Dear Mr funky
I would like to see better relations between Cuba and the UK. I would like to see the US blockade lifted too but i would not like to see Cuba swamped by Americans Having visited Cuba on holiday a few years ago I was very impressed by their health care
Charlotte Atkins MP
UK Election 2010
The Time For Change Is Now...
[web]https://www.power2010.org.uk/page/speako ... ce=pullman[/web]
Just sent this one out to all my prospective candidates. Do the same all you progressives out there!
Just sent this one out to all my prospective candidates. Do the same all you progressives out there!
Johann Hari: If you're looking for class war, just read Cameron's policies
It is very hard for the British people to make a serious choice in this election without talking about one factor above all others – class. This isn't about David Cameron's background; it's about his policies. It is a provable fact that he will redistribute wealth – substantially – but in a strange direction: from everyone in the big wide middle and bottom of British society, to the very top.
Here are the facts. He will give a £1.2bn inheritance tax cut to the richest 2 per cent in Britain – with most going to the 3,000 wealthiest estates (including his wife's). Then he promises to end the 50p top rate of tax, giving another £2.4bn to the richest 1 per cent. Then he has pledged to cut taxes on the pensions of the richest, handing another £3.2bn to the same 1 per cent. Then his marriage tax relief policies will give 13 times more to the rich than the poor. To pay for this, he will slash programmes for the middle and the skint, like the Child Trust Fund, SureStart and state schools.
But this is not called "class war". No. The nasty "class warriors" are the people who try – with hard statistical facts – to point out this rip-off by the rich. This exposes the assumptions that underpin our politico-media debate. Money being endlessly shovelled up to the top by the state is considered the natural state of affairs; anybody trying to speak for the interests of the majority is considered a rude and irrational "warrior." These premises were best rebuffed by the billionaire Warren Buffett, who quipped: "Let's face it – if there's a class war, my side's winning."
Yet the media is trying to render all of this taboo, by claiming that any discussion of class is an attack on Cameron's childhood at Eton. One front page screamed: "Now The Class War Begins!" – referring not to Cameron's policies, but Gordon Brown's mild reference to himself as "middle class." But how can the British people know what they are choosing, if we can't discuss which class will benefit from Cameron – and which classes will lose?
Yes, the differences between New Labour and the Conservatives are far too small, on this as on all issues. There are myriad ways in which the current Government has also spoon-fed the super-rich. They cheer-led the economy-crashing deregulation of the banks; they turned Britain into a de facto tax haven for non-doms; when you add it all up, a tycoon still scandalously pays a lower proportion of his income in tax than his secretary.
But it is wrong to say, on this issue, there is no difference at all. The gap is real, and millions of people live in that gap. The Institute of Fiscal Studies just published a long-term study of how Labour's tax changes have affected different classes, compared to the last Tory government. It found that the richest 10 per cent have seen their incomes cut by 9 per cent, to pay for an increase in the incomes of the poorest 10 per cent. A rich man has lost on average £25,000 a year; a poor woman has gained on average £1,700 a year. I have seen these changes among my own family and friends: gaining £1,700 is the difference between struggling to pay the bills, or being able to give your kids a summer holiday. Yes, there should have been much more – but the cigarette paper between the parties is big enough to make a pretty fat roll-up.
Cameron's policies make it pretty plain: this redistribution will be slammed into reverse by him, with state cash flowing in the opposite direction. Is this due to the fact that Cameron has lived his life in a bubble of extreme privilege, and thinks it is natural that People Like Us should be the primary beneficiaries of government action? This is a question that matters – but it needs to be answered carefully. It is idiotic to attack somebody for a decision their parents made when they were a child, or money they earned before he was conceived. There's nothing wrong with being an Etonian: George Orwell went to Eton, and went on to become the greatest left-winger this country has ever produced.
The problem isn't Cameron's extreme privilege – it is that he has never tried to see beyond it. He keeps accidentally revealing how warped his view of Britain is, and how little of it he understands. For example, Cameron said in an interview: "The papers keep writing that [my wife, Samantha] comes from a very blue-blooded background", but "she is actually very unconventional. She went to a day school."
Read that sentence again. Now imagine how Britain looks from inside David Cameron's head, where the 97 per cent of us who went to day schools are "very unconventional". (In the Bullingdon Club, he called George Osborne "oik", because he had gone to the £20,000-a-year St Pauls, not the £30,000-a-year Eton.) This points to a wider mindset. The group he considers "conventional" and "normal" are the only people he has ever really mixed with, and they are the people he chooses to staff his office with today – very rich people. Is it any surprise he makes policies that serve them, not us?
But this attempt to stop the British people understanding the class differences underpinning the election campaign is part of a wider effort to stop us understanding how our society still works. Cameron keeps saying class doesn't matter any more, and "it's not where you're from that matters, it's where you're going." But today, a child born into a poor family has to be 20 IQ points smarter than a child born into a rich family to have the same income when he is an adult. To a kid born in east London, the glistening towers of the City – just a 10-minute walk away – may as well be on a different planet.
But any discussion of this is stigmatised as old fashioned, gauche, or even "spiteful." Look at how the term "middle class" is used in our political discussion. The median income in Britain – where half earn more, and half earn less – is £23,000 a year. That's the middle class. Yet routinely the media will refer to taxes on people earning more than £100,000 – the richest six per cent – as "attacks on the middle class." Even the BBC has been referring to Cameron as "upper middle class", when he is related to the Queen and, with his wife, is estimated to be worth £30m – more than 1,000 times the middle-class wage. How is that the middle? The middle of what – White's gentlemen's club? By creating a false middle in this way, they obscure how much Cameron's policies serve a tiny clique at the very top.
Labour must not be intimidated into silence on this issue. On this, it is closer to public opinion than Cameron or his media cheerleaders. Poll after poll finds 75 per cent believe Britain is too unequal, and virtually nobody believes tax cuts should not be targeted at the rich. Indeed, public opinion is substantially to the left of Labour, choosing more progressive policies almost across the board – revealing yet again that New Labour's tragedy has been its conservatism and capitulation to the right. Despite all the disinformation, the British people are whiffing the truth: a Populous poll found that 50 per cent think Cameron is on the side of the rich, compared to only 42 per cent who thought he was on the side of ordinary people.
Yet Brown keeps lapsing into a feeble technocratic line of attack instead, complaining "the Tories' sums don't add up". This will fail and fail badly. People are so disgusted by politicians they assume all their plans are lies anyway – so finding a supposed "£6bn black hole" leaves everybody cold. He needs to appeal to people's visceral instincts instead.
