OPINION: Labour lost London the day they chose Ken

There are some in the Labour Party who, as soon as London Mayor is mentioned, cannot see beyond Ken Livingstone. Yes, when the post was created, back in the heady days when Tony Blair was still a popular Prime Minister and hadn't yet become a deluded, war mongeting, religious bigot, Ken probably was the obvious choice to run for Mayor. After all, he had run the old GLC, until Thatcher pulled the plug. But times change, and so has Ken.

Neil Kinnock, Ken Livingstone and a newt. Write your own amusing caption...

In recent years, Ken has gradually become totally unelectable.

The blatant avoidance/evasion of paying sufficient tax was just the icing on the cake of a series of revelations of the real Ken Livingstone: sexist, racist, anti-Semitic. And let's not forget the occasions he's chosen to thump someone. He's a thoroughly objectionable human being and the Labour leadership should have had the guts to select someone else to oppose Boris Johnson - there were plenty of candidates who would probably have done better - the obvious, and popular, choice, and one currently looking for a new role, would have been Oona King but, no, Labour went with Ken.

Mind you, I think just about anyone would do a better job than Ken Livingstone - a faulty lamp post on Westminster Bridge would probably make a better and less controversial mayor than Ken Livingstone. It would certainly be less offensive.

How can a man with dodgy personal finances and both questionable and unpleasant views on race and sexual equality be mayor of one of the world's great cities, and, arguably, become the second most important politician in the UK?

In many ways I'm astonished he got as many votes as he did, but then there are a scary number who vote for a party without looking at the candidate.

Hopefully this latest defeat has brought Ken Livingstone political aspirations to an end. He can go off and syphon his earnings through a company to avoid/evade paying sufficient tax, and he can spend more time bothering his newts (poor newts).

Good riddance to a bad penny. He was a man for his moment - but his moment should have ended twenty or more years ago.

Labour lost London the day they chose Ken as their candidate. They knew what he was like, but still they selected him. Suicidal? Maybe. Moronic? Certainly.

It's now time for Labour to reflect on why they, supposedly a party of equality, based on socialist principles, selected a money grabbing, selfish, egotistical bigot as their choice for London mayor, and they must also look at who chose him.

OPINION: Low turn outs at elections

Yet again the British public has shown apathy at a set of elections with a turnout of only about 31% at yesterday's local and mayoral elections.

Across the world people risk their lives for the right to have a say in how their countries are run, and here, in the UK, there's been two world wars and the suffragette moving fighting for, and protecting, our democratic freedoms, and yet a majority of people just don't care.

Sure, the MPs' expenses scandal dented public confidence in politicians, but turnouts were low before that.

So why don't people vote?

They seem to think all politicians are the same, and that many are there to line their own pockets, they don't believe their vote will make a difference and they simply don't care about politics, preferring, instead, to vote on the X Factor or Britain's Got Talent.

There is certainly a problem with the major parties slowly morphing into one. All three now offer a variation of a centre right politics and the continual bickering between the parties seems to be arguing for the sake of it, rather than on principle. As I blogged the other day, party politics is bad for democracy.

There are those who argue that the first past the post election system is at fault. Too many seats are foregone conclusions and so most votes are irrelevant unless you live in one of about 50 marginal seats. They want to replace it with AV (rejected by the electorate in a referendum last year) or PR (which has lead to massive unstable governments in Italy since the Second World War.

There are, of course, some who want to introduce more postal votes or voting by text or online. All of these ideas need to be looked at, and if they can be introduced without making electoral fraud easier, I see no reason why more variety of voting methods can't be used - but I doubt this is the big solution.

I think another issue is that there are too many career politicians who have no experience of the real world outside of Westminster. Maybe there should be a minimum age for MPs?

I like first past the post; the winner is the winner. The elected MP has a clear local link maintained and there is no nonsense of the person coming third or fourth on the first round of balloting ending up winning. First past the post is simple, understandable and democratic.

So what should be done?

