Do you feel empowered by your government?

I suppose this is a bit of a waste of time as the picture says it all really, click on it to enlarge it, but the recent elections have made me think about how I felt I related to the various levels of government that we are all paying for at considerable expense.

I am pretty sure that the democratic process is supposed to make me feel empowered, that to some lesser or greater extent I have some sort of say in the running of the town, country or even Europe.

I will start at the top and work down.

Europe I suppose all those years ago when we voted to be part of a greater economic community it made some sort of sense, now it just seems to be some gargantuan set-up making up masses of legislation much of which doesn’t suit the British character, for the most part we doggedly obey them and it seems the Mediterranean countries pay lip service to them but mostly ignore them. Do I feel part of some brave new world of countries with common ambition? I wish I did.

The House of Lords obviously supposed to be the highest regulator in the land, beyond reproach above the elected house most of the members chosen for some great service to the country, a matter of great honour, unfortunately recent events show these people can be bought. Evidently this house has become corrupt, how much I am not in a position to say. Do I feel awed and inspired by this great symbol of British governance? Not any more.

House of Commons, supposed to be made up of people who have chosen to serve their country elected by us to empower us, turns out these people are in it for personal gain. I had suspicions that all was not right there for some time, then the man we voted for took us to war on a lie and I was not entirely convinced that had we voted for the other man he wouldn’t have done the same. Do I trust these people and can I see an alternative with brilliant ideas to turn this back into a great country once again? I wish I could.

Kent County Council, bit closer to home now quite a few of the people involved use the shop and I know them to a lesser or greater degree, talking to them I get the felling that all is far from well there. I think the nub of the problem here is pet projects have taken precedence over essential services, there are expensive luxuries like Kent TV but the one that seems to cause the most angst is the Turner Contemporary, it seems that no matter how little the return on this project unlimited funds will always be found for it. The fact that the basic infrastructure roads pavements etc here in Ramsgate seems to be falling apart doesn’t seem to tally well with the huge funds directed at these pet projects. My only close dealings with them have been over the Pleasurama access road and have been most unsatisfactory; do I feel they have the interests of where I live at heart? Not really.

Thanet District Council, a lot closer to home and I know many of the people involved, this replaced the old Ramsgate district council, which had some faults but did have benefiting Ramsgate at heart. I suppose the benchmark here is how the Thanet towns have fared compared to similar seaside towns in the area governed by other administrations, Deal and Herne Bay are the closest I can get on this: do I feel that our district council has come up with good solutions for our towns in comparison to those towns? Not really.

Ramsgate parish council, here what happened was the people of Ramsgate voted to pay extra money on their council tax for an elected group to be a voice for Ramsgate, time will tell on this one, but at less than £1 a week on my council tax bill it has to worth a try.

Election day thoughts

Talking to people I know to day it would seem that many of them have or are going to register protest votes, this of course means that many of us have voted for political parties that we don’t know much about, I wonder if we will rue this day because of it.

It could be doubly dangerous because so many of us are pretty vague about what the European Parliament actually does, for example I didn’t vote for the Green Party as I am pretty sure they want to let the north Wantsum sea defences go and their attitude to nuclear power would be catastrophic for climate change.

I picked up this Times article from a comment on ECRs blog, which explains the situation better than I ever could.

The European Parliament has become so very powerful in terms of legislation restricting what we can do in this country and this makes me increasingly concerned about our remaining part of Europe, so I had little in the way of qualms about voting for UKIP today something I wouldn’t have done were it not for the expenses scandal.

For me the main problem with this business over the expenses is not that our MPs took money that they shouldn’t have done, as in terms of a governments budget it doesn’t amount to a great deal of money.

My real concern here is that as these people were happy to abuse the expenses system in this way so it follows that some of them may have been prepared to take bribes to change policy.

I am very concerned by the way our human environment, particularly our town centres and in town leisure facilities, is changing for the worse, it is obvious that the large companies that provide out of town shopping and leisure and benefit from this are powerful lobbyists and that many of our MPs are far less honest than we thought.

Remember to vote tomorrow.

