Church of England still 'Tory Party at prayer' but it's the difference between Jews and Muslims that helps to explain BBC attitude to both

'... in the 2010 election, Muslims favoured Labour, while the Jewish vote went to the Conservatives.'

No wonder the BBC so clearly favour Muslims over Jews, to think I thought it was just about Israel and the Palestinians...

More here http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25889828

Does the United Nations even know the meaning of the word hypocrisy?

I have previously blogged about the subject of needing ID cards to vote in elections, most recently here. So I was intrigued to learn that the United Nations Human Rights Council investigated the issue of American election laws at its gathering on minority rights in Geneva, Switzerland. Is it not a tad hypocritical for the UNHRC to look into the democratic process in America when some members of the council have only relatively recently allowed women to vote and one member, Saudi Arabia, still bars women from voting at all.

It's that time of year again

Oh dear, it's that time of year again when my palms get sweaty and my heart beats a little bit faster. It's Total Politics awards time........ If you like this blog and appreciate what I write about then why not include me on the Total Politics voting form

The format is different this year; you vote on the web not via email, you decide what categories a blog falls into (this blog is 'Right Wing' not 'Conservative') and you can vote for blogs in the first section and individual contributors to one or more blogs in the second section. Here are the rules, have a read of them first and get voting.

The fundamentally fraudulent nature of the Yes to AV Campaign

The voting reform referendum will engage few people which is why the 40% threshold could not be contemplated by the supporters of the YestoAV campaign. The Alternative Vote is not proportional and is likely to give even more unfair outcomes to elections than First Fast The Post. I believe that the supporters of AV fall into three camps: those that see AV as a halfway house to a voting system of full proportional representation such as the single Transferable Vote, those that will support any measure that would diminish the Conservative Party's chances of ever forming another government alone and those that see the benefits of amending the British constitution as a precedent for future changes.

Analysis as reported by UK Polling Report suggests that a system of AV would have given Tony Blair's Labour party a larger majority in 2005, an election that Labour won with a majority of 60 seats despite receiving just a third of the votes cast. A system of AV at last year's general election would have have given Labour more seats and the Conservatives fewer and this despite Labour receiving a smaller share of the popular (under AV the first preference) vote than at any time since the 1920s.


Remember the above when people clan that AV means no more wasted votes or that AV means fairer votes. AV means neither of those things but it does make it more likely that there will be permanent left of centre governments in the UK. If that is what the supporters of the YestoAV campaign want then at least let them be honest about it.

Odd happenings in Nevada

The Washington Examiner reports that:

'Since early voting started, there have been credible reports that voting machines in Clark County, Nevada are automatically checking Harry Reid's name on the ballot:

Voter Joyce Ferrara said when they went to vote for Republican Sharron Angle, her Democratic opponent, Sen. Harry Reid's name was already checked.

Ferrara said she wasn't alone in her voting experience. She said her husband and several others voting at the same time all had the same thing happen.

"Something's not right," Ferrara said. "One person that's a fluke. Two, that's strange. But several within a five minute period of time -- that's wrong."

Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said there is no voter fraud, although the issues do come up because the touch-screens are sensitive. For that reason, a person may not want to have their fingers linger too long on the screen after they make a selection at any time.

Now there's absolutely no independently verified evidence of chicanery with the voting machines (yet), but it is worth noting that the voting machine technicians in Clark County are members of the Service Employees International Union. The SEIU spent $63 million in elections in 2008 and is planning on spending $44 million more this election cycle -- nearly all of that on Democrats. White House political director Patrick Gaspard is formerly the SEIU's top lobbyist, and former SEIU president Andy Stern was the most frequent visitor to the White House last year.'

Hmmmmmm