Sunday, July 13, 2008

Norman Baker On The Politics Show


I have just been watching the MP`s on the spot for the South East which featured ,Norman Baker MP (Liberal Democrat) Lewes ( pictured posing worthlessly ), as well as Michael Fallon and some Labour apologist. They said you could join in the debate but rushing enraged to my "Pooter" I found that you could not . This is my e-mail….


Norman Baker makes no sense :

Constitutionally - He loudly proclaims his belief in local empowerment but assisted in passing the iniquitous and undemocratic Lisbon Treaty where Liberal Lords showed the true colour of the Party by supporting Gordon Brown outright . Additionally, he is in favour of proportional representation, whereby MPs such as himself will be safe from the dislike of their constituents, having only Party bosses and Westminster courtiers to please.
The silly Liberal imposrure of a referendum on whether we are in or out implies that if we are in we have no say whatsoever in what sort of EU/ Common Market it is . Suppose we simply want trade-access and no more ..like Norway.
Why does he hate proper accountable democracy?
Why does he care so little about the this country’s right to govern itself ?

On Tax and Spend He is equally noisy in his condemnation of waste but he is himself a socialist being a member of the Beveridge group whose credo is state intervention ie high tax and spend . Such extensions of the state will inevitably lead to more waste by the simple process of putting more people in charge of spending money that is not theirs ,on people they do not especially care about .
Does he want waste or not or does he think the public sector can only be saved by an endless line of Norman Bakers ?

On Waste-He has done some good work on waste notably in uncovering the catastrophic wastefulness of the regional development bodies, notably SEEDA. But he himself has wasted god knows how much money asking endless questions about Kelly so as to conjure a science fiction conspiracy about Iraqi hit squads and sell the nonsense to the Daily mail for £50,000. That's some sweet action on top of your salary, but why are we paying for the research?

On Liberty-Why does he waste so much effort on Hunting as if Foxes were people in little furry coats . Foxes are subject to annual culls and hunters are hurting no-one . Is this not a matter of civil Liberties ? Similarly he did nothing to assist in stopping the smoking bann which has all but ended night life in Lewes, not that he would notice but some of us liked the pubs .
Why is his attitude to Liberty only the freedom to do what he likes doing ?

On England -Does he not find it increasingly odd that as a Scot representing a n English Constituency he is busily handing our powers away to the EU when his own country is closed to the English in politics and currently has a bizarre overrepresentation in English affairs having votes both in its own Parliament and ours ?

On The Slippery Liberal Party - Why was it reported recently in the Independent that Nick Clegg was in negotiations to do a power sharing deal with Brown and is not absolutely unreasonable that the Liberals will not say who they are going to do a deal with if anyone prior to the election.?We know he hates the Conservatives so what is the point of Labour-lite other than to support Gordon Brown?

On His Local Mafia -How does he feel about the propaganda that endlessly appears in the local Press the Gazette and Viva which is pro Baker.?Other views are ruthlessly excluded.

8 comments:

James Gilmour said...

You wrote:
"Additionally he is in favour of proportional representation whereby MPs such as himself will be safe from the dislike of their constituents having only Party bosses and Westminster courtiers to please."

I didn't see this part of the programme as I live in a different part of the UK, nor do I carry a torch for the LibDems. However, I should be very surprised if the system of PR that a LibDem MP supported would have or could have the effects you describe.

So far as I am aware, it is LibDem policy to adopt the Single Transferable Vote system of Proportional Representation (STV-PR). One of the key features of STV-PR is that it makes the elected members MORE directly accountable to the local voters - much more accountable than ever they are under FPTP.

In giving that increased power to the local voters, STV-PR takes power away from the party machines. So the LibDems policy on PR is almost certain to have the opposite effect from that you described.

John M Ward said...

Ah, I see that the myths propounded about STV are still believed by some...

I hope you (Newmania) have kept a detailed log of all the efforts to redress the media coverage (at least those you produced, and perhaps anything that others sent and, hopefully, copied to you). Otherwise I am very well aware that publishers are very capable of defending their records.

Yes, most if not all publishers in the mainstream media have their own agenda, and reporting and representing factually and fairly are almost incidental to the pursuance of that agenda, as I know from decades of experience in one way or another, and in several areas of the country.

The only way to counter them, even in part, is to have embarrassingly (to them) incontrovertible evidence of institutionalised bias, over a period.

You probably know this already, but it is worth having in public view, just in case any of your readers has the mistaken impression that the mainstream media are entirely straight players. They are not.

Newmania said...

Ed

STV overvalues second preference favouring the middle ground which is already too important politically by virtue of arbitary geography and has the effect of accentuating the abandonment of common ground outside the middle such as the death penalty ,Europe , longer sentences etc,.Itv also favours the Party which has the least to say ie the Liberals and will tend to a sort of fake consensus abandoning the English Preference for dialectic
Additionally multi member Constituencies does break the voter MP link as does the complexity and vagaries of the system,. As it does not necessarily give a better reflection of the electorates views I am at a loss to see anything good about it at all.

In favour a partly PR elected House of Lords which would stop tactical voting but not chalnge the HOP and also cutting the Scottish and Welsh MP`s by ½ …a generous offer


John thanks for that , its a very good idea indeed and would at least comffort the seeting anti Baker clan

Old BE said...

I flirted dangerously with the idea of STV, but am now back to being a solid supporter of FPTP. I think we do need a directly elected Prime Minister, though to stop MPs getting confused about who they are supposed to be representing.

Newmania said...

I quite like the idea of Primaries in safe seats BE

Wayne Smith said...

It is the current system that hands all power over to party bosses. Most MPs are in safe seats, so are already impervious to the will of voters. Party bosses decide who gets these plums.

Parties hold the power, but we don't get to vote for parties, just for individual MPs, who are pretty much irrelevant.

There is very little relation between How We Voted and Who Gets Elected, so zero accountability.

Newmania said...

Yes Wayne , but as the most important thing about a candidate you know is their Pary that is something I am happy with

Old BE said...

Actually the main thing is that we can always choose to kick out the current lot. It matters less who the next lot are than the knowledge amongst whoever the current lot are that their days could be numbered if they put a foot or two wrong.

Primaries are a good thing too.

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