Oldham named as 'election fraud' hotspot per Manchester Evening News

From 2014, don't say we weren't warned.

'Oldham was today named by voting watchdogs as one of 16 council areas 'at risk' of election fraud.

The Electoral Commission called for all voters to be required to show photographic proof of their identity at polling stations.

In a new report to combat 'ballot and vote-rigging', the influential commission called for rules and security to be tightened at polling stations and surrounding postal voting to restore trust in the electoral system.'

More here http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/oldham-named-election-fraud-hotspot-6479987 but not at the BBC where Labour victories are more important than democracy. 

It's not just postal voting and disproportionate sized constituencies, the whole electoral system is badly flawed. The British population is no longer, if it ever was, largely constituted of English gentlemen who would never cheat. We need more checks on voters eligibility. I'd also like a move to only taxpayers or former taxpayers having the vote, but I realise that's not going to happen...

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 one hundred and ninety seventh weekly "No shit, Sherlock" award

I haven't posted a No Shit Sherlock post for a while, I may be becoming a little forgetful. However this Telegraph report this Telegraph report entitled 'Ballot-rigging risk' in Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities' was chockfull of No Shit Sherlock lines. 

Here's just one:

'The report found some voters felt that postal voting was ''intrinsically unsafe'' and there were also concerns about the ease with which electoral ''personation'' could take place due an ''informal approach'' to proxy voting.'

No shit, Sherlock

The left don't want cleaned up electoral rolls, they want nice fat electoral rolls, so long as they are fat with left wing voters

American Thinker has this story from Florida but I'm sure similar would be found all over the UK. I'd link to think that central governmnet in the UK would not be as anti-truth but when we next get a Labour government I may be proved wrong.

WBBH TV in Ft. Myers, Florida has performed a public service with its investigative reporting documenting non-US citizens voting regularly in local elections.  The segment can be seen below, but Judicial Watch summarizes it:

The segment focused on Lee County, which has a population of about 620,000 and Collier County with a population of around 322,000. The reporter spent about two months digging around the voter rolls in the two counties and the discoveries are dumbfounding.
In that short time, more than 100 people registered to vote in those two areas were proven to be ineligible by the reporter. A Cape Coral woman, eligible to vote in elections, was tracked down through jury excusal forms that verify she’s not a U.S. citizen. A Naples woman, who is not a U.S. citizen either, voted six times in 11 years without being detected by authorities. A Jamaican man is also registered to vote though he’s not eligible. The reporter obtained his 2007 voter registration form, which shows the Jamaican man claims to be a U.S. citizen. Problem is, no one bothers checking to see if applicants are being truthful.
Incredibly, election supervisors confirmed on camera that there’s no way for them to verify the citizenship of people who register to vote. The only way to detect fraud is if the county offices that oversee elections receive a tip, they say, and only then can they follow up.

But Gov. Rick Scot has launched a program to purge ineligible voters form the rolls, only to be sued: Judicial Watch notes:

The Department of Justice (DOJ) was quick to sue the state to stop the purging because the agency claims it discriminates against minorities. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has colluded with the DOJ in Florida and the head of the group’s local chapter says purging voter rolls disproportionately affects the state’s most vulnerable groups, namely minorities.

Kudos to WBBH and Judicial Watch for exposing this fraud and government encouragement of it in the most important swing state in presidential elections.

Falkirk Labour party update - news you won't hear about on the pro-Labour BBC

As if the revelations in the Sunday Times about the Falkirk selection process were not enough, apparently

Investigators saw evidence of:
Forgery
Coercion
Trickery
Manipulation'

The Mail now reports:

'The whistleblower at the centre of Labour’s vote-rigging scandal last night sensationally rejected claims by Unite that she had withdrawn her story.

