Labour Was/Is Stalinist- Official- Ed Miliband the Kruschev Years

I could scarcely believe my ears this morning listening to Tristran Hunt MP, saying that Labour had to move away from the big State and back towards Mutualism, it has only been a few days since 'Lord' Prescott was saying aye of course we need the big State to force our programmes through.

At slight glimmer of an admission that the Brown years were commanded over by somebody who could not made a decision, microscopically diagnosed whatever papers he did care to look at, then was using that old standby failed Managing Director trick of screaming at everybody. This courtesy of cowardly Ministers on Radio 4 this morning who covered up for Josef Brown, when they knew he was totally unsuited for running a sweet shop.

Then we have the admission that invading Iraq was wrong and Labours assault on Civil Liberties was wrong-

1956: Khrushchev (Miliband)  lashes out at Stalin (Brown)

The Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev (Miliband), has denounced Joseph Stalin (Gordon Brown)as a brutal despot. In a sensational speech to the 20th Congress of the ( Labour Party in Manchester) Communist Party Mr Khrushchev (Miliband) painted a graphic picture of a regime of "suspicion, fear, and terror" built up under the former dictator who died three years ago.(stood down four months ago)


He said he wanted to break the "Stalin cult" that has held Soviet citizens (Britain)  in its thrall for 30 (13)  years.
The prime minister described the purges during the period of 1936-38.(1997-2010)

He implied that one of Stalin's most trusted aides Kirov had been assassinated in 1934 at the leader's behest.
Purges

Stalin then initiated a series of trials of members of the politburo and had some executed for Kirov's murder, including Zinoviev, Kamenev and Rykov. 

Stalin meted out humiliation and persecution to those officers and members of the Politburo who fell from favour, said Mr Khrushchev.(Miliband)

He revealed that in 1937 and 1938, 98 out of the 139 members of the Central Committee were shot on Stalin's orders.
The leader also criticised Stalin's foreign policy during World War II. As an ally of Adolf Hitler (George Bush), Stalin refused to believe Germany would invade Russia - despite warnings from Winston Churchill and Sir Stafford Cripps, the British Ambassador in Moscow, amongst others. 

When the attack was launched, Stalin ordered the Red Army not to retaliate saying the raid was merely "indiscipline" on the part of some of Hitler's units. 

'Odious book'
Mr Khrushchev (Miliband)  also condemned Stalin's (Browns) autobiography as an "odious book" in which Stalin refers to himself as "the workers' genius-leader" and a "shy and modest person".Ender of boom & Bust  Saviour of the world


He also accused Stalin of violent  (Scottish )nationalism and anti-Semitism.(Blairism)

He revealed that in his last will and testament Lenin (Blair)advised against the retention of Stalin as general secretary of the Communist (Labour) Party. 

He said the information he had just divulged should only be made known to the public by degrees.(via the BBC)


"You understand, comrades, that we could not spread this information to the people at once," he said. "It could be done either suddenly or gradually, and I think it would be more correct to do it gradually."(and purge my brother)


GASP !

When Bad Men Associate

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."


Attributed to Edmund Burke

Burke never made that famous statement. However, he did say something vaguely similar in 1770: "when bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

My post on the Acid Bath was reproduced on the Anna Raccoon site and one of the commentators there said why are you bothering to fight such an unequal struggle, this morning I heard on Radio Four, three 'Labour Voters'  saying that they did not trust  the Labour Party anymore, and of those three coming out with the common refrain that they are all the same.

In many ways all of these ordinary voters are right, why bother you cannot change anything, yes the political classes are all the same they are venal because this is there bread and butter employment. 'The New Generation' of political leaders have barely touched the world of employment and they are in their early to mid forties.

Unless we do bother, the next generation will be hereditary, we are already seeing political dynasties, the Benns, the Churchills, the Milibands, is this what our ancestors fought for the return of competing elite families ? These families now have Pan European ambitions when they are thwarted at home.

Libertarianism will never flourish under the present political system, because it is a rigged system designed to prevent new entrants, as such it will ossify. Equally most voters still believe that they live in a 'free society' and are independent actors in their own lives. Sadly the perception is slow catching up with the reality.

Unless  we can install a new Constitution that offers checks and balances against Abitrary power of a political elite, political life and personal life will stagnate.

That is why I am bothering.

The Acid Bath

In 1940 two men slipped into Britain using forged immigration papers to escape the totalitarian regimes of the both Stalin and Hitler.

These were father and son, Samuel and Ralph (nee Adolphe) Miliband, Ralph was born in Brussels of Polish-Jewish émigré parents. Both his parents lived in the Jewish quarter of Warsaw, before his father, Samuel Miliband, joined the Red Army in the Polish–Soviet War.He is buried in Highgate Cemetery close to Karl Marx.

Ralph went on to become a darling of the New Left, a sociology academic. Having fled totalitarianism in the East arriving in a still relatively Liberal Britain, Miliband Senior set about propounding a Socialism to reproduce in Britain what he had fled from in 1940. Today one of his bland off spring (it really does not matter which) will complete the Miliband family's ingratitude to this country by presiding over a Labour party that has produced a Stasi state in the last thirteen years,wrecked the economy and produced an irresponsible dependent population. To cap it all launched the type of aggressive wars of occupation that Miliband senior fled from.

