tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55882743359142785462024-02-21T10:18:52.240+00:00North West LibertariansThe unofficial blog for members of the Libertarian Party in the North West of England.Citizen Stuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00443867574420751639noreply@blogger.comBlogger163125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-39371136827807485212012-08-16T00:02:00.000+01:002012-08-16T00:02:06.316+01:00North West Libertarians September Meet Up<span itemprop="description">An informal meeting of libertarians in the North West will take place at the famous Lass O'Gowrie pub in Manchester: <a href="http://www.qype.co.uk/place/153967-Lass-O-Gowrie-Manchester" rel="nofollow nofollow" target="_blank"><span>http://www.qype.co.uk/</span><wbr></wbr><span class="word_break"></span><span>place/</span><wbr></wbr><span class="word_break"></span><span>153967-Lass-O-Gowrie-Manche</span><wbr></wbr><span class="word_break"></span>ster</a>
Expected topics of conversation will include discussion of the new
Independent Libertarian Network, as well as bidding fairwell to one of
our brethren who is relocating to the dreaded South. Everyone's welcome
- unlike the squalid gang of con men and conspiracy theorists who
seized control of the old Libertarian Party, we don't do closed
meetings. Come along if you feel like it, have a beer, have a chat,
make friends and set the world to rights. See you there.</span><br />
Citizen Stuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00443867574420751639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-19657838568486802982012-07-20T22:07:00.004+01:002012-07-20T22:07:56.585+01:00North West Libertarians Meetup 28 JulyLibertarian Meetup (North West)<br /> <br />
The Dee Hotel, 44 Grange Road, West Kirby, Merseyside, CH48 4EF<br />
Saturday, 28 July 2012 - 13:00 - 16:00<br /><br />
Libertarians in the North West are meeting to discuss the Independent Libertarian Network and other issues of current interest to libertarians.<br /><br />
For more information or advice on car parking, contact Malcolm Saunders on malpoet@hotmail.co.uk.<br />Citizen Stuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00443867574420751639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-82475796062273958592012-07-17T13:46:00.004+01:002012-07-17T13:46:52.769+01:00The Independent Libertarian Network<h6 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1,"tn":"K"}">
<span class="messageBody" data-ft="{"type":3}">Gavin Webb's efforts over the last few months have started to come to
fruition and he has a new Libertarian political party formally
registered with the Electoral Commission. The emphasis is very much on
supporting local activism. It's early days yet, but I think it has
potential. Visit the website, have a look at the constitution and see
if it's the kind of setup you might be interested in getting involved
with:<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.independentlibertarians.com/" rel="nofollow nofollow" target="_blank"><span>http://</span><wbr></wbr><span class="word_break"></span><span>www.independentlibertarians.com</span><wbr></wbr><span class="word_break"></span>/</a></span></h6>
<h6 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1,"tn":"K"}">
<span class="messageBody" data-ft="{"type":3}"> </span></h6>Citizen Stuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00443867574420751639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-80116476889362031252012-07-08T23:49:00.000+01:002012-07-08T23:49:14.843+01:00Some Things Never Seem To Change<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So there I was at an
antiques fair in Stockport, looking for potential stock for my
fledgling business when this bit of ephemera caught my eye and I just
had to have it for my own interest. I admit that I collect some odd
things, and I've been in the habit of accumulating political
literature since my days as an activist with the former Libertarian
Party – this may be the oldest example of an election leaflet that
I've ever seen though:</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjagNGT655CqxnYCSI1yVVaPzOr7HpHHC9igTO9qYGWPjCWQazwv7bEwIdcABVONGQG1LRA5T2Xyymwd30HjCOEm6osfWMKlH69fJySuYmkcAfDIlPIC5w5pT-ivId_09OffVcFWXdM47bY/s1600/Election+Leaflet+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjagNGT655CqxnYCSI1yVVaPzOr7HpHHC9igTO9qYGWPjCWQazwv7bEwIdcABVONGQG1LRA5T2Xyymwd30HjCOEm6osfWMKlH69fJySuYmkcAfDIlPIC5w5pT-ivId_09OffVcFWXdM47bY/s400/Election+Leaflet+1.JPG" width="295" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It seems even in the
1880s local politicians were screwing the citizenry into the ground
with excessive taxes!</div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>Citizen Stuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00443867574420751639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-64986499419036026152012-05-06T23:57:00.000+01:002012-05-06T23:57:01.827+01:00THOUGHTS ON A FUTURE LIBERTARIAN PARTY<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
INTRODUCTION</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As far as I know, there
have been two explicitly Libertarian parties formed in the UK in
recent history. The first one was the Independent Libertarian Party,
formed by Antoine Clarke and Paul Marks in 1998, and since disbanded
(follow this link for a little bit of background:
<a href="http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/tactn/tactn025.pdf">http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/tactn/tactn025.pdf</a>
). I know very little about the history of this organisation, and
nothing about why it no longer exists. My experience was with the
Libertarian Party (often wrongly described as the Libertarian Party
UK, or LPUK for short). That party was founded with high hopes in
September 2007 but never got properly organised and was taken over in
a coup mounted by former members of the National Co-ordinating
Committee (NCC) last year. Although the Party still exists as a
registered entity, the membership list and bank account are not under
the control of the legitimate NCC and has failed to put up any
candidates in this year's local elections. The gang that hijacked
the Libertarian Party run a website and take people's money – your
guess is as good as mine as to what that money is used for.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Since some of us do
actually want an effective Libertarian Party to exist in this
country, there's been some discussion recently about starting up a
Mark 3 version – hopefully learning from the mistakes of the past
with the benefit of recent experience. This initiative is being
headed up by Gavin Webb, the only councillor the Libertarian Party
ever had – if you'd like to register your interest in a new party,
please visit his website http://gavinwebb.com/libertarians/ (no
obligation). There's also discussion going on at Libertarian Home as
to what shape it should take: http://libertarianhome.co.uk/</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
What follows are my
thoughts on what a new Libertarian Party (whatever name we adopt for
it) should be trying to achieve, and how it should be organised.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I'd better tell you a
bit about myself first, so you can decide for yourself how
well-qualified I am to pontificate on this subject:</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
My name is Stuart Heal
and I live in Manchester. I joined the Libertarian Party as soon as
it started recruiting members, early in 2008 (Membership Number 12).
This was my first experience of being a member of a political party.
I co-wrote the weapons policy and became the Regional Co-ordinator in
the North West (only because no-one else wanted the job). A couple
of weekends in 2009, I travelled to Wisbech in East Anglia to help
deliver leaflets as part of our first election campaign, when Andrew
Hunt stood for the local council. The following year, in 2010 I
stood in the local elections in Manchester. I was due to stand again
the following year, but changed my mind, partly due to being too busy
to take time off from my job and partly due to the lack of support
for local candidates from the NCC.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
THE MISSION</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The objective of a
functioning libertarian party should be to promote the ideals of
small government and personal and economic freedom, and to make sure
that libertarian-minded people are elected to positions of power.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Note the last part of
that statement: “make sure that libertarian-minded people are
elected to positions of power”. Some fools maintain that
libertarians seeking power is a contradiction. The reality is that
governments exist and will continue to do so as long as homo sapiens
exists – possibly humanity may evolve beyond the need and desire
for governments one day, but that day may not dawn for a million
years. In the here and now, we have governments and will continue to
do so – so they should be staffed by people who understand the
legitimate limits of government power and who mean to increase the
freedom of the individual at any opportunity. Opting out of the
political system just means handing power over to people who don't
think like us.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
ORGANISATION</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
One of the reasons the
Mark 2 Libertarian Party (hereinafter referred to as LPUK) failed is
that it didn't have an effective organisation – by that I mean an
organisation suited to a small political party, and one that ensured
adequate oversight and internal communication. It also failed to
utilise our greatest resource – individual members.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The organisation of the
new party (hereinafter referred to as the Party) has to be suited to
our likely size (likely to be in the low hundreds for the first few
years) and geographical spread (all over Great Britain and possibly
beyond). So it needs to be as simple as possible, and every member
has to be able to do something useful, even if they're the only
libertarian in their neighbourhood.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I envisage three levels
of organisation – national, local and individual.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
NATIONAL ORGANISATION</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
There needs to be a
governing committee of some kind. The bare minimum would consist of
the Party Leader, Chairman (possibly combining those jobs?), a
Treasurer, a Membership Secretary and a Communications Director.
Call it five bods in total – a large enough group to have a
sensible division of labour and small enough to make it easy to make
decisions quickly. All officers should be democratically elected by
the membership at the Annual General Meeting, and their job will be
to do the day to day admin work, establish the organisation, approve
and support candidates, administer the website (including a members'
forum), produce and distribute a members' newsletter, make
propaganda/campaign material available to members, put together a
Party manifesto and approve the formation of local branches. They
would also have the power to suspend or expel members under certain
circumstances.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Some will mistakenly
describe the list of powers and responsibilities described above as
authoritarian or unlibertarian – it isn't. A political party is a
voluntary organisation – if you're not happy with the way it's run
you're free to stand for election to the governing committee, to
resign from the Party or not to join it in the first place. And to
have a chance to achieve anything, the Party also has to have an
organisation, <u>enforceable</u><span style="text-decoration: none;">
rules</span> and discipline.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Most importantly,
proper attention has to be paid to the internal workings of the
national committee itself, in order to avoid the mistakes of last
time, so I'm going to go into more detail about this:</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<u>Trust no-one</u></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
It
shouldn't be necessary to tell Libertarians no to trust leaders, but
for some reason most of us who were in LPUK let our guards down in
this respect – and ended up having the party stolen from us. The
new Party should be organised on the assumption that even the most
respected people are going to make mistakes or go off the rails from
time to time – and that's not counting outright criminality. So we
need safeguards. I have four ideas about this:</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
First,
I think that anyone who is elected to the governing committee should
be required to sign a legal contract agreeing to them to comply with
the Party constitution and to hand over any records, access to bank
accounts etc to their successors on leaving office.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
Second,
no-one should have sole access to either the financial records and
bank accounts or to the membership records. There should be a
Treasurer and Deputy Treasurer, and a Membership Secretary and Deputy
Membership Secretary (or whatever titles are agreed on). That's the
best protection I can think of against a repetition of what happened
last year, when the coup plotters managed to monopolise control of
both the financial records and membership list.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
Third,
I don't believe that any money should be released from the Party bank
accounts unless the expenditure is approved by a majority of the
committee.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
Fourth,
I believe the committee should have regular face-to-face meetings –
at least once every couple of months – it's hard to gauge someone's
character when your main means of communication is by email.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
LOCAL ORGANISATION</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In most areas, for the
first few years, I would expect local organisation to be
non-existent, but developing organically as geographical membership
clusters emerge. The way I see local organisations emerging would go
something like this: a member wants to get in touch with others in
his area, so puts a message on the online forum and/or the newsletter
asking people to contact him to arrange informal pub meetups. When
there are enough members in a defined area that comes under the same
local authority (ie at least 10 members in a particular town or city)
they can apply to the central committee to set up a local Branch.
