Darlington Borough Council - Statement from Darlington Borough Council regarding missing name from ballot paper

'A spokesperson for Darlington Borough Council said that voting in the general and local elections was continuing as normal in Darlington but that the name of one candidate, David Hodgson (UKIP)  had been missed off  ballot papers issued to one polling station in the borough. 

Approximately  89 ballot papers (0.1% of the total number of ballot papers printed)  had been issued, but as  soon as the issue was identified, corrected ballot papers were issued to the polling station concerned.'

More here

Questions that come to mind:
 

What happens to the votes of the 89 voters who were given the incorrect ballot paper?

Should they be asked to vote against?

What if they might have voted UKIP had there been a UKIP candidate on the ballot paper?

How were two different types of ballot papers printed: one with UKIP and one without?

The BBC - no opportunity missed to push the Vote Labour message

The BBC have a handy Election 2015: How To Vote page, very public spirited of them? Not so much, see how they illustrate how to mark the ballot paper...

Note the pencil poised over the Labour candidate's box.

Subtle?

Insidious?

Biased?

On election day of all days, when the media are meant to be scrupulously unbiased, the BBC put that online. They know they are more powerful than any politician, they control the political agenda more than any other media company or politician.


The BBC's pro Labour bias has been disgusting for years and nobody dares take them on. Well nobody to date, because surely someone on the right of British politics has the balls to do so.

Errol Brown R.I.P.

Errol Brown, the lead singer of Hot Chocolate, has died. Another part of my youth goes with him.

Errol Brown died at the age of only 71, another victim of the evil that is cancer. He died at his home in the Bahamas.


You Sexy Thing - 1976 (live version)



Everyone's A Winner - 1978
Come on - "Never could believe the things you do to me..."




So You Win Again - 1977


Not the greatest or funkiest band but I remember them and Errol Brown especially fondly.

General Election 2015 - "How should I vote"

It's almost time to vote in the UK General Election so I'm going to advise you as to how you should vote.

I am not a member of any political party and have voted for more than one political party over the last 30+ years that I have been on the electoral roll.

I am, I suppose, a natural Conservative but unfortunately the Conservative party under David Cameron seems to have stopped being naturally Conservative itself. So maybe UKIP? The trouble is that in many seats a vote for UKIP is a wasted vote.

I certainly want to maximise the number of right of centre MPs and minimise the number of left of centre ones, as I don't want a return to the failed policies that so damaged this country 1974-1979 and 1997-2010. If you agree with me, then how you should vote depends upon the type of seat that you are voting in. You'll need to do a little research to see what type of constituency you are in, this Wikipedia article should be of assistance.


My rule is:

If you are in a seat where the Conservatives have a realistic chance of winning it, whether in a two way or three way fight, then vote Conservative.

If you are in a seat where the Conservatives have no realistic chance of wining but UKIP do, then vote UKIP.

If you are in a seat where the fight is between Labour and the Lib Dems, then vote Lib Dem - unless their candidate is one of the Lib Dems whose views put them beyond the pale. A right of centre government supported by the LibDems is better for the Country than a Labour or even worse Labour/SNP government. Yes I'd rather there was no need for Lib Dems in government but sometimes you just have to accept second best rather than what would be even worse.

If you are in a seat where the choice is between Labour and the SNP, move address.


If you want more detailed advice, then this Mail article explains how you can vote tactically to keep out Labour. It sets out the 50 key seats where tactical voting by the right should help keep Labour out of government.

Most of the key seats listed are situated in the north of England and the Midlands and include:
29 seats where Tories have an improved chance of winning if Ukip sympathisers vote Conservative
12 seats where Tories should vote Lib Dem to keep Labour out
3 seats where Lib Dems should vote Conservatives to keep Labour out
4 seats where UKIP & LibDems together should vote Conservative to keep Labour out
2 seats where Conservatives should vote UKIP to stop a Labour MP being elected - That's Dudley North and Heywood & Middleton

Yes a real Conservative leader would have managed some sort of voting pact to keep the Conservative and UKIP votes from being wasted but David Cameron is not that leader.

David Cameron is however better than Ed Miliband. So go on, hold your nose if need be, vote to keep Labour out - Your Country Needs You

Least self aware tweet of the day - Alastair Campbell

The least self aware tweet of the day comes from Al 'dodgy dossier' Campbell

I suppose that you have to admire his chutzpah if nothing else.

Fortunately the replies to his tweet are pretty scathing, take a look here.

Labour telling Orthodox Jews I’m gay, claims Tory candidate Mike Freer per The Jewish Chronicle

This claim of dirty tricks from the Labour Party in London...

'A Conservative election candidate has claimed Labour campaigners attempted to discourage Orthodox Jews from voting for him by telling them he is gay.

Mike Freer is standing for re-election in Finchley and Golders Green – the constituency with the highest number of Jewish voters in Britain.

