Blog Code of Practice

To gain post rights and contribute to the LPUK members' blog please send an email to blogger@lpuk.org quoting your full name and membership number.

In addition to contribute to the blog you must follow the code of practice set out below.

Code of Practice

1. Posts must not contain swear words

2. The basis of a post must not be a personal attack

3. A Member must not publish more than three posts in a day

4. Posts must focus on UK politics or Libertarian issues

Consequences

Members who break these rules will be given one warning by the blog admin. If they persist their post rights will be removed for a period of three months after which they can re-apply for their post rights.

Negligence enshrined in Law (if you are the State)

Debbie Purdy won, and I am pleased there is going to be some clarification in the Law from the DPP

BUT

Andre Power lost

I lost! Mr Justice Blair agreed with the defendants that the case should be dismissed because agents/servants of the Crown who are negligent in their duties are not liable in law, so they can do what they like and we have no recourse. Does anyone see the bitter irony in this? The Ministry of Justice at The Royal Courts of Justice won by arguing that Justice should not apply to the select elite who work for them

We officially now have a two tier legal system one for the righteous and one for the rest of us. The Crown can sue ABC Ltd or Joe Bloggs but ABC Ltd or Joe Bloggs cannot sue the Crown for negligence.

The irony of it being another Blair who made this decision.

The Law

Today Debbie Purdy is awaiting for a decision from the Law Lords on whether her partner would be prosecuted when she decides to end her life when it becomes intolerable.

For all the moralising by the Church and the State, Debbie Purdy's Life is her own, it does not belong to the State or the Established Church. For her partner to be with her on her final journey to Switzerland, is surely not a crime but an act of compassion and love.

Today Andre Power is in the High Court, when Treasury Solicitors will argue that the Civil Service is not responsible in Law for the negligence and incompetence of its employees. Two tier legal system will come in today if he loses as it will enshrine in Law that you cannot sue the State for incompetence.

Politics.co.uk is running with this story has the lead today. However you heard it first here folks

The Police have finally realised that they are fighting a losing battle against the drug culture, as did the prohibitionists did in pre war America.

The Law is something very few of us want to get involved in, because ninety five per cent of us cannot 'afford' Justice. However the Law is imposed on us and has a direct influence on the way we live our lives. Unless we can all economically insure ourselves against prosecution. The battle between the State and the individual will be lost.

UPDATE Corby Borough Council has been found to be be negligent in the way they disposed of toxic waste from a disused Steel Works, so why do the treasury solicitors think they are above the Law ?

Blog Update

The NCC has decided, due to certain problems with the blog recently, to remove post rights on the blog to all non-NCC Party members. This is for only a short period while we draw up a code of practice for the blog.

Once this is done we will allow members to re-apply for their post rights.

If you have any questions about this please feel free to contact the blog admin at robert.waller@lpuk.org.

Marxism of the Right

Interesting post by Julian over at Liberal Vision today pointing to a conservative attack on libertarianism.

Supposedly we're all right wing Marxist...

[L]ibertarianism is basically the Marxism of the Right. If Marxism is the delusion that one can run society purely on altruism and collectivism, then libertarianism is the mirror-image delusion that one can run it purely on selfishness and individualism. Society in fact requires both individualism and collectivism, both selfishness and altruism, to function. Like Marxism, libertarianism offers the fraudulent intellectual security of a complete a priori account of the political good without the effort of empirical investigation. Like Marxism, it aspires, overtly or covertly, to reduce social life to economics. And like Marxism, it has its historical myths and a genius for making its followers feel like an elect unbound by the moral rules of their society.

Interesting stuff even if it is nonsense. Provides a great insight into how true Conservatives view us.

Esther All The Way !

All you need is a millionaire and and be a celeb.

No policies needed, because we all love and admire her because we 'know' her from the Telly.

Thats Politics in the dumbed down celebrity 21st Britain.

Katie Price where are you ?

Peter Schiff for Senate

There's been a lot of negativity around here lately so I thought I'd share something positive from across the pond.

Libertarians are beginning to make their mark in America and there is no reason why we can't make ours here.

It will take time and a lot of hard work but if we keep banging away we'll get there eventually.

Curious?

Via Thomas Byrne, I find this nasty bit of gutter politics:



It looks really unpleasant, and it looks right out of the Damian McBride playbook. And I think lots of people are all to happy to believe the worst of the Labour Party.

But I don't believe Tom made any such post.

Tom is a Labour man through and through and I'm sure he would gladly knife the Libertarians for the hell of it, but I can't see him using language like that in public. I think he's too smart. I also can't find the original quote on the Lancaster Unity website and some light googling hasn't shown it up anywhere else either. And finally, the template for the comments doesn't match the template Lancaster Unity use either.

I reckon it's a fake, designed by someone to try and stir up animosity and name-calling. So, in order to keep the perpetrator happy, I have a name to call the perpetrator: you're scum.

Originally swearblogged here.

Compassion is much overrated

When politicians announce that they are compassionate I reach for my wallet because I know that I shall be parted from even more of my hard-earned cash. I also know that a politician's compassion usually means more power for the state, for our elected dictators (though not legislators) and for the unelected regulators.

Helen has it nailed.

The Little man breaks an Airline Company

They broke his Guitar


He's made their share price fall to cost the company millions of dollars

He got nowhere with their policies

Now hes a worldwide phenomenon in just two weeks since releasing the song.

Take heed If he can do it So can we.

We have sown the seeds, Our sapling is still invisible besides the trees of Statism in this country.

We need to feed miracle-gro to this sapling

Watch this...

Watch all 5 parts.

LPUK Fail

Oh boy. This post isn't going to make me any friends. I suppose that's one of the many benefits of being unpopular. You have nothing to lose.

It does seem a great many have missed the point of my earlier post. The first point was that UKIP did not achieve anything of note even after years in the game and so it's entirely unrealistic to expect anything of LPUK at this point. It accomplished little and no-one expected it to either. Least of all me.

The second point being that the Tories are likely to seize power with only a minor fraction of the electorate behind it. This is no attempt to spin the result. I appreciate what one of our members has pointed out...

I hear what you're saying, but if you use your formula to discuss the LPUK's democratic popularity, then you reduce us to the size of an ant on Mount Kilimanjaro.

That is undeniably true but that does not make the point any less worth making and if readers can get over their parochial navel gazing for one moment, they may realise the significance of it. The point being that we are looking at a collapse of democratic consent for government. When one party of little merit, with no concrete ideological roots, with no idea of what it will do with power when it gets it, can walk into government with only a tiny fraction of the electorate voting for it, with no effective opposition, it is a crisis of democracy.

This goes far beyond the petty exploits of a minority party which is going nowhere fast. By the time LPUK gets even half the votes that UKIP does it will be game over. The erosion of democracy is accelerating to the point where even if UKIP won several seats it would be of zero significance. Therefore the party needs to think very seriously about what it can achieve and a strategy for doing it. The party needs to change something in the world so it can be recognised as a force in politics. Wasting vast money on by-elections is a poor use of resources as we have seen. We need more bang for our buck.