The Socialism that has influenced the Milliband clones is of a variety that is intellectual, high flown and theoretical. Its consequences of sink estates, poverty and wasted tattooed lives are of very little consequence to such 'East European' intellectualism. Intellectualism has only found root in Britain in the last sixty years of State Welfarism, because it allowed such ideologues to find financial support by finding 'employment' in ever growing State institutions and Quangos.

In Liberal Britain we once had learned academics who espoused the rigour of research in the arts and sciences, and embraced the liberal values of tolerance started in the age of Reason and Enlightenment.

Today will see the victory of Marxist Social Democratic Ideology over Tolerance and Reason, started when Liberal Britain gave refuge to another East European intellectual, Karl Marx.

This Labour Party election is almost North Korean in outlook, favoured sons of a political elite being anointed. That it is why it has been a boring and inconsequential 'election'. The real power lies with the Bob Crowe's of this world, the pay masters of the 'Nouveau' Left. They know that their overt hatchet faced class warrior rhetoric will not find favour with the people of this country, so they need the fresh faced Peter Pan's of politics (achievable by never having worked outside of the cloisters of Whitehall) to be the 'nice' facade of the brutalism of Bureaucratic Socialism.

What of the Conservatives and their erstwhile allies the Social Democrats ? Rather than fight on the grounds of individual Liberty, Cameronism has swung behind the 'Social Democratic Centre'. When Cameron was elected as Party Leader, the Conservatives were looking for somebody to ape Tony Blair, and they found him.

We now have a Prime Minister who would rather pander to a bloated State and Welfarism, than maintain our defence forces. Defence is the only valid reason for a State to exist. By Defence I mean the defence of our Home Islands not wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan. These entanglements should be ended immediately. Bring the troops home, re-equip properly, pay the armed forces a living wage, and ensure that unlike the Wars of Wellington, The Crimea, First and Second World Wars the Servicemen whose lives have been wrecked and that of their dependants are paid a Military pension, that far outstrips that of a dole to sustain the dull, lager drinking fraternity.

The Acid Bath I refer to in the title is a political system that has very little legitimacy, it is a system of interlocking Whitehall elites. The Acid does not allow the Greens, UKIP, the far Right,the far left, Liberals, Libertarians, Nationalists a say in any National debate because we are denied a voice.

I am currently standing as Leader of the Libertarian Party. A party I hope to persuade to adopt a change to the Libertarian & Constitutional Party, to fight for not only Libertarian Policies but for Constitutional Reform and to introduce a Swiss Style Constitution where the State is subordinate to the Canton (County), the Canton subordinate to the Individual.

Only by draining the bath of the Acid that kills all political debate other than the elitism of State Milibandism will this country start to have some pride and direction. The only alternative is the continued growth of State Corporatism, with attendant repression and loss of freedom.

© Andrew P Withers

South Lanarkshire Taken For £102 000 In Nigerian Scam

Oh Dear God is anybody ever going to be sacked in Local Authorities ?

It has only been two years since the Local Authorities collectively lost £1 Billion of your money in the Icelandic Banking debacle. Despite acting recklessly and outwith Treasury guidelines in respect of security and availabilty, Nobdy was sacked, Not one person resigned, Why nobody cares ! It was Government money.

When is anybody going to wake up to this Statist mess ?

The Future Has Arrived

Utopian and dystopian fiction is often weakened by cardboard characters. Not so in this case. German author Eugen Richter (1838–1906), a libertarian politician and journalist none of us is likely to have heard of, was not only blessed with uncanny insight about the realities of socialism, he had a novelist's ability to create engaging characters.

The story is narrated by a middle-aged bookbinder named Schmidt, who initially welcomes the "entirely new and glorious times … in store for us" as socialism takes over Germany. As events unfold, he grows increasingly troubled, providing reasoned analysis suffused with denial that borders on the comic. Vowing to "set down, in a humble way, some little account of the beginning of this new reign of brotherhood and universal philanthropy," he never reveals his first name. But we hear about his son, Franz, daughter, Annie, daughter-in-law, Agnes, and his "better half, Paula," while experiencing his pain as he recounts their reversals at the hands of the new socialist order, climaxing in his own tragic end.

This is not a socialism of Stalinist murderers, but of social engineers who unhesitantly subordinate freedom to their egalitarian ideals, a path that leads inevitably to totalitarianism, material impoverishment, and violence. When the government's plan to confiscate all financial assets leaves the narrator's daughter-in-law, Agnes, "inconsolable," Schmidt sympathizes, explaining that "for a long time past she has been industriously saving up."

But after the confiscation decree is issued, he reports that "it was in vain that my wife sought to comfort [Agnes] with the thought of the opulent dowry which the Government meant all newly married couples to receive." Of course, the government goes increasingly broke and fails to deliver.

After the government asks all citizens to register their preference for a job, with all wages set at perfect equality, Schmidt sadly reports: "Those who have manifested a desire to become cleansers of sewers are, numerically, not a strong body."

