I got a chummy email from Angela Eagle MP, beginning "Hi Sarah"!
We're not on first-name terms, actually, as we've never met, but I signed a petition about ending the Gagging Bill a while ago so now apparently we're buddies.
Anyway, Angela (I think I can call her that now, even though she's Shadow Leader of the House of Commons) tells me that the Labour Party have promised to do just that, apparently cos I expressed my opinion that gagging charities from speaking about policies which have something to do with their remit (like food banks talking about food poverty) is profoundly undemocratic. Or possibly because they were always against it: maybe that's it.
So using my new-found power, influence and friendliness with the Labour Party - even the Shadow Leader of the House of Commons! - I made a few more suggestions.
Here's her email:
----- Original Message -----
From: Angela Eagle
Sent: 04/03/14 06:04 PM
To: Sarah
Subject: Telling you first:
Hi Sarah,
Earlier this year, the Tories passed the so-called gagging law: an act that limits your right to campaign on the issues you care about, and curbs charities' and campaigners' ability to speak out against government policy.
I believe strongly that this law is bad for our democracy, and restricts freedom of speech in our country.
So I want you to be the first to know this: a Labour government will repeal David Cameron's gagging law.
We have been clear from the start that we oppose this gag on charities and campaigners, which was introduced with little consultation. If Labour wins the next election, we will remove it from the statute book.
In its place we will legislate for real reform of lobbying, and we will consult with charities and campaigners on the reforms we need to both ensure transparency and protect freedom of speech.
Our right to campaign on issues we care about must be protected, and this gagging law needs to be repealed.
Best wishes,
Angela
Angela Eagle
Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
Here's mine.
-----------
Hi Angela! [Golly! But she started it!]
Good! Well done.
Could you also please re-nationalise the railways and the power companies for the benefit of the people? And end private prisons, which are a wicked disgrace to this country.
And end the creeping privatisation of the NHS, even though some of your big names (like Lord Warner) stand to make lots of money out of it?
Instead please could you concentrate NHS resources into medical work, not layers of bureuacracy and an 'internal market' - we know how that worked out for the BBC, after all.
And pledge never again to use Capita again in any capacity?
Also cancel Trident?
And fund education decently?
And agree to have some of your policies based on actual evidence of what works, not on prejudices and profit?
And take climate change seriously as the biggest threat to our country currently existing or likely to happen in the coming 100 years?
Because while this is a good start, it's only a start, and a small one at that.
Best wishes
Sarah Walker
voter
Showing posts with label Labour. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Labour. Show all posts
Friday, 4 April 2014
Wednesday, 12 May 2010
The Ties That MIght Possibly Bind
Yesterday I mentioned that Gordon Brown, resigning perhaps in the hope that the Lib Dems would consider a deal with Labour once he was no longer leading it, was photographed wearing a purple tie.
Purple is the colour adopted by the "Fair Vote Now" protesters who demonstrated outside the Lib Dem headquarters while negotiations were going on about the Tory offer of a Parliamentary Commission to ignore - I mean study - the case for Electoral Reform.
I signed off by saying that we should watch out for Cameron wearing a purple tie.
And guess what?
Today, the new Prime Minister David Cameron was photoed on the steps of 10 Downing street wearing a purple tie and chatting with his new Deputy Prime Minister and NBF, Nick Clegg.
Clegg seems to be wearing a yellow tie - the colour of his party.
Perhaps we should take it as a message that Cameron really means it this time on electoral reform. He's apparently promised that there'll be a whip to ensure all the Tory MPs vote in favour of a referendum , although they'll be free to campaign against a yes vote in the actual referendum.
And Clegg seems to be reassuring his own party that Lib Dem values will not be diluted by getting into bed with the Tories.
Of course they could have just picked the tie with the least egg stain on it.
After all, they've all been awake since last Thursday...
On and Off the Page - the blog which gives you the news before it happens.
Providing it's about ties.
Purple is the colour adopted by the "Fair Vote Now" protesters who demonstrated outside the Lib Dem headquarters while negotiations were going on about the Tory offer of a Parliamentary Commission to ignore - I mean study - the case for Electoral Reform.
