Saturday 31 July 2010

Ian huntley

Huntley, 36, killed 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in 2002.



Would just like a good rant really. This guy who was convicted of killing two young girls a number of years ago has today lodged a compensation appeal against being attaked while in prison. I am goin to have to take a little bitof a right wing view on this really. In my opinion Ian huntley commited his offence and is serving time in jail. To me the prisons in this country are far too soft on offenders. People who commit serious crimes including murders and rapes and all sorts of things like that should not have their human rights once they have been found to have been guilty. I'm sorry but the best way we can reform our prisons is make them tougher. there is no deterent at the moment and i'm afraid that is one of the big reasons for our prisons being too full. If there was a real deterant and there was a real disadvantage to going in jail i am sure 80% + will not keep reoffending. The fact is our prison service in this country is far too soft. People get a easy ride in there and when i hear of news stories like this where the offender is complaining at how they are being treated i cant help but think this is all wrong. i just hope i never see the day where prisoners and offenders criminals etc have more rights than the actual victim, that will be the day this country goes to teh dogs. We need to stop listening to these wet liberal figures and do gooders and sort these criminals out, maybe then we wont have such high numbers in prisons if there was a real fear of going in there. If Ian huntley was attaked in prison firstly how did we even hear of this, surely all this should not become public knowledge, it creates a possible sympathy for him and he does not deserve that at all after waht he done. in my links section of this post i will post the news story this blog post is replying to. feel free to take a read, If you dont know the case or have forgotton take a read of what happened.

Wednesday 28 July 2010

the liberal democrats in the coalition

Hello and welcome to another blog post. This post may sound like a bit of a attak on the liberals and i'm sorry if you ar a supporter of such, i'd love to take you up on a debate about your principles and the future of your party.

From waht seems to me a lot of liberal voters and supporters are blinded by power and the chance to get their beloved party into government.

The main question i want to ask you from this post is, is it all worth it ?

I really do believe despite waht the liberals say they have well and truely sold themselves out to the conservatives.
I recieved a responce to my email to Simon Hughes MP earlier and he was saying why he thinks this budget is liberal and fair. well i'm sorry simon i think you are sorely mistaken, is a rise in VAT a good thing for all, is it fair to all ? no it isnt it is a regressive tax which hits the poorer in our society the hardest.They can blame labour all they want but at the end of the day these are just excuses shooting over your shoulder at the last government to make the public feel its right what you are doing. In reality the polls suggest the liberals have taken a right battering. In some polls it shows them with just 13 points and labour just 2 points behind the tories.

As labour are the only party truely national with seats and major representation in all parts of the United Kingdom i think they are right to stand by their principles and be the true party for fairness.

Yes we made a few mistakes here and there but the recession was caused by the banks and them lending too much which people couldnt pay back. There was a credit crunch and they had no idea how to get out of it so ended up coming to the government to ask for help.

Like any good government they tried to help as much as they can to avoid a complete collapse of the banking sector. So in affect the bankers are the luckiest proportion of people i stil think. Even today they are still giving eachother ridiculous bonus's even though it is frowned on now.

Vince cables idea of the carrot and the stick approach of threatening the banks to start lending again is just complete foolishness in my view. The banks have no confidence and feel that they are treading on egg shells all the time with customers. Untill they can see the econemy starting to grow again and people starting to spend its no use Vice having a pop at them over not spending when they are being heavily scrutinised.

In my view it was the banks that got us into this situation in the first place so should be the ones who should foot the majority of the bill for getting us out of this mess. It was not labours fault or Gordon browns fault at all as leading tories would have yuo believe. they only tried to remedy the problem. This is a global crisis started in America and swept around the globe, You simply cant pin all of this mess on labour and Gordon brown i'm sorry i rather think Gordon did a excellent job despite what people say, we could have been in a far worse position if he hadnt done waht he had done. Even today he still regrets not spotting the signs sooner but who in say 2005 could have seen this coming ? i know i certainly couldnt.