Pictures of the Socialistic Future- Eugen Richter

Tweeting Terrorist Appeal Today In Doncaster.

So you all thought it was going to be OK voting Conservative and Lib Dem and everything has settled back to normality in Merrie England.

Wrong- The Courts are full of people being dragged there for having smoking in their pubs and going to Jail, a Pensioner is agonising over when she is going to hear whether she is going to be prosecuted for allegedly dropping ash from her cigarette by Sandwell Council, and there is a man appealing against being prosecuted by the Crown for a joke tweet.

Go to the Big Brother Watch Site, Live tweeting from the Court.

This is Con-Dem Britain in 2010- the public servants are still in charge.

UPDATE

Case Adjourned until November #Twitterjoketrial- you are all paying for the State to play these games.

The One Where I Announce I Am Running For Leader

I would, in other than general elections, and if a candidate were to stand where I live, vote for the Libertarian Party. But I voted Conservative in the general election because not to vote Conservative would have risked another Labour Government.

Dr Sean Gabb- Libertarian Alliance


I have decided to run in this years elections for the NCC as Party Leader, out of courtesy I have discussed this with Chris Mounsey first.

To date I have largely been a 'backroom boy' whilst fighting a crippling three year legal battle against Mandelson's mega Department of Business, Innovation & Skills, recently inherited by Vince Cable. I will be publishing my account of this in the near future. However as a result of this experience, I am eminently qualified to be aware of the corruption that allows French Court officials to lie on oath, for British Civil Servants to submit forged documents and perjured statements into Court and swear to their veracity. This week I received an adjudication from the Information Commissioner's Office that found that this Department had sought to evade the Law in suppressing evidence in my favour. They have now been instructed by the ICO to reveal this information without further delay.

As one of the founding members of the Libertarian Party I have always believed that there is a place for our Party to act as a rallying point against unconstitutional Government. The political system we live under is like an acid bath for movements such as ours, we will never succeed ever under the FPTP system, and we may have a chance with proportional representation. We can however fight local government seats and spread the word that politicians do not need to be in thrall to the EU or the stultifying presence of Whitehall. Politicians are mere representatives of the people at large, who are being asked to pay extortionate taxes to pay for an evergrowing State.

The Acid bath needs to be drained to allow all political opinions to be heard, therefore if elected as Leader in November, I will campaign for not only Libertarian Policies but Root and Branch Constitutional Reform along the lines of the Swiss Constitution.

It is time for the Libertarian party to be reinvigorated

Andrew Withers

Nick's Ethics

"There are two distinct classes of men in the nation, those who pay taxes, and those who receive and live upon the taxes".

 Thomas Paine

 So Nick Clegg is talking about ethics when he states it is unethical to avoid paying taxes. So which of the type Tom Paine wrote are you Nick ?

 1986-1989     Robinson College Cambridge
 Summer 1989   Officer Junior   Postpankki Bank Finland
 1990-1993     Masters Degree College of Europe
 1994-1999     EU Civil Servant
 1999-2004     MEP
 2005-         MP

 As a Historian, you are taught to examine the motives and prejudices of the sayings and statements of figures from the past. Nick Clegg- career civil servant and politician states it is unethical not to give vast sums of your money to the State. Hardly breathtaking or suprising is it ?

 What is unethical Nick, is what the State does with that money. It invades two sovereign countries and occupies them, it puts future generations in debt by bailing out the Banks instead of forcing them into liquidation and reconstruction, it sucks money out of the productive part of the economy and gives it to the ever growing State sector. Money that would have been used for employing people, for re investment in new machinery, equipment, research and development. That Nick, is unethical. Not allowing 'we the people' any say in how this money is wasted is unethical.

 The speed of circulation of money is a sign of the health of an economy as much as blood is to the human body.

 Not only is the industrial heart of Britain beating slower through lack of blood, it has a femoral hemorrhage due to the banking bail out, coupled with the vampire attentions of the public services.

 Today, Vince Cable the 'Business Secretary' (and former Labour Party member) is going to make another anti business speech to placate the members of the Social Democratic Party in Liverpool. This will again include taxing bank bonuses in a classic case of slamming the stable door shut after the horse has arrived in the next county. Banking bonuses would have not been paid out if those insolvent banks had gone to the wall, those that deserved massive bonuses would have been head hunted by solvent banks and offered terms. In restructuring those insolvent banks as regional banks, new contracts could have been issued precluding bonuses.

 After a General Election, we have an administration that seems to want to allow British Industry to bleed to death, whilst politically placating those in 'public service' who are threatening strike action.

 Eventually there will be a collapse, or inflation induced by printing more money to keep paying the public sector and its dependents.Productive business will go to other shores. Inflation now that is unethical as it will wipe out savings and pensions.

Trade: Natural, Essential, Good

So Guess Where Clegg Got This Orwellian Idea Of Using Lie Detectors

Well from here of course that was in 2003. What next ? beatings with a rubber hose? water boarding? head held under in ice cold baths. What I find truly terrifying is that this proposal has not raised one squeak of protest. Have we really become that inured to the lengths the State will go to to extract money? Clegg, just drop the word Liberal, you are a Social Democrat, Social Democracy is a Marxist ideology bent on social engineering based on the coercive power of the State.