Lorraine Kane triggered a major probe into alleged electoral corruption when she revealed her family had been signed up to the Labour Party without their consent. It happened as Unite activists were waging a bitter battle to seize control of the safe Labour seat of Falkirk, where she lives.
This led to claims that she and others had been signed up as Labour members without their agreement in a bid by the union to manipulate the candidates’ selection. They allegedly hoped to flood the seat with members who they thought could be persuaded to back Unite’s choice to be the party’s prospective MP.

The investigation into Mrs Kane’s case was dropped suddenly in September, after Unite officials produced documents stating that she had withdrawn her claims.

But, speaking for the first time, Mrs Kane, 61, told the Mail: ‘I did not change the testimony. I did not change anything. I did not withdraw anything.’ She is now demanding to know whether the evidence she gave was tampered with by Unite.

I want all the emails to see what’s what,’ she said. ‘I haven’t seen them. This has been going on for months. I don’t know what the emails are saying. I want to see everything so I know what was said and if anything was changed from what I said.’

Her statement is entirely at odds with public claims made by the union. Only today Unite leader Len McCluskey said: ‘The evidence from the families has been withdrawn’, adding that Unite had ‘no case to answer.’

Mrs Kane’s bombshell claims appear to undermine the grounds on which Labour leader Ed Miliband closed his investigation into the vote-rigging allegations.'

Somehow I doubt that the BBC will cover this story in any depth as their interest in political stories is governed largely by their desire to advance the cause of certain political parties at the expense of others.

Was there a massive fraud in the 2012 US Presidential Election?

Bev Harris on Infowars think so.

Thanks to Theo Spark for the video spot.

Voting fraud in the recent U.S. elections

I had a dozen or so articles to reference re this matter across many U.S. states but then Firefox crashed on me and I lost the lot. I will try and find those pieces again but in the meantime watch this interview with Allen West.


Thanks to Theo Spark for the video spot.

Voter fraud is "funny" and "cool"?

According to this Democratic Party worker, Stephanie Caballero, Regional Field Director in Houston Texas, yes apparently it is...



Barack Obama and the Democratic Party want people to 'Vote Early'. Is that really only half of what they want? 'Vote early, vote often' as they said in Chicago some time ago.

Like elements of the Labour party in the UK, are the US Democratic (sic) party really not above trying to steal an election?

What is going on in America?

This is just  a short post as I don't have much time this morning but observingthe news from America is quite fascinating at present. The US media is so in thrall to Barack Obama that if Mitt Romney tells the truth, he then gets attacked for it. The 47% comment has been taken out of context and twisted into meaning something that it didn't. The missing minute or so of the secret recording has been explained away somewhat lamely but the media who worship at the feet of the Obamamessiah are not interested in looking at any story that is in any way on the side of the Republicans.

Meanwhile in Michigan Breitbart reports that:

'You want to clean up the voter rolls so only eligible citizens can vote? Don’t run for Secretary of State in Michigan, because voting rights advocates, labor unions, and Democrats will sue you. That’s exactly what’s happening to Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, who has claimed there are an estimated 4,000 noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls. Johnson had championed efforts to have the state’s 7.34 million registered voters affirm their citizenship when they vote in November. In return for her actions, the labor unions and their cohorts are suing her. Johnson based her estimate on an analysis she did of 58,000 driver's licenses and state-issued identification cards which found 963 noncitizens registered to vote. 54 have a voting history and have voted a total of 95 times. By using these figures as a yardstick, as well as figures showing there are 305,000 noncitizens living in Michigan, roughly 5000 could be on the voter rolls. Johnson used the number of 4000 to account for children. In a rather strange coincidence, Johnson said that she could only survey one-fifth of the state because the Obama Administration would not give her access to more data. She also said she's been rejected by the Social Security Administration and U.S. Department of Homeland Security four times in her efforts to verify the citizenship of all registered voters. Now there’s a surprise. Democrat election attorney Jocelyn Benson, who ran against Johnson in 2010, whined: If someone is legitimately trying to misrepresent themselves as a citizen in order to interfere with our elections, then what's to say they won't misrepresent themselves a second time at the ballot box. Johnson knows the score: she believes President Barack Obama and Democratic county and city clerks are blocking her efforts to root out noncitizen voters, noting that 80 noncitizens are registered to vote in Macomb County, where County Clerk Carmella Sabaugh, who is a Democrat, won't let the citizenship question appear on applications to vote. Why in the world would any red-blooded American object to checking the eligibility of voters before they vote? Oh, wait – red-blooded American – there’s a phrase sure to turn the stomach of any liberal. '

