Taking sides: the dividing lines of British politics

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Fantastic article from the "New Statesman", sums up politics as is?

Taking sides: the dividing lines of British politics

All parties love the easy, polarising rhetoric of “us” against “them” – but how distinct are their ideas?

By Rafael Behr, Published 31 January 2013

There is a reliable way to tell if David Cameron is rattled. When the Prime Minister is on shaky ground, he hurls the charge of being “left-wing” at Ed Miliband as if it were the foulest thing he could say within the bounds of parliamentary protocol. The “Red Ed” label has never been a plausible line of attack but it is a comforting fiction for senior Conservatives who deride the Labour leader’s agenda as a slide into unelectable socialism.

Take time out from tribalism and read the article!

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/politics/2013/01/taking-sides-dividing-lines-british-politics

Ivan wrote:

sickchip wrote:-
With all due respect there is not a chance of Labour, in its present incarnation, winning the next election.

If Labour isn’t going to win the next election, who is? Can you really see the Tories breaking with all the trends of the last forty years and increasing their percentage of the vote? Can you really see anyone who wasn’t taken in by Cameron’s deceit in 2010 switching to the Tories next time? Do you even think that all of those who thought it was ‘safe’ to vote Tory in 2010 - because Cameron promised not to mess with the NHS - will stick with the nasty party?
 
I don’t think there’s a snowflake’s chance in hell of the Tories increasing their share of the vote and winning a majority, and the bookies seem to agree with me:-
http://www.oddschecker.com/politics-and-election/next-uk-general-election/overall-majority

I think it's the current stories that are giving everybody the jitters Ivan, all it needs is for Ed Miliband and Len McCluskey to get to the bottom of what has happened in Falkirk and then explain the ties between the Labour party and the Unions to the UK people.  You're right about who is going to vote Tory at the general election in 2015, only people in the Asylum if the Tories have not sold it or given it to one of their business friends.

The Independent Labour Party was founded in 1893, and Keir Hardie was its first MP. Its aim was to crystallize into one party a wide range of working class and socialist bodies that included the trade unions, the Fabian Society, supporters of Christian socialism and Owenism, the Scottish Labour Party and local independent Labour Party groupings.
 
In other words, the Labour Party was intended to be a broad coalition of the left, and in my opinion it still should be an alliance of social democrats and socialists. Nobody should be “fighting for the soul of the party”; everyone should be working together to defeat the Tories and prevent them from doing any more damage to the people and the fabric of this country.
 
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the storm in a teacup in Falkirk, working class candidates are under-represented in the Labour Party, and it appears that Unite is trying to address that problem. At the same time, Ed Miliband is right to stand up to Labour’s biggest donor and tell it to stop interfering so blatantly.
 
It’s a pity that the Tories don’t have the guts to stand up to their City and big business backers, or even to Lynton Crosby, who has seen to it that government policies have been changed because of his interests in tobacco and alcohol. On 9 February 2011, ‘The Guardian’ reported that 50% of Tory funds come from the City, and the Tories have accepted 744 donations totalling £20 million from private health firms who now benefit from the NHS carve-up. Time and again, contracts have been awarded to Tory Party donors. When John Nash gave £300,000 to the Tories, Iain Duncan Smith gave him a £73 million workfare contract, Gove made him a schools minister and then Cameron gave him a peerage. That’s the sleaze and corruption which the media should be concentrating on, not a little local difficulty in one of 650 constituencies.
 
Zak Goldsmith, the Tory MP for Richmond Park, offered to resign his seat last year so that Boris Johnson could become an MP again and oust Cameron. Is that how constituency parties should work? Or should local parties choose their candidates the Labour way, where only candidates who have won nominations from branches of ordinary party members are able to make it onto the final shortlist that goes forward to an all-member ballot?

You are living in a fantasy world if you think Labour are going to win the next election.

Ed hasnt got the courage of his convictions.....If he did then he wouldn't agree with the Tory Austerity measures and would offer a more left wing alternative. Surely you would all agree that is what Ed should be doing as you believe the LEFT was is the best way...and if that is the case the public would then vote for Labour...Am I right?