You dont have to be in power to make a difference. I have some ideas which have been so far ignored. I will raise them again soon.

Also, what is lacking is a single campaign issue to claim as its' own that chimes with the electorate. Elections are fought on issues not ideologies. Voters tend to vote when they're pissed off and when they think something will change. I certainly haven't seen any keynote distinguishing policy that taps into the public mood. If you want an anti-immigration party, you have the BNP, if you want an anti-EU party you have UKIP. What is the LPUK handle? Civil liberties? Pah!! Way down the list with the electorate.

And even if LPUK got a grip, while the other minnow parties may boast moderate successes they are still pitiful and for all the apparent success of UKIP they have accomplished nothing other than to make a handful of people quite wealthy indeed. UKIP may have tilted general election victories even further away from the Tories but how did that help? The hope was that the Tories would eventually see the light and change their policies but they have not. They have merely counted on the gradual erosion of public will so that eventually the pool of voters will be so small that they can win with media support and the dumbest of the dumb voting on brands and styling.

That Chloe Smith is a dull careerist appointee to Norwich North is symptomatic of this. She offered no opinions, no solutions and no substance whatsoever. We are seeing a party machine at work appointing dumb and malleable, vaguely telegenic girlies of both sexes with zero life experience and zero experience of running anything. That this isn't open to full frontal attack is absurd. But then it wouldn't be when we're pushing an 18 year old boy would it? No offence Thomas. Either we push strong characters who make a real difference in the community they live in or we shouldn't bother. I can think of better ways to spend the money.

We need to answer the question; What can we do in the time we have left as a democratic nation that will be worth the effort? This ain't no time for self-delusions of any kind.

As a final thought, I move that this blog be terminated or at least heavily edited. I was instructed to keep my blogs to myself unless they were about Norwich North. Those of you who bothered to read my posts will know I did make an effort in this regard but was asked to slow down and had some quite lengthy posts deleted. I therefore gave all you members a free reign to do as you like and what did we see in the final week? Nuff said. Interesting how we find such eloquence and writing finesse in the comments when it comes to having a go at the party (and me for that matter) but not when it comes to contributing to the blog.

Anyway, that's my tuppence ha'penny. Make of it what you will. I've got a website to go and write. So have you for that matter.

Number crunching

411. That's how many votes UKIP got in the 1997 Wirral South by-election. That was after four years of operation. Even in 2000 at the Tottenham by-election UKIP scored a meagre 136. Make of that what you will. What is interesting is that while the dull careerist Chloe Smith may have polled 39% of the votes cast, she did not even inspire 19% of the electorate to vote for her. She therefore has no popular mandate whatsoever. To say that another way, 81% of people in Norwich North did not vote for her. That's really saying something.

Norwich North By Election

Was this a poor result for us- yes it was, but everybody lost bar Chloe Smith, and even she cannot go to take her seat until October.

Did all of the parties have equal access to the media, no they did not, sorry as I am to say this the Monsters have a far higher ‘profile’ than the LPUK.

Was Norwich the best place for us to campaign, absolutely not, we had two members in Norfolk at the beginning of the campaign, we now have twenty four and at least thirty six people who now understand the difference between Liberalism and Social Democracy.

This campaign was not about politics, it was about the need to tell Labour that their time is up. The result showed that. This was not a ringing endorsement of the Conservatives, but certainly showed the depth of loathing of the Darien Labour Party.

Do we give up and wring our hands, no we do not, however bad this result was, Tom was a good performer when he was allowed near a microphone despite his years, it gave our activists a chance to engage with the public, some travelling as far afield as Cornwall.

This afternoon a former Lib Dem Councillor has rung me to say that he is resigning from the Lib Dems and is joining the LPUK, as he sees that in this two and a half party State, he can no longer get the 'half' to accept classic Liberal principles

At the end of the day a High tax, High Spending, Centralising, Authoritarian Party won the day. So not much has changed.

Andrew Withers LPUK Chairman

The Benefits Of Having An Elected Chief Constable

US enforcement agents on Thursday arrested dozens of politicians and rabbis in an anti-corruption sweep alleging money laundering, extortion, bribery and even trafficking in human organs. The stunning New Jersey swoop netted 44 people across a state long seen as one of the most corrupt and crime-ridden in the country.

Five rabbis were among the suspects, along with the mayors of the cities of Hoboken, Secaucus and Ridgefield, the Jersey City deputy mayor and council president, two state assembly members, and numerous other politicians, prosecutors said. Acting US Attorney Ralph Marra told a press conference the arrests demonstrated "the pervasive nature of public corruption in this state." The money laundering ring allegedly stretched from New Jersey and New York to Israel and Switzerland, while US politicians easily exploited loopholes in state law to disguise bribes as contributions in bitterly fought campaigns. "The politicians willingly put themselves up for sale," said Marra, while "clergymen cloak their extensive criminal activity behind a facade of rectitude."

Although New Jersey is more famous for a history of Italian Mafia families, it was Jewish clergy who allegedly played a central role in this crime network. The Department of Justice said in a statement that the international network "laundered at least tens of millions of dollars through charitable, non-profit entities controlled by rabbis in New York and New Jersey." The bribe-taking meanwhile was connected to fund raising efforts in "heavily contested mayoral and city council campaigns in Jersey City and Hoboken."

Authorities raided several synagogues and among those arrested was the chief rabbi of Syrian Jews in the United States. One rabbi, Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, was also charged with conspiring to broker the sale of a human kidney for transplant. Marra said that Rosenbaum's "business was to entice vulnerable people to give up a kidney for 10,000 dollars which he would turn around and sell for 160,000 dollars." He'd allegedly been peddling kidneys for a decade. Raids began shortly after dawn, officials said, targeting a who's who of state leaders.

Television footage showed FBI and tax agents bringing a stream of handcuffed suspects, including rabbis wearing traditional Orthodox Jewish garb, into custody in the city of Newark. Other suspects were shown being put onto a bus. The operation was believed to be one of the biggest such actions ever in a state deeply associated with organized crime, and famous as the setting of the hit Mafia television drama the "Sopranos." Officials said the arrests were part of an ongoing 10-year probe into statewide corruption code-named "Bid Rig."

If found guilty, suspects face prison sentences of up to 20 years for political extortion and money laundering, 10 years for offering bribes to officials, and five years for conspiring to transport human organs. Democratic State Governor Jon Corzine said "the scale of corruption we're seeing as this unfolds is simply outrageous and cannot be tolerated." "Any corruption is unacceptable -- anywhere, anytime, by anybody," he said in a statement. The dramatic crackdown came as Chris Christie, a crusading former US attorney, stepped up his campaign against Corzine in an election this November. Christie, a Republican, previously won fame for his relentless and successful prosecution of political corruption in New Jersey. Corzine is battling widespread dissatisfaction with his performance as the state reels from the national recession, spending cuts, and shorter working weeks for state employees.

