Rochester and Strood Latest

[WetAugust]

The white van has been transformed to a Harrods van and the England flag is now a Hammer and Sickle so Mrs Hyacinth Bouquet, Labour MP feels more at home

Yes but when Andy Burnham rakes the reins then the NW will revert to solid red. He is massively popular up there not least because Liverpudlians thank him for getting to the bottom of Hillsborough.

HS2 may not benefit ordinary people. What will the fares be like? Will it be paid for by ordinary hardworking people in white vans with England flags and only be affordable for business travellers to knock 30 minutes off their journeys? Is it another white elephant?

"Of course HS2 is not about providing a new route for commuters, but its proponents partly rely on arguments about relieving congested commuter routes to justify the enormous cost of the project. Maybe the case for expanding capacity, rather than the minutes it will shave off journey times, will eventually result in a green light for HS2. But, to me, it carries the whiff of Concorde – a huge national project beloved of politicians, but underwritten by taxpayers, to allow rich people to get from A to B more quickly. If we are going to tax nurses, plumbers and bank clerks to pay for HS2, can we at least have some concrete guarantees they will actually be able to afford to travel on it? And not just on a wet afternoon in February."

www.theguardian.com/money/blog/2013/nov/02/hs2-train-fares-commuter

And is it something to do with the EU?

"The continent is the final destination for HS2

The London to Birmingham high-speed rail link is part of a Europe-wide scheme dreamed up Jacques Delors back in 1993."

www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/9015342/The-continent-is-the-final-destination-for-HS2.html

Farage having used up his two General Election 'Get out of jail' cards to obtain a UKIP Westminster seat, did not like being reminded UKIP are a 'protest' vote ....yet seems to forget what happens at General Elections.

In 2004, UKIP won 12% of the European Election vote, but only 2.20% of the 2005 General Election vote.

In 2009 UKIP won 17% of the European Election vote, but only 3.10% of the 2010 General Election vote.

Clearly the two ex Conservative sitting MP's have now done what previous, how many was it at the last GE, over 550 UKIP candidates COULD NOT DO, occupy a seat in Westminster - so UKIP really has to see what its own home grown 'fruits' can bring at the big one, in 2015, before calling a serious trend.

'I didn't know UKIP were opposing the bedroom tax.'

Absolutely and they are also going to scrap tuition fees for maths and science degrees.

Re HS2 ... was the whole cross country train system creaking at the seams in 1993, do those people traveling like cattle now think of that Mr Delors and sigh?

I ask again WHAT is UKIP's estimates on UK population going to be in 2020 and beyond - it really is UKIP's specialised subject?

If you have the growth of freight from the current economy and that for a more spread economy as currently planned, please also show rather than make dumb accusations wanting to connect your major cities, is an EU 'plot'.

Re 'the bedroom tax', most Conservatives oppose the thing, but in a busted economy, couldn't see a quicker way to give bedrooms to the 5 million (1.7 million families) awaiting in 2010 Social Housing lists - than trying to free up over 800,000 spare ones within the current council/social housing stock.

Did I miss anyone elses emergency measures to try help those needy numbers within their 2010 General Election manifestos, or come to think of it, even acknowledge they existed?

you may have missed the appeal that is awaiting decision regarding the lady who claims that her spare bedroom is a panic room and that it should be disregarded for bedroom tax calculations.

Something about that disturbs me

WetAugust ... there are no doubt MANY individual cases that need to be looked at in a 'common sense' way, but that surely is the job of local authorities to look at it and use any financial/discretionary tools given to them to handle it at a grass roots level - government policy has to initially worry about 'the VERY many' over 'the few' in such a dire economic/housing situation.

Come 2015, on balance, although some would have been happy to trade down and collect ££wedge for doing so, the policy might have been seen as a lemon...no government gets all its policies right, especially having to hit the ground running in 2010, with so much 'stuff' flying at the fan.

Clearly these people were no secret to a responsible government and can't be solved by political soundbites and/or just blaming the last government, what was UKIPs solution in 2010?

Shelter (2009); The housing crisis in numbers – and the need for spare bedrooms, never mind homes.
england.shelter.org.uk/campaigns/why_we_campaign/the_housing_crisis/what_is_the_housing_crisis.
• Over 1.7 million households (around 5 million individuals) are currently waiting for social housing
• 7.4 million homes in England fail to meet the Government's Decent Homes Standard
• 1.4 million children in England live in bad housing. [3]
• In 2008/09, 654,000 households in England were overcrowded. [4]
The number of new households is increasing faster than the number of house builds

Claig, I read the booklet you linked to.