So please dont believe the tories old mantra that we are just as bad as greece and all this scare mongering tactics, which in my view is a very dirty ugly form of politics, to scare your electorat into voting you in to get these barbaric cuts through. If the lib dems have any form of principles left inside their weak wet souls i suggest they try harder and work closer with labour on certain things, i know this may upset the coalition apple cart slightly but would they rather stand up for true fairness and progressive futures in this country or hang on to their limo's and fancy job titles in the government where in my view they shouldnt even be with just 52 seats it still doesnt seem right to me.

Monday 26 July 2010

Spin and Burn

Reading the political blogs and comments from today. I am still amazed at how the tories are getting away with the ruthless public sector cuts. Very deep and harsh. A few months ago this was just a fear, a fear has now grown into reality and this time next year our econemy will be half way to ruin i'm sure of it. With rising VAT and lowering of housing benifits amoungst some of the harsh cuts this country will see for decades.

The title of this entry, sping and burn is to highlight my phrase i read in a earlier blog. I dont remember its name but the way the tories are using the Liberal Democrats almost like human shields to get their hard hitting cuts through is just frankly sickening to see.

If i were a lib dem supporter i would feel very worried at the way my party is being manipulated by Nick Clegg and his high up right wing friends in the party. I really think for this coalition to last the full 5 years the liberals will want more out of the deal. At the moment they are being used by the tories and seem from what i can tell happy to go along with this.

What the lib dems should be worried about though is the current polls, they suggest they currently stand on 13 percent of the poll with labour jumping up to 36 percent. The tories meanhile continue to extend their lead somehow. I still dont think the true effect of these cuts and tax rises have been felt yet. Give it till next year and we will have alot moer unemployment, more people claiming unemployment benifit and the tories will be wondering where the money will be coming back into the econemy after they have taken so much out. The fact of the matter is that whilst cuts and cuts have been going on they have not stopped to think how they will bring the money and the jobs back into the econemy.

These are worrying times indeed for me. As a benifit claimer myself, on DLA i am worried that this will be cut to innocent people who had no dealings in the banking crisis. I ask people again, why should innocent good tax paying members of the public and public sector have to foot the brunt of the bankers crisis of which they had nothing to do with. This just doesnt seem fair.

Saturday 24 July 2010

my trip to the houses of parliament

Hello and welcome to another edition of my blog, i hope by now people are enjoying this somewhat, it would suggest by my 1 follower this is not the case i hope i'm not boring you all. if i am please tell me and i'll blog about something else. This is my blog to take wherever i like really, i have focused in on my recent political life but it can litterally go anywhere.

This entry is not a political one as such, but does involved a political visit of sorts to the houses of parliament in London today. Westminster.

Today the 23rd of July was my first visit and hopefully not my last to the grandest building i feel that this country has to offer.

The houses of parliament for the United Kingdom in london Westminster. I have been looking forward to this t trip for a very long time. Finally it came today.

I went up with my friend Will and met my other friend Stephen Anderson up there already.
Will and myself had travalled up earlier in the day and had visited the old cabinet war rooms just behind downing street where Winston Churchill made all his key world war 2 decisions.

This in itself was very very interesting and i enjoyed this just as much i would say. gave me a real feel as to how the war would ahve felt for high up ranking officials at that time. scarey just like the rest of us would have felt i'm sure of it.

SO today i got to look down downing street and ask the police and securitya few questions there, sadly we werent allowed down there, maybe they knew i have it in for the coalition so i wouldnt be welcome down there i do not know lol.

But as for the tour of the houses of parliament we had a scotish tour guide guiding a tour party of about 20 people.

I had previously booked this trip with my local MP , Mr Mark Prisk MP for Hertford and Stortford. Mark's secterary was very helpful in this visit and arranging this that i will have to email her to say thank you i am sure.