You've hit the nail on the head there blue "vote labour and get the same as you have".

A great article you really need to read this!


The big problem isn't Unite ... it's Labour
Ian Bell
Columnist
Sunday 7 July 2013

PICKING a Labour candidate for Falkirk shouldn't be hard.

Stick a pin anywhere in a list of people who do not bear the name Eric Joyce and you have already done the voters a favour. Problem solved.

Had someone come up with that ploy, a lot of grief could have been avoided. While Unite and Labour grandees tear lumps from one another, while the Scottish party is made to look inept and irrelevant, while Tories enjoy their sport and a shadow cabinet member resigns, a bit of perspective might therefore be required.

After Joyce, does it matter who gets the job for life? Outshining the individual who became the first MP to run up a cumulative £1 million in expenses before preoccupying the tabloids, the courts and the Commons authorities barely counts as a challenge.


http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/the-big-problem-isnt-unite-its-labour.21535513

If ever the Labour Party were to take advice from such as the preceding  pair of postings, it would be akin to Adam and Eve listening to the serpent in Genesis 2 and 3.





Adam and Eve expelled from Eden, detail of a Baroque pulpit

If Labour were to take advice from that pair they would be able to tell Labour they could always tell us how to FIDDLE figures unemployment for example, or maybe how to hack phones and get away with it or how to fix the bank Libor rates OW.

Ironically Redflag all the above was going on while Labour were in government, now that's a bummer for you isn't it.... 

So come on now try and answer the question left inclined posters....If the LEFT is the best way to govern, why isn't Ed and the Labour party going in that direction? Are we to take it that Left wing politics just don't work?

blueturando wrote:Ironically Redflag all the above was going on while Labour were in government, now that's a bummer for you isn't it.... 

So come on now try and answer the question left inclined posters....If the LEFT is the best way to govern, why isn't Ed and the Labour party going in that direction? Are we to take it that Left wing politics just don't work?

 
 
Of course they were going on when Labour was in power blue, since it was Thatcher who de-regulated the banks in 1986, just as she fixed the MPs' expenses so they could have a pay rise without the public finding out, because she was not prepared to give the public sector pay rise because we were in recession again - one law for them and another for US.   Look how that ended, MPs from all parties causing a scandal in 2009.
 
It is very obvious to see that right wing politics do not work, this incompetent gov't has proved that time after time and until the Labour party gets into power during this time of Austerity we will never know if left wing politics work or not, so I think you should take heed to the old proverb "Those that Live in Glass Houses should not Throw Stones"

Why the Tories hate the trade unions
 
 
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BOrOZF9CQAMafAF.jpg

Maybe more people would join unions if they could decide that none of their contribution was going to a political party, but just to help fund the unions in the fight for their members working rights....Or maybe Tory or Lib dem union members could make sure a percentage of their contributions went to their party of choice...Fair is fair after all

blueturando wrote:-
maybe Tory or Lib dem union members could make sure a percentage of their contributions went to their party of choice

They can. All they have to do is to opt out of the political levy, which forms part of their subscription. Then they can send that money to the party of their choice.

Why should a union member (some unions don't mention the levies) have to opt out, surely in a democracy they should be allowed to opt in. Don't forget only 37% of unite members are labour voters.

Personally I joined the union to fight for my working rights not donate my subs to a political party whoever they are, that would my choice alone.

And, as Ivan has pointed out, you have the choice to opt out - it's just a box to tick on the application form.
I do assume you read things before you sign them?

tlttf. I'd like the chance to opt out of making donations to the Tory Party when I purchase goods and services, but as I often can't tell which companies are donating, it's impossible. Pity that you don't focus on that, especially as you are so 'independent' these days (in your dreams).

Not all Unions are affiliated to the Labour party; Unite and Unison & GMB if I have got this wrong, I am certain that Ivan will put me right, but I think that tittf would do better to look at his own party funding City of London bankers hedge fund managers and of course Tory Lords who keep their money in off shore accounts (tax avoiders).   We have also found out the people that have shares in Pay Day Loans (Wonga & Quick Quid) this alone should let the people out there that voted Tory in the 2010 G.E.
 