Clegg and his bunch of sandal clad 'nice' Socialists evidently believe that giving the incompetent and arrogant HMRC should be given even more power, the outgoing bunch of state hoodlums gave these people the power to turn up unannouced at your home or business to demand your correspondence and files.



This is not normal, please God does nobody care because they do not thing it will happen to them ?



I called the first house I built 'The Tything' because one of my ancestors led and was involved in a near riot three hundred plus years ago when the Church authorities tried to reinstate the Tythe. He was fined 6d for his pains. Things were simpler then, but at least they knew the meaning of theft then.

UPDATE

It’s not smaller government I believe in. It’s a different kind of government: a liberating government. This government will transform the state. Reversing generations of centralisation. Putting power into people’s hands. Because the job of government is not to run people’s lives. It is to help people to run their own.

Nick Clegg- Still the Big State

Liberty Rising 2006-2010

Well, the cover has been designed and the collection of  blog posts going back to August 2006 is heading for the printers with a target date for publication of  1st November 2010. All proceeds going to the Libertarian Party.


The last four years of the last Labour Government seen through the daily eyes of  a classical Liberal turned Libertarian Activist.. The foundation of the Libertarian Party, the first priority at the first meeting was reduction of the National Debt, this the day before the storm broke over the British Economy as the run on Northern Rock started on Friday 14th September 2007.

Libertarian & Constitutional Party ?

This morning I received my copy of 'Citizen', the magazine of Unlock Democracy.

Let me have a confession here the first political organisation I joined at the age of seventeen,nearly thirty five years ago was 'The Campaign For Electoral Reform. Even at those tender years I realised that the political system we lived under did not reflect the diversity of political thought in the United Kingdom.

First Past The Post (FPTP) favoured one Fabian Social Democratic Coalition (Labour), against another conservative centre right coalition (Conservatives). Since then we have reached the stage that one soft left party (The Conservatives) are in bed with another soft left party (Liberal Democrats), opposing them is a increasingly hard left big State party (Labour). Not much of a choice if you are a Jeffersonian small state classical Liberal! Largely that choice has been denied me, I have successfully not managed to vote in one MP or Councillor in thirty five years that has reflected my views.

This is largely because I vote with my heart rather than voting for the least worst option.

So having been disenfranchised for thirty five years I am attracted to Proportional Representation, it was for this reason I joined the Liberal Party, unfortunately I found my local party was not very Liberal at all, I left when the Liberal Party was taken over by the Social Democratic Party, and became a fully fledged left of centre Social Democratic party, only paying lip service to Liberalism by retaining the word Liberal in the title.

We are now promised a Referendum on AV next May, as part of the price ticket for the Coalition. I do not think that Conservative and Labour Parties are going to vote for AV because they are quite happy with the current carve up.

Lets be clear AV is not proportional so it is not my first choice, but it is an improvement on FPTP. Therefore reluctantly I will support AV, as the status quo is simply not tenable any more.

AV does promise to-

At least make my vote count for something
Give smaller parties and Independents a fighting chance

I do not buy that it will make MP's more accountable, or that elections will be fought on areas that are important to me, or that it is anti extremist.

For that we need to have a root and branch campaign that truly takes back Parliament, that of a new Constitutional Settlement. We have nothing fundamental since 1688, apart from 'The Great Reform Bill of 1832' which was largely an adjustment to new economic realities. The Swiss in the meantime have had three rewrites of their written Constitution in that time. Central to their Constitution is the premise that State is subordinate to the individual.

At last year's Convention of Modern Liberty, the stage was packed with some notable thinkers and writers, and wannabees from the three major parties. I got the feeling that they felt it was something they felt that they should show up to. The best and most impassioned speakers came from the floor, demanding a new Constitutional Settlement. This was some six months before the Expenses scandal broke. I now just wish that the Convention had been held last summer instead.

Alexandra Runswick in 'The Citizen' writes that that she wants to see fundamental reform, advocating a Bill of Rights and the Protection of Civil Liberties, you cannot get either of these until you have a Constitution that puts the Individual above the State, sadly I think that 'Unlock Democracy's aims are far to limited. More along the line of 'we would like our masters to be nice to us, whilst we are being told how to live our lives' that treating people as individuals, who have a broad spectrum of opinions and would actually like to have some say in where their expropriated money is being spent.

To this end I am proposing that at this years Libertarian Party conference we change our name to the 'Libertarian and Constitutional Party', every policy that the LPUK expounds comes from the basic premise that the State is Subordinate to the Individual, that needs to be enshrined in a written Constitution that comes from the bottom up, not is forced on us from above. Cantonal/Lander Federal United Kingdom is the only thing that is going to hold us together. A centralised State creates torpor,corruption and malign influence and colossal waste. The Swiss Model is something I can recommend, and we need to extend our appeal..

It is time we wrote our first contract with Government in nearly four hundred years.

Thoughts ?