This would have it's own local committee running it, it's own budget,
authorisation to produce it's own leaflets using Party templates but
covering local issues, the ability to select their own candidates for
local elections and write their own local manifestos, contact the
media as official Party representatives etc. This is going to be a
vital development, because the Party will never make any headway in
national politics until it has a good track record at the local
level. The national committee should do whatever it can to support
local branches once they're formed, including providing leaflet
templates, instructions on how to mount a local campaign and stand
for election, support on the Party website with contact details, and
financial support within reason. I absolutely believe that LPUK
would have had more local candidates if more support from the centre
had been forthcoming.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
THE INDIVIDUAL</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
LPUK had such a small
membership (never more than a few hundred) that there must have been
people who were literally the only members in their county. You
might think that with no organisation in the area, there'd be
nothing an individual member can do – but I don't believe a small
party can afford to waste a single potential activist, and
libertarians are supposed to believe in the potential of the
individual. So I see part of the national committee's job as being
to support these isolated members and give them something to do. Not
long before last year's coup, during the run up to the local
elections, I developed an idea for an ongoing series of leaflets
called “The Libertarian”, which I tried to get the NCC interested
in. The idea was to produce a monthly two-page bulletin in a
populist style that could be downloaded as a PDF file from the party
website by any party member or supporter who wanted to print a few
off and distribute them in his area. Each issue would have covered
two or three national news stories, but from a libertarian
perspective, and including contact details for the party. I'd
already designed and distributed a local version of this the previous
year, as a warm-up leaflet for my aborted second local election
campaign in Manchester. The advantage of this is that it would cost
the Party nothing in money - just a day or two's work for whoever
edits the monthly bulletin. Contributions to it could even be
solicited via the Party members' forum (assuming we have one, which I
think we should). So any individual member can print (say) 100
copies off once a month and deliver them round his area. If a 100
members do that, that's 10,000 leaflets delivered nationwide per
month – the publicity equivalent to an election campaign without
any money being spent by the Party. It seems to me that this could
be particularly useful to people wanting to set up libertarian
societies in universities, or members of more general political
societies who want to promote a libertarian point of view – thus
hopefully lining up the next generation of Party members.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So that's my idea for
what the Party organisation should look like – it needs fleshing
out of course, preferably by people with more experience of running
political organisations than me. Getting the organisation right this
time is vitally important in my view. But once it's set up, what
sort of strategy should the new organisation adopt? How is it to
achieve its goals?</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
ELECTORAL STRATEGY</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
When LPUK was set up,
there was a lot of grandiose talk about putting up multiple
candidates for Parliament – one fool on the forum even said we'd
form a government in 15-20 years. There was very little discussion
about local politics. We were trying to run before we'd even learned
to walk.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
START SMALL, THINK BIG</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Let's say you wanted to
become a millionaire – you dream of being the owner of a big
concern, sitting in your office in a skyscraper full of loyal
employees all doing your bidding, getting on the phone and making
million pound deals, inspecting your factories and warehouses.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
But you haven't got any
money – you're struggling to pay your rent, utilities and council
tax.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So what do you do?</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Do you max out all your
credit cards and gamble all your money on one big, extremely dodgy
deal that will either net you your first million or wipe you out
completely?</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Do you give up and
resign yourself to a life of poverty?</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Or do you concentrate
on what you can do? Do you use your decrepit second-hand computer in
your spare room to set up a little micro-business which will only
bring in £10-£20 a week at first? That £10-£20 a week may not be
much, but it's money you wouldn't have had otherwise, it's money you
can put to one side to build up a stake for when you feel ready to
try something more ambitious – and in the meantime you're building
up experience and a reputation. Starting off small, you're at least
making some kind of progress and giving yourself a chance – and
maybe one day you will be that millionaire.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Politics works the same
way. New political parties don't just sweep into power – that
takes a lot of money, and even more importantly, name recognition.
In my opinion putting up Parliamentary candidates is totally futile,
except under exceptional circumstances – no LPUK Parliamentary
candidate ever got as much as 1% of the vote, whereas Andrew Hunt got
nearly 8% in our first local election campaign. It seems to me quite
clear that the main effort should be at the local level – people
are much more willing to give minority parties a chance in local
elections, especially if the candidates focus on local issues –
this is why UKIP, the Green Party and even those losers in the BNP
have local councillors. And the idea of us ever having an MP before
we have a strong local presence is so ludicrous it's hardly worth
thinking about.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Apart from the near
impossibility of getting anyone elected to Parliament in the near
future (say the next 20 years) there are excellent reasons for
Libertarians to try to get elected to their local councils. Councils
very often have more of an effect on people's daily lives than the
national government. It's your local council that will steal your
house using a Compulsory Purchase Order and knock it down to make way
for a supermarket. It's your local council that will deny you
planning permission to improve your house – or if they do grant
permission, they will then use the improvements to reclassify your
house in a higher Council Tax band. And if you can't afford to pay
your Council Tax – or even if you're just a few weeks late paying –
it's your local council that will take you to court and send the
bailiffs to your door (and I can tell you from personal experience
that a visit from the bailiffs is no fun at all). People who find
local politics boring aren't paying enough attention to what goes on
in their neighbourhood – you should do, it's where you live. I bet
if you bought a copy of your local paper tomorrow and read right
through it, you could find at least one local issue that can be
attacked from a libertarian angle.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Local election
campaigns can also be quite cheap to run. I only spent about £90 on
mine, not counting petrol and shoe leather. To stand for Parliament
you have to pay a deposit of £500 just to get on the ballot. Even
better, some local councils – away from the urban centres – are
under-staffed. Andrew Withers walked into his parish council seat
uncontested last year, and didn't have to spend a penny on
campaigning. A friend of mine who lives in a smallish town once
joked that if I moved to his town we could take over the local
council between us.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So local politics is
cheap to get into and important enough to bother with. It can also
be a stepping stone to bigger things. Let's say we do get some
councillors elected in the next few years. One of them serves a term
or two as a councillor and gets a reputation among the voters for
being good at his job – as he's popular with the people in his
ward, he might decide to have a go at standing for Parliament, and
the Party might think it's worthwhile supporting him. Who knows what
could happen? But we won't get anywhere without having some “form”
at local level first. All politics is local politics.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
OTHER CAMPAIGNING
ACTIVITIES</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
There's no reason we
can't attach ourselves to any political demonstrations that support
causes that we're in sympathy with – No2ID, any campaigns against
future gun bans, drug legalisation etc. In those circumstances we
should do what groups like the Socialist Workers Party do – print
up our own banners, leaflets etc. It doesn't have to be expensive,
it's cheap publicity and can attract new members.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
When there's a
demonstration that we're opposed to, we can also stand on the
sidelines and hand out leaflets giving our point of view to members
of the general public. In those situations, a slightly lower profile
and a good pair of running shoes might be advisable, but I personally
do get sick of seeing the same old gangs of socialists demonstrating
for the same old discredited causes with no-one opposing them.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
JOINT MEMBERSHIPS</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I'm coming towards the
end of this article, you'll be glad to know, but there's one last
area I want to mention. LPUK had a policy against members also being
members of other political parties. This was a policy I supported at
the time, but in the last few months I've had second thoughts and I
believe the new Party should allow joint memberships. The reason
LPUK didn't allow joint memberships was that this was thought to
create a conflict of interest – if someone's a member of (say) LPUK
and the Lib Dems, who should he campaign for at election time? It
seemed to me at the time that you should just commit to one party –
but this forced people to make a choice, and we definitely lost
members because of this policy. Apart from anything else, it was
practically unenforceable. One guy stood as a local candidate for
UKIP and the election was over before we found out and expelled him.
To his credit, he accepted his expulsion with good grace. His reason
for standing as a UKIP candidate and not an LPUK candidate was that
they had an organisation in the area to support him – I can
understand this, having stood as a candidate myself. I think the
benefits of allowing joint memberships outweigh any potential
drawbacks, and include the following:</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The potential to have a
larger membership base. We know there are libertarians in UKIP, the
Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party. By excluding them,
we'd be depriving ourselves of potentially useful members.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In a lot of areas there
will be no Party organisation – we just won't have enough members.
So if isolated members want to join a larger party in order to have
some kind of influence over the local political scene, I see no
reason to stop them, especially if the candidate they're supporting
is libertarianish anyway.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Gaining experience.
