Wow. Just slowly gearing up for a busy Friday when the Guardian homepage drew my attention to the balancing artist Eskil Ronningsbakken.
As a sufferer of vertigo (I even get a rush of fear, nausea and exhileration if I drop something down the stairs!) these pictures caused me much discomfort and some amazement. I recommend a look.
From The Guardian
The press, in the main, is gushing today over the satanic alliance which we saw blessed in the gardens of No 10 Downing Street yesterday afternoon. The Liberals got a huge amount in negotiations – not least of which was a shelving (for the time being at least) of the inheritance tax changes proposed by the Tories. At the same time, great headline grabbers such as the very liberal decision to scrap ID cards, and the decision not to proceed with another runway at Heathrow, had those of us aligned to the liberal left wing axis of politics wondering if perhaps Dave’s promises were actually genuine. Perhaps this will be the most liberal Tory party of modern times. Maybe they’re right, and he really is a moderniser.
Please do not be fooled. Look into the policy, and see beyond the headlines. Apart from the parade of old Tories being slotted comfortably into Cabinet seats, apart from the appointment of a homophobic Home Secretary, apart from the fact that 23 out of the 30 cabinet seats have been given to millionaires, there is one thing which we should all raise immediately with our MPs. One little piece of proposed legislation which was published yesterday in the ConDem agreements for a fixed term parliament is truly worrying.
Here is the agreement:
“The parties agree to the establishment of five year fixed-term parliaments. A Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government will put a binding motion before the House of Commons in the first days following this agreement stating that the next general election will be held on the first Thursday of May 2015. Following this motion, legislation will be brought forward to make provision for fixed term parliaments of five years. This legislation will also provide for dissolution if 55% or more of the House votes in favour.”The first part is ok. It takes power away from Government, which is ok, although a little strange, given the peculiarities of how our parliamentary system works. But that last little sentence – that 55% – is hugely troubling.Effectively, in our system, if a major piece of legislation is not passed by a parliament, any party can call for a motion of no confidence. This would obviously usually be the opposition, who would capitalise on the divided house to show that the leading party do not have the support they need to command the house, and if the motion is passed, parliament is dissolved and a new election is formed.
Now, this has always – for hundreds of years – been a vote on which a majority is needed. But according to this piece of legislation, the opposition would need to get more than half of the votes – 55%. This is blatantly undemocratic. What really makes it a concern though, is that the Tories have 47% of the seats in parliament (don’t forget – won with only 37% of the popular vote). If the LibDems find out that they cannot be shackled to a party which is not as progressive as it pretends (this is an if – but I’m setting out now for posterity that this would not surprise me one little bit), if they walk away wholesale from the Tories, if the alliance breaks down, then every single MP in opposition voting in favour could still not bring a no confidence motion. So MPs representing a massive 63% of the country cannot dissolve Parliament.
Commentators have already been saying that this is a worrying proposal. Legal experts are troubled. This goes against history, democracy, common sense and fairness, and if the Tories pass this piece of legislation, as well as their proposals to reduce MPs – which many see as an attempt to gerrymander the system in their favour, they could easily lock themselves in power for decades.
I felt tearful after I cast my votes this morning. I can’t help but feel negative – and dread that a Tory government is inevitable.
So in the hope that one person might read this and change their mind, please think about the following when you vote today.
Remember that self-interest serves only a handful of people. Remember our great institutions such as the NHS and the BBC which need to be nurtured and preserved, not dismantled.
Vote against brutal hunting. Vote against allowing Murdoch and his vast media network to decide the political future of our country. Vote against the immediate withdrawal of funds from the economy and the inevitability of another descent into recession. Vote against a party which says they support the vulnerable but will not act to prove it.
Vote for the young and the old. For gay people, straight people, married people, single people. Parents and grandparents and those who have no children. Vote for children and their futures – for all of them, not just the children of the wealthiest. Vote for people with cancer and people with mental disorders. Vote for women and their equal place in society.
Vote for progressiveness and inclusiveness. Vote for fairness for all.
Vote however you want, but please just don’t vote Tory.
In the last few days an extraordinary thing has happened. Gordon Brown has remembered why he is campaigning. The press have remembered that he (and he alone out of the three main candidates) is a conviction politician – even the right-leaning papers said that this speech on Monday to Citizens UK was one of the best political speeches of this generation.
And so I quote our Prime Minister:
“My father taught me that life is about more than self-interest, that work is about more than self-advancement, that service is about more than self-service. That happiness is about more than what you earn and own.
“Our shared belief is that wealth must serve more than the wealthy, inequality should not be woven into the fabric of our lives, people of compassion and goodwill should never journey without hope, and no injustice should endure forever”.
This is the man I want to represent me. These are the beliefs which I look for in an enlightened democracy. This is the only way forward for this country.
If you look back through my blog from the last three weeks you will see that the Tories have shown scant regard for the most vulnerable, for the marginalised and helpless in society. But look at Labour’s record:
38,000 more doctors, 80,000 more nurses, 35,000 more teachers, 14,000 more police, minimum wage, paternity/maternity leave, surestart, regional development agencies, child tax credits, quadrupled investment in education, record ALevel/GCSE results, record university students, lowest NHS waiting times in history, free cancer subscriptions, cancer specialist within 2 weeks of diagnosis, reductions of 65million tonnes in carbon emmisions…
Is it really that easy for people to forget all this?
Self-interest has no place in politics – for a country to be healthy, all of its people have to be considered, and there is only one party which promises with any credibility to do so.
Reason #21. A vote for Labour is a vote for the party which will help the most people.
I’ve not spoken about Education yet, because I’ve been waiting to see if anyone fact-checks the Tories claims about what they can deliver.
Let’s leave aside the “Big Society” hogwash which they’re trying to sell us, let’s even ignore for now the well known failures in the Swedish version of the free school system which the Tories are pledging to adopt.
What I really wanted to know is whether, as has been promised on a number of occassions during the campaign, they will really be able to afford to guarantee no cuts to the education budget.
On Saturday I read an ad placed by the NASUWT – the largest teachers union, which says that the Tories cannot guarantee that education won’t be affected by public sector cuts. So I’ve done some rummaging, and was surprised to find that not only does the NUSAWT condemn the Tory education policy, but Conservative leaders of Hampshire and Kent County Councils both said that the education policy would not work.
A full description of the NASUWT comments, from the website epolitix.com, is below:
“Commenting on the public exchanges between leading Conservative Councillors and the Tory shadow education spokesperson Michael Gove on the hidden costs of the Tories’ free schools policy, Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, the largest teachers’ union, said:
“I agree entirely with the Conservative leaders of Hampshire and Kent County Councils. The only way that the Tories’ free school policy can be funded, at a time of recession and promised cuts to public services, is by top-slicing the budgets of other schools.
“It is disingenuous of Michael Gove to claim that free schools will be funded from the current DCSF budget.
“Even if there were the ’slack’ he claims, which there isn’t, it has already been spent by the Conservatives several times over during this Campaign.
“We are clearly now in the phase of electioneering where the dire consequences of Conservative education policy are becoming so obvious to the public and their own party members that the Tories are desperately seeking to mask the stark truth until after 6 May.” ”
Reason #20: The Tories have a risible education policy which they can’t afford, and which has already been proved not to work in other countries.