There probably aren't any quick fixes. We need more openness and honesty in politics. We need the electorate to believe that MPs are in parliament to work for a better society and not merely there like pigs at the trough. We need a true rainbow of politics with genuine alternatives to centre right capitalism. And, I think, we need to make voting compulsory.

Yes, it should be a legal requirement to vote. This would mean that there has to be an option for "No Suitable Candidate" or "Re-open Nominations" so that people aren't forced to vote for parties that they disagree with but, if we want a genuinely vibrant and democratic politics that is the change that is necessary.

COMMENT: Independent daze

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The laws of the land are made by political parties and so they will be made to help political parties.

That's all well and good - until you have an independent candidate standing.

Siobhan Benita is an independent candidate in the election for London mayor. She is a fresh new face, unlike the 3 candidates from the major parties, all who were around four years ago. And Siobhan is doing very well, considering she doesn't have the weight of one of the monolithic parties behind her. Currently, according to opinion polls she is standing fourth - behind Labour, Tory and Lib Dem candidates, but ahead of the Green, BNP and UKIP candidates.

Election law stipulates how much media coverage the candidates receive and makes sure things are fair.

But it isn't fair.

Election broadcasts, and specifically the quantity of them, are based on performance at previous elections by each party. In the election for London mayor the big 3 parties have all had multiple broadcasts, and the smaller parties have all be allowed a broadcast too.

But Siobhan isn't allowed one.

As a newbie, without electoral history personally, and without the weight of history provided by an established party, she's not allowed an election broadcast - and her position in the opinion polls counts for nothing.

So the racists of the BNP and UKIP get to flaunt their distasteful policies on television and radio, Labour's Jen Livingstone, with his various unpleasant views and dubious tax arrangements, gets some, the standing mayor is allowed to defend his record, even Brian Paddick is allowed airtime to try to pretend his party hasn't been subsumed into the Tory Party...

... but Siobhan Benita, a woman whose message many are turning to, isn't allowed an election broadcast because the parties have stitched up the law about election broadcasts.

It is undemocratic. It is blatantly wrong and unjust. It's a situation that must be changed.

COMMENT: Debating with the BNP

It's been announced that both Labour's candidate for London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, and the Green Party's candidate, Jenny Jones, have pulled out of a BBC London mayoral debate because the BNP candidate is taking part and they refuse to share a platform with them.

Aren't they being undemocratic?

Yes, there is much to object to in the BNP's policies, and, yes, I find those views unacceptable in the modern world. Quite how the BNP's blatantly racist policies could work in London, arguably the world's most multi-cultural city, is beyond me, but the BNP is a legal political party and are standing for election.

Why not debate with the BNP and show how ridiculous, divisive and objectionable they are?

Surely, as part of an election process, the best thing to do is engage all the parties so that the electorate can decide between them on the power if their argument and the strength of their policies?

Are Labour and the Green Party worried that their own policies aren't strong enough?

I can see many reasons why Ken Livingstone might want to avoid any public debate. He mustbe desperate to swerve further investigation of his income tax payments and he has many questions to answer about various racist, sexist and anti-semite comments he himself has made. Maybe Ken fears he would find himself agreeing with the BNP candidate too much?

I think there are many who find sharing a platform with Ken Livingstone highly objectionable.

I'm particularly disappointed that Jenny Jones has opted to pull out if the debate. In doing so I feel she has brought the Green Party, one of the most liberal and democratic parties in the country, into disrepute. I hope she changes her mind and debates like a grown up.

After all, the GLA will have representatives from a wide range of parties, and whoever is elected Mayor will have to work with them all. Would Ken and Jenny not work with an elected official if they were from a party which they objected to?

Another issue is that many of the BNP policies aren't that different from those of UKIP and the Tories. Some of the right-wing of the Tory party may as well be in the BNP.

So what should happen?

Ken Livingstone and Jenny Jones need to grow up and act like adults. They need to respect the democracy of the UK, and if they don't they should lose their right to take part in all remaining debates. They shouldn't be picking and choosing.