The truth is plain, and it is provable. David Cameron's policies will take money from the hard-working majority of Brits, and hand it to his friends and relatives on landed estates and in tax havens. He is not on your side; he is on the side of a tiny clique who have every luxury in life and now bray for even more. Cameron bragged to his supporters last month: "Nothing and no one can stop us." It's up to the majority who will lose out if he become PM to say – oh yeah?
from https://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... 39666.html
It is very hard for the British people to make a serious choice in this election without talking about one factor above all others – class. This isn't about David Cameron's background; it's about his policies. It is a provable fact that he will redistribute wealth – substantially – but in a strange direction: from everyone in the big wide middle and bottom of British society, to the very top.
Here are the facts. He will give a £1.2bn inheritance tax cut to the richest 2 per cent in Britain – with most going to the 3,000 wealthiest estates (including his wife's). Then he promises to end the 50p top rate of tax, giving another £2.4bn to the richest 1 per cent. Then he has pledged to cut taxes on the pensions of the richest, handing another £3.2bn to the same 1 per cent. Then his marriage tax relief policies will give 13 times more to the rich than the poor. To pay for this, he will slash programmes for the middle and the skint, like the Child Trust Fund, SureStart and state schools.
But this is not called "class war". No. The nasty "class warriors" are the people who try – with hard statistical facts – to point out this rip-off by the rich. This exposes the assumptions that underpin our politico-media debate. Money being endlessly shovelled up to the top by the state is considered the natural state of affairs; anybody trying to speak for the interests of the majority is considered a rude and irrational "warrior." These premises were best rebuffed by the billionaire Warren Buffett, who quipped: "Let's face it – if there's a class war, my side's winning."
Yet the media is trying to render all of this taboo, by claiming that any discussion of class is an attack on Cameron's childhood at Eton. One front page screamed: "Now The Class War Begins!" – referring not to Cameron's policies, but Gordon Brown's mild reference to himself as "middle class." But how can the British people know what they are choosing, if we can't discuss which class will benefit from Cameron – and which classes will lose?
Yes, the differences between New Labour and the Conservatives are far too small, on this as on all issues. There are myriad ways in which the current Government has also spoon-fed the super-rich. They cheer-led the economy-crashing deregulation of the banks; they turned Britain into a de facto tax haven for non-doms; when you add it all up, a tycoon still scandalously pays a lower proportion of his income in tax than his secretary.
But it is wrong to say, on this issue, there is no difference at all. The gap is real, and millions of people live in that gap. The Institute of Fiscal Studies just published a long-term study of how Labour's tax changes have affected different classes, compared to the last Tory government. It found that the richest 10 per cent have seen their incomes cut by 9 per cent, to pay for an increase in the incomes of the poorest 10 per cent. A rich man has lost on average £25,000 a year; a poor woman has gained on average £1,700 a year. I have seen these changes among my own family and friends: gaining £1,700 is the difference between struggling to pay the bills, or being able to give your kids a summer holiday. Yes, there should have been much more – but the cigarette paper between the parties is big enough to make a pretty fat roll-up.
Cameron's policies make it pretty plain: this redistribution will be slammed into reverse by him, with state cash flowing in the opposite direction. Is this due to the fact that Cameron has lived his life in a bubble of extreme privilege, and thinks it is natural that People Like Us should be the primary beneficiaries of government action? This is a question that matters – but it needs to be answered carefully. It is idiotic to attack somebody for a decision their parents made when they were a child, or money they earned before he was conceived. There's nothing wrong with being an Etonian: George Orwell went to Eton, and went on to become the greatest left-winger this country has ever produced.
The problem isn't Cameron's extreme privilege – it is that he has never tried to see beyond it. He keeps accidentally revealing how warped his view of Britain is, and how little of it he understands. For example, Cameron said in an interview: "The papers keep writing that [my wife, Samantha] comes from a very blue-blooded background", but "she is actually very unconventional. She went to a day school."
Read that sentence again. Now imagine how Britain looks from inside David Cameron's head, where the 97 per cent of us who went to day schools are "very unconventional". (In the Bullingdon Club, he called George Osborne "oik", because he had gone to the £20,000-a-year St Pauls, not the £30,000-a-year Eton.) This points to a wider mindset. The group he considers "conventional" and "normal" are the only people he has ever really mixed with, and they are the people he chooses to staff his office with today – very rich people. Is it any surprise he makes policies that serve them, not us?
But this attempt to stop the British people understanding the class differences underpinning the election campaign is part of a wider effort to stop us understanding how our society still works. Cameron keeps saying class doesn't matter any more, and "it's not where you're from that matters, it's where you're going." But today, a child born into a poor family has to be 20 IQ points smarter than a child born into a rich family to have the same income when he is an adult. To a kid born in east London, the glistening towers of the City – just a 10-minute walk away – may as well be on a different planet.
But any discussion of this is stigmatised as old fashioned, gauche, or even "spiteful." Look at how the term "middle class" is used in our political discussion. The median income in Britain – where half earn more, and half earn less – is £23,000 a year. That's the middle class. Yet routinely the media will refer to taxes on people earning more than £100,000 – the richest six per cent – as "attacks on the middle class." Even the BBC has been referring to Cameron as "upper middle class", when he is related to the Queen and, with his wife, is estimated to be worth £30m – more than 1,000 times the middle-class wage. How is that the middle? The middle of what – White's gentlemen's club? By creating a false middle in this way, they obscure how much Cameron's policies serve a tiny clique at the very top.
Labour must not be intimidated into silence on this issue. On this, it is closer to public opinion than Cameron or his media cheerleaders. Poll after poll finds 75 per cent believe Britain is too unequal, and virtually nobody believes tax cuts should not be targeted at the rich. Indeed, public opinion is substantially to the left of Labour, choosing more progressive policies almost across the board – revealing yet again that New Labour's tragedy has been its conservatism and capitulation to the right. Despite all the disinformation, the British people are whiffing the truth: a Populous poll found that 50 per cent think Cameron is on the side of the rich, compared to only 42 per cent who thought he was on the side of ordinary people.
Yet Brown keeps lapsing into a feeble technocratic line of attack instead, complaining "the Tories' sums don't add up". This will fail and fail badly. People are so disgusted by politicians they assume all their plans are lies anyway – so finding a supposed "£6bn black hole" leaves everybody cold. He needs to appeal to people's visceral instincts instead.
