Is it time for a vote of no confidence in this government?

First topic message reminder :

I've been working with some good leftie friends on twitter to get a an e-petition on the Governments own website for a Motion of No Confidence in the ConDem government.

As you probably know already:- if these petitions get accepted on the site and gain over 100k signatures they have to be considered for a Commons Debate.

The motion we propose to have is :

"We, the undersigned state that this government has not acted in the interests of the people of the United Kingdom.

We require there to be a Motion of No Confidence debate in the House of Commons followed by a vote of MPs in support of the motion"

The idea is that it is left as open as possible so that disillusioned people of all political persuasions will be able to sign it, in order to maximise the support it gets. Also if kept as brief as possible it is more likely to be accepted, as it is less likely to get caught by one of the many grounds for rejection on the government site.

We would very much appreciate any comments and suggestions that people on here have, and especially ideas on how we can spread the word to let the people know it is available for them if they wish to sign it.

Honestly! Day after day, the Labour Opposition is doing nothing but harrass the Tories at every turn. They waste no opportunity to criticise the government whatever the subject and find fault with just about everything, just for the sake of political points-scoring.

It would all be a matter of concern and regret were they not simply giving back to Cameron and his Grubby Gang exactly the same opportunistic spite as they so regularly received themselves up to 2010.

Consequently, we say : More, more, more...!

"FEMALES ONLY"

Well they nearly got there OW, with Georgina Gideon Osborne, Davinia Cameron, Fanny Alexander and Nlckhole Clegg. Not forgetting Erica Pickles.
All a load of old tarts, or should I say farts?

How can you speak thus of our (semi) elected Leadership?

The question now is whether the Coalition is going to survive the Olympic Games, isn't it?

No government has had a genuine mandate since (I think) 1935 because every government since then has had MORE people voting AGAINST it than for it.

Of course there are plenty of people in all the main parties who don't really believe in democracy so they're quite happy with that.

The coalition will certainly survive the Olympic Games and IMO it will go on for at least another two, possibly three years.

The question is, if Labour DO win the next election, have they got any actual POLICIES to put things right?

So far I haven't seen much evidence of that!

"So far I haven't seen much evidence of that!"

Patience is a virtue!!!!1

Labour seem to make a lot of noise about a few silly populist policies

Nothing new there Betty....Style over substance I think is the phrase often used to describe Liebour

There is a lot to be said about keeping one's powder dry.

blueturando wrote:Nothing new there Betty....Style over substance I think is the phrase often used to describe Liebour

Its also a lot to do with a media that reports only style and ignores substance

Today's newspaper publishers are threatened by the speed of the internet. News can become stale within a few hours as people comment online about it before the Presses can even begin to roll.

Departments have been set up to detect "trends" in the popular interest, and the target audience is set younger and younger while curiously people are living longer and fifty is not regarded as "old" anymore.

"Its also a lot to do with a media that reports only style and ignores substance".
Not strictly true, since the media are mainly concerned with keeping up with the changing tastes of their consumers, whilst at the same time telling those same consumers what they ought to be thinking. Many people like to receive their opinions ready-made.

Mel wrote:There is a lot to be said about keeping one's powder dry.

There sure is Mel. as why waste good powder on a dead party at this time?

BobEllard wrote:

blueturando wrote:Nothing new there Betty....Style over substance I think is the phrase often used to describe Liebour

Its also a lot to do with a media that reports only style and ignores substance

Or the right wing press that only report Tory Ideology.

Well, I’ve just about recovered from a very long Saturday – getting up at 4 to catch a 5.20 coach for the 5-hour journey down to London for yesterday’s TUC ‘A Future that Works’ march and eventually getting to bed around 2.30 this morning. In spite of the rigours of the long day, sore feet and 11 hours of coach travel, the experience was almost – almost – entirely an inspiring, invigorating, uplifting one.