FBI agent Weysan Dun was quick to deny any political motivation behind the arrests, a majority of which appeared to involve Democrats, rather than Republicans. "This investigation has transcended multiple administrations of both political parties," he said. This is "not about politics, certainly not about religion. It is about crime. It is about criminals who use politics and religion."


Cross posted from Anna Racoon

This would just not happen here as Cash for Peerages showed, as the MP's expenses showed. Policing is done by patronage. Each Chief Constable should be directly elected and accountable to his area, not appointed by a Home Secretary who has difficulty in knowing where they live and have never managed anything larger than a classroom full of kids.

The Scales of Justice Are About To Tip In Favour Of The State

One of the most significant hearings of recent times is passing by unheralded on July 30th at The Royal Courts of Justice and it is one that will ultimately affect every private citizen in the UK if it is found in favour of the Defendants, being The Ministry of Justice, represented by the Treasury Solicitors.

Andre Power, the Plaintiff, had a County Court Judgement emplaced on him for £254,000 by mistake via Her Majesty’s Court Service. Mr. Power was unaware of this for thirteen months whilst seeking funding for his company to launch a business, four years in the creation and with investment by the principals of over £400,000. Unfortunately, as HMCS failed to advise Mr. Power that a CCJ for £254,000 showing unpaid was now registered against his name on public credit files such as “Experian”, he/the company failed to raise any funding, despite the company having no indebtedness whatsoever, save for a £15,000 bank loan, which was paid up to date at that time.

A Circuit Judge has ruled that the CCJ should never have been emplaced on Mr. Power’s name and it has been removed, after showing on credit files for thirteen months. Mr, Power has had four separate apologies and clear admissions of negligence from HMCS in correspondence thereafter. However, they declined to pay any compensation on the basis of spurious and unfounded allegations that there must have been further debts (though not specified) which prevented the company from being funded. Therefore, Mr. Power started a legal action for compensation.

Included in his submissions were letters from noted funding groups stating that they would decline any such funding requests where due diligence revealed the Managing Director of the company had an unpaid CCJ registered on his name for £254,000. However, none of this has been argued before a Judge as yet. The first hearing was on 6th March 2009 before a Master Foster. The Defendants asked that the case be struck off based on an alleged precedent. Mr. Power received the “skeleton argument” for this action some five minutes before entering the Court. In a previous court case a man who was given two years and three months imprisonment after being found guilty, was accidentally sentenced to two years and six months. As some of the sentence was due to run concurrently, a mistake had been made in the totting up of the sentence and he served an extra three months. At some point, (presumably after completing his sentence) despite himself, his legal representatives, the Judge and the court staff, all missing the original error, he sued for the compensation for the loss of three months liberty.

The Judge upheld the Defence’s claim that a civil servant who makes a mistake whilst discharging the normal duties of his job cannot be liable in law for such a mistake and therefore found against the Plaintiff. This same precedent was therefore represented to Master Foster as the reason Mr. Power’s claim should be struck off. And Master Foster allowed this flimsy reasoning to stand and found in favour of the Defendant’s, although immediately granting Mr. Power the Right to Appeal.

This appeal is to be heard on July 30th.

Mr. Power will argue that the precedent cited bears no resemblance or comparison to his case. Firstly, he was not guilty of any offence in the first place, as proofed by a Circuit Judge ruling that the CCJ was wrongly emplaced on his name in the first place. Secondly, Mr. Power was never advised of the CCJ so unlike the chap cited in the precedent who was present when he was found guilty and sentenced, he had no opportunity to redress the situation.

Thirdly, the Treasury Solicitor’s argument that a civil servant who makes a mistake whilst going about his job cannot be declared negligent is also being contested by Mr. Power. He maintains that it was precisely because civil servant/s (unknown to this day) were NOT doing their job properly in the first place that this situation arose. If they had been discharging their duties, for which they are paid from the public purse, then this circumstance could never have occurred.

If this precedent is allowed to stand, thus preventing Mr. Power from ever seeking compensation before a Judge in an open court then a dangerous and unsettling precedent is in place that would have shocking repercussions for every private citizen in the UK. It would mean any civil/public servant and/or offices of the civil service could commit any act of wilful negligence without fear of legal action and with absolute impunity.

You are already aware of the growing disparity between private business and public employ. We pay the taxes for civil servants wages and pensions. Indeed our pensions have collapsed whilst theirs have been growing. We work under an ever burgeoning set of directorial responsibilities, red tape and laws that prevent us from ever running our businesses in such a cavalier fashion. And of course we have no such protection in law from claims against us resulting from the negligent actions of our staff and ourselves if they are proofed to have negligently impacted on any of our fellow citizens.

We work longer hours and enjoy significantly less absence from work due to sickness, holiday time and sundry days off. If this precedent is allowed to stand it will mean a new two tier society has been created, effectively an act of apartheid, legislated via the highest court in the land. It will mean that all the millions of civil/public servants will be working under a completely different circumstance to the army of self employed and private businesses who fund their existence. The only examples of such civil service power over the people can be found in communist, fascist and totalitarian regimes. They have never been implemented in any state before that has declared itself to be a “democracy”.


The power of the individual will therefore be subsumed before the power of the State. No longer will we be able to sue any state body or its representatives. Indeed, they will be able to perform all manner of objectionable and dubious acts against the citizen without the citizen having any recourse in law. Would any taxpayer willingly pay taxes to support an unelected elite in the pursuit and maintenance of this goal? Therefore, if you wish to make a stand against the erosion of that most historic right, whereby both public and private citizens are held to be under the same principles of English law and jurisprudence, then I ask that this case be given as much prominence and publicity before it is too late and we are drawn into an “us and them” gulag mentality whereby the private individual no longer enjoys the same legal rights and privileges as the Government employee.
I received the above email this afternoon at the Libertarian Party Offices, and having spoken to Mr Power who has given me permission to publicise this case which could establish the legal precedent that no Civil Servant can be held accountable for his or her negligence.

For the first time, the ' rulers' will have enhanced legal protection from the consequences of their incompetence over us the 'ruled'. No more messy inquests into the shooting of unarmed electricians on the underground, no legal consequences for battering an innocent bystander at a demonstration so that he dies. You can now lose your life,your property and your wealth, and you will not be able to sue the State for redress.

In the dying days of this corrupt Parliament, the Treasury Solicitors are ging to argue that Civil Servants have no duty of care to the public and cannot be sued for negligence

If you wish to discuss this further please contact Andre Power anytime on 01702 389005.

Last Chance For Liberty

Tomorrow is the day, I have done my best over the past few weeks to convey the message of liberty to the people of Norwich North, however what I can do has now ended. The responsibility now passes to each and every voter in Norwich North, I urge you all to stand up and tell Labour, The Conservatives and the Lib Dems that we are sick of them taking and taking from the British people and never giving back. Enough is enough, tomorrow is your first chance to vote for the only party that will not take anything from you, be it your money or your liberties.