'Libertarian Minded' MP's Carswell And Baker Set Down Ten Minute Rule Bill

Under my Bill, when opening a new bank account, you’d still be free to
tick the box that says “it’s fine to lend on my money”.  … To be
clear, this Bill does not
stop banks from treating your deposit as a loan.  You just have to
make clear that you give them permission to do so.  There would, in
effect, be two types of bank account; one where it was made clear that
you owned the money (and probably paid for banking services in fees),
and one where the bank was free to lend on your money like they owned
it.



Douglas Carswell MP



While it is not going to get too far, it is good to see these two setting down markers for the future

The Post War Settlement Is Dead- Sir Andrew Foster

The 2020 Commission on Public Services, chaired by Sir Andrew Foster, the former Audit Commission chief executive, has apparently said (this is according to the Today Programme report this morning) that the post-war settlement is over, and that the welfare state, as we know it today, is living on borrowed time. 2020's findings deserve a fuller analysis, but for now, here's a graph that shows why the Commission is right:

Adam Smith Institute- Read More

Mandelsons Digital Economy Bill

Do you remember Mandelson's Digital Economy Bill, well the consequences are now coming home to roost some £500m being sucked out of the economy.

A total of £500m will be taken out of the economy and wasted into a bureaucratic scheme that is unlikely to bring the public any benefits. This is ludicrous given that we are in a recession.
The power to block websites to block websites comes with this Act. Of course it is only for pirated content, but we heard that RIPA was to catch terrorists and we ended up with Council officials following people around to see if they were in school catchment areas or not.

This was a parting shot from the Stasi State, and it should be sitting on the top of the Con Dem bonfire of legislation, except somebody has forgotten to bring the matches.

This Is War !! ??

Dr Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance said that if an incoming Conservative Government did not deal with the BBC on Day 2, it would be over in months.

BBC Unions plan to black out the Tory Party Conference

The Fabian State has not accepted the result of the last election, it is in complete denial about the size of the National Debt, and the TUC Dinosaurs/Fabian State thinks that screwing more money out of the productive sector through increased taxation and a more repressive tax regime is going to keep them all in their cushioned from economic reality jobs, because they all provide 'essential services'.

No they don't

This morning on the BBC

A Headmistress defending the situation that 20% of all schoolchildren are in 'special needs', she then went on to say that 100% of her children succeeded, the measure of success being to go on to tertiary education.

That is not education, its levelling off standards to the lowest denominator, and social engineering.

A woman being threated by Lincolnshire County Council because her daughter stands alone a a bus stop waiting for the school bus.

A New campaign to stop STI infections in the over forties with a new publically funded health campaign and demands for more public money to be spent on educating people like me !

For the Fabian State the Election in May never happened, the building of the deficit to astronomical proportions never happened, the war mongering never happened.

As to war mongering, the belligerant class war rhetoric of the public sector workers Unions has to heard to be believed. The article its 'War on the North'

The Fabian State declared war on it citizens years ago, now it is about to show where the real power lies, with blackouts, go slows (who will notice) and strikes.

That will teach you for voting incorrectly.

Is this Strictly Legal ?

In Ed Balls fiefdom lies the Town of Morley, the Town Council have come up with an extraordinary set of accounts as above.

‘Some of the 2009/10 figures cannot be disclosed due to confidentiality issues’

Try putting that on your set of accounts to HMRC and Companies House and see how far you get !

However this is part of the essential public services that take your money, and now feel that they are not obliged to actually tell you what they have spent it on.
This is the sort of chicanery that the TUC will be defending and campaigning for more of, today. It is also something that has attracted the attention of members of the Yorkshire Branch of the Libertarian Party.

The background to this is another of these Public servant pay offs.

Surely it can't be legit to not give expenditure and closing balance in a balance sheet?

Morley Council settled out of court with the former Town Clerk after losing a tribunal case but before the award determination took place. It was subject to a confidentiality clause but who wanted that clause is confidential. The popular opinion is that she would have probably got less from the tribunal but that would have been in the full glare of publicity.

The Audit Commission was emailed for an opinion, judging from the duff email links in the documents, misleading auto-responses & lack of acknowledgement from supposedly the correct email, it looks like they are as useful as chocolate teapots. (as we now know , Pickles is sending them to the knackers yard.)

The books were open to inspection during July, it would have been interesting to have rolled up and found this out during that period.

Whether this is illegal yet as an annual report isn't obligatory as far as is known, but there is no way the auditor will wear this and Statutory Instrument 533 2003 makes it clear that the balance has to be published in the audited figures

Of course, this might be a cunning ruse to be shown willing to apply to the contractural agreement under tort law only to be reluctantly overruled by the external auditor later in the year, but if this is what they are doing it is a very cack handed way of doing it and an insult to the people of the town.

Finally a letter from the Audit commission arrives-

Dear Mr xxx

Thank you for your email.

I have forwarded your email to the appointed auditors for Morley Town Council, Mazars, and in particular a Stephen Christopher. He will respond to you in due course.

More information about the role of appointed auditors can be found on our website here: http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/loca ... fault.aspx and http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/abou ... eries.aspx.