LPUK had a lot of members with no previous political experience –
probably the majority. The new Party will probably have the same
problem. By joining more established parties, members can
potentially learn a lot about how to run campaigns properly. And a
guy who spends time leafleting for (say) UKIP in one election might
develop the self-confidence to stand as a Party candidate next time,
who knows?</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Influencing other
parties. If we're ever to change the political landscape of this
country in a more libertarian direction – and I think we can – we
need to influence members of more established parties and try to get
them to adopt more liberal ideas. So joining these parties, going to
meetings, talking to members and maybe circulating leaflets seems to
me to be worthwhile.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Reality check:
Associating with people who have different political opinions can
have the beneficial effect of forcing us to double check our own
beliefs to make sure they're still in line with common sense.
There's a danger that probably all radical political parties face –
when activists are only associating with other activists of the same
stripe, they can lose their common sense to theory. I've been in
libertarian meetups where people have argued for or against a
particular policy idea based not on whether it's morally correct, or
practical, but on how “libertarian” or “unlibertarian” they
think it is. One ex-leader of LPUK even commented in a blog post
that it would be “unlibertarian” to intervene in a mugging unless
the victim asked you for help! That's how far off the rails theory
can take you – so yes, I think associating with people who aren't
quite on the same wavelength as you can help you stay anchored to
reality, as well as honing the debating skills.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
CONCLUSION: CAN WE
SUCCEED?</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I think we can. The
present might look fairly bleak and statist, but there's no reason
for the future to go on in the same vein. It's important to remember
that what we now call libertarianism would have been called
liberalism in the 19<sup>th</sup> Century – and the Classical
Liberals did OK. The 20<sup>th</sup> Century was dominated by
statist ideologies, especially the twin evils of socialism and
racism. It's time for the pendulum to swing back, and I think
current social and technological trends are pulling society in a more
individualist direction – the rise of the internet has meant that
not only can people promote their political views more easily, and
network more easily, it's also made it possible for practically
anyone to have a go at setting up a business from home – look at
people who make a living through eBay for instance. That's going to
give rise to a more entrepreneurial small-business culture than has
existed in the past – just the type of people who are our most
natural constituency. It's also made it easier to raise money for
charity, lend money to small entrepreneurs (or get a loan if you need
one), do research etc. I think the 21<sup>st</sup> Century will be
dominated by individualist philosophies just as much as the 20<sup>th</sup>
was dominated by collectivist ideas. We can be part of that.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Can we ever form a
government. Maybe, I don't know. Not in the short term, but longer
term, who can say? Do we need to? If we can take control of some
councils and show how to apply libertarian ideas to improve our
communities, if we can influence other parties by sharing members
with them – will we even need to get into Parliament? Not
necessarily, as long as people with the right ideas are getting
elected, whatever flag they fly under. If a future Prime Minister
stands up in Parliament and introduces a raft of legislation
including the abolition of Income Tax, re-legalisation of pistols and
concealed carry, the scrapping of most of the red tape that gets in
the way of small businesses functioning, re-introduction of trial by
jury in all criminal cases – he's getting a round of applause from
me even if he's a member of the Labour Party!</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
We can win. Victory
means getting the government off our backs, whether we're actually in
government or not. As long as we've got a clear idea what we want,
as long as we're willing to put the work in, and as long as we're
properly organised, we can do it.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So those are my
thoughts on how a new libertarian party should be organised and how
it should operate. It's not a complete blueprint, just an outline –
better-qualified people than me would need to flesh it out. But I
think it's workable.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Of course there are
other options...</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>Citizen Stuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00443867574420751639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-87632942069640432712012-04-25T13:52:00.003+01:002012-04-25T13:52:59.012+01:00NEW LIBERTARIAN PARTY - URGENT UPDATEI've received the following message from Gavin Webb, who is heading up the current initiative to set up a new part that's fit for Libertarians to join:<br />
<br />
Today my hosting provider suspended my account for alleged copyright violations. Upon contacting them it transpires that Ian Parker-Joseph on behalf of the Libertarian Party UK had made the complaint on the basis that by using the url libertarianparty.org.uk I was in fact passing off and trading as the Libertarian Party UK. Please can you now direct anyone interest in seeing a new registered libertarian political organisation on the scene to visit <a href="http://www.facebook.com/l/TAQG4Sx4e/www.gavinwebb.com/libertarians" rel="nofollow" style="color: #3b5998; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">www.gavinwebb.com/libertarians</a>. Thanks.<br />
<br />
......................................................<br />
<br />
Note from Stuart: Gavin Webb is one of the more useful members the Libertarian Party has ever had, having been our only sitting councillor and one-time Communications Director. Unlike the sleazy little gang that siezed control of the Party's assets last year, he has actually done a lot to promote Libertarianism through the democratic political process. He's got the backing of what's left of the active membership of the Libertian Party, and if the lying conspiracy theorist Ian Parker-Joseph thinks that a cheap trick like this is going to stop the loyalist faction from establishing the new and more effective libertarian party that this country needs, he's even crazier than I think he is.<br />Citizen Stuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00443867574420751639noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-5970220291867288582012-04-17T20:49:00.003+01:002012-04-17T20:59:17.427+01:00A NEW POLITICAL PARTY FOR LIBERTARIANS?With the assets of the Libertarian Party still in the hands of an unelected gang of liars, conspiracy theorists and conmen, some of us who have been active in promoting Libertarian values via the electoral process in the past and don't intend seeing that effort going to waste are now interested in starting a new Libertian political party so that we can move forwards and do some actual politics. At the moment, the initiative is just at the level of finding out how many people would be interested in supporting such a venture. Gavin Webb - former Communications Director and the only councillor the Libertarian Party ever had - has set up a website where people can register their interest:<br /><br /><a href="http://libertarianparty.org.uk/">http://libertarianparty.org.uk/</a><br /><br />If you understand that libertarians have to be involved with the political process in order for this country to progress in the right direction, please register your interest - you won't be committing yourself to anything.Citizen Stuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00443867574420751639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-80285903931265325962012-03-23T18:04:00.003+00:002012-03-23T18:29:38.015+00:00Two More Questions To Ask Andrew WithersJust in case I don't get there on time, here are two more questions for any loyalist Party members who are attending tomorrow's phony <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">AGM</span> to ask Andrew Withers:<br /><br />Question 1: Andrew Withers was elected unopposed as a councillor in <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">Clevedon</span> last year. But he stood as in independent. Why did he choose to do this, instead of standing as a Libertarian Party candidate? That would have been an extremely easy win for the Party with no extra effort - our first elected councillor. Withers was still Party Leader when he submitted the nomination papers for his candidacy, and this was prior to the storm triggered by the Anna Raccoon blog. A party leader's job is to promote their party, and having people in elected office (even on parish councils) is generally thought of as being a good thing by small parties on the grounds that it enhances their credibility. So why did Whithers stand as an independent? I did send him a polite email at the time, asking him about this - the reply I got was rambling, incoherent and aggressive in tone. It did include the following statement: <strong>"My reasons for not standing as a Libertarian Party candidate in the local elections ? because I would not have secured a seat." </strong>And yet the election was unopposed, so what sense does that make?<br /><strong>Why would a party leader who sincerely wants to advance the interests of Libertarianism in this country not stand as a Libertarian candidate?</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />Question 2: During the run up to the local elections last year, in my capacity as North West Regional Coordinator (and therefore a member of the National Coordinating Committee), I asked how many candidates we had, who and where they were. After all, a small party needs to mobilise its members to support <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">whatever</span> candidates it has. <strong>Andrew Withers refused to disclose this information to the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">NCC</span>. </strong>As a consequence of this, the information was not available to put on the Party website so that people could volunteer to help our candidate(s) by <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">leafleting</span> etc. And what else is a political party for, if it's not to support it's candidates? To this day I only have definite knowledge of one Libertarian Party candidate in last year's elections. Despite this betrayal by Andrew Withers, he actually got a fairly decent result.<br /><strong>Why did Andrew Withers betray our candidate(s) in this way?</strong><br /><strong></strong><br />Don't let Andrew Withers get away with his usual evasive replies and bully tactics. Get straight answers out of him for both these questions, it's your right to know. And don't forget to take a digital camera along to the "AGM" - I can put any digital video footage submitted to me on YouTube easily enough.Citizen Stuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00443867574420751639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-28854404784920478832012-03-22T15:44:00.002+00:002012-03-22T15:56:34.025+00:00The AGM That Isn't, Run By The Leaders Who Aren'tBefore the Libertarian Party website was taken down, supposedly “for maintenance”, it was announced – very quietly announced, in fact it was buried in the news section – that there was going to be an Annual General Meeting this coming Saturday. Here are the full details:<br /><br />Party AGM 24th March 2012 10am<br />Committee Room 2 Clevedon Town Council<br />44 Old Street, Clevedon, North Somerset<br /><br />Membership Card required for entry and £5 towards venue costs apply to <a href="mailto:membership@libertarianpartyuk.com">membership@libertarianpartyuk.com</a><br /><br />Federal Constitution to be approved<br /><br />New Manifesto for 2012 In Process<br /><br />There are several things wrong with this announcement:<br /><br /><ol><br /><li>The membership have not been directly informed – at least no member known to me has been emailed about this. Certainly I received no notification, which I certainly should have done being both a regional co-ordinator and long-standing member (Party Membership Number 12).