#Podcast

The Podcast from the Big Picture is up. Listen to me demolishing the myth about the Scandinavian lefty myth and also debate on the Woolwich terrorist attack followed by exploring the problems caused by Xbox. Listen in here and enjoy the show http://urn1350.net/podcast/28

Freedom

I am free. The yoke of exams has been thrown off and now I have a month of doing whatever I want to do with my friends. Huzzah!

My last exam was on medieval history, so a good quote from the Magna Carta is in order.

"No freeman shall be taken, imprisoned, or in any other way destroyed, except by the lawful judgement of his peers"  

Derby Hall is becoming like Milbank.

So what will I be doing in the 3 weeks I have at university, excluding attending copious amounts of parties? Well next week my room will become like CCHQ, I half expect Grant Shapps to turn up. For it is the Wollaton West by-election so my time will be spent helping the Conservative Candidate James Spencer. Please vote for James.

Grant Shapps is getting behind James Spencer. Are you?

#TheBigPicture

Once again I am on the Big Picture debating this weeks big political news. I am putting this up a few minutes before we start, at 6pm. Please listen in.

Tonight is going to be good. We will be discussing the riots in Sweden (see http://thingselliottsays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/mamma-mia.html for what I think about Sweden), the Woolwich terrorist attack and the Snoopers Charter (see http://thingselliottsays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/cracking-down.html for what I said) and also we shall be talking about Xbox and their 'controversial plans'. 

You can send it texts to our show on the URN homepage and are able to listen to us on there too. Here is the link http://urn1350.net/.

Mamma Mia

I'm quite interested in Sweden at the moment in light of the riots going on. I'd like to pull out some of the inconsistencies on this Scandinavia Country that the Left have spun and continue to spin.

Till very recently the only way has been Scandinavian for the Left. Sweden is apparently one of the few countries in the world where growth is high, the economy is always booming, everyone loves immigration and the government is so big that everyone receives a massive pile of cash in welfare. In short a Social Democratic utopia where everything is rosy. In Sweden this utopia is thanks mostly to the Swedish Social Democratic Party being in government since 1930 to 1991 and the Centre Right Party changing few policies when ever in power.  

Utopian riots in the Swedish Capital.

That above paragraph could have been written by a Guardian journalist. A Few Years ago the Guardian wrote this article saying how the 'Tories can learn from the centre right Swedish Government'. It said that "For three generations universal, efficient health care, access to education, child care, generous funding for arts and cultural activities have been simply assumed in the conduct of people's lives. The result has not been, as was once alleged, an ant-like conformity, but its opposite: a degree of individuality and autonomy that is becoming its major cultural challenge." (if you want to see even more recent Guardian Sweden love see the recent videos they published in February about how Sweden has bucked the economic trend).

Interesting stuff from the Guardian. Looks like a social utopia. But now they are saying "After decades of practising the Swedish model of generous welfare benefits, Stockholm has reduced the role of the state since the 1990s, spurring the fastest growth in inequality of any advanced OECD economy. […] successive governments have failed to substantially reduce long-term youth unemployment and poverty, which have affected immigrant communities worst." So a complete turnaround. Why is that?

I'm surprised the Guardian hasn't been recategorised in all Libraries as fiction rather than a newspaper.

Well it's because people would realise that what they had said before about Sweden was one massive Porkie. Sweden has never had this left wing utopia. The reason why it can spend so much on welfare is because it has one of the smallest states in the world. There is no minimum wage in Sweden, taxes are low and the people are free to do what they want. Welfare consequently is able to be very high in Sweden, they get in more tax with a bigger economy that has low tax than a small one with high tax. Thatcher did it in the 1980s, don't you know people from the Guardian.

So why is Stockholm on fire every night? Well the same reasons why there was problems in London, it's almost a copy. Unlike what the Guardian has said above its nothing to do with reducing the role of the state and how now there is no welfare and so everyone is in poverty. It's to do with the open door immigration policy and its effect on the Swedes jobs market.

Swedes have a big history of emigration as well as immigration.

As it stood in 2010, 14.3% of the population are immigrants more than 2/3rds of these were born outside of the EU.  In a country where the population is just shy of 10 million, that's a lot of people. Most of these immigrants as with the UK live in major cities so you get a large proportion of immigrants living in certain districts. The problem is probably as acute as a cultural divide as in Oldham, Luton or Tower Hamlets, to give a rough scale of what is going on.

The vast majority of immigrants have come over for jobs and most are employed. Sweden has a long history of migrations doing low skilled jobs and coming over to fill the positions. Thus they under cut most of the low skilled workers already living in Sweden. These workers then rely on a substantial welfare state to rely on, a classic situation of a large proportion trapped on welfare. The Swedes are stuck in catch 22 position of being unable to move socio-economically because welfare pays best but unable to leave because work pays worst. Thus the Swedes are not a happy bunch abandoned by their government on welfare and blaming immigrants for it.

