Nick Griffin acted swiftly to amend the BNP constitution, saying: “Section 4, which deals with the requirements for membership and includes the demand that members support all the principles of the party, is not protected. I have, therefore, with immediate effect changed the section 4 requirements, as I am entitled to do, to comply with the court order.  What this means is that people can apply to join the BNP without having to endorse and support the principles of the party.”

Regardless of whether or not you support the BNP’s aims,  it does seem a little bizarre.  After all,  isn’t politics about creating new laws or amending existing ones?

UPDATE Mon 25th:

In an interview with The Sunday Times yesterday, the darling Chancellor dismissed the move by Obama as acting for domestic political reasons only so there would seem to be no immediate rush to emulate the USA on this within the UK. “I don’t think America has any detail to show us” he said.

The Tories are however not quite so dismissive (see politics.co.uk). . . . .’Mr Osborne said. “I have said consistently that we should look at separating retail banking from activities like large scale propriety trading – and that this was best done internationally.” ‘

But notice that this contains a get-out clause, ie: it probably won’t happen unless every other country does it as well.

The publication Lobbying: Access and influence in Whitehall by the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee (First Report of Session 2008–09) has some good insights on how things work at the moment. It’s a bit heavy and 2.2MB download but if you can just read enough to get the gist of I think you should.

Economist Thomas Sowell defends corporate lobbying as “simply an example of a group having better knowledge of its interests than the people at large do of theirs.” (from Wikipedia)  So, people at large, are you happy with that?

One question that arose in early LobbyGroup discussions was “Would it be legally (or ethically) ok for ANY public servant to be a member of this lobby group?”  According to Rahere “The Civil Service Code is explicit in encouraging a degree of political involvement, as long as it does not compromise the Civil Service’s neutrality in any way – watch the Damian/Galley case with care, as although there is every indication there may be insufficient evidence to prosecute Damian Green.”

Decisions that you may want to effect may be anything from whether or not your track (that has been washed away by the rain) gets repaired to getting troops out of Afghanistan.  It is not the purpose of LobbyGroup.org to say which decision is important to you.  Though discussions are welcome.

LobbyGroup.org has been in existence for almost a year now and has varied in its aims and objectives as members have come and gone.  From now on,  its purpose will be to act as source of information for people – to give ideas about how they can affect what they want to affect.  The next post will hopefully be more detailed on this. In the meantime you can always check out DemocraticBritain..

Candidates will be selected by lottery – tickets go on sale tomorrow at £1 each.  This is seen as a win-win situation for no-one because of the minimal cost of administering the selection process plus generating money for doing very little.  No-one thinks this is a good way of selecting people for what are effectively safe-seats because “let’s face it: it can’t produces a bigger bunch of bozos than the current system.  In any case,  no-one will make sure they do a good job.”

The manifesto is simple: “no-one will be in charge!”.  And so – as soon as the election is over – no-one will knock off and go home until the next election.  A special hot-line will be set up, should anything vital arise,  to be known as “no-one cares“.  Of course no-one will answer the phone – no matter how trivial the matter is.

In between elections,  no-one will be looking into doing bigger and better things.  Sources close to no-one had indicated,  yesterday,  that they had plans to take over a complete country almost overnight as a trial-run.  Today,  this was confirmed by REUTERS: “Who’s running Haiti? No one, say the people“.   So the people have spoken and now it’s up to no-one to sort this out. Obviously no-one will be be to blame if it all goes tits-up.

Initial concerns were raised about the “Anyone” Party as a potential threat,  because of the likelihood that voters might be tempted to vote for “Anyone” if they had the choice on a ballot paper.  These fears were quickly dismissed by the party’s top-dog (known as no-one special )  “Ridiculous. ” he said, ” The voters are not gullible enough to believe that anyone is really interested in them“.

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to amend the general election ballot paper to include an ‘abstention’ option in addition to the named local candidates.”

Submitted by Simon Mortimer – Deadline to sign up by: 05 May 2010 – Signatures: 41 to date.

“Faith in politics and our system of democracy is badly shaken in this country following the expenses scandal, the Iraq war 45 minute claim, the failure to regulate the banks and the failure to protect our troops to name but four.

It is proposed to empower the electorate of this nation to positively register an objection to the current choice of leadership by including an option to express a lack of faith in all the candidates presented.

It is hoped that obtaining such information would spurn us to take a long, hard, honest look at ourselves and our existing systems of government and in so doing add to the democratic process.

Democracy only works if there is a viable choice available for the majority of the people to vote for.

Democracy does not work when the electorate feels forced to choose between the lesser of broadly unsatisfactory options.

As a democratic nation we should be actively exploring if this is the situation that has arisen so that we can consider doing something about it.

It will incur no significant additional cost to add an ‘abstention’ option onto the ballot paper.”

