Another person stops believing in Labour

Rehman Chishti, former Labour candidate for Horsham, has joined the Conservatie Party. He says:

I'm delighted to have joined the Conservative Party. Under David Cameron, the Conservatives provide hope and inspiration to the public at large who have become disillusioned with New Labour.

Tony Blair's Labour Party increasingly takes voters for granted and is out of touch with modern Britain.

With Not So Very New Labour disintegrating more and more people have found that they no longer believe in Tony or Old Man Brown as they continue to take the country for granted. Meanwhile the Conservative Party continues to go and thrive, reaching out to all parts of the United Kingdom.

Lembit Öpik's chance to sink yet another candidate's hopes

There's another contest taking place that offers Lib Dems the chance to seek support from their colleagues - or in one case to seek to avoid that support! Yes it's the Liberal Democrat Deputy Leadership election. Iain Dale has an assessment of the runners and riders. Which of these Lib Dems will get to stand in for Ming when he's not there?

• Vincent Cable
• Ed Davey
• David Heath
• Susan Kramer
• Matthew Taylor
• Phil Willis

I'm sure I'm not the only person asking who some of them are!

Now the big question that needs answering is which candidate has the support of Lembit Öpik. He publicly backed Charles Kennedy - who was then forced to step down. He publicly backed Mark Oaten - who was then forced to withdraw. He privately supported Chris Huhne - who didn't win. All six candidates must be praying that Öpik doesn't support them!

British Rail were going to build this?!

BBC News reports that in 1973 British Rail patented a plan for a flying saucer to be powered by "controlled thermonuclear fusion reaction". It makes the title of a BBC series set in 1973, "Life on Mars", take on a whole new meaning.

Just imagine though if British Rail had developed these saucers. One could have gone from A to B, seen the sites of the universe and had an experience literally like nothing on earth.

And the service would still have been late and strike ridden whilst the onboard sandwiches would still qualify as a new genetic lifeform.

John Profumo dies

Former MP and Cabinet Minister John Profumo has died. Profumo is sadly best remembered for a scandal in 1963 that led to his resignation from politics and perhaps the downfall of Harold Macmillan's government. But he also held several other distinctions.

Following his disgrace Profumo went to Toynbee Hall in the East End and worked as a volunteer there for over forty years, and is remembered with strong affection. But Profumo is also notable for the very beginning of his political career.

In April 1940 Profumo entered the House of Commons at the age of 25, becoming the youngest MP (the "Baby of the House"). Incidentally until his death he was the surviving former MP who had entered the House the earliest, perhaps best described as the "Grandfather of the House". (The title now passes to the former Common Wealth then Labour MP Ernest Millington, the only MP elected before the 1945 election who is still alive.)

It was in May 1940 that Profumo first made his mark when he was one of the MPs who voted against Neville Chamberlain's government in the famous Norway Debate of May 7 & 8. Two days later Chamberlain resigned and Winston Churchill became Prime Minister. A few years ago, on the sixty-third anniversary of the rebellion, Profumo was hailed for his actions by current MPs, including Churchill's grandson. With Profumo's death a political era has now passed.

The West Lothian Question needs sorting now

The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs Lord Falconer has strongly rejected both an English Parliament and allowing only English MPs to vote on English issues. He claims there is

no demand at all for devolution to England or the English MPs only being able to vote on English issues.

One has to wonder where he's been for the past eight years, although at the moment all his jobs could perhaps explain it.

The West Lothian Question has still to be satisfactorily resolved and it is absurd for Labour Party ministers, the party that benefits the most from this anomaly when forcing things like University top-up fees onto England, to claim that it is irrelevant or that the current system is working. But it is true that electing another set of politicians is not an option that commands popular support, whilst having different categories of MPs with different voting rights would result in confusion and gridlock and Parliament. But there is a precedent for a compromise solution. When Northern Ireland was given its own Parliament back in the early 1920s, the number of Northern Irish MPs at Westminster was cut from twenty-nine to thirteen (later reduced to twelve with the abolition of the University constituencies). Northern Ireland had a reduced number of MPs in exchange for being able to vote on everything and it proved a workable solution at Westminster for fifty years. Why not repeat this and cut the number of Scottish MPs to about forty, with all holding full rights? It wouldn't answer every last point but it could work in a way that none of the other options could.

Why laws not court rulings should decide great debates

In South Dakota a bill has now been signed into law that seeks to outlaw abortion in the state. It is possible that the wranglings over this will lead to a challenge to Roe v. Wade, the US Supreme Court ruling that is the basis for the legal provision of abortion across the United States.

Long-time readers of my blog will have seen my views on abortion expressed more than once so I won't recycle them here. But what is worrying is the way that the outcome of this entire debate rests entirely on the judgement of a mere nine Supreme Court Justices - and by the time the case reaches the Court a single further appointment may have changed the balance. What self-respecting polity allows decisions to be made in such a way, allows laws to be upheld or vetoed by the political whims at the random moment when vacancies arise on the Court and ultimately ignore popular opinion?

