Yvette Cooper, Immigration and Honesty

I suppose I should have some sympathy for someone married to Ed Balls.

But after what I heard from Yvette Cooper this morning on Radio 4 I don't know which of the two I regard as the more dishonest or duplicitous.

Perhaps I should reserve my sympathy for Ed Milliband. After all, he only knifed his brother in the back. He didn't sell the whole country down the river like these other two.

There are some suppressed reports on immigration which are about to hit the fan. They concern the uncontrolled immigration policy that was quietly engineered by the Labour party during the last decade.

The findings in these reports are damning. see Here and Here.

If you think this was down simply to Labours incompetence rather than a deliberate half-cocked policy then perhaps you should read these too  Here and Here

So what did Yvette have to say about these reports this morning on radio 4?

Well, after many weasel words about the enormous immigration she and her colleagues presided over, she did actually mumble the word "sorry". Although rather disgustingly she first tried to blame it all on the Poles.

Maybe too many Poles did come here all at once. But at least they usually work also generally try and fit in.

Unlike some of the others, copiously reported on in these suppressed government reports and who Yvette Cooper so scrupulously avoided mentioning.

I suppose a mumbled "sorry" is at least a start. Coupled with her better (or worse?) half and his half baked apology for ruining the economy then I suppose the Labour party can congratulate themselves on glossing over two areas of their arrogance and incompetence.

Lets see....that only leaves

Lack of helicopters for Afghanistan
Housing policy
Attempted regional dismemberment of England
Cosying up to the Banks
Destroying UK industry
Reducing state education to a constantly changing shambles
Imposing bogus and ridiculous targets on the NHS
A half baked and very dangerous energy policy
Supporting a vast range of gangsters and dictators world-wide (including Gaddaffi)
More wars than any previous government since WWII
The Barnett Formula
Being George Bush's lapdog
Quangos
Political Correctness
Spin

Oh I'm bored now. Make your own bloody list. There is just too much to choose from.

As for Yvette Cooper and Ed Balls, they obviously deserve each other.

Ugh! In Praise of Ed MilliBand

I'll have to say this quickly - or I will be sick.

Billothewisp wishes to praise Ed Milliband. Ughggghhh! There. I've said it.

Readers of this blog will know that Billothewisp is hardly a fan of New Labour. Or Old Labour. Or even New Virgin Labour.

You may recall Billothewisp particularly dislikes corrupt and amoral politicians, as represented by most of the last Labour cabinet.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find that Ed Milliband is supporting AV. Even though most of the shysters from the previous Labour administration are opposing it.

Milliband is supporting AV in the the teeth of party opposition from the old guard.  Most of this opposition comes from the old Dinosaurs and expense claim fiddlers who so lamentably failed us when in office. These days they make up the bulk of the corruption ridden corpse that is the Labour Party elite.

It looks like this will turn into a grand battle in the Labour ranks. Is it going to be the new boy king who prevails? The one who wants to reform his blood soaked party and maybe once again win the votes of the likes of Billothewisp?

Or is it the corrupt Dinosaurs who wrecked the economy, gerrymandered elections via mass immigration and sent our boys off to fight other men's wars?

I may not like Millibands politics. I may disagree with many things he has to say. But the fact that he is making a principled stand for AV means I will at least listen to him. Especially as this stand is coming in the teeth of political opposition froom the ugly branch of his party.

So, in future, I will listen to Ed Milliband.

As for the likes of John Reid, Gordon Brown, John Prescott, Margaret Reid and David Blunkett?

They can go to hell.

When First-Past-The-Post Failed Us

On May 5th, we go to referendum on which voting system we should use.

The choice, as we all know, is between the Alternative Vote (AV) or First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) which we use now.

I believe we should adopt AV, primarily because FPTP has an intrinsic flaw that can defeat democracy.

The First-Past-The-Post system has on three separate occasions in recent history, resulted in the party with the largest slice of the popular vote failing to get the most seats.

On one of these occasions the loser was even able  to form a government with an absolute majority.

The other two travesties ended up with a "losers coalition", where the most popular party was not even given the opportunity to try and form a government first.

These general elections took place  1929, 1951 and 1974.

(WikiPedia links here - 1929  1951 1974 )

Each of these elections was technically "won"  by a party that not only had failed to secure a majority of the vote but had also  failed to even secure the largest single share of the vote.

Because of the invidious way FPTP dictates that  a few swing seats can decide who rules the country, in each of these elections, the party that should have gone on to form the government, (gauged by the total national vote), ended up as the opposition.

Even by the ideal of FPTP these elections were a travesty. But by using FPTP as the voting system, such undemocratic results were, and will be in the future, inevitable.

But actually it was worse than that.

For each of these elections was at a critical time in the history of our nation. Each of these elections failed the electorate, diminished our country and led to weak indecisive government.

My next three posts will detail each of these catastophes.

Globalisation: The Stealer of Skills

OK my snarly gnarly little English illiterati. Here the next dose of why Globalisation is bad for you, me, and the rest of the world-wide Hoi Polloi** (see note below).

Put that bottle of cider down and pay attention.

The easy way to illustrate this is to give you a couple of recent examples regarding the theft of skilled workers from the third world and the corresponding theft of jobs from England

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One of the great obscenities perpetrated by the last Labour government was the bribery and theft of trained medical professionals from the third world.

What! I hear you exclaim. The Labour party indulging in a spot of slavery? Well, Almost.

Starting in the late 90's teams of recruiters from local health authorities were flown to places like India, South Africa and the Philippines with the sole aim of stealing the medical staff away to the UK.

Nobody would dispute that these individuals were a great gain for the UK.

I would also hope that nobody would dispute that stealing them away from their own nations was not only immoral but also a catastrophe for those Hoi Polloi** left doctor-less and nurse-less back home.

Why did the ruling elite do this?

Because it was cheaper than training our own medics.

It got them out of a short term hole of their own making regarding impractical promises they made about the NHS.

Simple.

Now of course, it is a long term problem. But they don't care anymore. Another ruling elite has to pick up the pieces.

It also gave them leverage in keeping down wages. It enhanced their control over the NHS at the expense of the medics.

I am sure that in the future the Labour party's addiction to globalisation and its immoral theft of these medics will be regarded much in the same way as we regard slavery today.

To be fair there were rumblings of discontent from the odd senior (though soon to be junior) member of the Labour Party (like Clarles Clarke)

The other skilled worker obscenity we will be looking at today is the abuse of skills within the third world.

An engineer or technician is a precious resource in any country. But today many multi-lingual highly educated individuals in the third world will be found answering the phone and dealing with Mr Angry from Cheam and his missing direct debit.

Meanwhile the people in this country that used to do this job sit at home watching the afternoon telly waiting to sign on again. Their prosperity and self reliance ruined.

The foreign engineer, temporarily gets paid more than he would doing his proper job. Meanwhile his skills rot and the country that trained him goes without.

Long term nobody gains.

Except the fat cats.

OK?

Sermon over. Back to the cider.

**NOTE
I know you lot are, like me, a bit dim. (John Prescott told me this. So it must be true.)

So I need to explain the term Hoi Polloi.

Hoi Polloi is a Greek expression meaning the many, the masses, etc. It is usually used in private by the Great Good and Extremely Well Fed. They use it as a sneeringly derogatory term when describing people like you and me, my plebian proletariate mates.

Occasionally they get carried away and use it in public, so if you hear it, now you know what it means.

So theres a little lesson for you.

Of course Dioclese should know this already. It is not because he is brighter than the rest of us its just that as a short term past resident of Greece he must have heard the remark delivered about himself as he queued up every night to buy his industrial strength Metaxa.