As for the tour i enjoyed it. we got to visit the Lords and the commons and various other rooms of amazing importance. Just the grand scale of the building, despite my sight loss i really go ta great feeling for the place. The houses of parliament are steeped in history and everywhere you turned you got a real sense of waht it must have been like to work ther and carry out your daily duties in and out of offices there.

Sadly we never got to meet any MP's no labour ones either sadly but we asked some great questions on the toura nd i leartn a awful lot i must admit. My favourite part of the tour would be standing at the dispatch box in the commons and standing what would be facing the speaker and standing on both the opposition seats and the government seats, somewhere i hope my very own Labour party can return to one day.

All in all i really enjoyed this tripa nd is oen i will not forget in a long time. London as ever was busy and bustling, i always love going up there, even the undergound for me now is fascinating and not a fear at all anymore. I used to shit myself at the thought of the tube but now i relish it and find it all one big adventure.

I am glad i went and i hope i get to return one day to the commons.

Thank you for reading and i hope to blog more about this trip later over the weekend in further detail if i can. If i dont and am too busy i do apoligise in advance. I try to blog as much as i can but time this week has been at a premium

next week should be a little less busy

thanks for reading if yuo do.

Please dont forget to link this blog to other blogs you feel would link well to this if you do read this. if not why not ? i will be blogging about all sorts over the next couple of months so please stay tuned.


anyway bye for now

take care

mark

Tuesday 20 July 2010

Imigration in the UK and my views

Hello and welcome to another addition of my blog. Feel free if you have read this and agree or even disagree with my blog please tag me and link me to other blogs you feel i'd like and would be interested in waht i have to say.

As a young active voter imigration matters to me and to others in this country

On this issue and probably this issue alone i vear towards the right a little in this political view, please dont stop rading as it is not extreme at all. In fact it is standing up for the true british white, working class.

A section of the british people who have been totally forgotton about i feel in recent years. Lets look at the social housing market, council housing. Although at the moment we can look at it and see thatl ots of white british young teenage mums are getting council housing this is not exactly the case. I dont want to appear racist as i am not at all. but there is this thought in a lot of britain that Labour and any potential government cannot ignore that the white working class traditional british are being over looked in favour of new imigrants be it from eastern europe or elsewhere.

I use eastern europe as a example mearly because of the recent mass influx of eastern europeans into the Uk in recent years.

I for not one moment am suggesting imigratin is a bad thing, of course we must take waht is good about these new people to our country and use them in the best way we can. THis includes getting them into worka s soon as they can and getting them paying tax as soon as we can. I wouldnt mind guessing due to large amounts of imigration, a lot of it unfiltered or monitored during the last 5 to 10 years can account for a lot of money going out of the econemy to keep these people alive and in a safe place. If we could somehow transform these people who have arrived here from far away into good british citizens and prepare them for work of any sort this could alliviate some of teh bad feeling towards this part of society.

I unlike a lot of labour voters will never be scared to stand up and recognise this problem we encountered during our time in office. We cannot ignore this issue and run from it. It happened under our government so we must feel partly responsible. Even if we were not totally to blame. The EU have a lot to answer to aswell i feel too.
Another problem i woudl love us to tackle which does unfortunatly i hate to say this agree with David Camerons broken Britain idea. The reason a lot of white british people are not finding work and the newly moved in imigrants are findign work is simply they want to work and the british do not want to, or not at least for the pooer wages. A question to you all, how can we promote and encourage british workers back into work, even if it is not the greatest work but it is a wage, jobs that otherwise the imigrants would fill i'm sure of it. maybe this could be anotehr way of getting our econemy back on its feet, avoiding huge cuts. Labour people, if we can get british workers back in to work, even if it is the lower end jobs, if it is in place of imigrant workers i think we should do this. Imigrant workers will soon see that the british want their country back and want to work for us again and work our way our of this financial mess. Could this be the key to it all, solving crime by getting the lower class's and working class's back into work by prioritising british workers over foreign workers fora few years at least just to get people in this country working again and off the dol. surely even if for a little while getting british workers a better deal in work than on benifits will save us huge amounts of money.