Perhaps you believe that one of the big three has changed and can be trusted with your vote, to this I say simply if you vote the same, you’ll get the same. The big three have dominated politics for generations and have constantly and consistently taken hard won liberties from the British people, many times they have claimed to have shifted position but they always remain parties of big state interference in everyday lives.

Vote Libertarian for real change. Vote Libertarian for honesty and open government. Vote Libertarian for your rights and liberties. Vote Libertarian simply to send the big three a message.

If you vote the same, you’ll get the same.

Thomas Burridge on Future Radio - Norwich

Future Radio Interview

Thomas was interviewed by Future Radio, the popular community radio in Norwich.

Thomas Burridge of the Libertarian Party talks to Tim MacWilliam about Libertarian Party policies and why to vote for him at the upcoming by-election.

The audio is available on the Future Radio website.

The man in the clouds

One of my favourites, was 'the man in the clouds'.

A tough-as-old-boots veteran of the Bosnian wars, he had lost a leg, and crushed his spine so badly that he wore a permanent corset. It made sitting in a wheelchair unbearable for him, and walking without one almost impossible.

He taught me a lot of what it meant to be dependant on carers. Broadened my education in a lot of ways.

When he was ready to come out of rehab, the social worker visited. The check sheet she had didn't allow for a lot of detail, so he went down as 'wheelchair dependant'. He was Welsh, that helped, spoke Welsh too, even better; the new assembly was just flexing its muscles, they had a fancy new apartment block for 'the disabled' - an amphorphous job lot as anyone who is not disabled knows. The boxes started to fill up merrily.

The check sheet went off to the Assembly and came back with an offer of a brand new apartment. Independance loomed once more. The ambulance delivered him to a concrete wasteland in South Wales. 4th floor to be precise. Ground floor was reserved for 'the ambulatory'.

He had spent months relearning how to make a cup of tea, and care for himself, so no carers. Just a lady who cleaned and shopped for him. Kindly soul, he told me, bit of a busybody, but 'there you go'.

'Would I like a cup of tea'?, he enquired. If I would, could I be so kind as to plug in the kettle for him? Mystified, I stared round the kitchen looking for the plug socket. Nowhere in sight. He giggled, and explained why he had asked me to do it - you had to be in a wheelchair to even see the socket. Perfectly designed for someone in a wheelchair - but hopeless for someone who wanted to walk as much as possible and couldn't 'bend in the middle'.

He showed me round the apartment, it took all of six seconds, you couldn't swing a rat in there. A huge metal contraption loomed over the single bed, a hoist for carers who needed to turn someone in the night. Perfect for someone to lumber into who wasn't too steady on their determined feet. Single bed too - the disabled never share their bed of course. Everyone knows that.

There was a TV, and a phone - on the wall, by the door........

I asked what he did all day, and the reply has stuck with me to this day - 'I watch the clouds'..........

Some charity, I forget which, turned up every alternate Thursday, and took him out for the day. It was the time of the demise of the Millennium Dome, and he had me rolling on the floor laughing at his description of the job lot of tickets 'for the disabled' that had been given to the charity in order to 'up' the attendance figure at the Dome. some of the recipients were so powerfully disabled, that it had taken until 4pm to get everybody and their carers 'loaded up' and down to London - by which time there was only time to have a quick cup of foul tea, and a wheelie round the entrance lobby and it was time to return to Wales....for the carers went off duty at 10pm. On balance, he preferred the fortnightly trip to the local Garden Centre, at least he had time to drink his coffee whilst the carers bought their gardening supplies.

He may be reading this, my friend, 'the man in the clouds', for I made sure that he had a computer delivered, so he could at least 'talk' to the rest of the world. Perhaps it was to save my own embarassemnt - for he had had one more task to ask of me - all I can say is, if you haven't gone shopping for 'Gay' Porn around the late night garages of South Wales as a middle aged woman, then you really haven't lived - seems the busy body cleaner had thrown his 'collection' out!

I was thinking of him this morning, when I read of this campaign.

A disabled punk band has launched a campaign to fight for the rights of disabled people to be able to party late. Their campaign, "Stay Up Late," encourages carers to support disabled people who want to stay out past 10pm. "We started the campaign because we'd be playing a gig and something strange happens at 9pm when people would start to go home. We were also frustrated with asking to go on earlier in the evening so that our fans would still be there. It's not very punk to go on at 8.30pm."

As Libertarians, we rant and rave about petty legal restrictions on our lives. It is easy to forget that some people live with the most minute control of their lives - those who cannot vote with their feet, cannot do anything that their 'person in charge' doesn't want to do.

Please support this campaign. 'Heavy Load', the rock group involved, have a web page HERE - and they have also set up a seperate web site for the campaign - HERE. Or you can join their facebook group HERE.

As ye go to the electorate...

Norwich is soon to be bothered with one of Mr Browns "eco-towns" which will not be "eco" nor a "town" for that matter. I was going to write a suitably harsh appraisal but Simon Jenkins in Teh Grauniad has done it for me. And a good job he's done of it.

LPUK in No 2 Slot

The postal ballots are out

LPUK Leader to visit Norwich North

Wednesday 15th July 17:30

Libertarian Party leader - Ian Parker-Joseph, colloquially known as IanPJ, will be visiting Norwich North on Thursday through to Sunday morning to help bolster the Libertarian Party campaign of candidate Thomas Burridge.

Mr Parker-Joseph said of the campaign:

"We are pleased with the way things have been developing in this campaign so far. Support has been coming in from far and wide, with LPUK activists arriving last weekend from all over the country to help Thomas in Norwich City centre and elsewhere in the constituency. Thomas has attracted a good deal of media attention, has spent a lot of time talking with potential voters about their concerns and issues, and helping them to understand how the Libertarian Party would deliver honest, people first policies in parliament".

He went on to say: "Giving people back their everyday lives free from government interference and intrusion, lower overall taxation, scrapping IHT and CGT to help pensioners, reducing corporation tax to stimulate more companies to expand and create new jobs, reform of the NHS to make Hospitals and clinics as effecient and cost effective as private hospitals, reform of the education sector to put the parents firmly in control of exactly how, where and when their children are educated, putting the local people back in charge of their local services by removing the corporate entanglements with government and curtailing the powers of the RDA's are all Libertarian Party policies that have been well received by the voters of Norwich North"

Having IanPJ's experience to hand will raise the game in this important first parliamentary election outing for the Libertarian Party.

Andrew Withers Party Chairman visited Norwich last week to meet local Party members and put the final touches to the local leaflet campaign

Rob Waller the LPUK South East Regional organiser spent Saturday with volunteers from London and the South East giving out leaflets and talking to shoppers in the city centre. Sarah McCartney the South West Regional organiser has travelled all the way from Calstock in Cornwall to support the by election.


ENDS

For more information, or to arrange an interview, contact the Libertarian Party Norwich North Campaign Office on 01603 850573 or the media enquiries mobile on 07505 228618.

