Paul Wesson, Independent candidate, Witney constituency, 2015

Some people just don't get it do they?

2012-02-09T16:29:00.000Z

Well done Kate Green. A small British brewery has seen a surge in sales after the miserable feminist MP had their beer removed from the Stranger's Bar in the House of Commons (to be replaced, with more than a dash of irony given the anti-democratic nature of the decision, by a beer called Kangaroo Court). The Slater family are delighted, no doubt, that Ms Green's intervention has got them world wide publicity that they could never have afforded otherwise. The beer is being shipped to many more outlets than previously and even London club Stringfellows is looking to stock it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9071863/Top-Totty-beer-sales-rise-after-House-of-Commons-ban.html

What Ms Green doesn't understand is that the sort of people who drink real ale are unlikely to be motivated to stop drinking a particular tipple just because some miserable harridan (IMHO), with nothing better to do, says they ought. The reaction was predictable. I looked at the prices as did so many others. If I wasn't broke at present I'd get a barrel in.

Ms Green should now make the non-drinking of Top Totty a feminist cause celebre, perhaps linked to the campaign against designer vaginas, in order to get the sisters out on the streets. This would make the brand a household name worldwide and force the Slaters to build a bigger brewery to cope with demand.

Does Ms Green not realise that some of us are sick to death of people telling us what we might drink, eat, smoke, hunt and wear whilst playing conkers, that we inevitably go in the opposite direction? On the last day before the ban on chasing certain animals with dogs I nearly went hunting for the first time in my life just to get up the noses of the fun detectors. I'd take up smoking if I didn't dislike doing it as much as I do.

My advice for an unhealthy and politically incorrect life is to eat more lard, drink Top Totty, smoke big cigars, chase foxes for all you're worth, sleep around with both sexes (ironically), make friends with your local RC priest and play conkers without health and safety goggles. The politically correct fun detectors and health obsessives shouldn't object as we'll all die young, go to the heaven they don't believe in and leave them alone to spend more time being utterly miserable as they hold yet another tedious conference on how knitting vegetables in a non-sexist way is good for the planet.

Employment opportunity for the liberated older woman

2012-02-05T23:02:00.000Z

Our French cousins, God bless their cotton socks, appear not to be averse to offering unique work opportunities to older women. An unemployed teacher, aged 53, has been offered a job as a pole dancer/striptease artiste. Perhaps, as I am a young 54, there are opportunities for me to earn money as an erotic morris dancer in France. Stranger things have happened.

http://www.lefigaro.fr/emploi/2012/01/31/09005-20120131ARTFIG00500-pole-emploi-propose-un-poste-de-strip-teaseuse.php?fb_ref=plus

Top Totty - feminists strike back

2012-02-02T21:37:00.002Z

Top totty is an English expression that can define a young lady, or more recently, a young man. It is complimentary in the extreme and I would love someone to describe me as top totty. The expression is familiar slang and I've heard it used many times in my life, although I don't think I've actually described anyone as such myself. Nobody in their right mind could surely be offended.

More recently the name has been given to a particularly fine blonde beer that has won awards. It is brewed by a small craft brewery, Slater's of Stafford, and is described as 'a stunning blonde beer full bodied with a voluptuous hop aroma'. The range of blonde beers developed by small breweries has enhanced the real ale drinker's taste experience and I can vouch for more than one or 2 of them.

The small breweries have also expanded the naming of beers such that we are no longer limited to Best Bitter, Bitter and Mild, as in my youth. Now we drink beers with names like Hobgoblin, Dog's Bollocks, Goliath, White Wych etc etc. The fun is drinking beers with silly names and unusual flavours. There are some fantastic ruby beers on the market, some lovely porters and even a handful of new milds. I love drinking the wide variety of real ales on offer and will go out of my way to avoid the disgusting nitro-brews. Luckily we have real ale in the George Birkbeck Bar (my post-grad drinking haunt) although both the Doom Bar and Directors had run dry last night.

Sadly I think we will be denied the opportunity to try 'Top Totty' at Birkbeck because of political correctness. This fine award winning ale was on sale in the Strangers' Bar in the Palace of Westminster until the fun detectors stepped in and had the brew removed. There was nothing wrong with the beer, but the pump plate contained a representation of a nubile blonde lady in bunny girl outfit. This was deemed as offensive by fun-detector in chief Kate Green MP, shadow Minister of State for Equalities (Labour - Stretford and Urmston).

Kate Green is one of those MPs who had nothing to do with her constituency prior to her selection. She is also one of Labour's token women having been selected from an all wimmin shortlist (an acceptance that she lacked the personal qualities necessary to compete in an open selection process and could only make it by using her sex to her best advantage). This sort of feminist is the worst sort. Whilst she might have been selected on merit from a field that deliberately excluded 50% (ish) of Labour Party members, she ultimately did not obtain her candidacy in an equal competition.

Those of you who know me well will be aware that I am very big on equality of opportunity and don't do quotas or positive discrimination, concepts I find offensive in the extreme. Tackling discrimination is achieved by demanding that everyone has equal opportunities.

That is by the by, the problem was that the lady in question felt that the picture objectified women. The adverts showing David Beckham in his undies objectify men in the same way. It's okay. All human beings are sexual creatures and we all think of sex several times a day - women and men. It's normal. It's healthy. It is not offensive. The lesbian MPs would have found a picture of an attractive young lady sexually appealing (my lesbian friends are more robust in their sexual attitudes than any of the men I have known in my life).

I do not know what motivates Kate Green, but she is representing a working class area and could at least adopt a working class attitude. Those of us from genuine working class backgrounds seem to have more of a 'live and let live' attitude than the middle-class socialists, who are puritan and serious in the extreme. All human beings have bodies, some of us are lumpier than others. There is nothing wrong with any human body, naked or clothed. Absolutely nothing. Some of us are prettier or more handsome than others and turn a few heads. That's normal. I look admiringly on a fine pair of breasts. Girls like callipygian men; I like callipygian girls. Ms Green was married - surely her husband had something more than a ready wit and great intellect (my selling points, along with a tenderness and patience in bed that guarantees orgasms galore, as it turns out). Has Ms Green never fantasised about naked men? Has she never felt the urge to be spanked over her desk? She must have led a very dull life if she has no peccadilloes or sexual fantasies.

Sadly there seems to be something wrong with this woman (IMHO) and she now wants a dignity at work debate in the House of Commons. What a waste of time. Why are British feminists so embarrassing? What about a debate about forced marriages, female circumcision or honour killings? These things affect young girls in our community. Girls with UK passports are shipped to Africa and Asia for a 'holiday' and their labia and clitorises are sliced off. Other girls have been murdered for not complying with some macabre mediaeval approach to male dominance. Young girls with UK passports are forced into marriages against their will, despite the government's best efforts. Other women's issues include the fact that women in the sex industry, particularly prostitutes, cannot ply their trade in safety because of puritanical restrictions that discriminate against working women. These are real issues that remain unresolved, yet Ms Green thinks that seeing a bunny girl is offensive (did she never see those male beefcakes who danced in their thongs?).

For Ms Green, should she stage through, here are some images that sexualise men:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=male+dancers&hl=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=Jv8qT7znIsqXOv3rxZoO&sqi=2&ved=0CD4QsAQ&biw=1366&bih=643

I leave you with an image to conjure up. When I was 20 I lived in a house in Finsbury. There were 5 or 6 of us, IIRC. I was the only straight guy. One of the regular visitors was Terry O'Neill, a caption writer from Reuters, who was also a poet. Terry was a tall man with a beer gut to die for. He used to walk the streets of Islington wearing nothing but a kaftan and sandals. He described himself as Islington's international poet and produced a wonderful book of poetry that included a poem entitled, 'I wish I was a bunny boy.' Terry performed this on stage wearing a pink, crotch hugging, bunny boy outfit. I wonder what Ms Green would have made of a 6' 6" middle aged gay guy in a pink bunny outfit!

(To Terry and my gay friends I owe a lot - I was taken to some of the best gay bars in London and learnt things my mother never told me.)

Transparency - theme of the day....

2012-01-29T14:31:00.001Z

Should we pity Eirian Walsh Atkins (EWA) who resigned from her job on Friday having been caught tweeting about Unlock Democracy (UD), a leftish leaning campaign group seeking, inter alia, greater transparency in the lobbying industry (to which they belong)? EWA wished that UD would die and offered to help them along. The problem was that EWA's job was as head of constitutional policy in the Cabinet Office, a position that sits on the front line of government policy making just where it meets the lobbying world.

Unlike many lobbyists who have a cosy relationship with government departments, UD encourages people to write to their MPs (lobbying) and raise issues of constitutional import. UD is not well funded, although Joseph Rowntree Foundation money has come their way in the past, but is very active.

The following 2 links provide details:

http://www.spinwatch.org/blogs-mainmenu-29/tamasin-cave-mainmenu-107/5479-government-lobbying-reforms-in-disarray

http://unlockdemocracy.org.uk/blog/entry/whitehalls-cosy-relationship-with-the-lobbying-industry-needs-to-die

Sadly I cannot link to the Times as I won't pay cash to a Murdoch newspaper.

Getting their ACTA together?

2012-01-29T12:11:00.003Z

So the UK, along with 21 other EU nations, has signed up to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. At the same time the rapporteur (the MEP designated to bring the matter to the European Parliament) has resigned.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16757142

The BBC highlights key issues raised by Kader Arif, a French politician and Member of the European Parliament for the south-west of France. He is a member of the Socialist Party, which is part of the Party of European Socialists, and sits on the European Parliament's Committee on International Trade. M. Arif is indignant about the lack of transparency in the process and is quoted as follows:

I condemn the whole process which led to the signature of this agreement: no consultation of the civil society, lack of transparency since the beginning of negotiations, repeated delays of the signature of the text without any explanation given, reject of Parliament's recommendations as given in several resolutions of our assembly.

M. Arif, when referring to resolutions can point to this amongst others:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2011:308E:0088:0089:EN:PDF

This resolution was made in 2010, but not published until 2011. The details are as follows:

The European Parliament,

— having regard to Rule 123 of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas negotiations concerning the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) are ongoing,

B. whereas Parliament’s co-decision role in commercial matters and its access to negotiation documents are guaranteed by the Lisbon Treaty,

1. Takes the view that the proposed agreement should not indirectly impose harmonisation of EU
copyright, patent or trademark law, and that the principle of subsidiarity should be respected;

2. Declares that the Commission should immediately make all documents related to the ongoing
negotiations publicly available;

3. Takes the view that the proposed agreement should not force limitations upon judicial due process or weaken fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and the right to privacy;

4. Stresses that economic and innovation risks must be evaluated prior to introducing criminal sanctions where civil measures are already in place;

5. Takes the view that internet service providers should not bear liability for the data they transmit or host through their services to an extent that would necessitate prior surveillance or filtering of such data;

6. Points out that any measure aimed at strengthening powers of cross-border inspection and seizure of goods should not harm global access to legal, affordable and safe medicines;

7. Instructs its President to forward this declaration, together with the names of the signatories, to the Commission, the Council and the parliaments of the Member States.

Could the fact that the treaty is not just about the EU, but covers the following other countries have anything to do with it?

Australia, Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United Mexican States, the Kingdom of Morocco, New Zealand, the Republic of Singapore, the Swiss Confederation and the United States of America

So, given that, as a member state, the UK was aware of this resolution and others like it, why did we sign?

There will be a debate in the European Parliament in June. I hope readers make their MEPs aware of the issues surrounding ACTA and push for a vote against it.

Happy New Year

2012-01-03T13:39:00.001Z

I suppose I ought to say a Happy New Year to my small coterie of irregular followers, or my irregular coterie of small followers.

I'm not anticipating any personal involvement in elections as a candidate this year - the incumbent in Witney seems unminded to change tack and I don't see his Lib Dem acolytes, unwilling though they might be, jumping ship in a hurry.

There are no local elections in Carterton this year so I don't have to concern myself with that. I suspect that the developments planned to the west of Carterton will proceed despite the objections of most people I know; certainly the pressure is on to get the plans sorted before any incumbent councillor has to fight an election based on the issues.

I'm continuing my studies at Birkbeck College in London and, as I've borrowed a lot of money to take a LLM, the focus is on completing those in style.

I'll be observing the odd election if I can squeeze it in, but there is no knowing, until the invites to bid come out, whether I will be available on the correct dates. I'm off to Kazakhstan in a few days as a short-term observer, but that will have minimum effect on my studies. The opportunity to go to Russia to observe the Presidential elections has just come up again, but I can't afford the time. That's a pity as I would love to return to Russia having spent a joyous few days in Moscow and Ekaterinburg during Putin's first election. I was selected in 2007 to observe the Parliamentary elections, but failed to get into the country when all of the observers' visa applications were rejected (in my case twice)! Turkmenistan, which has elections this year, is also likely to be a no go because of timing considerations, but perhaps I'll get back to Belarus for a third time if the UK sends observers to the Parliamentary elections there. Minsk is one of my favourite foreign capitals.

Now to finish my essays before term starts!

Continuing the theme

2011-12-21T12:00:00.000Z

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/8969555/Egypt-10000-march-in-protest-at-woman-dragged-half-naked-through-street.html

Over 10,000 Egyptian women have demonstrated to protest the police violence against women. With clear images of an unfortunate Egyptian woman being dragged half naked and beaten unconscious by the police going viral across the world, it is unsurprising that there has been a protest in Egypt. I don't suppose much was happening outside the Egyptian Embassy in London, but I'm sure a reader will point out that UK feminists, having got over their pudenda fetish, are supporting those who fight real oppression.

There are some very brave young women out there!

2011-12-19T10:44:00.001Z

Yet again our pathetic feminists are put to shame. Whilst 'feminists' in London obsess about the state of other women's pudenda, brave young women (braver by far) risk their liberty for others. The FEMEN movement, a politically active body based in Ukraine, takes public risks that could end in manhandling and sexual assault by the police.

Today 3 very brave young women demonstrated topless outside the KGB headquarters in Minsk (yes, it is still called the KGB, Committee of State Security, in Belarus). They were calling for freedom for the political prisoners who have been held since the demonstrations 12 months ago following the deeply flawed Belarusian Presidential elections.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUQfSIBKsS8&feature=player_embedded

These women know they risk being manhandled and sexually humiliated by the Belarusian security services, but for them freedom is more important than designer vaginas (I still can't believe how pathetic our feminists are). The laws in Belarus, a socialist paradise, are harsh and opposition political activists can find themselves in prison just for holding meetings or being a Presidential candidate (seriously, this time last year more Presidential candidates were in prison than out). Because people in our country know little about Belarus they don't really care, but we have a virtual dictatorship in Europe and oppression is the order of the day. I know because I've been a witness to things that we would be appalled by in this country. I have many Belarusian friends and I feel for them. Belarus borders 3 EU states - Latvia, Lithuania and Poland - and yet most UK subjects seemingly can't find it on a map.

Мы помним

Pointless ladies

2011-12-11T09:32:00.001Z

It is interesting reading up on the courageous women who fight for freedom across the world. It makes you think of the Pankhursts, Ottoline Morrell, Virginia Woolf, Lady Astor. Maggie and so many others, pushing the bounds and making it easier for their future sisters in spirit. Sadly we see fewer giants amongst women walking the current feminist street. The feminists have so many things to protest about, even now, but what do they pick as their target? Designer vaginas, that's what.

http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/lifeandstyle/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2011/dec/08/muff-march-designer-vagina-surgery?fb_ref=U-vTcIjhQDj9MU4oxgIy1LZQ-CFCONX01FRS-34x7qXXX&fb_source=other_multiline&fb_action_types=news.reads"

The 'Muff March against 'designer vagina' surgery' must be the most pointless demonstration ever. feminists demanding women don't exercise choice. No protests against breast enhancement, no protests against Botox, no protests against hairstyles or fancy dresses designed to make women more attractive to men, but protests against cosmetic surgery in the nether regions.

"Keep your mitts off our muffs!" "I love my vagina!" "You've put my chuff in a huff!" These are some of the slogans of the Muff March taking place along London's Harley Street Saturday morning. Its aim? To raise awareness of the increase in gynaecological cosmetic surgery – both on the NHS and in private clinics. The march, which has more than 300 supporters on Facebook, is organised by campaigning group UK Feminista and performance artists The Muffia, who dress up in nude bodysuits decorated with lavish pubic hair.

At its most modest, the Muff March is against the pornography-influenced obsession with removing pubic hair. But it's also about protesting against the sort of surgery that makes you cross your legs. Typical procedures on offer include labiaplasty (trimming or removing the labia) and vaginal rejuvenation (tightening – usually referred to by "designer vagina").

In the US this industry is worth $6.8m (£4.4m). In the UK the latest figures come from a 2009 report in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. It revealed that in 2008 the number of operations increased by 70% compared with the previous year: 1,118 labiaplasty operations on the NHS. (There were 669 in 2007 and 404 in 2006.) And that's just the NHS. The Harley Medical Group reported over 5,000 inquiries about cosmetic gynaecology last year, 65% for labial reduction.

Professor Linda Cardozo of King's College London recently warned of the risks of labiaplasty: permanent scarring, infections, bleeding and irritation. "The private sector is not recorded, audited or regulated. At least if you have it on the NHS you have to go through your GP and that's a gatekeeper." (Although one anonymous blogger writes on the NHS website: "I have flaps of skin everywhere and the whole thing is a total mess. I will never be able to be intimate again.")

I recently heard of a woman GP very concerned by the number of girls in their mid-teens coming to her worried about what their genitals looked like: she thought it was becoming an issue largely because of the fashion for shaving off pubic hair, which made them more self-conscious. Of course, there are rare cases where there is an underlying medical reason for this surgery, but they are just that, extremely rare. A doctor who has treated women seeking labiaplasty told me: "When you examine them, they are completely normal."

Some experts suggest this is a new form of body dysmorphic disorder. Others see it as a depressing but logical extension of the pornification of our culture. As it becomes more acceptable for young people to watch porn (where a "standardised" genital appearance is encouraged and many of the women have no pubic hair), so young women having their first sexual experiences are being measuring – and measuring themselves – against this weird porn "norm". As one woman who has sought surgery says: "I browsed through one of my brother's Playboys to see what the girls looked like. Some seemed to have very small or almost no labia." In a world where not even your labia can ever be pretty enough, it's time to fight back. Forward march, muffs!

Since when has it been the business of anyone what other consenting adults do with their bits. It's not as if the surgery is done in the bush with a sharpened stone, as happens in some cultures.

It is interesting that nobody is having demonstrations against penis extensions. I suppose the left could hardly protest about that could they?

"Keep your mitts off our muffs"?

I could never walk down the street carrying a placard saying, "Nurses, keep your hands off my willy." My heart wouldn't be in it.

Veena Malik - another brave lady

2011-12-09T10:14:00.001Z

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16102926

It is amazing, isn't it, that young women who want to make their own decisions in life are pilloried and have to defend their actions?

Veena Malik is a well known Pakistani Muslim. She has taken part in a photo shoot, although she denies the published image is the one that was taken. Her image is on December's FHM magazine. It shows a beautiful young woman discreetly covered. Veena says she was in control and is suing because of the adjustments made in the photo, which is fair enough, but she admits to a topless shoot that is more discreet than the Sun's page 3 and is more tasteful than much of what has been in the Star and the Sport. For this her own father has called for her to be punished (by whom, for what and in what way?). Some father?