Can I ask some quick questions?

Does UKIP believe in climate change?

How will they 'guarantee' veterans a job with the police/border control/prison service? and what's happens to the people already doing those jobs?

Why will veterans go straight to the top of the housing list? Is that over homeless families? Single mothers with children? Disabled people?

UKIP believes all prisoners should serve full sentences...are they planning new prisons to fit them all in? Where is the money coming from?

"Does UKIP believe in climate change?"

As far as I know most of them don't. I certainly don't but I'm only a voter, but Farage adopts a more politically correct position of he is not sure, but he is sure that all their carbon plans are a waste of time because they won't make any difference when China and India dwarf whatwe produce etc

'How will they 'guarantee' veterans a job with the police/border control/prison service? and what's happens to the people already doing those jobs?'

I don't know but my guess is that they will increase police numbers etc. They are generally a real conservative law and order type party.

'Why will veterans go straight to the top of the housing list? Is that over homeless families? Single mothers with children? Disabled people?'

I don't know, but I doubt it.

'UKIP believes all prisoners should serve full sentences...are they planning new prisons to fit them all in? Where is the money coming from?'

I think so. The money will come from all their savings - £60 billion on HS2, £9 billion per annum on foreign aid etc

But the 'savings' from scraping hs2 and foreign aid cannot possibly cover everything. That money cannot be used again and again and again.
Also, I don't believe that white van man who hangs a flag out his window is as representative of the 'ordinary' Brit as UKIP would like to believe. And the bloke whose house was tweeted didn't even bloody vote.
People who don't vote in such a crucial election because they can't be bothered to educate themselves are a disgrace. My (and probably his) WC grandparents would be turning in their graves at such apathy.

NancyJones, that man didn't even know a byelection was on. He was from Strood. Have you read the truly frightening picture that Peter Hitchens painted of the apathy and anger and disillusion in Strood? What is a disgrace is how these Westminster politicians have let some of our towns deteriorate to such an extent that some people feel so apathetic.

This is a brilliant article by Peter Hitchens, worth reading in full. I will give his Strood comments.

"In Strood, my wholly unreliable and unscientific sample was the polar opposite. They were a very English sample – not a Pole or a Somali to be seen. After a while I began to dread asking anyone his views, and to wonder if I was the victim of an elaborate trick, and they were all actors hired by Downing Street to confuse me.

Almost everyone I talked to in Strood (I took up station close to KFC and not far from Morrisons) was disillusioned to the point of cynicism. I can’t disapprove of this on principle. I am a hardened non-voter, and can’t remember when I last bothered to cast a ballot in the safe Labour seat where I dwell. But if I lived in Rochester or Strood I should certainly vote next week, because it seems to me, on this rare occasion, it would make a difference.

If the Tories can’t hold Rochester, politics in this country will change deeply and forever. If they do hold it, politics in this country will remain the same. That’s quite an incentive to vote – whatever way you feel. I’m still amazed by the Prime Minister’s direct appeal to Labour supporters to vote Tory, which they are as likely to do as they are likely to tandoori and eat their grannies.

But in many cases, this is a crossroads that ordinary human beings aren’t even interested in visiting. People told me they were sick of immigration, sick of low wages, sick of false promises. I said that in that case Ukip was their ideal party, but they said that no, it wasn’t.

They had heard of it. They knew what it was, but they didn’t trust it. Some thought the whole election was a waste of money. Others were just hopelessly confused, the most perplexed being an enthusiastic Green Party supporter who suddenly launched into a diatribe of dislike against Eastern Europeans.

It was a reminder that, for many people, politics is as baffling, distant, pointless and uninteresting as sport is to me.

Now, I respect opinion polls. They are generally right, provided you read them carefully and remember that they are a device for influencing opinion much more than a way of measuring it. And I respect the judgment of political professionals on the spot, whose unvarying view is that the Tories are not doing well in Rochester and Strood.

So I expect Ukip will win, not least because I personally will be glad if they do. I am amazed it has taken so long for ordinary Tory supporters to see through their party and particularly through David Cameron, an unusually transparent snake-oil salesman, even for these times."

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2836143/Anger-apathy-glory-old-England-vote-change-forever-Modern-England-comes-shock-Westminster-persons-writes-PETER-HITCHENS.html

'But the 'savings' from scraping hs2 and foreign aid cannot possibly cover everything.'