He has suggested that supporters of Labour candidate Sarah Sackman's campaign attempted to damage his chances by revealing his homosexuality to religious Jews in the belief that it would stop them voting for the Tory politician.'

More here

Asians bullied into postal vote fraud per The Times

The Times (£) reports the unsurprising news that:

 

'Asian voters are being intimidated into handing over their postal votes on a scale larger than the few arrests so far suggest, a former prosecutor has warned.

Nazir Afzal said that a form of feudal blackmail had been imported from south Asia with families facing retribution unless they voted for bullying candidates. Women and girls were being disenfranchised as households were being persuaded to hand over their ballot forms.'

What's most surprising about this news is that anyone is at all surprised. Still as this will benefit the Labour Party don't expect any BBC news coverage of this story.

 

One of the big news stories of this election will be the amount of vote rigging, a lot (but not all) via postal ballots. Don't expect any BBC outrage though.

The BBC and Lucy Powell call that a denial?

Further to my report of this morning...

The BBC now report that 'Lucy Powell denies doubts over Miliband pledges'. Of course this being the pro Labour BBC they report the denial rather more prominently than they did the original comment.

The vice-chair of Labour's general election campaign, Lucy Powell, has denied suggesting Ed Miliband could break his election pledges.

At the weekend, the Labour leader unveiled a stone tablet with the party's key pledges chiselled into it.

Asked on BBC 5 live if carving them in stone made them more believable, Ms Powell said: "I don't think anyone is suggesting that the fact that he's carved them into stone means that he is absolutely not going to break them or anything like that."

She went on to say Mr Miliband "stands by his promises". Adding: "It was just another way of highlighting that, which is that he's a guy of principle, of decency, a guy who is tough and he is going to deliver on his promises he set out, unlike some of this opponents."

Is that a plausible denial? The BBC would say yes, but then they are hoping for a Labour election victory.

Watch and listen for yourself...

 So what do you think?

Diverse?

Labour's Simon Danczuk obviously has a different definition of diverse to me. In that photo I see one white man, Simon Danczuk, and over 20 men of apparent Pakistani or Bangladeshi heritage, no women at all. Not that diverse in my humble opinion.

"Our pledges are carved in stone" says Ed Miliband - but are they?

Ed Miliband's risible pledge stone was defended by him as exemplifying that: 

"Our pledges are carved in stone"

The trouble is how can we believe Ed Miliband's promise when on BBC 5Live this morning the Labour Party's vice-chair of the 2015 General Election campaign Lucy Powell let slip the truth.

When asked whether having to carve their pledges into stone was a sign the public didn’t trust them, she replied:

“I don’t think anyone is suggesting that the fact that he’s carved them into stone means, you know, means that he will absolutely, you know, not going to break them or anything like that.”

Listen here at Guido Fawkes

So who's lying to us: Labour leader Ed Miliband or Labour General Election vice-chair Lucy Powell?

One thing's for sure the BBC won't be asking the question? They prefer to campaign for a Labour Party victory.

The two hundred and first weekly "No shit, Sherlock" award - Survey shows European Muslims are much more antisemitic than non-Muslims

'Survey shows European Muslims are much more antisemitic than non-Muslims'

Lots of statistics at Elder of Ziyon and the linked article.

 

Remember, many Muslims don't hate Jews because of Israel, they hate Israel because of Jews - "No shit, Sherlock".

 

Will Ed Miliband have changed his mind by Friday morning?

On election night in 2010, one Ed Miliband said that the “constitutional position is clear” and “very simple”: in the event of a hung parliament “the Prime Minister gets to have the first crack”.

Fast forward five years and that means the now Labour leader has conceded that David Cameron gets the first go at forming a majority.

More at Guido Fawkes

Halle Berry's breasts prove a distraction to Jay Leno - A Rule 5 post

Halle Berry still has it, lots of it...

"Your problem is you can't sit down, mine is I can't stand up".

BBC protecting the Labour Party from bad publicity as ever. Ex- Falkirk MP Eric Joyce guilty of assaulting two teenagers per BBC News

This BBC article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-32557123 seems to omit the name of the political party that Eric Joyce was previously the MP for.

 

'Ex- Falkirk MP Eric Joyce guilty of assaulting two teenagers

 

Former Falkirk MP Eric Joyce has been found guilty of assaulting two teenage boys in an "unjustified and unprovoked" attack in a shop.

 

The 54-year-old assaulted the boys, aged 14 and 15, in a food store in north London, in October 2014.

 

One boy had been trying to pass Joyce in a narrow aisle and was knocked to the floor.

 

Joyce had denied two counts of common assault but has been found guilty by Westminster magistrates.'

 

Let there be no doubt that if he had been a former Conservative MP then the word Conservative would be in the headline and the first sentence.
 

The BBC's political bias disgusts me.

