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Readers of this blog are unlikely to be "floating voters" who have not yet made up their minds which way to vote in today's General Election.

Please vote, tactically if necessary, for any candidate who is likely to unseat a Labour MP or to deny a Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidate victory in a marginal constituency.

Most of the decent Labour MPs (such as Andrew MacKinlay, Bob Marshall-Andrews, David Winnick etc. ), who have actually rebelled against their party leaders' authoritarian, pettifogging, nanny / police / surveillance state policies and the incompetent jobsworth bureaucracy ruled by a risk adverse / blame someone else, form filling tickbox culture they have created, are not standing for re-election today.

Hopefully some of the more odious former Labour Ministers such as Ed Balls, or those tainted by expenses scandals like Tony McNulty or Hazel Blears, or those in marginal constituencies like Jackie Smith (who ticks several boxes), will suffer electorally today.

If the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats do gain power tonight, this blog will oppose them also, if they renege on their promises to undo the wretched Labour policies which have eroded our freedoms and liberties and livelihoods.

[hat tip to Corruption Free Anguilla]

The Turks and Caicos Islands, a British Overseas Territory remnant of the British Empire, have been brought under direct British Government rule, again, this time because of property development scandals involving the local politicians and civil servants.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office press release:

A major step in clean up of public life in Turks and Caicos (14/08/2009)

[...]

FCO Minister, Chris Bryant, instructed the Governor of the Islands to bring into force an Order suspending ministerial government and the House of Assembly - among the main recommendations of Sir Robin Auld's Commission of Inquiry which was set up to look into possible corruption or other serious dishonesty by elected members of the legislature and which reported on 31 May.

Chris Bryant said:

"I welcome the decision on 12 August in the Court of Appeal to dismiss the appeal in the legal challenge to our proposed action to tackle corruption in the Turks and Caicos Islands. After careful consideration, I have instructed the Governor to bring into force today an Order in Council which will suspend ministerial government and the House of Assembly for a period of up to two years, to allow the Governor to put the Islands' affairs back in good order. The Order also suspends the constitutional right to trial by jury in the Turks and Caicos Islands which would provide the possibility in future of having trials by judge alone in the TCI Supreme Court in appropriate cases.

[...]

Gordon Wetherell, the Governor of the Turks and Caicos Islands said:

"With immediate effect, Ministerial government and the House of Assembly are suspended meaning that Cabinet will no longer exist and the House of Assembly is dissolved and Members' seats are vacated. The constitutional right to trial by jury is also suspended with immediate effect.

There are also links to an unfriendly, re-censored / re-redacted, no text copy and paste, image only Adobe (.pdf) version of the final report of among the main recommendations of Sir Robin Auld's Commission of Inquiry into the corruption.

However, you may prefer to read the full, unredacted version published by WikiLeakS.org, who simply took the incompetently censored Adobe (.pdf) version which was published in July, and copied the blacked out text to another editor, to reveal the censored text underneath.

See: Turks and Caicos Islands Commission of Inquiry into grand corruption, Final Report, unredacted, 18 Jul 2009

The Labour government and Foreign & Commonwealth Office Minister Chris Bryant, who has been involved in public scandals himself, should be asked to explain why, exactly,

The constitutional right to trial by jury is also suspended with immediate effect

Even if there is a suspicion that there will be jury tampering, when the allegedly corrupt handful of politicians, civil servants and property developers are brought to trial, this is a >strong>suspension of everyone's right to a trial by jury in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

How and why is that proportionate or just ?

Even the Diplock Courts set up in Northern Ireland, at the height of the terrorist Troubles, did not suspend jury trials for everyone, only in certain scheduled terrorism related cases.

Why do Labour politicians hate trial by jury so much ?

Why did the High Court Judges Lord Justice Carnwath and the Honourable Mr. Justice Mitting not stand up for the right to trial by jury, in the hearing brought by Michael Misick, the former Premier of the Turks and Caicos Islands ?

