UK politics

First Muslim women elected to British parliament

Anti-war, Bloody Lawyers, Feminism, Socialism, UK elections, UK politics, Women
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Via TwoCircles.net:

London : Shabana Mahmood and Yasmin Qureshi have become the first Muslim women to be elected to the British parliament after successfully defending Labour seats.

Mahmood successfully increased the majority of former International Development Secretary Clare Short, who has retired from parliament, from under 7,000 votes to more than 10,000 in Birmingham Ladywood in central England.

The Oxford University-educated barrister saw off challenges from two other Muslim candidate, Ayoub Khan representing the Liberal Democrats and Nusrat Ghani, who was standing for the Tories.

I see some things never change.

The announcement of her success came as Qureshi, who is also a lawyer, won by a reduced majority of more than 8,600 in the Bolton South East constituency in north-west England.

Not another bloody lawyer – like they didn’t cause enough damage already.

Respect Party leader Salma Yaqoob is seen as having an outside chance of capturing Birmingham Hall Green, which has boundary changes with the adjacent Sparkbrook and Small Heath, where she came second at the last elections with 27.5% of the vote.

Salma Yaqoob didn’t win but came second:

Despite being written off by the media I came second, polling over 12,000 votes. It is a fantastic achievement and testimony to a desire for a political alternative to the parties of bombing and big business. It is clear that many people’s fear of a Tory government boosted the Labour vote, puncturing the Lib Dem bubble but also squeezing my vote as well.

Not a win, but a good result nonetheless. And if any proposed LibDem/A.N.Other coalition falls apart, she can stand again.

A Hung Impalement

Election Skullduggery, UK elections, UK politics
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Conservative
264 +81 36.8
Labour
204 -74 28.1
Liberal Democrat
40 -7 22.6

* Prediction
* 535 of 650 seats declared

There were sit ins and near riots when poll stations closed their doors to queueing electors and Gordon Brown is refusing to resign and looks likely to be squatting in No 10 despite having no mandate.

What a bloody mess.

Some good news:

Peter Kellner says BNP may lose “some or all” of their seats on Barking and Dagenham Council

Greens get first MP

Mark Steel on Twitter:

Resigned now, to living under a return to feudal rule, under a system of barons with an obligation to tend the chickens of a twat from Eton

If At First You Don’t Succeed, Freep Like F*ckery

Election Skullduggery, Gordon Brown, Manufacturing consent, UK elections, UK politics
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Has a desperate Gordon Brown activated his last-chance strategy of freeping the election?

votessack.jpg

I hate to say I told you so (not that it ever stopped me) but… from this evenings Guardian front page:

The result of the general election may not be confirmed until late on Friday because the electoral system is struggling to process verification checks on a record number of postal votes, officers have warned.

Councils have reported applications for postal votes up by 60% in some areas, and with a new system of checking signatures and dates of birth against applications – and only 11 days between the deadline for applications and polling day – administrators say there could be delays.

[…]

The surge in postal votes has also raised concerns about electoral fraud, although the 50 allegations currently being investigated are mainly confined to the local elections are also being held in some areas tomorrow.

John Turner, the chief executive of the Association of Electoral Administrators, said: “If returning officers receive sackfuls of postal votes tomorrow, it’s going to put serious delays in the system because they will have to focus on verification before they start counting votes.

Me last week:

Poll Fraud 2010 – Let The Vote Rigging Begin!

Never mind, Gordon, even when the election looks well and truly lost, there’s always voting fraud…

[…]

The 2005 election, and specifically Birmingham 2005, was described by election observers as the dirtiest UK election ever, and that was down to Labour:

Vote-riggers exploited weaknesses in the postal voting system to steal thousands of ballot papers and mark them for Labour, helping the party to take first place in elections to Birmingham City Council.

They believed that their cheating would be hidden for ever in the secrecy of the strong boxes where counted votes are stored, never suspecting that a judge would take the rare step of smashing the seals and tracing the ballots back to the voters.

[…]

They coldly exploited communities where many cannot speak English or write their names. They forced what the judge called “dishonest or frightened” postmen into handing over sacks of postal ballots. They seem to have infiltrated the mail service: several voters gave evidence that their ballot papers were altered to support Labour after they put them in the post.

That’s not to say the Tories haven’t also been up to electoral shenanigans:

5 June 2006 The Times reported that the police in Coventry were investigating allegations that there had been personation offences in the ward of Foleshill at the local elections in May 2006 and that there had also been postal voting fraud. An election petition was lodged at the High Court by the defeated Labour councillor in the ward giving the names and addresses of ten voters whose identities were apparently stolen:

The Times has seen passports of three voters, a veteran Labour Party member and a young couple, which indicate that they were out of the country on election day, May 4. Documents also seen by the newspaper show that staff in polling stations in Coventry that day clearly marked the three down as having turned up and voted. The Conservatives won the ward, Foleshill, by six votes after a recount, one of two gainsthat turned a deadlocked council into one with a slender Tory lead.

