Who Has Confidence in Jo Swinson?

So it seems that the chance to remove Boris Johnson from office and replace him with a caretaker unity government has fallen...all because of Jo Swinson.

You see, Swinson has an overwhelming contempt for Jeremy Corbyn. Unfortunately for Swinson, Corbyn is the leader of the opposition and so any caretaker government should have him at its head. Swinson can't stomach this because, arguably, she wants power for herself. But she doesn't seem to realise that she doesn't have the numbers. She may be getting MP's from other parties crossing the floor to join the Lib Dems, but these are not actually elected Lib Dem MP's. Therefore not only does Swinson have contempt for the official opposition, she also has extreme delusions of grandeur that her party, with her at the helm, ought to be in that role.

Swinson needs to realise that, if she loathes the idea of a Boris Johnson Brexit, she needs to put aside her hatred of Jeremy Corbyn and commit to a vote of no confidence in our so-called PM. But she won't do this, because in reality, her politics are more in keeping with the Conservative party that alleged PM leads.

Let's look at her voting record;

And incidentally, if Swinson hates Brexit so much and if the Lib Dems are, as she repeatedly says, the only real remain party out there, then where was she during the national day of protest at the prorogation of parliament?

That's right, she was on holiday.

Where was Jeremy Corbyn, a man she repeatedly claims is not interested in Brexit?

That's right, he was out there among the protesters, delivering impassioned speeches.

Perhaps we should be arguing for a vote of no confidence in Swinson and the Lib Dems too?

Lastly, I must point out that the photo of Swinson above comes from the excellent political blog Vox Political. I apologise for anyone who was physically sick as a result of the image. One to put atop the mantlepiece to keep the kiddies away eh?

Return to Sender

It's time to return to the voting booths again this Thursday as the elections for European Parliament take place. Campaigning seems to have been taken up in earnest by most parties and many a letter or leaflet has dropped through the letterbox at the tail end of last week. So far, I've had stuff from Labour, the Lib Dems, UKIP, Nigel Farage's Brexit Party and Independent candidate Stephen Yaxley Lennon (aka 'Tommy Robinson'). Nothing for the Tories though, who clearly know that they are doomed.

I know that it can be really irritating to receive missives from parties you vehemently disagree with. It fair turns my stomach to see something from far right parties personally addressed to me, so here's what I do...

Knowing that returning this mail back to their party HQ's actually costs the party money, I scribble a quick 'Unsolicited Mail - Return to Sender' note at the top of the envelope and pop it back in the postbox. A small victory maybe, but a satisfying one. 

However, before that I like to offer up some sort of reply. UKIP, the Brexit Party and 'Tommy Robinson' all had their leaflets suitably redecorated (nothing too original, just the odd Hitler moustache) and were left in no doubt as to what I feel about them. But it was the Lib Dems that I decided to point towards the truth.

Their leaflet was full of utter lies. This habitually opportunistic party are currently flying under the flag of being the only political force determined to stop Brexit. If that truly was the case then where were Vince Cable and Tim Farron last July on the night of a crucial Brexit legislation vote that could have kept back the hard Brexit mob? They weren't in the House that's for sure and so they did not vote. I can tell you were Farron, the former leader and the man who keeps banging on with 'Where are you Jeremy Corbyn?' at Remain protests, was; he was charging a fiver a head for a lecture in Sherbourne about his faith (or homophobia), but where was present leader Vince Cable? And do they really think we're so stupid that we'd fail to notice how they vote in the House or, more bluntly, when they don't even bother to vote?

The leaflet also goes on to say that Labour refuse to push for a second referendum. Again this is a lie and one that the MSM also seem keen to spread. The fact is that Labour have repeatedly whipped ahead of voting for a second ref or a 'people's vote' but there isn't enough of a majority in the House to push this over the line. 

Cable and the Lib Dems, perhaps more than any other party and politician, deserve our contempt. They sold their soul to share power in 2010 and enabled the austerity that we are still suffering under to this very day. They twist with the wind and are now pretending that they never had any association with the Tories and that they are the only ones with our best interests at heart. They're banking on a resurgence that I think will happen to a degree, but when you're already at rock bottom, there's only one place to go - up.

