You are having a laugh Dave!

Wearing an immaculate hi vis outfit and hard hat Cameron whilst visiting the Medway, prior to the November 20 by-election, he accused ukip of being a party of stunts! 

David Cameron has warned voters that victory for Ukip in the Rochester and Strood by-election would help establish the party.

What he doesn’t realise is that it is the current crop of politicians who are facilitating this, because they stopped listening to the electorate decades ago, and have taken us all for a ride.
Large numbers of the population are looking to UKIP to give the Whitehall village a good kick up the rear end.

“Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their backs to the fire, and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”

-Abraham Lincoln

OK!  Scotland votes to stay.

Does this mean anything to us?

The Scottish Referendum has gravely shaken the Westminster Politicians -  One Politician wrote yesterday from Westminster– “Have never known such uncertainty. There will be many headless chickens, no matter what the referendum result. Not only who should vote, but what we are voting for.”

A correspondent in Spain writes 

“AFTER the next General Election, provided the Conservative Party is re-elected, they say that they will abolish the 15 year rule (once you have been non-resident in the UK for 15 years you forfeit the right to vote).  All expats will be eligible to vote for life by registering in their last UK constituency.”

Promises!  Why should we wait till after the next election?

If the Conservatives are re-elected – then OUR (?) Referendum follows. OURS!  Would we be able to vote in OUR referendum as to whether WE remain European Citizens?

WE NEED THE VOTE NOW! Not just a promise in the future.  The Labour Party is silent – The Lib-Dems say the matter will be examined.  Why?

We urge you to write to the MP of your last constituency where you lived in UK and ask for their support. 

Lists can be found at www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps  Regardless of your political persuasion we are stronger together.

Below are some of the possible consequences of leaving the EU:

1  Retired residents living in the EU would have no more health cover and would need expensive full health cover.  Age would prevent some from even getting this.

2  The UK would be able to freeze state pensions as we would be living in a foreign country – the power for this in law already exists.

3  All UK citizens would cease to be European citizens and need new passports.

4  No UK citizen would be protected under EU law concerning freedom of movement, capital and services.  Investments could be affected.

5  Individual states could impose customs tariffs/taxes on goods, services and capital. (France used to impose tax on incoming money)

6  People could not necessarily freely move from the UK as an employee, find work, set up business in an EU country.

7  Any EU state would be free to impose law as it wishes on foreign residents – property, bank accounts, residency.  Extra restrictions on property purchase and sale.

No doubt this list is far from complete but gives an idea of some  of the consequences  of leaving the EU.       

Want to help stop this (?) then write to your MP for support so that we can vote in the NEXT General Election.

Send this to an MP and ask that they put pressure on their leaders to call for a life-time VOTE for all British Citizens NOW.

Brian Cave  - lefourquet@gmail.com

 

www.votes-for-expat-brits.com & www.votes-for-expat-brits-blog.com

PLEASE CAN I HAVE SOME MORE?

Yesterday I received a begging e mail from Iain Duncan Smith asking for a donation of £10 for the Conservative Party. I was flabbergasted, this coming from a man who is intent on ringing every last pound out of the people he is supposed to represent.  

I have been a Conservative supporter all my life, but I can tell you now, that they will never get my support, but nor will I support the other three “main line” parties. They are all, so far removed from the lives of ordinary people, that they all deserve a good shake up, and at the moment the only man who looks capable of doing that is Nigel Farage and the UKIP Party.

Unfortunately our politicians have proved themselves, as a group, to be the most untrustworthy and dishonourable group of people in our country, In fact I would go so far as to say that they have proved themselves to be liars and thieves, and so crooked they couldn’t lie in bed straight. 

A City financier was made a Tory peer on Friday after given the party more than £330,000 just weeks earlier. ‘This appointment further cements the impression that to get into the House of Lords, all you have to do is write a fat cheque to a political. 

A child abuse scandal is threatening to engulf the whole of the political heirachy, and is becoming more and more murky. It was announced recently, that mysteriously, papers that had previously been buried in the archives, relating to senior politicians involved in this scandal, have now disappeared.

In recent years MPs were almost collectively involved in the expenses scandal. They called it a scandal but in fact it was thievery. To use an analogy, can you imagine a shoplifter, who, having been caught, offers to pay for the stolen items, and then is released from custody. It wouldn’t happen. Yet our politicians were caught with their hands in the till, and only a handful managed to get themselves arrested. The rest were allowed to repay their fraudulent expenses. WHY?