The truth is plain, and it is provable. David Cameron's policies will take money from the hard-working majority of Brits, and hand it to his friends and relatives on landed estates and in tax havens. He is not on your side; he is on the side of a tiny clique who have every luxury in life and now bray for even more. Cameron bragged to his supporters last month: "Nothing and no one can stop us." It's up to the majority who will lose out if he become PM to say – oh yeah?
from https://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... 39666.html
Afghanistan: A conspiracy of silence
An IoS poll shows 77 per cent of Britons want our forces to come home and a majority believe our presence makes UK streets less safe from terrorist attack. Yet all three parties are ducking this most critical issue
It is one of the few genuine issues of life and death during this general election campaign. It will not dictate how much any British school improves, how many police appear on the streets of a city, or how quickly patients are allowed to leave hospitals around the country. But it will, literally, decide the fate of thousands of British service personnel and, ultimately, how many of them live and die.
Yet nobody wants to talk about Afghanistan.
When Nick Clegg "won" the televised party leaders' debate on Thursday night, his victory owed nothing to his limp response to a question about support for British troops serving in Afghanistan. The Liberal Democrat leader agreed that British troops in Afghanistan were under-paid and under-equipped, but he did not question why they had lost 281 colleagues in that country, or why they were there in the first place.
Similarly, Gordon Brown and David Cameron have pledged loyal support for a campaign that is deep into its ninth year, and shows no sign of nearing an end. In front of the cameras, the Prime Minister offered sombre reflection on the campaign, while Mr Cameron queried the number of helicopters available to British forces. Yet neither has gone out of his way to tackle the issue head-on elsewhere during this campaign, to explain why the UK should remain in Afghanistan, why it should continue to support a discredited government in Kabul, and how many more British service personnel must die before the mission can be brought to a close.
Last November, The Independent on Sunday called for a "phased, orderly withdrawal" of British forces from the "ill-conceived, unwinnable and counterproductive" campaign in Afghanistan. The UK still remains in there – and more than 50 servicemen have died since then. Last month, The IoS revealed that Britain harboured profound concerns at the highest levels over the quality of the Afghan police who must guarantee security before our troops can leave.
The leaders may, at last, be forced to explain their positions this week, when the second debate concentrates on foreign affairs. But, given their performance so far, it is unlikely that they will offer any fresh hope for the service personnel in Afghanistan or their families back home.
"We want to see more substantive engagement on defence issues from the parties," said Douglas Young, executive chairman of the British Armed Forces Federation, an independent staff association for service personnel. "Up to now, there have been too many airy-fairy platitudes and not enough substance."
These are leaders who last week presented election manifestos amounting to more than 80,000 words on their grand plans for education, health, the economy, but who managed to mention Afghanistan only 19 times between them.
The stifling of the issue might be due to the fact that all the main parties know their policies are entirely at odds with the feelings of the population over Afghanistan. In November, a poll found that 73 per cent of people wanted British troops to come home within "a year or so" – and almost half of them called for immediate withdrawal.
A poll for The IoS today finds that this number has increased, with 77 per cent now supporting withdrawal on the same terms. The number disagreeing is now below one in seven. Further, more than 50 per cent of those polled believe that the risk of terrorism in the UK is increased by the presence of British troops in Afghanistan.
However, none of the major parties is promising to pull troops out if they get into government and only the Scottish National Party – confined to one part of the UK – is calling for an honest reappraisal of the operation. The Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg, last week made much of his record of "speaking out pretty forcefully" on Afghanistan. But his manifesto commits the party to being "critical supporters of the Afghanistan mission'', albeit with a pledge to match the military surge to a strategy of tackling corruption and winning over moderate Taliban.
The Lib Dem defence spokesman, Nick Harvey, yesterday conceded that anti-war voters have few choices. "If they are against the whole principle of being involved [in Afghanistan], they'll struggle to find anyone putting that case," he said. For opponents of the war, the lack of differentiation between the three main parties and their failure to embrace the Afghan question during the first two weeks of the election campaign amounts to a "conspiracy of silence" to suppress debate.
Chris Nineham, of the Stop the War Coalition, said: "There has been a deafening silence about Afghanistan in the run-up to the election. The three main parties are doing their best not to mention the war, despite the fact that the vast majority of the population oppose it."
Yet, despite complaints from the most vocal critics of the war, there is no guarantee that, however strongly voters feel, they are prepared to treat it as an electoral issue. In November 2006, when the toll of British deaths during five years of the campaign stood at 41, pollsters Ipsos Mori found that "defence/foreign affairs/Iraq and Afghanistan" topped the list of concerns facing the country. Two out of five voters spontaneously identified it as a key national problem. Three and a half years on, with 240 added to the death toll – 36 this year alone – it has slipped to seventh.
A leaked CIA report last month observed how "some Nato states, notably France and Germany, have counted on public apathy about Afghanistan to increase their contributions to the mission". It also argued that such apathy "enabled leaders to ignore voters". It seems that Britain's leaders are banking on indifference to help them through a potentially troublesome campaign without having to confront the most troubling issue before them.
"All three parties in 2001 thought we should go in. There are no votes in it, so they keep quiet about it," said General Sir Hugh Beach, former deputy commander of British Land Forces.
Five years ago, public opposition to the Iraq War was widely listed as a contributory factor behind a general election result that cut Labour's majority from 167 to 66. And lingering rancour over the war helped to lever Mr Blair from office two years later.
Afghanistan has been different. It has been overwhelmingly regarded as the "just" war. It was portrayed as a campaign to democratise a wild nation, to oust the Taliban, al-Qa'ida and all the extremists threatening the West with terror plots over the past decade.
That justification has lost its power as the death toll spirals and Afghans show little inclination to take control of their own affairs. Military commanders in Pakistan, where suicide bombers killed more than 40 people yesterday, regard the failure of US-led forces to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan with ill-concealed derision.
"They don't have the legitimacy we do," said Colonel Nauman Saeed, who commands 3,500 solders in Bajaur, a mountainous district on the Afghan border. "Afghans see them as illegitimate intruders and occupation forces." At the moment, the Pakistan military are in a victorious mood after retaking much of the territory along the Afghan border which was ruled by the Pakistan Taliban a year ago.
When experts point to terror plots from Pakistan and even within the UK, the Government's contention that the Afghan campaign is vital to protect Britain's security at home is difficult to explain.
And the government of President Karzai continues to raise concerns in Nato capitals. "The problem we have is that the regime in Afghanistan, which we support, is built on electoral fraud, with graft and corruption," said the SNP's foreign affairs spokesman, Angus Robertson. "We need to be absolutely honest about our options, and one of the aspects of that is that there needs to be a decision about when we bring our forces home."
The IoS military covenant panel
Major General Patrick Cordingley
"There is an embargo on the Ministry of Defence, so there is virtually no news coming out of them. The two main parties basically agree on Afghanistan. If somebody disagreed it would be a big issue but as they all agree, there's no point banging on about it."
Major Julian Thompson
"The reason is the parties have stayed off the issue in toto. Defence is unfortunately the last thing people think about and it is not something that turns people on. Labour got us in there in the first place and don't want people to be reminded of it."