I am sure and so are many that the good british citizen wants to work and will work very hard, ok the wages they can get are not the best on lower end jobs and foreign workers will work for that money instead, maybe instead of raising wages at the lower end we could give companies who would like to employ british workers again a tax break of a few percent, as a incientive to encourage british workers back into work. even in the smaller end jobs. It woudl not be forever as they would be given chances to move up the companies to better themselves.

As a Labour supporter i bring in fairness now. I would bring back fairness to the system by reincluding british workers and the good british public in the system, for a number of years now they have been forgotten about, on housing, jobs andother public services, british people will once again gain a say under my vision for Labour in the future. If british people are given the chance and turn it down then the newly welcomed foreign imigrants are then given a chance. I feel labour will gain back a lot of votes if we branch out to key british voters who feel they have been left behind some what in the last few years, at least offering the chance to include them in the system properly again will maybe bring a lot more voters back to Labour, If we can get it across to them that we are really on their side once again. Listening, just as Ed balls said in a recent interview, we must reengage and listen to the public, every part of them, even our very own flesh and blood.

Last nights Hertford and Stortford CLP meeting, my view

Well last nights Local Hertford and Stortford CLP meeting was very interesting. This was my first time to Bishops Stortford and i enjoyed this visit to Pearces House on the outskirts of the town.



The meeting started slowly as so often these CLP meetings do i have found in my short time attending local ones.



The main topics of conversation were assessments from Steve Terry who was our local parliamentary candidate in the last election. Sadly i thought but i accept his reasons Steve is stepping down from this position citing the fact he has served longer than he wanted to he only initially wanted to stand for 6 weeks it turned out he stood as long as two years.



I would like to personally thank him for taking his time and working with us for the last two and a bit years. ALthought i am new to the party i can already recognise the hard work he put in. It is not a easy job to do fighting against such a strong tory majority in this area. It is very demoralising if your loosing everytime and goign into the election knowing yuo will not win.



I wish Steve all the very best in whatever he chooses to go on to do.I hope to meet him again one day.



As for the future of the party, Steve left the abiding message that we must appoint someone as our parliamentary candidate from within and someone who knows the area very well.



This in my view should be a young middle aged person who has lived in the area all their life. It is a tough job i admit but i would love to one day go for it. It will be good experience if i could ever get into the position to stand.



The point was raised last night that we may not be facing a 5 year term with the coalition, we could be being lurred into a situation where the tories call a quick snap election next year to reafirm their position while they ahve the publics support on their side. I hope this does not happen but can see the tories trying to ram home advantage and bunking off the lib dems in the same go.



The lib dems could well be inialated if they are not careful. Currently the polls stand at 45 percent for the tories, 35 for labour and only 15 percent for the lib dems. If the tories can grab those lib dem votes while there is much love between the parties they may well be able to form a overall majority and really sink home their deep harsh cuts with no trouble at all.



This is worrying and a little depressing i found last night. I was left wondering where is the fight left in this party and where do we go from here, Our CLP came to the decision not to nominate a leadership candidate this i found disapointing a a sad reflection on the 5 candidates we have standing for labour leader. Where do we go from here, i hear messages from the 5 candidates ut are any of them seriously leadership material and good enough to take on David Cameron who lets be f air is a very good and clever polititian. He has all the tricks in the book and i just cant see many of our 5 candidates standing up to him. THis was the feeling last night and i still think it is the overall feeling amoungst the party as a whole.



So we all take a break now for a month or so, both at CLP level and at national level with the MP's i hope whoever gets voted in as labour leader in september has the fight and the passion in them to bring more members to the party and get a movement going again. If not i really fear for the future of this party, which joining recently i really hoped i wouldnt be saying.