Further details are available on our campaign website: http://www.thomasburridge.com
Alternatively, visit the Libertarian Party website: http://www.lpuk.org

Brown lies about helicopter procurement.

The Daily Politics has the (somewhat foul-mouthed) story.

The acquisition of military equipment should never, repeat NEVER, be a jobs programme. How many times do we need to learn that particular lesson? The aircraft carriers we need like a hole in the f**king head, but which are being built, conveniently, in Gordon Brown’s backyard being another such disgraceful example.

Peelian Principles Fail

Treating this with caution with it being from the Daily Mail, but Peelian Principles 2 and 3 are looking very shaky indeed...

• The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon the public approval of police actions.
• Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observation of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.

Fail.

Shady dealings

Does anyone remember Air America?

Air America is a 1990 film starring Mel Gibson and Robert Downey Jr. as Air America pilots, during the Vietnam War, flying missions in Laos. The plot is adapted from Christopher Robbins' 1979 non-fiction book, chronicling the CIA financed "civillian" airline during the Vietnam War to transport weapons and supplies (and heroin) within Laos and other areas of Indochina subsequent to the North Vietnamese invasion of Laos.

Well, it seems we have our very own sub-contracted version in Afghanistan...

Defence secretary Bob Ainsworth, it seems, has been rather less than frank about the availability of helicopter support for "Our Boys" in Afghanistan – but in a rather unusual way. There was one more helicopter available to deliver supplies than he was admitting.

The downside of this intriguing piece of news, however, might just explain his reticence. The additional machine was leased via Nato, operated by a Moldovan charter company, Pecotox Air, which has been banned from EU airspace for safety reasons and which has been implicated in arms trafficking.

These embarrassing details would not have emerged but for the unfortunate incident yesterday when it was reported the helicopter, a giant Mi-26T, registration ER-MCV (pictured above), was shot down by the Taleban a mile from the British military base in Sangin.

Misleadingly, the AP report (link above) cited the Moldovan operator claiming that the aircraft had been "ferrying humanitarian aid" when the crash took place, a detail quickly corrected by Reuters which had Western forces confirming that the helicopter had been "bringing supplies to a British base at Sangin." According to the Los Angeles Times, it was contracted specifically to supply British forces.

Read the whole thing. Dr Richard North is following the story on Defence of the Realm. Apparently the print media have been subject to "D notices" preventing them from releasing the details. Bloggers, on the other hand, have no such restrictions. Stay tuned.

European Unity

EU parliament gets a new head - does anyone care? asks Darren Ennis of Reuters.

Let's see... Daily Referendum... PMQ's, EU Referendum... Helicopters in Afghanistan, Iain Fale... nothing of any consequence (as usual). In fact the only blog so far giving it the light of day is Tory Diary. Proof indeed that nobody gives a rats ass.

At last the nation is united on Europe! We're all bored to death by it.

Joined up thinking...

A hockey club left homeless when a popular sports club closed could have a new base in Norwich, thanks to a £1m plan to put two full-size synthetic pitches on a high school playing field.

...

Two Norwich police beat bases could be closed and replaced with a “state-of-the-art” station on a chunk of a city high school's playing field.

Aaaaaaaalrighty then.

No activity untouched by the dead hand of the state

Norwich door staff arrested in police clampdown...

Police have arrested two people after an operation to clampdown on rouge door staff operating in Norfolk's main nightclub district. The force carried out Operation Clyno during the Lord Mayor's Procession in Norwich on Saturday. They visited 11 venues, mainly pubs, to check door staff had proper licences. "Reputable" security firms today welcomed the checks.

I'll bet they do. So instead of being able to hire people you know and trust, you now have to get your door staff from expensive agencies who are just as likely to be clueless, knuckle dragging thugs. But licenced knuckle dragging thugs of course.

So much for localism...

Following on from our earlier piece, the people of East Anglia have this to look forward to.

FAULTY wind turbines in a Northumberland beauty spot could be taken down after they stopped working. The three giant structures at Kirkheaton, North of Hexham, were put up almost 10 years ago by EDF Energy but technical issues have meant that two of the turbines have had to have their blades removed, and haven’t been operational since last autumn. Planning conditions state that any individual turbine not working for more than six months should be removed and that part of the site restored.

...

Mr Worlock’s group is opposing Catamount Energy’s bid for six turbines at Barmoor.

The two other schemes being heard at the inquiry are Your Energy’s proposal for seven engines at Moorsyde and npower renewable’s scheme for seven at Toft Hill.

Elizabeth Dunn, for Your Energy, hit back at Mr Worlock’s claims, urging Mrs McKenzie to take a similar view to the inspector who approved a scheme at nearby Wandylaw. That inspector said there was no prospect of Northumberland meeting its 2010 target and that this increased the need for Wandylaw. Mrs Dunn said: "Northumberland is still a long way from meeting its targets and they are not caps or ceilings." Paul Tucker, for Northumberland County Council, told the session it would be better if the authority carried out an appraisal of the county and identified the best sites for wind farms. "Whatever those best sites are, they are not at Toft Hill, at Moorsyde or at Barmoor."

Mrs McKenzie told the inquiry that she would prepare a report on each of the three schemes to the secretary of state for communities and local government by the end of September or beginning of October.

The secretary of state will then consider the reports before making the final decision, probably in the new year.

Would this be "an inconvenient democracy"?

Which planet is he on?

The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, today faced calls to apologise for his "out of touch" comment that his £250,000 earnings for writing a weekly Telegraph column were "chicken feed". Begging the question... How big are his chickens?

Democracy? What democracy?

Controversial windfarms could be forced on East Anglian communities under new government plans which would ride roughshod over local objections.

Energy minister Ed Miliband, speaking ahead of the launch of tomorrow's Renewable Energy Strategy, said wind turbines had to go somewhere and it was the government's job to “persuade” opponents to accept them.

His comments come in the same week that the government is announcing a package of green initiatives including the long-awaited decision on eco-towns on Thursday, of which Rackheath, near Norwich, looks likely to be among those given the go-ahead.

Mr Miliband, who was at the launch of the biggest onshore windfarm in the south of England yesterday , at Romney Marsh, said Britain needs to diversify its energy sources in order to be less dependent on imported gas.

Except that we fill be forced to use gas and coal generation when the wind isn't blowing 75% of the time. According to Dr. Golby, Chairman of E.ON.

IanPJ speech to Parliamentary Conference on Global Economic meltdown

As Leader of the Libertarian Party UK, I had the pleasure yesterday (Monday 13th July) to spend the day at Westminster, attending as a speaker the Parliamentary Conference on Global Financial and Economic Meltdown.

This lively event, hosted by Lord Tarsem King of West Bromwich was held in Committee rooms 3 and 4a in the House of Lords, and was organised jointly by Global Vision 2000 and the Universal Peace Federation UK.

