Brexit and the Value of Voting

I was once one of those folks who would berate anyone who didn’t vote.

“What’s wrong with you?” I’d say.

“How can you complain if you don’t vote? You don’t have a say if you don’t vote!”

Well. Times change.

For an individual voter the actual physical and financial value of voting is, and always has been, just about as near nil as you could get. 

Even at the parish council level, where the turnout is often just a couple of hundred voters, the number of elections where a single vote has changed the outcome is vanishingly small.

For an individual, voting as a process is valueless. The best you will ever get is a warm glow of satisfaction that you have done your democratic duty. But your one vote in many millions is all but irrelevant.

“But… If people don’t vote then democracy fails!” I hear you say. Which is true.

But democracy can sometimes fail (or be killed) even when people actually do vote. The “wrong” result can be either ignored or overturned by unscrupulous means.

A classic example is the current shambles surrounding the 2016 Brexit referendum vote where a clear (though highly unexpected) vote to leave the EU occurred. To date it has been systematically undermined, stone-walled and delayed.

So what happens when you vote for a particular outcome, find yourself on the winning side and then  the result is reneged on?

The only gain from your voting, that warm glow of democratic participation, evaporates. 

To be replaced by the feeling of being taken for a sucker.

There are many millions of people across the UK today who feel exactly that.

The losing side in the 2016 referendum have decided that the “wrong” answer should be cancelled.

The Liberal Democrats (what a parody of a name!) state that the 2016 referendum result should be ignored. Even though one former LibDem leader described it as a "Once in a Generation Vote" (Here) and another eulogised over how the result should be respected at all costs (Here) 

To be fair at the time they made these speeches they both thought remain would win. 

Others somewhat more squeamish about being so clearly identified as being anti-democratic, have another tactic.

  

They want what is laughably called a "Confirmatory" referendum.

If this enforced second referendum were to get successfully flushed through this cesspit of a parliament then I would hope Johnson and others would call for it to be boycotted.

But if the consensus among the Leave camp is to vote, I will grudgingly and reluctantly vote in what I would regard as little better than Hitlers enforced snap 1934 referendum.

Even so, I suspect that many people who voted leave in the 2016 referendum will not bother again.

Once bitten, twice shy. 

The turnout will fall and with it (I am sure this is the game plan) remain will sneak a win. Brexit will be cancelled.

Democracy in the UK will be not only dead but the corpse will be reeking with the stench of privilege and entitlement.

Voting is above all else an altruistic act. It is selfless and without tangible reward. It is something that those seeking office should be cherish and promote. Not cynically exploit.

If this Hitler style second referendum is forced through and then used to cancel Brexit then personally, I’ll be done with this cadaver of UK democracy.

I will never vote again.

Rotten to the Core

You would have thought that after the cash for questions scandal and the the expenses outrage, our Dear Leaders would have learned that Joe Public gets a bit pissed off about MP's fiddling the system.

But No. These arrogant, self serving buffoons are at it again.

Tim Yeo MP is Chairman of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee. A role that demands even handedness and a level of technical competence. My last post was about how technically unsuitable he is for such a role. But really that is simply the tip of the iceberg.

The biggest scandal about Mr Yeo chairmanship is that he is in the pay of the renewables industry.
( See Here ) and ( Here )

Tim Yeo, The Chairman of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee is also the  President of the Renewable Energy Association ("The voice of the renewables industry in the UK" or so they say) and has directorships with an assortment of renewable energy companies that rake in about £140,000 a year.

Can you imagine the hullaballo that would erupt if the Chairman of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee was found to be a in the pay by (say) BP, Centrica and British Coal? Or that he was (say) president of the Oil & Gas UK? (the UK oil and gas trade body)

You can almost taste the rightous indignation that would spurt forth from the wind industry cartel. Actually I would be outraged too, just as I am about his current real "arrangments".

There is an old saying about who pays the piper calls the tune.  But whatever, it is a nice little earner for Mr Yeo all the same.