The BBC finally cover the Margaret Hodge story, sympathetically of course

On Wednesday I predicted how the BBC would report the Margaret Hodge story when they could no longer ignore it. Well the BBC have finally deigned to cover the Margaret Hodge story with a sympathetic interview on 5Live.  

'Speaking to Peter Allen on Radio 5 Live, Margaret Hodge has defended her own tax affairs after accusations that she has benefited from shares which were held in the tax haven of Liechtenstein, although she has been a vehement critic of tax avoidance and evasion.

Ms Hodge said that she never controlled the trust which held the shares and paid tax once the shares came onshore. She insisted she had not benefited during the time the shares were offshore.

She said "I have always paid tax to the full."

Her family came from Germany and Austria and after World War II, her family was dispersed across Europe.

The trust was set up by an aunt in France and an uncle in America. She said her relatives shouldn't have set up the scheme but repeated she never benefited when the shares were offshore.

Asked if she felt she could serve again as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Ms Hodge said she was hoping Labour will win the election so "it won't be up for grabs because it will be held by a member of the Opposition".

"But I don't believe that I have acted in any way inappropriately," she said.'

 So let's look at my predictions:

The Times has several pieces that are of special interest, first:

'... just under 96,000 Stemcor shares handed to Ms Hodge in 2011 came from [Liechtenstein], which is renowned for low tax rates. Three quarters of the shares in the family’s Liechtenstein trust had previously been held in Panama, which Ms Hodge described last month as “one of the most secretive jurisdictions” with “the least protection anywhere in the world against money laundering”. The veteran Labour MP was accused of sheer hypocrisy. She has repeatedly attacked big businesses and bankers who used offshore arrangements, but has not declared that she benefited from an offshore trust.'

But the extract that may be of most relevance is this:

'Ms Hodge's Stemcor shares were transferred onshore using the Liechtenstein Declaration Facility LDF)... The LDF was established in 2009 to encourage people with undeclared income or unpaid taxes to repatriate their assets from Liechtenstein by offering favourable terms. Tax liabilities under the scheme need be declared back to 1999, rather than the standard 20-year period. Users must pay the back taxes due, plus interest for the period, but the penalty is set at 10 percent of the sum owed, rather than 100 percent, and there is no threat of criminal prosecution.'

When the BBC deign to cover this story, they will be probably be quoting Margaret Hodge or one of her BBC supporters, stating that all taxes due were in fact paid. I doubt that someone will raise the question of the LDF's 1999 limit and ask how much tax might have been due if the more usual 20-year period had been applied. Likewise how much penalty was saved by being applied at 10% rather than the normal 100%.

So indeed the BBC did report:

'She said "I have always paid tax to the full."'

I'll not hold my breath waiting for any BBC 'journalist' to ask any of the more penetrating questions that I laid out on Wednesday and repeat above.

Ed Balls under Jeremy Paxman's interrogation

Ed Balls under Jeremy Paxman's interrogation in January 2014, just not answering questions and generally coming over so badly. Maybe the Conservative election strategy should be just to play Ed Balls interviews...



Remember that for 13 years of the last Labour government the top tax rate was 40%, it was raised about to 50% about 10 weeks before the 2010 election.


Here's Ed Balls being interviewed by Andrew Neil from February 2013



Just as slippery then...



And more recently from February of this year with Andrew Marr



Answer the f***ing question Balls.

Did Labour over-spend? - BBC News

Robert Preston sort of has to admit it...

'But Labour wasn't just asleep at the wheel when it came to City regulation. Arguably it was drunk at the wheel - in that it loved the City boom, for generating huge tax revenues that it then lavished on public services.

So the failure to keep the City properly in check was in a sense wilful and therefore doubly wrong

And there's another thing. Even best-in-class regulation of the City can't protect any economy from periodic shocks.

Which is why there is something to be said for George Osborne's favourite cliche, that it is sensible to mend the roof when the sun is shining.

Or to put it another way, when the economy is growing strongly, as it did through most of Labour's years in office, it probably does no harm to finance growth in public services largely through the proceeds of growth, rather than through borrowing.

Why? Well, the lower the national debt at the time recession bites, the more scope there is to borrow to protect public services and increase benefits, to shield people from the pain of recession.'

 

More here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32549892

But you didn't answer the question Ed Miliband

Once again Ed Miliband shows why you can't trust Ed Miliband and Ed Balls with the UK economy.



Too right Ed Balls should have been sacked and never let near a position of economic responsibility ever again.

Gerald Ford or Ed Miliband, or Neil Kinnock

The left ridiculed Gerald Ford as a man who couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time. Last night we discovered that Ed Miliband can't even walk straight when not chewing gum...




Actually that reminds me more of Neil Kinnock...

The Party Leaders 'get it on'... Scary and yet compelling

Thanks to Sky News...

David Cameron's lascivious 'love'  at 0:33 is my favourite moment, well that and Cameron and Clegg nodding at each other just before the end of the video.