Meanwhile in the House of Representatives I read in the Hill that:

House Democrats on Tuesday introduced legislation that would essentially nullify many of the state-based voter ID requirements that Republican legislatures have enacted in the name of fighting election fraud.

...

Under the bill authored by Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), voters in states with government ID requirements could sign an affidavit attesting to their identity in lieu of showing the mandated documents.'

Accross America similar attempts to clean up the electoral rolls are being impeded. Elements within the Democrat party are desperate to ensure that every last vote counts, whether that vote is legal, of an ilegal immigrant, someone who has left the state or even died. Then there is the matter of needing identification in order to vote. I covered this story a while back in relation to the last US Presidential Election, this year CS Monitor reports that:

'The Pennsylvania Supreme Court allowed a new voter ID law to proceed Tuesday, but it ordered the state judge who first OK’d the law to take a skeptical second look to make sure that, in the state's rush to provide IDs in time for the November election, Pennsylvanians aren’t being disenfranchised. The 4-to-2 ruling suggests that the state has acted in “good faith” to ensure that all eligible voters could cast a ballot, but also asks if the rush to implement the law ahead of the 2012 election would damage “liberal access” to the polls. ... Primarily Republican-led legislatures have passed a number of tougher voting restrictions in the past two years aimed at ensuring that only eligible voters cast ballots. But Democrats, civil rights groups, and the US Department of Justice have raised questions in other states, including Texas and South Carolina, and have alleged that the new laws are veiled and illegal attempts to limit access to the polls for key Democratic constituencies. Seventeen states currently have voter ID laws, but there are lingering concerns in former Confederate states that the rules fit a pattern of prejudice against the poor and minorities, who, on average, are less likely to have a state-issued ID.'

Hmmm, 'have alleged that the new laws are veiled and illegal attempts to limit access to the polls for key Democratic constituencies', well I can believe that the US Democrat party does, unoficially of course, consider illegals and dead people as key.

'Vote first, vote often' is a phrase that comes to mind here, a practice that has a long tradition in the US, per Wikipedia:

'The British newspaper The Times of 27 August 1859 printed a letter about the use of the ballot for voting in the United States, written by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. to his friend Lord Radstock. In the letter Dana reports:

Our experience has shown us that in the excitement of great popular elections, deciding the policy of the country, and its vast patronage, frauds will be committed, if a chance is given for them. If these frauds are allowed, the result is not only that the popular will may be defeated, and the result falsified, but that the worst side will prevail. The side which has the greater number of dishonest men will poll the most votes. The war cry, "Vote early and vote often!" and the familiar problem, "how to cast the greatest number of votes with the smallest number of voters", indicate the direction in which the dangers lie.

The phrase is also noted as the "much vaunted maxim" of the Tammany Hall political machine of the 1860: they used "repeaters", who were given five dollars and free liquor to go and vote for recently deceased voters. This process was depicted in the Martin Scorsese film, Gangs of New York where drunkards are forcibly shaved (to alter their appearance) and turned back toward polling stations to vote again.'