As women obtain more rights around the world - nearly every country allows them to vote, most countries allow them to make their own decisions on divorce, many countries allow them to have the final say on abortion - there are still men, and purportedly moral women, who seek to decide whether an individual might be photographed without some of her clothes. Veena Malik is an adult. She can make her own decisions. She does not need to be treated like a child, as some of her co-religionists seem to think. Their morality is a personal one and should not be enforced against a woman who harms nobody by her actions.

I just hope western feminists are rallying to Veena's side and defending her right to do as she pleases in a male dominated society. Some hope.

Glory Allelluia!

2011-12-01T13:48:00.001Z

On 30th November Belgium set a limit on its European record of 'time taken to form a government'. Although there is no Prime Minister as of yet, the Belgians have finally agreed, by a 135 page document, to govern the country for another 2 and a half years.

The new record for non-formation of a government stands at 535 days!

BTW The new PM is likely to be Elio di Rupo, of the French speaking Socialist Party, only the second Francophone PM since 1974 and, another world record, the first openly gay male PM (Iceland's Johanna Sigurdardottir took the female lead in 2009).

Go Belgium!

....or as they say in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 'Belgium man, Belgium!'.

Good game

2011-11-25T17:38:00.000Z

A fond welcome to one of our readers who uses Safari 4.0 as a browser on her MacOSX operating system with a resolution of 1280x800, Javascript enabled. In London and using Virgin Media, IP 86.6.235.77, the person thinks I have too much time on my hands. Having logged in for the first time at 16:58:10 and carried out 8 Google searches against my name with random choices of words appended, the lady did her last click through on this blog at 17:03:43. One of the 2.9% of visitors who stay from between 5-20 minutes. She didn't use one of the exit links I have provided.

Last time she was here, using Virgin Media was 15th November at 00:26:41. Couldn't sleep?

Full details of the host name: cpc10-slam5-2-0-cust844.2-4.cable.virginmedia.com

You are right, I ought to get out more often.

What a surprise..

2011-11-24T20:44:00.000Z

Well that was 300+ visitors I wasn't expecting. With over 4.5 million people visiting A Rebel's Diary I suppose it was inevitable that some should be diverted my way by Google. I had visitors from 20+ countries as they searched for the picture of the naked young lady. It has now started appearing on Facebook - a Kazakh friend of mine posted it with Russian commentary yesterday afternoon.

I'm very busy at the moment so won't comment too much on other matters, but I do wonder who is using the LSE Library computers to search for adverse comments or details about me. The search queries using my name and random words are making me smile. The failed hacking attempts from SOAS and Birkbeck bring tears to my eyes. I don't know who I've upset, nor how, but there are people who are desperate to find stuff on me. Ho hum.

Another courageous young lady

2011-11-18T18:25:00.003Z

http://arebelsdiary.blogspot.com/2011/10/nude-art.html?zx=2c996d9bb5d22c63

Aliaa Magda Elmahdy has had over 2.5 million visits to her blog. She has posted pictures on her blog that offend the sensibilities of some of her Egyptian countrymen and women. The problem is that she is a citizen of Egypt and there are people there, probably the majority, that believe that a woman has no control over her body and should not make her own decisions. Aliaa has made a decision to pose naked for an artistic photograph. It's her decision and the photograph is not sexually titillating in any way, but there are those who think she has transgressed their moral code. As morality is personal it might not be hers.

In fact this blog is my blog and I might pose naked and post here, thus Aliaa's blog is her blog and she commits no crime by posting her own nude photograph on it. If you load the URL, since I still have problems with links, you are warned the site might have adult content. If you click through it is your choice.

Aliaa is receiving death threats for something we take for granted in our country. She has harmed nobody. Sad old world.

When I look around me....

2011-11-17T10:42:00.000Z

Sometimes you get a little bored and start wondering, as you ponder your own limited achievements, what have old friends achieved in their lives. Last night I was talking, in Birkbeck Bar, to a female Malaysian law student. This got me to thinking about a previous female Malaysian law student I knew when I did the Bar finals in 1980. We lost contact in late 1980 and I'd not really thought much about her since. I should have paid more attention to her career. Sometimes you don't realise you are mixing with future world leaders. When I lived in Leytonstone my flat mate and I had this lady and her flat mates round for lunch (vegetarian because of her religious sensitivities). I still can't get links to work properly, but look at these URLs and you will see what makes for greatness:

http://www.exeter.ac.uk/honorarygraduates/honorarygraduands/ceremony18/

http://www.thenutgraph.com/who-is-afraid-of-ambiga-sreenevasan/

http://www.brahmintoday.org/magazine/2009_issues/bt63-0504_first-lady.php

When I think of some of the small minded people I have encountered in life (and a couple of you are at Birkbeck for some reason) it is comforting to know that I have shared many happy moments with someone who is genuinely concerned for human rights and free and fair elections.

Positivism explained

2011-11-14T22:51:00.000Z

Rules are rules, the law is the law. Rules apply to all of us, no matter what role we are in, whether we like it or not. If people break or bend the rules they should have a very good reason. Looking after your mates is not a good reason. Nemo judex in causa sua and all that. Ho hum!

Frustrating isn't it?

2011-11-13T19:11:00.000Z

Those who have followed this blog for some time will know that I have an embedded StatCounter. This allows me to see how many people are visiting the blog, where they are coming from and which pages they are looking at. I also know the entry queries that are being used amongst many other things.

By comparing with the visitors to my website, following other fora, knowing a little about what is going on in my world and watching other people's public tweets etc I can, on a good day, use information to identify named individuals. I'm having a bit of a smile as people are visiting the blog to try and find something that isn't there. They are using various entry queries and searches, but are not going to find what they think they are looking for because it wasn't really there in the first place.

I'm sorry chaps and chapesses, but you're wasting your time. You've been fibbed to by some underhand types with their own political agenda.

Sorry

2011-11-08T16:32:00.000Z

Sorry to my readers. I have taken the decision to remove some posts. Something is going on and, unusually for me, I'm lowering my profile. All will become clear in the fullness of time.

I'll just say, 'There is nothing wrong with being educated at Ackworth School, a Quaker public school in Yorkshire. I don't know why someone is hiding the fact.'

If panic wasn't setting in before..

2011-07-18T19:22:00.002+01:00

Ye Gods!!!

John Yates has resigned.

The IPCC are investigating whether John Yates helped the daughter of Neil Wallis (Sir Paul Stephenson's appointee) get a job with the Metropolitan police. Yates is denying the claim.

Sean Hoare, the whistle blower who was the first person to make the allegations about 'phone hacking all of those years ago was found dead this morning. Sean was the guy who fingered Coulson and who was slagging him off to all and sundry last week.

If the weekend was bad then this week has started off even worse. Cameron has rushed back from Africa to prepare for the recall of Parliament on Wednesday. Tomorrow is the big day when we will all be watching the select committee interviews of the Murdochs and Rebekah Brooks.

Across the press and across the blogosphere there are calls for Cameron to go (albeit at a low level and/or from the usual sources) and for there to be a fresh election. I'm not ready for a general election and nor are any of the big 3 parties. The main Sunday newspaper is gone. The other newspapers will be stuffed if they choose to back Cameron or Clegg, whilst Miliband is the most useless leader of the opposition since Kinnock. Who will the Sun support?

May we continue to live in interesting times.

Panic should be setting in about now

2011-07-18T12:06:00.000+01:00

The chief of the Metropolitan Police has resigned, the former CEO of News International has been arrested and both, along with the Murdochs, are to be filmed giving evidence to a Parliamentary select committee tomorrow. Parliament is unlikely to go into recess on time.

Sir Paul Stephenson, former head of the Met, has stated that his integrity is intact over the appointment of Neil Wallis, but has taken a dig at David Cameron's appointment of Andy Coulson. That's different says Cameron (correctly as Coulson had already left News of the World because of the 'phone hacking scandal that is now engulfing news International).

As each revelation drags reputations lower, and with 10 or 11 arrests thus far there are a number of reputations on the line, the public will become more and more disillusioned with the political and media classes.

Let's be certain that all of these people are interlinked.

Gordon Brown, who did a brilliant sob story the other day, went to Rebekah Brooks' wedding and had her round to Chequers after the article he is moaning about was published, apparently with his knowledge. The information did not come from media scrutiny of his medical records, but from a separate source. Brown might be seeking sympathy and support from the public now, but I suspect his face will be buried under a pile of egg as the revelations of his proximity to News International are highlighted.

David Cameron and James Murdoch were round at Rebekah Brooks' at Christmas (23rd December 2010) as was Jeremy Clarkson (who does take a real interest in Chipping Norton). We are told it was all innocent and normal, which I believe, but as the whole relationship falls under public scrutiny are we to believe that people in the public eye never discuss work when they're together and don't talk by 'phone or e-mail or in an official capacity?

Elisabeth Murdoch and Matthew Freud, who probably didn't vote for me, held a party a couple of weeks ago at Burford Priory, their lovingly restored house just up the road from Carterton. I know it was lovingly restored because, to their credit, they used top specialists in period renovation and restoration to do the job. I was delivering election leaflets for Oxfordshire County Council at the time and chatted to the Gurkha security man on the gate; the name of the restorers was writ large on a nearby sign. I was not invited to the party, but Ed Vaizey (who was kind enough to address Oxford No2ID when we organised a meeting a few years back) was there as was Michael Gove and Peter Mandelson. Nobody discussed work there either I would guess.

Charlie Brooks, Rebekah's current husband, was an old school chum of David Cameron's. It was Jeremy Clarkson who introduced them apparently.

It is nice of David Cameron to be so involved with people in his constituency and it is no doubt coincidence that they are linked with the current scandal. What is a problem, however, is the fact that the links seem to include not just friendship, but undue influence. One of the newspapers is implying that Andy Coulson was appointed by David Cameron as his 'spin doctor' at the behest of Rebekah Brooks, over an alternate choice and because it suited News International.

Certainly, since the appointment, News International dropped support for Labour and returned to the Conservative fold. This was ultimately what would have helped David Cameron obtain sufficient seats to form a government. Even the Murdochs couldn't deliver a majority on this occasion, which says a lot given how bad Gordon Brown was during the election campaign.

The problem in all of this is that there is a lot more to come out. People can cover up for each other to a certain extent, but it only takes one to break ranks and accuse the others of a little disingenuity then the whole lot will crumble to dust very quickly.

There are a lot of people who have been arrested. There may be more to come. Those who risk a prison sentence will be more inclined to take others down with them. I know there are vast sums available to compensate people for the inconvenience of doing time if only they keep their mouths shut. I know that most of those who go to prison will probably get good jobs when they come out, if they don't grass up their mates and keep their noses clean. I'm not sure, however, that everyone is going to play ball. If only one person tells the whole truth then those who are fibbing now will have problems.

John Yates is being recalled and suspended. Rebekah Brooks has already admitted that the News of the World paid police for information. Andy Coulson resigned once over a scandal that saw 2 telephone hackers gaoled. If I was in authority and I was associated with these people and I had given a nod or a wink too many then I would indeed be panicking right now.

I wonder who is worried. Could we have a new Prime Minister soon?

Charlie Gilmour - vermin gets soft sentence

2011-07-15T14:07:00.000+01:00

Sixteen months?

This will be reduced by our generous system to 8 months.

Most of that time will be spent in Ford Open Prison so Charlie can be near mummy and travel up on 'home leave'. Towards the end of his 'sentence' Charlie will be tagged and allowed to live on mummy and daddy's country estate. This will be a real hardship as his toff buddies will have to come and visit him in his en suite quarters as he won't be able to take the train up to see them.

Charlie Gilmour, in my humble opinion, is vermin. He would not have been fit to wipe the boots of the teenagers who died advancing under withering fire on the Somme or at Gallipoli or D-Day. It is a tragedy that this privileged brat will go on to be rich and famous (daddy and mummy will see to that) and will grow up unrepentant for the insults he hurled.

Charlie Gilmour claimed not even to know that the Cenotaph was a memorial to our war dead - he is a history student at Cambridge University after all. That says a lot about the entrance requirements doesn't it? No doubt the interviewers were dazzled by daddy's fame and money rather than the fact that the potential history student seemed a little thin on our country's past.

Charlie now claims to be sorry, but he is not. His sort never are. Look at the 'repentance' of James Murdoch (another privileged brat) who actually tried to get a Parliamentary committee to agree to meet at his convenience in August. Perish the thought that he and daddy should be inconvenienced by explaining the potentially criminal behaviour of their lackies (most of whom seem entirely expendable). In the end the Murdochs have generously agreed to cooperate with our sovereign Parliament. How very kind of them.

Well, well, well!

2011-07-10T00:18:00.000+01:00

I've been silent on this blog about the News of the World situation, although I've posted all over the place. The whole situation has become very complicated.

The one certainty is that the story is a long way from being completely known to anybody.

There is another certainty - the links between our political rulers and the Murdoch newspapers are very murky indeed. Rebekah Brooks lives near to Chippy. David Cameron lives nearby. Rupert Murdoch's daughter lives in the recently restored Burford Priory, a few miles south of Chippy. They are all closely linked. David Cameron was at Rebekah Brooks' recent wedding (as were Cherie Blair and Gordon Brown). Our MP regularly parties with the Chippy set. There seems to be a happy little coterie, but who is helping who?

DC has even closer links to the arrested and questioned Andy Coulson, his personal friend and someone he chose to place at the heart of advice to our government.

The whole thing is looking very incestuous.

Of course close relationships between people are normal, but when the people who run government are close friends of people who are accused of breaking the law then the public has a right to be concerned. Bugging of private telephones without a court order or warrant cannot be acceptable. Paying police as much as £30K for information is a crime. For a PM to be linked to those who might have done such things is frightening in our democracy. For 2 or 3 PMs to be so linked is an abomination (Brown and the Blairs are closely linked to the Murdoch clan).

Rebekah Brooks thinks there is worse to come than we know already, yet what we know sickens many of us.

I wonder how far the hacking goes and who was caught up in it. There are thousands of names to be contacted. Who they are and their significance are things we don't yet know, but murder victims, bomb victims and the relations of dead servicemen seem to have been targets. I wonder, aloud, if Parliamentary candidates/MPs/MEPs have been included and what the parameters were. I stood for UKIP against DC in 2005; was I worth checking out. I did, after all, know quite a lot of West Oxon gossip and I know one or 2 things about DC that are not in the public domain (as they don't belong there).

I like DC, but he has to explain his links to the Murdoch empire and the things he might or might not know. He is still our MP here in the Witney Constituency.

Oh dear, oh dear! Personal stuff. Gloves off.

2011-06-02T18:55:00.000+01:00

I note that there have been a number of visits from people interested in NHS issues. This is because of a number of posts concerning Fred Hucker, SW Oxon NHS PCT and similar issues. People are using NHS computers to access this blog.

Thus far I have been discreet about the case of Wesson v Hucker in the High Court. I had issued proceedings alleging misfeasance in public office against Fred Hucker, former chairman of SW Oxon NHS PCT and current chairman of Oxon NHS PCT. I have been forced by circumstances to discontinue the case, but that is not the end of the matter. On a point of law I could win in the Court of Appeal, but the advice is that I am vulnerable on the extent of damage. This could leave me vulnerable for costs. I cannot take the risk and the advice I have received is to call it a day.

This means that the hundreds of pages of material I and my researcher have accumulated in relation to the Bell Lines collapse and the mismanagement of SW Oxon NHS PCT are now live. I am free to publish, and hope to be able to do so, a substantial amount of material currently or previously in the public domain. Much of it will be damaging to the reputation of Fred Hucker. I will not be committing libel as I will deal in the truth, fair comment and evidence based opinion. I can demonstrate misfeasance and other torts. Those of you who write for the press, and I have a number of readers who do, might wish to e-mail me for access to some very interesting documents.

I am seriously jealous

2011-04-19T11:04:00.000+01:00

I really am seriously jealous of all those bloggers who seem to have all of the time in the world to make long and well thought out comments on the political issues of the day. Does Anna Raccoon not do her own ironing and washing up? How does Guido Fawkes find the time to blog and cook? Surely they don't have staff or live in wrinkled clothes eating baked beans from the can?

I know Gawain Towler (England Expects blog) is effectively writing as an adjunct to his job as was Iain Dale when his blog led the field. The newspaper bloggers are paid so don't count - some of them aren't even very good. Other people, however, seem to live on their blogs or are so well organised that they can create a lot of time. Where do I get that time?

I do have a disadvantage in that when I work I am not allowed to blog what I do. This is tragic that such a politically fascinating job should go unreported. Election observers get into the thick of a country's politics and political process in ways that an ordinary chap/chappess couldn't do in his/her own country. Coffee with a MP here, tea and stickies with a vice-president there and then off down to the local nick to see if you can chat to the opposition activist in his cell (some countries have a narrow viewpoint when it comes to opposition). It also means that I am too busy for weeks on end to make anything but cursory observations on my blog - an observers day can consist of bed, shit, shower, shave, eat, work, eat, work, eat, work, bed. Sometimes I've skipped eating.

I know I do waste time commenting on threads in newspapers, but winding up the Guardianistas and trolling the Indie do have their own rewards. I also moderate the British Democracy Forum, which used to be relatively easy until in a fit of libertarian generosity the owner allowed the BNP a discreet sub-forum. I am now wasting time trying to stop crypto-fascists from getting the forum dragged into the courts with their idiotic statements (I've banned 20 or so BNP posters in the last few days, but there are some serious nutters still to be dealt with). What is wrong with some of these people?

Perhaps things will improve now I'm between contracts. Once I've sorted out the newly defunct car (overheated last night) and done my tax return (late again) and painted my bedroom and dug the garden and cleared out the shed and.....................

Back to reality!

2011-04-15T14:28:00.000+01:00

Back from Kazakhstan only a few days after blogspot blogs were unfrozen for the first time in over 12 months apparently. I'd have commented at the time, but I was busy with debriefs and the farewell party (second horse meat based besh barmak in 3 days). I ensured I'd sleep on the 'plane home by polishing off the best part of a bottle of vodka before the 02.45 pick up for 04.30 flight home (Astana-Frankfurt-LHR). I was back in the UK shortly after 08.00 as we were flying backwards in terms of time zones.

I'm still knackered and having real difficulty motivating myself to do all of the catching up that is required. I have a report to write and a pile of paperwork to wade through. The tax man demands attention as always.

There is some sadness and a massive tragedy.

Sadness was that David Lamb, one of the nicest guys I met in politics, passed away after a 5-year fight against cancer; he was still trying to make people laugh only days before he went.

The massive tragedy is that a young lady I recruited twice as an interpreter/assistant for short-term election observers in Baranovichy in 2006 and 2008, Olga Solovyeva, was murdered by the nail bomb in Minsk. Like so many of the women who work as STO interpreter/assistants, Olga was young and highly educated. It is a tragic waste of a life. I have my own views as to who was behind the bombing (Lukaschenko's police) and have little hope that they will be punished for their criminal acts as they have the sanction of the President of Belarus. It is a reminder of the nastier side of politics.