So there you are. Sweden far from being a left wing Utopia is stuck in a benefits trap.

Yes We Canning (Exclusive Interview)

Our congratulations today go to Stephen Canning who was selected as Eastern Region Chairman by the CF National Executive and Regional College.

The position of CF Chair for the East has been a point of contention of late since CCHQ's debacle of messing up the paper work of the last Chairman for the East, Samantha Hoy. Now these issues have been sorted, Stephen will bring the Eastern Region back to the forefront of CF campaigning. In the East there are many marginal seats which need to be taken or held in 2015. The East is a key area.

Stephen Canning Standing by his Manning.

Stephen told #ThingsElliottSays that he is "delighted to have been elected as the next regional chairman of the East of England. We've got so many fantastic branches and dedicated members that across the region."

Stephen would like everyone in the East to chip in and help win in 2015. He said that "I'm not coming into this with my own agenda I want to push or own plan I want to force upon people, I'm stepping into role with the hope that right across the region we can all work together to achieve what everyone in the region wants."

We wish Stephen all the best and we think he'll do an excellent job.

Service To Be Resumed Shortly

Today I am massively revising for my exams on Modern History. So I will resume proper service later this week. 

I will however leave you with this thought. Isn't no wonder that Left wing politics protects those on benefits when Karl Marx, who has some influence over all left wing philosophies, was a benefit scrounger. Marx never worked a day in his life and kept up his life style from money he got from his friend, and capitalist, Engels. 

Karl Marx- chief benefit scrounger

Weekly Poll Lowdown

Welcome to the mad house, the majority of you are swivel eyed loons. 21 people voted a good healthy number, but we can do better chaps, we can do better.

Yes	62%
Yes, but not over Europe	0%
Yes, but not over Gay Marriage	14%
No	24%

I too am a swivel eyed loon and proud, ladies and gentlemen. I think we do need to tackle the EU problem in this country, even if that means twisting the arms of Dave in order to get a better deal for this country. A very, very reduced Europe is about the most tolerable for most people, 90% of Conservatives want a EU which is a Free Trade Agreement and that is it really. I think it's very rich for the leadership of the party to call us loons.

Swivel Eyed Dave.

Unlike the swivel eyed loons attributed in the No.10 comment I actually support gay marriage. I do think that the overall the 'modernisation' plan under Dave is a bit unnecessary. Labour was going around calling us the 'nasty party' a decade ago for talking about issues on immigration, benefits and criminal justice. Cameron wanted us to become like New Labour and take a softer more centrist response to these issues. But this is not really what the British people want at all. More people want a conservative stance on the above issues but voted Labour than centrists who didn't vote for us in 2010. Yet we are seemingly chasing a voter base that is so small it will make us lose in 2015.

Also has the modernisation programme, to change the Conservative Parties beliefs, actually worked. None of the Conservatives in the party are going around talking about the environment or how we need to have greater rehabilitation and more care for criminals. There is a big gulf from the vast majority of MPs beliefs, let along party members, and some of the people at the top. If there has been any 'modernisation' it has been economic as many members have been hoodwinked into continuing with the Gordon Brown consensus.

To end I would like to say that being a swivel eyed loon in the Conservatives is a badge that should been worn with pride.

Vote in the next poll.

Cracking Down

Here comes the political reaction to the death of drummer Lee Rigby. The Government is now on a mission to crack down on extremism and bring back the snoopers charter.

RIP Drummer Lee Rigby, who survived Afghanistan to be brutally killed in a terrorist attack.

First off, let's say something about the Woolwich attack. No matter how sad it was and how awful those people that brutally hacked to death a British soldier, these occurrences are very rare. The last initiated terror attack in Britain before Woolwich was in 2008 in Exeter. The last death as a result of a Terror attack in the UK was July 7th. These events are very unusual.

Most planned terror attacks are foiled before they even get off the ground. In a very similar way to the Woolwich attack, a planned beheading of a very particular Muslim British soldier was stopped in 2007. The police and security services have all the information and available tactics to foil terrorism in this country and after Woolwich they have not been asking for any extra powers. This was just a very sad case where the terrorists were able to carry out their awful deeds.

What I don't get is why the government is looking to introduce the Snoopers Charter again. The charter would force communication and internet companies to store all data from emails, Facebook messages and the like. But they already do that really on their servers. What the government wants is another storage place for the police and security services to have a look at when they ask. This is despite the fact that they already get all this data just off the main servers when asked for. Skype for example handed more data over to British police last year than it did to the Americans. The charter doesn't make it easier for new extremist websites being taken down. How can it as it just records what has happened on the internet twice over.