Meanwhile whilst US embassies burn, US diplomats are being killed and a wave of anti-American protests sweepsa across the Muslim world, including France and the UK, what is the US President doing? Breitbart reveals that:

'New information reveals President Barack Obama conducted interviews with entertainment magazines and posed for a photo spread last Friday as American embassies burned and 21 countries erupted into anti-American protests. Instead of spending precious time dealing with the developing crisis in the Mid East and with his foreign policy scheme in a total freefall, on Friday morning, September 14, Obama was giving an interview to the entertainment magazine People en Español and participating in a photo session with photographer Omar Cruz. This interview was not on his public schedule and was hidden from the public. Friday, September 14th was the same day that four flag-draped coffins of those killed at the U.S. Libyan embassy arrived at Andrews Air Force base. The interview came to public attention when individuals who work for the magazine tweeted about their visit after the event was over.'

I well remember the ridicule poured on George W. Bush for continuing to read to children as news of the 9/11 attacks filtered through. The story is still hugely popular on BBC satirical news programmes (such as The News Quiz). Somehow I doubt that Barack Obama's secret interview will raise any interest from Jeremy Hardy, Mark Steele or whichever other hard left 'comic' is on the programme tomorrow. However I am sure that Mitt Romney's 'secret' tape recording will faeture large, with no mention of the conveniently missing section. Thus I turn this article full-circle, how well-crafted!

More voting problems in London's East End

The London Evening Standardreports this:

'Police outside a Tower Hamlets polling station called reinforcements today after a candidate alleged  that he had been threatened by activists from rival parties.

Chris Smith, standing for the Greens in the London Assembly elections, claimed that one activist threatened to “punch his lights out” when he complained about the crowd handing out Respect and Labour leaflets outside St Matthias Primary, off Brick Lane.

Officers were today guarding polling stations across Tower Hamlets after the Met launched a formal investigation into allegations of electoral fraud in the borough. Police were called in after reports of voter intimidation outside polling stations at previous elections.

It was feared today that activists were “harassing” potential voters. Mr Smith said: “I came down here at about 10am and there were at least 20 Labour and Respect activists handing out leaflets just outside. Election rules state very clearly that each party is only allowed one teller outside each polling station, the rest must be a safe distance away.

“I complained to the official inside and when I came back out the Respect guy started mouthing off to me. When I told him what they were doing is not allowed, he threatened to punch my lights out.

“It’s amazing that this is still going on around here. The groups that gather outside are very intimidating. With all the problems we’ve had in Tower Hamlets this is the last thing we need.”'

Of course it's really not 'amazing', it's actually predictable and the futire of much of British politics in this fragmented land.

The article also contains this:

'It came as the chair of the Electoral Commission today called for photo ID to be demanded at all polling stations in a bid to stop voter fraud. Jenny Watson urged the Government to change the law to “help us all be sure our voting system is safe”.

She said: “There is more the Government can do to help us all be sure our voting system is safe. The Electoral Commission wants to see our registration system tightened up and it’s good that the Government plans to introduce new laws to do this which will apply to any of us who want to vote by post before the 2015 General Election.

We think it is also time to have a proper debate about whether we all need to show photo ID at polling stations.”'

Anyone who opposes the use of photo ID at polling stations has a dodgy agenda to push.

The Standard article finishes thus:

'There were fears that voter fraud in Tower Hamlets could influence the result of today’s mayoral election.

The Met is investigating claims that a by-election earlier this month in the Banglatown and Spitalfields ward was  rigged — giving victory to Gulam Robbani, an independent candidate backed by the borough’s mayor Lutfur Rahman. Turnout in the by-election was nearly double that of the previous election in the ward — 31 per cent to 17 per cent.

Residents said campaigners had been knocking on doors and collecting ballot papers, offering to post the vote. Mr Robbani won the election by just 43 votes. There is no suggestion he was involved in fraud.

Voters today expressed shock at the presence of police outside stations. Jason Caffrey, 41, said: “I was surprised when I came out to see a van full of officers outside. Corrupt practice in elections damages trust and while there’s no smoke without fire it’s hard to know exactly how high the flames are.”'

Isn't it great to live in London in 2012?