</li><br /><li>The last Libertarian Party AGM was held in late 2010. The Party Constitution says that AGM's must be held no further apart than 15 months.</li><br /><li>The venue is extremely hard to get to.- the nearest railway station is nearly 4 miles away. Anyone would think the “leadership” didn't want ordinary members attending, especially in view of the early start time.</li><br /><li>The requirement for membership cards to be produced. I know of only one member in the North West region who has received one. Have the majority of active and formerly active members been blacklisted?</li><br /><li>The £5 entry fee. The group that is organising this event has no authority to ask for money.</li><br /><li>“Federal Constitution to be approved”. Not debated, but approved. Again, the group calling the so-called AGM has no authority to do this. This has not even been discussed by the National Co-ordinating Committee – even then it would be up to a vote by the attending members.</li><br /><li>“New Manifesto” - same as above. They have no authority.</li></ol><br /><p><br />Now the reason that the group organising this meeting has no authority to do any of this is that they're not the NCC. During the internal crisis that was triggered by the <a href="http://www.annaraccoon.com/politics/libertarian-liberties/">Anna Raccoon blog </a>last year, former Party Leader Andrew Withers resigned and has never been re-instated. That's right, the man who currently claims to be both Party Leader and Treasurer isn't even a member. Withers was Party Treasurer until the last AGM, in 2010, then he was elected Party Leader and another member was elected Treasurer. Unfortunately – and for reasons best known to himself – Withers failed to turn over the accounts and control of the Party bank accounts to the new Treasurer. Why would he do this unless he has something to hide?</p><br /><p>The upshot of all this is that control of the Libertarian Party bank accounts and – even more importantly – the membership list are no longer in the possession of the NCC. Instead they're in the hands of a small unelected group centred around Andrew Withers, Nic Coome and Ian Parker-Jospeph. This has left the Party completely paralysed since last year, and with no obvious prospects of recovery. People who really want to promote a libertarian alternative to mainstream politics would not act in this way – as a matter of fact, Withers' group did actually try to de-register the Party last year, without success.</p><br /><p>So we have an unelected group holding a fake AGM in a place and time that most members will find it difficult to access. This looks very much like Withers and his gang trying to complete the coup they started last year. They won't profit from this.</p><br /><p>Here's my advice to any Libertarian Party members who plan to attend this so-called AGM:</p><br /><ol><br /><li>Don't pay the £5 they're asking for. Withers and his mob have no authority to ask you for any money, and there's no way of knowing how the money is going to be spent. <a href="http://libertarianhome.co.uk/2012/03/lpuks-accounts-investigation-update/">The money raised by the Party prior to last year's implosion has not been properly accounted for, despite the best efforts of honest members to obtain this information</a>.</li><br /><li>Ask Withers for a full accounting of Party funds. It's YOUR money, you have the right to know how it's been spent.</li><br /><li>Demand that Withers and his cronies surrender control of the bank accounts, financial records and membership lists to the legitimate NCC without delay.</li><br /><li><a href="http://libertarianhome.co.uk/2012/03/second-webbie-burned-by-lpuk/">Ask Withers why the IT contractor who was in charge of re-vamping the website doesn't seem to have been paid</a>.</li><br /><li>Make sure your questions, and any answers you receive, are properly recorded, preferably with a digital video camera. Andrew Withers, Nic Coome and Ian Parker-Joseph all have a history of dishonesty, so it's as well to record the proceedings. If there are two or three people with cameras and/or voice recorders present, so much the better.</li></ol><br /><p><br />I joined the Libertarian Party because I believed that it was necessary to have openly libertarian people taking part in the electoral process and promoting libertarian ideas in order to counteract the statist trend of the last century. I still believe this to be necessary – two years of relative inaction by the current government has shown that just getting rid of Labour was not enough. There's a lot of good work that can be done by an effective Libertarian Party, especially at local level. But the Libertarian Party will never be an effective organisation as long as it's resources are under the control of a gang of crooks.<br /></p>Citizen Stuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00443867574420751639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-85527490242295102422011-12-10T00:03:00.001+00:002011-12-10T00:06:42.357+00:00North West Libertarians December MeetupFor those who haven't seen the notice on Facebook, there will be an informal meetup of libertarians in the Kro2 Bar, Oxford Road, Manchester on Sunday 11th December, starting about 1.00pm. This will be the last North West libertarian meetup of 2011, but hopefully not the last one ever.<br /><br />This has been a bad year for the Libertarian Party. For those who aren't aware of what's been going on, a few months ago the Party's assets – mainly the bank account and membership records – fell into the hands of a small unelected group who have refused to hand these records over to the legitimate National Coordinating Committee. This group is headed by the former Treasurer, who failed to hand over the financial records to the incoming Treasurer. The former Treasurer had been elected Leader at last year's AGM, but later resigned following allegations of misconduct. Unfortunately he failed to register this fact with the Electoral Commission, for reasons which I can only speculate about, and gathered a group of his chronies about him to take control of the Party. In flagrant breach of the Party constitution, they have also failed to hold an AGM this year – I can only assume that this is because they don't want to face any awkward questions from the membership. At one point, they even tried to de-register the Party, but failed because they needed the cooperation of one member of the legitimate NCC, who naturally refused to do this. The situation at the moment is that, although the Libertarian Party still exists as a legal entity, there is no organisation and no internal communication.<br /><br />Some people have said that this proves that a Libertarian Party is not a practical proposition. I disagree. Other countries have thriving Libertarian Parties, I see no reason for Britain to be different. The way I see it, the real problem is that we didn't give enough thought to how we should be organised when we were first setting up. There was never any real support for local activism. There was also not enough oversight of the leadership's activities. These are lessons we can learn from in the future. Because I believe that there is a place for an effective Libertarian Party in this country. It could be that the current party will end up being de-registered, in which case the way will be open for a group of ex-members with honest intentions to set up a successor organisation. Or maybe the cabal who have siezed control of our party will see sense and step aside.<br /><br />Either way, a Libertarian Party of some kind will rise from the ashes.Citizen Stuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00443867574420751639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-32585510710016940502011-07-05T22:34:00.006+01:002011-09-14T10:26:57.204+01:00Some useful BlogsAs it's gone quiet on here recently. I thought it would be useful to point our readers in the direction of some blogs by current and former LPUK members<br />
<br />
<br />
Libertarian Party - <a href="http://www.libertarianpartyuk.com/">http://www.libertarianpartyuk.com/<br />
<br />
</a>Thoughts on Morality - Rational Anarchist - <a href="http://thoughtsonmorality.blogspot.com/">http://thoughtsonmorality.blogspot.com/</a><br />
<br />
Anna Raccoon - <a href="http://www.annaraccoon.com/">http://www.annaraccoon.com/</a><br />
<br />
Stuart Heal's Sell a Man a Fishing Rod - <a href="http://sellamanafishingrod.blogspot.com/">http://sellamanafishingrod.blogspot.com/</a><br />
<br />
Take care,<br />
<br />
DazDaz Pearcehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935407418226324575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-42901409451130643172011-04-05T12:56:00.003+01:002011-04-05T15:34:52.349+01:00Let's expose another statist lie...So Cigarettes and alcohol go up again in the budget - in tobacco's case a whopping 7% rise means paying £7 for a deck of 20 is a not unusual occurrence in the shops. Of course, our paternal big brother who always knows best has been telling us for years that this is to offset the costs to the precious 'sacred cow' of the NHS in terms of liver failure, lung cancer and what have you. However, I distinctly remember a buget 10 years ago where the price of cigarettes went up to around £4 for 20 when we were told the increased duty would pay for these expenses. Makes you wonder why the state never got off the escalator. The suspicion that the real intent was of course to change people's behaviour is clear, and there was just the faintest hint of his before the budget when Dave boasted about the reduction in the number of smokers nationally. It is of course no business of the state to use taxation to change a person's lawful behaviour patterns, and part of me wishes a government would actually have the balls to follow through its statist instincts and propose banning tobacco and alcoholic drink of all kinds. Then we could finally have an honest discussion about the kind of country we want to live in. Meanwhile, here's one for all those with private medical insurance - as your filthy drinking and smoking habits cost the NHS the square root of nothing, keep all your receipts for cigarettes, whiskey whatever and at the end of the financial year, write to your local HMRC asking for some kind of rebate. After all, it's your medical insurance, paid for out of your own pocket that is picking up the tab. £20 says their reply will be an admission that the it was never about money it was about behaviour control. Wouldn't it be nice to see the bullies and control freaks being honest with us about their agenda for once?Daz Pearcehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935407418226324575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-6058458480759492422011-01-29T12:33:00.001+00:002011-01-29T12:35:45.245+00:00Debating AVHere's a recent televised debate between the Establishment politician Margaret Beckett and Jonathan Bartley, who heads the campaign group "Yes to Fairer Votes". Personally I think Mr Bartley got the upper hand in this debate, but you make your own mind up:<br /><br /><object style="height: 390px; width: 640px"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bJjI2uJseBE?version=3"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bJjI2uJseBE?version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="390"></object><br /><br />On 5th May, we're all going to get the chance to vote for or against the introduction of the Alternative Vote system (AV), a seemingly small but significant change to the existing First Past The Post (FPTP) system. The difference with AV is that you number the candidates in order of preference, so you put 1 next to the guy you want to elect, 2 next to your second choice and so on. If your first choice doesn't get enough votes to be elected, then he's eliminated and your vote gets transferred to your second choice. This should eliminate the problem of tactical voting - instead of voting for whoever you think has the best chance of beating the guy you really don't want to get in, regardless of whether you like them or not, you can give your first preference to your favoured candidate without fear of your vote being wasted.<br /><br />Although it's not a proportional system, it's an improvement on the current one. Not only will it eliminate wasted votes, it should also give a clearer picture of what kind of government the electorate actually want. The Libertarian Party supports this proposed reform, as do a broad range of other minority parties. Funnily enough, it's less popular with Establishment politicians, who seem to be generally happy with the system that got them elected (very often on small minorities).