Testing, testing, testing!

2011-03-12T15:14:00.000Z

I have no idea whether this post will be displayed or not. I can't seem to access my own blog from Kazakhstan and others are likewise inaccessible. Perhaps there is an issue that I am unaware of.

The frustrating thing is I know a lot of people have been checking this blog in the last few days and I seem unable to follow it myself!!!!

I've been too busy to post in any event and it is only now that I am getting a 'day off' (read - do all of the paperwork whilst the driver and assistant have their rest) that I have time to have a serious browse of the Internet. Even had I had a day off before yesterday there was no WiFi in my apartment and my Belarusian colleague, Oleg, and I were reduced to sharing a 3G modem that was operating at barely 1% of its potential efficiency. Ho hum.

Keeping my hand in....

2011-02-23T09:07:00.000Z

Well, just when I thought I was getting settled into a mundane routine, I am off to Kazakhstan to observe the Presidential elections. I assume the incumbent President will not be using 'tolko vmesta, tolko vperiod', the Nur Otan slogan when I was in Karaganda in 2007, and will come up with something new. His photo is everywhere so he won't need to do much to get himself recognised. I wonder who will challenge Mr Nazarbayev. I'll know very soon.

The good thing is I am retaining my currency in election observation. I was in Ukraine, Sudan, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova last year. Kazakhstan makes it 3 predominantly Muslim countries in just over 12 months. Sudan is also Arabic speaking and I kept my limited vocabulary up to date. Currency in Arabic and predominantly Muslim countries could be a selling point for the foreseeable future as those who follow the world news are well aware. We could be looking at elections in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and Yemen. That's a lot of observation and observers! I've already got several bottles of sun cream and my jabs are up to date.

Carterton Town Council

2011-02-02T14:02:00.000Z

I must admit to not having taken too much interest in my Town Council as of late. The cemetery seems tidy when I visit. The sports pitches are used and there is a nice new play park being constructed on the Rec. The Thursday market continues to thrive in its new location. I am sure the grass cutting and gardening contracts are properly let. Basically Carterton is the sleepy hollow it always was.

One thing, however, which does raise the hackles is planning. Individuals will always be upset by planning applications that adversely affect the enjoyment of their property, but do tend to conveniently forget that they only bought their own house and not the whole street. The big plans, however, are different.

http://www.witneygazette.co.uk/news/8825386.Town_council_backs____west___/?ref=mr

Carterton Town Council has decided to support the continued development of the town by agreeing to build 1000 houses in Alvescot Parish. The Town Council have seemingly not consulted with Alvescot, but have decided, on the basis of what the developers have told them (so Cllr Adrian coomber says), that 1000 homes to the west of the Shill Brook, the Windrush tributary that defines our western boundary, will be just fine.

The alternate suggestion, 1000 homes filling in the last remaining gap between Brize Norton and Carterton, is not preferred. This is probably due to the fact that the Brize Norton residents, led by Shane Rae, have got their act together and would make life very difficult for the Carterton councillors.

The problem is that the projections for housing development were made under the Labour government when John Prescott was intent on concreting over the south-east of England. Nobody has revisited the figures, based on continued mass immigration into a boom economy, and nobody has made a real assessment of need.

West Oxon District Council cannot justify further development without importing thousands of people from outside the district. There are no new jobs forecast for the town. Carterton remains at the end of a B-road and has no direct A-road or rail link to the outside world. There is no logical place to add road infrastructure to the west of the town as the nearest larger settlements in that direction are Highworth and Swindon. The new estate will impact on the drainage patterns in a way that has probably not yet been calculated. There is no extant infrastructure other than B-roads and country lanes and the remains of RAF Broadwell (some strips of tarmac and an old brick building or 2).

Why then has Carterton Town Council stuck its head above the parapet? What did the developers say and what has been offered? I suspect I am not the only one asking these questions.

Tidying things up a bit

2011-02-01T18:56:00.000Z

As promised I have deleted the links to the websites, tweets and blogs of my erstwhile rivals. Most of them seemed to have stopped posting/blogging the day after the election in any event. I have replaced them with some news sites I am following. Le Figaro (which I can easily make head and tail of), Stern (which I get the gist of) and Yandex (which is aspirational). One of my New Year's resolutions was to relearn the languages I've forgotten (I used to converse reasonably freely in French and could get by in German) and to learn enough Russian to have a decent two way chat. I've even got a dual alphabet keyboard and have Russian on my computer as I want to surprise/stun a few of my Facebook friends.

I know some of you who visit here use those languages as your first language so please feel free to comment in your native tongue.

God Bless Their Cotton Socks

2011-02-01T18:46:00.000Z

The police have decided to give us a feel for the sorts of crimes that are affecting our neighbourhoods. They have produced an, apparently, excellent website. I say apparently because those who managed to get through to the site before it collapsed under an electronic deluge thought it was quite good, but I cannot get it to work.

I typed in my postcode, as requested, and was offered a number of options. Apparently OX18 1HS, 7 houses on one side of a small street, is not specific enough. Of the 5 options I was offered, all of them in [b]Brize Norton,[/b] Carterton, one included the letters and numbers I had entered. The fact that Brize Norton is not in Carterton is academic. Or at least it would be academic if the land on which our estate is built had not been transferred from Brize to Carterton amidst much acrimony a few years ago whilst I was still a councillor. It implies that the police computer does not recognise legal changes to parish boundaries, even though they only happen hereabouts once every 800 or so years. So upset were Brize Norton parish council that when we, Carterton Town Council, asked for some useful suggestions as to street names they sent their membership list and suggested that the streets were named after them (I was the one who suggested naming the streets around here after the foliage that was rooted up to build the estate).

Back to the original story. After some sluggish movement of the computer page owing to the overload, the site has flagged up a red banner with the statement 'Sorry, we couldn't find a policing area that matched your search'. The point that I was using a selection based on a suggestion of the website itself seems to be lost on the little pixie in the machine who is responding to queries. I'd like to tell the computer that I know where I live, I know which police area I am in and I know we've had a few crimes around here in the past. How difficult is it to tell me that Witney (or Carterton when it's not closed) police station covers my address and to tell me that we've got a drug dealer or 2 in the area?

I think the purpose of the site is to make us all feel better about ourselves knowing how little reported crime there is where we live. I'm sure that if I get up at 3 tomorrow morning the site will return a different response. In fact the police have underestimated how many of us would like to know what is happening in our street. Good luck to them if they succeed, but this is a double edged sword as it will affect house prices and some people are not going to be happy when they discover they are sitting in the midst of an area blighted by burglars and unruly teenagers.

Coming soon............................

2011-01-28T08:31:00.001Z

After a quiet recuperate, and having nearly completed all of the backlog of paperwork that was generated by my serial absences, I am going to start posting my thoughts and opinions on the key issues of the day from 1st February. Boy do I have some opinions, as those fortunate enough to drink with me know full well. Admittedly they seem to be different opinions to many, if not most, people, which at least provokes heated debate and contentious discourse, if not violent argument.

I'm also going to tidy up the blog. I think it's time to remove the links to the sites of the bunch of eternal optimists, ne'er do wells and historically insignificant candidates that contested the Witney constituency (it is nice to have been a footnote in history). No doubt, with one exception, there will be an entirely fresh set of hopefuls turning up after the next dissolution of Parliament. No doubt, also, many will come from afar and will not have any discernible links to Witney or its surrounds.

Talking of history, with a week being a long time in politics and all that, it will be fascinating to see what commentators are saying in a few years time. Will I be mentioned for fighting David Cameron, or will he be given recognition for having contested the same seat as me? Just a tiny thought.......

The Curse of Gnome????

2011-01-14T16:56:00.000Z

When Private Eye has been excoriated by someone and that same person heads for a fall they call it the 'Curse of Gnome'. It's a form of gloating. I'm not a gloater, but really some people need to get their act together. The Independent Network being one such organisation.

On February 18th I posted the list of candidates endorsed at the last general election by the Independent Network. It included one Fred Wildgust. I pointed out the fact that Fred's blog/website was, frankly, out of order with its attacks on people using language and imagery that most reasonable people would baulk at. Fred responded by telling me to keep my nose out of his campaign.

I raised the issue with Livia Oldland of the Independent Network and their coordinator Brian Ahearne spoke to me about the issue of endorsement. I was never endorsed by the IN who felt my Vote ironically leaflet suggested I wasn't serious. How serious do you have to be to put yourself forward for election at a massive personal cost in time and money, including attending IN gatherings, to qualify for endorsement? Fred Wildgust remained endorsed, even though there were rumblings against him in Torfaen. Although the IN is supposed to be 'Independent', it is pro-left wing and anti-right wing independents. Livia's successor told me over a beer how he joined people who chased the EDL away from somewhere or other, as if in the IN's democracy the EDL have no right to peaceful assembly (a genuinely independent investigation shows them to be the victims of UAF violence and not the other way round).

You might ask where this is all leading (unless you are Fred Wildgust of course).

href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-12191106"

href="http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/8790015.Torfaen_councillor_suspended_for_code_breaches/"

Fred Wildgust has been suspended as a councillor for 12 months. He breached the same set of standards I was obliged to follow when I was an Independent councillor. I was never accused of breaching those standards.

Even as he was suspended Fred stated:

The sole purpose of me being here today is to show the public what is going on in Torfaen.

I and other members of the political opposition in Torfaen believe that Torfaen County Borough Council is a corrupt council and the political regime is supported by partial officers.

The big issue we have in Torfaen is that there is no democracy.

Totally unrepentant, Fred has kept digging. No doubt the IN will not be posting this on Facebook.

I'm not certain if I will stand for election in the near future as there is a lot going on in my life. I will not be seeking the endorsement of the Independent Network and I would advise right leaning and libertarians to avoid them with a very long barge pole.

The vagaries of international travel

2010-12-02T09:29:00.000Z

Those of you who read the Guardian, Times and Witney Gazette will know that earlier this year I was stranded by the Icelandic ash cloud. This left me suffering the unbearable heat of Khartoum (45 C in the shade) for a week. Had there not been air conditioning and a pool in the hotel I would have suffered horrendously.

Now the weather is threatening to leave me stranded in the snows of Chisinau when I try to make my return to the UK tomorrow. It's bleak here - Christmas lights, fairytale scenes of snow on the mistletoe decorated trees, fine food and passable wine. How I suffer for my country! Worse, if we get airborne from Chisinau, we could get stranded in Vienna when we come to change flights for Heathrow. Could you imagine the hell of a weekend in Vienna's Xmas markets? Imagine having to spend Niklaus (6th December) in Vienna. Unbearable.

Sadly I've an awful feeling that I'm going to spend a lot of time in airport terminals with nothing but a Glaswegian and expensive beer for company! I'll arrive incredibly late at a near snowed-in Heathrow, exhausted, hungry and bored with the endlessly repeated Mr Bean or Only For Laughs that is forced on travellers by Austrian Airlines (2 legs, 2 snack 'meals').

I love being part of the jet set.

Why, oh why, did someone do that?

2010-11-16T07:02:00.001Z

Of course what alerted me to the fact that people are visiting here in numbers not seen for a while was my StatCounter, which I inadvertently opened. I've been visited from Moldova, Serbia, Poland, India, Brazil, USA and Canada. People are looking for the usual links that lead to me. One person, however, is looking for someone else and it isn't me. Not only that they don't read sufficient English and have translated an article from this blog into their own language. I republish it here because to me and some other regular watchers this is very important:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=nl&langpair=en%7Cnl&u=http://paulwessonelection2010.blogspot.com/2010/05/now-im-worried.html

Nu ben ik bang

Als ik de naam Fred Hucker in deze blog het wordt een alarm geactiveerd ergens in de NHS. Dat is prima, het is wat ik zou verwachten. Fred Hucker, die betrokken was bij de ineenstorting en het faillissement van Bell Lines, is de publiciteit verlegen. Ik kan zien waarom, met een groot aantal van Bell Lines verkregen documenten. Ik zou niet willen geassocieerd worden met het reilen en zeilen op die gezien hebben veel van zijn co-regisseurs gefloten voordat de Ierse rechterlijke instanties onder meer. De beschikbare informatie uit openbare bronnen concermimg Bell Lines omvangrijk is op zijn zachtst gezegd.

Wat mij zorgen baart, is dat iemand in de NHS aangemeld inetgw-70-pri.nhs.uk, een gastheer / computer die het IP-nummer 194.176.105.55 heeft, na 1 uur deze ochtend. Volgens mijn StatCounter software deze blog bezocht werd op 01.18.08. Zoals ik reeds in een eerder bericht, dit is een belastingplichtige gefinancierd gebruik van NHS computers.

Zou je niet ongerust te maken als er iemand bezig was in de NHS op dat moment van de dag en je nagetrokken?

Ik word gestalkt door iemand in de NHS en ik ben bezorgd.

What can it all mean?

I'm too busy

2010-11-16T06:21:00.001Z

I've been too busy to post recently, but thanks to all of those, around the world, who have been visiting this blog. Welcome back to the Fred Hucker watchers and a fresh welcome to those who are here in Moldova who've taken aa look. I've given out 200+ business cards and some people are obviously curious as to who they've met.

I'm busy observing in Balti, Glodeni, Fslesti and Singerei and am knackered, but happy.

I don't normally post much on missions and have been away for quite a few weeks already as I was in Kyrgyzstan before coming out here. The contrast between the Tien Shan and the rolling countryside of northern Moldova can hardly be underestimated - you can't get fermented mare's milk or horsemeat here for a start off.

Back to the UK soon.

I despair.....

2010-08-05T23:21:00.000+01:00

I really do despair of David Cameron's foreign policy gaffes. Most of us stumble over our words and most of us get things wrong, but most of us are not Prime Minister of the world's 5th or 6th largest economy, a key NATO player, a member of the UN Security Council, Head of the Commonwealth and second largest net contributor to the EU.

I know, and have known since I was a schoolboy, that the UK and Commonwealth stood alone against the Nazis in 1940. I can't envisage saying that the UK were junior partners to the USA at a time when the USA was still trading with the Nazis. The USA only declared war on the Nazis after Pearl Harbor and after Hitler had declared war on them in late 1941.

I know enough of the regional politics and culture of Pakistan, Afghanistan and India to know that there is a thin line to tread when dealing with those nations. I'm not noted for my diplomacy, but even I know not to upset the President of Pakistan just before he visits our country.

I definitely know that Iran has not yet got a nuclear bomb. It's a major issue across the Middle East. Iranian possession of the bomb will lead to a pre-emptive nuclear strike by Israel. Getting that wrong is not allowed.

Why then has David Cameron made such glaring errors in recent days? He speaks for us all. He has advisers and junior ministers to give advice as well as the support of William Hague, who really does know his stuff. How Hague must cringe, as we all do, when these errors slip out. Who does David Cameron think he is? Prince Philip?

I appreciate that David Cameron has focussed on the economy and UK matters, but foreign policy is critical to our place in the world. We are a trading nation. It's time to stop rushing around and ensure that the brief has been mastered.

I'll have no policies if I'm not careful

2010-07-28T10:45:00.000+01:00

Of course one of the problems of not being on the political stage is that you have to watch as others act. There being no UK elections coming up in the near future (officially) and my not having anything to work towards, apart from the railway reopening campaign that will launch again soon I hope, I have to watch my ideas discussed and debated and acted upon.

Of course the ideas are not exclusive to me so, for instance, my desire to bring people out of paying income tax altogether is part of current government medium term policy (£10,000 personal allowance). I see no reason why someone earning the minimum wage for 40 hours per week should pay tax on it; either it is a minimum or it is not (although it is a minimum hourly rate and not weekly rate, but that is another argument).

Another of the ideas I have been supporting in election addresses for some time is the removal of fixed speed cameras. I didn't expect it to come about in the way that it has, but in Oxfordshire at least the cameras have been switched off (as suggested in my county council election leaflet of last year).

http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/sport/omboysleague/archive/2009_2010/2010/07/23/Oxford+news+%28om_oxfordnews%29/8288385.Every_speed_camera_in_county_switched_off_next_week/

Of course the reasoning is financial - Oxfordshire County Council have cut £600,000 funding - but then it has long been argued that the cameras were merely money generating machines. On both occasions that I got caught, 1996 and 2005, I was driving safely, but had focussed on other hazards on the road rather than concentrated on my speedometer. My speeding did no harm and I was not dangerous. The 'crimes' were victimless.

http://www.witneygazette.co.uk/news/wgheadlines/oxfordshire/8293224.MPs_speak_out_over_speed_camera_switch_off/?ref=eb

Of course some people object to the switching off of the cameras. Andrew Smith, the Labour MP for urban Oxford, opposes the switch off, but then the cameras probably never affected him as he can use public transport everywhere he goes. I doubt, as his job never took him out of built up areas, he even realises where most of the cameras are.

Of course there is always someone:

http://www.witneygazette.co.uk/news/8295424.Community_considers_paying_to_keep_speed_camera/

Nuneham Courtenay Parish Council (pop. 195) want to pay the £5000pa to keep their camera. The fines will no doubt still go to the government and the camera will still only function in one direction (as we all know people only speed going east-west and not west-east), but the councillors of Nuneham Courtenay will have made their point and have the only speed camera in Oxfordshire. The current parish precept is £40; the speed camera will add £25.64 per person. It will probably mean doubling the parish precept. It will be interesting to see if the parishioners will pay up or whether they will replace their councillors instead.

It is interesting to note that there have been surveys that suggest that not everybody who is fined and incurs penatly points was even driving the car at the time of the speeding. The cameras catch number plates and not drivers. People take the hit for friends or relatives to allow them to keep their driving licences and jobs. The cameras are not policing bad driving, which can be done at any speed, nor are they catching people without licences or insurance (friends or relatives will often cover when a speeding ticket will incur additional punishments if the driver is not the keeper and is not insured or licenced). All a camera can tell you is that a car with a specific registration plate was being driven above an arbitrary speed limit at a certain time of day.

Personally I am delighted. Electronic support for the police has its place, but is not a substitute for a proper road safety policy.

I've not gone away - honest

2010-07-28T10:08:00.002+01:00

For those of you who pop in on a regular basis, you will have noted that I've not been posting. This is not because there is nothing happening that I would like to discourse upon, but because I've been burning the candle at both ends and am completely knackered. I hope to return to a more normal sleeping and working regime next week and will be back to posting regularly.

The wanderer returns

2010-07-20T14:32:00.001+01:00

No not me, although I've been otherwise engaged of late. Dawn Barnes, Lib Dem candidate for Witney at the last General Election, has written to the Witney Gazette.

The Lib Dem website remains confused, with a lot of dated stuff about fighting a general election in 2010 and yet a couple of post election comments. It's not clear if the comments about Dawn relate to the last general election or the next one.

http://www.witneylibdems.org/?page_id=42

The letter to the Witney Gazette, however, suggest a continuing interest in Witney Constituency.

Sir – While it is good to hear that new shops are coming to Witney in the coming months, it still remains the case that about half of the units in Marriotts Walk remain empty, and there is little evidence of encouragement for local and independent businesses to move into the development.

Hackett’s and Rapture are examples of two local, independent and successful businesses, but all we hear is about a new chain moving in.