When do you require ID and when not?

This video is from the USA where people need an ID card to prove their age should they want to drink in a bar or have a civil union but not in order to vote, the same is true in the UK, but isn't voting rather more important.
'You're registered as a voter', 'You're on the list' 'We believe you'
Have these people, or the states in which the law has been set, not considered the possibility of voter fraud? Maybe they don't care as voting changes very little anyway.

Here's the second video from Project Veritas that shows something else that is even more worrying with regard to voting fraud and is as big a problem in the UK as the US - potentially fraudulent voter registration.

10, 15, 20 voting forms handed out without a care.

I don't blame the electoral staff shown in these videos as they are just following orders, I am blaming the politicians who think this is a sensible system.


Why are the US Democrats so opposed to voter registration? No, it's beyond me too!

Black Panthers update

News Real Blog reports some interesting news that:

'Less than 24 hours after the start of the 112th Congress, new Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) has put Eric Holder on notice a new sheriff is in town. Jennifer Rubin blogging at the Washington Post obtained a copy of a five page letter from Smith to Eric Holder about lawless abuses by the voting section of the Department of Justice (DOJ).'

This may mean that the New Black Panthers may finally face justice.

How postal voting works

Paul Weston at Gates of Vienna explains how Labour's massive increase in the availability of postal voting works to their advantage and how it links with immigration from Pakistan. Here's a few extracts form an article that I doubt the BBC will ever reference:

'It is routine practice for dual-nationality Pakistanis residing in Kashmir to sign thousands of proxy vote forms for the British General Election, in order that their Pakistani brothers in Britain may use them to subvert our democracy.

One “British” Mirpuri resident described the blind signing of the electoral proxy votes thus:

“They said I didn’t have to fill in any details, just to sign my name at the bottom of the form,” he says, smiling. “So I signed two…I personally know 25 other people who did the same thing, lots of people just on this street, but everybody does it.”

Having collected thousands of forms, Pakistani politicians such as Sultan Chaudry hop on the Kashmiri red-eye to Britain, where they distribute said forms amongst the many Muslims in our vibrantly diverse, exotic and eclectic multicultural cities, whilst advising them where their fraudulent vote should be cast to best represent their decidedly un-diverse and un-vibrant 7th Century mono-culture.

...

In 2004, Judge Richard Mawley QC presiding over an electoral vote-rigging case in Birmingham had this to say: “The (postal vote) system is wide open to massive, systematic and organised fraud that would disgrace a banana republic.”

Shortly before the 2010 election, the police were investigating upward of 50 cases of electoral fraud, principally in Labour-controlled areas. Since the election this number has climbed to 81 cases, but little has happened since, because the alleged fraudsters were invariably Muslim and the police are loath to prosecute for fear of appearing “racist.”

...

Before the Labour Party came to power it was impossible to register to vote once the election had been called. Labour changed this to allow registration up to 11 days after the election was called. This time-frame allows people to register and vote before any checks to prove their existence can feasibly be carried out — which is exactly what was intended.

The result of this has been an upsurge in postal voting applications, sometimes up to 200% higher than in the previous election. In ex-Home Secretary Jack Straw’s constituency of Blackburn, postal voting was running at 30% of all votes cast compared to only 15% as a national average. In the month before the election, some half a million new “voters” registered with the Electoral Commission, representing an increase of almost one fifth since the election of 2005.

One voter of Pakistani origin, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, told The Independent newspaper that postal vote fraud in Blackburn was widespread. “It’s worse than Birmingham, the mosque committee is 100 per cent Labour. They control the mosque. They frighten the people.” Teams of Muslims were seen distributing and collecting sheaves of postal ballot papers which were picked up on street corners en-route to the “sealed” ballot box.

This assertion is backed up by Craig Murray, Britain’s former ambassador to the central Asian republic of Uzbekistan, who was campaigning in Blackburn to unseat Jack Straw. The challenge was rather unsuccessful as it transpired because Mr Straw allegedly achieved 90% of the vote, a margin unheard of outside North Korea.

