with the 'Big Brother' State, and the seeming non existant opposition to the Government by the Tories and Social Democrats. The LPUK was the first Party born out of the 'Net'

The Political Blogs were the only force that was consistantly exposing graft,corruption, expense fiddling and incompetance of Big State, High Tax Government.

Guido Fawkes claimed his first real scalp in McBride, where the media were too intimidated or in the pocket of the Government. Today he is reporting Three Million readers.

The Net is not fuelling a crisis in politics it is exposing a crisis and rotteness that is in the body
politic




Please Join the Libertarian Party, we do not need a tinkering with the system by the Labour/Conservatives/Social Democrats we need need a total overhaul of our system and a massive reduction in the size of the State. We are in Debt, our unborn Children and Grandchildren are in Debt. Is this the legacy we are going to leave the next generations ?




0845 299 7650- Libertarian Party UK

Why MPs are NOT worth a pay rise

I've just been watching the BBC news where some idiot attempted to defend MPs by suggesting they are underpaid. Especially when you compare them to other well regarded professionals such as doctors or those who work in the City.

I want to get this straight -- politicians are NOT underpaid and they DO NOT deserve a pay rise.

There is a very simple reason for this. Their jobs are not comparable to doctors or some high flying financial whizz.

The reason doctors get paid so much is because they are highly skilled individuals who help save people's lives. Therefore they are in demand and will get paid a very good salary.

The same goes for many who work in the City. They are highly skilled individuals who can help make their companies a lot of money. So again, they are in demand.

The job of a politician by contrast is not a highly skilled one or a sought after one. Politicians are simply -- or at least they are meant to be -- the administrators of public opinion.

And what makes this worse is the fact that the majority of their work is now done for them in Brussels. In 2007 the German President said that 84% of legislation passed by the German Parliament came from Brussels¹. Can anyone doubt it is any different in this country?

Be quite clear the politician's job is NOT highly skilled. It is NOT sought after. And it BARELY involves running our own bloody country.

The only people who think politicians deserve a pay rise are POLITICIANS and their CLIENT MEDIA FRIENDS.

In reality politicians are no more skilled or sought after than a reasonably paid HR exec. And they should be reimbursed accordingly.

¹ P81, The Great European Rip-Off, David Craig and Matthew Elliot

Heroines of the Week

Heather Brooke





Joanna Lumley

LPUK statement with regard to Ministers expenses

The following has been released today by LPUK.

The revelations which we read about this morning in the Daily Telegraph with regards to Ministers expenses has long been expected.

It is now clear why for so long MP's have attempted time and again to find legal avenues to hide this shameful abuse of taxpayers funds, which in many instances go beyond merely acting within the rules, as several ministers have quite possibly crossed the line into fraud.

There is also the controversial subject of nepotism, one that this particular government have allowed to be taken to extremes with the employment of family members for the most trivial of tasks at enormous cost to taxpayers.

This is a situation that clearly cannot continue, and whilst it may not be the worst of all abuses committed by this government, it is one that can be dealt with in short order.

Let us be very clear, MP's are not special, nor are they above the law. They should and must be made to adhere to the same rules that apply to every other citizen of the United Kingdom with regards to expenses, and the HMRC standard of expenses should apply in the Houses of Parliament as everywhere else, with the same legal penalties imposed for breaking those simple rules.

A full root and branch review of expenses now needs to be conducted by an independent auditor, of all MP's expenses, those of the members of the House of Lords, their staff, those who are employed by Parliament and extended right down to the Local Authority level and action taken for those who have broken the rules.

The Citizens of Britain are quite rightly feeling this morning that they have been robbed. They have been financially assaulted by those in whom we are supposed to have the utmost trust. That trust has now gone and they have proven beyond doubt that they cannot manage their own affairs.

Over the years MP's have built for themselves a culture of self obsessed self important elitism, with scant regard to the taxpayers who fund their excesses. We have gone beyond expecting that MP's will resign as a result of today's news, however, the system overall needs radical reform to bring politicians back to the world of reality.

The Libertarian Party condemn the actions of those MP's and Ministers who have flouted the trust vested in them, and will take action to restore faith in those who the voters return to Parliament to act in their name. We will be looking to create a new Reform Act and seek a new Constitutional settlement, which will include the conduct, finances and expenses of all public figures and will for the first time lay down penalties in law for MP's and public officials who breach the rules.

We have still to see the expenses of those LibDem, Conservative and other MP's not named today. We are sure that there will be more public anger, and LPUK will look to more innovative ways that Westminster can be brought under control.

Ian Parker-Joseph

Leader - Libertarian Party UK

There are some within the Party who say I have not gone far enough with this statement, one has suggested that I should say that the MPs are involved in Racketeering. It is a conspiracy to defraud, for so many are involved it becomes that.

The second homes per se has a tinge of envy politics until a dorm is provided, but if, as it seems, private property is being improved at the taxpayers expense, then that is basically fraud and the Rule of Law needs to be applied without fear or favour.

Another suggested that the whole edifice of Parliament is not fit for purpose, that expenses is just one facet of a corrupt system, the Tories under Major and Labour under Brown/Blair are just sides of the same coin

Well, what can I say to that.

'You may very well think that; I couldn't possibly comment'.

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Parents' Declaration

We are living at a time when the state and its officials increasingly seem to believe that they own our children.

In response, a Parents' Declaration has been drawn up, and is available for signature. The key demands are very modest indeed, and ones which all libertarians would strongly endorse.

WE DEMAND that state officials remain within the bounds of the powers already conferred upon them under current law in their dealings with us, the people.

WE WILL UPHOLD AND DEFEND the above principles without fear or favour where the state forgets its legitimate function, oversteps its bounds or seeks to exert undue influence or power over our lives and those of our children against our traditional freedoms and natural justice.

Do consider going over and giving your support.

Thanks to Renegade Parent.

Conservatives are Liberal Republicans ??

Both Tim Montgomerie and Ben Brogan are positing the new battle ground between the Authoritarian Big Staters and Liberal small Staters.

The very idea that the Labour Party could turn itself into a 'Liberal Party' is a joke too far it was founded on the very concept of a benign State that was an Agency for good.

Montgomerie is also pushing it too far, when he says that Cameron is a Liberal Conservative, he may be on the left of his Party, but he is still wedded to the idea of a benign State. viz his I am not a Libertarian speech last September.

The argument that we as Libertarians have always said was the most important, between Authority and Liberty is now reaching centre stage