Also have you noticed that despite calls for it, the government hasn't actually given a reason why the Snoopers Charter may have helped in Woolwich. It just seems that, because they genuinely believe that the charter is a good thing, they are using the public's niggling fears about the death of Lee Rigby to bring it back again. I don't see how it would have helped, it's not like the charter actually allows the police for the first time to use the internet.

Like the charter which is not needed, I have a suspicion we are going to see another Bill on limiting freedom of speech in public. Dave and Mrs May are out and about telling people we need to take a harder stance of extremist preaching and language, from both the EDL and extreme Muslim preachers.

What both the EDL and extremists do is often already breaches liberal limitations on freedom of speech by causing fear of violence or inciting others to become violent. As a nation we haven't been enforcing this properly when it comes to minority beliefs. Anyone who is causing fear of violence or inciting others to violence should be stopped. This may be the case because we are concentrating on irrelevancies like the Snoopers Charter. We have become a little laxed in implementing the basic liberal law on freedom of speech.

EDL helping the White Witch in the mythical world of Narnia in their spare time.

I think you'll find that only women are prescribed to cover their heads under Shariah chaps. The likelihood of a sand storm in Grosvenor Square is very small.

But ignoring the legal aspects of how we defend ourselves from terrorism, what is the best way in my opinion to stop extremism? I say laugh at these ridiculous people and ridicule there silly ideas through a critical debate. We really take the people in the EDL and Muslim hate preachers too seriously as if they have some sort of worthwhile message when they are in the media. Terrorism is not funny, but these people are just utter fools, so treat them as such. It worked against the Fascists and Communist movement in the UK in the 1930s. If you go down to Cable Street you will see a crazily coloured mural of where the Communists and Fascists clashed. That's the essence of how these groups were stopped, by mocking them. I don't think we laugh at the modern day extremists enough.

Mural mocking the silly Communists and Fascists.

'At Risk Of Failure'

Yesterday the government released at 5 to 5pm a document that proclaimed that virtually everything they are doing infrastructure and project wise is likely or going to fail. This is quite a worrying development considering what could happen.

The first problem with the all these projects failing is the cost. The governments flagship infrastructure project of HS2 is going way over budget (see http://thingselliottsays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/tony-robinson-stops-hs2.html and http://thingselliottsays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/weekly-poll-lowdown_16.html to view what I think about HS2). The government initially said that it would cost £17 billion, however this has not been accepted by the Public Accounts Committee and the Tax Payers Alliance has predicted HS2 to cost £45.5 billion. Matthew Sinclair, who is the Tax Payers Alliance CEO, says that "alarm bells will yet again be ringing for taxpayers". It has certainly got me concerned even more so when it is calculated that HS2 will be loss making for the economy. All that money wasted.

My thoughts exactly.

More worrying for me however is our national defence which is seemingly in jeopardy once again. The aircraft carriers that the government have promised to be built have been listed as red or 'unachievable' by this report. The decision to make sure we had no carrier defence was stupid in my opinion. We are too big a world power not to have one, we have to borrow the Charles De Gaulle if in need. But now it looks like we will never have one. Great. Worrying for me too is the fact that this project is going to cost about £7 billion; yet HS2 is costing over 5 times that amount. So effectively we have decided to trade national defence for the biggest waste of money ever. Very wise.  

HMS Argus was the world first aircraft carrier built in 1918. Less than 100 years later when still very much needed the carrier looks like its going to be extinct in the UK.

Everything is going under from the new passport control system to the universal credit benefit system. We are creaking as a nation at very best when it comes to government projects. So whose fault is this? Well partially it is the Governments, they have made some of the stupid decisions that could have probably been foreseen. But mostly it is ever inefficient and massively over paid Whitehall system. It is a lace where no one does any work, everyone receives a massive pension, no one does what minsters say and is secretly receiving a more than 3% increase in wages from George Osborne to keep them quiet. These great people are slowly destroying our country and yet we can do very little to stop it.

Whitehall is like entering into a world where money is plentiful and inefficiency is the order of the day.

So what is the case for the defence. Well Francis Maude has said that they have made £1.7 billion in efficiency savings so that the projects are not so costly. However, he must have forgotten all together governmental infrastructure cost £350 billion. That's just over a 0.4% saving which is truly pathetic. So it seems like all these projects Britain is 'at risk of failure' because of the incompetent people who we cannot get rid of at the helm. This time it's the civil service and not Lib Dem ministers. 

It's not all the fault of the Government. Even Dave isn't happy that Francis Maude isn't delivering on the civil service.