See BAILII: Misick, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs [2009] EWHC 1039 (Admin) (01 May 2009)

Why have the BBC and The Guardian and the Press Association all decided not to mention this unnecessary suspension of trial by jury, in addition to the removal of the allegedly corrupt politicians ?

Is this the sort of disproportionate diktat that we can expect here in the United Kingdom, if the Government invokes their Emergency enabling powers Civil Contingencies Act 2004 ?

Who is investigating the sleaze and corruption of British politicians and civil servants, and the revolving door whereby Ministers and senior Civil Servants magically end up working for companies or lobbyists for companies, which stand to gain large government contracts, from the Departments which they were recently in charge of ? The sums of money involved make the allegedly corrupt Turks and Caicos Islands deals look like small change.

The Independent has an article which quotes David Miliband on his controversial plans for "Individual Carbon Credits".

Presumably, this uncritical article, has been pumped out by the David Miliband's public relations spin doctors at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which ended up in after the latest NuLabour Cabinet re-shuffle.

Mr Miliband will suggest banning products such as inefficient light bulbs and electrical appliances which waste power while on standby.

Will this really save any energy at all, given that many devices which would have been left on standby, will , instead be left on at full power instead ?

He will suggest new environmental taxes to shift the cost of pollution on to consumers and propose that consumers might make automatic payments to offset pollution.

Who could possibly have guessed that NuLabour's policies would involve even more taxes aimed at consumers ?

He will say: "In the short term it is likely that a mixture of the above tools will be needed. But in the long term, we should look more radically at the option of tradable personal carbon allowances. Imagine a world where carbon becomes a new currency. We all carry carbon points on our bank cards in the same way as we carry pounds. We pay for electricity, gas and fuel not just with pounds but carbon points."

Remember that this is a Government which has spectacularly failed to implement something as comparatively simple as to the poorest families. Instead, there has been massive complexity, red tape, bureaucracy, genuine hardship as a direct result of bureaucratic incomptence, and massive, multi million pound frauds.

How would "Individual Carbon Points" be anything diffreent, except on an even larger scale ?

Why should such a complicated "Soviet Communist GOSPLAN centralised planning" style scheme like this one, ever have a chance of working at all ?

Why should anyone have to submit to the snooping of a bureaucratic "Carbon Means Test" , with all the dangers of privacy violations which that will inevitably create ?

Which "private sector" partners has David Milliband got in mind who would profit from such an artifficial market in "Carbon Points" ? Will they be tapped up for loans or donations to Labour Party funds ?

What is this inane and impractical talk of a nightmare "world where carbon becomes a new currency" ?

Surely Miliband knows that even in the UK, there are lots of people who do not have a bank account let alone "bank cards" on which their "carbon points" will somehow, magically, be traded securely.

Where is there any evidence that normal market pricing mechanisms will not achieve the aim of reducing carbon emissions in the UK?

We will be watching David Miliband's taxpayer funded blog, to see if he bothers to try to justify this "Individual Carbon Points" alternative currency malarkey.

The Health Bill-, which is set to ban smoking any "enclosed or subtantially enclosed" public place, workplace,, as well as alcohol licensed pubs, clubs and restaurants etc. in England and Wales (but not Scotland or Northern Ireland) is possibly admirable in its intent.

However, in typical NuLabour "nanny state" fashion, Members of Parliament will have no idea of the detail of what they are voting for or against, as it is another "enabling bill" which gives the Government the power to create Regulations, but does not even specify which public authorities will be responsible for enforcement.

The Explanatory Notes , which are not legally binding, mention Local Authorities, Environmental Health, and Health and Safety bodies, but not the Police.

It could be that none of these end up becoming the "no smoking" enforcers, or they all could, together with designated private security companies.

Where is the Regulatory Impact Assessment, and how much will it cost to enforce, and who will pay for this ?

Whoever ends up enforcing this smoking ban will be granted disproportionate "nanny state" powers against anybody who is deemed, in their opinion, to be "obstructing" them.