So is this outrage restricted to one morally challenged member of our ruling elite?

Dream on. ( See Here )

John Selwyn Gummer, now Lord Deben is now Chairman of the Climate Change Committe (CCC) he is also chairman of a company ( Forewind ) which plans to build hundreds of ultra subsidised offshore turbines. But Selwyn Gummer is a busy bloke, he also chairs a lobbying consultancy with a speciality in advising clients how to make money out of Global warming.

The logo of the CCC is "independent advisers to the UK Government on tackling and preparing for climate change".

Are they having a laugh or what?

So is that it? Two dodgy members of the Great and Good? Sorry no. It isn't. This article ( Here )  finds another THREE members of the CCC with questionable allegiences.

Then of course we have Cameron, who personally recommended Gummer for the post. His father in law rakes in around 300,000 a year by hosting a wind farm.

Cleggs wife is a director of a wind energy company.

It goes on and on.

Even after the fiddles, outrages and pocket lining of the last two decades our MP's are still falling over themselves to rake in the cash at the expense of their moral obligation to even handedness and the electorate..

No wonder Public confience in our political establishment is at an all time low.

Tim Yeo, Contraception and Energy Policy

It appears the Tory MP Tim Yeo has several nice little earners supplimenting his MP salary. ( See Here ) ( And Here ) He is paid considerable amounts of money for what appear to be nominal work load commitments to a number of renewable energy companies and trade bodies. Bearing in mind how self serving and morally challenged our MP's tend to be, it is unsurprising that he see's no clash of interests in also being the  Chairman of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee as well.

Dear old Tim is also an avid supporter of on-shore wind farms. Avid that is, until one is threatened to be imposed on his own turf, then all of a sudden the thing is "inappropriate". Do I detect the whiff of hypocrisy?

That is perhaps unsurprising as he was also an enthusiastic supporter of John Major's "Back to Basics" speech while also being the father of four children by three women, one of which he was married to.

But never mind. I'm not really interested in the whether Tim Yeo knows how to use a condom or not, and I am quite sure there are much worse examples of sexual proclavity within our noble leaders. But I am quite interested in exploring how technically competent he is. After all this is all about how our country will meet the technical challenges related energy supply for probably the next fifty years.

Now I know I being a little naive here, but I would have thought that someone occupying such a crucial technical position would be - well, an Engineer. Or a numerate scientist. A medic would suffice. But really, it would have to be someone who could claim several years of numerate technical competence. Someone who could see through the bullshit.

So, what qualifications for such a role has our swampie hero got? A Doctorate in Power Engineering? Maybe at least a degree in a numerate discipline. But I'm not obsessed by pieces of paper, has he alternatively got long term design experience in a technical subject?

Tim Yeo went to Cambridge. So far - so good. I know some awsomely capable engineers who went to Cambridge.

So what was it? Physics? Mechanical Engineering maybe? Sadly No. Tim Yeo, the man who is essentially in charge of guiding the technical development of our energy policy has a degree in....

History.

Yes folks, the technical direction of our national energy policy in in the hands of a self serving hypocrite with a degree in history.

God help us all.

I Am Sorry Too, Gordon

Billothewisp would also like to offer his grovelling apologies to the population of our ravished little land.

Taking a lead from Gordon our great magnifico, let me say:

Sorry Sorry Sorry Grovel Squirm dribble wriggle whine.

Oh God. I AM SO SORRY.
Really.
Honest.

I am so grief stricken.
So overwhelmingly contrite and guilt ridden I can only repeat:

Sorry.

If you wish you can watch me flagellate myself (that is flagellate - you pervert)

I will cut myself with knives, gouge my flesh, smash my head against a wall anything to show my penance.

Sorry, sorry sorry

Oh GOD. I am so so so so so so Sorry.

But my sorrow is somewhat different to yours Gordon.

You are sorry because you were caught being a duplicitous conniving arrogant elitist bastard.

