Over the past decade, support for an English Parliament has grown, from 18% to 29% – and 40% believe that the current “Barnett forumla” system is unfair.
The way devolution has been set up to work currently is untenable. There is a massive democratic deficit as Scotland and Wales both have:
There is no denying that the current system with a Scottish Parliament and Welsh and NI Assemblies is not acceptable and not democratic. This is also exascerbated by the fact that MPs in Scotland and Wales still represent smaller constituencies than those in England.
The crux of the issue is that people in Scotland and Wales have two votes – one for Holyrood or Cardiff and another for Westminster, whilst those in England have just one, for Westminster. That alone is undemoctratic, and when Scotland and Wales have more MPs than their population warrants, it becomes even more so. It may have been justifiable before devolution, but no longer.
The Barnett formula is wrong because it is not based on any form of need, but purely on population, and drastically skewed towards Scotland and Wales.
We need proper and fair devolution. And we need it soon, before support for an English Parliament grows to a level where it becomes massively divisive to the country. Properly thoughtout and well-implemented devolution will ensure that the United Kingdom remains united for another three hundred years.
England cannot and must not be ignored in the devolution debate. Although support is not yet so high as to make it a serious poliical issue for this general election, if nothing is doine to address it, by the next general election (or the one after that) it certainly could be.
The mere prospect of Gordon Brown remaining as Prime Minister in a hung Parliament meant that the pound collapsed.
If the mere prospect of five years more of Brown sends the markets downhill, what damage would five more years do?! As the world’s buiggest bond funs manager, Pimco, says, we need drastic action to deal with government debt. Which only the Conservatives will do.
Labourites often accuse the Conservatives of “talking down the economy/pound”. This proves that campaigning for Labour and talking up their chances are the ones talking down the economy…. which jujst proves that it is unpatriotic to be a Labour supporter!
He shouldn’t be. I don’t think that non-doms should be allowed to sit in Parliament, in either Chamber. Hence my pleasure when Zac Goldsmith give it up. But the sheer hypocrisy of Labor over non-doms is astounding.
The Guardian has published the amounts received by Labour and the Conservatives from non-doms since 2001. Using some Excel formulas, the following stats emerge:
CONSERVATIVES
Lord Ashcroft personally donated £77,930
Bearwood Corporate Services donated £5,086,185.15
In cash: £1,626,365.69
Non-cash: £3,537,749.46Conservative total: £5,164,115.15
LABOUR
Lakshmi Mittal donated £4,125,000
Sir Ronald Cohen donated £2,550,000
Caparo Industries PLC donated £45,000
Cash: £6,720,000Labour total: £6,720,000
So Labour have received more than £1.5 million more from non-doms than the Conservatives… and all of it in direct cash donations. So it is Labour who is far more “unpatriotic” than the Tories over this. (And lets not forget about the Lib Dems and their £2.4m from non-dom and fraudster Michael Brown.)
I still can’t help but snigger every time the term “non-dom” is used though…
A ComRes poll shows that whatever happens at this years general election (whenever we get it), voters will be unhappy:
ComRes asked whether a particular result would make people feel happy or unhappy – and every option resulted in the “unhappies” winning.
The result that would spread the most gloom would be a hung parliament with Gordon Brown remaining as prime minister.
The results for this are:
The next worst option, on this measure, would be a hung parliament with David Cameron as prime minister.
Interestingly, the figures for a Labour win are almost exactly the same.
The most popular outcome would be a Conservative win, which is the only result that would leave less than half the population unhappy. But the “unhappies” would still outnumber the “happies”. (Other categories were “indifferent” and “don’t know”.)
Cue Lib Dem “this is why we need PR!!1!” screaming.
But what this poll actually show is that the British people like to know who their government is and who can be praised/blamed for what happens – the hung parliament results are siginificantly worse than the majority government results in both cases. What PR does is remove the link, and remove the democratic right of people to choose their government; under PR, they get to pick representatives, but the politicians get to pick who actually forms the government.
To a certain extent, the result of this poll isn’t surprising. There hasn’t been a British government formed with more than 5% of the popular vote since about 1945 , so in every election since then, more people have voted against the government than for it. So why should it change this year?
But one fact that shouldn’t be lost is that the significantly most popular result would be a Conservative victory.
David Cameron today delivered a barnstorming note-less speech to the Conservative Spring Conference in Brighton. He made it clear that he desires to become Prime Minister for the best of the country:
Now we’ve got a maximum of 70 days between now and the general election that we must win. And you know what, this isn’t an election that it would be quite nice to win, because we’ve got some quite good policies, or quite good to win, because some of these people would make quite good ministers. It is an election we have to win because our country is in a complete mess, and it is our patriotic duty to turn it around and give this country a better future, and I think everyone in this country knows …
I think everyone knows that another five years of Gordon Brown would be a disaster for our country. Another five years of spending and bloat and waste and debt and taxes. Another five years of failing to get to grips with our big social problems. Another five years in our politics of that big, top-down, bossy “I know best” sort of approach. And another five years of a government that is so dysfunctional, so divided, so weak, you’ve got a bunch of ministers that can’t work with him, but can’t get rid of him; you’ve got a Prime Minister who can’t work with them, but can’t make his government work. They’re just locked in this dangerous dance of death that is dragging our whole country down. And it is only the Conservative Party that can give people the hope of a different future. And as we leave this conference today, we must resolve, we will not let you down…
[A]s you go out there and campaign, I want you to do it fortified with two things in your mind. The first is that every day Gordon Brown is running this country is a grey day for Britain. Every day he is in charge is another day we’re not gripping our problems, another day we are wasting our opportunities, another day when this country is not being all that it could be. But I also want you to think of this, to think of the great changes we can make in this country…
And while you do it, I want you to think of the incredible dark depression of another five years of Gordon Brown and say no, no, we’re not going to do that, so come on then, let’s get out there and win it for Britain!
It is our patriotic duty to vote for the best government this country can get. And we have a choice between five more years of Gordon Brown and his failed, incompetent Labour government and change under David Cameron and a fresh, forward-looking Conservative Party. We can hope for change that will never come under Labour, or vote for change under the Conservatives.