<br /><br />5th May is going to be an opportunity to introduce a beneficial constitutional reform and give us, the general public, a bit more say in how this country is run. Don't miss the chance to vote Yes to fairer votes.Citizen Stuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00443867574420751639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-22176150625634321252011-01-01T15:21:00.002+00:002011-01-01T16:20:07.741+00:00Happy New Year from the Libertarian PartyThe North West branch of the Libertarian Party would like to wish everyone a peaceful and prosperous new year.<br /><br />It's true that the country is still in a bad economic situation, and will be for some time (at least in my opinion), but things <strong>can</strong> change for the better - it's just taking longer for us to recover from the recession than it should do, but even the most misguided economic policies can't completely stifle the entrepreneurial spirit.<br /><br />2010 wasn't a bad year for the Libertarian Party. For the first time since our formation in late 2007, we fielded four candidates for election at the same time - two in the General Election and two in the local elections. No big breakthroughs yet, but you don't just set up a new party and get swept to power overnight. Every election we fight, we'll get better at it and we'll get better known, so watch out for us in this year's local elections.<br /><br />Cheers!Citizen Stuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00443867574420751639noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-74796483232696401572010-12-19T18:57:00.003+00:002010-12-20T09:07:55.415+00:00Are the Young, Free and Ugly the new oppressed?Listening to Stasi Radio is a useful way of gaining an insight into how the other lot think and hey I pay the compulsory licence fee so why not while it's there? A fascinating conversation broke out 2 weeks ago on the airwaves between a man who wanted to force marriage upon everybody (presumably by drawing lots amongst us singletons) and a cohabitee with kids who seemed nice enough and saw tying the knot as a lifestyle choice she had chosen not to make.<br /><br />"Marriage is best" apparently - people whose parents stay married regardless of whether they can still stand each other do better in education and thus have better employment prospects. What the Tory/religious/busybody tendency invariably neglect to mention is that teenage pregnancies, addiction problems and their social side effects (i.e. single parenthood and broken homes) tend to spike in areas with failing comprehensive schools and subsequently low aspiration.<br /><br />These houses of broken dreams have made a niche of unleashing illiterate and innumerate young men into a society where work is scarce in a failing economy but welfare is everywhere you look. The reality is it is the social ills and the lack of opportunity that are feeding single parenthood and broken marriages, not, as the Tories would have you believe, the other way round.<br /><br />But Iain Duncan Smith, a good man who is right every now and then, has decided that the real issue is that not enough of us are getting hitched, or into a civil partnership if you're that way out, and I thought, "it didn't take the Tories long did it?."<br /><br />In the past, their pet hate was gay people, most clearly illustrated by the introduction of the repulsive Section 28 in 1986. So last year, in his attempt to convince us all he was some sort of 'liberal', Dave turned up at Mardi Gras and Pride, apologising for the law and promising any new tax break or benefit for marriage would apply to civil partnerships too.<br /><br />However, nobody becomes and stays a Conservative for no good reason. As a breed, they are a judgemental lot (I'd know from being in CF for two years) and I always got the impression that they had a league table of 'ways of life' that they kept in their pocket or at least mentally. "Married, two kids, churchgoer, captain of local cricket team" was at the top, while "gay, single, no ties" was rock bottom. Now in a marriage of convenience between Cameron and the 'pink and proud' community, it is the unmarried hetrosexual who finds himself as the scum of the Tory earth.<br /><br />When people talk about giving a handout to someone, I never hear it asked, "ah yes but who is paying for it?. Who is putting the money in the pot and walking away so someone else can take it?" Personally, I find it obscene that a single person on a modest income should subsidse the lifestyle choice of a couple who may be on thrice the takehome pay of the individual funding the largesse. It has already been accepted that the money is highly unlikely to steer a couple one way or the other, so it can only be a highly expensive gesture that does marginal damage to some and no good to anybody.<br /><br />Once we get to work on the real issues, these questions tend to take care of themselves - personally the idea of getting married doesn't interest me at this point in time, and when IDS and his friends act like the <em>street pushers of the tied knot</em>, its appeal becomes even less.Daz Pearcehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935407418226324575noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-64027372573577138372010-12-19T18:53:00.002+00:002010-12-19T18:56:29.533+00:00Sorry Students - the Statists let you downWhen discussing LPUK policy with a distinctly statist friend of mine a couple of weeks ago, we got onto the subject of welfare reform, and explored our basic aim of incrementally rolling back a great deal of the welfare state. He said to me in a rather animated fashion "look Daz, I've been paying into the system, so if I lose my job tomorrow why should I not get the dole?". This brought to me that what we are really looking to do is renegotiate the terms and conditions between state and citizen in a way that we believe will benefit the individual in the long run, and was at the front of my thoughts while watching the first genuine riots seen in this country for many years.<br /><br />The state currently guzzles almost half of GDP in Britain, a frightening statistic, and one which we all want to see gradually brought down to a figure that leaves a skeletal safety net while causing minimal infringement on people's ability to live prosperous, free and fulfilling lives. However, if one works from the assumption that big brother takes 45-50% of the cake, then I don't think it's unreasonable to say "yes I want an education and a state pension to come out of that - after all if you hadn't taken the money from me/my parents that is what I/they would have spent it on". Not everybody has even a basic grasp of economics, and the importance of risk vs reward equations in driving growth in the private sector. Nor is it fair to expect everyone to read Milton Friedman...the Welfarists of Labour and the Corporatist Tories have lied through their teeth to people and tried to run an unsustainable system for decades.<br /><br />Now we are where we are, and the students of today wonder why the education that had been 'free' to their parents (who had the same 'tax-welfare contract') is no longer free to them. They were misled, and happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when the system finally imploded. Yes I feel sorry for them.<br /><br />The conversation people always seem to have is "do we want a health system run on NHS principles?", "do we want comprehensive education directed from the centre?" and "do you want taxation to fund a state pension?". Scared of change or that their taxes will not be cut in line with reduced state provision, many answer "yes". What is very rarely if ever asked, certainly not in the statist media, is "is that model sustainable given the country we have now, and the changing demographics from the birth of welfarism 60 years ago?". I'm no economist but even a layman can see that what we need more than anything is real growth, a rapid reduction in the relative size of the state in terms of spend, and a fundamental shift in what government takes from you and gives back in return.<br /><br />In the short-term, perhaps we should go back to the old arrangement of free degrees, but with only the best and brightest doing them (this is purely a personal view and not LPUK policy), Further downstream, allowing parents to keep more of their hard-earned will mean that many will be able to look at these choices themselves more proactively, whereas the challenge for us will be seeing the best of the American model adopted over here. Nobody who gets a place at Harvard ends up declining it because of their background and encouraging a climate of social mobility out of the rubble of the present will not be easy. Neither will re-visiting the state-citizen contract that has been in place since 1945, but when something is not nice, that normally means it is necessary.Daz Pearcehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935407418226324575noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-3359141848518692452010-11-24T15:02:00.001+00:002010-11-24T15:04:09.504+00:00Press Release Relating to the Electoral CommissionThis afternoon the following email was received from the Electoral Commission and is their considered opinion on Vince Cable's attempt to remove Andrew Withers as Leader of the Libertarian Party through the Courts.<br /><br /><strong>The current proceedings taken against you is a matter for the Courts to decide. If the party makes an application to appoint you as Leader, then we shall consider the application in accordance with PPERA taking account of any implications of the Court decision. If approved, we shall update the party's registered entry.</strong><br /><br />So the considered opinion of the Electoral Commission is that the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills has the right to determine who shall and who shall not be the Leader or an officer of a political party.<br /><br />Also that it is the Electoral Commission's considered opinion that it is up a Court to decide whether Andrew Withers will be the elected leader of a registered political party, not the members, and that the Electoral Commission will approve an 'application' from the Party, not a notification from the members that a new Leader has been elected.<br /><br />Freedom of Association has been the bedrock of our Parliamentary Democracy, under the Coalition that will be decided by the Government.<br />EndsCitizen Stuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00443867574420751639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-40006765653862377272010-11-20T13:07:00.003+00:002010-11-24T13:38:14.204+00:00The media and pro-royal sychophancy - pass the prozacSo Prince William and Kate Middleton are getting married...good for them I suppose. The refusal of many, this writer included, to acknowledge the validity of the monarchy as an institution should not extend to out and out hatred of the individuals within it and it is clear that Wills is marrying the love of his life. This at least makes a pleasant change from some of the recent history within the palace, although the attempts by some in the media to claim that this is the monarchy 're-inventing' itself have been rather amusing. Kate Middleton may not be an absolute toff or have actual blue blood running through her veins, but she hardly qualifies as 'common as muck' either. This is another instance of the mainstream media and their curious love affair with the elite - watching the hysteria over the last few days has been at best perplexing and, more realistically, enough to drive any sane meritocrat up the wall.<br /><br />Watching and listening to the BBC or Sky News, or reading any of the major news publications, one would think that there was not a soul on these isles who was not overcome by the news that an immensely posh young man and a slightly less posh young lady were finally tying the knot. You could be forgiven for believing that those deprived of work, hope and aspiration by the failed corporate state would forget their failed search for purpose and income and rejoice in the 'wonderful news' that would 'cheer up the nation'. So David Cameron slept on the mall the day before Charles and Di wed...he really should have kept this to himself. Who are these people who take such delight in toadying to the establishment? Do they not have lives, interests and hobbies of their own? (then again, this is a man whose idea of rebellion was trashing a restaurant with his Bullingdon club mates then getting daddy to pay for the damage). Having heard that 'Britons have never had it so good' in the same week, can a kind contributor confirm that we have not all been taken on some obscene 1950s time warp?