In the Interests of Balance

Here are the contact details of my Labour opponent taken from his official election literature



This from the man who in his first intervention in the Digital Economy Bill Debate said:

"I am listening with great interest to my hon. Friend and I am a great follower of Star Wars. I realise now, however, that my hon. Friend has identified himself as Yoda."

Hat tip to Love and Garbage who's also blogged about it.

Lech Kaczynski

Wszystkim Polskim mieszkancom Linlithgow i East Falkirk chcialbym przekazac moje wyrazy wspolczucia z powodu smierci Prezydenta Lecha Kaczynskiego i czolowych przedstawicieli swiata polityki. Lacze sie w bolu.

Translation for my English readers.

For all the Polish residents in Linlithgow and East Falkirk I wish to express my sincere sympathy for the death of your counrty's President Lech Kaczynski, along with other senior officials, earlier today.

Dave Only Has One Shaped Peg for Our Diverse Families

The Lib Dems are going to cut taxes for all working and middle class families not just the few. This comes as the Conservatives announce their marriage tax break.

The Tories are giving only £150 a year for couples who are married, the Lib Dems of course are promising £700 a year tax break to each individual who works and earns over £10,000 by raising the personal income tax allowance. Nick Clegg said:

"Modern families come in all shapes and sizes. One-size fits all policies like tax breaks for married couples are just not right for our times.

"Liberal Democrats will give all mothers and fathers the support and flexibility they need to spend time with their children.

"We will cut taxes for all working families on low and middle incomes, not just a select few.

"Following the birth of a child, we will allow parents to share leave between them.

"We will help fathers to share parenting, giving them the right to time off for antenatal appointments. And we will change the way tax credits are paid so you can rely on them and you don’t face the nightmare of having to pay back thousands of pounds when the government messes up your payments."

So as well as the tax breaks the Lib Dems are offering in our policies for families:

• flexible parental leave between the mother and father as they see fit
• free and universal childcare provision for children aged 18 months – five years for 20 hours per week, when resources allow
• fix the payments of tax credits for six months at a time so payments are stable and predictable for families
• set up an independent commission to agree a fair long-term solution to the problem of providing quality care to those who need it in their old age
• provide affordable homes for the 1.8m now on the housing waiting list by bringing the quarter of a million empty homes back into use by offering grant or loans to those willing to move in and renovate them for their own use
  

So while Dave wants to shoehorn us all into the same homogeneous family type the Liberal Democrats are dealing with the reality of the flexibility of the UK situation, giving real solutions that are fair to all, at whatever stage of live.

Big Business Bosses Being Used - Says Cable

Vince Cable speaking in today's Guardian says that businessmen on inflated salaries lecturing the rest of Britain on how to run the country are "utterly nauseating" and "being used" by the Conservative party. This is of course in response to 80 of them signing the Conservative co-ordinated letter on the single issue of National Insurance contributions. As Vince says:

"I just find it utterly nauseating all these chairmen and chief executives of FTSE companies being paid 100 times the pay of their average employees lecturing us on how we should run the country. I find it barefaced cheek."

As is pointed out the fact that Cameron is also asking that senior managers in the public sector should not get paid more that 20 times that of the lowest paid in their organisation would mean that vast majority, if not all, of those 80 signatories would have to take a pay cut to meet such a cap*. Aiden Harvey of Tullow Oil would be top of the heap having to cut his pay by £27m.

Of course there is no mention of the private sector having to following the same restraints as the public sector, how else would Dave get them onside. But as Vince points out this is a dangerous game for a politician who would be Prime Minister to play: We've been there before and being at the behest of business and the city got us into the mess we are in now:

"Brown, having kowtowed to the City for the best part of a decade, and having tried to co-opt captains of industry into the big tent, is in a very weak position."

Vince Cable also says that in the first week of the campaign the Labservatives have not answered the important question of how they will cut the structural deficit the country faces. In other words they are still avoiding that question asked on the Chancellor's debate that only Vince answered with what and how, rather than the when of Darling Osborne. As he points out for six months before the election the Tories were saying the deficit was the number one concern.:

"[They said] we are going to have a collapse of sterling, lack of confidence, bond markets evaporating, but then in the first week of the election, instead of focusing on the deficit, they say waste and efficiency are going to be dealing with the deficit, so completely evading the main issue.

"I am all in favour of getting rid of waste and inefficiency, but what is now being shown by people looking at critically is that it is not an easy route. It is in fact cuts by any other name".

He has pointed out that the Lib Dems have highlighted £10bn above the Government plans that will halve the deficit by 2013-14. That is dealing with the macro-economics of the situation rather than Osborne fiddling about with the micro-economics to suit his parties suitors, as well as the Osborne and Cameron estates.

* The 10 FTSE 100 bosses who signed definitely all fail the public sector cap test.

Reason to Vote Lib Dem 127: Bankers Backing Dave

At present the two most hated professions in the public eye are bankers and politicians.