With so many of the party faithful of all three major parties so disenchanted with politics at the moment I am reminding people that they have a duty to vote, even if you register protest votes it is better than making no vote at all.

It is only in the last few years that I have had much to do with government and much of this has been the result of my concerns about various local issues mostly to do with public safety.

Frankly I can’t say that I am happy with many aspects of government that I have dealt with at every level and I am hoping that the expenses scandal will produce major reforms.

With the European Parliament, House of Lords, House of Commons, Kent County Council, Thanet District Council and Ramsgate Parish Council, we have a great many levels of government pay for.

For the most part this seems to be a great horde of highly paid people pushing bits of paper around and much of this paper is of dubious worth.

Obviously there must be a point where the scales tip and the private sector can no longer support this extravagance, it seems likely we have passed this point some time ago, I am wondering if there is any way back to a level we can afford.

Watching question time today with £9,000 Kitchen Brown and £5,857.63 Decorating Clegg and £680 Wisteria Cameron I was much more reminded of an unruly classroom than a seat of government, it is clear that we need some sort of different system.

Looking at our MPs most seem to have a set of priorities which is, self, then party, then country and talking to people in the bookshop this week it is also apparent that many MPs have completely lost touch with ordinary people.

Most people’s main concern is that this country is that it is rapidly becoming unpleasant to live in, especially for ordinary working people, we need a real workable plan to deal with antisocial behaviour.

With years of Labour government nationally and Conservative government locally a walk round the commercial hubs of Margate and Cliftonville should be enough to show politicians of both main parties that they need to change their ideas.

With prospective candidates probably hanging around polling stations tomorrow you may wish to ask them where they stand on the main local issues like. Turner Contemporary, Dreamland, Pleasurama, the drinking water aquifer particularly with regard to the way KCC abused Water Resources Act 1991 draining roads into very sensitive parts of the aquifer, China Gateway, airport expansion, the contraction of our town centres, Westwood Cross, museums, Thanet Gateway, KCCIT, Kent TV, Icelandic investment, policing, schools, tourism, antisocial behaviour, etc.

I am wondering if for instance, here in Ramsgate, a candidate that wants us to be at the end of a runway of a rapidly expanding airport with inadequate environmental controls, is going to attract a lot of votes.

MPs expenses the forthcoming elections and protest voting

I find I am still looking at my postal ballot papers in a state of indecision, it is an awful admission but always in the past I have been a floating voter, voting either voting Labour or Conservative essentially trying to chose the lesser of two evils.

A long period of Labour government nationally and Conservative government at County and District level have left both my town and my country considerably more unpleasant places to live.

As far as European elections go it’s all a bit of a mystery to me, but looks like another great expenses and allowance jamboree, with MEPs doing very little to represent my interests which are essentially curbing the masses of daft legislation produced by the army of Brussels bureaucrats.

So the bottom line here is there any vote that would contribute to making anything better, at County level for instance would Labour do better, here in Ramsgate much of the infrastructure that KCC is responsible for is falling apart, roads, pavements and cliff façades in particular.

My two KCC councillors at the moment are both Labour, good conscientious people who respond to problems and try to resolve them, the main difficulty for me though is Labour at county level want to do away with grammar schools, and Ramsgate’s grammar schools are two of the very few publicly funded facilities that haven’t been closed.

The problem with voting for the main parties at the moment is that one feels that one is condoning what our MPs have done, for me most especially Gordon Brown refused his grace and favour flat when he was chancellor, and then did a house swap so he could claim large second home expenses on his house in Scotland.

If he had resigned as prime minister and been replaced with a prime minister that hadn’t abused the system I wouldn’t be so annoyed.

I believe talking to people I meet every day that much of the voting public is as stunned and confused as I am, we had a system of government that we called a democracy and everyone told that this was a good thing, but now it looks as though our system of government turns out to be a bad thing hiding behind a good name.

What is most abundantly clear is that the government should present options for reform and put these options to the people in a referendum.

