I haven’t posted for a week, I have been very busy over Christmas.  

2007 has been a good year for me personally, I am now back in a job I quite like, my bank balance has gone from being very red to being in the black for a few days of the month! On the political side of things, Bliar has gone, Littlehampton now sends four LibDems to Arun Council and the LibDems now have a fresh dynamic leader. 

Although I want 2008 to be the year that Gordy goes to the polls and the Liberal Democrats win a landslide victory, I don’t think that’s going to happen! So I just hope that the predicted recession doesn’t bite too hard for the long-suffering citizens of these islands and that the government finally kills off the ID database.

I went out for a Christmas drink (or three!) down the pub with the local LibDem team last night. It was great to have a social drink without any fundraising or agenda. The town was almost empty, I guess people were at home or something!?!? 

It’s great to see the Schengen zone enlarging in Europe and it being a complete success. I think it shows just how out of step Britain is with the rest of Europe. It always infuriates me when I have been from Bitburg in Germany to Calais in France and not even stopped for the borders or shown my passport then you get to Dover and get treated like a criminal by the UK authorities.

I have my work hat on now. I have only just heard of the death of Donald Frampton on 1st December. I had never met or seen Mr. Frampton but only heard of his legendary contribution to British Horticulture. Donald Frampton was a local entreprenerial pioneer who will be much missed in the Horticultural community.

It was great driving round Littlehampton today seeing houses covered in lights and decorations, even though I’m not a Christian or even have any decorations in my house, winter in Littlehampton is fairly miserable, the lights brighten it up. 

Congratulations Cleggy! I hope now we can move into a long period of stability with a real promotion of liberalism as a philosophy and not just a cynical PR campaign for personalities or individual LibDem policies. The true shocker for the poll was the turnout, just over half of eligible voters. It is absolute disgrace that a party which sincerely believes in political participation can’t even convince 90% of it’s own members to put a ‘1’ on a ballot paper in an envelope and post it. The only conclusion I have come to is that the membership really couldn’t see a difference between Cleggy and Huhne and didn’t mind who won, either that or there are 30,000 members who wanted someone else as leader?

I saw Sir. John Major on Andrew Marr this morning and agreed with about 90% of what he said. Something I’ve been saying for the past nine years or so, that he said this morning is that the Conservative sleeze scandals were always about induvidual MP’s lining their own pockets wheras Labour scandals are more institutional, about political party advantage which of course is worse and endangers democracy itself. Not that I have much time for the Tories. But I do for John! 

Gordy is really getting a reputation now for being a bottler. He bottled the Autumn election and now he’s bottled the controversial treaty signing ceremony.  We really need a referendum on the UK’s continued membership of the EU now. The Anti-Europeans want it and the Pro-Europeans want it.  

The only people who don’t want a Euro-referendum are the Conservative leadership and the Labour party, because it will smash the biggest two parties to shreds and split Britains cosy political consensus apart. 

There have been editorials in newspapers saying there might be a Labour leadership coup in the spring. BRING IT ON! 

Here we go again, another government initiative!  

This time it’s the ‘childrens plan’. It will be surrounded by fanfares and pumped with money for a year, maybe two (it will help take the heat off this rubbish government) Then as it fails, it will leave a trail of red tape in its wake. The associated targets and ministry memos will encourage more and more overruled professionals to seek other careers, maybe as tax collectors or national ID database staff, because these will be the only people with jobs when the recession starts to bite.  

This initiative has the smell of “back to basics” about it, a desparate attempt by a rotten government at the beginning of the end of the New Labour era. 

Vince Cable really is a great interim leader for us. I have never been a massive fan of Vince, but he has really proved himself by boycotting the Saudi leadership and his amusing questions at PMQ’s. He will surely be written into the Liberal history books as the man who humiliated Gordy. Well done Vince!

A bid to increase the turnout at elections is the stated aim of the recommendations in the government-sponsored Councillors Commission report. The report has also suggested ideas to encourage more diversity among local council candidates. These include lowering the voting age to 16, setting a three-term limit on council leaders and elected mayors, ‘all-out elections’ for all councils every four years instead of the mixed system of staggered elections in many areas, and placing mock polling booths at citizenship ceremonies. The commission also proposes that councils should be given the option of introducing proportional representation.  