Not forgetting the dinners Cameron had at No10 and Chequers for £250,000 donation to Tory party funds plus for dessert they got to change policy. One that put more money into their businesses, Lord Beecroft, is one of those and thanks to Cameron Workers rights are being eroded away, that one came from Lord Beecroft.
 
So before the Tories try telling the Labour party how to run its party, I would suggest they "PUT THEIR OWN HOUSE IN ORDER"

The Trade Union Act of 1984 requires that unions hold a ballot every ten years on whether to have a political fund.
 
These are the fifteen unions which are affiliated to the Labour Party:-
http://www.labour.org.uk/tulo

I appreciate you can opt out boatlady, some of the unions don't mention the levie fullstop. Nothing to do with reading the paperwork, my union doesn't support any party as they're far too busy doing what they're meant to do which is negotiating with management and ensuring the workforce is in touch with company plans. Politics and work don't mix very well.

tlttf wrote:I appreciate you can opt out boatlady, some of the unions don't mention the levie fullstop. Nothing to do with reading the paperwork, my union doesn't support any party as they're far too busy doing what they're meant to do which is negotiating with management and ensuring the workforce is in touch with company plans. Politics and work don't mix very well.

I think you should tell that one to Cameron and his cohorts, after privatizing OUR NHS most of the Tory MPs have shares in companies that supply the NHS with medical items.

You also seem to have memory loss pretend or otherwise where the Labour party came from and if it was not for THREE Agriculture workers in 1830 you would not have your Union to fight for your pay rises and conditions within work, so I would say too you a litttle less of Kettle & Black.

I would also recommend you sort your own party out before you start talking about the Labour party, example allowing Tory donors to put forward policies for gov't laws that benefit there companies and where there donations come from, most of Tory Lords keep there money in off shore accounts hence not paying there fair amount of tax that goes into the treasury, so go fix your own party until there is no shady dealing within it then come back and tell us how to run our party. 

blueturando said:
Maybe more people would join unions if they could decide that none of their contribution was going to a political party, but just to help fund the unions in the fight for their members working rights....Or maybe Tory or Lib dem union members could make sure a percentage of their contributions went to their party of choice...Fair is fair after all

 
Hello Bluey. How are you keeping?.
What you say is all very well and fair, but do the large corporations that donate to the Conservatives hold a referendum as do the trades unions or even offer an opt out to their shareholders, Just a thought.

Looking for a party funding scandal? Try David Cameron's Conservatives
 
Extracts from an article by Aditya Chakrabortty:-
 
We know how much Unite gives Labour because it's all fully checkable on the Electoral Commission's website. Finding out who writes the cheques for the Tories is far harder. Cameron's funders seem to prefer channelling their money through conduits, or splitting the cash between multiple donors.

Through their forensic investigation into Tory funding, Stephen Crone and Stuart Wilks-Heeg discovered that some of the largest contributors would give a few hundred thousand. But then a funny thing could be spotted in the accounts: other family members would chip in, as well as their business ventures.

The Tories talked tough on banking reform before the election but have done so little since. That may have something to do with the money the City gives them. In 2010, donations from financial services accounted for over half of all Tory funding. The City has plenty to show for its investment. Across Europe, countries are pushing ahead with plans for a small levy on financial transactions to start next year, while Britain is part of a small band of refuseniks, along with such other giants of financial regulation as Malta and Luxembourg. Osborne made a priority of cutting the 50p tax for the super-rich. As one major hedge fund donor told ‘The Financial Times’, "among those who give significant amounts to the party, it's a big issue.”

Westminster and the press are still ruled by the idea that if workers' representatives seek to influence politics they must be bullies, but if capitalists get their way, then that's inevitably good for capitalism. Five years on from the banking crisis and all the evidence to the contrary, that really is a link that needs ending.
 
For the entire article:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/08/party-funding-scandal-david-cameron-conservatives

LTTF said:
  they're far too busy doing what they're meant to do which is negotiating with management and ensuring the workforce is in touch with company plans.
 
Watcha Landy, You've got me all in a muddle here mate.
 