There were a variety of speakers at this conference, including:

Dr.Nafeez Ahmed : Director, Institute for Policy Research and Development
Anne Belsey: Monetary Reform Party
Canon Peter Challen:Chairman, Christian Council for Monetary Justice Justice
Kelvin Hopkins MP - Labour, Luton North
Ian Parker-Joseph Leader, Libertarian Party
Daud Pidcock: Global Vision 2000
David Triggs: Coalition for Economic Justice & Executive Chair, Henry George Foundation
Dr.Adrian Wrigley Systemic Fiscal Reform Group

The full text of the 10 minute speech given by myself is below, although much of the presentation was interspersed with ad hoc examples and comments,the Monetary Reform solution was presented in the Q&A session due to time constraints.

At no time in history has any individual had such a wealth of information at their fingertips. With this in mind, you would think it would be easy to take the pulse of the global economy but at no time in history has the global economy been so rich, varied, and rapid.

Business systems of increasing complexity govern our lives in ways the classic economists could never have envisaged. Entire industries collapse without anything tangible ever disrupting supply chains and nations fall bankrupt on the “market confidence” of Wall Street traders. We live in a world of inconceivable numbers and we live in blissful ignorance of business and financial practices we never knew existed… until they go spectacularly wrong.

No government can ever control an economy. All those who have sought to do so have destroyed it. One can only manage ones’ responses to events in it. While we may like to gear our economy in a certain way, our economies do not run in isolation of each other. Thanks to globalisation and the internet we are inextricably linked and we cannot pretend otherwise. Which is why the proposals that I will put forward later will cover both domestic and international economics.

As world leaders try to move us ever closer towards international regulations and international bodies of control, there is only one constant.

Systems,

Systems of whatever type, inevitably fail… be they computer systems, regulatory systems or currency systems. This presents the immediate reality that if we use only one system then when it fails, we all fail. And we all fail at the same time.

Undeterred by this reality it has not prevented our leaders from seeking to standardise, make uniform and equalise our systems. But each society has its own unique perspectives and interests, any such common systems require either a democracy bypass or compromise which fundamentally weakens the basis of the system. In global banking we have seen both.

We have also witnessed institutional schizophrenia whereby one regulator does not know what the other is doing or even what it is for, and our politicians do not know the extent of their powers or to whom the real power belongs.

What we saw last year was the culmination of national, regional and global government intervening in things they do not understand and cannot control.

The oft quoted cause of this crisis is “irresponsible lending” and “excessive risk” by “greedy bankers”. But that is only half way to the truth.

The credit crunch is a failure of global regulation as a tool, leading to the construction of castles on a foundation of jelly, such international regulation is now wholly discredited.

Risk is its own regulator when governments do not seek to meddle, and had we retained control of our own regulation, the crisis here need not have hit us as hard as it did.

We are all aware of the disposal of the assets that US banks were legally obliged to create under the Community Reinvestment Act, creating loans worth more than their balance sheets. This put a direct freeze on interbank lending. This subsequent freeze in capital flow sent shockwaves through the markets resulting in instant paralysis.

Subsequently we were forced by circumstance to take a leap of faith that bailouts would restore market confidence and jumpstart interbank lending. Whether or not this has worked is, frankly, anyone's guess.

There are conflicting signal signs and while there may be room for optimism we have been warned by the IMF this week that Britain cannot afford another bailout, which may yet be necessary. Among all the talk of "green shoots of recovery" the fear is that we will enter a double dip recession. The contraction of the job market further could lead to bigger credit defaults, not least on credit card debt which is now outstripping our GDP.

Our present administration has taken it upon itself to bailout everything that so much as squeaks. This is a path to economic suicide.

Even if such measures worked, this is all a sticking plaster at best. Present policy is predicated on the idea that a debt based economy is sustainable and desirable. It is not. UK Plc needs to be producing and exporting, earning money from overseas.

The Domestic Economy needs to be stimulated from the bottom up not the top down. Economies are sustained by the ability of the purchasing public to earn, save and spend, consuming the products that the factories produce.

There is little point in bailing out a failing car manufacturer to see them make cars that they cannot sell.

Put simply it is not capitalism that has failed, it is creditism. Capitalism was designed to work on capital, but it has been distorted and altered to rely on credit, spend now pay later.

It is that this debt based economic model that has now found its way into every layer of society from consumer, retailer, producer to government, all totally reliant upon credit, is the primary reason why a single system failure, in this case interbank lending, stopped everything dead in its tracks.

Having sold off our gold reserves, raided our pension funds and squandered the money, there was nothing to fall back on, and we have allowed the backbone of the country, the wealth creators, the small to medium enterprise to be drowned in a sea of compliance, regulation and taxes which are crippling our ability to compete, and consequently we have a shrinking productive sector in a country that is spending ever more.

Nations, markets and individuals are stronger through diversity than homogenised cultures, regulatory systems and governments.With this in mind we must reform to ensure our money is real and that our future is built on more than just an I.O.U note to the world bank.

Real Money, not borrowings, is the core of the economy. It belongs to those to earn and spend it, the wealth creators, not merely to those who currently create money or manage it.

But that is only a beginning.

Total Reform of the monetary system, I propose Three planks – Sterling, Sovereign and Free Banking

Firstly, we will return the sovereignty of our national currency—pounds Sterling—to the Crown, removing the privilege of creating money from the private banking industry, with new Sterling being created, debt-free, by the government, and thence spent into the broader economy. The amount of Sterling in circulation will be prevented from being expanded through FRB, stopping bank generated inflationary spirals developing, and keeping the value of your savings safe.

Secondly, we will create a new currency, pounds Sovereign, to be 100% backed by gold. Still vital for international trade, a gold-backed currency will be immensely strong, and help protect the UK from the storms and squalls that sometimes rip through international markets. This kind of currency will also attract investment from overseas into the UK.

Thirdly, allow for the creation of free banks. Free Banks would be completely free of any government interference or regulation. If these prove popular with the market—the citizens of our nation—they will grow and prosper, choosing to embrace FRB if it wished with their own currencies (HSBC peso or Natwest dollars) possibly supplanting Sterling as the primary means of exchange on a day-to-day basis. However, and should they fail, such failure will not impact on anyone who chooses to keep their banking facilities purely denominated in pounds Sterling. In this way a genuine free market in banking will be able to be tried, without the risks being spread over the general population, or the nation as a whole.

I believe that the proposals outlined above are sound and necessary. Our existing banking system has been creaking from one crisis to the next over many years, and has only remained unchallenged because of the enormous influence that those who most benefit from it—the private bankers—wield over our elected politicians.

I am happy that some of the Libertarian Party policies outlined in our manifesto (http://lpuk.org/pages/manifesto.php) are beginning to find traction in Westminster, and that my contribution reaffirmed the consensus view with those voices who shared this platform with me yesterday.

When celebrities and government collide...

First it was Jamie Oliver and school meals. Now it's Kevin Mcloud and home insultation, working with the Energy Saving Trust which is, like the Carbon Trust, governmentspeak for DEFRA.

