Are You Part of the 46.4%?

Looking at the wiki page for Leeds West, the constituency in which I live, I come across a profound miscalculation - it states that John Battle (Labour) was returned with 55.5% of the vote.

This is profoundly wrong and misleading - this is only based on the number of people positively voting for labour out of the total turnout, as if those who decided not to vote somehow do not matter. If you weigh in the total number of available votes the figure looks considerably less impressive: 29.73%.

Less than a third of my fellow constituents returned the Labour party to power of their own volition at the last election.

Less than one in three people brought Labour back to power in Leeds West; less than a quarter brought them back country-wide at the last election - one in 4 people have empowered the Labour party to bring this country to its knees intentionally!

And all because 46.4% of you wouldn't, or couldn't, vote for those in power in my constituency.

There are 2 fatal flaws with democracy - the first comes when people stop voting consciously, allowing bad decisions to be made by flawed people; they cry "voting changes nothing" and make it true because nobody they deem to protect our laws is changed - that is how this present autocracy can rule with a mandate of 1 in 4 people.  The second comes when those self-same flawed MP's foolishly forget that their primary job is not to create laws (bad or good) but to uphold just ones instead; I believe that if LPUK is ever to achieve any real positive change in this country it must not forget this; that we champion the individualist, and by association, laws that let him thrive, above all else.

It is my hope that at the next election - whether that be in 2 or 18 months time, depending on who you believe - I will stand for Leeds West as LPUK's PPC; I have just forwarded my details on to the coordinators to start the ball rolling. In the interim I ask the following:

• If you dont vote, do: if you yourself, or anyone you know, doesn't vote, please do - I am not suggesting you vote for a party you hold only contempt for - in that case vote for all of them; I will be doing so in the upcoming Euro-elections; would the winning party be able to hold any kind of valid mandate if the number of spoiled votes was greater than what brought them into power? Look at it another way - you vote by proxy for the winning party when you do not vote at all.

• If you do not vote because you believe that voting changes nothing, it is because you have voted away too many of your freedoms? I recommend you watch the following videos to understand this; your rights and freedoms aren't given by government - they are yours, and the government exists to serve them and you - anything more, and as we are fast seeing, we become slaves to it. LPUK came into existence to ensure this fact isn't forgotten and government is put into its rightful place, championing liberty, not granting it.

Running a campaign for election is expensive; there are several candidates for LPUK so if you are interested in helping please donate here:

Better yet, join up to make a positive change for Britain:

And if you think you know someone who doesn't vote - tell them about LPUK, show them the website if you have any of the business cards hand them out:

Libertarians believe in individual liberty, personal responsibility, and freedom from government—on all issues at all times. We don't say government is too big in one area, but then in another area push for a law to force people to do what we want. We believe in individual liberty, personal responsibility, and freedom from government—on all issues at all times.

LPUK: a party that speaks for the silent majority.

Cross posted here

Expensives

Caught you, you thieving toe rags

Glad to see a member of the MSM doing something right for once, but do not think this is entirely down to their efforts; Guido offered some money to the chap who had the uncut expenses data which has no doubt led to the telegraph's "poop or get off the pot" actions, neither would it have been possible were it not for a few independent journalists hounding them, expecting answers as to how they spent other peoples money; our money.

I cant help but wonder what it is that most bothers me about this; for what we are paying MP's, ministers and their associated hangers on it must be tiring work - no decent employer would expect slave hours for slave wages, nor would they expect them to be transported hundreds of miles for long periods of time without sufficient compensation and provisions. No - what I think annoys me most is the lack of honesty in their dealings with their employers; and Young Mr. Brown appears to agree with me on this. Few employers would agree to such terms - "hand over this money for "expenses", no questions asked" - we are not given this ultimatum on such "civil" terms - "you will hand over this money for "expenses" and you will not ask questions or we will put you in chokey"...Now we've found out what they are spending our money on and you can be sure many of them will lose their job over this, come the election; there is only so many times that people will vote for the rosette when they are (finally) paying attention to the turd that it is attached to.

