Patrick Mercer MP - a good resignation

[meditrina]

BBC story here

Idon'tmean what's he's done.

I mean someone who actually resigns, saying that 'you just have to fess up and get on with it" and acknowledging that he's ashamed of what he did.

What an amazing change from the usual mealy mouthed lot.

It appears if Cameron stands by an MP he is wrong e.g. Maria Miller, or acts e.g. 'plebgate' on a now proven police stitch up.

Wasn't this is the hands of Parliamentary Standards Committee where an MP had a right to defend his case who had not reported yet - how is this Cameron's judgement?

Farage needs to explain where he got his £2 million from, as thats an awful lot of 'allowances' - before casting stones near rural greenhouses, as he did on Sky this morning.

Or is that before the EU Double Standards Committee?

I don't expect Dave to be nice. I would admire him if he was competent. Which he's spectacularly not.

John Major was pilloried for his poor judgement but he's like Henry Kissinger in comparison to Dave.

Wowser!

I said that UKIP would top 50%, and now I see that I have seriously underestimated it, I will have to revise that up to 70%.

In the region of the country where I live, UKIP has the highest support of anywhere in the UK. Currently at 53%, but that is nowhere near the top. Incredible.

What is going on? Why have the establishment parties lost so much support? They are the best and the brightest, the pampered and the privileged, the Etonians and the Oxbridgers, the spinners and the expenses sinners, so how did they lose so much support? They told us they "cared", they told us they wanted a "fair" society, they told us they were "the party of in", and yet the people are voting them out. It's fast turning in to a rout.

Apparently, Farage has said that after the EU election results, there may well be a few more by-elections to come before the General Election. If that happens, then the "battle bus" will have already been parked up, so Farage may stil be able to cause an earthquake.

It's not over yet, it may have just begun.

"Nigel Farage's party is backed by half of voters in some of its English strongholds .

In the West Midlands, some 52% of voters say they will back Mr Farage's party.

In the European Parliament's 'Eastern' constituency - taking in all of East Anglia and counties north of London - support is even higher, at 53%.

Across England, support for Ukip has reached 41%, according to the respected pollsters ComRes.

Four in 10 voters in the South East and London are set to back the party, 44 per cent in the South West, 37 per cent in the South West and 36 per cent in the East Midlands.

Even in the traditional Labour heartlands of the North East and Yorkshire, Mr Farage's party is backed by more than a third of the electorate that is certain to vote.

Mr Farage is, however, struggling to break through outside England.

While 29 per cent of Welsh voters say they will back Ukip, this is seven points behind Labour who lead the polls.

But in Scotland just 12 per cent support Mr Farage's party, according to the poll."

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2616981/Ukip-course-win-HALF-votes-areas-despite-1-3-voters-saying-Farages-party-racist.html

Claig ... Who sez you can't fool most of the people, most of the time - but I find it sad that you get so excited about 'a protest' vote whilst peddling a con.

And Natalie Bennett of the Greens is getting better all the time. She is spot on when she says

"Bennett said the looming failure of the major parties in the election made it obvious that Britain’s electoral system was inadequate to represent the choice voters desired.

“What this also represents is the fact that two (or if we are being charitable two-and-a-half) party politics has very much broken down as a system. It demonstrates the utter unfitness of the first-past-the-post system that we have in Westminster.”

www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/28/ukip-policies-eu-immingration-green-party

Thank God we actually live in a country that has elections, because otherwise we would have to sit and watch these spinners on our TVs lecturing us and pretending that we actually support them.

The sooner we get proportional representation, the sooner the public will be truly represented.

Limitedperiodonly … an interesting opinion, clearly either ignorant or coming freshly spun from America, but interesting none the less.

FYI in the UK General Election of 2010 the UK was on the cusp of a series of economic and social meltdowns - and ‘the people’ were offered an election beauty contest of politically ugly party leaders – and to the electorate, Cameron was just, repeat just, the prettiest of a f-ugly bunch.

We had a Labour Party that brought us to where we were, but had no clues how to fix it, conveniently choosing to wait until after the 2010 election before telling us what taxes would go up to fund the deficit, apart from Fuel Duties and National Insurance rises, budgeted before hand.