COMMENT: Cam dine with me

This weekend's revelations that Cruddas, the Tory party vice-treasurer, had been caught trying to sell influence/appointments with David Cameron shouldn't come as any surprise.

Sure, the opposition will make the most out of the latest dubious cash for dinner revelations but if they're honest none of the major parties are without those who wish to buy themselves a greater influence with the party leaders.

How Labour can complain about large donations made from businessmen to the Tories while they themselves receive huge amounts from the unions is beyond me. Unions buying influence with Labour, a practise that's bedevilled the left wing of politics for decades, is a thoroughly disingenuous and dishonest system.

Some say that state funding of parties is the solution. I'm not convinced. State funding favours existing parties and, indeed, favours parties over independents which has to be a bad thing.

There are laws that require openness and honesty. All donations over £7,500 have to be declared. Clearly, some feel that they have a right to bypass the law and buy influence with policy makers.

Let's be honest, party politics is intrinsically corrupt. Parties are, themselves, coalitions of opinions and have to find ways of attracting attention and support.

Personally I'd favour an end to party politics, with all MPs being independents able to vote freely on every subject, no whips and no dodgy donations to have an influence on party policy.

COMMENT: Has Ken Livingstone gone mad?

Ken Livingstone has always been controversial and, over the years, has said some outrageous things but, during in the campaign to regain the position of Mayor of London , he seems to have totally lost the plot and has now called for bankers to be summarily executed. Yes, really.

Here are 6 recent examples of Livingstone having lost the plot:

1) 18 August 2011 - Livingstone compares Boris Johnson to Adolf Hitler when he claims that the mayoral election is “a simple choice between good and evil. I don’t think [the choice] has been so clear since the great struggle between Churchill and Hitler.”

2) 18 August 2011 - Livingstone claims that anyone who doesn't vote for him will be punished by the Angel Gabriel, will “burn for ever” and have their “skin flayed for all eternity.”

3) 2 November 2011 - Livingstone tells Tory councillors in Hammersmith & Fulham that they will “burn in hell” and have their flesh “flayed by demons for all eternity” because they redeveloped a council estate.

4) 17 November 2011 - Livingstone asked a public meeting “How many people think we should hang George Osborne?”

5) 8 February 2012 - Livingstone claims the Tory party is “riddled with” people “indulging in” homosexuality. He also claimed that a number of Labour MPs only got their jobs because they were homosexual.

6) 17 February 2012 - Livingstone says that Britain should “hang a banker a week until the others improve.”

How on earth can this man be elected as Mayor of London, one of the world's great cities? Arguably, it would make him the second most powerful person in the country. He's so clearly barking mad!

And why (a) did Labour select him and (b) haven't Labour dropped him as their candidate?

One final thought, is Ken Livingstone actually safe being loose in public or shoud he be detained for his own sake and the safety of others?


~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ken's bigotry will end Miliband's leadership

OPINION: Cameron and Hague's "Them and Us" politics is bad for everyone

The emergency talks about new treaties and potential re-organisation of Europe has really highlighted the "Them and Us" politics of David Cameron, William Hague and the rest of their Little Englander Tories.

At the time of the 2010 General Election and all the "I agree with Nick" nonsense, there was talk of, and hope for, a new politics. A politics of consensus, co-operation, of mutual benefit and of a brighter and better future for all.

Yes, I accept that was all election claptrap and, along with various other "promises" that all the parties made which they had no intention of fulfilling. I very much doubt that Cameron had any idea that having "agreed with Nick" he'd end up sharing a cabinet table with Clegg and a bunch of his Lib Dem mates (certainly not while Clegg was still a Lib Dem anyhow!).

But Cameron and Hague, and just about every British Member of Parliament in the history of Westminster, are all masters of "Them and Us" politics - it's what they do best: Divide and rule. Whether it's rich against poor, town against country, pro-nuclear against anti-nuclear, left against right, our politicians have always exaggerated difference of opinion to divide society instead of using a difference of opinion, sharing common ground and developing a consensus that is to everyone's mutual benefit.