These shops are available in so many of our towns, and while it is good to see some of them in Witney, it would be much more innovative to see a balance between the big names and the independent entrepreneurs, who could really help the local economy to thrive and set an unusual example to other town centres.

Dawn Barnes, Witney Liberal Democrats, Woodley Green, Witney

I'm not sure which Lib Dem lives in Woodley Green, but it is a residential street on the new Madeley Park Estate to the east of Witney.

What I had not picked up on before (silly me), as I'd focussed on Joe Goldberg's fight for Seven Sisters ward in Haringey, which was more high profile, was the fact that Dawn Carol Barnes fought the Enfield Southgate ward as a Lib Dem in the local elections.

http://www.enfield.gov.uk/info/721/elections-results-publication/1037/local_election_2010/16

Dawn kept this remarkably quiet locally as she pretended to be interested in the Witney Constituency. If you recall I was keeping an eye on her tweets and she mentioned flood protection in Witney, but clean forgot to say that she was more concerned with things on her own patch. Like Joe Goldberg, Dawn Barnes has no shame and feigns interest in one community whilst actively campaigning to be elected in another. Luckily for Dawn the ward she 'contested' was a 3 seat ward and she was carried by Dervish Mertcan and Paul Smith, the other Lib Dems. They will have been delighted that she topped the Lib Dem candidates, but was still beaten by the 3 Tories.

What I cannot get to grips with is the cynicism of someone who clearly wants to represent the people of Enfield (twice), yet continues to write to the Witney Gazette as if she has any real interest in us or our constituency. What a hypocrite the woman is. What does it matter to her that the shops in Witney are occupied or not, she's more concerned with housing issues in Enfield? Like Joe she insults the workers who are trying to get her elected when her heart isn't in it. Dawn's political career is in Enfield you would think.

Of course the even greater cynic would suggest that the Lib Dems have decided to keep in place the candidates from the last general election. If they expected the coalition to run for 5 years they would, of course, be making longer term plans. I can't believe that Dawn expects to be writing to the Witney Gazette in 5 years time, especially as her Enfield ward comes up for grabs in 4 years. It takes a lot of energy to fight an election on one front, but to fight 2 election campaigns for 4 years, in different parts of the country with completely divergent issues, is madness.

Perhaps the Lib Dems are enjoying power today whilst the Labour Party tears itself to pieces over Mandelson and the leadership candidates. Once the dust has settled and a Labour leader more of Clegg's persuasion takes over they might see the world differently. They will have their referendum on AV (alternative voting) next May and then, having lost, will look to cut and run. At that stage they will have their candidates in place if they force the collapse of the coalition.

I suspect the Lib Dems might drag their heals over 5-year fixed term Parliaments. The last thing a power broker wants is to lose power. If they formed a coalition and left it would mean a series of constitutional nightmares and pointless diversions should an election not be a possibility. Whilst they might indeed broke power the truth is that the country could be ruined if we had a Parliament but no government for substantial periods of time. If Clegg could no longer work with David Cameron then he would seek a coalition with Ed Miliband (at a guess), but that coalition would exclude the largest party and might never command a majority. There would be little hope of governance without the support of the obsessive SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Northern Ireland parties, with all that that entails for the people of England, who would inevitably suffer. The economy might never recover.

If, however, David Cameron spots the chicanery then he might go to the country early. This would require all candidates to be in place and ready to go, starting now. That's why the Lib Dem candidate for Enfield Southgate is writing to the Witney Gazette - as if she cares 2 hoots for us. Don't make me laugh.

Bits and pieces

2010-06-28T22:50:00.000+01:00

Life is both boring and interesting. I know it seems odd to say that, but intermingled with the daily chores I have gleaned a few things.

1. I took the opportunity to 'phone James Mills the Witney Town Mayor. It seems there is a general disquiet at West Oxon District Council about the proposed closure of Witney Mags. Norman McRae MBE JP, Carterton Town Mayor and district councillor for Carterton NE (having beaten me the last time I stood for the ward) is also a magistrate and resident of the same estate that I live on. He has already informed the Tory group, led by Barry Norton, of what is proposed. Barry, who is very concerned, is David Cameron's agent. I cannot believe that David Cameron doesn't already know what is happening. One can only hope that the combined efforts of our MP (Prime Minister), District Council and various town councils will have an effect.

2. We, have, after all been reminded we haven't lost a MP, but have gained a Prime Minister. In fact David Cameron's busy schedule must be having some sort of effect. My last e-mail to him has gone unanswered for over 2 weeks, although I've resent it in the hope it was a clerical error or a computer glitch (assuming I have the correct e-mail address). It's a long e-mail covering a letter to another junior minister concerning the reduction in UK representatives on election observation missions; a subject dear to my heart.

3. Whilst out dancing in Witney on Saturday I met quite a few people who have featured on this blog or who have been active in local politics. I understand a formal complaint has been made by a senior Labour activist and former councillor concerning the lack of opportunity for defeated candidates to speak on election night after David Cameron spoke, which flies in the face of long established tradition. I hope he mentioned the microphone being turned off as well. I must get hold of the video of my 'rant'.

4. Word on the street from another former Labour councillor (I met 3 on Saturday) is that the coalition isn't as popular as hoped at local level. I'm told from Tory sources that Barry Norton, to his credit, is trying to make a go of working with the Lib Dems. My Labour contact, however, says that newly re-elected Lib Dem Councillor Julian Cooper is not happy at all, nor is Barry's daughter Cllr Louise Chapman according to Tory sources. These people have spent years knocking verbal lumps out of each others' parties and, indeed, each other in council meetings. I can well believe there is some confusion in their minds as to what they should be saying about one another. I don't know how true these rumours are. My sources are honest, if not always impeccable. If any of you know more please stop me and buy me a beer.

5. I must 'phone OSCE/ODIHR tomorrow. I mentioned one of the election officers by name in an earlier post and I think she's been checking out the blog.

6. People in the NHS are still checking the blog out for further mention of Fred Hucker; 2 today at different times. To be honest I can't really say much until the matter has progressed. If I am struck out then I will be using one of my spare domains to publish a massive amount of material online (possibly hundreds of pages) as there will be no reason not to. Patience is a virtue on this one.

All explained

2010-06-25T17:13:00.000+01:00

Apparently the NHS IP that has cropped up on 10 occasions thus far is a 'gateway' IP and could, although allocated seemingly to one or 2 computers, be shared across much of the NHS. This doesn't detract from the fact that every time I mention Fred Hucker someone using the N3 ISP comes onto this blog almost immediately. The implication is that someone in the NHS remains alerted to Fred's name appearing on this blog. Not only that, but recently the person(s) concerned have come straight to the blog without conducting a Google search. I think I am being monitored, although I might just be paranoid.

Do you trust the NHS management?

2010-06-25T09:08:00.004+01:00

Regular readers will know that if I mention Fred Hucker on this blog it is visited by someone in the NHS who is 'stalking' me.

Today at 03:10:42 I was visited by an IP from N3 Service Provider.

The IP is 194.176.105.55. It is allocated to the computer designated inetgw-63-pri.nhs.uk, which, although the IP is tracing to the Peterborough server, I believe is in north east London.

The details I can establish from www.robtex.com are as follows:

inetgw-63-pri.nhs.uk has one IP number, which also has a corresponding reverse pointer.

nhs.uk is a domain controlled by two name servers at nhs.uk themselves. Both are on different IP networks. The name server external.nhs.uk stated in SOA record is not in the list of name servers. Incoming mail for nhs.uk is handled by one mail server also at nhs.uk. nhs.uk has one IP number.

inetgw-63-pri.nhs.uk is hosted on a server in United Kingdom.

It is blacklisted in one list. Search for nhs.uk.

The users of this computer are varied, as I've established before, but one of them is a very naughty boy having been blacklisted in a list called 'abuse.rfc-ignorant.org' Remember that someone paid from your taxes is using a computer paid for from your taxes to get himself banned in work time!!!!!!! Remember also that that person is immune from the current round of cuts as NHS funding has been ringfenced. The person who can find time to Google Fred Hucker at 10 past 3 in the morning on a NHS computer and read my last, very long, post is 'ringfenced' by David Cameron and Nick Clegg's government. Useful little magistrates courts can be cut, local government employees can be made redundant, but NHS employees abusing the process can and are protected by ringfencing.

If I were the only one being stalked it would be bad enough, but read this link:

http://ftacwatch.blogspot.com/2010/05/dr-robert-dolan-chief-executive-of-east.html

Now I am not sure whether I have stumbled across another conspiracy theory or whether there is more to this blog than meets the eye. I've never heard of FTAC before, but you learn something new every day (until the men in white coats take you away apparently). My point is, however, that the same computer that is being used to check out comments concerning Fred Hucker (chairman of NHS Oxfordshire or whatever the PCT is currently called) is also being used to check out those commenting on Dr Robert Dolan, Chief Executive of East London NHS.

2 + 2 = 5

By a process of logical deduction someone in the NHS is being paid to check out the blogs of those of us who might criticise their well paid leadership. I sense a FOIA request coming on. I also sense a DPA request. Someone is stalking me and recording what I have said. The same person is following other blogs. This is seriously bad news. I mean it really is seriously bad news.

Of course the user of the computer is also busy doing other things in NHS time.

http://www.savemoneyoncars.co.uk/site-visitors/

Yes, before he popped over to visit me our hard working employee logged onto a car sales website, as you do in work time on the works computer. The record states that the IP was recorded today at 02:14:38 and again at 08:51:36. There is a difference in browser noted. On the savemoneyoncars website IE 7.0 is noted; my Statcounter noted IE 5.5. This would suggest a dynamic IP, but it is still from the NHS list and it is still allocated to inetgw-63-pri.nhs.uk I wonder if there are a couple of terminals on the desk.

Weber_gregston continues to post regularly from the same NHS computer on the Ramsey Campbell website www.knibbworld.com . He has made literally hundreds of posts. One of the users still makes the odd posts to The Lady. Someone goes onto Luton Outlaws periodically. These are sites that display the IPs of the posters or contributors. Millions of sites do not.

About the only sensible use of the computer that I can find is a visit to:

http://nivea.psycho.univ-paris5.fr/

At least J. Kevin O'Regan, director of the Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, is a professional working in the health industry.

When you're seriously bored why not Google 194.176.105.55? You know it makes sense.

Addendum: N3 Service Provider, IP 194.176.105.55 returned at 08:41:58. This time the computer was recorded as IE 7.0, Win XP as opposed to IE 5.5 Win 2000. I reckon its the same person with 2 computers linked to one IP.

Witney is not immune

2010-06-24T20:00:00.001+01:00

The Story

Yes, even Witney is threatened with losing its magistrates' court as the Ministry of Justice commences on a consultation process over the closure of 103 magistrates' courts and 54 county courts nationwide. If the closures continue as suggested then Oxfordshire will be left with magistrates' and county courts in Banbury and Oxford. Bicester, Didcot and Witney mags are potentially doomed.

Of course the consultation could save some or all of the courts, but that is not how consultations work in this country. Those of you who have been involved in the system will know that very few consultations end up saving anything. The consultations start from a presumption that favours the body writing the papers on which consulting takes place. In this case HMCS is trying to save £36.8 million, which sounds a lot, but is only £4-5000 per week per court.

An earlier consultation

I was once involved in a consultation process as a non-executive director (NED) of SW Oxon NHS PCT. In order to centralise health services in the south of Oxon the executive directors, after much discussion, sought to close Wantage, Didcot, Abingdon and Wallingford hospitals. The process had been titled the South Locality Plan. This was to deceive any member of the public interested in hospital closures across the board. Nobody would have known the plan was to close up to 4 hospitals unless the process had been called South Oxfordshire Hospital Closure Plan. Over several months we debated plans and looked at graphs and charts showing bus times, hospital access, staffing etc. The accountants hid the figures from the public as the total savings turned out to be marginal (£63000 IIRC). I have sets of accounts that show the savings under the heading 'Change of use community hospitals'. I challenged the finance director at a public meeting on whether the change of use was from 'open' to 'closed', from 'hospital' to 'housing development or car park'. Unfortunately the usual journalist was absent and the inexperienced cub reporter from the Oxford Mail had no idea how significant it was that a NED should challenge a finance director in such a fashion. Only a few of the couple of hundred people in the public gallery understood. After the meeting I was subject to a serious and humiliating attack on my character by both the Chairman of SW Oxon NHS PCT and the Chief Executive of SW and SE Oxon NHS PCTs. At the next meeting the accounts line had been changed from 'change of use, community hospitals' to 'change of patient flows'. I have the evidence if anyone wants to see it.

The process continued for a few more months until finally a consultation paper was brought to a workshop (private directors meeting) by the executive directors. It was version 10 (the NEDs never did see the first 9 versions). It was incomplete, but showed that hospitals were closing and there was no hope of covering up the closures if informed people got hold of the consultation papers. Executive directors were at their wits ends. This was the last workshop I attended before I was unlawfully removed from office by the Appointments' Commission at the behest of Fred Hucker, the then chairman. I retained my copies of the papers and, having been removed from office, let the Oxford Mail see them (look at the second part of this link):

http://www.thisisoxfordshire.co.uk/archive/2006/01/11/Oxfordshire+Archive/6644677.Oxford_Mail_tracks_down_Health_Secretary/

That caused mayhem at the trust, who would have pushed ahead with closures otherwise. The effects of my disclosure cannot be underestimated.

http://www.thisisoxfordshire.co.uk/archive/2006/04/27/Abingdon+news+%28om_abingdonnews%29/742999.Keep_hospitals__demand_Mayors_/

http://www.thisisoxfordshire.co.uk/archive/2006/09/28/Didcot+%28hs_didcot_news%29/941205.Public_forced_to_wait_for_hospital_plans/

http://www.thisisoxfordshire.co.uk/archive/2007/08/30/News+%28Cakenews%29/1652138.Community_hospitals_to_get___1_2m_boost/

You can follow the whole sorry story in Oxford Mail's archives. Had the consultation process not been stopped in its tracks we would have lost 4 hospitals in Oxfordshire.

Where was I?

Back to the matter in hand.

They ask for views on whether to close 103 magistrates’ and 54 county courts that are underused and inadequate in England and Wales.

HMCS currently operates out of 530 courts, some of which do not fit the needs of modern communities. Their number and location does not reflect recent changes in population, workload or transport and communication links over the many years since they were originally opened.

I cannot comment on all of the courts under threat, but I wonder how Witney court is defined as 'underused or inadequate'. The court building is basic but perfectly usable, as any of you who have been there will know. There are 2 court rooms, a waiting area, offices and conference rooms. There are enclosed links to the cells in Witney Police Station. Although the custody suite is closed and most criminals spend their first night in Abingdon, it is surely important that trials take place close to the homes of the witnesses, the locations of the crimes and, indeed, homes of the accused. Summary justice should be dealt as quickly as possible and as locally as possible.

Witney, however, is partnered with Banbury Mags and shares clerks etc. Therein lies the problem with usage. If you end up in the dock at Witney the clerks and the magistrates will behave as though Banbury and Witney are one court and will commit you to whichever suits their timetable, whether it is convenient for anybody other than them. There is an assumption that all accused and all witnesses can reach Banbury for an early meet with solicitors and barristers. In fact there are few direct links between the Witney area and Banbury; public transport is expensive, indirect and inconvenient.

Another story

A case in point was my daughter. She was charged with an offence and we turned up at Witney (my car, my expense, but bus would have been available). My daughter pleaded not guilty, which completely threw CPS who had expected a walkover, little realising that the arresting officer didn't know the law (s5 RTA 1988). The court therefore moved the case to Banbury and listed it for a day (this reduced the usage of Witney by one day's worth of one court room). I took my daughter the 40 minutes, 26 miles each way to Banbury. Public transport would have involved a journey into Oxford and a change of transport to get to Banbury. We had to wait in Banbury before the case came on. My daughter had counsel to represent her. CPS had still not prepared the case adequately and it was adjourned after counsel refused to sign a document that was self-incriminating. The case was again listed in Banbury, thereby, yet again, reducing the usage of Witney by one day. I was overseas so my daughter, who couldn't drive, had to get a friend to drive her to Banbury (more cost, more inconvenience). CPS still didn't seem to understand the law so ran the case. The policeman's evidence didn't match our properly collated file and my daughter's counsel performed well on the day. The other CPS witness wasn't called as the basic facts, rather than the law, were agreed. My daughter was acquitted with relative ease.

The point is that Banbury, as with Oxford, is inconvenient. My daughter had to make 2 journeys to Banbury from Carterton. The policeman who had arrested my daughter, in Carterton, and brought the charges is based at Witney police station. He lives on the same estate in Carterton as my daughter and I did at the time and also made 2 journeys. The uncalled witness also lives in Carterton and had to get a lift to Banbury on both occasions. Even had my daughter been found guilty, it is absurd that the case was listed for Banbury when all the witnesses live barely 5 miles from Witney Mags courts. Had everybody been given the choice they would have opted for a hearing in Witney. The policeman could have worked in Witney Police Station prior to giving evidence and returned to work immediately after. He wasn't even needed for the first hearing. In fact the policeman wasted 2 working days.

I would argue that Witney Mags is perfectly fit for purpose as it is modern and efficient. If the court is underused it is because the clerks list Witney and Carterton cases in Banbury. If my daughter's case listing was patently absurd, how may others are likewise. If Witney is closed then all of those of us who live in West Oxon are penalised and compelled to travel to Banbury or Oxford. Witnesses and police as well as accused are going to be inconvenienced, costs will increase for them, but HMCS will save a few quid. Witney police will waste days that could be better spent on the beat.

The second class of arguments by HMCS is based on changes in population and communication links etc. There are in fact thousands more people in Witney and Carterton than previously. In 1960 the combined populations were about 12000. There are now 45000+ of us living in the 2 towns. Usage must have gone up. Transport and communication links remain as before, except there is no railway from Witney to Oxford so buses have to be used for that part of the journey. The A361 links some people to Banbury as it runs from Lechlade through Burford, Shipton, Chippy, South Newington and Bloxham. Others can make their way from Woodstock. The roads are crowded at rush hour and in the case of the A361 potentially impassable in the winter.

The arguments HMCS are planning to use to consider the closure of Witney Mags do not stack up. If Witney is a typical case, and I suspect it is, then the closure of courts in rural areas is going to lead to great inconvenience and massive additional cost to those affected.

I think I will respond to the consultation. I would hope the Witney Town Mayor, James Mills, and the member for the Witney constituency, David Cameron, will do the same.

I like the budget; Harriet Harman explains why.

2010-06-22T15:01:00.002+01:00

Harriet Harman, in her response to the budget, stated, at 13.41:

"This Budget is not driven by economics; it's driven by ideology - their commitment to a smaller state,"

That's fine. I'm committed to a smaller state. I don't want the state controlling every aspect of my life and if the budget forces changes in thinking by reducing benefit dependency and encouraging businesses to recruit then that is excellent.