Wednesday 14 July 2010

The labour party leadership race

Good afternoon all

please do not read this if you are not into politics or find this at all boring in any way.

As some of you may or may not know i am a Labour party member in the UK and last night i attended my local branch meeting in Hertford.

Last night was a good debate by all of the branch of who we felt should become the next leader of the party.

There were speakers speaking for Andy Burnham and Diane Abbott. There was also a talk from someone who was a fan of David Milliband.
I as a new member found this debate very interesting and added my input wherever i could. The general feeling i got from the group was that no one felt there was one overall candidate that stood out I think we came to the conclusion Diane abbott although very good for the debate and good for the ballot. I think she is very happy sitting on the sidelines None of us felt she would be a strong enough leader with a lot of very leftist ideas. I think she is very liberal too which may appeal to some liberal democrat voters.
The trouble with some of the other candidates such as Ed balls and the Millibands there is the risk of being too closely linked to GOrdon Brown and Tony blair who were involved in a lot of in fighting. One i didnt mention there Ed Balls is one i've liked his style so far he has taken the fight to the tories and the lib dems, forming a almost personal fight with Michael Gove of the conservatives. I am a young voter and a young person interested in British politics and feel that a leader who has lots of passion and feels a lot of passion for things like Ed Balls does could be a asset. He has taken the closure of schools and the scraping of the building schools for the future scheme almost as a personal attak on himself and has taken it upon himself to fight back.

Whoever becomes the leader in September they will have to unite the party again and get everyone working in the same direction, We cant have anymore infighting, the electorat will just not accept it and will take a very dim view of us if we do.
Andy Burnham's idea of aspirational socialism is a interesting one, i am still not clear on what he means b y that, i think his idea of a living wage is a excellent idea and i think even if Andy does not become leader i think his ideas should be highly considered by whoever does become the eventual leader.

I have enjoyed going to local meetings, i also attend a meeting of Ware society of cogers where we discuss all sorts of things not just politics, i enjoy this too and like to raise some different points of interest that people can identify. I find i can gain a lot of confidence from speaking publicly and sharing and hearing other peoples views.

Next week i go on a tour of the houses of parliament on friday and i am looking forward to this. i have never been before so this should be fun and very interesting.

Tuesday 13 July 2010

Life and its trials and tributions

Well life can through you some curve balls sometimes, i think you just got to tackle them head on, which is what i will be doing come friday. I have the dentist again and as anyone who knows me i do not enjoy the dentist, some of you do which i cannot understand at all lol. I have never enjoyed this nessesatity in life. but if it keeps my teeth all well and good. I am hoping to arrange a catch up with my good friend Joe, who i have known for a few years now. i met him by chance at college while having lunch one time at a weekend. Joe is a genuinely great guy, i think he is so down to earth and has a heart of gold. If anyone deserves happiness this guy does, he has shown me the light and shown me that certain people are just not worth trusting in this world, even when i chose not to see it for myself, how foolish i turned out to be. i wish i had listened earlier i maybe wouldnt have been so silly now. But that is life we all make huge sometimes irreversable mistakes in our life, god i think i could write a book about mine. but we wont go there, our mistakes i firmly believe are what make us who we are. If we dont make mistakes we never learn and if we never learn we never progress. I'm afraid i've made some stupid mistakes in my life so far but i feel i am a better person for it though. Do many of you feel the same though ? however bad you have been hurt ? i think i can accept where i went wrong and know what i'd do differently now if given the chance. Some people live their lives in regret, i dont if i had the chance to apoligise to certain people i would, as i cant i cant but i know in my heart of hearts i did my best and always cared.

That is all for now, its been a busy summer so far, with cricket match's i have attended, new groups i have joined, new adventures and new friends i have made. all good in the grand scheme of things. considering earlier i didnt feel so good i am feeling a lot better now i have shared this blog.

Sunday 11 July 2010

welcome back

Hi i hope this works, having trouble with blogger of late, hope this works if it does expect more blogging from me very soon