Yours sincerely,

Dan Allbon
Public Enquiries Officer
part of the Chief Executive’s office

Audit Commission
Westward House
Lime Kiln Close
Stoke Gifford
Bristol
BS34 8SR


Then another letter from the Audit Commission, Millbank, London

Dear Mr XXX

Thank you for your email to the Audit Commission regarding the 2009/10 accounts of Morley Town Council as presented in that council’s Annual Report published online.

I must stress that the accounts presented on the council’s website as part of the Annual Report are not the statutory accounts of the council. The annual report is not a statutory requirement and so is not regulated. One would hope, however, that any financial information presented in an annual report would be both complete and consistent with the audited statutory accounts of the body.

The council’s statutory accounts come in the form of an Annual Return which is subject to independent external audit. The council must publicly display the annual return, which includes both accounting and annual governance statements, for 20 working days. During that time you may ask the council any question you like about the accounts or to see any detail of them. There is certainly nothing in the legislation that supports partial disclosures of income or expenditure in the Annual Return and it is, indeed, unusual. So presuming the council’s annual return is complete, you should be able to find the information you seek there.

Local electors have rights in relation to the accounting statements. These include the right ‘to inspect the accounts…and all books, deeds, contracts, bills, vouchers and receipts relating to them.’ You may find the Commission’s guide – Councils Accounts Your Rights – helpful in detailing your rights and how to use them. It is accessible at http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/nati ... 72006.aspx .

In case of access to potentially personal information which is protected, you can also ask the external auditor (see directory at http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/abou ... itors.aspx to find your local auditor) to determine whether the information you seek is personal information or not.

You may also request to see the information you seek through your rights under Freedom of Information legislation.

I am copying this response to your council’s appointed auditor and to Morley Town Council for information.

I hope this is helpful.

Yours sincerely

Not impressed then ! however it is a bit misleading as the Council don't have to display the audit return for 20 days- they have to display a notice saying it can be inspected.

By now others far more qualified in the arcane practices of Local Authority Accounting were picking up the story- ‘Prats of the Week’


Morley Town Council then evaded giving a direct answer to a Freedom of Information Request.

However correspondence starting coming in that was equally unilluminating

Comments in Italics.

1) The balance sheet in the recently published annual report does not show a closing balance. MTC presumably sought advice on this. Which body advised that it was legal to redact the closing balance and what did they say?

The external auditors, Mazars LLP, were consulted verbally on this point.

Yes, but what did they say? It might have been "We don't recommend it, but you could just leave it out of the annual report as it isn't a statutory obligation".

2) The annual report claims reasons of confidentiality for redacting 2010 general administration, total expenditure and closing balance. Is this related purely to the out of court settlement with K Barrett after losing the Employment tribunal in March 2009?

The redaction of figures in the Annual Report is related to the compensation award made to Mrs K Barrett.

That was straight forward enough, but the word "solely" is not included so it is still open to interpretation.

3) which party proposed that the out of court settlement be on a confidential basis- the Morley Town Council Barrister or the Solicitor representing K Barrett?

As I was not in attendance at the conclusion of the Employment Tribunal, I cannot answer this question.

But I'm not asking the Town Clerk, I'm asking Morley Town Council via the Town Clerk. The Town Clerk doesn't make decisions but is expected to record them.

4) If it was MTC that proposed confidentiality in the out of court settlement, what was the justification for doing so?

See answer to question 3 above.

See comment after answer 3 above!



5) Have Mazers been consulted in the matter of redacting the Annual Report Balance Sheet? If so, what was their expressed opinion?

See answer to question 1 above.

...and my corresponding comment!






6) Will the closing balance be redacted in the audited reports available later this year?


The complete Annual Return was displayed on the Town Council notice board between Friday, 20th August and Friday 3rd September.

Indeed it was, next to the censored Annual Report. The annual report remains, but for two weeks, Morleians were able to work out the figures.

7) Had I have visited the office during the pre-audit accounts inspection window up until July 28th, would I have found that the closing balance was redacted?

Yes.

Interesting, that would have been breaking the law.

8) Did any electors or interested parties inspect the accounts during the July 2010 inspection window?

I do not see relevance in this question.

You haven't answered it either.


Why Morley Town Council is acting this way with Public funds is bizarre, because they cannot carry on hiding public accounts like this and will have to publish on September 30th 2010. If they don’t and Mazers (the auditors) allow them to get away with this they should all be sacked as being unfit.

The funds that have been extorted from the good people of Morley, the public sector there do not have the moral good grace to account for what they have done with the money so extorted. What is it that they are so frightened of revealing ? why has the local MP not raised questions in the House- duh sorry its Ed Balls Labours putative shadow Chancellor (or maybe his wife Yvette Cooper), you know the bloke who helped Gordon run up a massive deficit.

The Stench of the Rotten Boroughs still pervades the land.

