UK election

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Hi everyone, I found out recently that there isn't a law to prosecute politicians who knowingly deceive the public. In my mind this amounts to a fundamental gap in our constitution (UK). My concerns were further exacerbated by the Elizabeth Filkin affair, in which she was hounded out of her position as Commissioner for Parliamentary Standards after she rubbed up a few important parliamentary figures the wrong way with her investigations. Thoughts?

I'm sick of this country's government. For decades, the people seem to be ignored. In the face of public outcry, such as the recent road tax objections, the government state that depite the overwhelming objections against supporters, that getting opinion "online" is not sufficiently reliable. People prost outside parliament, so the government move them. People vote in prime ministers based on their promises. Promises that are broken again and again. It seems these days we have no democracy, just a poorly disguised dictatorship - choose your dictator (assuming the voting system actually works and we are infact choosing our dictator).

My first topic! Afghan Hijackers rewarded with asylum. This item has been front page news in the national media over the last day or two. I assume you are (being current events followers) aware of the basis of the story. Very briefly: A group of young men claiming to flee the then Taliban regime in afghanistan hijacked an internal afghan flight and forced it (with terrifying force at risk of life and limb to passengers and crew) to land in Stanstead airport. The terrorists threatend to kill all passengers unless they were granted refugee status in the UK. The Government (of UK) and opposition leaders seem to think the judges have lost all common sense in allowing these men to have their way, in effect confirming to all and sundry that if you have the courage to hold a gun to a n entire nation and have your way, then yes, please do come to the UK!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4923324.stm The BBC article says that Ali lost his arms and parents when "his home in Baghdad was destroyed by an off target Allied missile". The article fails to mention that it was (more accurately) a US missile and that it wiped out 15 of his relatives or that his mother was pregnant at the time. Perhaps "Allied Missile" is actually a better term than "US Missile" since the UK is as much to blame for his parents and relatives deaths as the US. I wonder if he is at all angry about this? We are left none the wiser by the end of the article since they only talk about football, the kinds of computer games he likes to play and his favourite lessons.

The arch ruler Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, or, the Queen for short, will turn into an octigenarian tomorrow. We will all be expected to show our deep felt respect for the Queen, and for all of her past 'achievements' on her 80th birthday. We'll also be expected to sing a long to that old tired anthem 'God Save the Queen' as well. It's said that Her Majesty is 'universally respected' the world over. But, it's not entirely self-evident as to what exactly is it about the Queen we are supposed to respect. Is it for bringing up a family of no-marks with an army of nannie and servants? Or is it because she's never had to the toilet while on a public engagement, for over 40 years?

There is a spectra haunting Britain, but, it's certainly not fascism. The way the employment minister Margaret Hodge spoke about the white working-class in east London, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the Capital is currently over-run by thousands of swastika tatooed 'chavs'. Who would like nothing better than to cause a great stick by voting for an extreme racist party. Note 'thousands' as opposed to 'millions', because, as far as I know, most people can't even be arsed to vote in Local elections anymore, let alone vote for the BNP. Indeed, Hodge's very own constituency of Barking has some of the lowest turnouts for voting in the UK.

The latest Newstatesman magazine has an article about the "Euston Manifesto" which is a new proposed direction for "the left". I had issues with it and made a post on the Euston Manifesto site (www.newstatesman.com/eustonmanifesto), which I have reproduced below. I have seen some very tired arguments in the New Statesman article and the Euston Manifesto that have been addressed adequately before. The reason people spend more time criticising the US/UK for their actions compared to far worse regimes is not that they are anti-American or anti-UK, it is because we try to hold our democracies to higher standards than despotic regimes. Another reason that more time is spent on criticising advanced democracies is that they have quite advanced methods of propaganda we have to cut through. For example, when Saddam Hussein gassed the Kurds, he never had a massive worldwide propaganda campaign to convince us all that it was necessary to protect Iraq. We saw it for what it was, a horrible crime. Not much discussion was needed. In contrast when democracies act aggressively or unjustly they have whole government departments involved in steering the media in favourable directions. Consequently we have to work much harder and raise points again and again to try to get the message across. So when someone asks why I continuously criticise US/UK actions but not those of Saddam Hussein, the simple answer is that I don't have to keep criticising Saddam Hussein to convince you he is bad and has done bad things. In fact I really do not have to criticize Saddam Hussein at all. It is just not necessary. We know he is bad and that the things he did were terrible. In contrast, when it comes to the US or UK I have to work a lot harder to convince people that something they have done is wrong.

Hysterical panic are the only words I can think of to describe the press reaction to the discovery of a dead swan in Scotland. Press coverage of the infected swan can only be viewed as way, way over the top. The British press are always careful to point out (under the sheer mass of coverage) that 'the H5N1 virus cannot pass easily from one person to another and therefore currently does not pose a large-scale threat to humans'. But, these facts have not halted the near hysterical message that, ultimately, avian flu is a threat to us all - or, that sometime in the near future, the end will be nigh.

I was over in Ireland at the weekend, I flew. On the return journey, our flight was held in a holding pattern over Heathrow for some 30mins, just flying in circles around London. Fortunately, we had clear skies, so we had spectacular views of capital from the air at night. But why should we have to wait half an hour to land, in one of the most advanced countries on Earth? Why haven't we got enough airports and runway's? Why are there so many protests against airports, given that we need them? The British aviation industry is growing, it's stands to reason, we need more runways and airports, not less.