Recently we were all asked to remember our dead soldiers from the first world war, and my thoughts were “is our country the place that our relatives died for” and the answer is NO it isn’t. 

Our politicians have let us down badly, and should be ashamed. The speed up of this decline has increased over the past 30 years, and my opinion is that we are ruled by a group of professional politicians, who have not seen a meaningful days work in their lives. They have no idea what everyday living is all about. Recently, Foreign Office minister Mark Simmonds decided to quit, supposedly because he can't 'stretch' £120000 to live in the capital. The whole party wants to come down and smell the coffee.

Cameron is as far removed from normal life as it is possible to get. Coming from a privileged background, when did he ever do the family shop in Tesco. It would do him and us, the world of good if he was forced to live like the rest of us for a month, he would then have the insight into everyday living. 

When the Conservatives came to power they were already at a disadvantage, after the disaster that had been left by the sulking Brown, who had given the impression he knew what he was doing, but proved to be one of the biggest failures in modern day politics. Of course the “socialist” Blair before him, had only one thought in mind, and that has proved to be his biggest success, how to make his bank balance bigger. Despite the financial difficulty our country is in, Cameron still insists on borrowing to be able to give money to failing countries around the world, and would prefer to do that, than look after the interests of his own people who are in financial straights themselves. He has preferred to spend more time on giving “gays” marriage rights than sorting out a failing country.

Osborne, our part time Chancellor has, in fairness, reduced some of our debt, and managed to get the economy moving into positive territory, but at what cost to the ordinary man in the street. Families have been decimated and are poorer now than they were ten years ago. There is still no sign of any improvement in family circumstances after four years of Tory ruke, but I am sure there will be some cynical handouts next year, prior to the General Election.

May has totally destroyed the Police Force, and turned it into a quivering political jelly. The moral of the police Service is so low, that I am amazed that people want to start any sort of police career. She has proved to be inept at sorting out illegal immigrants and even more so at getting convicted illegals dismissed from our country. Dominic Grieve, one of the countries top law officers in the Conservative government, said yesterday that it would be a disaster if Britain walked out of the European human rights court. This is the very court that is binding the hands of our own judges to eject undesireable people from our shores. Many of whom have already entered illegally. What chance do we stand of getting our country back?

Where the police were always proud to say they were apolitical, they have now been dragged into politics by the introduction of Police Commissioners. This was not wanted by the majority of the people, but forced through at great expense.  Proof of its failure can be seen, when you look at the Crime Commissioner for Kent. A schoolteacher who has tried to introduce her policies, as if she was still talking to her young pupils in class. The infighting between the Commissioners for Norfolk and Suffolk has already cost untold waste of money. The list goes on.

Duncan Smith has proved to be one of the biggest bullies, politics has ever seen. Whilst most people are in agreement that the benefits system has got to be reformed, his manner in going about it has amounted to the behaviour of the classic bully. Putting in place the bedroom tax, knowing full well that there was not enough affordable housing for people to move to, resulting in them paying more tax, is almost like committing robbery.

He threw a tantrum, after being told by the EU Court that his refusal to pay the winter fuel allowance to pensioners, was illegal, simply because they had taken up the right to live elsewhere in Europe. He then huffed and puffed, and has come up with an idea to remove the winter fuel allowance to pensioners living abroad, by using spurious statistics. First he set the temperature in one town in the south west of England as the bench mark to receive the winter fuel payment. He then set his eyes on Portugal as a whole, and decided that it was too warm for pensioners to receive their payment. Next came Spain, and once again, forgetting that the north of Spain is as cold as anywhere in the UK, the temperature in the narrow southern strip of Coast, was used to boost the overall average temperature for the whole of the country. Then came France, and Oh shock, horror, the average temperature was lower, and so the pensioners living there would be eligible. ‘But how do we get around it’, he asked. Include the tropical territorial islands of Guadaloupe, Reunion, Tahiti. In that way the average temperature is now higher.  After came Italy, but whichever way Duncan Smith wriggled he couldn’t get over the fact, that because of the mountainous spine of Italy, the temperature is lower, and so pensioners would still receive their winter fuel payment. The only other EU countries coming within the scope of “hotter” being Greece, Malta, and Cyprus. And so we have another two tier system of benefits, good for some, but not for others.