I don't know where all their savings will come from, but my guess is that they may well cut taxpayer and government subsidies to some of these green groups, political pressure groups and campaign groups and some charities etc which will save public money.

We are a very rich country and a lot of our money is wasted

"£120billion of your money down the drain EVERY year: The astonishing Whitehall waste that could send every British family on an annual luxury holiday

Costs include £19,000 spent by council on hiring ‘motivational magician’
Arts Council splashed out £95,000 on a skip covered in yellow lights
Ministers and officials ate £3 million of biscuits
More than £20 billion lost through fraud in the public sector

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2342045/120billion-money-drain-EVERY-year-The-astonishing-Whitehall-waste-send-British-family-annual-luxury-holiday.html

We need some core priorities and magicians and skips with yellow lights will have to go.

There already is policy that provides houses for ex service personnel and also permits them accelerated NHS access

There is a huge amount of money to be saved, I.e. the Tory MP who took £500,000 worth of fares for a short journey, add to countries with some programmes, £55 million a day go the EU.

The Somerset Levels flooding could have been prevented by just £1.5 million of maintenance and yet we give 29x that to the EU each day

Shameful

Wonder how much Emily Thornberry has harmed Labour. It seems to be proof of what everyone suspects- Labour had been taken over the by elitist, politically correct upper middle classes.

Nancy

here in GM and Lancashire Andy Burnham is popular but its about neck and neck with farage.
The 18 - 24 year olds are mainly UKIP and aren't afraid to tell you so, its the thirty/ forty age range who are more supporters of Burnham, and the over fifties are generally UKIP and not afraid to tell you so.

I was talking to a non-elite core labour voter yesterday zany they are in total despair, knowing that the party they will always vote for has Ed & co leading it.
I was actually quite shocked that he knew so little about Ed. It was just a tribal allegiance. I felt a bit sorry for him as I feel people like him are bring taken for granted by Labour.

'Wonder how much Emily Thornberry has harmed Labour.'

I think it has done great harm which is why Miliband and his advisers acted tough. They fear the message spreading to the people that they are a party that sneers at the working class. I am in BBC East, but I tuned into BBC South East to see what the local BBC in Rochester were saying and they interviewed the van driver's neighbours and they all thought it was disgusting and they felt the Labour Party disrespected the working class.

And this is Labour's key problem and this is why UKIP has risen. It is because the elite do not respect the people, they refuse to listen to what the people think.

Here is Miliband's key quote of today where he tries to recover from the Thornberry tweet and the word he uses is key because the word he uses to recover is the word that is actually at the heart of all Labour's problems. A reporter asked him

"What do you feel when you see a white van on a drive with England flags?"
and Miliband in recovery mode said
"I feel respect"

But of course, Labour do not feel respect, in fact it is almostthe opposite, almost a sneer, just as many people sneer at what they call chavs with England flags, and the reason for teh sneer is fear, because the Labour elite is so far removed from ordinary people whom they seek to win over, that they don't really understand them and fear being found out.

And that is where "political correctness" comes in. The elite use it to control the people, to set boundaries on what they can think, what they are allowed to think or say. It enables the elite to shut the people up, to stop them complaining about immigration or their money being wasted on climate change or foreign aid. We see it in today's paper once again, a way of shutting ordinary people up and putting them down.

"Opponents of foreign aid spending are 'Little Englanders', says Lib Dem minister as UK gives £720million to climate fund"

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2842472/Opponents-foreign-aid-spending-Little-Englanders-says-Lib-Dem-minister-UK-gives-720million-climate-fund.html

We're always called "Little Englanders", we're always called racists if we complain. And Chuka Umunna called UKIP "vile" and Chuka Umunna, Nick Clegg and Sir John Major called UKIP "un-British".

We have to shut up and stop complaining and we have to be politically correct.

But what has happened in the country is that millions of people have finally had enough of being "disrespected" of being told to be "politically correct" of being told to shut up and stop complaining and as morethanpotatiprints says more and more of them are "not afraid to say so", people have been driven over the tipping point. People are not afraid any more, they are past caring, they are poast being "politically correct" because they have had enough.

"The 18 - 24 year olds are mainly UKIP and aren't afraid to tell you so"
"the over fifties are generally UKIP and not afraid to tell you so"

That is why people are voting UKIP in droves.

