Delivering FOCUS in Ham ward today, I’ve noticed how many empty properties there are. It’s quite shocking and reminds me of when I was delivering in the North Beaumont in 1993-5, and every-other house had been repossessed. I think the upcoming recession is going to be deeper than even I imagined it was going to be, which is sad and going to cause a lot of pain.

Gordy didn’t thing that the ‘boom’ was a boom, he thought it was his ‘stability’ and that he’d beaten the natural economic cycle, well we’re all going to pay for Gordy’s ego now.

It’s interesting to see the latest polls http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/guide/ we’re up a bit on when the 10pence tax thing was going on, which is weird!! 

David Davis – I have never had much time for him before and I disagree with most of what he says but I have to admire the bloke for giving-up an almost certain job in the next Conservative government to fight for what he (and many other good people) believe passionately in, good luck to him!  

European Treaty – I am a pro-european but the Irish have rejected it, so in my opinion, the Lisbon treaty should be abandoned and we should struggle on as we have done for the past four years, but further expansion of the EU should be out of the question now.

Things just seem to be getting worse and worse for poor old Gordy, I bet he wished he’d called a general election back in October! I’ve never seen a national leader go so quickly from ‘hero to zero’. Of course, poll ratings are not his only problem, the Labour party is near to insolvency and the senior officers of the party could be personally liable.

I have a solution to their problems make Tony Blair pay off the debt! after all, it seems that he’s the only person in the country to have personally benefited from Newlabour and he’s not short of a bob or two, while the rest of us work 60 hours a week just to pay our electricity bills. I know if I was a member of the Labour party, I would feel quite bitter about Bliar walking-off and leaving it all like that!

Poor old Gordy. He’s waited twenty years to get where he’s at and it’s all gone wrong! Gordy thinks that he can run the country like a 1930’s Tory toff; behind the scenes and out of the glare of the public and cameras. Times have changed Gordy! If you want advice from a southern working-class liberal, STAY IN OFFICE and hopefully you’ll destroy the Labour party before you destroy Britain! 

It looks like Britain is about to go from New Labour to Blue Labour. Cameron has been shaped in the Bliar mould, vacuous with smiles and Britain it seems, laps it up. You reap what you sew like you did with Bliar!

I noticed today that the street sign outside the old Wick T Farm depot spells Arundel Road, ‘Arundle’ I wonder if anyone else has noticed that?

According to the ‘Tribune’ (9^th May 2008), the Labour party is near to bankruptcy. Where are all those champagne socialists now? Those people who gladly and loudly sung “Things can only get better” on that Friday morning in 1997. Newlabour used to stand for complete CONTROL, Bliar tried to create a big-brother database state that invaded every aspect of citizens lives, it’s lucky that it wasn’t a complete success!

It’s the annual Littlehampton town council meeting (Mayor-making) tomorrow, which I will attend as a member of the public (thank the people of Brookfield ward for giving Irene 4 more votes than me!!).

Today is the 11^th Anniversary of  the Newlabour

‘revolution’ It’s now very ironic to read the 1997 manifesto. The annotations are my comments.

 “Our long-term objective is a lower starting rate of income tax of ten pence in the pound. Reducing the high marginal rates at the bottom end of the earning scale - often 70 or 80 per cent - is not only fair but desirable to encourage employment.” And it’s just been abolished!

“We will reject the boom and bust policies which caused the collapse of the housing market.”Well, we’ve had the boom…..now for the bust!

“Public services and transport services in rural areas must not be allowed to deteriorate. The Conservatives have tried to privatise the Post Office. We opposed that, in favour of a public Post Office providing a comprehensive service.”A Post Office providing a comprehensive service….eh?

“Our system of government is centralised, inefficient and bureaucratic.”You said it! “We are committed to a referendum on the voting system for the House of Commons.”Really?

We’ve got no elections on Thursday in Littlehampton but there are in London and some other places and Gordy has helped destroy Labour’s representation even more than Bliar did last year. The 10pence tax thing has given the election away, soon there will be no one left in the Labour party. 

Interestingly, I have just played about with the Telegraph swingometer, and it helps proves how unfair the British electoral system is, I swung it to a LibDem victory and got a hung parliament.   

A LibDem popular vote of 50% gives 286 seats. Conservative pop vote of 32% gives 236 seats.

Labour popular vote of 18% gives 99 seats.

The others with 10% get 29 seats.   The Conservatives won a parliamentary majority with 39% of the pop vote and Labour won with 33% of pop vote.Give it a go http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?menuId=6770&menuItemId=10310&view=DISPLAYCONTENT&grid=A1&targetRule=1

When I heard that the government were thinking about using the minimum wage to deal with the abolition of the 10pence tax rate, I nearly choked on my cheese omelette!  

This government have absolutely no idea of empirical economics and the effect that their policies have on hardworking people. To ensure that all people on the minimum wage would no longer lose out from the 10p rate, the minimum wage would have to be increased for all people to £18,500 per year - or £9.49 per hour! That would leave thousands of people without jobs and hasten the death of British manufacturing.  

I have been involved in politics for fifteen years or so but I have never been so motivated to remove the government from office. The problem is though, that the British people will jump to the other end of the electoral see-saw and vote for the Tories and in fifteen years or so we’ll be back in the same situation again.

Only the good die young they say, John Peel and Robin Cook are testament to that but Gwyneth Dunwoody was what parliament and representatives should be about, holding the establishment to account and not being a part of it.  I am genuinely saddened by her death, I think Britain is the worst for her passing and we need people like her with grit now more than ever in the throwaway and superficial politics of modern Britain. I make one guarantee; that the people of Crewe and Nantwich will never have an MP in the future (whatever their party) who will stand-up as tirelessly as Gwyneth has done over the past 34 years.