<br /><br />Hearing Chris Evans refer those not taken in by it all as 'a few sad republicans' this week was infuriating but perhaps not surprising. Evans is a lot more intelligent than he looks or sounds, but his journey from hip pioneer of avante-garde television and radio 15 years ago to safe-as-houses replacement for Wogan on Stasi radio is clear evidence that 'growing up' is not always a good thing and that 'normality' turns young people into tired old ones at an alarming pace. This writer has written an e-mail to Evans reminding him of his duty to report on the news with fairness and impartiality and will of course blog his reply on here should one arrive. Moreover, if the day of the wedding is declared a public holiday as has been mooted, this writer will be making a point of turning up at his place of work, even if it is only to twiddle his thumbs and browse the internet.<br /><br />Us subjects/peasants are, <em>one presumes, </em>supposed to be eternally grateful for the extra day off - sounds like a pretty pathetic bribe for monarchist support if you ask me. If enough of us refuse to take the bait and turn up for work at the usual time, our managers will be forced to get out of bed even if it is only to send us all home. Should it become a nationwide thing then the pro-royal media would have to report it. And that would really stick in the craw, believe me.<br /><br />...................................<br /><br />EDITOR'S NOTE<br /><br />Just as a point of clarification, I'd like to make it clear that the Libertarian Party is not a republican organisation - but we're also not a royalist organisation either. Some libertarians are royalist and some are republicans, and when the Libertarian Party was formed we made a deliberate decision not to have a party line on this particular issue. Let's face it, there are more urgent things to take care of, like crime, unemployment, taxation, debt and the police state. I personall would like Britain to become a republic, but that's an issue that goes beyond party politics - if it happens in my lifetime, it will have to happen as a result of a national referendum. I see no other legitimate way to bring about such a basic constitutional change.<br /><br />In the meantime, we live in the system as it exists now - and when the Libertarian Party meets for its AGM on Saturday, I'm sure I won't be the only libertarian republican who will raise a glass to the future happiness of Mr Windsor and his bride.Daz Pearcehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935407418226324575noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-47567291171624975782010-11-17T21:22:00.003+00:002010-11-17T21:56:52.945+00:00The Libertarian Party and State OppressionThe following was copied from Gregg Beaman's blog, <a href="http://abriefencounter.blogspot.com/2010/11/libertarian-party-and-state-oppression.html">"A Brief Encounter":</a><br /><br />Below is an open letter to John Bercow written by a friend and colleague of mine, Andrew Withers. Andrew is a founder member of the <a href="http://lpuk.org/">Libertarian Party</a> and is standing, unopposed, for the party leadership later this month. I have been happy to support Andrew and continue to do so despite Vince 'Big Brother' Cable's actions. The actions of the Coalition in this instance just prove why we need a libertarian party, and why the Liberal Democrats are anything but liberal:<br /><br /><strong><em>Mr John Bercow</em></strong><br /><strong><em>Speaker to the House of Commons</em></strong><br /><strong><em></em></strong><br /><strong><em>Dear Mr Bercow</em></strong><br /><strong><em></em></strong><br /><strong><em>On the 12th November 2010 the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills Dr Vince Cable MP instructed a firm of solicitors, Osborne Clarke of Bristol to write to District Judge Watson of the Bristol Registry requiring that I have leave of the Court to act as elected Leader of the Libertarian Party, further more and I quote:</em></strong><br /><strong><em></em></strong><br /><strong><em>‘Our client does not consider that Mr Withers has currently demonstrated sufficient need for leave in respect of the entity’</em></strong><br /><strong><em></em></strong><br /><strong><em>The Libertarian Party is a registered party within the meaning of the Political Parties,Elections and Referendums Act 2000, and I have a mandate from the members of the party to act as the party leader as from the 27th November, what further sufficient need do I require ?</em></strong><br /><strong><em></em></strong><br /><strong><em>It is extraordinary that a Minister of the Crown has made such a legal move against the leader of a minor party and creates a dangerous precedent constitutionally. Can you please advise when government ministers and the executive think that they can act in such a manner, and interfere with the internal workings of another party through the Courts.</em></strong><br /><strong><em></em></strong><br /><strong><em>Can you please urgently advise as Chairman of the Speakers Committee under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act, when such powers were transfered from the Electoral Commission and to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills.</em></strong><br /><strong><em></em></strong><br /><strong><em>I have no intention of seeking the leave of the Court to act as the leader of the Libertarian Party and I suspect this act is both illegal and ultra vires on the part of the Secretary of State. I am urgently seeking Counsels opinion on this letter.</em></strong><br /><strong><em></em></strong><br /><strong><em>I would be grateful for your urgent observations by return.</em></strong><br /><strong><em></em></strong><br /><strong><em>Yours sincerely</em></strong><br /><strong><em></em></strong><br /><strong><em>Andrew P Withers</em></strong><br /><strong><em></em></strong><br /><strong><em>Leader Designate</em></strong><br /><strong><em>Libertarian Party</em></strong><br /><br />In the latest turn of events in Andrew's four year legal tussles with The Department of Business, Innovation & Skills, a District Judge in the Bristol Registry has ordered that he should list all of the companies and organisations that he is an executive member of so that it can be decided by the Court whether he should be given permission to continue. Amongst the organisations specifically named is the Libertarian Party.<br /><br />On the 22nd September 2010, the Information Commissioner ruled that when the Department was being run by Mandelson it withheld evidence that Andrew Withers wished to rely on in Court, and that they should release it ‘without further delay’. That ruling has so far been ignored by The Secretary of State’s officials. If the order is further ignored by this Friday, Andrew Withers will be seeking a Court Order to compel the Secretary Of State to comply with the ICO order under sec7 (9) Data Protection Act 1998.<br /><br />Andrew's local MP is Dr Liam Fox and has been extremely supportive in a case that he has called in a personal telephone call a ‘scandal’, and found time in the midst of the strategic defence review to have personal meeting with Ed Davey MP the responsible Minister in the coalition Government on the 27th September 2010 to discuss the case. After which Ed Davey has ordered a review into the case by senior officials and a meeting has been suggested with senior officials to try to resolve the situation.<br /><br />Andrew is currently writing a book about his experiences, and admits that new chapters are being added as one man’s fight against a politicised bureaucracy continues into a fifth year.<br /><br />The story started in 2006 when a French company that Andrew was a gerant (director) of was illegally placed into liquidation by its French Director in contravention of the company statuts and on a perjured statement of affairs. The Court appointed Receiver was paid 8000€ to bury the company, and the French Director made off with the assets and finished goods . An investigating French barrister appointed by Andrew Withers visited the Receiver in Coutances and noted that there were no accounts, invoices or supporting documentation. The Barrister described the situation as the worst case of corporate fraud he had seen in over forty years of practice.<br /><br />The unfortunate direct consequence of this fraud was that it brought down the British company down as well and it ceased trading in 2006 unfortunately four customers and a number of corporate creditors lost money.<br /><br />The company was wound up in 2007, and Andrew presented himself to the Official Receiver with supporting documentation and statements from the French Investigating Barrister as to the veracity of the illegal winding up of the company by the French Director causing the failure of the company. He was complemented on the professionalism of the presentation of the narrative and whilst he could not promise that nothing more would be heard from the Insolvency Service, he was satisfied with the narrative.<br /><br />In October 2007 , Andrew became one of the five founding members of the Libertarian Party sickened by the growth of the security state established by Blair and continued by Brown and the fact that the State was out of control and the State was absorbing more and more taxpayers funds. Three days later the run on Northern Rock began.<br /><br />From this point the story started to take a bizarre and disturbing twist.<br /><br />■Despite the French fraud being reported to Avon and Somerset Police and the Insolvency Service which is part of the then Business,Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. A furious French Colleague contacted Andrew to report that the French Director had just been given an award presented by the British Ambassador to Paris and Lord Digby-Jones (GOAT)<br /><br />■From redacted documents secured under the Freedom of Information Act, the French Director started lobbying to have Andrew investigated in April 2008.<br /><br />■In June 2008 he received a letter from the Insolvency Service in Plymouth to say he was under investigation under the terms of the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986, this despite them having no accounts because they could not access the electronic copies of the SAGE accounts.<br /><br />■In November 2008 the Assistant Official Receiver confirmed in an email that in their view the French subsidiary was not part of their investigations as their advice was that it was not possible for French companies to have foreign shareholders !<br /><br />■The conduct of the investigation was the source of endless abuse, the interviewer was balefully ignorant of commercial law, gave off the appearance of being a former policeman, told a number of direct lies and allowed Andrew to look at a former employee’s personal bank statements and files in contravention of the Data Protection Act, then could offer no explanation what those statements and files were doing with the company documentation.<br /><br />■The Company’s former accountants were threatened with investigation, to the extent that they took legal advice.<br /><br />■Mandelson was appointed Secretary of State 3rd October 2008, it is his decision to seek disqualification orders against company directors. Liam Fox MP met Andrew and was shown all of the documentation relating to the criminal fraud. Fox lobbied Mandelson and was rebuffed.<br /><br />■Further evidence was supplied to the Secretary of State in July 2009, including witness statements and French Court documents to show the extent of the French Fraud and the effect it had had on the British Company. All of this evidence was rejected and returned to Andrew unread.<br /><br />■From redacted documents received by Andrew under FOI , the Official Receiver’s recommendation to move forward to Proceedings was rejected for lack of evidence in May 2009, saying it ‘required more work done on it’<br /><br />■In August 2009 with days to spare before being statute barred, proceedings were authorised by Secretary of State Mandelson against Andrew to be disbarred as a director for eight years. If Andrew was so minded to sign a confession and to say a false set of accounts prepared by the Secretary of State were true (that omitted the French subsidiary) , the ban would be reduced to seven years.<br /><br />■Andrew and his lawyers refused to sign, and tried to negotiate with the appointed lawyers to no avail to drop the case.<br /><br />■When the evidence in the case was finally released to Andrew it soon became apparent that-<br /><br />■The winding up order made against the company was made by somebody who was not a creditor. The Official Receiver knew this and sought to hide the supporting documentation and invoices that had been altered<br /><br />■The French Director had supplied the Official Receiver with forged Delivery Notes, the Official Receiver made no attempt to verify them.