 We need to revitalise local and democracy and strengthen its legitimacy and powers. The commission is absolutely right to recommend fair and proportional voting. However I am concerned about proposals to introduce term limits for councillors, it is fundamentally undemocratic to tell voters that popular councillors cannot be re-elected. 

 Local councillors need to be leading local campaigners and representatives NOT the states local managers kowtowing to every edict from Whitehall.  

 Some of the proposals will encourage some people to become councillors who will simply see being a councillor as a ‘good career move’ on their way to other jobs. I want to see passionate local campaigners, fighting for local residents being elected and proudly keeping their ‘day jobs’.  

Councillors should belong to their electors, NOT to the council or this rotten government.

I went to Worthing yesterday to do some Christmas shopping – WHAT A DISASTER!!! Crowded, Raining, Windy and Traffic jams.

There is a piece in the Gazette this week about a potential electricity generation barrage across the river Arun. The barrage would provide a flood defence, generate power and could provide a welcome added pedestrian link to the west bank.

Although it would cost millions, the Arun is one of the country’s fastest flowing rivers and if harnessed could help the environment. I’m sure it would also be a minor tourist attraction.

I certainly think that it’s worth looking into and would be a better use of money than all the creepy databases that the government seems to be obsessed with.

I, like most of the country I suspect am completely fed-up with the whole Labour donations row. Why is it that if the Labour party are involved in a row about themselves, they want to change the law?

There are more important things to squabble about. I just hope people realise that these are the people we are being asked to trust with the ID database.

I went to the local party AGM today, and I was elected Membership Secretary. I’m sure I can fit it around my other Littlehampton duties.  

The woman who asked about joining the party at the Christmas fair was signed-up by my good self on Thursday.

There is a piece on the BBC website comparing Flash’s problems with John Majors troubles as Prime Minister. The parallels are stark.

Gordy is actually quite a decent bloke in contrast to his predecessor but the media have turned against his government and everyone who is involved in campaigning knows that the media really control what the public think.

The economy is on the turn, which in itself is not the governments fault, but some of their policies are tuned to the amazing economic boom we have been lucky to enjoy over the past 9 years or so. When the economy starts to collapse the poorest and most vulnerable in society will be the hardest hit by the cuts which will follow. This will lead to a collapse in the support of the red management team.

 This government is now in terminal decline like John Major’s was in 1990. It may go on to win an election but it will probably be followed five years later by a landslide defeat where Labour may be wiped off the political map.

The furore over the British schoolteacher in Sudan; Ms. Gibbons who allowed her class to name a teddy bear after a boy in her class who just happened to have the same name as the Islamic prophet is really toe-curling.  

The people I feel most sorry for now are the decent British muslims who are now certain to suffer a backlash from the ignoranti.

The Christmas Fair at Wick Hall on Saturday raised £126.56 for the constituency Liberal Democrats. There is something incredibly democratic about fundraising honestly in the community, in contrast to the big business donations to the red and blue management teams.I delivered the raffle prizes of those who were not there for the draw on Saturday, they were all extremely grateful, one woman even offered to donate some unwanted stuff for the next fair!  

Bliar is talking about his religious convictions. I have always admired people who have a belief in something and use it to guide their way through their life and work.

Gordy may have signed the cheques but Bliar has the blood of thousands of innocent people permanently stained on his hands, no amount of praying to any God will ever remove that. Also I seem to remember something in the bible about a camel and an eye of a needle? Bliar spent ten years accumulating his own wealth and power at the expense of our individual liberty and freedom. I am not religious so I’ll see you in hell Bliar!

Today’s Christmas Fair at Wick Hall went well, the weather held off for long enough and quite a few people turned up, one of whom wanted to join the party so it’s all looking up for us!

 I posted my ballot paper yesterday with a clear ‘1’ in the Nick Clegg box. I’d hope to say that Cleggy has it in the bag but I don’t want to tempt fate!

I went along to the hustings in
Worthing on Monday. Monday was probably one of the worst-weather days this year and on the way back the Rustington by-pass was like a river! Work is very hard at the moment but I do enjoy it, but with all the Lib –Dem work I’m doing at the moment it has left me feeling absolutely creamed at the end of the day.I am enjoying all the media attention that the child benefit data-loss at the HMRC has got. A lot of ordinary people are coming to realise that the Government cannot be trusted with personal information.  