Not content with hitting overseas pensioners in this way. The new debate, is to also remove their personal allowance on Tax. This is the tax free allowance that all taxpayers get, and could cause a loss of income of £4000 per year. This is still under discussion, but if implemented, could cause a mass return of OAPs living throughout Europe, putting even more strain on the UK infrastructure than at present. 

The question is how can a government get away with ideas like this, for a large group of its citizens? Well the answer is easy. DENY them the vote. In that way they can have no effect on any decisions made about them.

Deny them the vote? You may ask. Surely not! We live in a democracy, where everyone has a vote? But no, many millions of our own citizens are denied the vote, simply because they chose to live elsewhere in Europe. This is, at the same time as our troops are fighting and dying in Afghanistan to introduce democracy. Crazy isn’t it?

Gove, who is like Marmite, either loved or loathed. He has brought about so many changes to the education system that teachers spent more time reading the regulations than teaching. He then introduced one of the most hated and spiteful pieces of legislation, preventing parents taking their children away from school for a two week holiday, without getting fined. As the saying goes, “what is good for the goose is good for the gander”. Why didn’t he at the same time introduce a penalty for teachers closing schools at a whim, for striking, or teacher meetings, or bad weather. We all know that the unions wouldn’t allow it.

Fox and Hammond, our erstwhile defence ministers have supervised the run down of our military to dangerous levels, sacking many experienced and valuable soldiers, sailors and airmen, some of whom had just come back from the front line. They then promptly spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on advertising for new recruits, whose pay would obviously be lower. It is unknown how many very senior officers litter the offices of the Ministry of Defence, but you can bet that with the old boys network in place they will be well protected.

You may well ask, “Are there any honest politicians”. Of course there are, but unfortunately they are in the minority, and invariably are sidetracked in order to cause less waves. In my lifetime I can single out one of the honest politicians who was ridiculed at the time, but who predicted so much that has come true and that is Enoch Powell.

I am hoping that Nigel Farage will have the same honesty, and that even though he is unlikely to form a government, he will cause a enough ripples in British politics, that politicians will start listening to the people they represent again. For that reason I will be encouraging as many of my friends and relatives to vote UKIP in next years elections.

Will you be able to vote in the UK general election in 2015?
The answer is “no” if you are a child, an individual suffering from mental illness (such that you are confined within a mental institution), an imprisoned criminal or an expat having lived abroad for more than 15 years.

But is this really fair? An increasing number of expats think not.

If you are British citizen and have been registered to vote in the UK in the last 15 years, you are still entitled to vote in the UK general election and European elections even if you live abroad. You need only to complete a simple registration process. However, if you have not been a registered voter in the UK within this time frame your right to vote is defunct.

Unlike the United States, Switzerland and most other developed countries in the world, among which most of the member states of the EU, including France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain are included, the UK does not allow citizens having resided overseas for more than 15 years to participate in parliamentary elections.

This issue is of particular note as we approach the next general election in 2015. Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged to hold a referendum on the question of whether the UK should leave the European Union if a Conservative government is elected.

“It seems profoundly wrong to me that British citizens living in EU member states, whose lives and livelihoods would be directly and dramatically affected by a withdrawal from the EU, should not be allowed a vote in the general election next year,” says Graham Richards of the Votes for Expat Brits Campaign. “It could also mean that, in the event of a referendum, these British citizens would not be able to express themselves on one of the most important issues in their lives.”

What do you think?
If you would like to support the campaign poll click here:

 http://votes-for-expat-brits.com/Sign-up-Poll.php.

This sums up the UK

Government advisor on Policing


There is not a day goes by without some story of how policing in the UK is going wrong, and the government are always seeking answers. I came across something today that will answer all their problems. They just need to hire this policeman as their advisor, and do away with all the expensive police commissioners.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=F1HqiUeKpyg

a 'laughing stock'

According to the Government, Police and crime commissioners have the job of ‘bringing communities closer to the police, building confidence in the system and restoring trust’, but in reality it has just brought the independent Police Forces of the UK into political control.

They were brought in across England and Wales in November 2012 by the Conservatives to set budgets and decide on strategies while also holding chief constables to account.

