Socialist #Shame

Labour are apparently changing their attitude to James Wharton's Bill on the EU Referendum. Labour backbenchers are trying to make out that their party, both members and leadership, are slowly changing what they think about a vote on Europe. Sadly they are very wrong and thus I say to the whole Labour Party, in Port and Policy style, #Shame.

Port and Policy #Shame to Labour.

For starters the Labour Party wanted its MPs only to abstain at the second reading of the EU referendum Bill. Which is fine if you want to show the world a lack of spine. However, several Labour MPs voted for no guillotine motion on the Bill meaning they were attempting to filibuster the Bill to death. Which shows how great democracy is appreciated by some of our elected representatives. These MPs were:

Diane Abbott, Hackney North & Stoke Newington

Douglas Alexander, Paisley & Renfrewshire South

Heidi Alexander, Lewisham East

Jonathan Ashworth, Leicester South

William Bain, Glasgow North East

Luciana Berger, Liverpool, Wavertree

Lyn Brown, West Ham

Alan Campbell, Tynemouth

Wayne David, Caerphilly

Thomas Docherty, Dunfermline & West Fife

Jim Dowd, Lewisham West & Penge

Michael Dugher, Barnsley East

Jim Fitzpatrick, Poplar & Limehouse

Mike Gapes, Ilford South

Meg Hillier, Hackney South & Shoreditch

Julie Hilling, Bolton West

Huw Irranca-Davies, Ogmore

Graham Jones, Hyndburn

Susan Elan Jones, Clwyd South

David Lammy, Tottenham

Ian Lucas, Wrexham

Kerry McCarthy, Bristol East

Andrew Miller, Ellesmere Port & Neston

Stephen Pound, Ealing North

Emma Reynolds, Wolverhampton North East

Nick Smith, Blaenau Gwent

Mark Tami, Alyn & Deeside

Stephen Timms, East Ham

Karl Turner, Kingston upon Hull East

Chris Williamson, Derby North

Phil Wilson, Sedgefield

Rosie Winterton, Doncaster Central

To these Labour MPs we say jointly #Shame. I hope your constituents remember this well.*

 James Wharton MP is the lucky person having to deal with the shameful Labour MPs trying to wreck the Bill.

But the disgrace becomes greater because Labour and Lib Dem MPs are now attempting to filibuster the Bill in committee stage. Over 20 amendments had be proposed to the Bill some doing things as trivial to change the date. The debate went on for hours with one MP commenting on the historical significance of the date of the 31st December. This was planned to go on through the night and diaries were rearranged for the next day. Yesterday however at 1am the committee finished. James Wharton tweeted of the event 'Finally making progress on EU Ref Bill committee, should get through a few amendments and be well placed to return in Sept #LetBritainDecide.' I do not envy his position doing this again in October.

The EU Referendum Bill is going to have to stay for a very long time a committed stage the way the socialists are behaving. 

To all those Labour and Lib Dem filibusterers #Shame. The people if this country should have their say.

*I would like to point out there are 6 Labour MPs who I exclude from any #Shame because they voted for the EU Referendum Bill. These are: 

Roger Godsiff, Birmingham

Kate Hoey, Vauxhall

Kelvin Hopkins, Luton North

Dennis Skinner, Bolsover

Graham Stringer, Blackley & Broughton

Gisela Stuart, Birmingham, Edgbaston

Round Up of the Political Year

Parliament runs from September to July, just like a school. So what are the important events that have happened since last September.

The Parliament started with rebellion over the House of Lords. Since 2010 one of the dark clouds of the Coalition for the Conservatives was House of Lords reform. The Lib Dems had proposed the worst system in the world for reform with 15 year long stints for elected representatives to hold. Labour thus, seeing the discontent on the Conservative back benches, caused trouble by voting against a guillotine motion and so with the possibility of endless filibustering the government ditched the plans. So in response, ducking on the 2010 Coalition Agreement, Nick Clegg dropped the boundary review so now the Conservatives must fight on the grossly unequal boundaries for 2015. The Lib Dems really showed themselves to be a party of fairness.