Revenue and Customs has lost the details of 25 million Child Benefit recipients. I hope that this may start to change peoples minds about the ID database, now is the time to fight this scheme before it’s too late.

 It all comes down to the Government doing too much and not doing anything well. I honestly believe that this Government is not fit for purpose and needs to be replaced by a slimmed down organisation (sic)

I went to Worthing to the leadership hustings. Cleggy was brilliant, really made an impression. I can’t wait until he’s elected now, I think British Liberalism will change for the better, for good. It was good to see quite a big delegation from Arun, sadly though, I was the only person from Littlehampton.

Driving home, the rain was atrocious and was very dark but people were still driving like it was a dry, bright July morning.

I’m very busy at the moment trying to get everything done for Christmas. The Christmas fair is next Saturday, which should be interesting! A new Focus newsletter has just arrived for delivery.

 The leadership hustings is being held in Worthing on Monday which I shall be attending, even though I’ve already made up my mind for Cleggy.

Something the Government has mooted which I am very interested in is the American style school bus. I believe these would be good for three reasons;-

1)Environmental - cut car journeys and congestion.

2)Independence - encourage kids to be free of their parents for once. 

3)Choice - parents could choose the best school for their kids, poorer parents without cars need’nt worry about getting their kids to school.

I went to the war memorial in Littlehampton today to pay my respects. I’m glad to say that most of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat councillors were also there.

 It is great to see all the generations uniting in memory of those who died so that we may enjoy freedom.

I got my copy of the ‘Progress’ newsletter from Littlehampton Town Council today and was reasonably impressed. When the town was run by Labour, Progress was just packed full of photos of Labour councillors. Now the council is ‘hung’, Progress is now actually what it’s supposed to be – about the town and it’s citizens.

 I ran at work today and felt a ripple of fat on my back, I seriously need to do some leaflet delivery!

I got my emails from both the leadership candidates today and they both fell into the ‘antispam folder’! I don’t know what that means. Cleggy said in his email that he would not register for the ID database. Good man.

 The British government has called for fair elections in Pakistan, ooh.. can we have fair elections too?

I viewed the Labour website the other day and read this;- “The Labour Government’s commitment to liberty – to the restriction of arbitrary power and the empowerment of the individual – is the foundation of recent proposals on constitutional reform.” My first reaction to this was “Great! that must mean that they’re abolishing the ID card scheme!!” But alas, no they’re not. All the Government’s talk about liberty is just that…..talk.

Let me just remind them what the ID database system is all about.You will attend an appointment to be photographed, have your fingerprints taken and iris scanned, or be fined up to £2,500. Additional fines of up to £2,500 may be levied each time you fail to comply until you submit to these procedures.

Promptly inform the Police if you lose your card or it becomes defective, or you will have committed a criminal offence and face a fine and/or 51 weeks imprisonment.

Promptly inform the National Identity Register of significant changes to you personal life or face a fine of up to £1,000 (you will supply evidence of your previous address, not just your current address)

Promptly inform the National Identity Register of significant changes to you personal life or face a fine of up to £1,000. You may also be obliged to submit to being re-interviewed, re-photographed, re-fingerprinted and re-scanned or face a fine.Pay between £30 and £93 to be registered, with further charges possible to change your details.  I don’t call that a Government even considering personal liberty!

I see Nick Clegg is calling for Blair to resign, why? Because he was in charge of a force that went-in ‘all-guns-blazing’ to take out a dangerous man with a weapon of mass destruction, which turned out not to be the case.

 See, I have a sense of humour! 

The Liberal Democrat leadership “race” is now on. I am really upset that there’s only two runners, I really, really think we’re making a mistake again!   I am glad to see that Cleggy and Mr. Huhne are both going to take a stand against ID cards. I find it sad that most people are against ID cards because of the cost – when all our freedoms have been stolen by the state there will be no one left to reverse it! 
Britain now needs passionate, principled campaigners now after the Bliar legacy of sterile, robotic, career politicians. Principled politics will help restore trust in the system, encourage local campaigning and will highlight the real issues instead of the media’s obsession with superficial personality contests.

Foreign minister Kim Howells told a conference ahead of a state visit by the Saudi King that the two states could unite around our “shared values”. I have never heard such complete rubbish! What shared values?If you’re going to browntongue an autocrat. At least complement them on something like their low tax rate or their low crime rate rather than pretending we have anything in common with them…….yet!