I signed off by saying that we should watch out for Cameron wearing a purple tie.
And guess what?
Today, the new Prime Minister David Cameron was photoed on the steps of 10 Downing street wearing a purple tie and chatting with his new Deputy Prime Minister and NBF, Nick Clegg.
Clegg seems to be wearing a yellow tie - the colour of his party.
Perhaps we should take it as a message that Cameron really means it this time on electoral reform. He's apparently promised that there'll be a whip to ensure all the Tory MPs vote in favour of a referendum , although they'll be free to campaign against a yes vote in the actual referendum.
And Clegg seems to be reassuring his own party that Lib Dem values will not be diluted by getting into bed with the Tories.
Of course they could have just picked the tie with the least egg stain on it.
After all, they've all been awake since last Thursday...
On and Off the Page - the blog which gives you the news before it happens.
Providing it's about ties.
Monday, 10 May 2010
More politics, sorry
People were turned away at the polling stations. Young people were told to allow older people to go first, then by the time they got to the head of the queue they told the polling station was closed. In some places not enough ballot papers had been printed and people could not vote. In some places, would-be voters sat in to demand their right to vote.
Third world?
Nope, the UK.
Not everywhere, not all over, and almost certainly thanks to incompetence and antiquated systems rather than actual fixing - although there are enquiries going on in some places into the use of the postal vote, where suspiciouly large numbers of voters have suddenly registered from the same address.
It was a hard fought election and the majorities in many places are very slim - just a few votes between winning and losing the seat. In Oxford West, for example, after an ill-tempered campaign in which the sitting MP was described on leaflets as "Doctor Death", the winner polled only 176 more votes than he did.
What effect has the lost votes had around the country? Nobody knows, and the only way to find out is for individuals who believe they have been prevented from voting to mount an individual challenge in that constituency. If their challenge succeeds there can be a by-election.
Our voting system is often described as "first past the post". This is true on two levels. In the constituencies, the winner is the one with more votes than the next candidate, even if it's only one more vote. In Parliament, the party with more seats than the others gets to form the government - which means that all the ministries are headed only by members of that party, only that party gets to sit in the Cabinet (the inner circle) and the leader of that party becomes Prime Minister. Latterly, ministers and Cabinet members have even been appointed directly by the Prime Minister not necessarily from members of parliament (or, conceivably, even from members of the party of government), so important roles in government are taken by people who have not been elected to anything at all. Lord Young, part of Thatcher's government, was the first I can remember.
The situation at the moment is that the Conservatives, polling a minority of the votes cast overall, have more seats than the next party, Labour, but not more than Labour, the Lib Dems and all the small parties put together. This means that if they tried to pass any laws - especially laws that not all their own members agree with - the other parties could defeat them, and a government that cannot legislate cannot govern.
But Labour and the Lib Dems, polling a majority of the votes cast between them, don't have enough seats to pass laws if the Conservatives (and perhaps a few of the parties with one or two or three seats between them) oppose them.
So neither party can govern.
It's an irony of the situation that the two major parties which campaigned on electoral reform demonstrated the need for it by getting 52% of votes cast, but not 52% of the seats. The Lib Dems, for example, with nearly a quarter of the popular vote, got fewer than 10% of the seats.
This is why the negotiations between the Tories (who oppose electoral reform) and the Lib Dems (for whom it has been a platform for many years, and who stand to benefit most from it) are a bit delicate just now...
In the meantime, how would we know whether our elections are fair, or whether unfair tactics have been used, or whether local parties have lied to the electorate? Oddly, there is no central data monitoring, as Ben Goldacre explains:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/08/bad-science-election-data
Third world?
Nope, the UK.
Not everywhere, not all over, and almost certainly thanks to incompetence and antiquated systems rather than actual fixing - although there are enquiries going on in some places into the use of the postal vote, where suspiciouly large numbers of voters have suddenly registered from the same address.
It was a hard fought election and the majorities in many places are very slim - just a few votes between winning and losing the seat. In Oxford West, for example, after an ill-tempered campaign in which the sitting MP was described on leaflets as "Doctor Death", the winner polled only 176 more votes than he did.
