Quote of the day 14th February 2014
"The eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them: there ought to be as many for love."
(Margaret Atwood.)
(Margaret Atwood.)
Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria
Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Comments
Following the unfortunate death of MP Paul Goggins a by election was held yesterday in Wythenshaw and Sale East.
the results were as follows:
I dont care as it makes no difference so I'm not voting : - 61,034 (71.8%)
Micheal Kane (Labour) - 13,261 (15.6%)
John Bickley (UKIP) - 4,301 (5.1%)
Rev Daniel Critchlow (Conservative) - 3,479 (4.1%)
Mary Di Mauro (Lib Dem) - 1,176 (1.4%)
Nigel Woodcock (Green) - 748 (0.9%)
Eddy O'Sullivan (BNP) - 708 (0.8%)
Capt Chaplington-Smythe (Monster Raving Loony) - 288 (0.3%)
so we see none of the above won by an absolute landslide, but sadly Micheal Kane gets to sit on the cushy green benches in westminster being over paid and told how to vote by the labour whips. Then MPs have the gall to speak about democracy, well what a whopping mandate the man has, i mean in all fairness there are only 84.4% of his constituents who did not vote for him.
Yes.
Does that in itself mean that we don't have a functioning democracy?
No. The option was there to vote for seven very different candidates and anyone who wanted something different from what any of the seven were offering and could get a few signatures and raise a deposit had the right to stand.
To look at this result another way if we take 100 of those constituents in wythenshaw we see 16 of them said I would like Mr cane to represent me in parliament. 84 of them said I would not like mr cane to represent me in parliament.
I cant see how it could possibly be argued that mr cane has a democratic legitimacy to represent those 100 people.
To argue someone else could have stood if they had wanted is rather a moot point. Its just playing to a broken system.
The message this bye election sends is that people are not interested in this system as its a system which has long since passed its use by date.
Bear in mind also that 40% of the votes that were actually cast were postal ones (Labours best friend). These were introduced to increase the turn out in elections. It allows us to forget about things like bad weather and difficulty getting to a polling station. and still 72 of our 100 people said "no, im not playing this game at all."
On a side note these capture thingys with numbers are much better and easier to make out than the letter ones