Such "gang politics" are why our current system doesn't work properly. We elect our MPs, more often than not, by the colour of their rosette and not by their intellect, abilities or experience. In the UK we have, to all intents and purposes, a kakistocracy; agivernment of the least well qualified, because they are passionate about their gang and will always work to benefit that gang, and, therefore, disadvantage those not in the gang.

Over the past few days, it has become apparent that Cameron and Hague are now exporting their "Them and Us" politics to Europe on a stronger, more petulant way than ever before.

Yes, of course the Tories have always had a "Them and Us" approach to Europe, and it's served them well, dragging along with it large numbers of vile racists and xenophobes. Thatcher, whilst signing the Maastricht Treaty that welcomed greater European integration, continued to play the rabid bulldog for the domestic market because she knew that, not far below the surface of so many of our poorly educated masses, lies a rampant racist - someone who sees the term "Churchillian" as a positive rather than a description of a tragic and dangerous buffoon.

The issue of Europe could well tear the Tories apart again, much in the way it destroyed John Major's premiership in the early 1990s, but, today, the main beneficiaries wouldn't be Labour, or even theLib Dems. The danger is that likes of the far right would gain strongholds at Westminster and as the nation's representatives at the European Parliament. Can any person with a fully-functioning brain really want the racists and xenophobes of the BNP, UKIP and the EDL representing the UK in Europe? Do they really want the UK internationally isolated in the way heir diatribe suggests? They seem to forget that the world has changed, Britain no longer has an empire and people are no longer judged by the colour of their skin.

So, what do Cameron and Hague hope to achieve by ripping apart Europe? A few extra votes at home, maybe? Stop a few of their supporters drifting to UKIP and the BNP? Maybe even prevent some of their backbench MPs switching to other parties? Or simply some back-slapping congratulations from right-wing extremists?

The UK needs to look carefully at how well served they are by the "Them and Us" society. Do we really want to be divided so clumsily? Is it because we hope that we'll be in the lucky "Us" group? Is it simply down to greed, selfishness and racism?

Sadly, I think it is; too many Britons vote for themselves personally and don't look at the bigger picture that might, and probably would, benefit not only everyone more but, consequently, them too.

"Them and Us" politics is no different from West Side Story's Jets and Sharks. In the end, no one benefits and there are tragic casualties on the journey.

In reality, there is no "Them and Us" - there's only "Us". We need to work for the common good. We are the human race and we need to cooperate to achieve goals of mutual benefit.

It's time for a change.

OPINION: Capitalism is dead.... Long live... Ummm...

Why, when capitalism fails every few years in bigger and more dramatic ways, do governments not look for a better system?

Capitalism has been failing, regularly, for years. Today, it seems, there is hardly a nation in the world not in some sort of serious debt. Banks have failed their investors, the public and governments across the world. Inequality gets more and more entrenched.

Surely, it's time for a different approach? Surely, it's time for governments to take action beyond bigger and bigger band aids?

When the dyke has a hole, the hole can be stopped for a while but there is a weakness there. Eventually, another hole opens or the first hole bursts again. At some point, the dyke is unable to hold the water back, the dyke collapses and everything is washed away.

It's not a case of replacing capitalism and free-markets with a different version of capitalism, adding safety nets or extra regulation to "protect" society, eventually a completely different approach, a different system needs to be put in place.

I've long argued that all current international/national debts should be written off. It's all just numbers, huge numbers, that are meaningless. They're notional debts, not real ones. Capitalism thrives on debt, borrowing and, consequently, inequality and poverty.

In the UK, we've never genuinely had a non-capitalist government. Even Harold Wilson and James Callaghan's left-wing governments, some 30-40 years ago, were capitalist with a social conscience. At elections we don't have a realistic choice of different systems, just variations on the type of capitalism we want. This is wrong.