General Sir Hugh Beach
"Nobody thinks there are votes in it one way or the other. All three parties in 2001 thought we should go in. There are no votes in it either way, so they keep quiet about it."
Rose Gentle, mother of Fusilier Gordon Gentle, killed in Iraq
"It isn't really a vote-winner. Iraq isn't mentioned and the soldiers that died there are the silent heroes. Families I've spoken to think someone should say something about it, but to be honest I don't think anyone will."
Retired Colonel Clive Fairweather
"In 2001 it was the war on terror, but since then the country can't make the connection with the war on terror any more. I don't think the Tories or Nick Clegg have much else to offer. It would only become an issue if there were multiple casualties, which is not very good for troop morale."
James Fergusson, journalist, foreign correspondent and author of 'A Million Bullets: The Real Story of the British Army in Afghanistan'
"It is easy to say we need more helicopters but I have always thought that the argument that we are fighting over there to protect the streets is easily shot down. But I think the [political] opponents are too scared to take on the issue."
The Rifleman: 'William would have made a fantastic husband and dad'
Anyone who met Rifleman William Aldridge had only to look at the teenager to know how much his family meant to him: he had the name of his young brother George tattooed on his arm.
He had planned to get Archie, the name of the youngest brother, inked on his other arm but was deployed to Afghanistan before he got the chance. He was killed, aged 18, by an IED blast while on foot patrol with the 2nd Battalion The Rifles in Sangin province on July 10. He now holds the tragic distinction of being the youngest British soldier to die in the conflict.
It took his mother Lucy Aldridge, 42, a couple of weeks to find the right words to tell his brothers – then aged five and four – that they would not see him again. "I explained that William was doing a very important job protecting people in another country but now he had a much more important job to do and that meant that he wouldn't be able to come home because he had gone to be with the angels and look after everybody."
William's brothers meant "everything to him. He would have made a fantastic husband and dad."
The rifleman was a "very keen outdoors type" as a child, enjoying martial arts, rowing and canoeing. He was a Cub and a Scout, and joined a rifles cadet force when he was 12, his mum said from the family home in Bredenbury, Herefordshire.
"It was his dream, so I couldn't have been happier with him knowing exactly what he wanted to do."
That dream saw him sign up at the age of 16 after taking his GCSEs at the Minster College in Leominster. He passed out in August 2008 after basic training at the Army Foundation College in Harrogate and moved to Catterick for infantry training. He joined his battalion in Ballykinlar, Northern Ireland, that December.
William, who had formed part of the rearguard looking after families of serving soldiers, was posted to Afghanistan three days after celebrating his 18th birthday on 23 May last year with a family meal.
In their last conversation he sounded in "good spirits" but also "extremely tired" after being at a patrol base for 10 instead of 28 days due to "an inability for them to be resupplied with equipment, with basics like water and ammunition".
Two days later, he was killed following an improvised explosive device (IED) blast during an early-morning foot patrol. The "calm" soldier helped comrades caught up in an earlier explosion in which he had also been injured. He was airlifted to Camp Bastion but died about an hour and a half later.
Ms Aldridge is calling for a ban on foot patrols "unless greater safety measures are put in place to protect these young men".
She has since thrown herself into fundraising, launching the Kilimanjaro 2010 Appeal in October. The project hopes to raise £40,000 for the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine patient welfare fund at Selly Oak Hospital and the Rifleman's Fund, supporting injured riflemen and bereaved families.
This October, she will officially launch the William Aldridge Foundation to raise money to support charities caring for wounded service personnel across the three armed forces. She wants to expand help "not just for the physically injured but those who are psychologically scarred", and describes the problem of soldiers suffering mental illness as a "ticking time bomb" that urgently needs government funding.
"I would hope that had my son returned home somebody would be doing the same for him," she said.
Kate Youde
The amputee: 'He never wavered'
At just three, Lance Corporal Simon Wiggins was inspired by his grandfather's interest in the Guards, and the pair watched Zulu together. Now 23, he is rehabilitating after stepping on an IED on 16 March 2008, while serving with the First Battalion Coldstream Guards in Helmand. The blast – two weeks before he was due home – necessitated the amputation of his leg. He also suffered extensive internal trauma and lost a finger. His mother, Gilly Wiggins, 50, of Coulsdon, Surrey, said his military passion never wavered during his childhood and "he used to go running with a backpack full of Coke bottles filled with water to train".
The sniper enlisted in 2004 after his A-levels and trained at Catterick, passing out in May 2005. He was serving in Iraq the following month.
But Mrs Wiggins, vice chair of a support group at the charity Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association Forces Help, worried about his deployment to Afghanistan and had a "strange feeling" about it. Her son made a "miraculous recovery" and is now at the regiment's Aldershot base.
Kate Youde
The veteran: 'I was a mess. The Army didn't help me'
Lance Corporal Jim Maguire (not his real name), 29, from Hull joined the Army in 1998 and served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He began to develop obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), depression and anxiety in Iraq which developed into PTSD after he was ambushed in his Scimitar in a village in southern Afghanistan. "I was a mess. The Army didn't provide me with help. Fortunately I was referred to Combat Stress. They saved my life. I met other guys who'd been through it too. It was a massive help. It's easy to hide a problem. They hide people like me. "
Paul Bignell
The mother: 'I was glued to the news'
Diane Blackmore-Heal, a police officer from Banbury, near Oxford, welcomed her son, Adam, 22, home just two weeks ago after a seven-month tour with the Household Cavalry in Helmand province.
"Adam has wanted to be in the Army since he was five years old. This was his first tour of active duty, and I don't think I realised how stressed I was until he came home and I started to sleep properly again. I was glued to the news for seven months. Somehow I felt he would come back but I was aware of the IEDs and worried whether he would cope with a serious injury. Adam showed me a picture of a colleague, taken after he lost both legs on their last patrol; it could have been him."
Nina Lakhani
The parties...
Labour
Manifesto: 78pp, 30,227 words
Defence: 2,750 words
Health: 2,950 words, 47 mentions
Education: 1,927 words, 61 mentions
Afghanistan: 11 mentions
Conservatives
Manifesto: 120pp, 28,733 words
Defence: 1,178 words
Health 1,741 words, 72 mentions
Education: 1,184 words, 58 mentions
Afghanistan: 5 mentions
Lib Dems
Manifesto: 110pp, 21,668 words
Defence: 466 words
Health: 1,143 words, 34 mentions
Education: 1,719 words, 87 mentions
Afghanistan: 3 mentions
Greens
Manifesto: 50pp, 20,427 words
Defence: 254 words
Health: 715 words, 59 mentions
Education: 522 words, 35 mentions
Afghanistan: 4 mentions
from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 47857.html
An IoS poll shows 77 per cent of Britons want our forces to come home and a majority believe our presence makes UK streets less safe from terrorist attack. Yet all three parties are ducking this most critical issue
It is one of the few genuine issues of life and death during this general election campaign. It will not dictate how much any British school improves, how many police appear on the streets of a city, or how quickly patients are allowed to leave hospitals around the country. But it will, literally, decide the fate of thousands of British service personnel and, ultimately, how many of them live and die.