I think the £5000 per employee reduction in NI payments on the first 10 employees recruited into new businesses outside London, the south-east and east is excellent news for people setting up new businesses; the raising of the NI threshhold to take hundreds of thousands out of NI is likewise. The incremental reduction in corporation tax is also good for business. If interest rates remain low then the news is good for jobs. The 10% CGT rate is now applied to the first £5 million earned by entrepreneurs, not £2 million. We only get out of recession by building businesses. We cannot escape recession by building up a massive public sector that acts as a millstone around the necks of the workers.

The lowest paid in the public sector will receive a pay rise of £250 per annum, whilst those on £21K + have their pay frozen for 2 years. The raise by £1000 in the income tax threshhold will give 23 milllion people an extra £170 cash in their pockets; 880,000 of us leave the tax system. The combined effect means that those public sector workers on lower incomes will be about £7 pw better off.

The VAT rise, which is under attack from the opposition, is 2.5%. For that to consume the pay rises at the bottom end they would already have to be spending £300 pw on items subject to VAT. That's not the case. Even if persons were spending £100 on VATable items per week the overall cost to them would be £2.50 - a pint, a few fags, 3 or 4 choccy bars. Most people can make adjustments if that is where there money is going (which, if they're poor will not be the case).

There will be massive cuts, 25%, across the public sector. This will impact on jobs. Many will be lost through natural wastage, retirement and voluntary redundancy, but there will be compulsory redundancies or cuts in capital projects. These cuts will have an effect, but there will continue to be opportunity to find work in the private sector where opportunities are set to increase.

The tightening up of benefits is good. Child tax credit is frozen. With low inflation this is not the end of the world. Housing benefit is capped and not before time - it is absurd, even now, that a family can receive more than £400 per week in a benefit when most people in the country do not command a salary, after tax, of £20,800.

All in all the budget is a major step in the right direction - the deficit must be eliminated and the books must be balanced. I think we're getting there.

Just a thought...

2010-06-21T12:35:00.000+01:00

Gordon Brown sold 395 tons of gold at an average of $275 per Troy ounce (12 of those to a Troy pound). At the time of writing it is $1256 per Troy oz, just shy of $1000 per oz more than the price averaged during the sale. The money we got was used to buy foreign currency reserves; we are now one of the biggest investors in the struggling Euro. As I can't find a converter that easily converts Troy oz to tons I won't do the mathematics and work out what exactly was lost, but rest assured we could have avoided a lot of the cuts that are about to be imposed in our budget had we sold a lot later than we did.

Of all the major economies we have the smallest amount of gold reserves, barely an eigth of what France holds and less than a tenth of what the Germans have. As cash currencies struggle and the threat of inflation looms it is nice to know we are indecently exposed on the financial markets and will have to spend 5 times what we got for our gold if we wish to replenish our stocks. The countries that bought our gold on the international markets have made a tidy 400% profit in barely 10 years. Lucky them.

Taking the moral high ground

2010-06-15T21:00:00.000+01:00

Sometimes it is important to be reminded about our own country's strengths. One is allowing the right to 'peaceful' protest. Sometimes, despite massive provocation, we can take pride in the fact that we allowed some very nasty people to have their say.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1286784/Muslim-protesters-brand-war-heroes-murderers-homecoming-parade-turns-violent.html

In Barking the police protected 40 or so of the most seriously deluded people in our society from violent attack. Those sick young men abusing the soldiers of the Anglian Regiment for crimes they have not committed do their religion no favours, but they were allowed to be obnoxious in a way that would not have been tolerated in the countries from which their ancestors hail. They will believe that they have achieved some sort of victory, but the truth is that the victory belongs to our society for allowing them free speech. They behave like fascists, but that is allowed (no sign of Unite Against Fascism, but then they oppose free speech as well).

The Prime Minister also took the moral high ground on our collective behalf. It takes a lot to admit that mistakes have been made, especially as serious as those on Bloody Sunday. David Cameron did what was required of him, even though the murderous errors took place when he was in short trousers, and apologised. It is a stance to be lauded when we contrast the attitude of the Brighton bomber who has no remorse for the murders he committed. It will be a cold day in hell before Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness are contrite.

The Saville enquiry took years, it cost a fortune, but it is what separates our nation from other players on the world stage. You can be certain that the Israeli enquiry into the Mavi Marmara will not be as thorough, despite David Trimble being there as an observer. Indeed it is doubtful there will ever be such a detailed enquiry ever again in any country.

Today, I think we have reason to be proud of the democracy we live in.

What I actually meant was..

2010-06-15T17:19:00.001+01:00

When, in my earlier post on Kyrgyzstan, I said the UK was well out of it, I actually meant 'would be well out of it, had the exiled President's younger son, Maxim Bakiyev not turned up in Farnborough seeking asylum'. Interpol had an international arrest warrant out for him as he is wanted in Bishkek, his former home when daddy was boss, for fraud.

Under his father, Maxim was head of the Kyrgyz Central Agency for Development, Investment and Innovation, a post he no doubt earned on merit against stiff opposition. This role would have allowed his fingers dangerously near the Kyrgyz till as well as the opportunity to meet lots of foreign businessmen in nice hotels across the world. If there is an application for his extradition we will no doubt get to hear a lot more about it.

It really is amazing, we have no strategic or political interest in Kyrgyzstan and yet our country is dragged into a mess we should not be involved in. Why couldn't Maxim have gone to Belarus? Daddy is holed up there and his crony Lukaschenko has already said he isn't going to send him home to face trial. Ho hum.

Here we go again

2010-06-15T13:30:00.000+01:00

The ink has barely dried on the Lisbon Treaty, which allegedly tied up all of those loose ends that would make the EU more efficient, than there are moves to extend powers and interfere in the way a country's economy might be run.

Many of you will be aware that the EU Commission would like to check the budget's of member states (and no doubt correct them) before they are put to the local Parliaments. The Commission essentially seeks to directly control the tax raising and planning powers of the individual countries. If the Chancellor can have his calculations inspected and commented on then he no longer implements UK economic policy, but implements the economic policies of the Commission.

To add to this, under the guise of protecting the financial status of the EU, and more importantly the Euro, a change is proposed to the Lisbon Treaty that will allow the voting rights of member stated to be suspended if they broke EU budgetary rules. Germany and France want to suspend members voting powers and Sarkozy, told that the power to do so doesn't exist, has said:

If a treaty change is needed we will propose it.

This will be a real test of Cameron's commitment to put such a fundamental change to a referendum. It will be interesting to see if he has the bottle - I'm not sure he has.

This is an interesting interpretation of democracy if member states lose voting powers at the Council of Ministers level. It would mean that other countries would rule the defaulting member without the consent of their Parliament or populace. If it took a couple of years to correct the failings in budgetary compliance (it might take more) the country concerned would be unable to vote against policies that might damage it. The UK could be suspended for a couple of years whilst the rest of the EU made Euro membership compulsory (this is a policy that is regularly debated). The UK would be compelled to join the Euro and could not leave the EU since the Lisbon Treaty demands that a country give 2 years notice of exfiltration. During that time the country must continue to pay into the EU budget, but loses the power to influence legislation and has no vote. A country could be completely destroyed if it tried to break away from the EU's straitjacket.

Imagine, if the treaty is amended by the majority, then the UK could be barred from voting if the plan to reduce the deficit from 12% of GDP to less than 3% takes longer than anticipated. If Sarko and Merkel rush through an amendment to the treaty we could lose our voting rights during the course of the current Parliament. The Eurozone countries are desperate for the UK to join to shore up the crumbling currency (the Spanish are about to go the way of Greece despite their denials). If the UK remains outside the Euro then Germany will carry the cost of the impending Spanish collapse on its own. Since the UK will not join the Euro willingly then ways have to be found to force us into it.

At present it's not clear that Sarko wants to suspend MEP's voting rights, but if those are included as well then a country would be powerless to influence amendments to directives or vote on the budget. The limiting factor here is that various political blocs could be affected if a diverse group of MEPs lost the power to vote; that might not be acceptable to the democrats intermingled with the bureaucrats.

To put this into perspective, at a lower level it would be like suspending councillors who have overspent on their credit cards whilst the electors could not replace them. We do stop bankrupts and people subject to an IVA from being councillors, but their seats are vacated and they are replaced. The electorate lose nothing as they continue to be represented. We don't stop broke local authority areas from being represented in Parliament. We don't stop bankrupts from electing our MPs or councillors.

The 18th century US rebels fought under the banner of 'no taxation without representation'. How ironic that Sarko and Merkel propose to tax a country, but deprive it of representation.

A far off country of which we know little...

2010-06-12T18:11:00.003+01:00

I must admit to being very disappointed not to have been selected as a long-term observer for the Kyrgyzstan Referendum. I have applied for every OSCE/ODIHR obervation mission to Kyrgyzstan for many years, but never made the cut. I've been to many countries, but Kyrgyzstan, with its raw beauty and remoteness from western culture is high on my list of 'must sees'. Lots of my friends from the election observation world have been and I even have a friend who is in the permanent OSCE office in Osh. Actually that is the wrong tense as the Osh office began evacuation only a few hours ago. Parts of Osh, particularly Uzbek areas, are in flames, hundreds are wounded and dozens have been killed.

Another friend is long-term observer for the OSCE/ODIHR referendum mission. I suspect she and her partner are also being evacuated.

There were messages on Facebook a few hours ago, but it's all gone quiet now.

The political situation is tense. It is thought that supporters of ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, deposed by a coup a few weeks ago, are behind the trouble. Although he is now in Belarus, Osh remains his stronghold.

The result is that Roza Otunbayeva, the interim President, has asked for Russian help. Russia is thought to have supported her coup.

As borders are closed to China and Tajikistan and ethnic Uzbeks pour towards the Uzbekistan border, Otunbayeva has admitted the situation is out of control.

Indeed it is, the Russians might have to 'invade' a country that broke away from the Soviet Union some time ago and has both Russian and US bases on its soil. There is the prospect of serious chaos if the country has another bout of blood letting.

The UK is well out of it. We don't even have an embassy and there are few Brits on Kyrgyz soil. I could have been one of them, which would have made the blog more interesting. The ash cloud that kept me in Sudan would be as nothing to a revolution leaving me stuck in a basement in Kyrgyzstan.

Of course there is no realpolitik involved is there? Russia misses the unity of the old Soviet Union. I've met a number of reconstructed communists who hanker for the old days (not many, but there are a few out there). If Russia was to end up administering Kyrgyzstan that would not be unwelcome in some quarters, although the US might get twitched.

The hankering for the old days has only recently had an effect in Russia itself. The FSB, replacement for what the west thought was the unloved and unlamented KGB, has just been voted new powers by the Russian Parliament.

Read about the bill that has just made its way through the Duma supported by Putin's party and opposed by everybody else:

Specifically, the legislation will now allow the FSB to employ “special preventative measures” in order to “eliminate causes and conditions that are conducive to the realization of threats to security” and to issue “official warning notifications about the inadmissibility of actions that bring about the creation of causes of, and which create the conditions for, committing crime.”

From:

http://www.theotherrussia.org/2010/06/11/duma-passes-bill-for-fsb-special-preventative-measures/

This allows the FSB to pre-empt crimes. They can summon anybody to give acount of themselves at any time and prison awaits those who disobey. It looks like there might be a drift towards the 'good old days'. I just hope Obama and Cameron are paying attention as the world becomes a less stable place.

They take their time, but still they come

2010-06-12T00:39:00.000+01:00

Strike 2 and possibly 3. By using the right labels I can summon up all sorts of people. A couple more visits by people checking themselves out. I reckon Dave Barnby, Tolstoy's acolyte, staged rough the other day and the Houses of Parliament maintain their interest. Ho hum.

I wonder what labels I should use today. Who's vain?

I'll sleep on it.

The frustrating thing is I heard some epic gossip about a celeb last Monday and I cannot repeat it since, by commenting as to where I heard the information and how, I might expose the person who let me into his confidence. She's a really famous person and the information is kosher. I hate keeping secrets.

A cause for celebration

2010-06-09T08:46:00.004+01:00

This month marks the 20th anniversary of the Copenhagen Conference when the then members of what was then called the Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) met and formulated what would become known as international election standards and defined what we now understand, at international and government level, by the word democracy.

The conference, which lasted 3 weeks, produced the Copenhagen Document.

http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/1990/06/13992_en.pdf

I actually think it is more important, when considering politics and democratic government, than the ECHR. I have read both at length on a number of occasions and would suggest that all those interested in rights and responsibilities do the same.

There is more at the following links:

http://www.youtube.com/user/osce#p/a/u/0/L7KhFH3jc_4

http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs026/1101200403519/archive/1103396705464.html

http://www.osce.org/odihr/item_2_44202.html

The Copenhagen Document remains aspirational and even we, in one of the oldest and most evolved democracies, fail to achieve the demanding standards laid down.

The standards are monitored by the Organisation for Security and Coooperation in Europe (the successor to the CSCE) through the Warsaw based Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). As an election observer I have been privileged to travel widely in the OSCE region, now covering 56 states from the USA and Canada, through the whole of Europe and across the 'stans' and Russia. The bulk of the northern hemisphere is covered. I have observed, on behalf of the OSCE/ODIHR, on 20 occasions as part of international teams drawn from many of the participating states (see below). It has been a real privilege to learn about the elections of other countries and to understand something of their politics, history and culture. I have seen things that are not reported in newspapers and learnt things that are almost deliberately excluded from history books. It has increased my enthusiasm for and understanding of our own flawed democracy. Seeing elections where people do not share the rights and opportunities that we take for granted has made me realise how fragile our own system is and how important it is for the ordinary man or woman to exercise his or her right to participate in elections. One of the reasons I stood for Parliament, knowing in my heart of hearts that I was unlikely to win, was to exercise my right lest it be removed at some future date (there are some in the EU who wish to prevent anyone not a member of a transnational party from standing in certain elections).

Our own election was observed by the OSCE/ODIHR. Hopefully the constructive criticism that will follow will be acted on. The point of being part of such an international body is that we learn from each other.

Countries I have been privileged to observe in over the last 10 years. (LTO = Long-term observer, STO = short-term observer):

Albania (LTO and STO), Armenia (LTO), Belarus (LTO x 2), Bosnia-Herzegovina (STO), Georgia (LTO), Kazakhstan (LTO and STO), Kosovo (STO), Latvia (LTO), Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (LTO and STO x 5), Russia (STO) and Ukraine (STO x 2)

It's been a hell of an adventure.

Ah yes, the people who know about budgets will check ours

2010-06-08T10:03:00.002+01:00

The EU, yesterday, decided that the budgets of member states should first be vetted by EU accountants before they are presented to their own Parliaments.

This is the EU whose own accounts could not be signed off by the EU Parliament year after year after year.

This is the EU where hundreds of millions of Euros are 'lost' each year.

This is the EU that doesn't make budgetary plans on the basis of needs and requirements of individual departments before setting taxes, but instead has an income based on preset tax levels - 1.24% of GNI (gross national income), import duties on all goods brought into the EU and collected by member states and a percentage of VAT based on a formula that currently favours some states over others. This means the EU gets a massive amount of money and then can decide what to do with it. Our Government has to work out what is required by individual departments and only then are taxes set. Talk about cart and horse - it would be interesting to see the EU try to pre-plan a budget and then ask for contributions from member states.

This is the EU which squanders millions every month when the EU Parliament is shipped to Strasbourg for a week of hotels and posh restaurants for staff and MEPs alike. This stupendous waste of money will continue forever as to change it requires unanimity; the French will never vote for a system that trashes one of their regional capitals, even though the cost of continuance is picked up by the rest of us!

How can the EU tell member states how to run their budgets when it is incapable of running its own?

Just to give you nightmares...

2010-06-04T12:55:00.000+01:00

http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20100603_1005.php

Of the estimated 22,500 nuclear warheads only 7540 are actually deployed. Over half of each figure belongs to Russia. Thankfully the Cold War is over and the nuclear armed states are run by stable, democratic governments with no warlike intentions - check out the policies and governments of Israel, India, Pakistan, the UK, France, Russia, China and the USA to see what I mean. I sleep safely at night knowing a racist former night club bouncer from Moldova has a finger very close to a nuclear trigger.

By the way, Israel claims sovereignty over land annexed from her neighbours at gun point, whilst many of her neighbours claim that land as well. Lots of states would like to see Israel eliminated. Pakistan claims part of India and vice versa, or is it the other way round? China has no intention to reclaim lands 'lost' to India half a century ago and doesn't intend to take Taiwan by force - honest. Russia will not move to protect ethnic Russians in former Soviet states - unless provoked - so no worries there Mr Saakashvili. Luckily David Cameron, Sarko and Obama have their fingers on their respective buttons.

No, no, no...

2010-06-04T11:25:00.001+01:00

Here we go again.

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown seemingly had to be seen at every disaster, had to have an input to every tragedy. Remember Gordon writing misspelt letters to relatives of the military dead from Afghanistan? What was that about, didn't happen at the Somme did it? Parliament had to recognise the contribution of Jade Goody lest the papers think that our Government didn't understand the concept of artificially induced celebrity. Ministers had to stand to attention every time a couple of coffins arrived at Brize Norton in a display of faux concern. No camera call was missed.

Now, on his constituency day, David Cameron, who should be in Witney, has buggered off to Cumbria for the duty show of concern at the shooting incident. The senior minister who should be there, if indeed it merits a visit by a senior minister when a perfectly good civil servants' brief would do the job, is the Home Secretary Theresa May (who is playing second fiddle on this occasion). Gun laws and the police are her remit. She needs to understand what has happened and take any action that is considered appropriate. She needs to rally the troops, if they need rallying at all since the police in Cumbria are as professional as the next force. The other minister who might take a turn could be a junior health minister to understand how the NHS emergency services reacted, although a well written brief would suffice. Earl Howe would be a good person to send to visit the NHS staff involved if necessary - an experienced minister with no real constituency. He'd probably appreciate the day out.

The last person who should be involved in the minutiae is the Prime Minister. Blair and Brown, especially Brown, didn't like to delegate and at the general election most people not involved in politics would be hard pressed to have recognised any Labour junior ministers. David Cameron needs to know when to delegate otherwise he'll be running about all over the country, clocking his private air miles and damaging the environment, as he tries to be present at every catastrophe. If David is to become a good PM he must learn to use his cabinet to the full, they're nearly all highly qualified and experienced politicians with a love of the camera.

Of course, as sure as night follows day, Nick Clegg will need to get his photo call in lest we forget he's Deputy Prime Minister. In the world of political spin this tragedy is the paving stone to end all paving stones in terms of Lib Dem opportunism. No doubt, despite Theresa May avoiding knee jerk reactions (ish), somebody from the Lib Dem team is poised to call for a further strengthening of gun laws. The cynic in me suggests that we will see a lot of political posturing and one upmanship as this government progresses. Fame and power are 2 very powerful drugs that the inexperienced take at their peril. Let's hope that the real job of running the country is not marginalised as 2 grown men try to look better than each other. The result is that neither will impress.

As if to prove my point.....

2010-06-03T13:36:00.001+01:00

At 12.51.38 somebody using the Houses of Parliament ISP and IP 194.60.38.10 visited this blog to read the last post.