The House of Lords is safe from reform, for now.

Party Conferences were next and yet again they were fairly uneventful. No arguments about cats or anything else from the Conservatives and the Lib Dems had another bash at Nick Clegg. Red Ed's 'One Nation Labour speech' was the highlight as it was a fairly good piece of public speaking. However, I look forward to the day when Labour spend only 9% of GDP like Disraeli. This secured Ed Miliband his job, it is unlikely that he will go now because he proved he can perform, sometimes. 2012 was a good year for Ed, but would 2013 be any better?

I'm personally looking forward to a time when Labour adopts all Conservative Party Policy, not that it will happen. 

Welfare at the end of 2013 became the big issue. A cap of £26,000 was proposed for people on benefits to make sure no one on welfare, unless they were disabled, could earn more than the average family. This also was shown to have the effect of giving people more impetus to find work. But this caused a major coalition row over 'shirkers and workers' or 'strivers and skivers'. The Lib Dems said they would never vote for any more welfare changes as the Conservatives were battering those who live more comfortably than the average worker. The Guardian also got on its high horse about how the Conservatives were vilifying the working class, or the non-working class in this case, although they used the words or 'skivers' and 'shirkers' more than anyone else in their newspaper.

Only the Conservatives can keep spending in the country somewhat in check.

The big issue of Europe appeared also and the tension came to the boil in the Tory Party. Parliament rebelled against the government and demanded David Cameron achieved a cut in the EU budget rather than a freeze. And he did. After much negotiation  the EU budget was cut in real terms by 3%. The EU parliament of course decided to reject this but finally agreed to it several months down the line. And then in January, the 'tantric speech' by Dave was finally delivered. A vote for the Conservatives in 2015 was a vote for a referendum on the EU. The Conservatives were now supposed to be free from European issues. Problem solved?

Vote Conservative to Vote on the EU.

Then came another big problem for the Conservative Party which was Gay Marriage. The Bill had been talked about till the cows come home and I, along with most, was sick of it. The problem was that it was made into such a big issue by opponents of David Cameron and also by those supporting it. Fair enough this Bill was about improving equality, but the wagers put on it were so high the debate became overly emotional, stressful and unnecessary. Just yesterday this Bill received Royal Assent and by summer 2014 same sex marriages can happen. Great for personal liberty bad for standards in Parliament.

Gay Marriage is now finally over and the Conservative Party can relax over social policy.

Sad news then hit the country as Baroness Thatcher died. Thatcher had saved the UK in the 1980s and the calls were quite clear from the debate going on about her in April. If only David Cameron was more like her. Thatcher managed to keep her books in good order and grow the UK economy by tax cutting and dealing with inflation. Although there were some major differences, there was still a big lesson to be learnt from Baroness Thatcher and Dave hadn't seemed to have got it.

"To Borrow, and to borrow, and to borrow is not Macbeth with a heavy cold but Labour Party Policy."

So on the back of the EU, Gay Marriage, a bad economy and immigration UKIP stormed in. They became a third place party and almost beat the Conservatives in several polls. They came second in the Eastleigh by-election beating the Tories in a must win marginal for 2015. And then they did very well in the local council elections. Dave seemed to be on the brink, the next few weeks could spell the end of his Prime Ministership because he had concentrated on policies that MPs and activists labelled as not Conservative. The Economy was going nowhere and nothing was going right.

UKIP have been the biggest winners politically so far in 2013.

Dave for once was very lucky he has a Chancellor and Lynton Crosby. The budget delivered by George Osborne hit all the right notes as it sounded reasonably good. Several well placed tax cuts for beer, petrol and income tax created a the idea of an 'aspiration nation'. Later last month it was announced fracking, which will boost the economy massively, is now going to get started and the spending for 2015/16 was spelt out. George Osborne in 8 years will have got rid of the deficit, much longer than predicted. But there was a changed it seemed more so like the Government is cracking down to tackle the problem. Because of the buzzwords of things are getting better it actually did, weak growth is returning and to quote another great Tory "perhaps it is the end of the beginning" of our economic rebalancing.