Many of these same MP's will use the other defence of "not being paid enough for the job" - I, as would most people say when they catch an employee with their hand in the till "supplementing" their wages, would tell them to seek alternative employment where there wage requirements can be realised.

They do have a point here though and this is what happens when you fix the price of something so that it doesn't follow the natural cost of that item; Wat Tyler covered this some time ago in relation to national pay scales and its consequences*. Which is why I offer the following idea up for scrutiny: in an ideal world wages would be set by the market in which they operate - teachers in education, nurses/doctors in healthcare, fruits scones in baking etc - MPs operate likewise in another type of market - the general election market - as such they should name their price (wages would henceforth be paid out of council tax) and terms of contract alongside their policy interests and CV; this would have the double blessing of focusing the MP's mind on local issues throughout the year and focusing the minds of the electorate on the true cost of their representative an thus worth. Better MP's who are shown to be consistently good at their jobs would be able to negotiate higher wages whilst moderate ones would be open to haggling and improving their behaviour in parliament and their contact with their constituents. Ministers would be paid a stipend on top of this to ensure compensation for additional work which would be fixed and paid out of central funds. Combined with a robust and open expenses scheme identical to private industry you would ensure competition thrived.

A worker deserves his wages, but let them examine their own self-worth.

There was a time...

This is what passports used to be for

...when your passport was primarily not a document used to identify you, lest you try to enter a country or plane under false pretences and commit a criminal act, but a document that illustrated your right to seek refuge, assistance or protection against injustice. Then, somehow, once Labour had cheapened the entire fiasco that was getting one, an event in which you were vetted fully, and allowed anyone and everyone to get one in the name of "inclusion" (read= vote buying, or worse, gaining political pull), the document was deemed useless, in fact, suddenly you could no longer rely on it being enough that security services could do their job in tracking down criminals or monitoring their movements; they had to pin your identity to a piece of paper, in the name of security.

Now they are pinning it down to plastic; do not be fooled for a minute - the scheme is being rolled out as "voluntary". Remember that word "voluntary" when they come to fine you over your non-conformance or ask why you haven't dont your "mandatory voluntary" work without a single hint of irony in how those 2 words just do not fit in the same sentence.

What is more sickening is the way that the media, especially the BBC have treated this story; radio 4's morning and afternoon presenters (and I normally quite like Eddie Mair) completely evaded the point regarding this huge slap in the face of our civil liberties, instead pointing out that the cost of the scheme is mainly rolled into the cost of the new biometric passport system - the "you've will pay for it one way or another" defence just doesn't wash.

It is a common theme for the left to turn the meaning of things on their head; to downright distortions if not complete inversions of the truth of things - journalists should remember that when they next ask a labour minister what a passport or ID card are for - our protection or theirs?

Compare & Contrast...

This*...

"Local government officials in China have been ordered to smoke nearly a quarter of a million packs of cigarettes in a move to boost the local economy during the global financial crisis....

...China has 350 million smokers, about a million of whom die each year from smoking-related illnesses. Despite anti-smoking campaigns, cigarette taxes form a major component of China's annual tax-take at local level."

with this....

"...Gordon Brown has said he wants to create around 100,000 new jobs through a programme of public works with echoes of the 1930s US New Deal.

School rebuilds will help struggling construction companies while investment in superfast broadband will be the modern-age equivalent of 1930s America's focus on road and rail links.

"I want to show how we will be able, through public investments and public works, to create probably 100,000 additional jobs over the next period of time in our capital investment programme - schools, hospitals, environmental work and infrastructure, transport," the prime minister told the Observer newspaper..."

What am I driving at? This. In both cases you have soft totalitarians taking money from the productive class and giving it to the unproductive; you think one penny spent on those 100000 new jobs will be for anything useful? Expect more "diversity coordinators" (read "bribed labour voters") and crumbling infrastructure.

Heed this warning; for every pound the government spends on public services it has taken £3 of yours to pay for it - actually its no longer spending your 3£, but your child's.

* I'm aware that the chinese authorities have "stubbed out" this rather elaborate means of burning money; let us hope that Gordo will do something, anything, likewise.