Still this is the lightening rod that will turf out the incumbents with a more Libertarian stance next May ! The Morley Facebook is abuzz with this ‘ishoo’

Drawing The Battle Lines

Trade union leaders are winding up the tension ahead of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) meeting in their bid to try and warn the government off draconian job losses in the public sector. We are hearing the first suggestions of coordinated strike action and not just from people like Bob Crow in the RMT. Mark Serwotka at the civil servants union PCS says he will be planning joint industrial action across the public sector if his pleas fall on deaf ears. It comes amid another Sunday of dribbled out stories of planned cuts this autumn. I've been asking Labour leadership contender Ed Miliband whether he will be supporting the unions if they go to strike action, he refuses to say yes to that - insisting such talk is premature. But it is clear that just because he has the backing of the big unions he is not necessarily going to back them in this confrontation.

Channel Four

Nottinghamshire County Council issues over three hundred Redundancy Notices to Managers.

The Big State is poised to strike back.

Con-Dem should have dealt with the BBC on day two

ACPO Scare Stories

The Police Federation believe up to 40,000 officers could be axed as government cuts are implemented over the next two to three years. The alarming estimates involve the loss of whole teams such as child protection teams and domestic violence. Other units could be merged, but either way, we are being asked to believe that this will not lead to more crime. The Police Federation are very clear that the cuts will in fact be "Christmas for criminals" and will lead inevitably to higher crime rates. The news came as Hampshire Constabulary announced 1,400 job losses, including many police officers.

Channel 4 News

Vested interest shouting here. For the last fifteen years the upper echelons of the Police have formed a private limited company to evade the Data Protection Act, but this same company has formulated public policy using public money, but without public representation. There has been a catalogue of deaths at the hands of the Police and some notable brutality viz one Sgt Andrews. So public sympathy is at a low ebb.

Political correctness to please their political masters has been were the money has been spent, plus sorting out saturday night drunks.

Wind up ACPO

Put Policing back under a civilian mandate and by consent

Allow the public to defend themselves and their property.

Stop This £826 000 Nonsense

Please Keep Making Those Donations

I would like to thank everybody, Member and supporters who so generously made a donation to the Party in August, however made. We do not get the support of major companies or unions and are totally reliant on your generosity.

There is so much more that the Libertarian Party can and must do. The anger against the political classes in the wake of the expenses scandal has been managed successfully, only to be replaced by tax demands by an incompetant HMRC

Please keep the donations coming in of whatever size. Whilst I am speaking to some serious donors who can see that we are not going to get a lot of genuine rolling back of the State since May, it is still your £5, £10 , £20 plus that keeps us going.


Direct bank transfer to:

sort code 40-28-20

account 92635313


Please put your surname and if you have one a membership number as a reference, or you can donate via paypal on the button on the right hand side.

It Has Been A Year Since-

The BBC is part of a "conspiracy" preventing the "radical changes" needed to UK democracy, the corporation's former director general has said.

Its been a year since Greg Dyke was saying what many of us believed then and now that the State needed root and branch reform.

Dyke who was ousted in the Labour Coup de Main against the BBC in 2004 in the aftermath of the Kelly Affair knows the corruption that lies at the heart of the body politic. We have had an election in which Labour should have been decimated, but they still hold vast areas in their thrall. The Unions backing the thuggish UAF angainst the equally thuggish BNP, the BBC's overtly nightly campaigns against 'the cuts' and lastly members of their vast client quango state still sitting in place consuming vast amounts of tax money.

The State is still creating 'police forces' to deal with everything other than to check their own power. Yesterday I saw motorway warning lights on the M4 flashing 'Litter is a crime' in English and Welsh. Since when and who decided that we were to be bombarded with these messages from Big Brother using the traffic hazard system. I was caught in slow moving traffic- where was the sign 'slow moving traffic for ten miles due to road works' ?

Con-Dem out of practical coalition politics, knowing that the Lib Dems will jump into the arms of Labour at the slightest provocation, are unable to be a radical reformist movement, and are just settling for a managerial system of decline as we did in the seventies.

My fear is that the anger over the expenses scandal has been managed off the headlines and it is business as usual.

The 'Public Servants' are still running the country while the politicians bleat about telephone bugging as a sham substitute for politics.

Our 'Berlin Wall Moment', when the State quaked, has passed.

The Political Class has won its battle to control Britain. The civil service, Parliament,the political parties, the judiciary, the intelligence services and the media have all been captured or compromised. In an unannounced takeover of power, the public domain has been seized by the Political Class.

The victory is recent. It is certainly the case that key Political Class attitudes and techniques had become prevalent by the 1980's and to some extent even before. Margaret Thatcher's government contained hints of what was to come, especially in its methods of press management, warm relations with big business and centralised command structure.

Peter Oborne- The Triumph of the Political Class

We Who Dared Say No To War

H/T UK Libertarian

Dan Hannan on Europe

It’s not chiefly about Europe – it’s about democracy. Regular readers will know that I have always seen the repatriation of jurisdiction from Brussels as a means to an end. Having got the powers back, we should pass them down to local authorities or, better yet, to individual citizens. I want decisions to be decentralised, diffused, democratised. I want open primaries, popular initiative procedures, elected sheriffs, self-financing councils, an end to quangos, recall mechanisms and, yes, referendums – lots and lots of referendums.

Dan Hannan MEP


The first time I voted was in the EEC Referendum in 1975, for the record I voted yes to belonging to a free trade zone, I did not vote for a European superstate.