<br /><br />■The Official Receiver had made no attempt to contact the Court appointed Receiver in Coutances, but entered into very friendly correspondence with the French Director. The Official Receiver allowed the transfer of assets , goods and cash to the French Director’s company at nil value.<br /><br />It costs not less than £50 000 to mount a defence in actions such as this, Andrew’s legal insurers refused to consider this was an action they would cover, it does not take long to burn through legal fees, and with money running short Andrew compromised and settled on a voluntary undertaking with the Secretary of State for five and a half years not to act as a company Director with an undertaking that a s17 hearing would be heard by the District Judge before the undertaking took affect on July 13th 2010. The Court Order of 22nd June confirms that hearing never took place because the Secretary of State two days before the hearing in July had issued no instructions to counsel to attend and had broken the settlement by rushing into print and online trumpeting their success on the 1st July. The District Judge then signed an order to allow Andrew to continue to act as a Director in two designated companies, an order that was renewed on the 11th of October 2010 pending the outcome of the next full hearing.<br /><br />Andrew released the following personal statement in October:<br /><br /><strong><em>“I first wish to repudiate the voluntary undertaking I signed on 22nd June 2010, the accounts so presented were false, the Official Receiver knew they were false, I knew they were false, they were based on perjury in both French and English Courts, based on forged documents supplied by the French Director who colluded with the Official Receiver to transfer assets at nil value. I simply signed to end the attrition of costs by an overbearing State and because of the effect this war of attrition has had on my family. That is the end of one battle, but I have not given up the fight in this war.</em></strong><br /><strong><em></em></strong><br /><strong><em>I am grateful for the support of my legal teams in both France and England, to Liam Fox MP and to the members of the NCC of the Libertarian Party who refused to accept my offered resignation last June as Treasurer and Deputy Leader of the Party, and that despite the Court Order of the 11th October 2010 examining whether the poorly written, oppressive anti business CDDA 1986 can extend its authority over companies that are not registered in this country and to political parties and to charitable organisations, I will continue to seek the leadership of the Libertarian Party. Therefore it is only fair that all members are aware of this cloud that hangs over me before casting their vote.</em></strong><br /><strong><em></em></strong><br /><strong><em>I welcome the intervention of Ed Davey MP and look forward to the results of his review and for the opportunity of a meeting with senior officials to present the evidence that Dr Liam Fox has seen and quite rightly has called a scandal.</em></strong><br /><strong><em></em></strong><br /><strong><em>This will not however stop me seeking a Court order on the 25th October against the Secretary of State following the ruling of the Information Commissioner of the 22nd September. I will also be launching a civil action against the Secretary of State, Official Receiver and French Director, as both a creditor and shareholder of my former company for the wrongful transfer of assets , equipment and cash to the French Director at nil value.</em></strong><br /><strong><em></em></strong><br /><strong><em>I can however only express my displeasure at the lack of action by the Avon & Somerset Chief Constable in this case in relation to the Fraud and Theft that has occurred. The constant pleading of lack of resources has further undermined my confidence in Law enforcement.</em></strong><br /><strong><em></em></strong><br /><strong><em>I was a Classical Liberal before I help found the Party, my experiences of politicised public servants under the last administration have only confirmed that I must continue with that fight. I am confident the Parliament never intended the CDDA Act to be applied to foreign companies over which they have no jurisdiction , nor to political parties which is a breach of basic political Liberty, and I am confident that the Judge will come to the same conclusion "</em></strong><br /><br />ENDS<br /><br />I will be at the Party AGM on November 27th, look forward to greeting Andrew as our new Party Leader and will support him in any way I can in the face of state oppression. It seems that Cable is continuing the practice of Mandelsonian dark arts.Citizen Stuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00443867574420751639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-67131008613046537462010-11-10T23:50:00.003+00:002010-11-11T00:00:09.289+00:00Woolas Found Guilty<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_6G4W7dSVC8Mwmn_9k4gm3kTkZmb_9VdJYmlRLa88hQaRlQKQwxrGeaITjE7gBD92SvoR6Uvn9BrUlvFhMO3u13NLnnI0vCPwiH-G0_so27h-uwDH8kIoVI6-0TNd1KQAKpyrUuGQlzUO/s1600/woolas.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 332px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538074187436570994" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_6G4W7dSVC8Mwmn_9k4gm3kTkZmb_9VdJYmlRLa88hQaRlQKQwxrGeaITjE7gBD92SvoR6Uvn9BrUlvFhMO3u13NLnnI0vCPwiH-G0_so27h-uwDH8kIoVI6-0TNd1KQAKpyrUuGQlzUO/s400/woolas.jpg" /></a><br /><div></div>The former immigration minister's General Election win, by 103 votes, has been declared void.<br /><br />Candidate Elwyn Watkins launched the legal challenge, using a rarely-used election law, in response to a pamphlets produced by the Labour team.<br /><br />Mr Woolas won the seat by just 103 votes.<br /><br />The specially convened election court, chaired by two High Court judges, heard he sought to "make the white folk angry" by suggesting there was a Muslim campaign to kick him out.<br /><br />Mr Woolas denied the claim and argued he was right to say Mr Watkins was in a "pact with the devil" because he failed to condemn the alleged campaign.<br /><br />Former Lord Chancellor Charlie Falconer told Sky News Mr Woolas had not been convicted of a criminal offence as it was an election court.<br /><br />"Inevitably the consequences of there being a successful challenge in an electoral court for the first time in 100 years on the basis of fraud is bound to have ramifications right through the system," he said.<br /><br />During the hearings, Mr Watkins' QC Helen Mountfield, said: "Mr Woolas' team had made an overt and, some may say, shocking decision to set out to 'make the white folk angry' by depicting an alleged campaign by those who they described generically as Asians to 'take Phil out' and then present Mr Watkins as in league with them.<br /><br />She accused Mr Woolas of making "false statements as part of a series of reckless and irresponsible steps in this campaign - using doctored photographs, misrepresenting facts, stooping even to fomenting racial divisions and tensions".<br /><br />Sky News<br /><br />The election has to be re run, Woolas is patently not fit to hold public office. The rotting stench of the last Labour administration still hangs in the air.<br /><div align="center"></div>Citizen Stuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00443867574420751639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-22249699534126907322010-09-20T01:36:00.002+01:002010-09-20T01:42:02.770+01:00Labour's war on charities<a href="http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1328114_council_to_crack_down_on_charity_muggers">Here's a nasty story from the Manchester Evening News</a>. It seems that the Labour-dominated city council intend to crack down on charity workers, specifically the type who hang around places like Market Street and Piccadilly, asking people for permission to set up direct debits for regular donations. The MEN unflatteringly describes these guys as “charity muggers” or “chuggers”. Apparently shoppers have complained about feeling “harassed” and “intimidated” by them.<br /><br />Sorry, but if you feel intimidated by a charity worker, you really need to grow a backbone. Unlike real muggers, they're not going to stick a knife in your ribs and demand money with menaces. And unlike Manchester City Council, they have no legal power to take your money from you without your permission. If you're approached by a charity worker in the street, and you either don't want to donate money or you can't afford to, a polite “no” will normally do – and if some misguided charity worker tries to give you the hard sell, all you need to do is calmly walk away.<br /><br />So what's the problem?Citizen Stuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00443867574420751639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-73933760970498464082010-09-04T00:12:00.003+01:002010-09-04T00:20:19.008+01:00North West Meet Up, 5th SeptemberIt's that time of the month again. It hardly seems any time at all since the last regional meet up, but it's been a very active month (certainly for me personally, hence the light blogging).<br /><br />This month's meet up is at our usual Manchester watering hole, the Kro2 Bar on Oxford Road (near the BBC). There should be a lot to talk about as we now have several prospective candidates for next year's local elections and we're aiming to establish a more formal organisation for the North West branch.<br /><br />As usual, this meet up isn't just open to Libertarian Party members, everyone's welcome, just turn up and introduce yourself if you'd like to find out a bit more about what the Libertarian Party's about and what we aim to achieve. We're a friendly group, especially once we've got past the first couple of beers.Citizen Stuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00443867574420751639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-55682703367712728522010-08-25T23:22:00.004+01:002010-08-25T23:33:22.691+01:00Still fighting "them" on the beaches<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv5f838ja5k-1-pWfyggrJ2KSKiSx-nIoAE_tthvnoB3XDUGjYcvV4gI38QMCHIvyPGwKpX1rg50o0CWhOoPr3ap550aP7qMC-iSF_Zp7XLAiMarbXtan5WnnDi4TC9zgo7TTE6UsxhDY8/s1600/Raccoon-Soldier-227781.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 276px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509478256193440034" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv5f838ja5k-1-pWfyggrJ2KSKiSx-nIoAE_tthvnoB3XDUGjYcvV4gI38QMCHIvyPGwKpX1rg50o0CWhOoPr3ap550aP7qMC-iSF_Zp7XLAiMarbXtan5WnnDi4TC9zgo7TTE6UsxhDY8/s400/Raccoon-Soldier-227781.jpg" /></a> <div align="center"></div><div></div><div>The War goes on ! The war against Fascism (The marriage of the big State with big Corporations) we were told ended in 1945. Another skirmish has broken out, that the Libertarian Party is pleased to be part of-</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>All the links in the following article reproduced in full are to be found here on the <a href="http://www.annaraccoon.com/politics/fighting-them-on-the-sandwell/#comments">Anna Raccoon site</a></div><br /><div></div><br /><div>70 years ago this week, Winston Churchill made his famous speech immortalising the words ‘Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.’ He did so to rally every man and woman in these Isles to support the war effort:</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>“because we have been nurtured in freedom and individual responsibility and are the products, not of totalitarian uniformity, but of tolerance and variety.”</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Sheila Martin was a fragile babe in arms when her Mother heard those words. Too young to understand the menace behind the Messerschmitts and Heinkels screaming overhead and disturbing her slumber. She was the intended beneficiary of Churchill’s words, one of the generation of children that depended on the bravery of British men such as her Father, away in France fighting for the freedom, tolerance and variety that was Britain’s hallmark.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Today, Sheila is once more fragile; she is 70 years old and was widowed 30 years ago. She tells me she has survived five heart attacks; she suffers from asthma, angina and high blood pressure. She only smokes the occasional cigarette these days, partly for health reasons, partly because her minimal state pension doesn’t stretch to any more.