Charles Kennedy, RIP

Very sad news to hear that the former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy has passed away aged just 55.

I had a lot of respect for Kennedy. He helped shape the Lib Dems into a realistic third party option against what was then New Labour and an increasingly beleaguered Tory party. His opposition to the Iraq War, coupled with his gaining what remains the best ever election result for his party in the 00s and made him someone to sit up and take notice of. Relaxed and respectful, he seemed a breath of fresh air in the arena of politics and was influential enough to help bring about a different way to do things, to be a different side of the argument and thankfully to be someone people listened to.

Unfortunately after seven years as his parties leader, Kennedy resigned when his battle with drink became public to be replaced by fellow Scot Menzies Campbell and latterly - and unfortunately - Nick Clegg. Both his successors benefited from the great strides he took the Lib Dems forward in in terms of the public consciousness. 

Kennedy started out in the Social Democratic Party, becoming in 1983 the youngest MP at the time aged just 23 and the spokesman for the party on Scotland, Social Security and Health. When the party merged with the Lib Dems in 1988 he continued to hold a series of front bench roles, ultimately taking over from Paddy Ashdown as Lib Dem leader just eleven years later in 1999.

Following his resignation in 2006, Kennedy remained in politics but maintained a low profile having been against the coalition with the Tories in 2010. He lost the seat he had held for over 30 years in the elections last month to the SNP but was determined to remain in politics, lending his voice to the pro-European lobby in the wake of the referendum debate. Sadly this is now not to be. He leaves behind a young family and will be much missed as a father, a family man, an honest man and as a politician.

RIP 

Fighting Back - Petitions to Sign

We woke up on Friday to a depressing reality. Five years of total Tory rule lie ahead of us.

We have two choices now; we can get depressed or we can get angry, as my friend Sharon says.

So let's do the latter. Let's fight back. Let's make this government listen to our concerns and show them that we refuse to lie down and be beaten.

Here are some petitions to sign;

War On Want against TTIP Help stop the trade deal set to destroy the NHS.

Lower the voting age to 16 The Scottish referendum showed us the potential here.

No to the Snoopers Charter Previously blocked by the Lib Dems, the chances are the Tories will table this again shortly and end our freedom of speech.

Stop the Tory majority in 2020 Ask Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens to work together for a better future.

This  petition, this and this one too questions the validity of the election result in the light of news that thousands upon thousands of ballot papers went astray.

Stop the sale of the NHS in Nye Bevan's name. More demands to save our NHS can be signed here, here, here

Stop cuts and reforms to DLA and DWP Help stop this government from punishing the most vulnerable in our society.

End the need for Food Banks 913,138 people used foodbanks in 2013-2014. This is a problem that needs a solution, and fast.

Block the planned Constituency Boundaries change Another motion blocked by the Lib Dems, the Tories want to adjust constituency boundaries to favour their candidates and MP's rather than any other. This will essentially lock them in power and is little more than low cunning and vandalism.

Boris Out! Demand the resignation of the London Mayor in light of his role as an MP.

Don't Cut The Disabled Access To Work Scheme If everyone has the right to work, then why not the disabled too?

Abolish the Bedroom Tax This has to go!

An Act Of Kindness for Every Tory Vote Possibly my favourite of the bunch. This one really is the Big Society in action. Fight back with kindness!

And lastly, pie the sky though it may be, Get Cameron Out!

The Good, The Very Bad and The Downright Ugly

After a few hours sleep I'm trying to see the positives. After all, Esther McVey The Cunt got booted out of her seat a little before I turned in at 6am this morning, as did George Galloway for Respect, so these are very good things. Other good things; I woke up to hear Nigel Farage lost Thanet and therefore stepped down as UKIP leader which will hopefully signpost his ridiculous party towards oblivion and obscurity. I woke up to hear Nick Clegg, egg well and truly on his face, managed to wipe a bit away to realise he too had to step down as leader of the Lib Dems. 

But losing Ed Miliband seems harsh. Even though I never felt utterly confident in him as a leader I'm worried for the only real rival party to the Tories, the party that still more or less represents my interests and what I believe in.

And we still have IDS. We still have Michael Gove. The Tory big hitters are still here.