Presumably these people will be able to demand Identification and any other information which they feel that they can get away with e.g. the proposed Identity Card from people caught smoking in a "smoke free area":

11 Obstruction etc. of officers

(1) Any person who intentionally obstructs an authorised officer of an
enforcement authority, acting in the exercise of his functions under or by virtue of this Part, commits an offence.

(2) Any person who without reasonable cause fails to give to an authorised officer of an enforcement authority, acting in the exercise of his functions under or by virtue of this Part, any facilities, assistance or information which the authorised officer reasonably requires of him for the performance of those functions commits an offence.

(3) A person commits an offence if, in purported compliance with any
requirement of an authorised officer mentioned in subsection (2)

(a) he makes a statement which is false or misleading, and

(b) he either knows that it is false or misleading or is reckless as to whether it is false or misleading.

“False or misleading” means false or misleading in a material particular.

(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.

(5) If a direction of the appropriate national authority has effect under section 10(4), this section has effect, in relation to any case or case of a description specified in the direction, as if references to an authorised officer of an enforcement authority were to a person acting on behalf of the appropriate national authority.

A Level 3 fine on the Standard Scale is currently up to £1000

The Independent has a report about the shameful incompetence displayed by the NuLabour Government during the UK hosted EU Summit venues in Newport South Wales (Foreign Office) and near Newcastle in the North East (Home Office).

Not content with isolating themselves away from the general public, and by arresting peaceful NO2ID demonstrators before they even got near the Gosforth Park summit venue near Newcastle, to demonnstrate about Charles Clarke's incompetent Biometric Passport and ID Card plans, the NuLabour spin doctors have managed to damage the international repution of the United Kingdom by seriously pissing off the accredited journalists from the foreign press corps, and embarassing the United Kingdom which they are meant to represent in front of other European Union Ministers and diplomats.

"Sir John Grant, the UK's ambassador to the EU, expressed his "wholehearted regret" after poor logistics, heavy-handed security and disastrous IT marred high-profile events.

After two meetings in Britain, the continental media mocked Tony Blair's plea for Europe to compete in the information age, noting the lack of reliable internet access at the UK's gathering.

The failings of the British rail network have also been highlighted and the off-hand treatment of journalists has been portrayed as symbolic of the UK's coolness towards the EU.

Meanwhile, an official complaint has been made to the British embassy in Berlin after a German journalist was barred from a meeting because he asked for an idle X-ray machine to be used to cut waiting time at a security check."

This jobsworth bureacratic security theatre is typical of the attitude promoted by NuLabour - fail to catch or deter any real terrorists, but persecute and harass former friends and neutrals.

The Guardian Reports about the appointment of Yet Another Management Consultant from McKinsey & Company, David Bennett, who started work on 1st June as head of the controversial Downing Street Policy Unit.

"Downing Street yesterday declined to provide any details of Mr Bennett's appointment by not disclosing his six-figure salary, duties, hours or his age. A spokeswoman said: "No press release is being issued, and MPs will have to table questions if they want to ask about his salary or job."

The Guardian reports on a whole raft of NuLabour spin doctors and unelected, unaccountable political commissars who will, no doubt, continue meddling in various policy areas.

These people are neither civil servants nor elected politicians. How do we know that they are not in the pay of vested interests and lobbyists ?

The BBC reports on the remarkable result in Blaenau Gwent:

"Labour loses safest seat in Wales

Labour suffered a sensational defeat in its safest Welsh seat as Tony Blair secured an historic third term victory.

Independent former Labour AM Peter Law overturned a 19,000 majority in Blaenau Gwent to win by 9,121."

"Blaenau Gwent delivered by far the biggest shock. Mr Law, the local Welsh assembly member who left Labour in protest at the party's use of all-women shortlists to pick its candidate, received 20,505 votes, or 58% of the total"

Peter Law also overcame a recent operation for a brain tumour, to win this seat instead of NuLabour, who were seen to be trying to parachute in a London NuLabour candidate, rather than listening to the local people in Wales - the typical control freak behavior of soviet style appartchiki.

The result is still rather unexpected, and since Peter Law is also still a Member of the Welsh Assembly, NuLabour have technically lost their majority there as well.