Yet nobody wants to talk about Afghanistan.
When Nick Clegg "won" the televised party leaders' debate on Thursday night, his victory owed nothing to his limp response to a question about support for British troops serving in Afghanistan. The Liberal Democrat leader agreed that British troops in Afghanistan were under-paid and under-equipped, but he did not question why they had lost 281 colleagues in that country, or why they were there in the first place.
Similarly, Gordon Brown and David Cameron have pledged loyal support for a campaign that is deep into its ninth year, and shows no sign of nearing an end. In front of the cameras, the Prime Minister offered sombre reflection on the campaign, while Mr Cameron queried the number of helicopters available to British forces. Yet neither has gone out of his way to tackle the issue head-on elsewhere during this campaign, to explain why the UK should remain in Afghanistan, why it should continue to support a discredited government in Kabul, and how many more British service personnel must die before the mission can be brought to a close.
Last November, The Independent on Sunday called for a "phased, orderly withdrawal" of British forces from the "ill-conceived, unwinnable and counterproductive" campaign in Afghanistan. The UK still remains in there – and more than 50 servicemen have died since then. Last month, The IoS revealed that Britain harboured profound concerns at the highest levels over the quality of the Afghan police who must guarantee security before our troops can leave.
The leaders may, at last, be forced to explain their positions this week, when the second debate concentrates on foreign affairs. But, given their performance so far, it is unlikely that they will offer any fresh hope for the service personnel in Afghanistan or their families back home.
"We want to see more substantive engagement on defence issues from the parties," said Douglas Young, executive chairman of the British Armed Forces Federation, an independent staff association for service personnel. "Up to now, there have been too many airy-fairy platitudes and not enough substance."
These are leaders who last week presented election manifestos amounting to more than 80,000 words on their grand plans for education, health, the economy, but who managed to mention Afghanistan only 19 times between them.
The stifling of the issue might be due to the fact that all the main parties know their policies are entirely at odds with the feelings of the population over Afghanistan. In November, a poll found that 73 per cent of people wanted British troops to come home within "a year or so" – and almost half of them called for immediate withdrawal.
A poll for The IoS today finds that this number has increased, with 77 per cent now supporting withdrawal on the same terms. The number disagreeing is now below one in seven. Further, more than 50 per cent of those polled believe that the risk of terrorism in the UK is increased by the presence of British troops in Afghanistan.
However, none of the major parties is promising to pull troops out if they get into government and only the Scottish National Party – confined to one part of the UK – is calling for an honest reappraisal of the operation. The Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg, last week made much of his record of "speaking out pretty forcefully" on Afghanistan. But his manifesto commits the party to being "critical supporters of the Afghanistan mission'', albeit with a pledge to match the military surge to a strategy of tackling corruption and winning over moderate Taliban.
The Lib Dem defence spokesman, Nick Harvey, yesterday conceded that anti-war voters have few choices. "If they are against the whole principle of being involved [in Afghanistan], they'll struggle to find anyone putting that case," he said. For opponents of the war, the lack of differentiation between the three main parties and their failure to embrace the Afghan question during the first two weeks of the election campaign amounts to a "conspiracy of silence" to suppress debate.
Chris Nineham, of the Stop the War Coalition, said: "There has been a deafening silence about Afghanistan in the run-up to the election. The three main parties are doing their best not to mention the war, despite the fact that the vast majority of the population oppose it."
Yet, despite complaints from the most vocal critics of the war, there is no guarantee that, however strongly voters feel, they are prepared to treat it as an electoral issue. In November 2006, when the toll of British deaths during five years of the campaign stood at 41, pollsters Ipsos Mori found that "defence/foreign affairs/Iraq and Afghanistan" topped the list of concerns facing the country. Two out of five voters spontaneously identified it as a key national problem. Three and a half years on, with 240 added to the death toll – 36 this year alone – it has slipped to seventh.
A leaked CIA report last month observed how "some Nato states, notably France and Germany, have counted on public apathy about Afghanistan to increase their contributions to the mission". It also argued that such apathy "enabled leaders to ignore voters". It seems that Britain's leaders are banking on indifference to help them through a potentially troublesome campaign without having to confront the most troubling issue before them.
"All three parties in 2001 thought we should go in. There are no votes in it, so they keep quiet about it," said General Sir Hugh Beach, former deputy commander of British Land Forces.
Five years ago, public opposition to the Iraq War was widely listed as a contributory factor behind a general election result that cut Labour's majority from 167 to 66. And lingering rancour over the war helped to lever Mr Blair from office two years later.
Afghanistan has been different. It has been overwhelmingly regarded as the "just" war. It was portrayed as a campaign to democratise a wild nation, to oust the Taliban, al-Qa'ida and all the extremists threatening the West with terror plots over the past decade.
That justification has lost its power as the death toll spirals and Afghans show little inclination to take control of their own affairs. Military commanders in Pakistan, where suicide bombers killed more than 40 people yesterday, regard the failure of US-led forces to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan with ill-concealed derision.
"They don't have the legitimacy we do," said Colonel Nauman Saeed, who commands 3,500 solders in Bajaur, a mountainous district on the Afghan border. "Afghans see them as illegitimate intruders and occupation forces." At the moment, the Pakistan military are in a victorious mood after retaking much of the territory along the Afghan border which was ruled by the Pakistan Taliban a year ago.
When experts point to terror plots from Pakistan and even within the UK, the Government's contention that the Afghan campaign is vital to protect Britain's security at home is difficult to explain.
And the government of President Karzai continues to raise concerns in Nato capitals. "The problem we have is that the regime in Afghanistan, which we support, is built on electoral fraud, with graft and corruption," said the SNP's foreign affairs spokesman, Angus Robertson. "We need to be absolutely honest about our options, and one of the aspects of that is that there needs to be a decision about when we bring our forces home."
The IoS military covenant panel
Major General Patrick Cordingley
"There is an embargo on the Ministry of Defence, so there is virtually no news coming out of them. The two main parties basically agree on Afghanistan. If somebody disagreed it would be a big issue but as they all agree, there's no point banging on about it."
