Recently in Elections Category

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.

Gordon Brown has ramped up the pre-election "phoney war", with the peculiar propaganda slogan:

"A Future Fair For All"

This is apparently part of "Operation Fightback", a military / police style propaganda allusion, which, according to The Times, seems to have been stolen from the equally odious British National Party !

In an Orwellian attempt at re-writing history, Labour politicians are simply pretending that they have not been in power for 13 years, and are somehow not to blame for any of the mess which they have dragged the United Kingdom in to.

A more believable slogan promise from Labour would be:

"A Future Fail For All"

Do the electoral defeats for the Labour Party in the elections last Thursday mean that the "New Labour project" is now over ?

Incredibly,Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and now Home Secretary John Reid are still in their positions of power, as lame duck Ministers, awaiting the actual announcement of the date of the date when Tony Blair steps down as Prime Ministers, when they too gave said they will also resign.

Everyone now assumes that Gordon Brown will become Prime Minister, without any actual electoral mandate from the general public, and, apparently, without even a serious challenge from within the Labour party.

Does anyone know exactly what he stands for, and how he will be any different from Tony Blair ?

No doubt he will attempt to cling on to power right until the last moment in May 2010, the latest possible date for a General Election, at which point we fervently hope he will be kicked out of office.

It is hard to see what Gordon Brown's new Cabinet might look like, since there is such a dearth of actual talent amongst Labour MPs, that any re-shuffling of deckchairs on the Titanic, will be greeted with contempt by the public.

The labels "Brownite" and "Blairite" amongst the ranks of Ministers and their Special Advisers and spin doctors, seem so meaningless - they are all Labour politicians and, for the most part, all seem to exhibit Orwellian doublethink i.e. "the act of holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously, fervently believing both.".

Who will replace Gordon Brown as Chancellor ? The candidates he appears to have been grooming over the years seem to be Alastair Darling and Ed Balls.

Almost anyone (with the obvious exceptions of David Blunkett and Charles Clarke) must be better than John Reid as Home Secretary, in charge of the rump of the Home Office the new "Ministry of Injustice".

Will former Home Office Minister and current chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, John Denham be brought in to this role ? He at least is familiar with the ongoing problems of the Home Office.

Or will former Home Secretary Jack Straw come back from the wilderness of Leader of the Commons, to this role, due to his loyal sycophancy in running Brown's "coronation" campaign ?

As to other Cabinet positions, who knows ? Will Brown purge all the alleged "Blairites" and bring in some fresh faces from the dubious ranks of the Labour backbenches ?

Presumably blogging MP Tom Watson will get some sort of Junior Ministerial reward for his efforts in helping to call for Blair's resignation.

No doubt the alleged rising star, David Miliband will be kept in the Cabinet, but given some poisoned chalice position, to weaken any possible post 2010 election challenge to Gordon Brown.

Until the new Cabinet is announced, the next 2 or 3 months will mean the complete paralysis of the UK Government regarding public policy decisions, which might affect Ministers' and top Civil Servants' old or new empires and power bases.

The Sunday Times hints at the Channel 4 TV programme "Dispatches Investigation: The Dirty Tricks Election", due to be broadcast this Monday 23rd May 2005, at 20:00, (no details yet on their website):

"Meanwhile, the Labour party is braced for criticism over dirty tricks during the election. A Channel 4 Dispatches programme will tell of an undercover reporter’s experiences inside Labour HQ during the election.

Jenny Kleeman will reveal how fake letters were sent to local newspapers to show support for Labour’s achievements. She will also describe how Alan Milburn, the campaign co-ordinator, and Campbell used to “high five” in the middle of the office.

"I witnessed extraordinary examples of the kind of foul-mouthed bullying and everyday mendacity that are the common currency of Labour’s male-dominated media organisation," she said."

The Observer goes into more detail:

"How Labour used its election troops to fake popular support

Documentary shows activists writing letters to newspapers and posing as 'local people' to greet Blair on campaign trail

Although Guido Fawkes has a theory about how the dubious NuLabour election emails, some, apparently with tracking "web bugs" hidden in the HTML code (for those dim enough to allow their email software to automatically display them), we have to agree with Talk Politics that, unfortunately, there are enough exemptions in the Data Protection Act 1998 to make it pretty useless in the case of someone who has knowingly signed up to be sent political emails from NuLabour.

Thankfully, not having received any NuLabour email spam, someone else will have to determine if any of the NuLabour election emails were sent via, say, email servers in the USA, in which case, given the Labour Party's Data Protection Register entry, it would be in breach of the Data Protection Act, as they claim not to send personal data outside of the European Economic Area. However, yet again, there is implied consent, if you signed up for political emails to be sent to, for example, your USA based hotmail or aol account.

This also applies equally to any other political party, and also, for example to the intelligence insulting junk snail mail we got, from the Conservatives, despite having opted out of the "let's sell this personal data to direct marketing companies" full Electoral Roll.

The several Conservative Campaign Headquarters junk letters supposedly "personally" from Michael Howard, were not addressesd in quite same way as the single local constituency generated junk letter, which stuck to the name and address format as it appears on the Electoral Roll. The NuLabour and the Liberal Democrat constituency generated junk mail also stuck to the Electoral Roll name address format.

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.

How much did the strong local NO2ID Campaign in Cambridge, who are against the NuLabour ID card and database state plans, contribute to Anne Campbell's defeat ?

Did NO2ID have any influence on the reduction of the majority of one of the most pro-ID Card NuLabour MPs Martin Linton, in Battersea, to only 163 ?

If only NO2ID had the same number of volunteers and the funding of the pro hunting Vote OK organisation.

It is hard to categorise The Guardian newspaper. On the one hand they are perfectly capable of printing the slimiest NuLabour rubbish, but now and then they do allow an opposing opinion, like this article by Gary Younge which nicely deconstructs some of Peter Hain's spin and the rich NuLabour apologists and supporters who supposedly chatter about politics at their London dinner parties.

We will mirror this article below (with our emphasis), in case it mysteriously disappears from The Guardian's online archives, like Duncan Campbell's "The ricin ring that never was" story.

Has the UK electorate really gone insane ?

The major bookies like William Hill seem to be sure that NuLabour are odds on favourites to win the General Election on Thursday.

Various newspapers such as The Sunday Telegraph and The Scotsman and are speculating on the basis of alleged leaks, about nighmare scenarios such as the imminent return of the disgraced former Home Secretary David Blunkett, who should be facing the criminal charge of misconduct in a public office, rather than the prospect of being back into a position of power in the Cabinet.

Will there be a last minute swing against NuLabour in the marginal constituencies ? Will some of the Tory front bench lose their seats ?
Will an increase in the number of Liberal Democrat MPs actually make any real difference this time ?

If NuLabour do get back in with a workable majority, and the Tory and Liberal Democrat Opposition is as feeble as it was in the last Parliament, then democracy itself will be at risk.