But lack of enthusiasm for the reform meant the polls were held with little publicity, and a record low 15 per cent of voters turned out, that has resulted in some very unsatisfactory appointments

At the time of the election for Kent Crime Commissioner the turnout was so low for the poll, that Mrs Ann Barnes was elected with a total of 114,137votes from a registered electorate of 1,281,968.

Most people were uninterested, and were of a mind that this whole process was a waste of money, but Cameron, once again pressed ahead with his pet plan, and once again showed total disregard of the wishes of the people whom he was elected to represent.

Last night police officers branded the Kent Crime Commissioner a 'laughing stock' following an 'embarrassing' Channel 4 documentary about her job.

Viewers reacted with fury to last night's Meet The Police Commissioner programme in which Ann Barnes, elected crime chief for Kent, struggled to explain her £85,000-a-year taxpayer-funded role.

The documentary showed Mrs Barnes travelling in a van she dubs 'Ann Force 1', having difficulty explaining an approach to policing priorities.

In the sequence, Mrs Barnes is shown in front of a flipchart on which is a hand-drawn diagram of concentric circles. Mrs Barnes explains that "These are all the various things, different kinds of policing, OK, in Kent," waving a hand in a circular motion around the circles. "And these are the different kinds of policing priorities, in terms of priority."

When asked by the interviewer What would be a crime on the outside of the diagram, she replies “Oh God, no idea, I can't tell you actually, I mean I wasn't thinking I was going to talk about the onion as we call it. Erm, oh, I don't know really”

When further questioned about her role as Police Commissioner  she says, “Well, it's a strange job this, it's a strange role, there's actually no job description at all."

Looking at the expressions on the faces of senior police officers sat in meetings being chaired by this woman was embarrasing. Who thought putting a retired teacher with zero experience in policing, in charge of policing resources and budgets was a good idea? She spoke to her Chief a Constable as though he was a naughty little child.

Mrs Barnes was elected as the first PCC in Kent in November 2012 despite previously branding the Government's plan to increase police accountability a 'wilful waste of money'.

She became the most high-profile of the country’s 41 crime tsars a year ago when The Mail on Sunday revealed her £15,000 youth commissioner, Paris Brown, 17, had posted a series of highly offensive comments online.

Mrs Barnes is an 'embarrassment' to Kent Police, and should have stuck to teaching or was that beyond her too?

The face of a haunted leader 

Poor old Clegg looking worn out and red eyed. So what! He has brought this on himself with his self serving arrogance and "I know best" attitude.
Pressure is on Nick Clegg to quit as Lib Dem leader after the party’s wipeout in the European elections.

Following a catastrophic night, which cost him all but one of his MEPs, he was forced to admit he had lost the argument over Europe.

In an emotional interview, the Deputy Prime Minister said being beaten into fifth place by the Greens had been ‘gutting and heartbreaking’

As the leader of a political party he should get back to some fundamentals.

As individuals we cannot all turn up in the house of commons to argue our case. There are not enough chairs for a start. So we choose a representative to present our case for us. If enough people have the same view then laws are passed and society changes. This is called representative government. Laws come from the people up, not from the government down (most of europe is the latter).

Nick you forgot this. Your job is to represent the peoples' wishes not to reject them or espouse your ideas. The people do not wish to be in a european superstate so you must stop harping on about your beliefs.

They are irrelevant. Reflect the views of the people.
As someone once said. "Think not of what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" I think all the LibLabCon politicians need to think on that one.

It's time for politicians to listen

After local elections in the UK David Cameron admits his party must deliver some "answers" after UKIP's election "earthquake" shakes politics.

The Prime Minister conceded his party had to start delivering on immigration and welfare reform, and said the public had become "frustrated" with the status quo. There is no group of people more frustrated than those expats living in Europe who are denied the vote.

It is time that politicians in the UK started listening to the people instead of forcing through their doctrine policies.

Ed Miliband defended the party's campaign and said “people were turning to UKIP to express their discontent with the way the country is run”. “ people feeling that the country just does not work for them and so what you are seeing in some parts of the country is people turning to UKIP as an expression of that discontent and that desire for change."

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg admitted the party had had a bad night but said: "Actually I think in the areas where we have MPs where we have good organisation on the ground ... we are actually doing well."

THEY STILL DO NOT UNDERSTAND. The electorate want politicians working for them.