Major Julian Thompson
"The reason is the parties have stayed off the issue in toto. Defence is unfortunately the last thing people think about and it is not something that turns people on. Labour got us in there in the first place and don't want people to be reminded of it."
General Sir Hugh Beach
"Nobody thinks there are votes in it one way or the other. All three parties in 2001 thought we should go in. There are no votes in it either way, so they keep quiet about it."
Rose Gentle, mother of Fusilier Gordon Gentle, killed in Iraq
"It isn't really a vote-winner. Iraq isn't mentioned and the soldiers that died there are the silent heroes. Families I've spoken to think someone should say something about it, but to be honest I don't think anyone will."
Retired Colonel Clive Fairweather
"In 2001 it was the war on terror, but since then the country can't make the connection with the war on terror any more. I don't think the Tories or Nick Clegg have much else to offer. It would only become an issue if there were multiple casualties, which is not very good for troop morale."
James Fergusson, journalist, foreign correspondent and author of 'A Million Bullets: The Real Story of the British Army in Afghanistan'
"It is easy to say we need more helicopters but I have always thought that the argument that we are fighting over there to protect the streets is easily shot down. But I think the [political] opponents are too scared to take on the issue."
The Rifleman: 'William would have made a fantastic husband and dad'
Anyone who met Rifleman William Aldridge had only to look at the teenager to know how much his family meant to him: he had the name of his young brother George tattooed on his arm.
He had planned to get Archie, the name of the youngest brother, inked on his other arm but was deployed to Afghanistan before he got the chance. He was killed, aged 18, by an IED blast while on foot patrol with the 2nd Battalion The Rifles in Sangin province on July 10. He now holds the tragic distinction of being the youngest British soldier to die in the conflict.
It took his mother Lucy Aldridge, 42, a couple of weeks to find the right words to tell his brothers – then aged five and four – that they would not see him again. "I explained that William was doing a very important job protecting people in another country but now he had a much more important job to do and that meant that he wouldn't be able to come home because he had gone to be with the angels and look after everybody."
William's brothers meant "everything to him. He would have made a fantastic husband and dad."
The rifleman was a "very keen outdoors type" as a child, enjoying martial arts, rowing and canoeing. He was a Cub and a Scout, and joined a rifles cadet force when he was 12, his mum said from the family home in Bredenbury, Herefordshire.
"It was his dream, so I couldn't have been happier with him knowing exactly what he wanted to do."
That dream saw him sign up at the age of 16 after taking his GCSEs at the Minster College in Leominster. He passed out in August 2008 after basic training at the Army Foundation College in Harrogate and moved to Catterick for infantry training. He joined his battalion in Ballykinlar, Northern Ireland, that December.
William, who had formed part of the rearguard looking after families of serving soldiers, was posted to Afghanistan three days after celebrating his 18th birthday on 23 May last year with a family meal.
In their last conversation he sounded in "good spirits" but also "extremely tired" after being at a patrol base for 10 instead of 28 days due to "an inability for them to be resupplied with equipment, with basics like water and ammunition".
Two days later, he was killed following an improvised explosive device (IED) blast during an early-morning foot patrol. The "calm" soldier helped comrades caught up in an earlier explosion in which he had also been injured. He was airlifted to Camp Bastion but died about an hour and a half later.
Ms Aldridge is calling for a ban on foot patrols "unless greater safety measures are put in place to protect these young men".
She has since thrown herself into fundraising, launching the Kilimanjaro 2010 Appeal in October. The project hopes to raise £40,000 for the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine patient welfare fund at Selly Oak Hospital and the Rifleman's Fund, supporting injured riflemen and bereaved families.
This October, she will officially launch the William Aldridge Foundation to raise money to support charities caring for wounded service personnel across the three armed forces. She wants to expand help "not just for the physically injured but those who are psychologically scarred", and describes the problem of soldiers suffering mental illness as a "ticking time bomb" that urgently needs government funding.
"I would hope that had my son returned home somebody would be doing the same for him," she said.
Kate Youde
The amputee: 'He never wavered'
At just three, Lance Corporal Simon Wiggins was inspired by his grandfather's interest in the Guards, and the pair watched Zulu together. Now 23, he is rehabilitating after stepping on an IED on 16 March 2008, while serving with the First Battalion Coldstream Guards in Helmand. The blast – two weeks before he was due home – necessitated the amputation of his leg. He also suffered extensive internal trauma and lost a finger. His mother, Gilly Wiggins, 50, of Coulsdon, Surrey, said his military passion never wavered during his childhood and "he used to go running with a backpack full of Coke bottles filled with water to train".
The sniper enlisted in 2004 after his A-levels and trained at Catterick, passing out in May 2005. He was serving in Iraq the following month.
But Mrs Wiggins, vice chair of a support group at the charity Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association Forces Help, worried about his deployment to Afghanistan and had a "strange feeling" about it. Her son made a "miraculous recovery" and is now at the regiment's Aldershot base.
Kate Youde
The veteran: 'I was a mess. The Army didn't help me'
Lance Corporal Jim Maguire (not his real name), 29, from Hull joined the Army in 1998 and served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He began to develop obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), depression and anxiety in Iraq which developed into PTSD after he was ambushed in his Scimitar in a village in southern Afghanistan. "I was a mess. The Army didn't provide me with help. Fortunately I was referred to Combat Stress. They saved my life. I met other guys who'd been through it too. It was a massive help. It's easy to hide a problem. They hide people like me. "
Paul Bignell
The mother: 'I was glued to the news'
Diane Blackmore-Heal, a police officer from Banbury, near Oxford, welcomed her son, Adam, 22, home just two weeks ago after a seven-month tour with the Household Cavalry in Helmand province.
"Adam has wanted to be in the Army since he was five years old. This was his first tour of active duty, and I don't think I realised how stressed I was until he came home and I started to sleep properly again. I was glued to the news for seven months. Somehow I felt he would come back but I was aware of the IEDs and worried whether he would cope with a serious injury. Adam showed me a picture of a colleague, taken after he lost both legs on their last patrol; it could have been him."
Nina Lakhani
The parties...
Labour
Manifesto: 78pp, 30,227 words
Defence: 2,750 words
Health: 2,950 words, 47 mentions
Education: 1,927 words, 61 mentions
Afghanistan: 11 mentions
Conservatives
Manifesto: 120pp, 28,733 words
Defence: 1,178 words
Health 1,741 words, 72 mentions
Education: 1,184 words, 58 mentions
Afghanistan: 5 mentions
Lib Dems
Manifesto: 110pp, 21,668 words
Defence: 466 words
Health: 1,143 words, 34 mentions
Education: 1,719 words, 87 mentions
Afghanistan: 3 mentions
Greens
Manifesto: 50pp, 20,427 words
Defence: 254 words
Health: 715 words, 59 mentions
Education: 522 words, 35 mentions
Afghanistan: 4 mentions
from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 47857.html
-
Brown Sauce
- admin
- Posts: 1485
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'course if the public were aware of the whys of it all it may be top of the agenda ...