As to HOW Labour would rebalance the economy, it seems their best strategy was along the lines of David Copperfield’s Mr Micawber, where if you leave the government waste and inefficiencies for long enough, “something will turn up”. Now headed by Mr Miliband,we have to assume that he would have run the country better than he did our energy policy, as the last Energy Minister.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/politics/1983467-UK-Energy-Policy-Price-scandal-outages-due

Next we have Mr Farage who disingenuously promises Ukip will bring the UK out of the EU and solve all our ‘foreign’ problems, but as EU MEP’s cannot change British Law to do it, he is amassing votes on a wholly false premise. As to UK domestic policies, after 20-years he/Ukip still does not have any, choosing to flip flop polices quicker than finishing a pint, depending on which mainstream party’s suckers that he (and his army of brainless minions who have yet to realise any of this) is currently targeting.

Leading on to Mr Clegg, whatever he’s motives, by forming a Coalition with Mr Cameron he did this country a great service and should be mentioned more favourably in political despatches, as due to Labour’s post 2010 parliamentary strategy of ‘oppose everything’, the UK would have seen parliamentary gridlock - which would have been a financial and social disaster, with our government bond interest rates much higher at pre2010 levels - rather than those much lower after.

Mr Clegg now has more experience in a Westminster government with sustainable economic policies that don’t rely on excessive spending than Mr Miliband, and in Clegg’s little finger, Mr Farage.

Finally the best looking in this ugly contest Mr Cameron, where many may either still believe ‘more of the (pre 2010) same’ would have turned up something, OR vehemently disagree with some of the his coalition’s methods of looking to sustain the previously non sustainable, but has he been "spectacularly" incompetent in turning the economy etc around - only a badly informed (at best) critic would say that.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10541766/David-Cameron-the-great-reform

Isitmebut, this is democracy. It is about the wishes of the British people, not the wishes of Cameron, the clique and the chums.

This is important. it is about people's lives and futures, not the futures of Cameron, the clique and the chums.

This shows that the British public is dissatisfied and has had enough. This is a people's revolt that is turning into a rout, and our rulers are not listening, they are still spinning.

Claig....BUT HOW DOES A UKIP THAT CANNOT DELIVER ITS EU PROMISES (AS THEY CANNOT CHANGE BRITISH LAW) HELP "PEOPLE'S LIVES AND FUTURE" - a simple question, please answer?????????????????

HOW IS PEDDLING A BIGGER LIE THAN THE MAINSTREAM PARTIES, NOT A LARGER 'SPIN' REVOLUTION????

No one knows, but everyone knows that they want change and that is why they are voting UKIP. They are not prepared to back the spinners anymore. They no longer believe their spin.

You still believe the spinners, you have faith in them, you think they are jolly good eggs, but the British public doesn't and that is why it is voting UKIP.

It doesn't matter how many spinners from Oxbridge tell the public they are wrong and stupid and how many fruitcakes the Oxbridge journalists uncover, the public is past caring. It wants the spinners out.

'HOW IS PEDDLING A BIGGER LIE THAN THE MAINSTREAM PARTIES, NOT A LARGER 'SPIN' REVOLUTION????'

Because the public are not stupid. We know that the spinners and the privileged and the Oxbridgers and the Etonians and the millionaires think we are stupid, but the public has got them rattled and it has done it by rejecting their spin and voting UKIP. That is why the public has done it.

The public are not voting UKIP for spin, they are voting UKIP for an end to spin and to kick the spinners out. That is what it is really about.

Imagine how the establishment spinners will react the day after the election result is announced. How can they go on our TV screens and lecture us with a straight face and pretend that we all support them after the result is revealed?

It will be a farce, but of course they will brazen it out and pretend we still back them and believe their spin. But cameras and reporters from the whole world will be watching and will report it and someone will eventually say that the Emperor Has No Clothes, and then all the spin will crumble overnight.

