EASY!

DON’T VOTE FOR LABOUR.

& if the Tories try the same sleaze – get out on the streets and bring the country to a standstill until the system is changed.

Silent Hunter: I take it you weren’t politically active in the ’90s when the Tories were mired in exactly the same sleaze and everyone was telling us to VOTE LABOUR to put a stop to it.

I’d love to say the Lib Dems have the answer. Though I think the party is generally better than the others, that might have more to do with us having a lot more MPs in marginal seats than the others.

Part of the solution must be to have a voting system that allows people to kick out their MPs – something FPTP doesn’t do in most areas, and the appalling Euro list system doesn’t manage either.

Costigan Quist:

“..I take it you weren’t politically active in the ’90s when the Tories were mired in exactly the same sleaze and everyone was telling us to VOTE LABOUR to put a stop to it….”

Er….Yes I was actually.

And I was active in campaigning AGAINST the Sleazy Tories at that time and in the 80′s (perhaps you’re too young to remember it happening then) as well.

However, to say that the Tories under Major were as bad as Labour is now is laughable.

Labour have made the previous Tory Sleaze look like a Sunday School Outing.

We’re talking about UBER – SLEAZE here!

Wholesale corruption of our political life and massive fraud perpetrated by our so called Government; or haven’t you heard about the whole Labour ‘Postal Ballot Scam’?

Add to that ID Cards, 42 day detention without charge, expenses, 3 & 4 homes paid for by the taxpayer, etc, etc, the list just goes on and on.

It would appear somewhat politically naive of you to assume that since I make negative comments about Labour – I must therefore vote Tory…..sorry. nope!

Sleaze is Sleaze – and it is immaterial as to who or which party indulge in it.

It’s WRONG.

Sorry forgot to say that I wholeheartedly agree with your call for the abolition of the FPTP voting system.

I prefer STV PR.

If you really want a clean sweep then force through compulsory reselection of all Labour MPs after each CLP has openly examined the expenses claimed – kind of a reversal of the US “I approved this ad.”

(I’ll be calling for my local paper to publish full details of my LibDem MP’s claims followed by a public meeting where he can be cross-examined on the probity of any of his expenses. Just imagine the furore if the MP declines to appear?)

ps. Wouldn’t this post be more appropriate on a purely LP-focussed blog?

You know, the way *I* read Mr Costigan’s comment was if you think that…

“Labour have made the previous Tory Sleaze look like a Sunday School Outing.”

…why aren’t you urging everyone to vote Conservatory (or even Lib Dem!) to get the bad-words out?

A recall mechanism would be handy, something the incomparably evil Dan Hannan has called for.

I’ve also come round to the view that FPTP and the cancer of safe seats has to go. Not pure PR though, STV/AV.

And a democratic Lords whilst we are it. You can have pure PR there for those who like it.

Because it is pointless. Lib Dem, Labour or Tory, the rich will continue to get richer, and the poor will continue to be exploited. I have nothing but contempt for anyone who decided that they know better than me what I need. And that is exactly what politicians do. Power corrupts, and the people who peruse power and wealth do not deserve it. Waiting for the next general election is a waste of time, as it just perpetuates a system that has been corrupt from it’s very inception. You want change? Get on the street and effect it your self, coz I tell you now that another government is about as far from change as possible. Any top down government will never be in the interests of the people. Their power is borrowed from us, and it’s time we took it back.

Actually their power comes from the monarch, but yeah, I get your point.

Allowing the electorate to directly set the expenses, allowances and salaries of MPs is a bad idea for roughly the same reason that allowing the electorate to decide about capital punishment is a bad idea.

[10] Yes, well… I did come down against it, Paul.

[5] If any Labour Party member wants to cross-post or link, that would be great. I haven’t held a Party card for twenty years and they have a heckuva lot to do to persuade me to seek one again. The real object of this post (which actually I wrote a couple of weeks ago but events have prevented its appearing here till now) was to try to see if those who are still Party members are prepared to say in public what they intend to do about the filth in their stables.