The Budget was not amazing but a few key policies have created a good spirit.

And where was the opposition? Nowhere. Ed Miliband was all over the place when it came to the economy. From what anyone can see, Labour will spend the same as the government but borrow more and not increase the deficit, how very oxymoronic. It's like we don't have an opposition in this country any more. Red Ed's policy announcements have been awful and then retracted. And to top it all off it is beyond doubt that Unite are fixing most of his MPs. Falkirk is a time bomb for Ed and it may go off very loudly now the police are involved. Red Ed showed himself to be a weak and tragic choice.

There is nothing more to know about Ed Miliband and the Labour party.

As for the Conservatives the last few months have been good. Lynton Crosby has been sharpening up what it is to be a Conservative with all the tax cuts being tooted. Abu Qatda is gone. Immigration is coming way down, although an impending explosion is about to happen with migrants from the Balkans. And the best is James Wharton's EU Bill; there is no doubt the Conservatives want you to have a say over Europe and no other party can deliver it. Optimism is the order of the day, so long as the economy holds together. 

Life of a (Conservative) Student Part 2

Well I have written another blog article about the plain packaging debate for Conservative Student. As a members interest I would like to point my lack of links to tobacco companies or Lynton Crosby, who Red Ed thinks is behind the dropping of the plans. Have a look here.

Conservatives Equal with Labour?

Everyone's talking about the ICM poll for the Gaurdian which puts the Tories on joint 36 with Labour and UKIP down to 7% (that's only 1% more than 2010). I'd be very wary of this result because it does look a bit out ICM generally shows low UKIP results and low Lab leads. But there is clearly something important in this.

ICM Poll has equal poll results for Labour and Conservatives first time in over a year.

The Conservatives are on the up. The economy is now starting to tip the right way, almost everyone can feel it now. Ernest and Young have come out today and said we will grow this year and the next and cut the deficit more than expected, which is good news. After a good budget, a spending review which has set the tone for the 2015 election and a Referendum Bill introduced there are many reasons for a lower Labour lead of late. Indeed the Conservatives are more united and happy about what is going on because everybody is content.

Dave is very happy with what is going on in the Conservative Party at the moment.

Contrast this to the Labour party who are all over themselves with spending, welfare and union membership. Ed Miliband has been shown to be 'weak, weak, weak' to coin a phrase. But to put the cherry on the rotten cake for Labour they are having policy problems, see image below.

I'd blame Nick too, especially if you want a coalition with him.

But what has happened to UKIP? The results for them are down. ICM had them at 22% in April, 18% in May and now 7% in June. Well for starters nobody is paying any attention to them because the national media isn't talking about them constantly. The EU referendum has also slightly helped because the Conservatives are now the only political party where you are guaranteed on getting a say if elected in 2015. This is of course linked to immigration as well because if there is vote out or a good amount of repatriation of powers we will have control of our borders.

Nigel has faced quite a slump, but what will the future hold?

But don't start to think of cheering. Summer always known as silly season in politics and odd things can happen. Ed Miliband has time to reflect on this last part of the year and could pull a shrewd move on the EU or big policy announcements that could increase the Labour lead. He actually needs to do this otherwise Labour will look so stranded that there will not be enough to win a majority in 2015. UKIP too will come back up. When we have to open our borders to Romania and Bulgaria there will be a surge in their popular support. The same will happen at the EU elections in 2014, I think they may even win that.

Don't start celebrating till the Conservatives are leading in the polls Summer next year and don't get the party started till May 2015.

What will the political future hold.