Labour has conveniently left most of the loopholes that have allowed it to manipulate the vote firmly in place, despite numerous reports from such august bodies as the Joseph Rowntree Trust, fromACPO & the Electoral Commission, and most recently from Parliament itself, all pointing out the ease and prevalence of vote rigging. From the parliamentry report:

• Experienced election observers have raised serious concerns about how well UK election procedures measure up to international standards.

• There have been at least 42 convictions for electoral fraud in the UK in the period 2000–2007.

• Greater use of postal voting has made UK elections far more vulnerable to fraud and resulted in several instances of large-scale fraud.

• There is widespread, and justifiable, concern about both the comprehensiveness and the accuracy of the UK’s electoral registers – the poor state of the registers potentially compromises the integrity of the ballot.

• There is a genuine risk of electoral integrity being threatened by previously robust systems of electoral administration having reached ‘breaking point’ as a result of pressures imposed in recent years.

• Public confidence in the electoral process in the UK was the lowest in Western Europe in 1997, and has almost certainly declined further as a result of the extension of postal voting.

• The benefits of postal and electronic voting have been exaggerated, particularly in relation to claims about increased turnout and social inclusion.

• There is substantial evidence to suggest that money can have a powerful impact on the outcome of general elections, particularly where targeted at marginal constituencies over sustained periods of time.

• Outside of ministerial circles, there is a widespread view that a fundamental overhaul of UK electoral law, administration and policy is urgently required.

The Labour government may have made a show of reform with these postal vote verification procedures, but that’s all it is, a show, a bit of window dressing. Why change a voting system whose lack of integrity they’re exploiting to the full? And do we really think they’re not exploiting that lack of integrity today in 2010? A reported 60% surge in postal votes says to me they are.

Comment of The Day: Brown’s Coming Portillo Moment

Comment of the Day, Gordon Brown, UK elections, UK politics
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I can’t wait for Friday. Why? Because I predict on Friday we’ll all be saying ‘Where were you when Gordon Brown realised he’d lost the election for Labour?”

Because lose it he will, and if you want to know why, read this comment by princesschipchops, in response to Brown’s last-ditch yet futile attempt to recover the Guardianista vote:

Mr. Brown – I voted for you in 1997. I cried when Labour won and finally 18 years of horrendous Tory rule were over. I was not alone. At the time I worked in the private sector in Finance and earned good money but I always believed in fair and progressive taxation – even if it hit me personally in the pocket. I believed in a fairer society and re-distribution. My euphoria did not last long.

Many things soured my view of your party. Firstly when you reneged upon your promise to reform the voting system and instead clung onto FPTP for the sake of staying in power. Then smaller things such as the lack of enforcing employer contributions in the supposed fantastic new Stakeholder pensions. Introducing torturous tax credits instead of just upping the tax free amount to something decent. And then spreading those tax credits to the middle classes who did not need them.

Of course there was Iraq. I marched with millions – yes millions – all of whom were ignored. And so hundreds of thousands have died. So Labour lost my vote.

However if you had taken over and shown a change in direction towards something remotely like socialist or even liberal and progressive policies then I would have given you my vote again.

But you did not. You have continued to court the ground just a smidgen to the left of the Tories – which puts your party pretty to the right in my book. You talk of aspiration and you demonise the poorest and most vulnerable.

Instead of tackling the wholesale destruction of communities blighted by Thatcher you ignored them. And then, in a breathtaking display of inhumanity by your party – blamed them. Suddenly those living in areas suffering long term unemployment were to blame – you spoke in the language of the Daily Mail and other right wing rags.

Worse, you then started to target the sick and disabled, bringing in the most sweeping and destructive welfare reforms ever seen.

I know of people who are ill and vulnerable and who are living in daily fear of the letter from the DWP telling them they are finally up for the ESA medical. People with chronic illnesses who are very sick being told they can work. People on dialysis being told they can work the four days a week they do not recieve it. These are the things that are going on. And Atos staff are being pushed by incentives to do this dirty work for your government.

Mr. Brown people are dying. A woman died in Camden recently because she did not have the help she needed to live even a basic existence. The young girl who recently killed herself over her failure to find a job. The poor mother who saw no way out and took her life and the life of her child.

I am terrified of what the Conservatives will mean for me and for this country but I cannot and will not vote for a party that when it had the chance chose to stick with the Ultra Blairite agenda, neo liberalism and demonizing of the poor.