Precious little it would seem so far, but I’ll give it a couple of days or so…

Allowing the electorate to directly set the expenses, allowances and salaries of MPs is a bad idea for roughly the same reason that allowing the electorate to decide about capital punishment is a bad idea.

Because democracy is only a good idea when the results are to your liking?

(10): I think the electorate should be allowed to decide on whether MP’s who fiddle their expenses merit capital punishment or not.

I prefer STV PR.

Agreed.

Is it really credible that this issue won’t be on the agenda?

More credible than you think – the leadership, with Mandelson in charge of them – will simply ignore it and state that this is something for the PLP to sort out – and then it will be brushed under the carpet.

Conference has no power any more. If you believe it has – state it with evidence where it has gone against the leadership and hasn’t been watered down to such a degree that it isn’t what it started off as.

Millenium:

In answer to your question – because I’m not a Tory supporter or a LibDem supporter.

I’m what you could call a member of the “anyone but Labour (or the BNP) Party”

In my constituency we have the awful Anne McGuire (Lab) who voted to keep the John Lewis List and is simply Labour Lobby Fodder – here the best chance to get her out is to vote SNP, which is what I shall do, although I’m not a nationalist.

Labour have to be destroyed at the coming election to allow a proper left of centre party to grow……and I would prefer it to happen under PR rather than the ludicrously undemocratic FPTP system which currently provides our tweedledum / tweedledee governments.

Is the post 1997 series of Labour governments really more sleazy than the Major era?

From the Major era, I recall MPs taking money and gifts (direct personal benefits) from business men and double standards over “family values”, with the occasional “sex scandal”. The Conservative party continues to accept money from Lord Ashcroft of Taxhaven without question, with MPs filing dubious declarations for benefits in kind (eg plane flights) from him.

Labour is guilty of taking money for the party from Bernie Ecclestone, aides (not MPs) promising to provide connections in exchange for donations, not forgetting cash for peerages. Owing to greater government openness over expenses, we know that Labour and Conservative MPs have been dipping into the till. Perhaps the LibDems and Nationalists are a bit smarter about their fiddles, but we’ll see when the expenses claims are published. Labour’s meddling with electoral law and postal votes was idiocy rather than corruption, and electoral fraud appears to have been committed by members of all parties.

Acts like the Iraq WMD dossier and the ridiculous ID and NHS Records databases are what governments do. We should be glad that Labour has been caught out for dishonesty, but those acts don’t fall into the category of sleaze.

On the marginal left, George Galloway has conducted himself as the George Galloway that we know and loathe from history, and Tommy Sheridan has battled hard to transform his public image from martyr to creep.

Overall, sleaze indignity seems equal for both government eras and major parties. Conservatives lined their own pockets with brown envelopes, and Labour activists failed to comprehend that voters expect high standards from those who solicit party funds. The LibDems should take note, because they have been given an easy ride over donations. Tories provide much better sex scandals than Labour or LibDem MPs — the numpty who posted his photo dressed in underpants on Gaydar raised embarrassed chuckles rather than outrage. Expect Lord Ashcroft to play a more public and painful role as part of the Labour defence strategy.

A delightful aspect of the 1997 election was thet every single MP who was on the hook for “sleaze” was defeated. The last one went at the re-run in Winchester. I shall make a list again before the coming election: it looks like being considerably longer as well as more politically mixed.

My guess is that some of the Tories in the trough will survive; saved by the general disgust at Labour. I hope I am wrong.

The best that you can do for the Labour party at the coming conference is convince the guilty MPs tha they are going to be humiliated, and get at least some of them to stand aside for new faces. It is too late to reform the Party before the election.

“Allowing the electorate to directly set the expenses, allowances and salaries of MPs is a bad idea for roughly the same reason that allowing the electorate to decide about capital punishment is a bad idea.”

So what should the electorate be allowed to decide on? How are we to determine which majority opinions are good and bad?