 
 
I was always under the impression that the last thing a Trades Union was set up for is solely to look after the interests of the company by ensuring "the workforce is in touch with Company plans".
 
I thought that they where started to oppose any plans that may be either unfairly rewarded or too dangerous for the workforce and to get the workers a fair deal. I really cant get my head around a worker paying his/her trades Union fees just to enable the bosses to get more out of them for less?.

tlttf wrote:-
Politics and work don't mix very well.

LOL. That has to be the most ridiculous comment posted on Cutting Edge this year – and you’ve provided plenty from which to choose.  
 
Just about everything connected with work is political. Whether your place of work is part of the private or public sector, your employment rights (which right-wing Tories and UKIP want to destroy), health and safety provision, and of course your wage, the minimum amount of which is decided by Parliament. The management want to pay you as little as they can get away with, while the workers want to be paid what they actually earn. There is no greater theatre for the conflict between capital and labour than the workplace.

So before the Tories try telling the Labour party how to run its party, I would suggest they "PUT THEIR OWN HOUSE IN ORDER

Redflag.....The Tories are not trying to tell Labour what to do, it's Ed Miliband who has suddenly hit the panic button over this issue and I am at a loss to see why he is going down this route ...Its a lose..lose situation for him and the party

On a more serious note and getting away from party politics for a minute...Isn't it about time that we had tax payer contributions to our political parties rather than outside influences such as the Unions and corporate/private doners in effect paying for favours and their own candidates. We may actually then get politicians who have more courage to go with their plans rather than those of a fee paying minority group 

Hello Bluey. How are you keeping?.
What you say is all very well and fair, but do the large corporations that donate to the Conservatives hold a referendum as do the trades unions or even offer an opt out to their shareholders, Just a thought

Hello Bobby, I am very well thank you sir and I hope you are well too. Yes you do have a point, which is why I believe the whole funding situation HAS to change.

If the Labour party lose millions in revenue from these changes than they could become a less potent force and I do not want to see a weak and ineffectual opposition no matter who is in government...All governments need to be called to account, questioned and challenged on their policies

blueturando. The Tories have been trying to tell Labour what to do. Having failed to gerrymander the parliamentary constituencies, their next plans have been to stop automatic voter registration (just as the Republicans in the USA have been trying to restrict who gets to vote) and to squeeze Labour of funds. That's to prevent it from competing on a level playing field against them, while they swill around in corrupt donations from well-rewarded private healthcare firms. The Tory plan was to restrict individual donations to parties, counting the thousands of tiny contributions from the members of a union as just one donation. But then fairness has always been in short supply when Tories are around.
 
Underestimate Ed Miliband at your peril. Yes, he comes across as an earnest, honest and likeable man, but he’s also made of steel. He stood against his older brother because he wanted to offer something different from just a clone of Blair. He, aided by evidence from Tom Watson, made all the running over phone-hacking and thereby prevented Murdoch from being handed the rest of BSkyB, which was part of the deal for Murdoch nearly winning the 2010 election for the Tories.
 
I think Ed knows exactly what he’s doing. He’ll win a lot of brownie points from his comment that “in the twenty-first century, it just doesn’t make sense for anyone to be affiliated to a political party unless they have chosen to do so”. He’s said today – what some of us have been saying in private for a long time – that Labour should have more ordinary working people as candidates. But above all, he’s setting up the Tories. “Transparency” was the key word in his speech, and it looks as if when he comes to power in 2015, he’s going after the Tories for the shady way in which they accumulate money, and because so many of them (and a few Labour MPs) have jobs outside of Parliament. He’s going to say: “If we can be transparent, so can you!” This is a part of his speech, the rest of it is available via the link:-
 
“The question of MPs second outside jobs has been discussed but not properly addressed for a generation.

The British people expect their MPs to be representing them and the country not anyone else.

They understand that Members of Parliament need to keep connected to the world beyond Westminster and will always write articles and give speeches.

But can it be right that the rules allow MPs to earn hundreds of thousands of pounds from private legal practice while they are supposed to be an MP?

Or from outside corporations without any real form of regulation?