I am sorry because I voted for your bunch of criminally negligent do-nothings at the last election. (I hasten to add that is not a mistake I intend to repeat.)

So Gordon, after you are consigned to some powerless (but no doubt lucrative) backwater I will still be sorry, along with about 60 million other of your victims.

So to you Gordon, I can only that I am really sorry that you ever got to a position of authority.

As to my voting aberration during the last election, I must say to my fellow sour faced little Englanders:

Sorry.

Lib-Dems: The Return of the Care Bears.

Or is it the "My Little Ponies"?

After returning to our ruined little England from far away I made the mistake of looking up a synopsis of Lib-Dem policies. All I can say to you my fellow sour faced little Englanders is God help us all if this bunch of tosh gets anywhere near legislation.

Really, I would expect better from a group of nine year olds. Some of this junk simply beggars belief.

First off I will blame the cause of my unpleasant foray into Lib-Dem dream-world on this post by Ian Dale It describes the proposed Lib-Dem tax break for illegal immigrants. Basically, if you evade our laughable boarder protection for ten years, you do not have to repay any of the tax you have avoided (ker-ching!). Illegal immigrants only will be eligable for this concession. Nasty little Englanders need not apply. In fact YOU will be paying for this. So bugger off to the back of the queue as normal.

Regrettibly, after reading Ians post, I then Googled this Lib-Dem policy synopsis.

I was going to make a list of the most ludicrous and vacant of these touchy-feely pie-in-the-sky statements but then I read the section marked "Environment".

Then I got worried. Very worried.

There is crass stupidity elsewhere in their policy synopsis. But in the Environment section it gets worse. Much, much worse. So bad in fact, I fear for the future safety of our frail and elderly.

Get this:

"Setting a target for 40 per cent of electricity will come from renewable sources by 2020 rising to 100 per cent by 2050"

This is totally unachievable.

It is a pair of targets that are so ludicrous you have to question the technical ability (if not the sanity) of anyone suggesting them.

Worse than that, by implying it is achievable they will end up killing people. These victims will mainly old ladies who will freeze to death when the inevitable power cuts stop their gas or electric heating from working.

Now get these two further statements:

"Blocking any new coal-fired power stations"
"Rejecting a new generation of nuclear power stations"

So how exactly are they planning to generate electricity? Obviously no-one has told them that those mighty wind turbine thingys don't actually produce much power. Especially when you need it. Are they going to rely on gas? From the generous Mr Putin no doubt?

I had to take a break in writing this to cool down. This is just so bloody unbelievable. Do these people have any contact with reality at all?

I am really, really, worried that people with apparently no understanding of basic physics let alone real world energy generation and managment are "planning" our future energy strategy. The crass incompetence and cowardice of the Labour party has got us into a situation where there is likely to be real difficulties in avoiding power cuts in the next 5 years anyway. This lunacy from the Liberals would make things much worse.

To ensure this countries energy requirements are met we really must have a set of policies based on the real world and what can actually be achieved.

Ridiculous fashion statements will not suffice.

The Liberals New Secret Weapon

Thingy, who runs the Liberal Doo-Dahs along with his dad (the old bald bloke who acts as their treasury spokesman) has a secret weapon.

In these days of dull self-serving politicians, the Liberals have now have something very different. A real vote winning candidate with extensive experience in a popular area of the media.

Her name is Anna Arrowsmith a 38 year old film maker. She is their candidate in Gravesham in Kent. (See Mirror Here) and (See Times Here)

The secret weapon in the Liberals armoury is Ms Arrowsmiths particular area of media expertise.

Low budget pornography.

We can all imagine how politically disinterested young men will be particularly enthralled by Ms Arrowsmiths offerings. If she was put in charge of the Liberal party propaganda machine then they would be unassailable.

Maybe if the Liberals exploit this new area of expertise, others will be forced to follow. Perhaps we could watch the Labour party doing to each other what they have been doing to the country for the last 13 years.

Truly, Party political broadcasts would never be the same again.