That is why this is a political earthquake and that is why Natalie Bennett is spot on when she said “What this also represents is the fact that two (or if we are being charitable two-and-a-half) party politics has very much broken down as a system. It demonstrates the utter unfitness of the first-past-the-post system that we have in Westminster.”

Maybe, maybe we will then get a better more representative democracy, a proportional system that allows the public to kick spinners out and choose parties and policies they actually believe in, if the spinners allow us that better system.

Panorama showed the plight of some of our elderly in our care homes yesterday.

Those poor people have no voice. Hostages to cruel treatment. Everybody knows or thinks that it is or was happening not just in that one home shown on TV, but elsewhere too.

How will it ever change, how will those people get a voice? We need to change our electoral system to open it up, free it up, remove the spinners and let people be represented by politicians who really represent them, listen to them and give them a voice.

UKIP is the tool the public are using to start that change.

You would think that the public would vote Labour to get change. But the harsh reality is that the public has lost trust in Labour, it doesn't believe them, it thinks they are just more of the same and even bigger spinners than the other lot.

That is why UKIP is taking Labour votes too.

I am tempted to follow Russell Brand's lead and not vote. What a shower of fucking scum ! They make me sick

I rather suspect any women with any self respect, regardless of their political leanings will not vote UKIK simply because of their stated beliefs about rape in marriage (no such thing) employing women of child bearing age (any sensible company wouldn't) sluts, maternity leave and the advisability of people who aren't earning voting (not a good idea)

In short, if you are female you:
Should not be employed (because you might get pregnant)
Should not be allowed to vote (because if you don't pay taxes you shouldn't be allowed to have a say)
As soon as you say "I do" your right to bodily autonomy is withdrawn
You are a slut
You belong in the kitchen (as tweeted by more than one UKIP candidate)

And this is even without getting into their more enlightened views on the disabled, homosexuals and anyone who isn't COE

Then why have UKIP got so many female candidates, who are far better than the male ones such as Roger Helmer, in my opinion. Why has Star Etheridge, a disabled woman, chosen to be UKIP's Disability Spokeswoman?

Women are "slowly but surely" taking over Ukip and will be the face of the party in the run up to May's European elections, Nigel Farage has said.

"Nigel Farage: I'm Making Sure Women Are Taking Over Ukip"

"The Ukip leader said female candidates would "dominate election coverage" for the party over the next four months as a direct result of his leadership.

"Nobody has done more in Ukip to promote women than I have," he said. "When you get the results from European elections you'll be astonished to see as many women as men in the top slots in Ukip, things have changed."

The Ukip leader told BBC Radio 4's Women's Hour on Friday: "The women are slowly but surely taking over Ukip."

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/02/14/nigel-farage-ukip-women_n_4787011.html

Some of these crackpots and fruitcakes in UKIP may not be all they seem to be. There are undoubtedly some real ones who believe what they say, but I think some of them may be establishment stooges who say these things deliberately in order to harm UKIP.

The establishment politicians don't really understand what is happening.
There was a Labour one on TV just now saying the usual thing that all the politicians say i.e. that UKIP is gaining success because of an "anti politician feeling" in the country.

The politicians seem to think that it wil eventually all go away and that come election time, the public will fall back in line and be pro politicians again.

The public is not anti politician or as the spinners say "anti politics". How patronising is that! These spinners seem to think we don't care about politics and they will battle on as saints doing what they can for us even if we are "anti politics".

People marching to stop wars or for better pay or for better care or better pensions or for no GM food or no fracking, are not "anti politics". They care for politics but not for the spinners.

We are not "anti politician". Farage is the most popular politician in the country and people want to shake his hand and buy him a pint. He is a star even though all of the establishment media and Oxbridge journalists try to ridicule him. And of course he is a politician, even though the spinners pretend that he isn't, but he is a different politician to them. He tells the truth.

We are not "anti politics", we are anti spinners and their "policies". That is what they don't get and don't really want to get, because that would force them to change and defy their "whips" and their "leaders" who determine policy without asking them or the public.