'Historical Error'

Yesterday saw a victory, just, by England in the cricket against the Australians. Hurray! I was not there to see it, although Trent Bridge is pretty near to Nottingham Uni and I have been before. But someone I have met at Trent Bridge before was there and that was Ken Clarke MP. But as well as watching cricket Ken has been busy telling us that we should never, ever, consider leaving the EU as it would be a 'historical error' and does not back 'unilateral repatriation of powers'.

Ken was yesterday spotted getting a drink as well as asking for money for his carpet that was ruined by Bukkake.

I'm always very confused by Ken Clarke because when he's talks about the fixing of our economy back in the 1980s, where he played a part, he rightly points out how uncompetitive Britain was and the need to deal with inflation. Yet at the same time he wishes to push us closer to a Europe which is plainly uncompetitive and can only have a negative effect on our economy. He also is one of the rare few who still backs the decision to go into the Euro and thinks the ERM was a good idea; but we need need this monetary control to help our economy at the moment. Unsurprisingly Ken did not back the bill on the EU referendum.

Ken Chillaxing at Trent Bridge a few days ago.

Because of Ken's bizarre set of views its no surprise that Ken is fronting the team with Peter Mandelson and Danny Alexander to make sure UK stays in the Euro. These last two are people that any other Conservative would spurn when taking a podium with them on the matters of Europe because they are both solidly for Britain joining in with the up and coming political union. Mandelson spent many years as a European Commissioner whilst Danny Alexander is a Lib Dem.

These three have produced a manifesto for staying in the EU where they want no particular change except they want the EU to be 'leaner and meaner', emphasis on the meaner. Despite the popular distress from extra powers not wanted from Brussels that are constricting the economy and people's everyday lives, Ken wants to remain 'doggedly engaged in Europe'. Ken isn't fooling anyone however because we know that him and everyone else in this group want to remain in Europe and want to go fully in. If the 'In' camp wants to win the referendum in 2017 I'd keep those who believe in moving closer into Europe away.  

I'm quite disappointed with Ken because I like him, I just dislike many things he stands for which is a real shame. 

Ken smoking a Churchillian Cigar.

Weekly Poll Lowdown

So we had the European Elections early on #ThingsElliottSays and the results are below. The Conservatives did very well in increasing their share from 2009 and so did the Green Party who have romped into 2nd place. A bad day for UKIP who went down and the Lib Dems who lost a lot. The independents will be disappointed with no votes.

How will you vote in the European Elections in 2014?

Conservative	31%
Labour	21%
UKIP	10%
Lib Dem	4%
Green	23%
Independent	0%
Unsure	10%

Total votes: 48

So how would this translate into seats, the European Elections are done by regional PR so this is easy to calculate although will not reflect a true picture because of regional variation. This would account for some odd loses from the Conservatives when gaining % in the vote.

Party	Seats	Gains/Losses from 2009
Conservative	23	-3
Labour	16	+3
UKIP	7	-6
Lib Dem	3	-8
Green	16	+14
Independent	0	-1

I'm quite surprised by the lack of UKIP support because I personally think they are in with a good chance of winning the EU elections next year. The Greens did remarkably well too and I think that this results from the fact students are not so massively for Labour, there is nowhere else to go if you're left. Alternatively it could just be lots of Tories having a joke on my poll.

Nigel Farage may be confused by lack of support in the #ThingsElliottSays poll but is in with a fair shot of coming first in 2014, He will at least be second again. 

This poll was launched because it is voting time in the Tory Party for the ranking on the list of candidates of the elections to the European Parliament. If you live in the Eastern Region you have to vote for Cllr Tom Hunt on your ballot paper. Tom is a great campaigner throughout the East and one who is genuinely Eurosceptic. He has also bravely come out and said that if there were to be a EU referendum today he would vote to leave because it is currently not in our favour.

But what is my general advice on voting for Conservatives across the country. Well always pick a good campaigner. With such a large region to cover an MEP needs to pick more campaigns than small local to help as many people as possible in a huge region. A good campaigner is someone who has often travelled to all areas and not just stayed near to where they live.