"If the Government is serious about tackling climate change, help must be given to homeowners on every street in Britain to green their homes.”

The Great British Refurb Campaign is supported by the Energy Saving Trust, Grand Designs magazine, UK Green Building Council, and WWF-UK. Thousands of homeowners have already added their name to a petition calling upon the Prime Minister to make it easier, more affordable, and more attractive to go green at home.

Affordable and attractive to whom? I'm sure non-homeowners are delighted to pay more tax.

This petition will be delivered to No 10 Downing Street later this week and is well timed to coincide with the Government’s latest announcement on reducing the UK’s energy demands.

Yes, that would be the Greener Living Fund and such...

Defra has launched a new fund to promote greener living. Over £6 million is being made available to support both projects and programmes by national delivery partners between November 2008 and March 2011. The fund will offer 2 year funding to a small number of national delivery partners. Starting with a bidding phase in 2008, its main delivery phase will run between April 2009 to March 2011 and it will complement other initiatives under the `Act on CO2' banner.

Eligibility criteria:

To secure funding, applicants will need to draw up and have the ability and reach to implement programmes that influence pro-environmental behaviours in the wider population. The assessment criteria will include evidence of a clear understanding of the target audience, the potential to change behaviour and the approaches which may be adopted to engage them and enable more sustainable living. In their proposals, applicants will need to demonstrate that they have the ability and reach to influence behavioural change at a grass roots level. Additionally, we hope that our funding will enable them to leverage support from elsewhere, to further greener living ideas.

Celebrities. Where would we be without them? And again, why is the government lobbying itself?

Bizarre headline of the week.

"Soldiers' deaths will not guarantee Helmand success" says Verity Murphy of the Beeb.

Errrr... Who ever said they would?

The most chilling words in British politics

Andy Burnham , this weeks Health Secretary (I've never heard of him either), says 'cruel lottery' of elderly care must end.

"Mr Burnham said care of the elderly should be a "priority issue" and there should be a "fair and universal" system in place."

Be afraid. Be VERY afraid. "Fair" means those who are are getting something useful should have it revoked and "universal" means that everyone must suffer the same levels of mediocrity. That is apparently a "priority issue". Who could tell it wasn't?

Gulliver's Air Travels

July 23rd sees the Norwich North by-election. It also sees the Lowestoft Seafront Air Festival.

Hopes are high that an iconic cold war bomber will grace the skies at this month's Lowestoft Air Festival despite an anxious wait for paperwork before it can be cleared to fly.

The Avro Vulcan, which wowed crowds when it appeared in Lowestoft last summer after a 15-year restoration project, is currently grounded because its annual permit to fly has not yet been renewed.

The jet's owners and restorers, the Vulcan to the Sky Trust, are waiting for the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to rubber stamp the plane's permit, which has fallen behind schedule because of delayed inspections of the aircraft.

My advice, when you have been out and voted for LPUK and assuming the CAA pulls its finger out, is to go and see this giant of the sky and marvel of British engineering. The only thing that keeps this beast in the sky is force of will by the public over our officials. Every time it takes to the sky it is a victory. How long that remains the case is up to you. Don't let this giant be pinned to the ground by hundreds of little men.

Too cynical?

"Norfolk couple turning back the clock for war-time wedding"

The bride and groom arrived in the back of a 1942 troop carrier, with anti-aircraft guns behind them. They made their promises in front of a congregation dressed in 1940s clothing, in the chapel where 65 years ago many American airmen would have said their prayers and took communion before departing on their last missions.

Shortly after authorities were alerted, bomb disposal units were dispatched from nearby RAF Marham and the couple were arrested under the Dangerous Firearms Act 2007. Social services were also dispatched immediately with a court order to take all children present into care.

"We are shocked and appalled by this disgusting display of militarism" said Kaley Toynbee of Sustainable Child Protection Services. "We find it wholly inappropriate that children should be exposed to these horrors by these dangerous extremists and appropriate measures have been taken to ensure the parents are never allowed contact with children again. They will go on a permanent register of potential child abusers, their DNA has been recorded and have been fitted with RFID monitors." Their employers have been notified.

Roger Chapman, a council spokesman for Norwich, was grilled last night as to how such an event was given the go ahead. "We didn't see any harm in it. The psychometric profiling of the couple was approved, albeit narrowly, by the Central Civic Partnership Approvals & Licencing Authority, well within the 36 weeks notice period, and we thought it would be a fun and educational day out for the kids and an excellent way to remember those who gave our lives to defend our freedom." he said. Roger Chapman has been suspended without pay pending a full enquiry. Should his guilty verdict fail to be overturned at the initial trial he will be sent to a re-education facility at HMP Rampton where few are ever seen again.

The classic military vehicles in attendance have been confiscated and are due to be crushed pending a road tax evasion enquiry and their owners will be jailed. The couple in question will be released to a local psychiatric hospital where they will be treated with the latest experimental ECT therapy.

Well no. That didn't happen. But the satire of today is the headlines of tomorrow. We extend our congratulations to the happy couple.

Thanks a bunch!

A victory for Norfolks' bureaucrats...

A charity motorcycle cavalcade which attracts thousands of spectators each year has come to an end after becoming embroiled in a red-tape battle.

Last week the people in charge of this year's Eastern Lights Motorcycle Cavalcade, from Norwich to Lowestoft via Yarmouth, warned the event would have to be cancelled.

It came after organisers were given a licence deadline they said was impossible to meet. Police had said they would withdraw their cover if a temporary road closure licence was not obtained, and gave them just three weeks notice.

But there was hope over the weekend when police pledged to work with organisers to keep the event running. Today however, Eastern Lights confirmed it was too late for this year's cavalcade and that in future years the cost of obtaining a licence would rule out any more events.

Paul Howard, organising committee chairman for Eastern Lights, said: “We won't be having any more future events; it's the end of Eastern Lights.

Nanny knows best.

Working families in Norfolk are put off by the cost of "healthy school dinners". "The gap may be narrowed this year, with Norfolk County Council coming up with a £100,000 subsidy to freeze meals at the 2008/9 price."

Presumably with money confiscated from those same working families. How does that help?

A retreat from community policing.

Norwich Evening News reports that two Norwich police beat bases could be closed and replaced with a “state-of-the-art” station on a chunk of a city high school's playing field.

Police want to close the Mile Cross base at Woodcock Road and the Thorpe Hamlet station on Thorpe Road - both of which are not open to the public.

They are proposing to make the two into one by buying a piece of the playing field on the east site of Sewell Park College, on Sprowston Road, to build a new station to cover both patches.

A police spokesman said today: “Norfolk Constabulary is currently in negotiations with Norfolk County Council to purchase a piece of land in the corner of the recreation site of Sewell Park College.

“The aim is to replace Thorpe Hamlet and Mile Cross police stations by 2011. Mile Cross is currently too small and Thorpe Hamlet is no longer fit for purpose.

“It is hoped the creation of a state-of-the-art North Norwich police station will increase the quality of service to the local community. The plans are still at a very early stage.”