[web]https://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish ... 5354.shtml[/web]
[align=center]
[/align]
the map may also give a fair insight as to why Iran is getting more than it's fair share of mud slinging .. ho, hum ...
edit,
you're right face, bollox to 'em ..
[web]https://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish ... 5354.shtml[/web]
[align=center]
[/align]the map may also give a fair insight as to why Iran is getting more than it's fair share of mud slinging .. ho, hum ...
edit,
you're right face, bollox to 'em ..
interesting article from murdoch's ex sun editor;
Nick Clegg's rise could lock Murdoch and the media elite out of UK politics
At the Sun, we deliberately ignored the Lib Dems. The cosy pro-Cameron press may now be left floundering
I doubt if Rupert Murdoch watched the election debate last week. His focus is very firmly on the United States, especially his resurgent Wall Street Journal. But if he did, there would have been one man totally unknown to him. One man utterly beyond the tentacles of any of his family, his editors or his advisers. That man is Nick Clegg.
Make no mistake, if the Liberal Democrats actually won the election – or held the balance of power – it would be the first time in decades that Murdoch was locked out of British politics. In so many ways, a vote for the Lib Dems is a vote against Murdoch and the media elite.
I can say this with some authority because in my five years editing the Sun I did not once meet a Lib Dem leader, even though I met Tony Blair, William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith on countless occasions. (Full disclosure: I have since met Nick Clegg.)
I remember in my first year asking if we staffed the Liberal Democrat conference. I was interested because as a student I'd been a founder member of the SDP. I was told we did not. We did not send a single reporter for fear of encouraging them.
So while we sent a team of five, plus assorted senior staff, to both the Tory and Labour conferences, we sent nobody to the Lib Dems. And while successive News International chiefs have held parties at both those conferences, they have never to my knowledge even attended a Lib Dem conference.
It gets even worse. While it would be wrong to say the Lib Dems were banned from Murdoch's papers (indeed, the Times has a good record in this area), I would say from personal experience that they are often banned – except where the news is critical. They are the invisible party, purposely edged off the paper's pages and ignored. But it is worse than that, because it is not just the Murdoch press that is guilty of this. The fact is that much of the print press in this country is entirely partisan and always has been. All proprietors and editors are part of the "great game". The trick is to ally yourself with the winner and win influence or at least the ear of the prime minister.
The consequence of this has been that the middle party has been ignored, simply because it was assumed it would never win power. After all, why court a powerless party?
So, as the pendulum swings from red to blue and back to red, the newspapers, or many of them, swing with it – sometimes ahead of the game and sometimes behind.
Over the years the relationships between the media elite and the two main political parties have become closer and closer to the point where, now, one is indistinguishable from the other. Indeed, it is difficult not to think that the lunatics have stopped writing about the asylum and have actually taken it over.
We now live in an era when very serious men and women stay out of politics because our national discourse is conducted by populists with no interest in politics whatsoever. What we have in the UK is a coming together of the political elite and the media in a way that makes people outside London or outside those elites feel disenfranchised and powerless. But all that would go to pot if Clegg were able to somehow pull off his miracle. For he is untainted by it.
Just imagine the scene in many of our national newspaper newsrooms on the morning a Lib-Lab vote has kept the Tories out of office. "Who knows Clegg?" they would say.
There would be a resounding silence.
"Who can put in a call to Gordon?" another would cry.
You would hear a pin drop on the editorial floor.
The fact is these papers, and others, decided months ago that Cameron was going to win. They are now invested in his victory in the most undemocratic fashion. They have gone after the prime minister in a deeply personal way and until last week they were certain he was in their sights.
I hold no brief for Nick Clegg. But now, thanks to him – an ingenue with no media links whatsoever – things look very different, because now the powerless have a voice as well as the powerful.
All of us who care about democracy must celebrate this over the coming weeks – even if Cameron wins in the end, at least some fault lines will have been exposed.
from https://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... ch-lib-dem
Nick Clegg's rise could lock Murdoch and the media elite out of UK politics
At the Sun, we deliberately ignored the Lib Dems. The cosy pro-Cameron press may now be left floundering
I doubt if Rupert Murdoch watched the election debate last week. His focus is very firmly on the United States, especially his resurgent Wall Street Journal. But if he did, there would have been one man totally unknown to him. One man utterly beyond the tentacles of any of his family, his editors or his advisers. That man is Nick Clegg.
Make no mistake, if the Liberal Democrats actually won the election – or held the balance of power – it would be the first time in decades that Murdoch was locked out of British politics. In so many ways, a vote for the Lib Dems is a vote against Murdoch and the media elite.
I can say this with some authority because in my five years editing the Sun I did not once meet a Lib Dem leader, even though I met Tony Blair, William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith on countless occasions. (Full disclosure: I have since met Nick Clegg.)
I remember in my first year asking if we staffed the Liberal Democrat conference. I was interested because as a student I'd been a founder member of the SDP. I was told we did not. We did not send a single reporter for fear of encouraging them.
So while we sent a team of five, plus assorted senior staff, to both the Tory and Labour conferences, we sent nobody to the Lib Dems. And while successive News International chiefs have held parties at both those conferences, they have never to my knowledge even attended a Lib Dem conference.
It gets even worse. While it would be wrong to say the Lib Dems were banned from Murdoch's papers (indeed, the Times has a good record in this area), I would say from personal experience that they are often banned – except where the news is critical. They are the invisible party, purposely edged off the paper's pages and ignored. But it is worse than that, because it is not just the Murdoch press that is guilty of this. The fact is that much of the print press in this country is entirely partisan and always has been. All proprietors and editors are part of the "great game". The trick is to ally yourself with the winner and win influence or at least the ear of the prime minister.
The consequence of this has been that the middle party has been ignored, simply because it was assumed it would never win power. After all, why court a powerless party?
So, as the pendulum swings from red to blue and back to red, the newspapers, or many of them, swing with it – sometimes ahead of the game and sometimes behind.
Over the years the relationships between the media elite and the two main political parties have become closer and closer to the point where, now, one is indistinguishable from the other. Indeed, it is difficult not to think that the lunatics have stopped writing about the asylum and have actually taken it over.
We now live in an era when very serious men and women stay out of politics because our national discourse is conducted by populists with no interest in politics whatsoever. What we have in the UK is a coming together of the political elite and the media in a way that makes people outside London or outside those elites feel disenfranchised and powerless. But all that would go to pot if Clegg were able to somehow pull off his miracle. For he is untainted by it.
