Merry Christmas everyone. I suspect its going to be a busy blogging year ahead but for now I just want to wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Back to the battle in 2020 as the country comes togther to celebrate shooting itself in the foot at the end of January.
It surely cannot have escaped the notice of even the most ardent Brexit fan, that in the short time since Boris Johnsons election, major changes have started both within government, and the civil service. Under the guidance of Dominic Cummings, Boris is all set to make changes that most definitely take back control, not for you and me, but for the Tory ‘elite’ which he claimed not to belong to.
The first sign of this was the fulfilment on one of Dominic’s long-term ambitions, the ability to fill government posts with un-elected people (is the irony starting to hit you yet?) simply by exploiting a little know rule (little known outside of Westminster) that allows life piers to hold ministerial posts. Take for example Zac Goldsmith. Defeated in the election and therefore rejected by the electorate, after a quick appointment of a life peerage, hey presto, he is now a minister.
Big Dom and BoJo now plan to do this as an on-going policy and have stated that they will ‘fill’ government with this kind of person. Unelected and unaccountable to you and me for whatever they inflict on us…..are you feeling in control yet?
The big new plan doesn’t stop at Downing Street, the same is about to happen to the Civil Service. Now to be fair, the civil service is already an unelected organisation but one that has operated independently from any single political party, carrying out the wishes of whichever party is the government of the day, and yet Cummings now wants his choice of people running Whitehall, people more inclined to support the Tory governments policies. This plan will remove any checks and balances that we have had to date, and removes the inherent protection for the less fortunate within society, who it has traditionally tried to protect, from government short termism.
I keep getting told to let it go, Brexit is done. Well, as people like me keep saying and despite Boris’s bold statements, Brexit is a long way from being done, but that aside, being defeated in the fight to stay in the E.U, in no way removes our right and responsibility to highlight what this Tory government is doing.
Too many people are happy to bury their heads in the sand and just trust to hope that people who have been shown to be deceitful will suddenly decide to keep their promises, and do what’s best for the country.
Even with a small majority, the Conservatives have wreaked havoc on the U.K and especially its most vulnerable people, with an unassailable majority, things are unlikely to change for the better.
So, Boris is back at work and has had a few days to get his thoughts together, lets take a look at how it’s going. Boris is to set in law, legislation that will prevent him asking for an extension to the Brexit negotiations. This means that there are three possible reasons for Boris to do this;
If it has to happen (and it does) option 2 please Bozza.
As much as it is a story of victory for falsehood, yesterdays election is a story of how good old fashioned partisan thinking and arrogance snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Many of us are in shock that a man like Boris Johnson could win a landslide victory in this election. Boris is a man who was too cowardly to face Andrew Neil, too scared to allow the MI6 report on Russian support of the Conservative party be published. A man so shameless that even in his victory speech, he repeated the nonesense about 50,000 extra nurses and 40 new Hospitals.
But what is important to remember is that this was an election that we didn’t need to have. Under the fixed term parliament act, Boris could not call the election without the support of Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Those parties could have won a vote of no confidence again and if they had united under Corbyn, asked the queen to allow them to form a unity government. We could then have dealt with the issue of getting a second referendum so that young voters could finally have their say and not conflated the issue of Brexit with the issue of not having a government with a majority as we saw yesterday.
Instead in their arrogance, Jo Swinson and Jeremy Corbyn, pulled the trigger on an election that would be fought over Brexit and that cost them, and potentially the country, dearly. Even having called the election they could have united to get around our biased electoral system and rid the country, maybe not of the Tory party totally, but certainly some of its more unpleasant MPs such as Ian Duncan Smith.
But no, off they went, with Jo making daft statements about become Prime Minister, which even I as a Lib Dem member knew was impossible under first past the post. Meanwhile the awful Brexit party realised that what they needed to do was exactly what Labour and the Lib Dems refused to do and avoid splitting the vote by withdrawing candidates. I watched in horror as a clearly relieved IDS realised that the Liberal and Labour candidates had inevitably split the vote and handed the Tory party another seat and I saw this again and again throughout the night.
So thanks largely to Jo Swinson, soon to be ex leader of the Lib Dems, the possibility of a second referendum is dead.
Is there anything that can be seen as an upside to our inevitable journey to becoming ‘Little Britain’? Well, now he has a majority there is no hiding place for BoJo, he either delivers or is seen as a charleton. He is also no longer beholden to the extremes of the ERG Brexstreemists such as Jacob Reece Mogg, and when you remember that he wrote a pro remain and pro leave speech before the referendum, its possible that he is not inclined towards a hard Brexit.
In any case, large parts of the country, abandoned by successive Tory Prime Ministers and who are already seeing job losses because of Brexit decided that these same Torys where the only ones they could trust to deliver the Brexit that will finally crush any hope for the future of their young people. Based on a dream of empire lost and the lies about E.U rules and immigration, I genuinely worry for them for, with the massive majority BoJo now commands, the storm is coming.
Not a post as such but as you go to vote I hope you will watch this first.
Stuart
So, its election eve and no doubt many people are trying to figure out which of the current crop of self interested buffoons they are going to give their vote to.
It’s a tricky decision without doubt, and the decision is yours and yours alone and you should vote with your consience and not the way your parents tell you or the way your family has always voted, or your community etc. After watching various interviews with people in the street on TV last night, I do want to point out a few facts that seem to be either deliberately ignored or people just don’t want to accept the truth.
All of the above is blatent cheating of the figures, bending the facts and in some cases just lies, and as you go to put your tick in the box remember this is not Boris Johnson’s first attempt to mislead the people of the UK.
Don’t forget the Brexit campaign when he talked about E.U rules that varifiably never existed such as straight bananas, remember that he had to admit that there would not be £350m per week for the NHS. Remember that he was forced to admit that we are Nett beneficiaries of the E.U, meaning that we get more back than we put in, and finally remember that the E.U has never set rules about none E.U migration, the Tory’s failed to bring this down all by themselves .
As you bounce over the pot holes in your streets, as you stand on a train, crammed in like a refugee train in the third world and as you watch yet another stabbing reported on our ‘police free’ streets, just remember that the Torys have already been in power for just under 9 years. All of our current woes are their fault and no one elses.
Now do you still trust Boris?
So, for the first time in my adult life I have joined a political party. In this case the Liberal Democrats, however because of our archaic electoral system, I will be unable to give the local candidate my vote, at least, not if I want to avoid 5 more years of the Conservative Party and the chaos and destruction that will come with it. I suspect that I was like most people when I first got the vote, and followed my parents lead. This meant that for the first few elections of my life I voted Tory.
In reality I don’t want any party, I want all of them. It’s true that I would rather not have the current Tory front bench as it is pretty poor quality but in principle the Conservatives have a place in my ideal.
I want the Tory party for its financial instincts, the Labour party for it’s for inbuilt desire for social justice. I want the Liberal Democrats who believe in true fairness in society (I’ve yet to fully forgive them for the betrayals committed during the coalition) and the green party for thier passion for the environment.
Our ‘first past the post’ system cannot deliver what I want, and yet this would give us the government that we need, one of balance and common sense. I support any party that believes in electoral reform and I think the younger generation of voters are moving in that direction and away from the devisive left or right politics that we have had my whole life.
I actually do not believe in party based politics at all and if it was my choice, all politicians would be independent and the house, once elected, would then elect a prime minister from amongst their ranks. The house of commons would be kept for ceremony and tradition only. The actual chamber would be replaced with a modern style chamber like the Scottish parliament.