The long journey – and the rest of the day – was marked by new friendships, by kindnesses, by food, help and advice shared; by generosity of money and of spirit; by humour – in shared jokes and on waved placards (my personal favourite was “The price of not travelling with plebs: £160. A Future that Works: priceless“, with “Oi, Cameron, leave those quids alone!” a close second); by noise, camaraderie and the encouragement of spending a day among people committed and aware enough to know that it was worth giving up time and travelling whatever distance necessary to stand up for what’s right; and by one small cloud in an otherwise sunny day.

But more of that in due course. First, a few personal highlights.

Make friends and be influenced by people

Sitting opposite my wife and me on the coach was Jacky – a down to earth, straight-speaking, no-nonsense, self-educated lady who works full-time as a carer for her two sons suffering from varying degrees of autism and had taken a very rare day off to travel down and join the march. Jacky faces losing financial support from a government that values neither disabled people nor the enormous economic contribution made by those who care for them unpaid. Yet in spite of the challenges she faces, she has applied for Labour’s ‘Future Candidates Programme’ in the hope of being able to serve and help others.

Jacky ended up keeping us company throughout the day – and oh, how I wish I could have put a ring through Cameron’s and Osborne’s noses and dragged them along with us. Not a shred of self-pity, lots of humour, plenty of useful and useless facts and a constant desire to be generous matched by a profound sense of thankfulness for every small kindness. I doubt that even Jacky’s example could change Dave’s or George’s mind about their scrounger-versus-skiver rhetoric – but only because they’re fools.

Generosity was a conspicuous feature of the day in general, as food, help and advice were shared freely among people who were complete strangers to each other. Camaraderie was as available as air to anyone who wanted it, and if someone stumbled momentarily, concern and helpfulness were expressed in an instant by whoever happened to be nearest.

It really was an example of humanity at its best. One which almost – almost – makes me feel pity for Tories. I’m convinced most of them have no idea what their closed-minded, hard-hearted, self-serving ideology makes them miss out on.

The noise

As we made our way along Victoria Embankment to join the main Unison contingent (I’m not in Unison, but my wife is, and my passion for the NHS made it the natural place for us to be), the length of the road and the gradual build up of arrivals made it hard to get a real sense of how many people were amassing for the march.

But as noon arrived and we began to move – the noise started, and we knew. Thousands of whistles, plastic trumpets, loudhailers, drums, interspersed with the occasional brass or pipe band, raised a din – a wonderful, beautiful, soul-lifting racket – that left nobody in any doubt that we were legion. And as we passed under Waterloo Bridge, the ‘roof’ intensified the noise until it felt solid. My current WordPress package won’t let me insert video directly into this post, so I’ve uploaded one separately immediately before this post that will give you a tiny idea of what it was like.

Hearing that noise was a revelation – or at least an eye-opener. We often don’t realise how strong we are – but we are many and ‘they’ are few. If ordinary people realise it and determinedly work together – many of the beautiful union banners carried ‘Unity is Strength’ and how true it is – we’ll win and they’ll lose. The only question is, will we and can we unite and stay united?





True strength doesn’t lie in stone towers and arcane traditions.

The Police

I want to offer thanks to the officers – many from outside the area – who policed the march. I saw lots of smiles, very few frowns, plenty of thumbs-up, many posing happily for pictures with marchers, and those I spoke to for information or directions were unfailingly helpful and cheerful. I also want to thank the off-duty officers who were there as marchers – I know of some and I believe there were many. The government has treated the police shamefully, but the silver lining of the cloud is, I hope, a restored sense both among police officers and among the public, that the police are part of ‘us’ – we’re all plebs in it together. The Tories have miscalculated badly, and if they’re not worried, they should be.

The big snake

It was hard to make out for sure, but I think we were about in the middle of the march. Certainly there were very many people in front of us – as we looked to our right from Victoria Embankment, we could see the massed banners, flags and placards of those in front already passing in the opposite direction along Whitehall, at the opposite end of Richmond Terrace, having already passed in front of the Houses of Parliament and started to make their way toward Trafalgar Square.