See also the The None of the above party ….

“Current political parties hold an effective monopoly on power. The victorious party swaggers into Downing Street having won a 35% share of the vote, of which a significant percentage voted for them as the ‘least worst’ option. If you then consider that there may have been a 50 – 60% turnout for the election, what type of mandate is that?

Millions of British voters refuse or simply don’t bother to vote, feeling that nobody represents them but that they have no alternative choice. These members of the electorate are often accused of apathy, but in reality are often driven by a considered rejection of policies or politicians on offer. These disenfranchised voters need a channel by which they can express an important view.

Democracy cannot allow poor quality political parties to take office – the country cannot afford it. No longer should some party be guaranteed access to power irrespective of policies or performance.

The bar is currently lying flat on the ground – it is time to raise it…”

The ideas may be a few years old but still fairly valid.

What we are trying to capture here is only the  really important society changing stuff.

Detailed debate can continue under the individual manifestos but this space is to capture the  fundamental policies that are badly needed.

I have had a first attempt below in capturing what I think the balance of debate has been leading towards, it is there to be debated and amended like anything else, we have to start somewhere.

Summary below straight off the bat just for starters:

The Constitution

Total Number of local and central government politicians to be reduced by approx 25%

The house of lords to be replaced by a ‘house of the learned’ or something similar, the majority of members will earn a place by being exceptional in your field of practise outside of politics. Spaces for lawyers, bankers and politicians will be strictly limited.  Methods of election of this new house and powers  to be confirmed.

All honours bestowed in the last 20 years to be reviewed and all honours will be continually reviewed. You can only stay a knight of the realm if you behave in a genuinly selfless public spirited or some other exceptional way and continue to do so and do nothing to put the honours status into disrepute. These people should be role models we all aspire to. The currency of ‘ honours’  has been cheapened to the status of cronyism.  This is more important than many realise to restore a positive aspiration in society to achive ‘honours’. It should be much easier for people to be stripped of honours, once gained it should be subject to review every 3 years (say).

Break up local councils into much smaller more local bodies (more like parish councils) for the people to feel a genuine connection with their community and have a direct influence over it. we must find a way to breach the ‘disconect’ between thep[eople and politicians.

Energy and the Environment

Phase out nuclear energy apart from for research purposes.

Phased re-nationalisation of energy provision services and reduced planning requirements for any renewable energy scheme.

Every constituency to issue an EDAP (Energy Descent Action Plan) explaining how it aims to ensure that food and shelter will still be available if/when cheap/available energy runs out.  Regular public update to be issued on how the plan is progressing.

Divert funds from ‘useless’ quangos, good for nothing university courses etc  into renewable energy research and industry, make it a national mission no matter what the energy companies say.

Employment, Education and Social Security

Set aside land / communities where the long term unemployed can choose to contribute in a ‘kibbutz’ type community rather than being placated on benefits on sink estates with sink schools. Give then something useful to do and aspire to that is sustainable and promotes a genuine sense of shared work and community, even if it simply sustains themselves they will feel they have apurpose and a descent social network.

Finance and Business

Automatic and mandatory 10% interest on all invoices outstanding over 60 Days to stop large corporations warping the credit market (Sainsbury / Tesco etc) for their gain off the back of great hardship for small suppliers and lots of hand rubbing for the banks.

55% of the board of directors of  the regulatory body for the financial industry are to be drawn from business outside the banking industry. It is too important to society as a whole to only allow people with a banking background to monitor the banks. Break the banking crony monopoly where top bankers seem to swap between working for banks and regulating them with impunity.

Mandatory financial responsibility clause  in all banking industry executive contracts and a binding code of conduct like other critical professional services to society (engineers, doctors etc).

A  cap on interest rates at around 10% to both protect the vulnerable in society and the banks and broader society from their own greed. Banks ‘we own’ can borrow at 1% and lend that money back to us at 25% or more on credit cards and the like.  Who does this arrangement help exactly?

The Law and Law Enforcement

Review of legislation which encourages the ‘compensation culture’..accidents don’t happen anymore, a crack in the pavement you trip over..claim against the council.  A postman sprains his ankle on your drive ..claim against the property owner. This is a tremendously corrosive force in society driven by greed. We used to just dust ourselves off, curse our bad luck and keep our eyes open. Now everything is viewed as an opportinity to sue your fellow man for a buck.  The erosion of trust and social engegement this produces is terrible surely? Most people hate the compensation culture but nothing ever seems to get done about it..I wonder why..arnt most politicians ex lawyers?

An immediate stop to the roll back of trial by jury, more and more laws and complexity are being used as excuses to take justice out of the hands of the people and into the hands of the legal professions. This erosion of the fundamental principle of justice must stop.

Removal / amendment of the laws brought in to fight terrorism but are now being used by local councils to spy on where parents live and what they put in their bins or screen e-mails of environmental action groups by the police. This stuff if actually happening !!