UK politicians are looked upon as pariahs. They have lied continuously, they have flouted their positions and ignored the wishes of the electorate, and finally they were caught with their hands in the till. No wonder Brits are disenchanted with British politics,

And that explains the rise and rise of Nigel Farage and his anti EU party. Or is it just in the UK that voters are disenchanted with Europe

A recent poll is the latest evidence that voters in France and across the continent perceive the EU as remote and unaccountable, which is expected to boost support for far-right, anti-EU parties in countries such as France, Britain, the Netherlands and Hungary.

A mere 18 percent of the 1,048 people questioned late last month said they were “confident” about the future of the European Union, with just 2 percent claiming to be “enthusiastic”.

 Only 51 percent of French still want their country to belong to the 28-nation bloc. That was down from 67 percent a decade ago, according to the CSA survey for BFMTV news channel.

The CSA poll showed that voters - 70 percent of them - are disillusioned with the European Union because of its failure to help stem rising unemployment in France, which has a record 3.3 million people out of work.

Sixty-three percent of those surveyed said they were disappointed with the EU because of the decline of social protection, while 60 percent cited growing numbers of immigrants as another reason for falling out of love with the European project masterminded by France and Germany.

France’s far-right Front National, led by Marine Le Pen, is tipped to spearhead a surge by populist parties across Europe in the vote for the EU's only directly elected body.

Polls show that the anti-immigrant French party is in pole position alongside the mainstream centre-right UMP, with President François Hollande's ruling Socialists trailing in third place. 

This looks all too familiar in the UK.

In the same way that UKIP are frightening the mainstream party’s in the UK, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Front party is poised to win a double-digit percentage of France’s 74 seats in the 751-member Parliament.

Do expats care? Of course they do

Being disenfranchised back home has left expats starving to participate in the democratic process, but for British expats in France the stakes are also uniquely personal.  Apart from the local elections, the EU elections are the only election some expats are allowed to vote in.

I'm British, I live outside the UK and I've done so for more than 15 years. Accordingly, the British government very unfairly denies me, and people like me, the right to vote in parliamentary elections,

Expats are free to live and work in France as long as they like without any special authorization from the government, and for that they are denied the vote.

Most of those same expats however are obliged to pay their taxes to the UK government. One without the other is WRONG!

government of the people

John Moir, 47, admitted driving whilst disqualified at Ipswich Magistrates' Court

It is the 44th time he has broken a ban, but he was not sent to prison

In 2010 he ran down Simon Jacobs, 46, but the serial criminal, whose recklessness on the roads left his victims in a coma, was given only 18 months, and served only half. It is an absolute insult. 

Moir, also a convicted thief, has previously said that nothing will stop him driving while disqualified, For his latest offence he received a suspended sentence.

Is there anyone reading this who doesn't think it’s a sick joke, and that he should have been punished?

Karen Armitage, a lesbian mother-of-one pocketed almost £50,000 in benefits by claiming she was an unemployed single parent despite being in a civil partnership with another woman.

Karen Armitage, 42, even tried to claim her partner, Micheala Axall, was actually her mum when the seven-year deception came to light.

Despite the years of deception Armitage avoided jail term because the judge felt she was not 'a danger to society

Another sick joke you would say, and most people would argue that she should have been punished.

Miller FINALLY resigns after expenses row. The Prime Minister has stubbornly stood by her for almost a week, but finally conceded defeat after Culture Secretary resigned

The Prime Minister was forced to admit he had underestimated the depth of ‘raw’ public anger as he finally accepted the resignation of a tearful Culture Secretary.

Miller had been claiming expenses that she was not entitled to. Something that any ordinary person would have probably faced a court. But after initially being told to pay back £44,000 by the Independent standards commissioner

Mrs Miller was ordered to repay £5,800 in over claimed mortgage expenses, by the standards committee made up of her own peers. She was also found to have broken the MPs’ code of conduct in her belligerent attitude towards the independent parliamentary standards commissioner. In other words she tried to pervert the course of justice.

DO YOU START TO SEE A PATTERN HERE? THE GOVERNMENT ARE TAKING NO NOTICE OF THE WISHES OF THE GENERAL PUBLIC AND STICK TO THEIR OWN BLINKERED OPINIONS UNTIL FORCED TO ADMIT THEIR ERRORS.