We will change things in the next Parliament.

That is why I believe that at the very least there should be new limits on outside earnings, like they have in other countries.

And new rules on conflict of interests too.”
 
http://www.labour.org.uk/one-nation-politics-speech
 
Taxpayer funding of political parties sounds like a simple answer to the problem of people or organisations buying influence, but the issues which that throws up are complex, though I guess not insurmountable. First and foremost, how would the money be allocated? According to the number of seats each party won at the last election? Or number of votes? Would that be fair, so that the winner last time gets more money to spend on convincing voters next time? (Maybe it could be allocated on the basis of average results over the previous four or five general elections.) And what about European and council elections, shouldn’t they count? For instance, UKIP managed only 3% in the last general election but always does better in EU elections. As you can see, state funding of parties would require a lot of fine tuning, and it might even make voters display more disdain for politicians than they do now, if they thought their money was being used to fund their politics, as well as their salaries and inflated expenses as at present.

blueturando wrote:
Redflag.....The Tories are not trying to tell Labour what to do, it's Ed Miliband who has suddenly hit the panic button over this issue and I am at a loss to see why he is going down this route ...Its a lose..lose situation for him and the party

On a more serious note and getting away from party politics for a minute...Isn't it about time that we had tax payer contributions to our political parties rather than outside influences such as the Unions and corporate/private doners in effect paying for favours and their own candidates. We may actually then get politicians who have more courage to go with their plans rather than those of a fee paying minority group 

Yes they are trying to tell Labour on how it should run its party, not because they want transparency in Labour, it's all for political reasons, they know that they're not getting back into power in 2015 and are becoming DESPERATE and will use anything to blacken the name of the Labour party in the eyes of the people of the UK. What he does not grasp is what he is doing to the people of the UK is the reason he will not get back in.  I would take a look at the report in Ivan's post blue, it makes very interesting reading as to the funding of the Tory party, so I would suggest that Cameron cleans up his own back yard before he talks about the Labour party.
 
When the story of the £250,000 dinners that Scameron held in No10 or Chequers he said that he would investigate it, but it waas hushed up and swept under the carpet until recently and it was leaked that he made £700,000 from those dinner for Tory party funds.
 
How would we the tax payers afford to pay for the political parties? We have been told for the last 42 months that the UKs credit card is maxed out we are SKINT, yet the Tories seem to be able to find money for HS2 and that is not chicken feed, plus find the money to pay for advisors (NONE ELECTED) the Tories have put into the Dept of Education and he will not be working for BUTTONS.

If Ed keeps taking right turns he might shake off enough Labour voters to lose the next election.

Distancing Labour from unions is a betrayal to ordinary working people. He has donned the badge of big business, and neo-liberal ideals whilst diluting the power of Unions - the very organisations that are there to defend the rights of ordinary workers.

When you couple that with Labour's recent admissions that they would retain all of the current governments policies on welfare, etc, one can only conclude that there are not just two parties in the current coalition - but that the 'opposition' Labour party form the triumvirate and are the third part of the coalition government.

First Thatcher diluted union power and now a Labour party leader follows suit....unfukingbelievable!

Frankly it's astonishing that the Labour party faithful (blind?) here can see no wrong in Ed and his gang of ex Blairites.

I may be wrong, but it looks to me as if Ed Miliband hates Cameron as much as most of us:-
 

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BOlTBFrCAAAqqAg.jpg

Looks more like he's giving Alex Salmon the evils as he is trying to remove half of the Labour vote via independence

Red and Ivan....I do not care much for the way the Tory party is funded either, but once again your hypocrisy does you no favours. The Labour Party receives almost just as much in private donations as the Tories....so once again your argument is lost. Just once in a while I would like to see you take the blinkers off and then maybe people like us who are interested in politics would actually get somewhere

Donations and public funds received by political parties in 2012

Conservative

Donations (£'s) 13,801,282

Public Funds 311,083

Total 14,112,365



Labour

Donations (£'s) 12,036,055

Public Funds 7,378,958

Total 19,415,013

Source: Electoral Commission (pdf)

http://www.ukpolitical.info/Donations.htm

If you had been watching the news on tv yesterday (sky news 24), according to the reporter it was MUCH EASIER to check on line Labour party donations than the Tory party donations, what I want to know why make it so hard to find out where Tory party donations come from ??  Have they got something to hide ? or perhaps they do want to let the public know that some of what the Tories get come from companies that have been given LUCRATIVE gov't contracts.

blueturando wrote:-
The Labour Party receives almost just as much in private donations as the Tories.

