Among the buzzwords from politicians’ mouths which should automatically set alarm bells ringing are “reform” and “modernize”, to be added to “health and safety”, “equality” and all the others from the PC narrative.
So, boundary change “reforms” are on the way again to help ensure Cameron gets back in in 2015. The man has wrecked that party and the whipping boy, Clegg, is powerless to do anything but stamp his little foot.
There are some home truths from the population today they might well glance in the direction of. For a start, this tit for tat over “the coalition is broken”:
Let us not forget, that even should the coalition fail, Cameron CANNOT go to the country of his own accord, having already passed a little something called the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, which prevents his being able to request a dissolution without passing a no confidence motion in his own government and thereafter failing to form another government within 14 days.
Clegg agreed to equalise the electorates between constituencies – that is quite explicit, and not only that, but his party endorsed the coalition agreement. In effect, the whole Parliamentary Party endorsed this policy. The same cannot be said of the Conservatives and Lords Reform.
Maybe somebody should remind him of the “contract” he entered in to with students up and down the whole of the United Kingdom, that he would vote against any proposed increase in University tuition fees. Not only that, but every one of his MPs SIGNED a written agreement to that effect! That is about as close to a contract as a politician gets! Clegg’s response, of course, was to order his Secretary of State to terminate this contract and introduce a 200% increase in tuition fees.
Isn’t it interesting that members of the public can see what needs doing or at least be rational enough to debate the issues which matter, while the Mensches and Cleggs get themselves elected, heaven knows how, and swan around playing at being Westminster orators and all round big and important MPs instead of the vacuous chick lit and cleggovers that they’ve been up to that point.
And the ones actually in power are EU shills. Meanwhile, things go to rack and ruin in the country:
Maybe now that Lords reform is off the agenda, Cameron can find time to study the effects of the Enterprise Bill. The one which will allow Employment Tribunals to fine employers who lose cases (in addition to any award to the successful claimant(s)).
Then he might have a look at the Health & Safety Regulations that are currently going through the Lords; the ones that will allow the HSE to charge businesses £124 per hour for inspectors’ time if they find any ‘material breaches’ of health & safety law. (‘Material breaches’ can almost certainly be found in almost every business in the UK thanks to the complexity and bureaucracy involved with H&S law).
When he has sorted that out, perhaps he could be persuaded to look at the HMRC schemes for fining employers who are even a couple of days late handing over PAYE and NI contributions (the ones they are forced to administer and collect for free).
Hopefully, by the time he has done all this, the penny will have dropped about why the economy isn’t growing, why businesses are not investing (or borrowing) and why unemployment is rising.
It’s easy for members of the public to write those things without realizing just how deeply in thrall to Brussels the politicians are [short and curlies springs to mind] and how incapable they are of doing anything effective at all. Aside from the EU, there is simply the Path to Power to consider.
Think about what it takes to be preselected – what sort of toady you actually have to be – and therein lies the seed of our doom as far as our “leaders” go. If we wish to speak of true “reform”, then reworking the set-up of parliament as a whole is the only way, as so many have been saying …
… but who will start the ball rolling? What sort of mechanism, short of a total breakdown of society, can begin this process and how dangerous that would be in the wrong hands.
They will not change. They have no need to, nor personal interest in doing so.
link to countingcats.com
Good article and it raises the question of how to develop the mechanism necessary to circumvent them. If we were to set up our own councils and currency, obviously this would result in violence by the arms of the state, firstly by picking us off one by one and incarcerating us. You know the way it goes after that.
Conundrum.
Thought process is far from complete on this one, but I am thinking try to get libertarians elected to local councils in the majority and sell off everything not compulsory and privatise what is mandatory then close the council down completely save for an audit section checking the mandatory functions are complete.
Then publicise the fact that council tax does not exist in your borough and there is no meddling. Maybe this would be the springboard for wider adoption of the principle?
As I said, thoughts are incomplete on this one.
SAT. You have it one. No incentive to change. As long as idiots in their ‘constituencies’ vote for ‘em, then just so long will they sit tight and perpetuate the status quo which serves them so well.
Change they will not. We must therefore start the process.
In this connection there is an interesting discussion on Dr Richard North’s blog ‘EU Referendum’ under heading “WE DEMAND”, being an attempt to effect radical political change a la the Chartists of the 1840′s.
The blog is worthy of attention and more contributions as the intention is to seriously challenge the present incumbents at Westminster via 6 proposals. Just to wht your appetite here is No 4:
“No laws etc without consent: no treaty, law or regulation shall take effect without the direct consent of the majority of the people, by positive vote if so demanded, and that no treaty, law or regulation shall continue in effect whence that consent is withdrawn by the majority of the people.”
A start has to be made somewhere and this is a start and proposals in embryo at this stage. Why not add your h’apworth?
So, we don’t want or need to withdraw from the Eu as a reforming move, then?
Ahem.
Or reform the libel laws?
Sigh.
XX while the Mensches and Cleggs get themselves elected, XX
IF you are, in the typical clumsy British way, trying to ape German, the plural of “Mensch” is “Menschen.”
IF you are, in the typical clumsy British way, trying to ape German, the plural of “Mensch” is “Menschen.”
As an [admittedly out of practice] speaker of German, then the answer is obviously no – I’m not trying to ape the Germans. However, as this is both the Teutonic and Anglicized form, then in taking it as the anglicized form, it needs an “es” on the end to make it plural.