You turned your back on your base, you betrayed us.

Thursday is going to be an electoral bloodbath – vote fraud permitting – but Brown’s still hanging on like grim death. He has said he’ll resign – but only when when he feels ‘he can’t be an effective leader of the Labour Party any more’.

When’s that then?

When one of his own candidates calls him the worst leader in parliamentary history?

“The loss of social values is the basic problem and this is not what the Labour Party is about,” Manish Sood, the Labour candidate for Norfolk Northwest told the local Lynn News. “I believe Gordon Brown has been the worst Prime Minister we have had in this country. It is a disgrace and he owes an apology to the people and the Queen.”

Election 2010’s going to make that 1997 Portillo moment look like a celebration.

As another Guardian commenter put it, “Go back to your constituencies and prepare for obscurity.”

Linky Linky

Food, Linky Linky, Merkins..., Oh Those Crazy Cloggies, UK elections, UK politics
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How was such a terrible environmental disaster allowed to happen? Deep Sea News has at least some answers in The Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill: A Timeline. And guess what – the whole affair has Halliburton’s mucky fingerprints all over it.

Dill and Honey flavour potato chips anyone? Satay and Ginger? Frikadelle? Avocado & Lobster?

Maak de Smaak, the Cloggie version of Do Us a Flavour

If you thought Walkers crisps fans came up with some weird flavours in their “Do Us A Flavour” competition (last year’s winner, Builder’s Breakfast, allegedly tasted of bacon, eggs, sausage and baked beans) then you should see some of the suggestions in the Dutch version, Maak de Smaak. 95% of the entries can be dismissed as mere variations on that classic cloggie theme, kaas, kaas en kaas, garnalen met en beetje kaas, but there are some interesting entries, like the aforesaid Avocado & Lobster – mind you, whether the suggestions will translate into actual recognisable flavours remains to be tasted. Walker’s is still way ahead of Lay’s in the PR stakes though: their latest marketing effort is to tie new flavours to the world cup. Anyone for a bratwurst crisp?

Who says Merkins don’t get UK politics? A masterly summation of the election so far, by Stanley at Unfogged:

Let’s see. Labor and Tories are both lame-os. Brown, because, basically he’s boring, and there’s a recession about, and something about the banks, plus Britons are still smarting from the Blair decision to play wardude alongside Bush in Iraq, which was totes expensive and morally squicky at best. Cameron, because, despite being young and charismatic (not to mention riding a bike to work—did I get that part right? I remember something about a bicycle), he’s a privileged wanker.

There’s also the fact that that Cameron has (it’s not original but I can’t remember which commenter wrote it) a waxy-melty face like a Victorian doll. No really, just look:

Victorian wax boy doll

But do go on:

But! This year, they had very, very special US-style, televised debates, which, gasp!, propelled Liberal Dem Clegg into the national spotlight, and it’s possible that now, mayhaps, the Liberal Dems could win a plurality, but, no matter what, it seems no single party’s going to outright take it, so some sort of coalition of governing parties is inevitable, not to mention likely to be unstable. After all, the last time there was a comparable power-sharing agreement (in the 1970s? writing this from memory is easy, because I can seemingly make stuff up), the whole thing went in the can within six months or so.

So, lots of crazy uncertainty abounds, and no one’s really happy about the whole mess. But the queen’s position is definitely safe (for now)

Yup, that’s pretty much it.

Believe, indeed. We didn’t think the Labour Party would do such an illiberal and opressive thing as to force biometric ID cards on an unwilling populace either. But they did, because they were shit scared of being accused of being soft on immigration, just like Obama and the Dems. Now look where they are in the polls. Goodbye Gordon, Goodbye, Obama…

OMFG. This latest from Oklahoma is utterly inhumane. I’d even call it torture. From the Rude Pundit:

The Oklahoma Legislature Will Look Inside Your Daughter’s Vagina (Part of the “Your State Sucks, Too” Series):
The brutal assault on women’s rights continues in states where you’d expect there to be a brutal assault on women’s rights. This week’s yahoos are the members of the Oklahoma legislature who voted by a veto-proof majority to require pregnant women who want an abortion to get a vaginal-probe ultrasound in order to show them the fetus. There is no exception for victims of rape or incest.

In other words, if you are a woman who wants a perfectly legal medical procedure in Oklahoma, you must submit to the forced insertion of an implement into you, even though that act carries medical risks (you know, perforation, infection, that kind of stuff) and serves no actual medical purpose. It’s just to be total dicks about abortion.

In otherer words, the Oklahoma legislature wants to sodomize pregnant women.

Like I said, OMFG.