A quick Google gives this link:

http://www.robtex.com/dns/remote.parliament.uk.html#records

The following link shows the incompetence of the system. A perfectly reasonable FOI request concerning the IP concerned and another was fobbed off with a standardised response concerning MPs' allowances:

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/parliaments_access_to_the_intern?unfold=1

This response was more apt:

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/users_of_a_proxy_ip_addresses

Try feeding the IP into Wikipedia. Users in the Houses of Parliament have been amending Wikipedia pages since 12th March 2003 as far as I can establish. They have changed thousands of pages over the years. A quick scan of a few hundred subjects can give you an idea of the interests of our parliamentarians and their researchers.

Googling the IP is an education in itself.

The point I was making earlier, however, is that people respond to certain inputs on the Internet and it is possible to identify, within reason, who those people are. A look at my previous post shows that I only referred to one MP by name, Lynne Featherstone. I know, by a certain amount of logical deduction, that she or her researcher visited this blog when I mentioned her during the general election campaign. I might be wrong, but I reckon Lynne Featherstone or her staff member is a reader of this blog, but only when she gets a mention. Strike one to me.

Afore I forget

2010-06-03T10:23:00.000+01:00

The regulars know I have StatCounter software embedded in the site. That way I see the highs and lows of the interest I generate, but I only retain information over the most recent 30 day period as I'm too tight to pay for the extensions.

Obviously during the election campaign itself the blog was busy, especially when I had a pot at the organisation of the Witney hustings. At that stage, over a 3 day period, most IPs traced to Witney or Oxfordshire locations with hundreds of visitors having a peek (and then telling me they had done so when I was distributing leaflets outside the Methodist church).

My all time record number of 'hits', and remember this is a small blog which is still building a presence, was on 7th May when 383 unique visitors paid a visit. They came from near and far as well. Over the last year I have had visitors from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lichtenstein, Monaco (type in Pugachev and Tolstoy if you want to generate those visits), Turks and Caicos, BVI, India, Bangla Desh, Sudan, Georgia, USA, Canada, Australia, NZ, France, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Italy, Hungary, Indonesia, South Africa, Switzerland, Ireland, Norway, Belgium, the EU (yep, it gets its own ISPs), Israel, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Denmark and Sweden. It helps of course that I work in the international field and I have a good idea of who some of these visitors are as I have friends and contacts in the vast majority of the listed countries.

The Stat Counter is brilliant at giving other clues as to who the visitors might be as many public bodies and companies have unique ISPs. By mentioning Fred Hucker and Capsticks I can guarantee a visit within a couple of hours from a N3 address. By mentioning the Independent candidate Lucas Xenophontos (still a good guy) I can get a visit from BT HQ. If I mention the Independent Network and Livia Oldland I can guarantee visits from Hertfordshire ISPs. If I have a go at Joe Goldberg I will get, within a week or 2, a visit from Clearide (his work's ISP). Tory Central Office, Labour Party HQ and Witney Town Council have unique ISPs as well as several universities (Oxford is a regular visitor, but that might be more than one person). David Barnby, Nikolai Tolstoy's acolyte, has a Google alert out and will check anything that people say about him. Other people have alerts out or there are people monitoring what is said about them on the Internet.

Google checks in occasionally as they have to monitor blogs; I also think some people report posts on my blog and that results in a visit from them. As I've never posted anything libellous, I never say things I believe to be untrue (but do get things wrong) and when discussing individuals I make fair comment or express a validly held opinion, then Google won't take any action. For instance I still think Rev Richard Donoghue is a git. My opinion, nothing more. There are far more robust blogs out there anyway.

Of course not everybody is looking for me, but is rather looking for comments about other politicians, or in the case of Lynne Featherstone, aciduously following comments about herself. Indeed most visitors during the election campaign were interested in what I was saying about others or themselves. We all do it. Politics is about vanity after all. Celebrity status for the ugly as some would say.

I've already guaranteed loads of visits today, let me think of one more name that always gets a response to increase throughput. Got it - Stuart Macdonald, Green candidate, Witney constituency. Works every time, not because Stuart is vain, but the Greens love to check out publicity. ;-)

You have to laugh

2010-06-02T19:57:00.001+01:00

You have to laugh.

Channel 4 has a section on its website called 'Who Knows Who', 'showing where power really lies'. Each listed individual is placed at the centre of a series of connections. I have been listed and placed at the centre of the 9 other people who contested Witney at the recent general election. The implication is that the 10 of us know each other and are 'connected'. In fact I only plan to talk to 3 of them again - the 2 local candidates, Stuart and Johnnie, and David Cameron, my MP.

By extension I am, along with the Queen and many other luminaries, listed as a connection of David Cameron, a bloke who keeps trying to avoid lengthy conversation whenever we meet (yes, I know, all of my conversation is lengthy and you're all trying to do the same).

This link, however, will make you smile. At the time of writing it lists David Cameron's contacts numbered from 81-90 of 121:

http://whoknowswho.channel4.com/people/David_Cameron/connections?&page=9

I'm on the same page as Oliver Letwin, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward. So now you all know my relative importance in the world.

Oddly, my unlisted connection to a couple of dozen of the UK's top journalists is, to me at least, my only source of influence. Government policy is not about to change by me giving a nudge and a wink to David Cameron.

The things you stumble upon

2010-06-02T17:49:00.001+01:00

I love surfing the net, especially foreign language sites where I can learn a few new words whilst looking at the priorities of other countries.

lenta.ru made me smile:

http://lenta.ru/trouble/

Although the English URL says 'trouble', the heading in Russian is Katastrofy. At least they are honest enough to have the bad news section separately labelled so that you can cut to the chase and look at the disasters of the day. So practical these Russians and some good photos to boot.

Someone knows something that we don't

2010-06-02T17:44:00.000+01:00

According to Open Europe, the Eurosceptic think tank, there is trouble at t'mill as it were. The French, God bless their cotton socks, are bailing out on the Greeks, whilst leaving the Germans in possession of some very dubious Greek government bonds. The trick is to sell the bonds to the European Central Bank, which is now able to buy EU government bonds that it was not able to do so previously (a French idea). The French have off loaded 25bn Euros worth of Greek bonds thereby transferring the debt to the body corporate of the EU and away from themselves. The Germans have, however, promised not to dump their bonds prior to 2013. This leaves the Germans holding the Greek baby whilst the French are considerably less exposed. If Greece defaults on its debt, and there is a real possibility that they will not achieve the targets set by the international rescue package or will leave the Euro so that they can devalue in order to boost their flagging economy, then the bonds held by Germany might have considerably less worth than at present. The ECB will also be caught short. There are some grumpy men and women in Berlin at present.

For those who can read German, and I struggle on the big words, feel free to read what Der Spiegel says:

http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/0,1518,697489,00.html

How to bury the real news

2010-06-01T14:35:00.000+01:00

Whilst many question marks hang over Israel's act of piracy - the seizing of civilian ships by armed force in international waters - the world's eye has moved off the ball. Three of Israel's 5 Dolphin Class submarines, with nuclear armed cruise missiles, have been allotted to patrols off the Iranian coast. This news is more important in relation to world peace than the peace flotilla, and is up there with the instability in Korea. It puts Israel and Iran in a position where their ships can meet at sea and where a conflict can develop. Israel is a nuclear armed rogue state; Iran is a potentially nuclear armed rogue state. A heady mix when the 2 are involved in a perpetual war of words.

The peace flotilla complicates matters as Turkey, its relationship with Israel in meltdown, is also a key player in any potential conflict with Iran. Islamic solidarity allows Iran to side with the Turks over the flotilla massacre, as their newspapers are doing today, but the longer term prognosis is not so good. Turkey doesn't really want a nuclear armed Iran on its borders either (the border line was agreed during the Imperial Ottoman era when British surveyors drew it at the behest of Turkey, for which the UK was awarded Kuwait). Iran, like Turkey, Iraq and Syria is possessed of both Kurdish and Turkmen minorities (as well as a few Armenians) and is needed as a peaceful neighbour whilst Turkey continues to suppress the Kurdish culture and populace.

The whole region must look askance at the foolish behaviour of the Israelis as they have provoked a worldwide backlash, but perhaps that was the plan. The deployment of nuclear subs to deal with Iran is like striking flints in the midst of a desert covered in dry tinder. A little bit of international handwringing over the fate of the Gazans is a price worth paying if the seeds of WWIII can be sown discreetly.

David Cameron gets it wrong

2010-05-30T12:15:00.001+01:00

David Cameron has described David Laws as an honourable man. This is wrong. David Laws survived the main expenses scandal and kept his theft of thousands of pounds to himself. He stood for Parliament knowing that if his defrauding of the tax payer was found out he would cause embarrassment to all concerned. He accepted government office knowing he had stolen thousands of pounds and paid his partner rent for a room when they were having sexual relations. David Laws, had he any honour in his body, would resign his seat in the Commons and allow someone not corrupted by theft from the taxpayer to take his place. He won't. He will be allowed to pay back the money, from his millions, and carry on as before. David Laws will be back in government before long.

After the expenses scandal has seen many men and women exposed to the public glare it would have been nice to think that the system had purged itself, but it hasn't. Several of the worst offenders escaped with nothing but a slap on the wrist and one or 2, like Hazel 'flipper' Blears remain. One wonders how many more scandals lurk beneath the surface.

Continuing interest in Witney constituency - or not!

2010-05-26T13:28:00.002+01:00

Obviously David Cameron has a continuing interest in the Witney constituency he represents and has even held his first post-election surgery. Personally, despite his genuine best intentions, I think David will struggle to do as much constituency work as he would like. He is, however, backed by a strong and established team in West Oxon.

I'm still wondering what to do about the elections next year. I have limited resources and time, but at least I want to get back onto the local council.

Aaron Barschak, on the other hand, has lost interest in us. I'm not sure, apart from making the point about Campsfield House, in the Banbury constituency, that Aaron cared about us.

Aaron's Facebook site gives a clue:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Aaron-Barschak/130401883459

Two posts. The last one on 5th May cautioned against voting Tory. That's it. No campaign, no leaflet and no net presence.

Dawn Barnes has gone back to her life in Enfield. She has tweeted nothing on Witney since her claim on May 6th (timing device a little out) that her reduced percentage meant the Lib Dems had held their own with a strong second place. Dawn's latest tweet, today, referred to last Thursday's by-election somwhere not in Witney or West Oxon:

Pleased that @CllrMattSanders and the Lib Dems retained their ward in the by-election.

So interested was Dawn in Witney that she didn't feel fit to comment on her own twitter page about Julian Cooper regaining his old Woodstock seat for the Lib Dems nor the retaking of a seat in Eynsham on the same day as the General Election. Julian was up all night in Witney supporting Dawn and returned to the WODC count the following day. It's a pity Dawn didn't have anywhere to kip locally or she could have returned the favour.

Even http://twitter.com/WitneyLibDems didn't comment on the success in the WODC elections. Two gains, one loss. No comment beyond a duplication of Dawn's comment on her second place. Nothing from 6th May until a series of tweets commencing 17th May and focussing on national coalition issues. Clearly this twitter account is nothing to do with Witney.

Johnnie Cook followed election day with an upbeat post committing himself to stand again should we go back to the polls shortly. Nothing has been added since the day after the election so it remains to be seen if he will emigrate, as he told me on the 'phone, or will hang on in ready for the next general election. At least Johnnie is positive - good man!

http://thecookingredient.com/

Colin Bex again posted the day after the election and hasn't added anything since. Actually it was one of Colin's party activists, David Robins, who did the posting

http://wessexregionalists.blogspot.com/

The post was complimentary of my speech at the count. I know someone has a recording of the 'rant' about the media so I am probably obliged to make my comments to the OSCE/ODIHR mission before the final report comes out. I feel a 'phone call to the delectable Tatyana Bogussevich coming on.

Stuart Macdonald last tweeted on e-day and has gone quiet since.

http://twitter.com/profmacdonald

In his final tweet Stuart emphasises his exhaustion. Given the amount of work Stuart put into the campaign it is no surprise that he is recuperating. Must buy him a drink. He does live locally after all. I wonder when the House of Windsor will reopen its doors.

Nothing recent on http://www.greenoxford.com/ , although I am in the background of a photo on the front page.

Alan Hope again commented the day after the election and has a photo of him with David Cameron on his party homepage.

http://www.omrlp.com/

On the 12th Alan summarised the results for his party supporters, but I suspect he has already largely forgotten about Witney. I doubt he'll be back, but the heady scent of free publicity might beckon in the future.

Count Nikolai Dmitrievich Tolstoy-Miloslavsky was never committed and lost interest a long time ago. Would people have bothered to vote for a man who, whilst supposedly being the caring candidate for Witney, took the trouble to accept patronage of the Estonian Monarchist League earlier this year:

http://estonianmonarchistleague.blogspot.com/2010/01/count-tolstoi-agreed-to-be-patron.html

The last post on http://ukipwitney.blogspot.com/ was on the 20th April. It was a cut and paste of someone else's work on Nick Clegg and had nothing to do with Witney. In fact few of his posts did as he knows and cares little for the place.

http://ukipwitney.blogspot.com/ claims that Tolstoy would be writing on election issues on his blog, but despite being a published writer nearly everything is a cut and paste. I could do that, it takes little time and effort and sums up Tolstoy's attitude to the proles like me who live here.

I suspect that Tolstoy will not fight Witney again; he will be 79 when the next election is due. He seems senile already. On election night we were summoned to the stage in alphabetical order. I was last to go onto the stage. Tolstoy turned to me and asked who I was! Seemingly, as with many things in his life, Tolstoy pays little attention to detail.

Joe Goldberg cares nowt for Witney, never will, never did. 19 tweets since e-day. Not one mention of Witney and Labour's worst result here in decades. Plenty of stuff about Haringey and his obsession with Lynne Featherstone (does Joe fancy her?). Joe has got his tick in the box and will go on to a better, safer, winnable Labour seat. Joe's twitter page is still covered with 'Stop Cameron' buttons.

http://stopcameron.com/ has a thank you from Joe posted on 10th May. He laments that the Tories didn't allow thanks in Witney on the night, but he and Dawn passed up the opportunity to speak in the absence of David Cameron. I managed to grab the microphone whilst he left the stage. Had he or Dawn done so I doubt the mike would have been switched off.

The last post on stopcameron is dated 11th May and is about Haringey. There are 3 comments. 2 from Brennig and one from Joe. I enjoyed reading the first comment from the passionate and well informed Brennig who posts elsewhere - http://oxfordbloggers.com/author/brennig/page/2/

The Facebook group has died a death.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=224523305812

Nothing since 5th May and that only someone commenting on the fact that the West Oxon Labour site, http://westoxlabour.org/Joe%2520Goldberg.htm, was dangerous. The virus laden site is now working again if you go through the back door.

So there we have it, the candidates have quit. I will be updating my website and Facebook campaigns later, but I am still living in the Witney constituency, still blogging and still concerning myself with local matters. Someone has to.

The shape of things to come

2010-05-23T21:16:00.000+01:00

Of course one of the joys of living in the Prime Minister's constituency is that we will frequently be the subject of ill informed comment. Every passing pundit from around the world will express an opinion on our lifestyles, usually based on zero time in the constituency and b@gger all local knowledge.

Here is a case in point:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7132478.ece

As you can see from the URL, this is an item written by a guest contributor to the Times, a chap called Clive Aslet. Clive writes thus:

But Mr Cameron’s countryside is not the one that most people experience north or west of the Cotswolds. Witney’s problems are to do with affluence. It’s the sort of area where house prices are so high that local restaurants can employ only South Africans and Poles, because they’re prepared to sleep in caravans — local waiting staff have become too expensive.

This is well-manicured, upmarket, City-income land, rich in organic farmers markets and stupendously unaffordable gastro pubs. It is extremely agreeable, and Mr Cameron is just the man to represent it. But this land is barely recognisable from more distant parts of the kingdom, a country of bankrupt dairy farms and threatened post offices, of pound shops in the local town and no shops at all in the villages.

Clive Aslet is as ignorant of Witney as any of the other urban writers. I have, indeed, met plenty of Poles and a few South Africans working here, but this isn't to do with the affordability of local waiting staff, plenty of whom seem to abound hereabouts. There are in fact many jobs for the local workforce, most of which is gainfully employed. West Oxon frequently features as the area in the UK with the lowest unemployment and therefore we have become an attractive place for migrants.

Witney has plenty of people who are not affluent and many of the problems that the rest of the country suffers. We are behind on per capita NHS spending, we have a plentiful supply of teen mums and, despite Mr Aslet's uninformed views, most of us do not live on City money. There are struggling farmers, closed and struggling pubs affected by the smoking ban and grabbing pubcos and over half our communities are without Post Offices or shops. There is a pound shop on Witney High Street as well as charity shops across the district. I bet Mr Aslet has no idea that RAF Brize Norton is here or that Carterton exists. Let's face it, Joe Goldberg fought the constituency for Labour and managed to avoid a visit to or mention of either.

Yes it is agreeable to live here, but we are not sheltered from the problems that the rest of the country experiences. Cambridge educated, London and Ramsgate based Mr Aslet, former editor of Country Life, is entitled to his views, it would be nice if he dropped by. I wonder who will be next to comment.

I must stop saying 'Fred Hucker'

2010-05-21T10:47:00.000+01:00

Honestly. The same IP is back again following my latest post concerning Fred Hucker. The odd thing is he/she has changed computers, but not IP or host. The reason I know is that 09.51.11 he/she checked the blog again, only this time from a different computer.

First thing this morning, presumably from home, but logging into the host via an alert, the computer used IE 5.5 as browser and Win 2000 as operating system. At work this morning the NHS computer (taxpayer's money after all) used IE 6.0 and Win XP. Not as good as the IE 8.0, Win 7.0 used by the next visitor, but good enough.

If you're stalking me from the NHS please don't leave clues as to your identity. It's funny, but mildly irritating. At disclosure stage, if it comes to that, we'll find out exactly who you are and what your brief is. You need the fame that national newspaper coverage gives back room boys like you. I'm looking forward to meeting you.

Now I'm worried

2010-05-21T09:01:00.000+01:00

If I put the name Fred Hucker into this blog it triggers an alert somewhere in the NHS. That's fine, it's what I would expect. Fred Hucker, who was involved in the collapse and bankruptcy of Bell Lines, is publicity shy. I can see why, having obtained a large number of Bell Lines documents. I wouldn't want to be associated with the goings on that have seen many of his co-directors called before the Irish courts inter alia. The information available from public sources concermimg Bell Lines is voluminous to say the least.

What concerns me is that somebody in the NHS logged into inetgw-70-pri.nhs.uk, a host/computer that has the IP number 194.176.105.55, after 1 am this morning. According to my StatCounter software this blog was visited at 01.18.08. As I pointed out in an earlier post, this is a taxpayer funded use of NHS computers.

Wouldn't you be worried if somebody was working in the NHS at that time of day and checked you out?

I'm being stalked by someone in the NHS and I am concerned.

After all of the excitement what next?

2010-05-20T18:16:00.001+01:00

I'm still monitoring the political situation locally, but there is always a flat period after an election, especially when one hasn't won. I'm getting used to it now as it is a while since I topped a poll.

I'll have to think long and hard about next year's elections, if only because there are 2 seats up for grabs.