#BBCQT

Yesterday I watched BBC Question Time with my great friend Super Cooper (Kieron). We were later joined by Tom Nixon and we invited others who couldn't come. The night was so fun I'm going to do a blog post on it, we'll probably make this a regular event.

Here is the Question Time super team

Kieron invited Dimblebot to come join us.

Jenny (NUCA President) also wanted to get involved.

Kieron could thus offer more than the oranges and Pepsi.

Dimblebot however could not come.

Tom also couldn't avoid the hype and came to join in.

The first thing Kieron did though was have a arguement with me about the Asian community and I didn't even say anything. (I meant attacked in the tweet by the way).

I said to Kieron later that we should now have a Question Time drinking game.

Ian Paisley was causing controversy on Question Time, although I was more concerned with his family.

Tom and I were pleased with his economic policy however.

Some fool on Question Time however thought that more tax meant more growth.

Tax avoidance and evasion were key issues though in the Question Time Team.

I didn't want to get confused between the two, ladies and gentlemen. But Vernon Coaker was trying to lecture us all on tax law.

We then did the Dimble Dance.

I was very disappointed that there was no BBC This Week however.

So that was the amazing Question Time experience. We'll hopefully bring you more from the Question Time Team.

#Podcast

The Podcast for the Big Picture yesterday is now up. Listen to us have a fight over what we think about Nottingham University SU, a good debate on Syria and issues in the Conservative Party last week. Listen carefully also for two swear words that slipped out. Enjoy. http://urn1350.net/podcast/28

#TheBigPicture

Yet again I’m on the air debating this week’s issues on the political radio show, the Big Picture, on URN. I am putting this up a few minutes before we start, at 6pm. Please listen in.

Tonight is going to be a most interesting show as we are debating the EU referendum issues last week, the turmoil in Syria and Referenda at Nottingham Uni.

You can send texts to our show on the URN homepage and are able to listen to us on there too. As if it couldn't get any better, we are now also on twitter @urnbigpicture, please follow us. Here is the link to listen in http://urn1350.net/ 

Derelict Buildings

In Wisbech there is a problem with derelict buildings. But Steve Barclay MP is now campaigning to get them fixed up. Steve is a great local MP who really acres about helping out his constituents and their problems.



If you want to sign Steve's petition visit http://stevebarclay.net/derelictbuildings/

Weekly Poll Lowdown

Is Nick Clegg safe? Did you think he would be got rid of? Well 75% of you thought he was safe, at least for the moment. 31 of the Great British Public voted in my poll, please keep voting.

Yes	19%
No	52%
No, but he will be got rid of before 2015	23%
Unsure	6%

I think Nick Clegg is probably safe-ish. I asked this question after Mr Gove said there was a plot afoot from Lord Oakeshott to get rid of the Lib Dem leader. The problem for Nick Clegg is he is one of only a small number of 'orange bookers' in a social democratic party. But who would replace Nick Clegg and make the coalition work. No one really. The Lib Dems don't want an election now, they'd be wiped out, and I doubt they have the funds either.

Watch out, Lord Oakeshott is about.

However, Nick Clegg is probably an electoral liability. Everyone hates him, there's a good chance he could lose his seat. I think the coalition in the last few months before the General Election will end so that the two parties can get a truly separate identity again, although Tory MPs are pushing for this definite identity as soon as possible. During this time they may seek a new leader so the Liberals can get back some sort of support. It's possible under such a scenario to go back to a level of support before the 2005 General Election with 20 to 30 seats in Parliament.

So Nick Clegg safe for now, not so in 2015. Watch out Cleggers.

Vote in the next poll.

Exams!!!

Exams are not fair.

From Guido with Love

Well I am on Guido Fawkes. see http://order-order.com/2013/05/20/john-hayes-calls-andy-coulson-a-wer/

Canvassing in Wollaton

Yet again I was out helping James Spencer in the Wollaton West By-election. Yesterday the team, which numbered above 20 people, did 3 'walks' of canvassing. We went all over the ward speaking to people about problems in the area and whether they would vote for James.

People should remember that they can only see a better Wollaton West by voting for James and the Conservative Party. In this ward it is a straight fight between the Tories and Labour, any votes to UKIP mean that the Conservatives lose the seat.

From the Right: James Spencer, Rowena Holland and Cllr Roger Steel all helping in the By-election

So what happened on the day. Well a team of me, James, Cllr Roger Steel and parliamentary candidate Rowena Holland took a large area to canvass. Notably the area was full of doctors with seemingly everyone working at a surgery or the QMC in  Wollaton. We met lots of Conservatives and very few opposition voters which is very good.

 Unusual parking was also seen in Wollaton West. I find this satisfyingly funny.

James is a very hard working man who will serve Wollaton West well. Vote for him and the Conservative Party on Thursday 6th June.