Yet when, footsore and thirsty, we eventually dropped to the grass at the entrance to Hyde Park, where the rally was to take place, we sat for over 90 minutes watching dense ranks of marchers continue to arrive along Piccadilly. In fact, when we had to leave at 3 (our coach was setting off at 5 and we had a long trek to reach the pick-up point, so we couldn’t wait for the speeches), there was still no sign of the rear end of the column.

Official estimates put the number of marchers at around 150,000, but I think there was at least a quarter of a million people taking part – although some, like us, weren’t staying for the main part of the rally.

Update: I’ve been told that police and unions estimated 400-500,000 marchers taking part.

The scale of the task

In the midst of all the inspiration, the scale of the task of countering the Tories’ influence was still clear. Being energised to the task, and a sober realisation of the task, need to go hand in hand for us to achieve it. As we gathered for the march, I went into a large bar on the Embankment to use the facilities. A crowd of people was in there, apparently oblivious (at least at that point, when The Noise hadn’t yet started) to what was going on outside and why, watching sport on the large television and cheering raucously. Nothing wrong at all with loving sport – but the government will be very happy if most of us anaesthetise ourselves with it so that we’re ignorant of what’s going on under our noses.

Similarly, out on the streets as we marched, many were curious, many stood and cheered and applauded – but some paid almost no attention, too intent on carrying their designer carriers to the next trendy shopping destination. Consumerism and the absorption with spending and status are the Tories’ allies, numbing people to the plight of others and the ‘robbery writ large’ of huge corporations and the politicians who aid and abet them.

But I’m not offering counsels of despair. Yesterday’s march showed that very many people are awake to what is being perpetrated. More are waking up – and we can wake more still, if we keep making the kind of noise that only a united people can make.

And so, on to the fly in the ointment, the blot on the landscape. The cloud that dimmed the sun, just a little.

Ed’s speech and the booing

As evening fell and our bus started to make its way northward out of London and a few people started to catch up on Twitter, word spread around the coach about the booing – that Ed Miliband’s speech to the rally had referred to a continued need for cuts and that this had, understandably, been booed by the marchers. Not only that, but BBC News was concentrating on this booing – and on aggressive behaviour by a group of about 40 idiots – in its coverage of the event, to avoid having to state that at least 150,000 people had marched in unity against the idiot actions of an idiot government.

I’d be lying to you if I said that this didn’t cast a cloud over my mood and stir up some complex feelings – at first. Then I determined that I was going to suspend judgment and set the whole matter aside until I’d been able to read the speech in full and draw my own conclusions. Well, here they are:

In case you missed it, here’s the key part of the speech:

“David Cameron calls it the “sink or swim” society. But you don’t build a successful country with sink or swim.

You do it by building One Nation. And that is what the next Labour government will do.

Of course, there will still be hard choices. With borrowing rising not falling this year, I do not promise easy times. I have said whoever was in government now there would still need to be some cuts.

But this government has shown us cutting too far and too fast, self-defeating austerity, is not the answer. We would make different but fairer choices including on pay and jobs.”

Was this statement by Miliband an act of betrayal, one that merited booing? Did Miliband misjudge his speech and his audience – or did he deliberately incur the boos in the hope of convincing ‘the markets’ and ‘business leaders’ that Labour can be ‘trusted’ to run a business-friendly economy and won’t raise taxes?

I don’t believe it was a betrayal. The rest of the speech was clear in its support for working people and its condemnation of the coalition’s too-far-too-fast cuts. I think that Miliband was aiming to cut off David Cameron’s most likely line of attack next week – that of accusing him of being too close to the unions, of being their stooge, aas Cameron tries to frighten people away from voting Labour by painting him as ‘Red Ed’. Miliband was trying to demonstrate strength of character by speaking ‘hard truths’. In short, to make sure that Cameron couldn’t repeat his remark, made in Parliament on 16 May this year:

“I often wonder whether his problem is that he is weak or that he is left-wing—his problem is that he is both!”