This bill is one of the most extreme pieces of "pro life" ("pro slavery" would be a more apt term) legislation yet tried, making abortion illegal even in cases of incest and rape. These fanatics care nothing for women who will find themselves enduring a perpetual nine month long rape, all due to their prejudices. If the Supreme Court throws out Roe vs. Wade then state after state will pass such extreme laws with the backing of the courts.

It is absurd that this debate will be decided in the Supreme Court. Contrast the position with this country, where the abortion question has been decided by Parliament and taken beyond the petty squabbles of partisan politics. Supreme Courts do nothing to aid democracy and freedom. Legislatures can overturn bad laws and federal legislatures can enact civil rights legislation, but absolute court rulings are far harder to disolve. Let us never follow the US route.

Schools' powers are asserted

The High Court has ruled that schools, not parents or magistrates, have the power to decide when pupils can be taken out of classes for family holidays. It is always good to see the courts ruling in favour of common sense but wider action is needed to tackle this problem. Part of it stems from the travel industry making it financially beneficial to do this, and it's good to see action being taken there, but a key issue is the failure of schools to align the holidays and half-terms.

When I was at school my sister and I frequently had different half terms (at one point three weeks apart!) and this often prevented the family from taking a trip away, as well as making day trips more expensive as they had to be duplicated (and some activities were only available during the "standard" half-term). This experience was far from unique and there are many cases of primary and secondary schools in overlapping catchment areas being out of sync. Aligning half-terms will not solve all the problems of holiday truancy but it would be a step in the right direction.

The sex tax will be cut

Although the Treasury is officially silent, it is being reported that VAT is to be cut on contraceptives. Regular readers of this blog will recall my previous posts on this subject, including the Government's previous evasion on the subject and Superdrug launching a petition on the subject.

This has been a hard fought campaign by many, but one that has found success and we should all be grateful to those who've worked so hard for this.

Are the Lib Dems all Mingers now?

The Liberal Democrats have elected Sir Menzies "Ming the Merciless" Campbell as their new leader. Since he has had neither embarrassing revelations exposing him as a hypocrite nor the backing of Lembit Opik (who appears to have supported Chris Huhne), I suppose Campbell's victory should have been more obvious. If Old Man Brown is elected Labour leader when Tony Blair finally does the one good thing he can do and gives up the seals of office we will see the Fife conflict between Flash Gordon and Ming the Merciless go national.

With the leadership election over, one would expect the Liberal Democrats to sink back into their normal obscurity in politics. However for those who've been following the past two months, ever since the party brutally deposed Charles Kennedy in a manner that made even the downfalls of Iain Duncan Smith and Ieuan Wyn Jones look like friendly chats, there are two little epilogues to this saga. For the excitement of perhaps a few there is the riveting wonder that is the Liberal Democrat deputy leadership election. For the rest of the universe we can wonder whether Campbell's supporters should be called "Merciless Ones", "Mongos" or "Mingers". I wonder if anyone knows what the Emperor himself thinks?

So who's reading this site?

Thanks to tracksy.com I can see a list of visitors to this site in the past month.

First off the sites most people come from:

1. Educationet


2. Google


3. Contemplative Activist


4. Jo Salmon


5. Blogger.com


6. Militant Moderate


7. Conservative Mind


8. Iain Dale


9. Wikipedia


10. Dan Quixote - Tilting At Political Windmills Blog

Then we have the top ten search engine requests that brought people here:

1. laura blomeley


2. what does your birthday say about you


3. ruth kelly sexuality mp


4. michael fishwick blogspot


5. tim roll-pickering


6. decommissioning green goddess in northern ireland


7. is not in kent


8. what do people think of downsend school?


9. martin cakebread and conservative


10. charles kennedy

Some are obvious, but I can't recall writing anything about Green Goddess fire engines or Ruth Kelly's sexuality!

Finally we have a list of all the cities detected that people are in (although many are listed as "other"):

LONDON, BROOKLYN, NEWPORT, BANGKOK, CARDIFF, SHEFFIELD, CAMBRIDGE, LEEDS, GLASGOW, NOTTINGHAM, OXFORD, FLORENCE, BATH, LIVERPOOL, READING, EDINBURGH, LEICESTER, DULLES, SOUTHAMPTON, BELFAST, COVENTRY, LUTON, LANCASTER, WORTHING, NEW YORK, MANCHESTER, TORONTO, DALLAS, PORT ORANGE, ATLANTA, BRISTOL, MYTILINI, HARLEYSVILLE, BRADFORD, BOSTON, DUDLEY, COLCHESTER, CARL JUNCTION, BEL AIR, CHARLOTTE, WARRENSBURG, WASHINGTON, CHATHAM, VICTORIA, CLAREMONT, PHUKET, THOMASVILLE, BIRMINGHAM

(Of course this is not perfect - for some reason readers at both the University of Kent and Canterbury Christ Church University are listed as being in London. Canterbury is not exactly next to London!)

So a big "Hi!" to you all and thanks for reading so far.