The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) is still around, and kicking up a fuss as usual according to the BBC. The UK Independence Party is calling for David Cameron to apologise after he claimed its members were "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists, mostly". Sounds reasonable to me. They happen to disagree. This is the second time in recent months that UKIP have been called upon to defend their reputation. In March one UKIP activist won £10,000 in damages after a woman called him a "sex offender" and "racist blogger" in an Internet chat-room.

How can it be that major political parties are debating whether the public should chip in and prop up their organisations bank accounts. That's the sickest idea I've heard this year. What? Us pay for the up-keep of the New Labour Party? What? Voluntarily? Well... that sounds sick to me - because, no political party has the right to exist, indefinitely. Talk about dependancy culture. Read more here.

Alright... I'll hold my hand up, and admit I love cars and motoring. I passed my test when I was 21, my first car was a secondhand Nissan Stanza, I soon wrote that off on the central reservation in Park Lane. So, I decided to save up some money and buy a new car, a Peugeot 205 Ralle. Loved it - drove it all over the UK, and Europe. Today, it seems that the attitude towards cars, their owners, roads and motoways, have changed drasticly over the past 20 years. If you ask me, the Mayor of London, Ken Livinstone perfectly encapsulates contemporary attitude towards cars "I hate cars. If I ever get any power again, I'll ban the lot" . This seems to be the solution to car congestion on offer by everyone these days, from New Labour to the entire environmentalists movement - the message is simple enough, 'get out of your car', and get a push bike, or jump on the bus instead. Better still... walk. Yeah right... as if.

The way some people talk about the House of Lords, you'd be forgiven for believing that the House of Lords was some kind of democratic institution, packed out with honourable people. This couldn't be further from the truth. The House of Lords has no democratic mandate - no one voted for it, yet the Lords have the right to overturn decisions made by an elected government - where is the democracy in that? Of course, there isn't any. It make me sick to my stomach to hear that M'lud's have interfered with the expressed wishes of an elected and democratic government. The House of Lords is politically corrupt. It must be, it's full of geriatrics who are the sons and daughters of the British aristocracy - who in their right mind would vote in favour of that?

How many people feel that their views are truly represented by any of the political parties? I am speaking of the UK, but the question applies, if not equally, in many western democracies. It is really quite ridiculous to assume that any one of two or three parties can adequately represent the views of any individual. The worst of it is that this is also true of the party members and the politicians themselves. This gives rise to politicians defending policies in which they have no personal belief. And we are supposed to trust these people! The concept of "collective responsibility" needs to be re-thought and MPs given the opportunity to think and act for themselves, or more importantly, for the people they are supposed to represent.

This topic doesn't really merit starting a thread, but I am very curious. What are the academic traditions in Britain as far as developing debating skills? I have to say that of all the people on the planet, the British seem to have the most scripted approach to the exchange of ideas. It seems that debating skills are heavily coached and the "rules" are quite ingrained. I find this interesting, and am curious about your culture. I admire your obsession with expression. I am curious. Is this a recurring course in school? How many semester hours, or years worth of debating do the British learn?

...are old flames. the mind boggles http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article355018.ece An odd pairing, perhaps, between the bug-eyed British satirist whose first job was compere of the Boggery Folk Club, Solihull, and the coolly super-competent Secretary of State in the Bush administration, but their liaison was, by all accounts, fiery and mutually enriching. They met in 1975 in Rice's birthplace, Birmingham, Alabama, during a "twinning weekend" in which citizens from other Birminghams were welcomed and invited to set up cultural exchanges. Midlands-born Carrott, 30, had just released his first single Funky Moped and was touring the southern states.

From the Guardian: Control of Britain's most controversial nuclear site, Sellafield, will move into the private sector through the sale of its state-owned operator, British Nuclear Group, the government will announce tomorrow. The £1bn disposal will come alongside wider plans to hand over decommissioning of atomic sites around the country to private companies amid confirmation that clean-up costs have soared to more than £70bn. Industry secretary Alan Johnson will unveil the plans at a time when he is still in the middle of an energy review and yet to decide whether to go ahead with a new generation of nuclear power plants.

As the only MP elected to the House of Commons on an anti-war platform, Galloway can be seen as representing part of the electorate that, with both Labour and Conservatives generally backing the invasion, is otherwise ignored. But is he really the best we can do? 1) He's too polarising. Not only does he alienate those who supported the war on nationalistic grounds, but also those who supported it on progressive grounds (think the Harry's Place blog), who could otherwise be brought in on criticism of the handling of events. Given the weakness of the progressive left at the moment, we could really use all the allies we can get.

From the Guardian: "MPs have concluded that the intelligence and security services could not be blamed for failing to prevent the July 7 attacks, it was reported today." Hardly surprising; the whole point of government inquiries is to clear the establishment of any blame. At best they raise "serious questions" about their conduct, and occasionally some minor functionary is made to retire, but they never get to the heart of the issue. Hutton... Butler... the Association of Chief Police Officers inquiry into the shooting of De Menezes... and now this. The government has refused to allow an independent inquiry into the London bombings, despite pressure from various groups including survivors of the attacks.