Anyone who criticises the government is instantly declared a maverick. Tory MP Michael Fabricant was sacked as the party’s vice-chairman last night over his ‘uncontrollable’ behaviour on Twitter. His outpourings have caused alarm at Tory high command in recent months. He was outspoken in his criticism of rail link, and when he Tweeted,  ‘about time’ when Miller finally resigned yesterday morning. The heirachy couldn’t get rid of him quick enough.

It is about time they started listening, because people have had enough of our professional politicians and there is a new kid on the block in the shape of Nigel Farage, who is going to spoil their party.

The whole edifice is corrupt from top to bottom, and people are looking for someone trustworthy to take the helm.

"government of the people, by the people, for the people" 

Miller has resigned as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

Maria Miller has resigned as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, largely after a lot of defiance to public opinion, and even her own colleagues.

Mrs Miller has harmed her party, and politics in general.

Feelings are especially strong among those Tories who will fight marginal seats next year, and makes it harder for the party to win the seats that will decide the outcome of the next election.

Mrs Miller is generally regarded by colleagues as personally pleasant and affable, albeit a bit distant. But to voters, she has looked like another politician on the take who was caught out and then resorted to legalistic dodges and trickery in order to cling on to her job.

Most of the anger at Mrs Miller is not at her actions but her manner. Her brusque apology to the Commons was seen as insufficient and her behaviour has come across as graceless and evasive.

Much of the rise of Ukip and Nigel Farage is down to Mr Farage’s ability to present himself to voters as an honest man in a world of liars, someone who speaks his mind while others just offer bland soundbites and follow the party line.

Undoubtedly, the Miller saga will fuel the rise of Ukip.

Mrs Miller's camp had, on Tuesday night, attempted a fight-back after days of newspaper headlines, by suggesting she was a victim of a witch-hunt because she was dealing with press reforms recommended in the Leveson report.

In fact she has been her own worst enemy by claiming expenses that she was not entitled to.

 Parliament's sleaze watchdog ordered her to pay back £5,800 of wrongly claimed allowances on the house in Wimbledon, southwest London, which she sold for a £1.2m profit in February. However, it emerged that the Commissioner for Parliamentary Standards had found that Mrs Miller should have paid back £45,000 in expenses claimed on the home but this was over-ruled by the Standards Committee of 10 MPs and three independent members, who do not have a vote.

Once again it has led to calls for an end to a system where MPs are allowed to police their own expenses.

When interviewed pm Sky News, Nadine Dorries MP said that. expenses HAVE to be abolished and that the word expenses is toxic. She suggest that MPs should only be able to claim accommodation expenses, and not expenses in relation to a second home, plus travel expenses.

After her resignation, Cameron sent her a letter in which he says;

I think it is important to be clear that the Committee on Standards cleared you of the unfounded allegations made against you, a point which has been lost in much of the comment in recent days.

So why has she had to pay back  £5800

He further says;

“You have been responsible for successfully handling two of the most controversial issues with which this Government has dealt”.

But these are some of the things that have polarised the country.

Cameron is now facing a difficult time at Prime Minister's Questions and a meeting of the Tory back benchers, for his lack of leadership in trying to support Mrs Miller.

DO YOU TRUST OUR POLITICIANS?

Culture Secretary Maria Miller was today ordered to repay £5,800 in expenses and apologise to the House of Commons.

An investigation by the Commons standards watchdog found she had overclaimed on mortgage bills in 2008-09, and the money must be returned.

The Committee on Standards spent almost 18 months investigating her use of the taxpayer-funded second home allowance.

Kathryn Hudson, the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, apparently said: 'Throughout my inquiry it has been difficult to establish information and evidence to the standard of proof which I would have wished.

'It has also been difficult to find evidence to corroborate information provided by Mrs Miller’.

'Many of her responses to my questions have been very general and required repeated probing.'

In other words it appears as though, Maria Miller tried desperately to cover up her sins.

Just yesterday a young woman was convicted after spending money that had been paid into her bank account by mistake.

This claiming of expenses by Maria Miller was no mistake. It was a deliberate action and she got caught out. Why is she not subject to arrest.

Why is it the Committee on Standards who investigated and not the Police?