Therefore by my calculation anybody under the age of 53 has had no say on whether the United Kingdom should be part of a super state, which should it take in Turkey, will stretch from the Atlantic to Iraq.

In 1975, we were in the economic doldrums, three day weeks, miners strikes, clapped out rust belt industry, there were very good reasons for voting yes.

My biggest regret at the time was that it meant crapping on Australia and New Zealand. As in all of these things Australia and New Zealand just got on with it and enjoy prosperity and a standard of living the British can now only dream of.

As a Constitutionalist, I agree with Hannan. We seriously went off the rails in 1660, and instead of heading towards being a State like Switzerland we reintroduced the Cavalier Parliament which was more know for excluding power from the people than sharing it.

Those that saw the way the tide was running post Commonwealth went to America, taking their ideals of Liberty with them. One hundred years later the Thirteen States declared UDI. Britain went on to become a short lived economic and military superpower. In 2010 we have ended up politically at May 1st 1660 again, and we have to now make a decision to stay within the New Holy Roman Empire or declare UDI like Norway and Switzerland.

I am pro Europe and Anti EU as so constituted.

It is time to let the People speak.

Tax Blunder Rebellion

Never mind the politics of whether or not William Hague is gay (not in the slightest importance to me) this is serious stuff, and should make any sensible person question why they should not be a Libertarian. I reprint in full the following from the Anna Raccoon site in the hope people are going to start waking up.

Start

It’s been a while since there has been a story in the press that left me with my jaw so far down that it hurt. But today, I believe, we are firmly back in the deranged world of government gone completely insane:

HM Revenue and Customs could take direct control of every worker’s monthly pay cheque under plans to overhaul the error-prone income tax system.

Instead of employers deducting income tax then paying gross salaries to employees, the gross monthly payment would go to an HMRC-run tax “calculator”, which would then pass the net salary to the worker.

The reform would mean the end of traditional monthly payslips, because employers would no longer be able to tell workers how much tax they had paid each month.

The immediate thought that comes to mind is: what do we do when (and not if!) this all goes wrong? What happens when, as will inevitably happen, HMRC makes a balls up and takes your whole month’s salary? Who will you fight with? Without a payslip, how do you budget for the forthcoming month, especially if you are on highly variable wages? What about people with all sorts of different sources of income? How will this “help” them? What about people who have valid reasons for submitting an annual return to claw money back?

Inevitably, this kind of glorious “lateral thinking” is a result of the many failings of the people in HMRC. Why is the long-suffering taxpayer being exposed to this extraordinary risk? It’s not like the government exactly has a fantastic track record when it comes to grandiose computer systems.

I’m going to do something that I don’t generally do, because I’m not as erudite at campaigning as Anna: I’m going to ask you to spread the word about this as far as you can; I’m going to ask you to write to your useless MP and complain in the strongest possible terms about this insane idea; write to your local newspaper, tell all your friends and do everything you can think of to stop this insane idea from becoming reality.

Because although Anna is a wonderful campaigner, I don’t think there’s enough of her to go around to save each and every one of us!

UPDATE: I am generally loathe to update articles, especially if they have only just been published, but I feel that this information may be of great value to 1.4 million taxpayers:

The first batch of 45,000 letters demanding cash to be repaid will start to arrive on Tuesday – with the rest sent out over the next four months.

But accountants said recipients should act swiftly to use a little-known loophole which forces HM Revenue and Customs to abandon ‘out of the blue’ demands and effectively write off the money.

They also insisted many of those affected are entitled to argue that they or their employer have done nothing wrong and should not be penalised for someone else’s blunder.

Enough is enough. It is time to starve these incompetent thieves of our hard-earned money!

Not Dixon Of Dock Green Then

It just goes on and on and on.

This police constable being an ex soldier appears to have completed his Police training at Abu Ghraib.

She is lucky to be alive after being thrown against the concrete floor, much as Ian Tomlinson was. I am sure that the Home Office could have rustled up another medical incompetent like Patel to say she died of a heavy nose bleed and it was natural causes.

According to the IPCC

In 2008/09 there were 92 deaths during or
following police contact, of which:
• 40 were the result of road traffic fatalities
• 3 were the result of fatal police shootings
• 15 were deaths in or following police custody
• 34 were other deaths following police contact

Like the military casualities we only get to hear about the deaths not the 'wounded' or maimed.

So next time you see a Police Car with 'Serving the Community' or some such slogan remember the above statistics.

Apparently the going tarrif for a assault carried like above is six months.

As Others See Us

The English Mailcoach

Libertarianism contends that man is at his happiest when presented with the maximum amount of choice - the most important choice of all being just where he will spend his hard-earned cash. In this conception, freedom is something to do with disposable income, not democracy or human dignity. It’s consumerism as a form of politics. There are no real obligations within Libertarianism, only the obligation to mind your own business. Nor are there rights. Rights, (which Libertarians seek to trivialise by rebranding them “entitlements”), must be furnished by ‘a third party’ and for the proudly self-reliant Libertarian such outside interventionism is intolerable.

Considering that Tim Montgomerie predicts the next Labour Leader will be the next Prime Minister- We have more of Socialism = Human Dignity to come.