Removal of those silly wigs for goodness sake!

Metaphysical discussion

Science has thrown up a lot of aparently counter rational but proven theories in the last 100 years or so. Is the ’school of reason’ in denial about what reason is now telling us about the way the universe works which  is often paradoxical and …well…irrational ! If you dont believe me ..well  see the double slit experiment, quantum mechanics , Kurt Godels incompleteness theorem and the recent scietifically proven Hardy’s paradox.

By example to show how narrow minded we are now trained to be. Consider that it is a proven scientific fact that the phases of the  moon (La Lune / lunatic etc) influences human bevavior. There would therefore appear to potentially be some scientific basis to astrology? Astrology was based on the ancients looking at the stars, planets and moon and noticing links between human behaviour and their position. it was , in essence a scientific process, were they delusional? or simply applying  reason without our modern day pre-disposition to dismiss it as hocus pocus?

The Mayan calender has been shown to be an extremely accurate predictor of the movement of the stars and the planets not the work of randon crazies and witch doctors modern doctrine would have us believe. Are we really so much smarter than the ancients? Could it be that in some ways they were much smarter than us could it be our modern lives are less rich by cause of our preocupation with rationality, which is often nothing of the sort and constrained by a type of  ‘rationality predudice when the results of scientific experiment seem to contradict pure logic and reason. The recent proof of hardy’s paradox is a classic example of that. the scientists themselves described thier independantly verified results as ‘proposterous’. Why was that challenge to our underlying philosophy in the west not headline news??

Join the debate….please

LGO

1) It is bad systems design.

With small decentralised units, when technology advances (as it is doing, rapidly) you can swap in new units.

With nuke you’re stuck with a monolithic system for 50 years.

CHP[12] units are already used extensively by EU/Scandinavian countries, 8% of US power is generated using CHP. This is not rocket-science, though could be with the levels of investment that nuclear will cost… just to deal with its waste.

In addition to this, smaller decentralised units are more resilient to outages, are quicker to deploy and quicker to decommission. They create a competing ecosystem of technologies that is under pressure to advance. Nuke doesn’t.

To draw an analogy, Nuke is like a system of mainframe computers (from the 50s), while decentralised micro-generators is an internet of rapidly advancing, competing and evolving systems.

In systems-engineering terms, nuke stations also represent “single points of failure”. They’re less resilient.

From a military/terrorist perspective, they’re a giant “Kick Me” sign.

2) Nuke is dangerous.

Despite what the nuke industry says (you know, the people who last time around said it would be “too cheap to meter”), nuclear power is dangerous. When a fuse blows [1], you have to shut down a portion of the grid. Despite what the nuke industry says, cockups and accidents are happening all the time [2][3][4][5][6]

Nuke lobbyists now claim that it’s safe (funny, they said that last time round) but, (and this should be the first, last and only nail in the coffin of this idea) the UK govt has decided that nuke companies should not be responsible for the costs of cleaning up after an accident because no company should be reasonably expected to handle such a huge expense. This is an admission of risk – no company should have to pay for a Chernobyl… the public should.

This simple fact kills all arguments about safety.

And, once again, it’s privatised profits and socialised risks in a set up that resembles if not a monopoly then a cartel.

3) The economics stink

Nuclear power cannot work economically without massive government (that means you) subsidies. Anyone subscribing to ideas about free-markets should reject nuclear economics as a point of principle.

The potential for (distributed) profit from renewable technology on the other hand is vast – and this is technology that can be happily sold everywhere on the planet, without the paranoia we’re currently seeing over Iran etc. Instead of the benefit remaining in a few (gnarly old) hands, it can be distributed more democratically, planet-wide.

CHP (and other renewables) also offer much greater scope for local control.

Downstream energy savings (ie: efficiency) create huge upstream savings. The idea that our current escalating energy consumption needs to keep escalating at its current rate is nonsense. Amory Lovins’ (from the video above) company recently retrofitted the Empire State Building, reducing it’s energy consumption by 40% [9][10]

That’s a downstream energy saving – in the UK, 60% of energy generated goes straight up as heat. Our systems are inefficient… every watt saved at the wall-point, saves orders of magnitude greater of watts at source.

4) We don’t know what to do with the waste we already have.

Nuke is not clean, it’s incredibly dirty.

The Nuke industry have jumped on the idea that it produces low carbon emissions (and that’s ignoring that extraction/ running/ decommissioning etc are so carbon-intensive that nuke only represents a saving of 8% [13]) to promote the idea that it’s clean.

It’s not.

Nuke waste storage currently costs £1 billion a year, year in, year out, essentially forever. The half lives [7] of nuke waste runs to hundreds of thousands of years. How would you feel if… Oliver Cromwell’s generation say, had invented nuke power and left us with a billion pound a year storage bill? Feel a bit differently about them?