While we are all for state efficiencies, this is nothing of the kind. One would venture that the old smaller stations are no "longer fit for purpose" because the police no longer engage in community policing. Instead they need more centralisation and "state-of-the-art facilities" to perform their role as administrators, like the good little bureaucrats they are.

Institutional myopia.

"Following today's announcement of the UK government's new "green policy" towards renewable energy, which is set to cost UK taxpayers a 20% levy on energy bills, the government has also rushed out a statement regarding less well-off families. In what is being called a "social tariff" the energy companies will be forced to charge those less well-off families significantly less than more affluent families with regards to the energy bill tariff."

LPUK Website and Forum

As you may have noticed the website is currently down. This should be nothing to worry about as it seems to be a problem with our host rather than our websites.

Hopefully it will be resolved shortly.

CIVIL SERVICE SPOOKED

+++ UPDATE 19:00 - Why has our website just gone down and taken the donations widget with it? Mandelsooooon! +++

Last Thursday/Friday we learned that our semi-elected dictatorship is instructing EU diplomats to be distinctly undiplomatic with the BNP. But our "Inner-Kremlin" at LPUK have also been keeping an eye on the proceedings at "Civil Service Live", their second annual conference / opportunity-to-conspire-against-their-paymasters. Here's a wee excerpt from their blog (my emphasis below):

Civil servants are not noted for their tempestuous characters or tendency to fly off the handle, but there is a real streak of anger at this year’s Civil Service Live. Expressed in diplomatic terms in many instances – and in surprisingly intemperate language in others – delegates and speakers alike have been voicing their irritation with the frequent changes in machinery of government that have attended ministerial reshuffles in recent years. [...] my ear has been bent on the topic of machinery of government changes several times each day[...] I get quite irritated by the idea that you can solve the problem by moving things around and changing the labels on things,” said Guardian journalist David Hencke (pictured) in a session on Tuesday. It is no exaggeration to say that he was speaking for the vast majority of the civil service.

"changing the labels on things", we can all empathise here I think: compulsory is the new voluntary, debt-spending is now investment, fascism is freedom etc; but I jest...

The Civil Service of course - apart from the very visible chaps and chapesses running your local Job Centre (who incidentally have recently been forced to merge with the Samaritans) - includes a number of rather more influential bigwigs, such as Gus O'Donnell:

We are politically impartial and our actions are governed by the Civil Service Code. Political impartiality means we must serve the Government, whatever its political persuasion, to the best of our ability, no matter what are own political beliefs. To quote from the Code, this means acting “in a way which deserves and retains the confidence of Ministers, while at the same time ensuring that you will be able to establish the same relationship with those whom you may be required to serve in some future government.”
[...]
Adherence to these values has served the Civil Service well, ever since they were proposed by Northcote and Trevelyan over 150 years ago. I believe they are crucial to the ability of the Civil Service to serve effectively whatever government is elected by the British people.

This goes some way to explaining why the government likes to create quangos and fake charities to do its entirely partisan dirty work. But they can't have a quango for everything; they'd just never get away with it; so, when, say - our psychotic unelected Prime Minister - needs to crack down on a Labour Party splinter group, he still has to bend arms.

There is an upside to Labour's total lack of scruples, however... It's now perfectly legal for us at LPUK to wire-tap the private conversations of the attendees at Civil Service Live... We're new to this, but we've just-about managed to discern these tidbits for you:

...I mean how many more data disks are there to deli------ly lose... well you said l---ing their expense data would start an outright revolt, all we got was a couple of angry episodes of Question Time... no, the Queen won't authorise that until Br--n is actually sectioned, and he'll never volunteer for an assessment... no - you're kidding - if anything he's more... look, if you leak that it'll be CO19 they call this time... YES! M-----son would happily order them into PMQs, he hates Green... he would, you know what he's like...

If anyone out there can decipher any meaning from the above at all, please contact us at LPUK: 0845 299 7650. Thank you.

A Question for the Tories on the Norwich North Hustings

Are you already going back on Dave's promise to slash inheritance Tax ?


Seriously what is the difference between Lab/Con/Social Democrats/Greens ?

they are all

A lack of energy.

John Webley makes a reasoned argument on Conservative Home that "The lights would indeed go out under Labour" But the question remains, will David Cameron withdraw his support for Carbon Capture Storage? Will he renounce the EU targets on renewable energy? Will he deregulate the nuclear sector? Will he abolish the Renewables Obligation Certificate or the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme?

As the lady once said... "No, No, No!"

Eco-Clowns

Do these people know nothing? Or as is said correctly in Yorkshire, "Dote yer know owt?". Were they asleep in what is now key stage three geography? Hell, I was, and even I know this is a dumb idea.

In fact, if "epic fail" was a GCSE grade then that is what I would have been awarded for geography but, as any fule kno, if you're going to have a town there must be sufficient economic activity with which to employ the residents, otherwise they're going to drive to places where there is "economic activity", which rather defeats the point of an eco-town.

The chances of that economic activity just appearing, simply because the government wills it, are, well... how can put this without saying what I want to say? Not very much, to be polite about it. Unless of course there's that magical cure all known as "taxpayers money" of which there is simply an inexhaustible supply.

But away with such cynicism. With the excellent green transport links in mind, I'm sure the future people of the St Austell Eco-Town can easily get to such rip-roaring economic powerhouses like er... Plymouth and errr... Torbay perhaps? Assuming electric cars will even have that range, or if indeed, we will still have electricity when this lot have finished vandalising the landscape with windmills.

And it seems lucky old Norfolk is getting an eco-town too. Not wishing to downplay the economic significance of Norwich and Great Yarmouth, one has to ask.... What are they smoking? The point being that IF St. Austell and where was it now? Rackheath, wherever that is, were of such economic dynamism, they would already be naturally expanding without government intervention. We have seen this before with the Scottish "government" voting to build power plants where there is zero demand for energy, but behold as they invent new energy demand in the region, just like that.

All this serves is a decaying governments' unconvincing attempts at greenwash, to build houses in places people don't want to live and if they're government designed houses, nobody will want them either. So all this for a couple of years worth of job creation which wouldn't be necessary otherwise, largely at the expense of other, more worthwhile, economic opportunities.

Economics aside, admittedly not Gordons' strongest suit, there is also that little consulted doctrine of "democracy". Yes, we need to blow the cobwebs of that one don't we Gordon? It's right there, in those damp old boxes in the garage, right next to "Justice" and "Economic Prudence". Y'see Gordon, we don't want them, not least the people who actually live there. We don't want your stupid eco-towns or your sodding windmills. Which part of "No", do you not understand?

Anyway, I think my sarcasm processor just melted and my will to live, like the ship illustration, is about to capsize. Suffice to say the LPUK candidate for Norwich North, Thomas Burridge, is said to be "very disappointed with this decision, which has overridden the very real concerns and wishes of the local people."

I wouldn't have been that polite. Since when did that bother them?