Politicians are at their lowest level of trust with the electorate, and there is no wonder. Time and time again they have been shown to be liars and criminals, that expect to get away with it, simply because they have MP after their name.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could return to the age when politicians who were caught out committing some indiscretion would resign instantly, but no, today Cameron stood up and defended Miller.

Is there any wonder that Farage is progressing at the pace that he is?

The press sniff at Farage and call him a "Comic figure".

Well lets ask who has held a proper job outside politics? Cameron, Milliband, Clegg or Farage?

Welcome to the lunacies of the European debate.

We the electorate are the comics if we keep voting for political science students who are full of their own importance and know as much about real life and people as I do about knitting. The Labour Tory and LibDems need party leaders who have had a career outside of politics so they can bring something to the party?

The three party leaders are professional politicians with zero experience in the real world. 
Farage has arrived on the scene, and whilst I accept that he will never form a government in my life time, he has shaken the tired political village in the UK. Our politicians are being forced to listen to what the general population wants, and react.

It’ beginning to look like he who pays the piper is calling the tune - again!

Why voters deserted Hollande and Socialists in French local elections or Should we expect the same for the UK traditional parties?

The huge swing to the right in France in the municipal elections was an expression of huge dissatisfaction with president François Hollande and his Socialist-led government.

Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP party made huge gains, the Front National exceeded its own official expectations, and the Socialists were humiliated.

So how come the clear winners of the municipal elections were the UMP, with an impressive showing for the FN?

What went wrong for the Socialists?

The government has gradually alienated all its traditional voters…

Many blue collar workers, and another traditionally left-voting category, teachers, are fed up. Many are furious about a change in pensions, and education changes that appear on almost a weekly basis. Immigration has been treated as a subject that shouldn’t be discussed openly.
Public sector workers, nearly always solid Socialist supporters in France, fear for their jobs after Hollande’s pledge to find 50 billion euros worth of savings as part of the highly contentious Pacte de Responsibilité. (Under this pact, businesses will no longer have to pay social charges for their employees, in return they must create jobs - the shortfall in government revenue will be offset by 50 billion euros of cuts in state expenditure).

Many people are angered by the government’s law allowing gay marriage. The government has certainly alienated many of its traditional voters.

Add to that a failure to produce results on the biggest issues which affect the whole country:

Unemployment is at record levels, there has been virtually no progress on reducing the country’s deficit and there is huge resentment over taxes which the president himself conceded in January had reached the limits of acceptance. For many low-income families, a boost in purchasing power is a priority.

The result was the many voters on the left punished the party by abstaining defecting to the Front National.

If Hollande had hoped that a good showing by the Front National would split the right wing vote, he received a bitter awakening. Apart from in some towns such as Avignon, it was often the Socialists, not the UMP, who lost supporters to the FN.

Why?

Marine Le Pen, an excellent TV performer, has unquestionably improved the image of the Front National and modernised the party.

Le Pen rejects the label extreme right for her party and has threatened to sue media organisations who describe her party as such, though she has not yet done so.

She is vehemently anti-EU and has gained many working class voters with her insistence that Brussels now runs France.

On immigration, some analysts say there are 2 FN electorates: where, the FN collects voters from the right, sometimes from well-off areas, as demonstrated in a by election in Brignolles last year. In northern France, in towns such as Henin-Beaumont, FN voters appears to come mostly from the disaffected poor .

In opinion polls FN voters frequenlty cite rising crime figures as the reason for their decision to choose the party.

The UMP benefited from an almost tangible dislike of Hollande's presidency and his government and appears to have led to an emotional groundswell of support for Sarkozy’s party..

What happens now?

In May, French voters will go to the polls again in elections to the European Parliament, followed by Senatorial and then regional elections. Hollande is being urged to act quickly to demonstrate that he is listening to voters and will make changes.

Today there will be a cabinet reshuffle, headed by a new prime minister, but on the much more important matter of where France is heading and how it gets there, Hollande is in an almost impossible situation, and knows that if France fails to make economic cuts, both the EU and financial speculators will lose confidence in the country with potentially dire consequences.

One of the most telling aspects of this election was that Hollande and the government were so surprised by the scale of their losses in both the first and second rounds.

It is striking how cut off they and France’s left-wing Paris-dominated intelligentsia and media appear to be from the views of ordinary people elsewhere in France.