...

Just in case these fraudulent postal ballots could be detected after the election, the Labour Party allowed them to be mixed in with the ballot papers from local polling stations, where, although identification is not required (why not?) at least faces are recognised and names crossed off a list. As such, any individual attempting to cast multiple ballots in a polling station would be quickly recognised and rumbled, so the vast majority of these ballots are therefore legitimate.

This is not the case of course for the postal voters, which is precisely why postal voting has experienced such a massive upsurge and precisely why Labour Party officials were so keen to lose the fraudulent postal ballots amongst the legitimate polling station ballots.

This destruction of British democracy, although appalling in itself, is not of the highest importance unless the fraud actually affected the election results, but now we learn that it has. In the May 2010 British General Election, the Conservative Party failed to gain a majority by the slimmest of margins, with only a handful of constituency seats swaying the result. This recently led Conservative Party Chairman, Baroness Warsi, to make the extraordinarily explosive claim that The Conservative Party failed to win a majority because of “Asian” electoral fraud.

Just before the election, ex- MP Martin Bell suggested that the result could be decided by electoral fraud. And so it has been proven. It is not a surprise that by importing the Third World you become the Third World, but what is surprising is our reaction to the very real subversion of our ancient and bloodily defended democracy — which is that of total appeasement and dhimmitude.

The idea that British democracy has been subverted by Socialist enabled Muslim fraud is an enormous front page story. Or it should be, yet having broken the potentially biggest story in Britain so far this century, Baroness Warsi and the press have become strangely reticent. Her appearance on BBC “Question Time” has been cancelled and the MSM, although not exactly in deep denial, are hardly giving this astonishing claim the attention it deserves.

Even liberals must be starting to realise why Islam, when translated, means Submission. If Muslims can illegally alter the course of a British General Election with barely a word of criticism or investigation — based on our fear of them — then we are in terrible, terrible trouble and that trouble can only become worse.'

Shocked? Angry? Convinced that David Cameron will do anything about this?

The size of Labour's client state

The Mail reports that:

'Nearly nine out of ten jobs created under Labour went to foreign-born workers, astonishing figures revealed last night.

Official statistics showed the vast majority of the rise in the employment total under the last Government was accounted for by workers born abroad.

Total numbers of those in work went up by two million during 13 years of Labour. But of those jobs, 1.8 million individuals were classed as ‘non-UK born’.

Just a quarter of a million declared themselves to be born in the UK.

The figures, from the Office for National Statistics’ Labour Force Survey, are an indictment of the last Government’s failure to control the influx of migrants, train British workers and tackle welfare dependency.

Just as startlingly, the figures also revealed that the proportion of the foreign-born workforce nearly doubled under Labour – from 7 per cent to 13 per cent.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the Migrationwatch think-tank, said: ‘This is stunning evidence of the need to cut back on the immigration of foreign workers.

‘As long as foreign skills can be obtained “off the shelf”, employers will have no incentive to train British workers.’'

The massive increase of immigration into Great Britain was a deliberate policy by the last Labour government. It was designed to 'rub the right's face in diversity' and to create a client state of unemployed British reliant on state benefits who would therefore vote Labour to preserve those benefits as well as immigrants who would vote Labour to ensure their place in Britain. Bearing in mind the size of the immigration that happened over the last 13 years it is incredible that the the Conservatives managed to win the last general election albeit with the help of the Lib Dems.

Reducing immigration in the USA

Rather than take control of illegal immigration in the USA, Barack Obama seems to have decided on an easier route. California Political News reports that:

'The Obama administration has effectively declared open borders to millions of would-be illegal immigrants not through legislation, but with a sneaky policy move.