Labour has failed the working class in the same way that the Conservatives have failed the wealthy. Labour's abandonment of socialist principles mean that it is, as has been for some time now, Tory-lite. The Lib Dems, well, they let everyone down by going into partnership with the Tories!

It is time that either Labour returned to its core socialist principles and offered a genuinely socialist, if not communist, system as an alternative to the capitalist, consumerist system that has dominated politics since the Industrial Revolution, or that people finally turn from the big two (maybe three) parties and promote one of the lesser, untried parties that can offer an alternative approach. I'd suggest, though not Peet, the Green Party are most likely to be able to offer a genuinely alternate system.

I don't mean a Stalinist communism (in reality, that was closer to Fasism than communism), I mean a new, 21stcentury approach in which government take back control of the budgets, in which a more equality-based approach is key to the way in which governments organise the economy and, of course, an environmentally-friendly angle is included.

There is nothing wrong with success, making-money or even profit but it is how the success is managed, and what the profits are used for that need to be addressed.

Sadly, it won't happen. The British are a fundamentally selfish and greedy society; they continue to vote for the status quo because, ultimately, they all think they might be the fat cats themselves (why else do so many play the National Lottery against the odds?!) and, in the end, they don't care about society, they care about themselves and their families. The British are their own worst enemies.

But, of course, this needs to be done globally, not just in the UK. This requires international co-operation that goes beyond anything the jack-booted Little Englanders who read The Sun or Daily Mail would ever allow. This needs brains not bigotry and xenophobia

How many times does capitalism have to fail before it gets replaced? Too many.

Next time there is an election I do hope more people vote for change, because, clearly, the current system has failed, but I won't hold my breath.

OPINION: 10 Years of Free entry to museums

Today marks the 10th anniversary of Free Entry to many major museums and galleries around the UK.

Tony Blair and New Labour may well have lost the plot over Iraq and ended their years in government in disgrace, but the policy of opening museums and galleries is one of the best, most important things that any government has done in this country since the setting up of the NHS and free education for all.

Of course, in times of austerity, it is likely that the policy will come under scrutiny but I would like to think that, in a civilised society, instead of ending the policy to save a few pennies, it should be extended and more museums and galleries should be opened to everyone of free. I'd like to suggest the National Space Centre in Leicester and Eureka! the National Children's Museumin Halifax for starters!

OPINION: Positive discrimination is just discrimination

Yesterday evening, I was accused of being a misogynist. This seemed particularly bizarre when, at the time, I was arguing in favour of equality!

Let me explain.

I strongly believe in equality, the equality of opportunity. Everyone should be given the same chance to succeed and everyone should be judged equally on their merits.

When a shortlist is being drawn up I don't care if it is 100% men, 100% women, 100% koalas (!)... what they are is irrelevant, what they can do is what matters. Any shortlist should have those most suitable for carrying out the task and not have less able candidates because they are part of a particular sub-group of society.

Why on earth would anyone argue that a shortlist should be 50/50 men and women if it is not the strongest set of candidates?

The situation gets worse when we look at politics and the nonsense that is the Labour Party. Not only do they insist on shortlists with ratios and not simply ability but there are times when they have all-women shortlists - instantly eliminating half the population!

Some bandy about the term "positive discrimination" to describe this and claim it redresses imbalances.

What rot.

Positive discrimination is just a different form of discrimination. It is bigotry and should to be tolerated in a modern society.

Do you really want a prospective MP selected by their genitalia first rather than their ability? That is what positive discrimination achieves. Wouldn't you rather have a prospective MP selected because they are the best candidate?

The Labour Party makes much of its claim that it fights for equality but it is currently the most bigoted political party in the UK. The likes of Harriet Harman regularly argue for inequality.

Of course, those accusing me of being a misogynist said I didn't understand because I'm male and have never been sidelined and discriminated against. They knew... because they are women!

They may be female (I didn't ask for proof) but they are bigoted.

There is nothing positive about positive discrimination; it is bigotry and should not be tolerated.