It's so utterly depressing and it's hard to see just what happened and went so spectacularly wrong. I feel like someone has died, except all around us on TV there are people with smiles on their faces expecting us to be happy to see that "Mr Cameron" has got his majority. How can you be happy with the prospect of five more utterly soul destroying years of severe cuts and hardships as the divide between the rich and the poor gets wider and wider?

We can't deny that people didn't turn out this time around, the sad fact is that people did turn out - they just turned out for the cunts. But it's hard to keep a civil tongue in your head when you go online to find some people proudly proclaiming that they did not vote and that they did not believe that their opinion doesn't count as a result, because their opinion is still valid. Listen, a ruptured appendix is still a valid life threatening illness but if you don't go out and seek medical attention you have to realise you're on your fucking own with only yourself to blame. That one such person was explaining the reasons they didn't vote for the Labour party they believe themselves to be naturally associated with because they want to see our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan (Um, they are out luv) just proves to me how out of touch people who blindly refuse to take part in the democratic process actually are.

And if people are that deluded is that why parties like the Tories with their horrendous policies continue to thrive?

Coalition (2015)

"After 100 yards, turn right"

This instruction from a satnav device would seem a fairly innocuous, everyday remark normally, but it occurs here in a car carrying Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg on the day after the 2010 election - a day when he had to decide to throw his lot in with the Conservatives, a Party seemingly ideologically opposed to everything the Liberal Democrats stand for.

It's that kind of knowing humour (there's a scene where Mark Gatiss' vampiric Peter Mandelson steps out from a pall of dry ice smoke in a TV studio and David Cameron, considering partnership with the Liberals, walks behind green glass) that shapes Coalition, James Graham's playful film about the formation of the present government and makes it a stablemate of the previous somewhat tongue in cheek political dramas Channel 4 has made such as A Very Social Secretary and The Trial of Tony Blair. 

Personally I'd rather have had a bit more weight to this recreation of that tumultuous and decisive time in May 2010 taken from several accounts from political figures who witnessed it at first hand, but that's not to say Graham (acclaimed playwright of 70s set political play This House) doesn't give us some flashes of drama and emotion and, in the three lead characters of Cameron, Clegg and Brown, actors Mark Dexter, Bertie Carvel and Ian Grieve (who had previously played Brown on the stage) get the chance to shine with Carvel depicting a man who throws his principles out with the bathwater at the first dazzling sight of power, whilst Dexter fidgets and frets on the precipice of securing his ambition. It's perhaps Grieve who secures the most range and, in turn he is obtuse and oafishly comedic, yet ultimately somewhat tragic and sympathetic; a man of principle who seems unable to convey them effectively thanks to his unfortunate dour manner and poor social skills, is how Graham seems to see Brown's character. He's not the only man of principle on display here - Donald Sumpter hovers around the proceedings like the spectre at the feast in his role as former Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown, his concerned and cautious eye on his young protege Clegg. On the whole though, it's Mark Gatiss who steals much of the film as Peter Mandelson, with the thin smiles and snooty air he has employed so successfully in similar Machiavellian characters such as Mycroft in Sherlock.

But these are broad brushstroke performances in a film that doesn't seem certain about whether it wants to be a comedic satire or a straight representation of the events and ultimately it falls between two stools. A little more insight wouldn't have gone amiss either - we're told Graham sourced several first hand accounts but there's little behind these closed doors of Whitehall that we as an audience couldn't already guess at and the notion that we got to where we are now through a series of social faux pas, poor body language and half baked promises feels potentially believable but still seems rather depressingly mundane.

Shittest Marvel Movie Line Up Announced

Yes it's the Revengers Assemble. 

Revenging the working classes and the most disadvantaged in the country with yet more cuts

Coalition's Last Stand!

In what has become a tradition in the otherwise pompous pantomime that is the State Opening of Parliament, the legendary 'Beast of Bolsover', Dennis Skinner gave another amusing interjection, this time;

"Coalition's Last Stand!"

It caused much amusement in the House.

Other classics have included 1990's "It tolls for thee Maggie" 1992's "Tell her (the Queen) to pay her taxes" and 2006's "Have you got Helen Mirren on standby?"