They do not appear to understand the annoyance of ordinary non-Parisian French people, who want jobs, more purchasing power, less crime and feel they are never the beneficiaries of government handouts.

Many business people are leaving France in droves for China, London or the USA, attracted by what they see as more business-friendly climates.

But those lower down the social scale often cannot leave France and they’re getting increasingly angry.

This is almost a complete description of the situation in the UK, and unless politicians from the traditional parties wake up and come out of their 'my turn your turn' attitude to elections then they will be in for a complete shock!

Why are Politicians frightened to give ex Pats the vote

Reality shows that the UK is not a full democracy. Universal Adult Suffrage is not respected and is even deliberately legislated against in the case of UK nationals living abroad. The UK political system is effectively an elected dictatorship in which almost unlimited power is given to the government to do whatever it wants without consulting the electorate between elections.

If you complain politicians will reply with the worn phrase, “If you don’t like what we are doing, vote us out at the next election” In the meanwhile, they do what they want, knowing full well that if you vote them out, they will have their turn, in all probability at the following election.

UKIP is now shaking up that principle. In France the mainstream political parties have been severely shaken up after the recent local elections by the Front National, and the British politicians of the established parties are beginning to worry.

The UK needs a system more like the Swiss Direct Democracy, where Manifesto promises must be honoured, and every major government policy introduced between elections must be approved by a majority of the electors before it can be implemented and where the electors can themselves propose policies that, if approved in a vote, must be implemented by the government. It is time that control of both policies and politicians was given back to the people.

David Cameron has legislated to ask ALL UK citizens whether to remain part of the EU” – but all expatriate citizens who left the UK more than 15 years ago are excluded from voting.

In the same way ALL Scots should be allowed to vote in such an important referendum for the very future of their country, and ALL non-UK citizens should be excluded from voting – currently non-Scottish and non UK citizens living in Scotland will be allowed to vote – in what way is it their business to determine Scottish independence?
In the United Kingdom, that is TOTALLY anti-democratic, when, in the 21st century, we have politicians denying 800,000 British Scottish citizens the opportunity for democratic expression on their own constitutional status. That smacks of discrimination and is wrong.

Politicians claim they want the British public electorate, to participate in political life, and yet deny in legislation, voting rights to its own citizens, simply because they have taken up their legal right to move elsewhere in the European Union.

Now in 2017, David Cameron has legislated to ask all UK citizens whether to remain part of the EU, and yet denies the vote to a large group of British Citizens, to whom it will have one of the biggest effects.

THAT IS WRONG!

Is there any more proof that the Daily Mail are running scared of UKIP

Three articles published by the same writer on the same day.

Lazy Ukip MEPs are more interested in claiming their salaries than standing up for Britain, Nick Clegg claims

Lib Dem leader steps up his attack on Ukip ahead of Brussels elections

Accuses Ukip of not tabling any new legislation since 2009

Ukip opposed curbs on mobile phone roaming charges, Clegg says.

Nigel Farage accuses Deputy PM of being a 'hypocrite' for missed votes

Clegg and Farage to go head-to-head in radio and TV debates

By MATT CHORLEY, MAILONLINE POLITICAL EDITOR

PUBLISHED: 09:04 GMT, 5 March 2014

Ukip given £25,000 by manufacturer of e-cigarettes which were later hailed as 'remarkable' by smoker Nigel Farage.

Ukip leader appeared in 90-second film attacking EU plans to ban devices

After puffing on screen he says he could 'very easily' give up smoking

He criticised plans to outlaw refillable e-cigarettes made by 'entrepreneurs'

Pillbox38 Ltd, which makes Totally Wicked refillable e-cigs, gave £25,000

Donation made to Ukip in May 2013, but bosses now say they regret it.

By MATT CHORLEY, MAILONLINE POLITICAL EDITOR

PUBLISHED: 11:04 GMT, 5 March 2014

Businesses should be allowed to turn away women, gay and black people, claims Ukip councillor and MEP candidate

Donna Edmunds said firms should not be forced to serve or sell to anyone

Insisted she is a 'libertarian' and government should not legislate

She is a councillor in Lewes and standing to be an MEP in the South East

Nigel Farage said his candidates were of a 'calibre to be proud of'.

By MATT CHORLEY, MAILONLINE POLITICAL EDITOR

PUBLISHED: 14:08 GMT, 5 March 2014