European elections southeast protest vote

With over 100 candidates to vote for I have to admit to being totally confused, click on the link to view them all on the TDC website http://www.thanet.gov.uk/docs/SoPN%20-%20version%202.doc on second thoughts don’t bother as it’s part of the wonder of TDCIT, so it is so small that you can’t actually read it on most monitors.

I have just gone and done the job properly so click on this link instead http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts2/id107.htm see what I mean a formidable list.

To be perfectly honest before the expenses scandal it was my intention to vote for the Conservatives, so there was no problem with this complex table, now I wish to register some sort of protest vote.

My reason is simple, even David Cameron one of the least besmirched of our Conservative politicians has paid back expenses money that he wouldn’t have done, had the Daily Telegraph not published details of his claims.

Now although I want this to be a protest vote, I don’t want this to be a wasted vote, after the expenses issue it’s not going to the Lib Dems Conservatives or Labour and I certainly won’t be voting for the BNP, so my problem now is who to vote for.

By that I mean which other candidates have a cat in hell’s chance of getting in and do any of the candidates have views that I broadly support. There is also the side issue of do any of the candidates have any connection with this part of Kent and would they be aware of Thanet’s problems?

I suppose one option here is to vote for UKIP but there seems something a little incongruous about voting for a party to have seats in a parliament they want no part of.

For me the single biggest issue at the moment is that we are reaching a point where ordinary people are scared to venture onto our town centre streets in the evening, my customers come from all over the south east and I have recently heard this said about the following towns: Margate, Broadstairs, Canterbury and St Albans.

I am not talking about frail old ladies here but ordinary chaps between 18 and 65 and frankly I am becoming reluctant to walk out of my own front door in evenings.

So before voting for any politician I would like their views on this issue and their possible solutions to it.

I am also very concerned about environmental issues, particularly those relating to Thanet, so perhaps I should vote for the Green Party, but I have reservations about what I believe to be their views on costal defences, the view that many of them should be abandoned and nature be let to take its course, as this would have disastrous consequences for Thanet.

In terms of Europe my main concern is to have MEPs that will curb the worst of the excesses of the unelected Brussels bureaucrats that are writing much of the legislation that now governs Britain, much of which is unworkable in practice.

Investigation of the European Parliament website has confirmed that there is some sort of proportional representation in place I am afraid to say that my ignorance of the European parliament is really showing now. The trouble is that when we first voted to join the EEC it was that, an economic community and it’s position as a governing and legislative organisation has crept up on me pretty much unawares.

I am so used to the first past the post system that I pretty much only ever voted Labour or Conservative and frankly it’s only since my recent brushes with the council and an awareness of our society breaking down that I have taken more than a passing interest in politics.

The framework of alliances that form the European political parties is different to what I am used to click on the link to see your existing MEPs http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members/public/geoSearch/search.do?country=GB&zone=South+East&language=EN if you then click on the individual MEP’s name you can see their party as one would understand it in the UK.

It would also appear from what David Cameron has been saying that the Conservatives intend to align them selves in a different way, although I don’t really understand this properly.

The one good thing to come out of the MPs expenses issue is that it has made me think seriously about how I am going to vote in the European elections, with the local elections I always vote for individuals that have responded to and helped resolve issues that I have raised in the past, so there is no problem choosing here and I will be making no protest vote in these elections.

I am now wondering if it is possible to get the views of the over 100 candidates standing and assimilate them in some way, perhaps it’s possible to email them all I don’t know.

I have just had a look at MEPs expenses click on the link to do so http://www.europarl.europa.eu/parliament/expert/staticDisplay.do?language=EN&id=39 it looks to be fairly well organised, however after recent events I am much more suspicious of politicians motives.

Anyway at the very least now I feel it my duty to work out what the major European parties stand for and the views of those independents standing.

What really worries me about all levels of government that we are subject to at the moment is that to a lesser or greater degree our elected politicians have lost site of their purpose, which should be to make certain that the unelected civil servants conform to the wishes of the electorate.

A talking shop of people receiving unreasonable expenses, having little or no effect on the legislation that is produced and the decisions made isn’t adequate.

I would appreciate any comments that would help me understand how best to make an effective protest vote as this is what I intend to do.