UKIP will not be going away because the public has passed the "tipping point". In the county I come from, UKIP is already well over 50%, and that is only the beginning because the media propaganda and the Oxbridge spinners have convinced a lot of people that UKIP is not worth voting for because they can't change anything or because they are fruitcakes. But there are lots of those people who will also pass the "tipping point" as soon as they see that that was a media lie propagated by the spinners.

The dam is about to burst, and lots of people who were persuaded not to vote UKIP by the Oxbridge spinners will change their views when they see the success that UKIP gets in the elections.

That is why UKIP are a threat to all of teh establishment parties, but particularly to the incumbents, since they are currently in power. If the Tories don't wake up and if Labour don't wake up, they will lose voters. I think it might already be too late for Cleggy. He tried to stem the tide, he took on UKIP, but it only resulted in a downward slide.

Keep talking to yourself claig. At some point you might even convince yourself.

Claig … YOU SOUND LIKE A MISGUIDED ANARCHIST ON ‘TILT’, either pretending to yourself Ukip have the ways and means to change anything (when the facts are blindingly obvious they cannot, even ‘care homes’) or have an cult like emotional need to follow the lies of a so called ‘anti establishment ‘ ex city career speculator as a demi-god.

You keep going on about the ‘spinners’, yet all Ukip have/offer is ‘spin’ AND NOTHING ELSE as they cannot change a thing into whatever they finally say they want - and the fun starts in 2015 when they have to detail and cost every domestic policy, rather than perpetuate ONE BIG LIE, that they can bring the UK out of the EU – so good for one election only, enjoy.

I'm getting close to deciding. Not there yet.

Isitmebut, I'm just with the majority of the population, with the people. It is you who are with Cameron and the minority. UKIP is at 38% and over 50% in the counties north of London. The Tories are currently at 18% and sinking! Some of the spinners must be hitting the bottle and drinking, most probably on expenses paid for by the public.

Claig... this is not about "being with someone", this is about reality and the future for generations to come, not a dating show with copious amounts of booze.

Who is best running the country, whether looking at current policies of the two main parties or histories of digging this country out of economic holes - if the country does not get that in May 2015, then so be it, they get Labour NOT UKIP to sort it out - that is how our democracy works.

P.S. On your numbers game, round 2008, 99.9% of 'the people' were both both angry and certain that Investment Banking should be kicked out of the City and take their annual (pre crash £60 to £100 billion) tax receipts elsewhere in Europe - and sod the growing budget deficit we had - but in the cold light of day, were they right, especially those that don't like budget cuts.

Your 'thought for the day'. lol

Isitmebut, you are missing the enormity of what is happening.

It is about being in tune with the people. The only people who look down on the people are the spinners. The people are trying to get a message through.

When Farage says this is a "political earthquake", it really is. This is more than just a protest vote as the SDP, LibDem or Green votes were, because they are all establishment parties. The UKIP vote is an anti-establishment vote. It is a repudiation of the establishment. It is a protest against the establishment (Labour, LibDem, Tory, Green etc etc), rather than the old protest vote against a single party. That is why it is an "earthquake". It has happened because the spinners are out of touch with the public to such a degree that the public is now voting on emotion rather than pure reaspn. Everybody knows that the Tories are better for the economy than Labour, but the public has gone beyond that point. Labour will not win because the public has no faith in them. They are seen as spinners, even more so than the Tories. The whole lot will lose votes to UKIP, and it will shake the Tories and they will have to change. I think they may have to do a deal with UKIP. That may be the only thing that saves them. Tha fact that UKIP have few policies yet does not worry the public, because this is not about policies, this is about everything.

Of course, the real question is "is Farage up to the job?", can he shoulder the responsibility the people want to give him, can he bring change, or will he step back and "bottle it" and will the people get the same old, same old spinners once again. Who knows? We will have to wait to find out.