No it bloody doesn’t. "They're all as bad as each other" is a tired, lazy lie, used by those hoping to negate an argument which they know they’ve lost. The usual follow-up is to try and rubbish the sources which prove them wrong, so here’s your chance to do that.
 
This is part of an article by Aditya Chakrabortty:-
 
Cameron's funders seem to prefer channelling their money through conduits, or splitting the cash between multiple donors. When it comes to concentration of funding, the opacity over where the cash comes from and the overlap between policy and donor interests, the Conservatives look far more corrupted.

Between 2001 and summer 2010, Wilks-Heeg and Crone found donations from Anthony Bamford, Mark Bamford, George Bamford, JCB Bamford Excavators, JCB Research, and JCB World Brands. Tot that up and you get a contribution to the Conservative Party from the Bamford family of £3,898,900. But you'd need to be an expert sleuth with plenty of time and resources to tot it up.

One family: nearly £4m. Wilks-Heeg and Crone found that 15 of these families or "donor groups" account for almost a third of all Tory funding. They enjoy trips to Chequers, dinners in Downing Street and a friendly prime ministerial ear. Lord Irvine Laidlaw stuffed over £6 million into Conservative pockets over a decade and, one of his former staffers told the Mail, liked to boast about his influence over party leaders: "William's [Hague] in my pocket".
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/08/party-funding-scandal-david-cameron-conservatives
 
I expect you’ll want to rubbish ‘Private Eye’ as well, for its research into Mrs Windsor's birthday honours. According to Cameron’s office, the list “saluted those playing their part to create a Big Society” (or do they mean ‘Beg Society?). Judging by the list, it’s a big society of Tory-donating financiers, arms bosses and dubious civil servants:-
 
http://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=hp_sauce&issue=1343
 
Highlighting one set of figures from the mid-term of a parliament, as you’ve done, proves nothing. If you look again at the source which you provided, you might compare the party donations for 2010, when a general election was held and when the Tories received well over £31 million. Furthermore, the figures only show donations to the party and don’t include the backhanders to scum like Andrew Lansley from private healthcare companies waiting for their rewards.

Thank you Ivan for answering this question from blue for better than myself, I did not think that the Labour party gets donations from City of London bankers or hedge fund managers, or getting back handers from those that run the private health sector or private health Insurance.  I did hear that the private health sector in the USA was rubbing its hands at the thought of been able to plunder the UK for private health & Insurance, but they have not thought this through properly where in Gods name are people going to get the money to pay for private health or private health Insurance ??

Has anyone noticed that there seems to be an imbalance in the way Westminster politicians are funded?

What can the Electors do about that?

sickchip wrote:-
Labour's recent admissions that they would retain all of the current governments policies on welfare……it's astonishing that the Labour party faithful (blind?) here can see no wrong in Ed and his gang of ex Blairites…..first Thatcher diluted union power and now a Labour party leader follows suit

It’s time for you to start worrying when you get compliments from blueturando, but I’m relieved to see that you still support Labour.  
 
No doubt you consider me to be part of the “blind party faithful”, but I was taught as a kid never to wash dirty linen in public and that’s stayed with me. Criticising Labour just supplies ammunition to the Tories, and I never want to do anything to help those sick and vicious spivs. When I have concerns, I express them to the appropriate people in private emails.
 
Labour has not said that it will “retain all of the current government’s policies on welfare”, that’s the sort of half-truth that we’ve come to expect from Tories, not lefties! Labour has said that “we won't be able to reverse the cuts in day to day, current spending unless it is fully funded from savings elsewhere or extra revenue”. The Tories removed the government’s duty to provide health care; Labour has pledged to restore that and to repeal the Health and Social Care Act (otherwise known as the NHS Privatisation Act). That in itself is worth a vote for Labour.
 