What effect has the lost votes had around the country? Nobody knows, and the only way to find out is for individuals who believe they have been prevented from voting to mount an individual challenge in that constituency. If their challenge succeeds there can be a by-election.
Our voting system is often described as "first past the post". This is true on two levels. In the constituencies, the winner is the one with more votes than the next candidate, even if it's only one more vote. In Parliament, the party with more seats than the others gets to form the government - which means that all the ministries are headed only by members of that party, only that party gets to sit in the Cabinet (the inner circle) and the leader of that party becomes Prime Minister. Latterly, ministers and Cabinet members have even been appointed directly by the Prime Minister not necessarily from members of parliament (or, conceivably, even from members of the party of government), so important roles in government are taken by people who have not been elected to anything at all. Lord Young, part of Thatcher's government, was the first I can remember.
The situation at the moment is that the Conservatives, polling a minority of the votes cast overall, have more seats than the next party, Labour, but not more than Labour, the Lib Dems and all the small parties put together. This means that if they tried to pass any laws - especially laws that not all their own members agree with - the other parties could defeat them, and a government that cannot legislate cannot govern.
But Labour and the Lib Dems, polling a majority of the votes cast between them, don't have enough seats to pass laws if the Conservatives (and perhaps a few of the parties with one or two or three seats between them) oppose them.
So neither party can govern.
It's an irony of the situation that the two major parties which campaigned on electoral reform demonstrated the need for it by getting 52% of votes cast, but not 52% of the seats. The Lib Dems, for example, with nearly a quarter of the popular vote, got fewer than 10% of the seats.
This is why the negotiations between the Tories (who oppose electoral reform) and the Lib Dems (for whom it has been a platform for many years, and who stand to benefit most from it) are a bit delicate just now...
In the meantime, how would we know whether our elections are fair, or whether unfair tactics have been used, or whether local parties have lied to the electorate? Oddly, there is no central data monitoring, as Ben Goldacre explains:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/08/bad-science-election-data
Saturday, 8 May 2010
Well, I wasn't going to blog about the election but it's been so interesting, and I've been thinking about it far too much for my own good. Plus my Facebook status updates were getting longer and longer... so here it is.
Interesting times - first hung parliament since I was a teen. Good. Labour did not deserve to win again after their record in power. Iraq mainly, but also so many things to chose from... mainly, for me, from turning themselves into Tory-lite, cozying up to the markets, the "faith" pressure groups and worshipping power and empire at its most naked in the GWBush adventures.
Unmitigated Toryness would be a disaster to all but the super-rich and the financial markets -as usual. The fact that they've got a smooth and emollient PR man at the head doesn't mean they have changed, expecially when you get... well, I was going to say "get below the surface", but Chris Grayling, the man who believes it's OK to discriminate against people, is shadow Home Secretary, which is hardly subterranean. Home Sec. is the third most important government minister.
The Lib Dems deserve some recognition of the fact that so many people in the country actually support them and their policies. It will be interesting to see how it pans out and will require negotiation and compromise - rather alien to the British tradition which is usually more adversarial and either/or.
Electoral reform may be on the cards now, at last, though that will be a tough one for the Tories, as they had specifically ruled it out. Right out. Right up until the morning after the election when they realised they'd have to offer some kind of sweetener to the Lib Dems to let them take power. So they've promised an all-party committee to bury it, I mean look into it. Classic political delaying tactic, given that there is likely to be a second election within a year. I hope Clegg has more sense than to accept.
Lib Dems also want to end Trident, a hugely expensive piece of junk which enables us to destroy Moscow if we really want to. Why we should want to, and why we should carry on with this vanity project left over from the Cold War is something nobody seems able to explain, but both Labour and the Conservatives have said we MUST keep it, because... er... we must.
Historically, Labour was against Trident, and only swung over to pointless militarism as part of the NuLabour project, which has done us so well in the last 13 years. It did get Labour into power, though and cast off the spectre of the mid 80s when they campaigned on a disarmament ticket, were slated as tools of Moscow and thrashed at the polls (though a majority of the voters voted against the party that won - more arguments for electoral reform, of course). But the Conservatives are generally the more military party.
