No, MPs who were elected under one flag should under no circumstances be permitted to become cross-benchers or independents without a by-election being called. It’s a fact that most people vote for the party, not the person. Which is why parliament gets more than its fair share of awful MPs who wouldn’t stand a chance of being elected if there were no party system (discounting proportional representation being used). But anyway, these days I think the raising of petitions is a waste of time, and online petitions a sop to the public under the guise of us being allowed to be ‘interactive’.
A while ago I caught the tail-end of the RT interview with man-in-the-white-suit Martin Bell. For all the trumpeting of his moral crusade in becoming an independent MP, what seems to have been trivialised is that without his campaign being helped along by arch-fixer Blairite Alistair Campbell, he couldn’t have won. Effectively Mr Bell’s strategy in the 1997 election was for main party opposition to be removed – Campbell persuaded his own Labour Party and the Liberals not to field candidates (these would have split the vote, with neither having any chance of winning but every likelihood of diminishing Bell’s). Hardly a fair contest. But the end justified the dubious means when the horrible sleazy Neil Hamilton (along with his equally unpleasant wife) got his come-uppance and was cast out into the political wilderness (for a while). And later, Martin Bell as an MP did right by famously asking if his “slaying of one dragon [implying Hamilton]…” had allowed another “…with a red rose in it’s mouth [implying Blair]…” to take its place. Eventually Bell’s Quixotic escapade as a one-term independent MP came to an end; which is a shame because his Tatton constituency reverted back to conservative, but under
George Osborne…!
The ‘Gang of Eleven’ (well, it was while I was writing this) is most certainly agitating not for a genuine “People’s Vote” (we had one of those: the EU referendum) but a manipulated means to disregard the 52% people’s vote to leave the EU.
If we’re going to continue with the party system, then perhaps what we need is one which actually represents the population – a sort of nationalist/socialist/workers thing which would bring both left and right together…. A mad idea – it could be called the ZANY party. I bet it’d be nothing like anything that’s gone before….
Anyone want to buy a brown shirt? No? How about a black one, then?
Globelink’s Henry Davenport or ITN’s Reginald Bosanquet, Terry? I miss the old BBC newscasters – the ones who sat at a desk with just a sheaf of bulletins and a telephone, and narrated THE NEWS with a deadpan expression and emotionless voice, but without opinions, computerised gimmickry or bias (it used to take them about five minutes to do what now takes half-an-hour).
I never had much time for Derek Hatton, but I think this witch-hunting of the past indiscretions of figures in the public eye is becoming ridiculous across the world. I mean, no one should have to expect the Spanish Inquisition
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Originally Posted by MyNameIsTerry