Thatcher diluted union power by deliberately creating mass unemployment and passing restrictive legislation; Ed Miliband is not planning to do either of those things. Can we really argue with him when he says: “I do not want any individual to be paying money to the Labour Party in affiliation fees unless they have deliberately chosen to do so”? He says he wants to “do more, not less, to mobilise individual trade union members to be part of our party”. Nothing wrong with that, is there?
 
After May 2015, there will either be a Labour government or a continuation of the current Tory nightmare. At any election, plenty of voters end up choosing what they consider to be the least-worst option. When Ed comes to power (and he will, because left-inclined anti-coalition voters have, realistically, nowhere else to go), he will be able to say that Labour finances are transparent. He will then be in a strong position to crack down on the corrupt way the Tories finance themselves.

oftenwrong wrote:Has anyone noticed that there seems to be an imbalance in the way Westminster politicians are funded?

What can the Electors do about that?

A very uneven balance OW, the reason is labour do not take back handers from the people that put us in this mess Bankers bail out and yes I am harping on but if my harping on makes the bankers attempt to pay back what the Labour gov't had to do I would be well pleased and stop my harping on.

Miliband is remaking Labour as a true people's party
 
From an article by Owen Smith MP:-
 
"Will Cameron match Ed’s pledge to do something about MPs holding down jobs outside Parliament? It’s anathema to most of our constituents and the vast majority of Labour MPs, but second nature to so many on the Tory benches. Don’t hold your breath. Or will he do something to acknowledge the rottenness of a small number of hugely wealthy individual donors bankrolling the operations of the Conservative Party? No longer Lord Ashcroft, perhaps, but there are plenty of others queuing up to buy patronage and policy. Don’t take my word for it: just follow the money to seats in the Lords, the tax cuts for millionaires and the corporate bank accounts that the Treasury can’t or won’t touch.

The contrast in British politics and the choice that the British people will face at the next election is clearer than ever. Labour under Ed Miliband wants a new politics and a new deal for the British people: one based on transparency and openness, fairness and trust, the interests of the many not the few. We are clear that Britain needs stronger trade unions, with more members and stronger rights and representation in public and private sectors. Their decline over the last 30 years has seen a fall in wages, living standards and social solidarity that Labour is committed to reversing. But Labour is equally clear that the Falkirk fix and David Cameron’s crony Conservatism are the last gasp of the old politics, of a way of governing Britain which the British people are rejecting, and we are determined to consign them both to the past."
 
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/07/miliband-remaking-labour-true-peoples-party

Original with links at http://wp.me/p2sftc-8I7:

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a letter from DWP minister Mark Hoban, the contents of which showed utter contempt for fact, reason, and for the victims of his department’s so-called ‘reforms’.

It turns out that this contempt extends to his own party colleagues, too. His response to Tory MP for Macclesfield, David Rutley, was a rote regurgitation of nonsensical party soundbites, but if written for him specifically, it at least showed an attempt to genuinely communicate.

But Hoban has sent the exact same response to at least one more Tory colleague in response to a completely separate enquiry on behalf of a constituent – MP for Brighton Kemptown & Peacehaven, Simon Kirby:



The exact same response, apart from the names and date.

Clearly, the Tory front bench not only despises the ordinary public and especially the vulnerable – but also their own backbench colleagues. Or at least any of those who still care enough about their constituents’ welfare and opinions to bother to send in a question on their behalf.

Well done to those MPs – and shame on a pathetic minister from a malignant department, who can’t even be bothered to write a proper response to his own Parliamentary colleagues.

Various correspondents to this message-board seem to think that there is no "dividing line" between political parties, who simply await "Buggins' turn" to hold office.

Do you think that The Electorate share such an opinion, Steve?

oftenwrong wrote:Various correspondents to this message-board seem to think that there is no "dividing line" between political parties, who simply await "Buggins' turn" to hold office.

Do you think that The Electorate share such an opinion, Steve?

I agree with what you have said OW, I do not believe the Electorate will not share their opinion OW.