Showing posts with label Scottish Parliament. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scottish Parliament. Show all posts

Friday, 20 February 2015

Scottish Nanny Party



The Scottish Nanny Party is starting its next roll towards total state insanity. The unbelievable legislation to appoint a state nanny for every child will be one of the biggest steps ever taken anywhere to undermine family life, individual rights and democracy.

The very concept of handing control and coordination of your child to the state from shortly after its conception, to age 16, is now a virtual certainty. I wish No to a Named Person (NO2NP) every success – they will need all of our support.


As yet, I have not seen any mention or answers to some issues that will worry all sane folk:

• Will this idiocy apply to the children of all EU citizens in Scotland?
• Will this idiocy apply to the children of non- EU citizens in Scotland?
• Will parents have the right of access to the personal records of the named person, to ensure they are not criminals or potential paedophiles?
• For how many children will each named person have responsibility?

That’s for starters.

It seems to me this is a policy designed to send the sane south.

Tuesday, 6 January 2015

Democracy Diminshed.

The Coalition Government has  diminished the political influence of MPs even further than had the Blair Government.
  
Today’s Parties want puppets and clones on their books.  Few MPs dare to act in keeping with the stance they professed when elected.   

Indeed, because of the Act passed by Blair’s government, the Parliamentary Parties, Elections and Referendum Act (PPERA), few candidates dared to put any view at variance with the Party Orders, lest they be forced to stand without Party endorsement, as Independent candidates, unable even to aspire to a description on the ballot paper.

PPERA was introduced because of the introduction of the system of Lists required for the proportional representation for elections to the Scottish Parliament, The Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies and the European Parliament.  

For the first time in British history, parties had to register with the state authorities in order to be eligible to field candidates for Parliament.  Prior to that, anyone or any group or party, could be or field candidates who were able to adopt a description, be it a Party Name, or something as simple as ”Independent  Communist”, to fight their corner to take a seat in Parliament.

But no more – since PPERA, only registered parties can have party names or descriptions and the candidates need the specific endorsement of a Nominating Officer, from the registered Party, in order to have the description on the ballot paper.

The exception, for a candidate not accepted to stand for a party, or not wishing to, is to stand as an "Independent”.  So what, you ask?

Well, in the past, a free spirit could distinguish his or her “independent”  status with some description – for example, “Independent Communist”,  "Independent For A Free NHS”, “Independent Conservative” etc.   The rule now is that the only default description is the single word “Independent”.  So two, or three, independent candidates on the same ballot paper cannot explain or describe themselves as in any way different from the others – are they to the left, right or centre?

A small, harmless shift, one night say. Especially if one is a bureaucratic party, determined to keep MPs in line -  lose the label, lose the seat.  Power has shifted, in this as in so much else, towards  the controllers at the centre – party bosses and bureaucrats.
  
That is not good for democracy. 

And the Coalition bent the constitution even further – gone now are the good old days when a Prime Minster had to command the confidence of a majority of individual MPs in the House of Commons. 
Losing an important vote meant being unable to govern as pledge; but the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives in coalition sorted that –  they fixed the term of parliament so that they retain power even if they lose the support of MPs – and that has happened in this parliament. And adjust the margin by which dissent or dissatisfaction amongst MPs is needed before the cosy cartel can be challenged.

Are all our MPs now wimps? Why do they accept all of this?  To keep the job, regardless?


We must restore the convention we had when we were British, that is, that the Government must have the confidence of the House in order to govern, that MPs should not fear for their futures more than they do for the country, and that free spirits can stand as Independents but with some description,  so that the electorate can distinguish their intent.

Thursday, 20 February 2014

Nationalising Familes in Scotland - State Controlled Childhood

The SNP are planning, or rather plotting, to appoint a so-called named person to be a guardian for each and every child in Scotland, without the consent of parents.

This is state imposition. It is tantamount to national control of families in Scotland - nationalisation of families.

I think that parents' common law rights, or, if you will, their so called human rights, are being usurped.  This must be illegal and is contrary to natural justice.

Not at all  British!

Friday, 31 May 2013

Does the Media make or report the news?

PRESS RELEASE IMMEDIATE
UKIP's Chairman in Scotland, Mike Scott-Hayward, has welcomed an Evening Express poll in Aberdeen which shows UKIP ahead of the Liberal Democrats, and just a neck behind the Labour and the Conservatives.

"The poll shows the SNP 35.7%, Conservative 11.9%, Labour 11.9%, Labour 10.3%, UKIP 8.7% and Liberal Democrats 4.8%.

"In contrast to this clear balance seen by the voters, BBC Radio Scotland held a radio hustings excluding UKIP from the panel. The usual Beeb judgement is that only the last election counts, not the present situation or the future. The panel on Brian Taylor's Big Debate was a four party melee - a very noisy incident often reduced to a level of shouting that equalled the unreasoning level of noise I heard on the streets of Edinburgh a fortnight ago.

"I acknowledge that Brian did play sound clips from other candidates, including Otto Inglis of UKIP, but the balance of babble might have been brought round to a better debate had the parties now showing above, say, 5% in the popular polls, all been participants.

"The rules followed by the BBC do entrench the establishment - luckily, voters are not bound by the same fixed mentality and I forsee UKIP beating at least one, or perhaps even two, so called major political parties here in Scotland, as we are already doing elsewhere in the UK".

Mike Scott-Hayward
Chairman UKIPScotland
07917365197/01334655040