Letting state pupils down

I've just read an article that shows up two things that are very wrong with our country right now.

1) The large popular demand for Grammar schools is denied by all three of the main political parties ( many of them manned by public school educated career politicians ). What this shows is that our politics is broken. Taxpayers can't get the services they chose because the political class won't let them have them.

2) The brightest pupils are let down in the state system ( they have just closed down Blair's program to help gifted pupils to hand the money back for socialist meritocracy in schools ). Of course the fast track to socialist equality has always been to hold everyone back and punish those who achieve - and this is what our state education system has started to do as it focuses on C grade GCSE passes, at the expense of the brightest state pupils and then the socialists have the nerve to complain about the poor progress of state pupils into the best Universities and careers.

Somehow we need to be free of the political classes strangle hold on whats available and how taxpayers money should be spent.

Never mind prisoners what about service people keeping their votes ?

One of the greatest scandals of the 2005 general election ( apart the straight lies told by Gordon Brown about the impact of Conservative spending plans- but we all know the man knows no shame ) was to see British soldiers defending Iraqi elections when their own government had changed the election rules in a way that made it very difficult for them to vote.

I wonder who benefits from large numbers of service personnel being unable to vote ?

I bet the Labour party knows and is very grateful they couldn't vote.

Today we have the Human Rights people telling us we have to ensure convicted criminals who are serving their sentences to vote, and I'm making no further comment on that here, but I wonder what the position is for over seas personnel this time ?

This time the men and women who know all about Gordon Brown's lies and deceitful budget cuts of helicopter and equipment must be allowed to return the favour and vote.

PS If you need to find out how to register to vote see here, though you might be too late to help get rid of Gordon Brown and his band of dishonest and incompetent parasites.

Leader's repayed expenses

Is it just me or is there a clear message here on repayed expenses ?

One party leader is at least 1386% large than the others. Could this be the man who ran the nation's finances into the ditch ? Oh yes ...

H/T to the Lib Dem cynical bar chart dept - but boys notice this one is scaled correctly ....

Will the Bank of England's printing presses be turned off soon ?

Rumours are circulating that the Bank of England will soon stop funding the government debt by printing money. ( We'll if you ask them or a Labour Treasury minister they will say the same thing, but with a hole load more guff ).

Anyone want to buy long term UK debt at low interest rates with the prospect of a hung parliament and no clear action to reduce the deficit being undertaken till yet another general election can be held ?

The risks are real as Greece is showing.

This will be interesting ... if you excuse the pun.

Blue bash reflections

So I made it home, abandoning the younger a fitter members of the Tory blogging fraternity to their home brew entertainment.

It was good to meet up again with some of the guys from Steve Green's Pint of Badger fuelled afternoon last year. Also to get to know a few more bloggers. ( Just what is so Terrible about Terrible Tory Girl anyway ? )

Blogging's not where it was, and in many ways has gone over the initial wave of interest of a few years ago, as the media and innovators chase twitter, facebook and the semi-detached Conservative home type sites.

I suspect blogging will become the hinterland of political parties electronic presence. Few people can write about politics without becoming more involved and developing their ideas. At the same time networks are developing outside of the control of any party or body ( as Eric Pickels wisely conceeded in his brief talk ). This will continue to give blogging a form of deep long term influence. English Nationalism is perhaps the best example of this. An issue rejected by all the main parties, but a key issue for many of their bloggers.

As the general election warms up bloggers will be engaging with the issues and each other via any means possible. But the key is likely to be the wider interaction on social media - Mum's net type sites etc and the wider population starts tacking an interest for just three weeks. ( Remember how Labour tries to control the local press by getting its party members to try and write "floating voter" letters. The scope for this sort of influence has now vastly increased and we can expect the propaganda war to be relentless. )

The key moment for the blogs themselves will be after the election as the battle for ideas and the soul of the parties ( combined with perhaps two leadership elections ) gets going.

Michael White refused entry

Highlight of the evening.

Sent from my HTC

Glories past and inevitable financial decline

I'm sitting in the science museum right now. Normally I would be feeling pangs of nostalgia for past British glories, especially in the space section with its model of Black Arrow.

But today its time to feel sorry for the Americans as they start down the same road with Obama cancelling their plans to return to the moon.

Not that he's made the wrong decision. The future does lie with better innovation. But I fear this is the first step in the US having to face up to the financial reality that they are broke. There will be far more pain to come, and our share of it is over due also.

But we can both over come our disastrous financial states. ( The US is at least staging a recovery, the UK is still cursed by Brown's canutist govt. ) We have little to fear and much to gain if we face up to the world as it is, and stop living in Labour's fantasy narrative.

This was the lesson of the eighties, taught to us by Mrs Thatcher. It's a great shame it has to be re-learnt.

Sent from my HTC

Is Brown AV plan to buy support from the Lib Dems unconstitutional ?

I just wonder if this Parliament can bind the next with a referendum to take place after the current parliament ends ?

If I remember correctly there is a constitutional convention that no Parliament may bind another.

Or do I have this wrong ?

Alternative votes will lead to alternative parties and unintended consequences

The only truth we can be sure of is there is nothing Gordon Brown won't do to try to hold onto power.

Attempting to convert Labour to a form of PR just as your 13 years in power is coming to an end will be seen as just the sort of unprincipled opportunism or even cheating that Labour have become synonymous with.

But all the political parties have something to worry about here.

Each party is an alliance of interests who are willing to make compromises for power ( or in the Lib Dem case for getting a few people on the public pay role ).

AV will allow someone to vote for, say a religious party, safe in the knowledge they aren't "wasting their vote" as there second preference will be just as valid and valuable as another person's first. It will allow groups to make their presence felt. Political parties will be able to note where the religious parties votes go - which will vastly improve the negotiating strength of that group. There are plenty of other groups this applies to.

An unintended consequence will be that smaller political parties will become "more popular" - even if they don't win seats. ( And of course the pressure will come to allocate them seats in the style in Scotland and Wales ).

It will be possible to run more than one candidate from the same party in the same ward. Or two parties which are close, but disagree one one point of policy perhaps.

Some of the existing political parties will become unstable. Each of the three main parties could split - perhaps ironically the Liob Dems are the most likely as they are a hopeless compromise between Blairite Social Democrats and Nick Clegg's Tory-Lites.

It could be good for democracy, so whilst I condemn Labour for their usual breath taking cynicism, I don't rule out the idea.

The voters need more influence over the political establishment - which is liberal and over all centre right - when the votes are really conservative and centre right.

Not quite the realignment Brown has in mind though ...