I don’t believe that Miliband misjudged his audience. I think he knew he was going to get booed and was taking a calculated risk. One that I have two big problems with.

Firstly, he handed the BBC and other news media an opportunity on a plate to skew their coverage of the march. Main coverage and the smaller, more regular ‘snippets’ mentioned the march (though only ‘tens of thousands’ rather than anything like the true figure) but quickly moved on to the booing. Given the effort, expense, commitment and passion of the huge number of people who marched and the unions who organised it, this was a dire mistake, a truly woeful miscalculation – and not even one that’s likely to bring the political benefit he was hoping for, as Cameron will simply switch tack and mock him for being booed by his ‘union paymasters’ (another favourite stock phrase).

Second – and I think worse – the miscalculation involves Miliband granting the Tory premise, the Big Lie: that ‘there is no money’, that our public sector is ‘bloated’ and needs to be cut back, and that Labour mismanaged the economy rather than simply being hit by a global crisis that hammered all the developed economies. The idea that we have a ‘deficit still rising’ because we’re over-spending, rather than because the economy is shrinking due to ill-advised cuts and because taxation isn’t effectively enforced on those who can most afford to pay.

Why is this worse? Because we – the country, not just the marchers – are looking for someone with vision enough, as well as strength enough, to see a different and better way forward for our country than simply ‘austerity lite’. Someone who has the imagination and perception to see beyond the lie that the economic argument was settled forever with the dominance of ‘market capitalism’, someone who knows that there are two ways to balance the spending equation and that cuts are neither inevitable nor even necessary.

Someone to offer hope.

If the electorate sees a Labour leader offer that – vision, hope and the boldness to say so – I believe that Labour won’t just win a majority at the next election but could see a landslide which will make 1997 look indecisive.

It happens that I believe that Ed Miliband can be that man. I think he has the strength and integrity, and I believe he’s capable of the vision. That’s why his speech yesterday was a disappointment – I believe he’s capable of being much better, much bolder, and of inspiring people to believe voting is worthwhile because it will make a real difference not just to how the country is run in the short term, but how it looks and stands for decades.

Ed Miliband’s real mistake wasn’t in calling cuts necessary to an anti-austerity rally. It was in not realising that it’s not the centre-ground he needs to claim, not business leaders and the markets that he needs to convince and win over. The most important thing he needs to show people – Labour voters, union members and floating voters alike – that he’s genuinely a Labour leader, on the side of the working masses (and the clue to why is in that word, ‘masses’!); that he’s a Labour leader with the vision to see that things don’t have to be the ‘more of the same but a bit less nasty’. He’s mentioned ‘ethical capitalism’ – we need to see that he has an idea of what that can be like and how it can be enforced for the good of 99%.

If he can do that, there’ll be a mass of people marching – not just in protest but to vote for him and the Labour party at the next general election and for many beyond.

what Ed needs to learn to win a landslide.

what Ed needs to learn to win a landslide? Just one thing.....

How to induce collective amnesia amongst the entire electorate for Gordon Brown's record.

Apart from his masterstroke of keeping Britain out of the Euro, everything else he did proved to be a bungle.

I too marched in Unsion block (despite being in Unite) with the rest of my local anti-cuts groups Medway Against the Cuts. Was mostly a good day despite immediatly regretting my foolhardy decision to march on arthretic feet (still in agony now!) By the time we set off at 12ish it was apparent the TUC had succeeded, in its aim of having a much smaller march having already to a large extent sold out huge swathes of workers. I'd say a top estimate of 150,000 people showed up - simply not enough. Arriving at the park before 2nd half of speeches, the atomosphere seemed a little flat (weather didnt help) despite the biggest turnout of the "Sparts" I'd evert seen! As for Milliband's speech everything was going ok, till he turned all tory, The mass boing was justified I feel, certainly way more than 40 people. As for Polly Toynbee pointing her finger at the SWP for it, christ their membership has increased by a few thousand in the month since I resigned! The various other speakers blustered around all avoiding the dreaded S Word - Strike! Only Bob Crow of the RMT and Mark Serwotka of the PCS even mentioned the possibility of striike action.
All in all a tad disappointed. It lacked the opptimism of victory that March 26th, June 30th and November 30th last year had. Why is this? Sell outs and defeatism at top of unions, the public bombarded with government propaganda that fighting is pointless and prehaps mostly because we are still in the "phoney war" stage of cuts as 80% of them have yet to bite.
So what to do and where to go now? Organise, Organise, Organise!!
Finally a light hearted note moment of the hday for me: The Internationale being sung outside parliament