And that is Labour's problem - a lack of respect for the people.

Labour do give benefits and minimum wages etc to the people, but it is almost a paternalistic, patronising treatemnet of teh working class. But at the same time their liberal metropolitan elite sneer at and disrespect the people because they come from a different world, a different planet, from Oxford and Cambridge and millionaire barrister chambers etc and they fear being found out, they fear that the public will rumble that they actually disrespect the white van man and the England flags of ordinary people.

It's too late for Labour, because as mrsruffalo says that is what everyone "suspects" and that is why Miliband was "angrier than he had ever been", because the whole charade was in danger of being plainly seen.

Would we be better if with Old Labour? or is UKIP the replacement for old labour?

It's going to get wires as I keep hearing Tories urging Cameron to seize the middle ground and become more pro-EU. If he dud that surely the antis would leave in droves? It's only recently that I've come to fully understand just how pro EU the Tories actually are. EAW and TTIP nodded through without any scrutiny

Worse. ( not wires duh)

UKIP is the replacement, because Old Labour was out of date and wrong, they were too much in the hands of the unions etc, they were wedded to Clause 4.

Tory Blair did the Establishment's work by destroying Old Labour and creating progressive New Labour which is the same as Cameron's modernisers.

UKIP has some of the values of Old Labour and it will defend the NHS, it was against the privatisation of the Royal Mail etc and lots of UKIP voters want the railways nationalised again, but UKIP also combines the low-tax, anti-political correctness of the right, against foreign aid freebies and climate change fund billions and for control of immigration etc. So UKIP combines both Old Labour and common sense conservatism (which Cameron and the modernisers long abandoned). So UKIP is the real rising force in politics and I don't think there is any going back.

"It's only recently that I've come to fully understand just how pro EU the Tories actually are. EAW and TTIP nodded through without any scrutiny"

They have to be, they have no choice, just as I think Cameron had no real choice but to pay £720 million of our hard-earned money to this Climate Fund that we are "Little Englanders" to complain about. And the reason for that is the Establishment, and our Establishment is only a subset of a bigger EU Establishment.

Today's Daily Mail has an article

"Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood has David Cameron ‘by the balls’, with the Prime Minister having to ask his permission before doing anything, according to a former Tory adviser.

Dominic Cummings, Michael Gove’s key aide when he was Education Secretary, claimed that Mr Cameron is surrounded by a chaotic team and ‘cannot manage his way out of a paper bag’.

In a scathing attack, Mr Cummings said: ‘Everyone knows that Jeremy Heywood is in charge of everything.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2843259/Sir-Cover-got-PM-b-civil-servant-runs-says-Gove-s-ex-aide.html

The reason the Establishment fear Farage is because he doesn't follow the rules, he is not politically correct, he won't pay up to Climate Funds and he is going to scrap the Climate Change Act, and he is going to leave the EU and he smokes and drinks and is popular with white van man and his England flags. Farage is going to ruin everything the Establishment believe in.

He even said it on live TV at the end of the TV debate with CLegg.

"Join the People's Army, let's topple the Establishment"

That is why there is panic in elite circles.

This is what Farage tweeted over Cameron's payment of £720 million of our money to this Climate Fund

"What else could we spend that £650m on? Halt borrowing? Pay debt? Stop army cuts? Veterans' dept? UKIP won't give your money away."

UKIP is the only real opposition in this country. All the other parties are the same on all the really big issues - EU, climate change, Iraq wars etc etc. They have to be, they are only allowed to differ on smoking bans in cars or parks etc.

Morethanpotatoprints, that's interesting. He is quite popular where I am (also NW, but our MP is the man at no11)

Claig, I just don't recognise this 'ordinary man' that you keep referring to. To me he certainly isn't a non voter who hangs flags out his window.

I do agree that our politics are too London centric but you talk about Oxford elite etc and you know, I actually want the people trusted with running the country to be as well educated and knowledgeable as possible. I consider myself to be reasonably educated; good Alevel, RG degree, pgce and an MA and I'm not running the country. I want them (whatever their persuasion) to be cleverer than me and better educated than me. They are running the country, my country and I want them to know more than just their arse from their elbow.

Don't think that because they may have gone to Oxford they are automatically cleverer than you. It depends on how you define intelligence.

When I see just how much of this country's wealth is given away yo Climate Fund, EU etc etc. it makes me absolutely livid . And I actively follow politics If you didn't you would be totally unaware of how much of our GDP is squandered.