There is an excellent article by Laurie Penny in the New Statesman. You will like it because it makes some cracking good jokes at Farage's expense and is very funny and well written. It makes some very good points but it also misses the point and gets things wrong in its scare tactic demeaning of UKIP, because it is written by a leftwinger who does not really understand what UKIP are about. The commentators underneath the article tend to get it right. But it is a very good article and worth reading even if some of it is wrong, because some of it is also spot on. The spinners are being repudiated, the spin will have to stop, the spinners' taking of the public for a ride will have to end. But of course they can't stop spinning, because spin is all they know. That is why there is an earthquake. It doesn't matter how many Oxbridge journalists or Oxbridge comedians, like the so-called anti-establishment Stewart Lee, are thrown against UKIP, nothing will succeed in stopping the people's party because th epeople have had enough of spin.

Here is some of Laurie Penny's article. There are some cracking jokes against Farage, but we have all seen and we all know, that the more jokes and insults that are made against Farage, the more the people back him and the more the people turn from the establishment or Oxbridge journalists like Laurie Penny.

Again some of it is right and some of it is wrong

"Why can nobody stop Nigel Farage?"

...

The British political class does not understand how badly it has alienated its voter base. It does not understand the rage against a democratic system that has failed to provide any coherent, liveable alternatives to falling wages, rising rents and persistent unemployment. From within Westminster, it is impossible to comprehend how out-of touch politicians look, how much the expenses scandal meant, and continues to mean, for people who do not drink in the taxpayer-subsidised Commons bars.

...

They just don’t care enough to change their vote. They don’t care because as much as they may like their neighbours, they hate the political classes and fear the uncertain future far more, and for that particular change in public mood, the Conservatives need only inspect the mirror in the any of those parliamentary bars.

As soon as Farage was put on a televised podium next to Nick Clegg, he’d won, and not only because he is the better public speaker, witty and brash and not lashed to a party line. The Liberal Democrats have everything to lose, having traded away every scrap of popular respect for power in that bile-raising way that should have become more palatable after four years but somehow hasn’t. By contrast, Ukip lose nothing when people laugh at them. Clegg looked like an acting student auditioning for a serious drama, when the audience knows, and Farage knows, that he is acting in a farce.

...

The reason nobody can stop Ukip is that nobody can offer a credible alternative that articulates public rage without playing on popular hatred. For that, you need vision, hope, and real respect for the electorate, and that’s something the organised left has yet to provide."

www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/04/ukip-understands-people-will-always-want-someone-blame

In my opinion, Laurie gets some of it, but not all of it. She is in a way establishment, too - Oxbridge - just like so many others.

The establishment have voices, the Oxbridge journalists and right-on comedians are always spinning on TV or newspapers. they are always blaming the people, calling them "bigots" or "fruitcakes". But the people have no voice. The 98 year old woman begging for 3 hours in a care home asking to be taken to the toilet because she could not walk and who said "oh this is wicked" as the so-called "carers" ignored her yet again, had no voice. The spinners aren't listening, they are claiming expenses and lecturing the people. That is why the people are voting UKIP.

'Ukip lose nothing when people laugh at them.'

The public are immune to jokes about UKIP or scare tactics and insults about UKIP because it thinks that those are the last desperate attempts of the establishment to silence the public and "educate" them using their Oxbrdige journalists and media bigwigs paid hundreds of thousands by the taxpaying public, while sneering at the public and someone even implying that the public are "bigots".

Here is yet another Labour type who just does not get it and feels that the public only needs to be "educated" so that they can vote the right way. The public is repudiating all of the patronising, privileged out of touch spinners who have taken the public for granted for years while claiming for every biscuit and bath plug that they could out of the public purse.

"Labour’s former European Parliament leader said voters considering backing Ukip needed to be ‘educated’ about its ‘lies’ and ‘xenophobia’.

Glyn Ford said Mr Farage was ‘not the worst’ person in Ukip and had some ‘nasty people trailing behind him’.

‘We haven’t educated people as to what they are all about - Ukip voters need to be educated,’ he added."

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2618288/Ukip-White-Cliffs-poster-raises-stakes-Euro-poll-Controversial-anti-immigration-campaign-takes-aim-Britains-open-borders.html

The public don't need "educating". The only people that are going to get an "education" when the reults of the Euro elections are read out are the spinners. But, we already know and have seen before, that they never learn. They feel they don't need to listen to the public, these spinners are far too important for that.