On Aug. 20, its man at ICE, John Morton, wrote a memo stating that being in the U.S. illegally is no longer sufficient reason to send someone home. An illegal immigrant now has to be a security threat or else commit a crime and a violent one at that. To everyone else, ICE turns the blind eye.

Director Morton says it's a matter of priorities. But make no mistake: This is amnesty by another name.

Adding insult to injury, ICE will empty its costly, just-built detention centers of 17,000 existing deportation cases as long as an illegal can show that he or she has applied to become legal.

This, says the New York Times, will "pare huge case backlogs." And to ICE bureaucrats, it's proof they're doing their jobs.'

Barack Obama's Democrats are just trying to build a client state in the USA that will always vote for them, just as Tony Blair's Labour party did in the UK.

Black Panther intimidation at the polling booths (update)

I got quite a lot of grief over this piece about Black Panther intimidation at polling booths in November 2008. So I was intrigued to find this piece of video admitting what happened and glorying in the resulting investigation...


Thanks to American Power for the video spot.

A banana republic?

The Telegraph reports that Jenny Watson, the chairman of the Electoral Commission has 'conceded that the results in many constituencies are likely to be challenged because of shambolic organisation which left thousands of people unable to vote.'

The whole country is a shambles after 13 years of Labour misrule and this general election may yet have some recounts based on dodgy postal votes, let alone the other voting problems.

What a mistake the UK made, or was the election stolen

What a night and how depressed am I!

However today I want to have a think about where I go from here and what really happened yesterday. The postal votes scandal seems to have two angles, first the excess of Labour votes that may have secured several seats, Glenda Jackson won her Hampstead seat by just 42 votes... The second angle is the number of people working overseas who were denied their vote, even the BBC have to report their stories. Another factor is how many seats were lost to the Conservatives by people voting UKIP. If there is another general election then the Conservatives need to come to an arrangement with UKIP over a referendum or whatever it takes.

I have a very bad feeling about this general election, how it was stolen and what it means for the future of the Conservative party in the UK.

My thoughts on proportional representation and how that could kill the Conservatiove party's chances of ever forming a government are well documented, but I will be re-thinking this over the coming weekend.

Posting will be light this weekend as I need a break...

Sunday morning catchup

A few pieces from the news that need covering but I have not got the time to do full justice to:

1. The Times reports that:

"Public sector workers earn 7% more on average than their peers in the private sector — a pay gulf that has more than doubled since the recession began.

Official figures show that staff employed by the state are enjoying bigger pay rises, working fewer hours and receiving pensions worth up to three times as much as those in the private sector.

Civil servants, National Health Service staff, council officials and other public sector workers have enjoyed a “golden age” under Labour, according to an investigation by The Sunday Times.

The analysis was validated by Straight Statistics, a group that campaigns for the accurate reporting of official data.

Since Labour came to power in 1997, the number of public sector workers has increased by 914,000 to more than 6m, just over a fifth of the workforce.

Figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that average annual earnings of public sector workers rose to £22,405 last year — compared with £20,988 paid to the average private sector worker. "

Still think the Conservatives can the general election with the size of Labour party vote that the Labour government have created?


2. The Mail reports that:

"Harriet Harman will become the public face of Labour's general election campaign as the party looks to shore up its core support.

The deputy leader will host daily televised media briefings and tour television studios.

Senior strategists believe that Miss Harman will strengthen Labour's appeal to women and middle England voters who are turned off by Gordon Brown."

Who are these senior strategists? DO they really believe that Harriet Harman appeals to middle England voters? Repels more like.


3. The Telegraph reports that:

"hundreds of UK companies selling anything from hair loss treatments to electronics have mysteriously registered to buy and sell carbon permits in the Scandinavian nation (Denmark) – mostly in the last 18 months.

...

While many are bound to be genuine individual private traders playing the carbon markets, investigators are examining the possibility that some of these unknown UK-based companies have used the system to commit "carousel" fraud linked to VAT. "

Anyone surprised?