Good post skywalker, I marched here in Glasgow all us PLEBS together and it felt bloody great like Knarkybadger I was with Unsion and what a great crowd of people, I am retired and not with any Union but thought the Unions deserve the support of the people on the Street. The cuts coming in are not just effecting the people in the Unions but every one the length and breadth of the UK and we ALL need to stand up to this shower of POSH BOYS who know the price of S.F.A. We got loads of support from the public in there cars although our march was causing tail backs and a lot of them pumped there horns in support of us marchers. I tend to think that Scam..er..on and his mob of dick heads will not listen and think the Unions are right it will take a general strike to bring this shower to listen to the 90% of the UK, and one day general strike would not work we would have to stay out until the Tory Posh Boys REALLY listened to the majority of the UK.

I take this opportunity to thank the police in Glasgow and the Union stewards for a trouble free march and the speakers at all the marches.

This is a update on your thread skywalker. I watched the second reading of the pension bill on the BBC Parliament channel and the lies where UNBELIEVABLE. According to Danny Alexander and his side kick Sahid Javid TWO THIRDS of the Unions have said they are OK with the changes in there pensions, I was on the march on the 20th October and every Union from the public sector was there marching "TO SAVE THERE PENSIONS" .

From what I heard even this bill will not stop them from changing there rights next year or anytime they want too, and to be honest it does not sound like it is a very good deal so I know the Unions would not agree to this pile of shyte.

So this shower of dick heads have just came out and decided to tell bloody "BARE FACED LIES they are not even trying to do there usual cover up Lies do they not have any shame at all. I think they are in need of my special gift of a "TIN of BRASSO and duster to "POLISH there BRASS NECKS.

Ed Miliband was 100% right in what he said at this march. as you cannot talk about what a government can do if elected on economics till at least the start of 2015. hell the Tories could not tell what is happening with the UK economy next week let alone by 2015.
 

Good post Stox I think they do not know what the right hand is doing with the left, what did you think of my earlier post regarding what Danny Alexander was saying about the public sector pensions. I was amazed it was only nine days since I had joined the marchers who where on the march to save there pensions and jobs and yet here is the ginger dick head saying that the Unions had agreed to this gov't pension changes.

Good point --- but are the Lib Dem turkeys ready yet to vote for Christmas?

Personally, I'd LOVE to see the gov't defeated in a vote of no confidence - and goodness knows there are grounds - and getting rid now might save us from the torrent of filth and bile that is impending from the right wing press.

At some point the Fleet Street Filth Machine will also have 'do a job' on Clegg & Co., so as to leave the way for the Tory Hordes to have a clear run - unimpeded by any opposition which has not been subject to smears and lies.

The meek shall inherit the earth - if so, can Supermeek Miliband inherit Downing Street...? As they say in Inverness - I hae me doots...

Phil Hornby wrote:-
At some point the Fleet Street Filth Machine will also have 'do a job' on Clegg & Co

You may recall that in the 2010 election campaign, Clegg was widely perceived to have ‘won’ the first of the leaders’ debates. On the very next morning, Osborne summoned some of the Tories’ poodles in the media to get them to post some anti-Clegg stories. One that immediately surfaced was how Clegg at the age of 16 was arrested after setting fire to some cacti in Munich. If Osborne had known what a Tory lapdog he was dealing with, he surely wouldn’t have bothered with the smear campaign.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Clegg

I did not recall that, but such a story now would surely enhance Clegg's standing amongst Tories as providing evidence of his being a staunch anti-European.