The District Council seat currently occupied by Norman MacRae will be the hardest nut to crack. Here in Carterton the Tories are virtually unassailable on the District Council. There is no scandal and the incumbent hasn't put a foot wrong as far as I know. Even if he retires, and he's a few years older than I, he will be replaced by a contestant who has the backing of the Prime Minister! It really is going to be hard for any non-Tories to make headway around here, especially as the turnover of the populace is unusually high and those of us who've been around for a while cannot rely on past glories. Most of the new residents vote tribally in any event. It was noticeable the last time I canvassed that many people didn't care whether there was anyone contesting the seat other than the Tory; most had binned my leaflets without reading a word of them.

The Town Council is slightly different. I was only a few votes short of holding my seat last time. There are 5 seats in the ward I live in so it is always possible that individual electors will vote for me as well as their first choice Tories. The issues of the day should be irrelevant as the Town Council concerns itself with playing fields, grass cutting, flower boxes and the cemetery. You'd think that people would realise that party politics has no place whatsoever at that level, but most electors couldn't tell you the difference between the powers of the District Council and the Town Council. Indeed until I became a councillor at both levels I was none too certain myself.

Of course the interesting new contest will be for the post of non-executive director of NHS Oxfordshire (Oxfordshire PCT) - as per the new government's proposals. No doubt there will be party appratchiks rushing to take one of the posts up for election, but what about me? I was a non-executive director of SW Oxon NHS PCT from 2001-2006 - just! I was doing all right until we decided as a board that we didn't want a mobile opthphalmic treatment centre (the work was being done by Oxford Eye Hospital). We voted against it. We were then ordered by John Reid, Secretary of State, to change our vote. Four of us refused. The Chairman, Prof Martin Avis, who did change his vote, was removed and replaced by Fred Hucker (I was the only other person interviewed for the post). Within a short time my happy times at the PCT were replaced by what I contest is bullying. As the other 3 of the 4 'rebels' drifted away I was left isolated until I was unlawfully removed from office on Fred Hucker's insistence. At public expense I fought and won a judicial review action against the NHS Appointments' Commission.

The matter isn't over yet as Fred Hucker has filed a defence to my misfeasance in public office claim. I know not how the action will proceed, but those who have seen the matter of the bullied NHS manager and the new Government's response will know that even if the case doesn't go ahead I will get a sympathetic hearing from the minister. Perhaps a bit of national publicity will help my election prospects!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1242768/Bullied-NHS-manager-wins-150-000-compensation-year-harassment-ordeal.html

Not going as well as we would hope...

2010-05-17T19:50:00.002+01:00

David Cameron has got a coalition, but in his rush to make his mark he is making cock ups that suggest he hasn't thought everything through.

The idea that you can have a vote of no confidence of 50% + 1 MP, but can't dissolve Parliament without the approval of 55% of MPs, before a fixed term of 5 years, has already drawn fire from newly invigorated Tory backbenchers. After all they know they're safe until the next General Election and beyond and won't be deselected on this particular constitutional issue if they kick up a fuss now. I must admit this appears a quick attempt at populism and the full consequences haven't been thought through. A lame duck Government could be defeated on bill after bill, lose a vote of confidence on each occasion, but limp along with the support of just under 50% of MPs for years if people became entrenched in their positions. That could be messy.

If you're going to chase the highest office then you have to put up with the intrusive security. Dave can no longer cycle to work. Cutting his external security without consultation might appease the missus, but has worried those tasked with keeping him safe. Having seen the flock (murder, herd, tok, pod?) of security men that followed him around during the latter part of the campaign I can understand where he is coming from, but the job has its drawbacks. I'd love to return to the age of innocence before the IRA war of terror (not condemned by our US allies) that saw attacks on the Tory conference and Downing Street, but we're a long way from those heady days. It would have been easier to wind back gradually rather than making it a headline grabbing event, but no doubt the new Downing Street team includes a lot of spin doctors who thought they'd make capital out of the issue.

Giving the Equalities Minister to the Lib Dems was in theory a 'no brainer', but millionairess Lynne Featherstone (who dialled 999 for a plumbing problem) is not the person the country needs. The newspapers have already picked up that she is gunning for Page 3 of the Sun (and presumably the Star, Sport, Nuts, Zoo and all the other tit and bum mags). This is typical of rich, educated women who think they have the right to tell poorer, less well educated women what they might do with their bodies. I was a newspaper boy nearly 40 years ago when Page 3 first appeared (and Amateur Photographer did its first nude female shoot) and in that time many young working class women have achieved fame and fortune through the pages of the Sun. Not one of them was forced to attend the photo studio. Now moralist Lynne, who doesn't need the couple of hundred quid to pay the bills that the girls get, is going to oppress the working class women and try to impose her own morality on them. No doubt she feels that the girls would be better working on the check outs of one of the supermarket chains who fund the political parties, rather than making a few bob from their natural assets whilst they can. Dave doesn't need to start a war with Rupert Murdoch through ill thought out and oppressive legislation. Does Lynne not know what happens when you put words like 'tit', 'bum' or 'boob' into a Google search? Page 3 is irrelevant in the Internet age, unless Lynne Featherstone is going to stop us looking at porn on the Internet. The Sun page 3 is mild and inoffensive. There are more important things to worry about than people being exposed to well formed naked female breasts, it's just she can't think of them at present.

Lest anyone accuse me of hypocrisy, I am happy to appear topless in any magazine for free and bottomless for a few hundred quid (I need to recover the £500 spent on my deposit and if that's the way to do it, then so be it).

My footnote in history

2010-05-12T13:01:00.000+01:00

It is now common knowledge, worldwide, that David Cameron is the Prime Minister of the UK at the head of a Con/Lib Dem coalition, ConDemn as it is being called. I obviously wish him well as it is essential that the mess left by the previous administration is sorted out and I don't really want to indulge in schadenfreude, not this early anyway.

I had hoped to make more of a mark on election night, but that's in the past. I just wonder if DC gives any of those of us who stood against him a passing thought. I suspect not. He's rather busy at the moment.

When, however, the history books are written, perhaps I, who has to find something else to do for the next few years, might get a credit in the references at the back of Cameron's biography. I stood against DC twice, not for the vanity of being a footnote in some second rate bio, but to try to make some small impact on the political scene and to promote my own libertarian and radical ideas. I might have to put them into a book which can fester on a shelf somewhere.

Just in case something goes wrong for DC and we rush back to the hustings, I will keep this blog running. I'm going to be keeping my ear to the ground in the constituency and no doubt some of my regular readers will continue to feed me the odd rumours and scandal. I'm also planing on being politically active again locally, but need a rest before I launch back into the fray. I have a few ideas that will come to fruition soon, if I'm not overseas in the near future.

I am not a soothsayer!

2010-05-11T13:44:00.000+01:00

Durng the election campaign I made lots of predictions.

Obviously I was massively wrong about my own result, but, hey, it's only psephology. I can think of many excuses, but the truth is that people made a different choice.

I was wrong about the Green choice of candidate, but that was my informant on the Green committee getting it wrong.

I was right that Magus Lynius Shadee would not contest Witney; the Witney Gazette shouldn't publish spoof press releases.

I was wrong about the performance of some of the Independents, despite the optimism of the Independent Network, to which I am linked, but by whom I am not endorsed. Long story, not worth a pint of my time.

I was wrong about Susan Wade-Weekes winning York Central, but had the 3-way debates not taken place I think I'd have been right.

I was right that Mark Pawsey would win Rugby, but I have a little extra local knowledge from Warwickshire where I still have a few friends from my youth.

The odds on me making a correct prediction seem to be less than 50%, but, I'm still going for a general election in less than 2 years. I bet the bookies have already started calculating odds.

How many tweets make a tw@?

2010-05-11T13:29:00.001+01:00

Back to my favourite pastime of teasing my opponents. Spin is everything. On e-day nearly every candidate or party in Witney increased their share of the votes. My vote went from 0% to 0.3%, for instance.

There were 2 exceptions.

Lib Dem Dawn Barnes saw her percentage decline from 23% to 19.44% (12415 votes reduced to 11233). A worse vote than 2005 and a lower percentage. This is spun as:

Held our own in Witney. Strong second, doubling our lead over Labour. Not bad against a famous candidate

Cameron's majority increased from 14156 to 22740. He hasn't tweeted this, he has people to do that sort of thing for him. I'm not sure what Dawn means by 'strong second'.

Of course the lead over Labour was increased, not by an increase in the Lib Dem vote, but by a spectacular slump in the Labour vote. 22% down to 13%, putting nearly 4000 votes between Dawn and Joe Goldberg.

In 1997 the Lib Dems had 19.9% of the vote; Dawn's percentage is the lowest since then.

What is remarkable is the Labour slump. In 1997 Labour got just over 30% of the vote. Joe Goldberg delivered a disastrous result for Witney Labour whilst topping the poll in Seven Sisters ward Haringey. So much for the Stop Cameron campaign - a useless website (try Googling Labour Witney and see what you get), a useless blog (half a dozen entries), a useless Twitter campaign focussed on Haringey for the bulk of the time and a Facebook campaign based on Labour supporters from outside Witney (I concede my facebook campaign faltered early on, but then I'm not in the governing party). How many of my readers remember Joe's 'Cameron is toast' tweet? An all time classic.

Joe's latest tweet (06.31 May 7th) sums it up:

Lloyd George, Jeremy Thorpe, Nick Clegg - are you watching? Your boys took one hell of a beating last night #HaringeyWIN

Nothing on the hammering dished out to Labour Witney despite the 'Stop Cameron' background to Joe's tweets. If we go through the election again in a few months might I suggest Witney Labour look nearer to home for their candidate. You know it makes sense.

New friends, new enemies and new acquaintances

2010-05-09T20:13:00.001+01:00

Of course those outside the weird and wonderful world of politics can never fully understand how people whose views are diametrically opposed can become friends whilst people readily fall out with their natural allies.

I've met lots of new people on the campaign trail, some I had seen on telly before or were aware of through other media and others who I didn't know existed. I was interviewed by Michael White, who is taller than I expected, and conversed with Howling Laud Hope, who is a lot shorter than I thought he would be. The camera obviously plays tricks.

I made a few new friends, I hope. Stuart Macdonald (Green) and Johnnie Cook (Ind) will both get invites for a beer in the next few days. I expect I'll bump into a lot of the Greens around town and they'll be friendly; a few of us are on Witney Freecycle together.

Dawn Barnes (Lib Dem) was okay, but I suspect we'll never meet again. Likewise Aaron Barschak (Ind). I bet I bump into Colin Bex (Wessex Regionalist) at some time; once met never forgotten and he'd be good company over a pint. I can't be bothered with Tolstoy (UKIP); I've never really warmed to his patrician behaviour. Joe Goldberg (Labour) doesn't like me. David Cameron remains wary of me in public; I reckon he thinks I'm going to lunge wildly at him.

Best I avoid Rev Richard Donoghue, his smug and supercilious smile would only get up my nose and I still think he was very wrong to talk to me on the 'phone as he did. I think, from words he used, that he had prejudged me and that he had got me completely wrong. I suspect Hell will be big enough for us to avoid each other for eternity.

I've upset a few other people as I've done the rounds, but I still have friends in every one of the 5 main parties active in Witney constituency. I've been involved in West Oxon politics for a long time and have always tried to be friends with everyone, it's just that some people can't tolerate me being true to my own principles.

I wonder, when the next election is sprung upon us, whether we will all feel like doing the whole thing all over again. I suspect there will be a lot of new faces and that possibly only David Cameron and myself, if I can find the money, will appear on the Witney ballot paper again. Then again, you never know - a week is a long time in politics.

Life goes on.

2010-05-08T12:01:00.001+01:00

53 today. Celebrating my birthday by dressing in 17th century garb and conducting an ale tasting ceremony at a beer festival in Banbury. I play the High Bailiff of the manor. I'm hoping one day to be demoted to ale taster! Still I understand we are all getting free beer for the afternoon. Might be rapper dancing as well if we have a muso. Luckily I'm not driving.

Morris dancing at 20.00 at Great Tew on Tuesday. Doubt if the beer is free, but the Falkland Arms is one of finest old pubs in Oxfordshire. Three sides are dancing so there might be a music session afterwards.

Going to feed the ducks in Burford one day next week. I love feeding ducks, but have to take Brandon, my 3-year old grandson, for cover. Then we have tea at Huffkins.

Normal life is family, dancing, singing and drinking real ale in the Cotswolds and upper Thames Valley. Sometimes it's good to get away from politics and just to live life in the Witney constituency.

Independent gain

2010-05-07T23:58:00.001+01:00

Yep, Sylvia Hermon retained North Down in her new role having left the UUP as, yet again, the Northern Irish reject an attempt by mainland parties to get involved in their politics. In Fermanagh an Independent got within 4 votes of unseating a Sinn Fein member. Sadly Dai Davies lost his seat in Blaenau Gwent. Respect lost their only seat. Independents did well in Buckingham, but Labour and Lib Dem didn't contest the speaker's seat and there were peculiar circumstances. Steven Ford, the Independent Network's key candidate failed to retain his deposit in Hexham, but not by much. Fred Wildgust, a sitting councillor in Torfaen also fell short of retaining his deposit.

Khizar Iqbal's 7% in Dewsbury cost him a lot; he spent ten to fifteen times what I did to achieve the result. He took a lot of Shahid Malik's votes thereby causing Dewsbury to fall to the Tories for only the second time since 1922.

Overall Independents failed to make major headway and I suspect that at the forthcoming General Election (within 18 months and possibly sooner) there will be a lot less candidates coming forward. I think most of us have had our fingers burned by the experience.

The next election might see major changes with the threat to reduce the number of MPs to 500. It will be interesting to see which turkeys vote for Xmas, but if 150 people are pushed to reselection or retirement having spent the last year or 2 working for election, there will be some bad blood and a few current MPs might suddenly become converts to being Independent after all. Let's face it, Oxfordshire will lose a Tory MP and it won't be Cameron.

The Lib Dems will probably force Cameron's hand on electoral and constitutional reform as the desire to get a proportional share of seats will be overwhelming. That could mean we have fought our last first past the post general election. There are nearly 2 dozen forms of proportional representation in the world, of which I have witnessed a few in my travels. It will be interesting to see where we go. I detest party lists as they usually allow small clicques to retain power indefinitely. A transferable vote system is believed to work against the Tories and so will be resisted within Cameron's party - again turkeys don't vote for Xmas.

There will not be an English Parliament. The Tories would be the largest party in perpetuity.

Whilst all of this is going on it will be interesting to see if Clegg and Cameron can agree on the running of the economy. If Dawn Barnes, our Lib Dem, is anything to go by, I suspect that any coalition might fall at the first hurdle. Massive cuts are required to balance the books and, whilst Cameron might have the bottle to push them through, it is unlikely that Clegg will back all that George Osborne will want to do. In any event Osborne isn't up to the task and it might be that Clegg demands the chancellorship in return for his support. I can't see Cameron allowing Lib Dems to have the Foreign Minister role (EU issues abound as does their support for the failing Euro - gone within 18 months in any event). Lib Dems can't have defence - Trident anybody? If there is a Lib/Con coalition then it won't be a marriage made in heaven.

If there isn't a meeting of minds between Tories and Lib Dems then a Lib/Lab coalition could be formed, but only with SNP, PC or 'other' support (SDLP?). Lib, Lab, SNP, PC and SDLP would have a precarious majority of 2 over the others. Every vote in Parliament would have to be paired, which is almost impossible, and 3 dynamic women - Caroline Lucas (Green), Sylvia Hermon (Independent) and Naomi Long (Alliance) might end up as power brokers. Sinn Fein could turn up and vote, if they could grit their teeth over the oath of allegiance, which could also have an effect (their continued abstinence would allow a Brown-Clegg coalition to struggle along).

Of course a Brown-Clegg coalition would be an insult to the largest group of voters in the country, although their combined 14 million votes gives them legitimacy.

If nobody can form a coalition then we're going to do it all over again in a very short time. David Cameron could head a minority administration, but he'll never get a budget through Parliament without major concessions to competing factors. It would be a test of his mettle to say the least.

We live in interesting times.

Now you want to find out about me!!!!

2010-05-07T11:12:00.000+01:00

Brilliant. I've now had more visitors to the blog today than I got votes last night, and the numbers are increasing rapidly.

A quick look around the results nationally suggests most Independents fared about the same. Esther Rantzen got a pot of votes in Luton South and so to did long-term campaigner Andre Camilleri in Mansfield, but Dr Richard Taylor, Independent MP,lost his seat.

Not a good night.

Where are they now?

2010-05-07T09:59:00.000+01:00

I woke up in the Witney constituency. It's my home. I wonder how many of the other general election candidates from only a few hours ago are waking up here. I know Johnnie Cook is and I know Stuart Macdonald is. I suspect that's the lot.

The man who tried the hardest for the least gain was Stuart Macdonald. If ever there was a candidate who deserved better from the electorate it is Stuart.

I now have the dubious privilege of coming behind the Official Monster Raving Loony. Some things in this world make me smile; that's one of them.

Normal service will be resumed......

2010-05-07T08:48:00.000+01:00

Typically, whilst I was otherwise engaged at the count, more people visited this blog in the first eight and a half hours of today than have visited in any other day.

When I've fully recovered my composure I will update you all on what has happened, what might happen and my thoughts, currently blurred by lack of sleep and a few beers, on a number of issues.

One point, it is normal at an election count for the victor to shake the hands of all of the vanquished. David Cameron broke with tradition and, without even waiting to see whether any one of his opponents wished to speak, walked off stage. How rude was that? Is this the new, brash, Presidential style of leadership we are going to get in coming years? Had he showed maganimity in victory I might have showed more grace in defeat, but more of that later.

And so the campaign draws to a close

2010-05-05T19:45:00.000+01:00

After a disastrous start (being trapped in Africa by an ash cloud) my campaign picked up. I never fully gained the momentum I had planned and my car being off the road for most of the time didn't help. I got my leaflets to the Post Office, just a little late, and hopefully they have all been distributed. I was on the top table of one of the 2 hustings and achieved the accolade 'well informed local independent' in a Guardian piece on the Wesssx Regionalist candidate, Colin Bex. Having my name there would have also been helpful.

The Witney Gazette has, after all of the postal votes have been cast, finally printed a summation of the candidates. The remainder of the campaign was devoted almost entirely to David Cameron. I seem to have missed the one in the Oxford Mail. I hope it was more timely.

My last leaflets are out - a personal appeal to the service voters.

BBC 1 Oxford had a piece on the 5 candidates who were excluded from the Witney hustings, presumably having covered all of the other candidates in good time for the postal voters. Still at least I got my 15 second soundbite.

At the end of the day the Witney constituency contest has turned into a farce. 90%+ of the publicity for Witney candidates went to David Cameron. They call it democracy.

All that remains is for me to ask you, my readers, to vote for me tomorrow if you are an elector of Witney constituency. If you are from elsewhere please make an Independent your first choice unless there is a pressing reason not to.

Tomorrow will be spent going from polling station to polling station to thank the staff. I hope to get to all of them, but there are a lot.

Analysis of the Witney hustings

2010-05-05T10:53:00.000+01:00

My agent Anna Ellis took notes at the Witney hustings and has summarised them on www.votewesson.co.uk

I'll be posting my answers to the questions asked at the hustings later today or this evening.