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>70 years after Churchill’s speech was made, she has retired from a lifetime of hard work.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>She was part of that unsung army of hard working, clean living, decent individuals, who cheerfully got up every morning and trudged off to put in a decent days work for a paltry wage as a ‘Mrs Mop’, raised her family, nurtured her marriage, made ends meet, saved little, but asked little in return, save the freedom, and tolerance that her older relatives had fought to provide. She is not a politically aware lady, nor insolent, nor ambitious for financial rewards.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>In common with other ‘Smokers’ who may not like the new laws prohibiting them from smoking where others may be offended by the practice, she respected the law of the land, and complied. She is no campaigner against such laws.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Thus it was that she found herself standing at a bus stop, waiting for the bus which would take her home, and taking the opportunity to smoke a cigarette in the open air – there was no bus shelter. She could no longer smoke a cigarette on the top deck of the bus. She had not been able to smoke a cigarette with the cup of tea she shared with her daughter in town. Now she must stand in the road to enjoy the ‘freedom, tolerance and variety’ of the British Isles.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>She only smoked half the cigarette; as the time drew close for the bus to arrive, she ‘nibbed’ the cigarette, letting the lit end fall to the ground, and thriftily stowing the other half of the cigarette in her handbag for a later occasion. It was her last cigarette until pension day.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Two of Sandwell’s famed ‘enforcement wardens’ approached her – a man and a woman. They told her that they were issuing a ‘Fixed Penalty Fine’ of £75 under Section 87 (1) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 as amended by Section 18 of the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005. This mouthful of gobblygook was lost on Sheila; she had no idea what she had done wrong and put the piece of paper in her pocket.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Once home, friends and neighbours clustered round to read this piece of officialdom. Sheila still had the ‘end’ of the cigarette, with its precious inch or so of un-smoked tobacco in her handbag, so how could she be accused of littering the street – it had to be the cigarette ash they were talking about?</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>I have spoken to Sandwell Council, they tell me that they do not issue fixed penalty notices for cigarette ‘ash’ – I am sure they don’t. I am equally sure that Mrs Martin is telling the truth when she tells me that the half cigarette with its ‘butt’ was still safely in her handbag when she returned home. So we are left with the quandary of whether the ‘lit’ end of a cigarette, which will become cigarette ‘ash’ within seconds, constitutes parliament’s intention when they defined litter as including:</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>In section 98 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (definitions), after subsection (5) insert—</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>“(5A)“Litter” includes—</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>(a) the discarded ends of cigarettes, cigars and like products, and</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>(b) discarded chewing-gum and the discarded remains of other products designed for chewing.”</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>If a court holds that it does, then every smoker is liable for a £75 fine every time they smoke a cigarette in the street. I do not believe that to be parliament’s intention.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>On Friday, the threatening ‘Final Demand’ from Sandwell Council, warning her that she now faces a £2,500 fine plus costs (and possible imprisonment if she does not pay that) expired. The next opportunity for Mrs Martin to contest this matter will come in ‘some months time’ – the council cannot tell me when her case will arrive at the top of their back log of cases to appear in the Magistrates court.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Sheila Martin is frightened, intimidated, and feels helpless in the face of this prosecution. She is in delicate health, aggravated by stress, and I have asked the council to reconsider their decision to press ahead with what may well be an interesting test case defining a cigarette end, but which will be at the expense of a frail and elderly person. They have referred me to their ‘revised Enforcement Policy’ – which makes for terrifying reading, a fine example of the totalitarian government Sheila’s Father fought so bravely to prevent. (available HERE)</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Nick Hogan, who I was instrumental in rescuing from prison after similar council action, has joined with me, the Libertarian Party and the Sunday Mercury, to ensure that Sheila suffers as little as possible from the council’s intransigence.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>We have already arranged for some very high powered legal representation for her, to put her mind at rest, and I have promised her that she will go to prison ‘over my dead body’ – she is obviously unable to pay this fine, or incremental increases of it, and I have personally guaranteed her that somehow I will make sure that she doesn’t have to pay it herself, nor go to prison.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>There is no need for money at present, all the legal beagles so far involved are kindly donating their time and expertise free of charge – although if there are any other lawyers out there who would like to join the team, this is one broth that will not be spoiled by too many cooks. My e-mail address is on the contact section of this blog.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>70 years ago we were prepared to ‘fight them on the beaches’ – how appropriate that today we prepare to fight them on the Sandwell……’ </div><br /><div>This article was originally posted by Guthrum on the <a href="http://lpuk.blogspot.com/">Libertarian Party's national blog</a>.</div>Citizen Stuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00443867574420751639noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-70173310687878996092010-07-24T12:48:00.002+01:002010-07-24T13:07:11.763+01:00Why the palace shouldn't play politicsMonarchists have always argued that one of the biggest assets of the status quo is that we have a head of state who is apolitical and has no interest in the tribal battle at Westminster. If Prince Charles' forays into the discussion about GM crops, architecture and suchlike were not already clear and irrefutable evidence that this argument is null and void, then the farce this week with the BNP and its leader Nick Griffin should surely be enough to convince many that the palace and politics are like oil and water.<br /><br />As an MEP, Griffin was invited to a garden party at the palace on Thursday and promptly turned up on television declaring that this was evidence of his party's 'legitimacy'. Now we all know this to be something of a spurious argument. Yes, they are legitimate in the sense that they exist (just about) legally and managed to acquire 1 million votes at the last Euro elections, seeing Griffin and Andrew Brons elected to the European parliament. However, they were invited just as members of every other represented party was as a matter of procedure. The invitation did not represent a ringing endorsement of the BNP from Her Maj, and Griffin was setting them a trap by insinuating that it did.<br /><br />Unfortunately, the palace appears to have walked straight into this and given the BNP a far greater publicity coup than turning up and munching a few sausage rolls would ever have done. People like Griffin build their myth on the concept that they are 'the enemy of the political class' and with this elite group held in contempt by so many, some voters have been liable to conclude that 'my enemy's enemy is therefore my friend'. Look, nobody contributing to this board has any truck with the man's wacky and sometimes hilarious politics. But not only do I think it was bad form to refuse a democratically elected MEP entry to the event because of such politics, it was also giving the oxygen of publicity to a man who knows how to use it.<br /><br />Remember at school, there was always a kid who said and did ridiculous things at the back of the class, becoming more and more extreme as others indulged him with the attention he craved? Of course, as you get older, you realise that ignoring them or just smiling and saying "yeah, whatever" tends to make them disappear. The political class have indulged Griffin for too long, and now the palace have assisted their self-sabotage. Maybe we should give ignoring him a go - after all it couldn't work out any worse?Daz Pearcehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07935407418226324575noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5588274335914278546.post-25358346955049681992010-07-24T01:21:00.000+01:002010-07-24T01:26:49.503+01:00The Leaflet War – Labour 2, LibDem 1The next local election in Manchester isn't till next May, but as far as the big parties are concerned, the election campaign is already on. I've had three publications through the door in the last few weeks that can be considered election leaflets.<br /><br />The first one was from Labour – an expensive looking glossy full colour leaflet with a picture of the local Labour mob on the front and a big “Thank You” headline. No need to thank me, I certainly didn't vote Labour – much more fun to run against them, even though the Labour candidate did manage to squeeze back in with a measly 2,247 more votes than me.<br /><br />The next leaflet I got was one of those LibDem Focus things – simpler colour scheme but broadly similar layout. Another “Thank You” headline. A few more pictures of the local LibDems and also a bit more text. Also one of those standard bar chart diagrams that they like to stick on the front of their Focus leaflets, showing LibDems and Labour as “neck and neck” and discounting the other four parties with the words “The other parties Vote has Collapsed” - this is untrue by the way, as you can easily check by having a look at the 2008 election results. The Tory and Green paper candidates got about the same result as last time. The BNP loser got more votes than last time, despite doing no campaigning – I put this down to a combination of having the benefit of also having a General Election candidate, plus the incredible amount of free publicity those clowns get from the other party. And of course, me being the first Libertarian Party candidate to stand in Manchester, we don't know yet what a typical Libertarian election result is going to be.<br /><br />I've got nothing against the opposition sending me this stuff. It's their right and the money to pay for it has been raised voluntarily. But the third publication that I've received is different.<br /><br />This publication is not technically a party political leaflet, but it might as well be. It's the latest edition of the “Manchester People” – a newspaper-style publication printed and distributed by Manchester City Council and funded by the taxpayer. Sixteen pages of propaganda saying what a great job the council is doing. The front page is dominated by a story praising the Manchester Day Parade - £200,000 down the drain, but not one word of criticism. Another story is about the council's plans to blow £1,000,000,000 redeveloping St Peter's Square. There's nothing much wrong with it at the moment, that I can see – maybe the councillors are just bored with the view. Again, it's a completely one-sided story, not admitting any criticism, typical of this publication. Although it doesn't actually tell you to vote Labour at the next election, since it consistently praises everything the council does, and as the council is dominated by Labour, the message is clear. Local councils shouldn't be allowed to get away with this kind of thing, and hopefully when the Libertarian Party gets some councillors elected we'll be able to put a stop to it. But for the time being the working people of this city are being forced to pay for this publication to the tune of over £140,000 per year.Citizen Stuarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00443867574420751639noreply@blogger.com0