Just imagine the scene in many of our national newspaper newsrooms on the morning a Lib-Lab vote has kept the Tories out of office. "Who knows Clegg?" they would say.
There would be a resounding silence.
"Who can put in a call to Gordon?" another would cry.
You would hear a pin drop on the editorial floor.
The fact is these papers, and others, decided months ago that Cameron was going to win. They are now invested in his victory in the most undemocratic fashion. They have gone after the prime minister in a deeply personal way and until last week they were certain he was in their sights.
I hold no brief for Nick Clegg. But now, thanks to him – an ingenue with no media links whatsoever – things look very different, because now the powerless have a voice as well as the powerful.
All of us who care about democracy must celebrate this over the coming weeks – even if Cameron wins in the end, at least some fault lines will have been exposed.
from https://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... ch-lib-dem
[align=center]Galloway in postal vote election theft claim
https://towerhamletsrespect.wordpress.com[/align]
To Dr Kevan Collins, Returning Officer London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Borough Commander Paul Rickett, Ms Jenny Watson, Chair of the Electoral Commission and Mr Peter Wardle, Chief Executive of the Electoral Commission Dear Dr Collins, Commander Rickett, Ms Watson and Mr Wardle,
Once again it seems there is the very strong likelihood that the elections in tower Hamlets on 6th May will be besmirched by significant voting fraud and corruption courtesy of the postal voting on demand system. I have confirmed reports of candidates, including sitting councillors, signing up voters, particularly elderly voters, on the basis that those voters will then provide their unfilled ballot papers to friends and family acting on behalf of those candidates. These ballot papers will then be filled in by persons others than the voter themselves to the benefit of those candidates and other candidates they support.
Although this is definitely going to happen and I believe on a significant enough scale to affect the outcome of at least some of the elections to be held in Tower Hamlets, this is an almost undetectable crime if witnesses will not come forward. Because securing these ballot papers involves friends and family, witnesses will usually not come forward unfortunately. And as Isabella Freeman points out in her response to my letter to the Tower Hamlets Returning Officer, if voters give their ballot papers to others, there is nothing that can be done about it, even though these others would then be committing a serious criminal offence in procuring and filling in these ballot papers.
This is the fundamental flaw in the postal voting on demand system which the major parties, presumably because they are beneficiaries of this system, and the Electoral Commission continue to refuse to take seriously. For all the tightening up in the system there has been. postal votes on demand undermines fundamentally the secrecy of the ballot that was secured after long struggle in 1872. There is absolutely no solid evidence that turnout is higher because of postal voting on demand and in my view any slightly high turnout is outweighed by the undermining of the integrity of the election.
I am also extremely concerned to find that at least one of the candidates in the constituency I am contesting, the incumbent government minister Jim Fitzpatrick, has been sending letters to voters urging them to take out a postal vote by filling in the council’s postal voting form which is then to be returned to him at Tower Hamlets Labour headquarters through a freepost address handily attached to the back of the form by Mr Fitzpatrick. If this is not illegal, it ought to be. It certainly breaches those guidelines produced by the Electoral Commission which require candidates and parties not to engage in any activity which might bring suspicion of corrupting the voting process. The question every voter should ask is why should this postal voting form be sent to Jim Fitzpatrick rather than directly to Electoral Services at Tower Hamlets Town Hall where it belongs.
I urge all of you to do all in your powers, limited as they sadly seem to be, to try to ensure that the elections in Tower Hamlets are not once again undermined and potentially stolen from the people by a system which remains fundamentally flawed.
I look forward to your responses.
Yours sincerely,
George Galloway
https://towerhamletsrespect.wordpress.com[/align]
To Dr Kevan Collins, Returning Officer London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Borough Commander Paul Rickett, Ms Jenny Watson, Chair of the Electoral Commission and Mr Peter Wardle, Chief Executive of the Electoral Commission Dear Dr Collins, Commander Rickett, Ms Watson and Mr Wardle,
Once again it seems there is the very strong likelihood that the elections in tower Hamlets on 6th May will be besmirched by significant voting fraud and corruption courtesy of the postal voting on demand system. I have confirmed reports of candidates, including sitting councillors, signing up voters, particularly elderly voters, on the basis that those voters will then provide their unfilled ballot papers to friends and family acting on behalf of those candidates. These ballot papers will then be filled in by persons others than the voter themselves to the benefit of those candidates and other candidates they support.
Although this is definitely going to happen and I believe on a significant enough scale to affect the outcome of at least some of the elections to be held in Tower Hamlets, this is an almost undetectable crime if witnesses will not come forward. Because securing these ballot papers involves friends and family, witnesses will usually not come forward unfortunately. And as Isabella Freeman points out in her response to my letter to the Tower Hamlets Returning Officer, if voters give their ballot papers to others, there is nothing that can be done about it, even though these others would then be committing a serious criminal offence in procuring and filling in these ballot papers.
This is the fundamental flaw in the postal voting on demand system which the major parties, presumably because they are beneficiaries of this system, and the Electoral Commission continue to refuse to take seriously. For all the tightening up in the system there has been. postal votes on demand undermines fundamentally the secrecy of the ballot that was secured after long struggle in 1872. There is absolutely no solid evidence that turnout is higher because of postal voting on demand and in my view any slightly high turnout is outweighed by the undermining of the integrity of the election.
I am also extremely concerned to find that at least one of the candidates in the constituency I am contesting, the incumbent government minister Jim Fitzpatrick, has been sending letters to voters urging them to take out a postal vote by filling in the council’s postal voting form which is then to be returned to him at Tower Hamlets Labour headquarters through a freepost address handily attached to the back of the form by Mr Fitzpatrick. If this is not illegal, it ought to be. It certainly breaches those guidelines produced by the Electoral Commission which require candidates and parties not to engage in any activity which might bring suspicion of corrupting the voting process. The question every voter should ask is why should this postal voting form be sent to Jim Fitzpatrick rather than directly to Electoral Services at Tower Hamlets Town Hall where it belongs.
I urge all of you to do all in your powers, limited as they sadly seem to be, to try to ensure that the elections in Tower Hamlets are not once again undermined and potentially stolen from the people by a system which remains fundamentally flawed.
I look forward to your responses.
Yours sincerely,
George Galloway
I just hope some footage turns up of the actual hit - the guy certainly got a good swing at it!
I'll be doing the Live debate tonight on the chat page if anyone can't get it normally.
https://couchtripper.com/forum2/chat.php
I'll be doing the Live debate tonight on the chat page if anyone can't get it normally.
https://couchtripper.com/forum2/chat.php