Another trait which I would look for is someone who is genuinely Eurosceptic. It is very hard to imagine someone in the Conservative Party who is not in the least bit wanting reform of Brussels, the only one that comes to mind is Ken Clarke out of the 100s of members I have met. There is however a small band of these ever closer union Conservatives and they seem to be attracted more than most to become a MEP. It is very hard to judge who these people are because everyone will put in 're-patriation' of powers into a piece of literature just to be selected. A safe bet then to make sure you get someone who is secretly a would be Lib Dem member is to select first those who are plainly Eurosceptic.

Sadly a few Conservatives like Ken Clarke are just ignoring the facts on Europe.

There are two MEPs that you should definitely be voting for if you're in their region. Dan Hannan, for being one of those voices who knows a lot about what is going on in Europe and how it will be changing in the next few years. He presents the best case of why we must at least take a strong Eurosceptic stance in the Tory Party. Also vote for Emma McClarkin who also takes an equally national interest stance. I have met Emma a few times and she genuinely works hard for the people of the East Midlands as well as giving Europe flack over making our country worse than it should be. I will be voting for Emma next year in the East Midlands in Nottingham and she will be getting my full support for re-election.

Emma McClarkin on the Brussels trip, make sure you vote for her.

Vote in the new poll on the sidebar.

Joyeux Le Quatorze Juillet

Today is Bastille day and also my mother's birthday (although that is neither here nor there in the political impact in French history). Colonel Cooper, who is courting many French men and women, and I say Joyeux Le Quatorze Juillet.

Joyeux Le Quatorze Juillet.

The French proudly celebrate the 14th July to celebrate their revolution for two main reasons. Firstly they see the French Revolution, through the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen), as the beginning of human rights. Although I must add, there is massive historical opposition over this which I happen to agree with. Secondly, and more importantly to me, it is the long process of the creation of democracy in France which took over 100 years, arguably almost 200. 

Prise de la Bastille.

The path to French Democracy is a case study example of how bloody the path to democracy is. Until 1968 there was no stable form of government in France and since 1789 there have been monarchs, elected dictators, socialist communes and Nazis. Hundreds of thousands died in wars, genocides and famines in the quest for liberty, equality and fraternity so eventually true democracy came to France. There were many steps backwards along the way as well. But actually 200ish years is pretty quick for establishing a democracy, ours took way longer. However, despite the fact that the French people should feel proud in their democracy now that they have it, the way it was established was awful.

La Liberté guidant le peuple.

Democracy comes at a very high cost and its acquisition almost seems to distant for anyone in the West to remember how they got theirs. Of course the subject of democracy is very topical at the moment with Egypt where they seem to be following French history very accurately. Since Morsi has gone there has been a loss of control. The streets are tumultuous where many have died. There is no control because no one will agree to any constitution for the country. What is slowly happening is the takeover of the military. A new Mubarak-lite is the next Pharaoh of Egypt after Mr Morsi, which represents steps backwards. C'est de la folie. Indeed if democracy ever occurred from the Egyptian Spring it lasted from the first election for the assembly to that of the constitution under Morsi and died after that.

La Mort de Marat.

The situation in Egypt like France is going to be one horrible mess which the people of Egypt have to live through in order to have democracy. We cannot give it to them. People don't like systems of government enforced upon them, we restored the monarchy in France and after multiple coups and revolutions it eventually fell. But they can take a good lesson from the French people so that some of the mistakes like electing dictators or staging military coups can be avoided, but perhaps it is too late for that. Maybe one day the Egyptian people will celebrate a national day with the same significance of the 14th July having achieved a state of democracy. We may not even live to see that day, although I jolly hope so because I'm looking forward to the follow up blog article of celebration when it comes.

Napoléon III Empereur des Français

In the mean time Vive La France, Vive La Démocratie and excuse my French.