The Littlehampton Bonfire procession managed to keep the rain away for once last night. It didn’t start raining until we walked home. I remember going to one in 1979 when I was four! I have never seen so many Police in the town, I mean real Police not PCSO’s. 

The party has organised a leadership hustings in
Worthing on the 19^th November. I think I’ll try and go, although I have pretty much made up my mind for Cleggy. 

So Flash is talking about civil liberties. What a joke! Its like King Henry VIII talking about family values! It is becoming increasingly more difficult to take this government seriously. They said they’d save the NHS, it seems to be in more trouble now than it was ten years ago. 

One of the main threats to civil liberties over the last decade has been the behaviour of an increasingly overbearing Labour Government that has transformed Britain into a surveillance state. If Flash Gordon is genuinely signalling a change of heart then that is brilliant, but authoritarianism seems to run deep in the lifeblood of this Government.

I fear that Labour polling has revealed that the British public find the Government’s intrusions into their private lives revolting and Flash is just paying lip service.

Well, my mobile was in my pocket today. Somehow the keylock came off and I sent more than 60 blank texts to a LibDem colleague and about 20 to another. It only stopped because I ran out of credit!

The government has been critisised for spending £50,000 on red briefcases for ministers. This government cares only about it’s own continuation.

I actually read the European Reform Treaty yesterday. All I can say after two-and-a-half hours is “If you want Britain in the EU you will agree with it. If you want Britain out - you won’t.”

So the leadership contenders are lining themselves up  - yes all two of them. Which I think it’s really bad! We have some really talented women MP’s on our front bench and they are completely ignored by the media. I think we need a woman leader, which we have never had in Liberal/Liberal Democrat history. So unless Julia Goldsworthy, Lorely Burt or Lynne Featherstone put themselves forward in the next week or so, I’ll be backing Clegg.

The house of commons is to close for 18 weeks in 2008. Now don’t get me wrong, I’d prefer MP’s to be active in their constituencies working hard and campaigning hard on real issues and a good MP will spend most of the eighteen weeks doing that but this is just stupid . Most people have four weeks off per year, and most people have to almost make-up the work when they return.

I can’t get over the cheek of the Conservatives. They seem to be calling for referenda on almost everything, but between 1979 and 1997 the Tories signed eurotreaty after eurotreaty without ANY referenda. I believe there should be ONE referenda on europe;- IN or OUT and get it sorted!

Its looking like a two-horse race for the party leadership, which is a shame and something we may live to regret! Maybe all the LibDem MP’s should be on the ballot by default and the ones that want to win could make an effort!! Westminster politicians are always talking about “choice”, can we have some for our leadership please?

There was a piece in the Gazette about the lack of UFO sightings in West Sussex, I wonder why! Well I’ve never seen one, but maybe thats because I’m too busy at work and then delivering leaflets to be staring-up at the sky.

The weather is brilliant here in sunny Littlehampton, better than it was in August!

I’m still in a bit of shock over Ming’s departure. I knew it was a matter of WHEN not IF, but I expected a bit more of a media flurry, I had just written a leaflet featuring Ming, luckily we had problems with the printer so we could call it off!!! 

I just want us to get a leader in place now and get on with the job. I just hope there are more candidates than we had last time and more choice! Leadership contests can get quite nasty as the media stir it up. The media don’t understand the LibDem electoral system which makes it worse.

So Ming’s gone and done it then? Well it comes to something when the only thing people can critisise your leader is for looking too old, I mean what a sad indictment of the media-led British polictical system! Ming was the best out of the three main party leaders, better than Blairclone and Flash Gordon.

Remember Ming is only four years older than Debbie Harry, the most attractive and talented singer in Blondie!

Ming sorted the Liberal Democrats out, got us on a winning track, now it’s time to get ourselves a new dynamic leader (like Paddy or Jo Grimond) One that gets the public enthused, maybe Charlie-boy could make a comeback after his excellent speech at conference?? 

I got my Lib Dem ballot paper today to select the candidates for the european parliament elections in 2009. It’s by STV so you have to put down preferences i.e 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,etc…. After my first preference, I havn’t got a clue who these people are, still I’ll read the booklet about the candidates and decide!