And the Lib Dems want closer ties with Europe, which is a deep rift among the Conservatives still.
Tricky then for the Cons to work with Lib Dems, though as Cameron really really really wants to be PM and as his leadership style is extremely "kitchen cabinet" and centralised, he may manage to force his backwoodsmen and women to accept a deal, at least for the moment. He has a following wind in terms of media support, for now, and could possibly manage by offering deals and then blaming the Lib Dems if they fall through.
Tricky also for the Lib Dems to work with Labour, though they are in many ways more naturally allied. Labour promised electoral reform in 1997 (though forgot about it when they won a landslide under the winner-takes-all system), for instance. But Labour is very grubby and shopsoiled now, and Brown is no asset. Lib Dems might well lose popularity if they seem to be shoring up a government that the country thinks is well past its sell-by date.
So, yes, very interesting. A goodish result, I think, (and the first Green MP elected, hurrah!) but the exciting thing is what comes next.
Standby for a power struggle within Labour coming shortly, and before that, look out for what Clegg does next...
Interesting times - first hung parliament since I was a teen. Good. Labour did not deserve to win again after their record in power. Iraq mainly, but also so many things to chose from... mainly, for me, from turning themselves into Tory-lite, cozying up to the markets, the "faith" pressure groups and worshipping power and empire at its most naked in the GWBush adventures.
Unmitigated Toryness would be a disaster to all but the super-rich and the financial markets -as usual. The fact that they've got a smooth and emollient PR man at the head doesn't mean they have changed, expecially when you get... well, I was going to say "get below the surface", but Chris Grayling, the man who believes it's OK to discriminate against people, is shadow Home Secretary, which is hardly subterranean. Home Sec. is the third most important government minister.
The Lib Dems deserve some recognition of the fact that so many people in the country actually support them and their policies. It will be interesting to see how it pans out and will require negotiation and compromise - rather alien to the British tradition which is usually more adversarial and either/or.
Electoral reform may be on the cards now, at last, though that will be a tough one for the Tories, as they had specifically ruled it out. Right out. Right up until the morning after the election when they realised they'd have to offer some kind of sweetener to the Lib Dems to let them take power. So they've promised an all-party committee to bury it, I mean look into it. Classic political delaying tactic, given that there is likely to be a second election within a year. I hope Clegg has more sense than to accept.
Lib Dems also want to end Trident, a hugely expensive piece of junk which enables us to destroy Moscow if we really want to. Why we should want to, and why we should carry on with this vanity project left over from the Cold War is something nobody seems able to explain, but both Labour and the Conservatives have said we MUST keep it, because... er... we must.
Historically, Labour was against Trident, and only swung over to pointless militarism as part of the NuLabour project, which has done us so well in the last 13 years. It did get Labour into power, though and cast off the spectre of the mid 80s when they campaigned on a disarmament ticket, were slated as tools of Moscow and thrashed at the polls (though a majority of the voters voted against the party that won - more arguments for electoral reform, of course). But the Conservatives are generally the more military party.
And the Lib Dems want closer ties with Europe, which is a deep rift among the Conservatives still.
Tricky then for the Cons to work with Lib Dems, though as Cameron really really really wants to be PM and as his leadership style is extremely "kitchen cabinet" and centralised, he may manage to force his backwoodsmen and women to accept a deal, at least for the moment. He has a following wind in terms of media support, for now, and could possibly manage by offering deals and then blaming the Lib Dems if they fall through.
Tricky also for the Lib Dems to work with Labour, though they are in many ways more naturally allied. Labour promised electoral reform in 1997 (though forgot about it when they won a landslide under the winner-takes-all system), for instance. But Labour is very grubby and shopsoiled now, and Brown is no asset. Lib Dems might well lose popularity if they seem to be shoring up a government that the country thinks is well past its sell-by date.
So, yes, very interesting. A goodish result, I think, (and the first Green MP elected, hurrah!) but the exciting thing is what comes next.
Standby for a power struggle within Labour coming shortly, and before that, look out for what Clegg does next...
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