4. THe Telegraph reports that:

"Relatives of those who died in the Lockerbie bombing are launching a new legal bid to force the Government to hold a public inquiry.

UK Families Flight 103, the relatives' campaign group, will use human rights laws in a bid to uncover the truth about the terrorist attack, which claimed 270 lives in December 1988.

The group has hired Gareth Peirce, the prominent human rights solicitor better known for her work representing terror suspects, to devise a legal strategy to secure the inquiry for which families have long campaigned.

...

The development comes after Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, rejected the group's latest demands for an independent review of the bombing. He informed them of his decision in a letter, dated Christmas Eve, which was received by the relatives last week.

In the letter, Mr Brown said: "All of the matters which you have raised in support of the case for an inquiry are points which were raised at the original trial or the appeal in Scotland, and I do not see that it would be in the public interest to air them again at an inquiry.""

Gordon Brown will not allow a public enquiry because he has probably been informed who the real perpetrators were - Syria and why the blame was laid on a Libyan. Hopefully an incoming Conservative would be more willing to let the truth emerge.


5. The Telegraph report that:

"A Somali axeman who tried to murder the Danish cartoon artist responsible for controversial drawings of the Prophet Mohammed had links to al-Qaeda, police said. "

I am so surprised...


6. Times of India reports that:

"In a serious security lapse that revived concerns about counter-terrorism security measures, a stowaway on an Air India flight hid in the plane's toilet to fly to India. The lapse occurred on a special Haj flight operated by AI on the Medina-Jaipur sector on Friday, with 273 passengers on board"

I can't say that I am surprised, I have flown on internal Indian airlines and they are not hugely organised flights.


7. The Tap is running a series of worrying articles on the true level of the UK's debt. I challenge you to read these articles and not become profoundly depressed for the economic future of the UK.

Here's to 2010

The blogosphere seems almost full of predictions for 2010, including Iain Dale's ten predictions for what will happen and Letter From a Tory's 10 things that won't happen. So who am I to miss out?

Five political predictions for 2010:
1. Gordon Brown will continue to try and create spurious and contrived dividing lines with the Conservatives, the BBC will assist by pushing the dividing lines
2. The election will be held on May 6 (along with the local elections) because Labour cannot afford to run two campaigns and this way they will maximise their vote in the council elections
3. The pre-election leader's debates will produce a surprise win (in the view of opinion polls) for Gordon Brown
4. The pre-election leader's debates will produce an increase in support for the Lib Dems
5. Labour win the general election, postal votes being a key factor, and the protests about vote-rigging are dismissed as "losers' sour grapes"

Five economic predictions for 2010:
1. With a Labour victory at the general election (see above) the UK's credit rating will drop from AAA and the resultant rise in interest rates will produce the second half of the 'W shaped' recession
2. The re-election of a Labour government will mean that the exodus of bankers and other financial institutions to more financially friendly locations
3. The ever larger hole in the Treasury's tax receipts will mean that the higher rate of income tax rises to 60% and VAT to 20%
4. The Pound will reach parity with the Euro and the price for IMF and EU assistance for the "sick man of Europe" will be joining the Euro. Being at parity will make this an easier sell for Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson
5. Having dropped to around USD 1,100 at the end of 2009; gold will rise ever higher, reaching USD 1500 by the end of the 2010

Five BBC related predictions for 2010:
1. The BBC will become ever more blatantly biased in favour of the Labour party, the Conservatives won't realise how serious a problem this is
2. The tone of the BBC's leader's debate will be clearly pro-Labour, the Conservatives won't realise how serious a problem this is
3. The BBC will minimise their coverage of the postal voting scandal (see above), the Conservatives will finally realise how serious this BBC bias is but it will be too late
4. The BBC will continue to push for the withdrawal of British armed forces from Afghanistan
5. The BBC will continue to vilify Israel at every opportunity and revel in the coming further military attacks on Israel


More to follow...