Bankers for who issue over the taxpayers having to bail them out while they still grant themselves multi-million bonuses. Politicians because of the expenses scandal, which has tarred all parties with the same brush, despite the Liberal Democrats record of fighting to clear this up even before the Telegraph started their round of articles exposing the worst last year.

Therefore the news that top bankers are backing David Cameron's Conservatives most be worrying. Maybe it is a sign that the Conservatives are softest on banks, softest on the problems with banks. If you thought Labour dealt with them poorly you may need to look long and hard at the Tories if then Banks want them in.

Don't forget the 'pinstriped Scargills' are the businesses who like the Tories not because of the fairness they bring but because of the benefits, especially to their profits that will be accrued.

The Question of Our Online Past

The removal of Labour's Moray candidate< Stuart MacLennan over comments he made last yearon Twitter whilst a student leads to an interesting dilemma for current and future campaigns. Candidates above a certain age don't have a history on online digital communication from their youth.

Indeed it is possibly candidates around my age who started to use email at University with our tiny allowance on the server that may well be the eldest to possibly have some of our youthful comments retained for posterity on some server or someone's hard drive. Not counting University my online presence goes back for over 13 years, there is a lot of backlog. I've been quite respectful about comments I've made about others, either on my own spaces or in comments on others. But I know many others are not so careful in the language that they use Stuart being one example, but many of my student friends involves in politics of all parties are not always a careful in what they post through Facebook, Twitter or whatever.

It leads to the question are such comments about other parties a new phenomenon or it is merely that the new generation converse in public rather than behind closed doors like their predecessors? The thing is having played chess in the Surbiton club for a while, or the occasion short mat bowls event in a working mans club I've heard the same sort of language used about opponents by Tory grandees and Labour politicians, I'm also not excepting my own party some of the discussions over a pint at a conference hotel can be bawdy as well. The thing is these conversations have always taken place, I suspect even in the Cabinet Room at Downing Street, they just haven't appeared on Twitter.

People use language in different ways, the generations communicate in different ways. Stuart had apologised for those comments made before he was a candidate, that should be enough. But Labour have gone to the extent of sacking him, possibly after he had gained the 10 signatures required to nominate him and will now be seeking a swift installation of a new candidate before close of nominations.

If this really is the first general election of the Internet age the party hierarchies really need to under the 7 ages of the children of the age of the Web. They are going to make many comments in public through social media that in the past were confined to closed doors. But they develop into an age of respectability (possibly) want to get more involved in political life and maybe even stand for election. Very few under 40s do not have a traceable online history, much of that is not the homogenised, controlled outpourings of some of our senior politicians who are trying to keep up rather than stay ahead.

Guess what the future is here.

We have people who have gone on uncontrolled, uncontained, unchecked, online rants in the name of their party, who now are seeking selection for that party. They haven't alwaysbeen careful with the language used and quite possibly may even have been tame compared to others in the discussion. However, if they are contrite and promise to be more careful in the future why should that hold them back?

People are wanting honesty in their politicians. Stuart MacLennan could have easily gone and deleted his Twitter account making is less easy, though not impossible, to find. He didn't and is now paying the price for such honesty not from the electorate but from his own party.

Lord Adonis Desperately Barking Up the Wrong Tree

Writing in today's Independent Lord Adonis the Transport Secretary says:

"To avoid a Tory government after May 6, it is vital to grasp now the fundamental Labour-Lib Dem identity of interest. This can best be served by Labour coming out of the election as strong as possible, able to form a government."

After I spat out my tea, wiped down my laptop screen and calmed down I asked myself what common identity of interest?

Labour have brought in 4,300 new crimes over the last 13 years. The Lib Dems are bringing forward a Freedom Bill to repeal some of the most ridiculous and superfluous of these.

Labour are going to running a big brother state and still want to bring in the ID Card. The Lib Dems have vehemently opposed these moves all the way and are saying the the ID cards should be scrapped and innocent people removed from the criminal DNA database.

The Lib Dems are saying we'll raise the tax threshold for Income Tax to £10,000. Alistair Darling in his budget just last month froze it at £6,745 despite a 3% and rising rate of inflation.

These are just the tips of the iceberg. I look through the policies on which I will standing for the people of Linlithgow and East Falkirk on the 6 May and those of my Labour opponent and I fail to find much common ground on the four key principles on which we are standing. Fairer tax, a fair start for our children, a fair, green, sustainable economy and a fair politics giving power back to the people. Even o the few issues that there is common ground on some of those Labour have been promising action for 13 years on occasion and have failed to deliver.

Maybe what Lord Adonis meant to say is that the Liberal Democrats share a common identity with the founding principles of the Labour party. Standing up for fair wages, housing and educational opportunity for the poorest in our society. Standing up for them against the ruling classes of whom Labour are now just another cog. Labour are no longer standing on that ground.

But if that is what he meant surely Labour voters who want the principles for which they joined or supported the party initially should be voting Lib Dem on May 6th. Then they will see the change that works for them to build a fairer Britain. Returning a strong Labour party hasn't done that for 13 years of failure