 After all, growing those (doubtless standard prescribed-sized) cacti in the first place must have been some sort of symbol of the German's intention to create a Euro Superstate...   

Mel wrote:"FEMALES ONLY"

Well they nearly got there OW, with Georgina Gideon Osborne, Davinia Cameron, Fanny Alexander and Nlckhole Clegg. Not forgetting Erica Pickles.
All a load of old tarts, or should I say farts?

Thanks Mel I thought it was only me that had noticed what a bunch of FANNIES this gov't is, there will be a lot coming out to the UK about there true sexuallity   

Maria Miller: Another Rotten Apple in Cameron’s Cabinet of Crooks
 
"As Maria Miller is rightly hounded out of office and hopefully into the courts for her egregious abuse of privilege, many are pointing out that she is but one rotten cog in a thoroughly rotten machine. So if we want real change – the prosecution of Maria Miller is where we start, not where we stop.

We have a political system which helps those who help themselves to public money. Corporations and cabinet members are in cahoots to asset strip the state – the schools, the hospitals, the libraries, the community centres, the playgrounds, the parks, the housing, even the roads and bridges. They want to commercialise the whole lot – all those things that we built and paid for as a nation, they want to sell and profit from as a tiny elite. We build it, we pay for it, they sell it to their mates at knock down prices and rent it back to us at exorbitant rates.

In light of the scale of corruption around us, some argue holding Maria Miller to account is a waste of time. The opposite is true. It is precisely because Parliament is so crooked that we need to be utterly relentless in chasing down every last crooked one of them – and as their numbers deplete, we have a better chance of changing the whole shoddy system itself."
 
For the rest of this article:-
http://www.scriptonitedaily.com/2014/04/07/maria-miller-another-rotten-apple-in-camerons-cabinet-of-crooks/

IVAN Even Tory voters think Miller should go, more than likely Davy boy thinking is "There but for the Grace of God go I" along with most of the Tory MPs, I suppose all we need to do is sit back and wait for the next one to be found out to have been fiddling there expenses.

Cameron's zombie government is out of ideas and out of steam
 
Extracts from an article by Angela Eagle:-
 
People don't understand why Cameron is on their TV saying the economy is improving when they are still struggling to make ends meet. They don't understand why Osborne crows about unemployment statistics when their zero-hours contract won't guarantee them a basic income, give them any security, or allow them to plan their life. And they don't understand why millionaires have been given a tax cut while the rest of us pay more.

Cameron claimed he would "cut the cost of politics" but this is the biggest government since reliable records began, with 121 Ministers, 95 Special Advisers and 160 new peers since 2010. The House of Lords is the largest legislative assembly outside of Beijing. The government has grown in size but has seriously diminished in purpose. We have day after day with no legislation to discuss, and a government that seems completely unprepared to take the big decisions our country needs.

Labour would create new long-term predictable tenancies and freeze gas and electricity prices until 2017. We'd tackle tax unfairness by cutting tax for working people. We'd stop jobs being undercut by foreign workers by enforcing the national minimum wage. We'd give unemployed young people a job guarantee. We'd help working parents with 25 hours free childcare. We’d guarantee a GP appointment within 48 hours. We’d back small business by cutting business rates and reforming the banks. We wouldn't ignore this crisis in our living standards.
 
For the whole article:-
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/06/camerons-zombie-government-out-ideas-and-out-steam

She is so right - but about two months late - after the local and Euro elections, isn't any call to democracy just going to encourage the nasty Nigel and his pals?

The UKIP dedication to democracy would evaporate the moment they achieved control. One man - One Vote - Once.

Bobby I hope your wrong on one point (Labour does not want to win the 2015 G.E.)  But do agree that the people of the UK should have done something about the coalition gov't "A LONG TIME AGO". I have been hoping they people would find their backbone and stand up to this shower as there are more of us then them and think as soon as the UK stands up to them they would disappear very quickly.