Guardian podcast

2010-05-05T10:16:00.001+01:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/audio/2010/may/04/guardian-election-daily-podcast

Priceless. The podcast is over 30 minutes long, but I'm in the first few minutes. All good fun. I can't complain about being misquoted. It's all my own words.

Bit miffed about Dawn's comments further in. Dawn talks of what 'we' need. In fact Witney might 'need' what dawn wants, but she doesn't live here and what she needs in Enfield is completely different. On May 7th I might need what Dawn is offering, but she won't as she's away and never to return to our political scene.

Misquoted?

2010-05-05T09:55:00.001+01:00

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/05/04/uk.election.loony.party.witney/index.html?iref=allsearch

It's amazing how a long interview can be made into a couple of sentences. I actually made it clear that I support the right of everybody to stand for election, but I suppose the 'best' quotes are the ones that were printed. All publicity is good.

Notably Dawn Barnes welcomed a lot of candidates on the ballot paper, but made no mention of this at the Witney hustings, where she was happy that 50% of the candidates were excluded from the process.

Press coverage

2010-05-04T16:47:00.000+01:00

No idea what has happened to CNN, they were supposed to be filming Colin Bex as well as me. The Monster Raving Loonies were about in Witney as well so they might have been filmed. Perhaps I wasn't eccentric enough for CNN, although the Lord knows I do try.

I was, however, driving from the council offices where I'd been doing final paperwork when I saw Stuart, clad in his bicycle, being interviewed at the side of the road. I aasumed it was CNN, but when I got to the little group it turned out to be Michael White of the Guardian doing the interview. Obviously I took the chance to put some of my thoughts on record and even tried to encourage the interviewer to have a chat with Rev Richard Donoghue, but to no avail. No worry, it wasn't a bad little interview and afterwards Stuart and I had a friendly chat.

This afternoon the BBC finally caught up with me as my daughter and I were delivering my personal letters to the service families. We did an interview and a load of clips of me walking to doors, inserting leaflets and so forth (any readers from Latimer Road, Carterton might have been witness to the event). Hopefully thoe of you who are interested will see it on BBC 1 tomorrow at 18.30. Remember the camera adds 10lbs and 10 years. My dark brown hair appears silver-grey and they've PhotoShopped a bald patch.

Joe's Parting Shot

2010-05-03T19:24:00.000+01:00

It was a surprise to see Joe Goldberg at the hustings the other night. His position in Haringey is precarious and his time would be better spent there. He never really had a chance here. In fact he still hasn't worked out the layout of the area. Joe's tweets were always focussed on Chippy and Witney where his supporters looked after him. He also got a visit in to Burford. Pity he didn't look at the maps and study the area.

Joe's parting shot was to comment on how well he'd been received in the named towns. Unless I'm much mistaken, Joe has fought an entire campaign in the Witney constituency without once mentioning the name Carterton and without ever visiting the town. Not bad for the governing party.

15 minutes of fame is impending

2010-05-03T18:55:00.000+01:00

This year there is a real danger that I will have my 15 minutes of fame. Unfortunately it will be divided into 15 second soundbites scattered around the place. It would help if those who are trying to make me famous could coordinate themselves. I was being filmed by the BBC in Oxford at about the same time I was being offered an interview by them in Carterton. Hopefully I can get the interview sorted tomorrow, although I am also down to be filmed by CNN about mid-morning. This is predicated on my getting my 'new' car taxed and insured first thing. I also have to get the list of names for the count into WODC, otherwise there will be problems getting everyone in.

Meridian took a 15 second clip outside the Witney hustings, but whether it will ever be used is another matter. I wonder if the Witney Gazette or Oxford Mail were at the hustings; I would guess they were as they had hinted they might be. Unfortunately Jen Rivett, the cub journo, still doesn't recognise me and will be blissfully unaware of the issues that concern me. Still mustn't complain as it was the Oxford Mail which first picked up on my being stuck in Khartoum; this was covered in many other newspapers and blogs worldwide.

Of course I did get filmed in Sudan as I sat on the top table for 2 press conferences. Not that I saw the footage as I was on largely Arab language TV channels, although if you Google me and Sudan you will find a couple of quotes from a Sudanese English language radio station.

My Youtube video (wessonpaul), which a few of you have yet to visit, was filmed by a crew who do a lot of work for Channel 4 and documentary companies. This doesn't count toward my 15 minutes of fame.

My girlfriend thinks that vanity is my middle name as I am seemingly obsessed with my coverage in the press, the visiting figures for this blog and other measures of my public profile. Without these measures, however, I won't get a gut feeling of how successful I am going to be on Thursday.

Watch the TV early Friday morning and you will see me getting another few seconds of fame; it all adds to the cumulative total. This assumes, negatively, that I won't win, which would give me several years worth of fame. I'm sure I could cope.

Another link

2010-05-02T19:22:00.000+01:00

From the Witney Gazette website:

http://www.witneygazette.co.uk/news/elections/general_election_2010/constituencies/597.witney/

Not a bad little item from my point of view. I get a nice mention:

Independent candidate Paul Wesson has probably the best campaign story to tell – submitting his nomination as he sat stranded thousands of miles away in Africa.

Mr Wesson had been working in Sudan since early March and had planned to return at the beginning of the campaign.

But the volcanic ash cloud that spread over Europe kept him in Africa for an extra week and left him playing campaign catch-up on his return.

What is not mentioned is the fact that I was working in the Sudan as an international election observer. I was a long-term observer/electoral analyst working mainly in Khartoum, but I also spent a few days in the southern city of Wau. I take my election observation seriously and, as many of my long-term readers know, this was my 21st time observing. It was my second time away this year as I had had just over a week in February in the Ukraine as a short-term observer (from -15 C in Ukraine to +45 C in Khartoum was some jump in temperature). Apart from the recent mission to the Sudan all of my observation has been in the Balkans or the former Soviet Union.

Short-term observers are unpaid volunteers who follow the election day events in polling stations. Long-term observers are more experienced people who meet politicians and parties, attend rallies, follow the processes leading up to election day and write comprehensive reports. The reporting system is evidence based and detailed (my distant training as a barrister comes in handy).

When meeting campaigners and interviewing people we frequently get complaints from the smaller opposition parties that they are denied access to the media and are excluded from the process. They often seek to draw comparisons with those of us who live in western democracies and assume that the situation is different. I can now, with a sense of shame, point out that actually in the UK smaller opposition parties and independent candidates are also deliberately excluded from the process. They won't believe me and will be even more surprised that it is the church that is excluding people. Many of the people I have met were themselves excluded from the old Communist systems by virtue of their membership of and attendance at Christian churches. It's not that long ago that many Christians in Khartoum were injured when police stormed All Saints Cathedral with tear gas to stop a visiting preacher from speaking.

What a funny world we live in.

Paper Candidate?

2010-05-01T19:37:00.000+01:00

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/guide/seat-profiles/witney/comment-page-8#comment-252615

According to the post, on the above link, of Justin Hinchcliffe at 5.45pm on 30th April, Joe is telling people in Seven Sisters different things to what he was telling us in Witney last night.

‘Joe’ has been telling the good people in Seven Sisters, London, that he’s a “paper candidate” in Witney

Joe said he'd see me at the count on 6th May in Witney.

Witney Hustings

2010-05-01T17:43:00.001+01:00

The hustings has been and gone. My agent took notes and will type up a transcript that will be posted on Vote Wesson in the next couple of days.

It has been a busy few days with several hundred visits to this blog. It was a pleasure meeting so many of you in the queue for the hustings. Thank you for the many, mostly, kind words. I was abrupt with one young lady, for which I unreservedly apologise.

All 5 invitees were present yesterday evening as were 3 of those of us who were excluded - myself, Aaron Barschak and Colin Bex (both of whom, to their credit, used public transport to travel up from London).

In my opinion Stuart Macdonald and David Cameron shared the honours on the night. Both produced well timed and reasonably well crafted answers to the questions. David was more polished, Stuart more amusing. Even had I been on the stage I would still have only produced the third best performance.

Dawn, who had produced a competent performance on Tuesday in Woodstock, performed less well and gave some woolly answers. Joe was too keen to blame the Tories for everything, even trying to blame David Cameron for Witney's increase in unemployment under a Labour Government. Nikolai rambled and ran over the allotted time on every occasion; he could hardly be heard at the back.

I managed to speak, albeit briefly, to all of the candidates who were present apart from Nikolai Tolstoy. All were friendly and David Cameron did apologise for not getting back to my text message.

Richard Donoghue ran the meeting reasonably well, but he couldn't stop some of the candidates waffling on. Some prepared questions went unasked.

Richard Donoghue tried to justify his attack on democracy by saying he was operating within the rules. He failed to understand the difference between being legally right and being morally right. The decision to censor 5 of the nominated candidates was immoral and undemocratic. Laws, Richard, are made for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools. IMHO,you are not a wise man.

More to follow

2010-05-01T00:38:00.000+01:00

Back from the hustings. Not allowed to speak. Not allowed to ask a question (as predicted). Nearly 200 leaflets distributed to the queue, many of whom seem to be regular readers here. Followed up by going to Help For Heroes beer festival at the New Inn. Beer with Witney Town Mayor and the Rector of Witney (what a nice man). Can't say more now as I've got to get up in a few hours. I'm off to see the choir at Magdalen Tower in Oxford. Lots of constituents will be morris dancing after dawn (my excuse) and we'll all be having beer with our breakfast as we sing traditional May songs. I'll be dancing and singing as well. Watch this space for a critique of last night's events.

My leaflet

2010-04-30T11:19:00.001+01:00

Those of you who have yet to receive my election address should go to:

http://www.thestraightchoice.org/leaflets/4021/

Witney Hustings

2010-04-30T11:13:00.002+01:00

I've posted an item on the Witney hustings on www.votewesson.co.uk The information posted there will be the basis of the flyer I distribute outside the meeting.

On liberty

2010-04-30T11:12:00.000+01:00

I've posted a page on www.votewesson.co.uk concerning liberty. For those who've not come from there to here, please have a look as it clarifies my position on a number of key policy matters.

Somebody else is unhappy (techy talk)

2010-04-30T10:02:00.007+01:00

If you look at the post 'Tomorrow's a Big Day' you will see a few anodyne comments about an ongoing legal matter. Somebody, however, has a Google alert on a name in that post.

I have lots and lots of visits from N3 Service Provider ISP, hosted in Birmingham, using IP 194.176.105.56. This IP might be in London and belongs to inetgw-70-sec.nhs.uk The computer/IP is clearly shared or moveable, as suggested elsewhere. It's been used by Graham Turner to discuss family trees, somebody is looking at political websites in Botswana and somebody else has used it to tell 'The Lady' that they're going to vote Conservative. Someone registers themselves as Weber_gregston on the Ramsey Campbell site. A busy little NHS IP.

The latest IP user has been on a lot yesterday and today. The question is whether the Google alert was for Fred Hucker or Capsticks? The person concerned is looking using a NHS computer and in NHS working hours. I wonder what they are up to.

Tell all of your friends

2010-04-29T21:58:00.002+01:00

It's great to see so many new visitors to the blog. I know it's only a few hundred, but it is encouraging nonetheless. Please go back through the archives and read some of the juicier gossip, please come back again and please tell all of your friends.

Plan B

2010-04-29T18:03:00.002+01:00

Suddenly, in an inspired moment, I remembered that, when I was a non-exec director of SW Oxon NHS PCT, David Cameron had passed me his mobile 'phone number when we were discussing the threat to services at Witney Hospital. Armed with the number I sent the following SMS:

David, I resolved not to use this number unless the matter was important. To me, the fact that I have been excluded from debating at tomorrow's hustings in Witney is of greast import. Could somebody, on your behalf, ask the organiser's to reconsider? Yours, Paul Wesson

I think it is reasonable to ask other candidates for support. I would do the same for David Cameron if the circumstances were reversed. I understand Stuart Macdonald is also asking Rev Donoghue to reconsider. I guess Dawn Barnes would support my presence as would Joe Goldberg. I don't know Nikolai's position, but he claims to be a human rights campaigner.

Let's wait and see what happens.

Quitters?

2010-04-29T16:17:00.003+01:00

I might be wrong, I often am, but 2 things strike me as strange.

Firstly the blog 'witteringsfromwitney' has made no mention of Nikolai Tolstoy for several days. This is odd as WFW is written by Tolstoy's agent David Phipps; you'd have thought he might be promoting his own candidate rather than concentrating on atacking David Cameron. Nikolai Tolstoy skipped the hustings in Woodstock on Tuesday as he was out of the country. He might not have returned. I wonder if all is well in the UKIP camp.

Secondly, a little birdie told me (naughty little birdie) that Joe Goldberg is not expected back in the constituency until election night, if ever. Joe had a 'domestic' reason not to attend the hustings in Woodstock and there is no guarantee that he will turn up in Witney.

As I say, I might be wrong and both Nikolai and Joe will be there, but it's going to be a very thin hustings if only 3 candidates turn up. I'd laugh my socks off, but then the pressure of the campaign is getting to me.

Tomorrow is also a big night....

2010-04-29T09:32:00.006+01:00

Yep, when 50% of the candidates speak at the Witney hustings I have asked if I might ask the following question:

‘In a pluralist democracy do the panel think that it is right that only certain candidates, in your case 50% of those nominated, should be invited to attend public meetings or to speak at hustings?’

It will be interesting to see if I am allowed to ask the question (the Greens will no doubt be running a sweepstake by tea time). Churches Together in Witney, following in a tradition of censorship going back centuries in the case of the RC church, have no qualms in censoring half the candidates, I wonder what percentage of potential questioners will also be censored. The decision on which questions are allowed lies with the censor in chief, Reverend Donoghue. Expect nothing on immigration, ID cards or liberty, matters that put the present government at a distinct disadvantage. Remember if you want to discuss immigration then, in the eyes of Gordon Brown, you are a bigot. I suspect that Rev Donoghue thinks likewise, but could be pleasantly surprised.

I'm looking forward to an anodyne evening of stage managed questions.

Incidentally no questioners or candidates were censored at the Woodstock hustings where unannounced questions were taken from the floor.

Tomorrow's a big day

2010-04-29T08:45:00.003+01:00

Do you remember this story?

http://archive.oxfordmail.net/2003/11/28/16545.html

Those of us non-executive directors of SW Oxon NHS PCT who defied John Reid's wasteful policy of inflicting an expensive and unnecessary mobile opthphalmic treatment centre on SW Oxon NHS PCT were defeated after a revote was forced. The OTC stood idle for much of the time it was in SW Oxon and millions of pounds were spent buying operations that were never performed. We 'rebel' non-executives were proved right and those millions of pounds that could have been spent on other treatments were squandered.

The corollary was that we were at times marginalised within the PCT and slowly we drifted away. Jane Hanna, now a Lib Dem councillor, resigned first. Pam Blustin, older people's champion, retired and Catherine Kirby emigrated. That left me.

I felt bullied at every turn. Documents were withheld, papers for meetings arrived late or not at all and I was often ostracised or belittled in discussions at meetings. I was told to resign for no good reason, my automatic reappointment after the last general election was delayed at a cost to me and finaally I was unlawfully removed from office by the NHS Appointments Commission. I was reinstated after a successful judicial review of the decision at a cost to you the taxpayer. All of this is documented in papers previously placed before the High Court.

Tomorrow is the last day for Fred Hucker, current chairman of NHS Oxfordshire to respond to a writ claiming damages for misfeasance in public office. If his lawyers, Capsticks, decide to fight you will be amazed by some of the evidence that comes out. I can say no more.

Joe Goldberg gets 'good' publicity

2010-04-28T19:12:00.002+01:00

I've never made a diary page under my own name and would be grateful for the coverage Joe received this morning in the Guardian. Tongue in cheek it might be, but I am jealous.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/28/stephen-bates-diary

•It must be hard enough being the Labour candidate in David Cameron's Witney constituency (Tory majority over 14,000) at the best of times, but Joe Goldberg, the people's party's standard bearer (pictured), has an extra burden to carry. He works for M&C Saatchi, the advertising agency recently entrusted with the Tories' national advertising campaign. Rubbing in the salt, the company's website – which says it follows the principle of brutal simplicity – has been claiming its purpose is to tear lumps out of Gordon Brown, quoting with approval a recent article in Money Week boasting: "The Saatchis don't do positive advertisements at election time. They think they're a waste of space." Understandably, Joe, who's a councillor in Haringey and works as a brand consultant, developing corporations' marketing strategies, doesn't mention the Saatchi connection on his website. "I am trying to keep a low profile about that," he says through gritted teeth. "I am concentrating on taking the fight to Cameron." And he claims to detect signs of support in Chipping Norton. The conversation should be fun when he gets back to work.

I think 2 of the 3 'signs of support in Chipping Norton' were in the audience at Woodstock last night. Rob and Gina were there, but John wasn't.

Paul Wesson to be burnt as heretic - official

2010-04-28T17:03:00.003+01:00

I've spent a lot of effort trying to attract the 'right' sort of people to this blog. You know - journos, morris dancers, political rivals. I've had some success and even get mention in the New Inn (lots of Tories drink there) and the House of Windsor (Green gathering place, when it's reopened). Now, however, I am attracting some of Witney's Methodists and they're not being very Christian about me. Apparently banning 50% of the PPCs from answering questions of the potential electorate is not censorship and it's unintelligent and lacking in respect to suggest otherwise. Heresy if you ask me. Why would the public like to hear from Independents?

Now I'm not a very good Christian and, apart from lighting a candle in a Lviv church and attending 3 services in Sudan (2 in Khartoum Anglican cathedral and Easter in Wau's splendid RC cathedral) I've not been very good this year. I used to teach Sunday School years ago, but... Anyway, I feel that there is some hostility toward me, which is unusual in a forgiving and loving religion, and wonder how I'll be received on Friday night when I attend the hustings in Witney. I have been called 'horrible' in a less than loving way. Perhaps I'll be burnt at the stake for daring to suggest that someone is wrong. Watch this space!

BBC Radio Oxford 95.2 FM

2010-04-28T09:45:00.003+01:00

All being well I'm being interviewed by Bill Heine at 17.30 today. 95.2 FM, BBC Radio Oxford.

Manners maketh man

2010-04-28T08:57:00.006+01:00

Disappointment at the Woodstock hustings last night. At the end we all shook hands, except one didn't. Two candidates who didn't show up had substitutes - David Cameron was covered by Cllr Isn Hudspeth while Duncan Enright covered for Joe Goldberg. I've known both for years. Dawn Barnes, Stuart Macdonald and Colin Bex were also on the top table.

What I cannot understand is why Colin Bex declined to shake Ian Hudspeth's hand. Ian is true blue, of that there is no doubt, but that is not a reason, after friendly debate, to be rude. If elected would Colin decline to work with Tories on councils or in Parliament? How can you work on matters of common ground on behalf of your electorate if you're not prepared to be polite to those with whom you disagree?

The problem with carpetbaggers like Colin is they don't know the local characters. He didn't know his audience, many of whom were Tory and Labour activists, and didn't know Ian represents the people of Woodstock.

I don't understand and I am bitterly disappointed.