How about Willam the Conqueror?

The Romans?

The Sumerians?

Seems crazy doesn’t it? Look at it this way: one day, tens of thousands of years from now there will be cultures looking back at us as unimaginably distant memories… far far older than the Assyrians, Sumerians etc etc are to us…

…and they’ll still have to be dealing with this crap that ignorant morons from the 20th century left them with. That is our legacy. That’s the tyrrany we’ve already gifted to the future: taxation without representation.

This is assuming of course, that everyone producing this stuff is dealing with it responsibly. Know why the Somalian Pirates are seen as heroes by Somalis? Because EU ships have been dumping nuclear waste off the African coast[8]

Part of the sweetner that the UK govt is offering to the nuke industry to make new plants is to hide the costs of the waste in existing waste programs. They can’t do this without lying to us what the real costs are. Take a look at the history of the nuclear reactor that is being built in Finland [11]

Or to put it another way, they’re lying on behalf of big business, against your interests, again.

5) Centralised control.

You’ve seen what centralised control of dwindling resources (yes, there is such a thing as Peak Uranium, we have at most 50 years worth) did to the 20th century. You really want that for the 21st?

One of the things about renewables is that they’re oligarchy-breakers. They obviate the need for trillion-dollar wars.

They’re representative of participatory cultures (which is what we’re moving into) as opposed to nuke, which is representative of command-cultures (which is what we’re moving away from, but which all of our institutions are firmly entrenched in)

6) Proliferation

Nuke power provides the perfect shelter for proliferation of nuke weapons.

–

Why? Why do all this? We already have alternatives – we’re already building them. Why invest all these hundreds of billions into something that is so inadequate?

–

[1] http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12731668?nclick_check=1&forced=true

[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/nuclearpower/5509277/Nuclear-disaster-averted-by-dirty-laundry.html

[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/03/us/03nuke.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss

[4] (UK) http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/may/29/britishenergygroupbusiness.nuclear

[5] (Fr) http://www.euronews.net/en/article/24/07/2008/france-fourth-nuclear-incident-in-a-fortnight/

[6] (De) http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,576550,00.html

[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste

[8] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/you-are-being-lied-to-abo_b_155147.html

[9] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKnxDcIUfdY

[10] http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid598.php

[11] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/business/energy-environment/29nuke.html

[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogeneration

[13] http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/nuclear

Suggestions for new points and debate about existing ones is encouraged. The list will be periodically updated according to the consensus view.

As a starting point the following baseline suggestions for debate are offered.

LGO MANIFESTO – THE CONSTITUTION AND CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS

The LGO , following debate recommends the following consensus of constitutional change to be adopted at this point in time:

No.1

The sum total of all elected politicians (Westminster and local bodies) to be reduced by 30%.

No.2

Upon the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, the Royal Family is to become the ceremonial head only of the UK and the Commonwealth. An office of  an elected president is to be established to be elected mid parliamentary term.

Note this does not appear popular and will be removed if no support is shown soon.

No.3

Radical reform of the House of Lords is proposed.  House of Lords appointees must obtain  a 2/3rds majority recommendation from the Commons to enter. The following categories of experience are to be filled in the House of Lords expressed as a percentage of total available seats in the Lords.

- legal background  15%

- Financial background 15%

- Armed forces 10%

- Clergy 15% (spread accross all religions)

- Politics  15%

- Science and Engineering 17.5%

- The arts / special recommendations 12.5%

House of Lords appointees can be de-selected at any time by a simple majority in the House of Lords and require re-appointing by the commons after a maximum 10 years service. life peers will be abolished.

No.4

 Suitable and secure accomodation is to be purpose built in London for all politicians who live outside orf reasonable commuter distance. No expenses for second homes will be permitted.

No.5

All politicians administrative staff are to be provided by the Civil Service to a set budget depending on the office held and will not be funded by expenses claims.

No6.

A system of proportional representation or a preference system is to be introduced for all elections….TBC

N07.

Only ministers whom have served in the armed forces are allowed to take the position of secretary for defence.

No.8

Undertake a review of all the honours bestowed in the last 15 years. If you are a knight of the realm and have not been a selfless servant to society or provided some great innovation they should be stripped of all honours. Honours should mean something to aspire to in terms of a descent moral code and a role model.  How can Sir Fred Goodwin and numerous knights of the realm in the boardrooms of the banks and elsewhere  others be held up as model citizens?

Hopefully that will be enough to get your teeth into..

Got any suggestions ?

Lets start the Debate.

LGO

green energy for all ?

This is the manifesto area to debate and create  key energy and the environment policies.

General policy aim to become as self sufficient in energy as reasonably possible using renewable resources and Nuclear energy ? within our own Borders.