STV is a fantastic system, They have it in Ireland, which also has a higher turnout and higher political party membership. There are no “safe seats” under STV, a bad MP would be replaced by a better candidate from his/her own party. It has one main drawback in my opinion, and thats the time it takes to count. Sometimes days.

One interesing thing. It says on the ballot paper that you have to be 10 years old to vote!!!

The ballot paper has to be back by 7th November.

So the information commissioner is looking into alleged “robocalling” by the Labour party. This is where a computer telephones people and a recorded message asks them their voting intention. I don’t think the information commissioner needs to get involved, this is one guaranteed way of switching the electorate off Labour!!!  People who get these cheeky alleged calls won’t vote Labour anyway. They are shooting themselves in the feet.

 There is only one way to keep in touch with the electorate and that’s REGULAR newsletters and knocking on doors IN PERSON.

Long live the face-to-face contact.

So, some sickko has been cutting the heads off the swans in the river, it really is depressing because this is a great town, with some really nice people, great climate and good location.

Littlehampton made it into the “crap towns” book the other year and these idiots have made sure that the town keeps up the bad reputation, which I don’t believe it deserves!

I printed and distributed the local party supporters newsletter tonight. The media is full of the pre-budget thingy, I can’t help admiring Gordon for his master-stroke;-

1)Let the Tories think there’s going to be a general election over their conference so they announce all their policies. 

2) Call off the election and nick all the Tories most popular new policies.

Anyway, no general election gives me the chance to organise the christmas fair on the 24th November. It should raise enough to pay for a Focus leaflet. 

I think, going by the media that there’s going to be a recession. It will be interesting to see how Labour deals with it because they’ve been very lucky so far. The Tories in the last one went WHAT RECESSION? then THE GREEN SHOOTS OF RECOVERY, poor old John Major, he was a decent man surrounded by fools and took over on the eve of a massive economic downturn.

I think Labour might use a recession as an excuse to rein-in more of our traditional freedoms. I don’t know how because they own most of what we do now, so watch this space!

So Gordon’s got a vision for change has he?

Well, I hope he’s going to change the Illiberal, nosey, controlling, database state that has been built up over the last ten years. The government is going to spend billions on a computer system to watch us with, but going by previous computer systems that the government has commissoned, (CSA, Tax credits, single farm payments) this one is either going to be a complete flop, like the Millenium dome or it’s going to be successful and change the relationship between the British state and the British resident forever, the good old British bobby (if the government can still afford any!) would have to carry out the Orwellian duty of asking people if they are carrying their ID cards.

We are a hardworking, highly taxed, under appreciated nation, please Gordon, just let us live our lives with good schools / decent coppers / clean LOCAL hospitals.

Stop controlling us, it’s our life and OUR GOVERNMENT.

www.no2id.net

Mark Foster.

Great news! Gordon Brown has decided no general election this year “to prove he can do the job etc……” It’s all utter rubbish of course, he was worried that the Blair clone/aristocrat might win.

It means of course that I and my friends in Littlehampton can get on with real campaigning for the residents of Littlehampton and there are real issue that would have been lost in a national election campaign. Littlehampton hospital is a pile of rubble, Queen Street has vandals rampaging through it every night, Dorset Close has a horrible fence separating it from Rosemead park,  Littlehampton’s roads are terrible and unsafe and we in Arun are charged extra for collection of garden waste.

So the man who signed the cheques for the Iraq invasion (instead of hospitals) and the ID database (instead of Police) gets to remain Prime Minister, still, i don’t think the other guy would be any better!

 Mark Foster.

I wish the Prime Minister would just hurry up and rule out a general election this year. If it was held, it would be in November the evenings would be dark, postal votes would be held-up by the Royal Mail strike, it’s a really bad idea!

On a personal note, I’ve only got five days leave at work left this year. I don’t want to spend them delivering leaflets in the cold rain.

Some national politicians are stuck in the Westminster bubble and are completely insulated from the reality of street campaigning.

Mark Foster.

The suggestion to name the rebult Littlehampton Community School “The Roddick Academy” after Dame Anita Roddick is a fantastic idea. Dame Anita was one of Littlehampton’s most famous daughters and someone that Littlehampton could be truly proud, she showed that you could make money, (and lots of it!!) by treating your employees well and undertaking ethical trading.

Mark Foster