Who will you vote for in the 2012 local Elections?

I received my voters card for the local elections to take place in May, and it got me to thinking about who I am going to vote for.

I am not a member of any political party, never have been.  I come from a poor working class background in Scotland and from an industrialised town,  and so from that background I should vote Labour!

I joined the Army as a boy soldier at 15 and so was never really interested in politics in the way that some are.  I have no idea whether my parents ever voted or who they voted for, if they did.  It was never ever discussed in our house.  Same with my elder brothers, and my younger brother and sister, no idea.

While in the Army, we got to register and vote, I don't think I ever exercised that right.  I wasn't interested.  I got a pay rise every year and I muttered and grumbled like everyone else if it was low and when food and accommodation charges were raised at the same time... but I joined the Army to see the world, and I did. And there were some scary times and some accidents, I even got shot on one occasion, crippled in a parachuting incident, fell out of a hovering helicopter, trapped down potholes in flood conditions, sinking canoes miles from shore, crashed vehicles, riots in Ireland, who had time to worry about politics and politicians..... I certainly didn't and I loved it.

Then I came out of the Army.  And from looking at the state of the country from afar and through the newspapers, I then became a part of it.  Thatcher was in power when I joined civilian life in 1982 and was taking on the Unions.  Again I had been in the Army during the 'winter of discontent' and looked on in disgust at what was happening to the country at the hands of Labour and the Unions.  It was as a result of that that the Tories , with Maggie Thatcher came to power and shortly after that she started to curb the power of the Unions and that was fine by me having never been a member and seen from the outside what they did  I mean who can forget the expose' of previous years about night shift workers sleeping at car plants in the 70's  and the strikes and only last year we see that a Union got the hump because 13 workers had been caught sleeping on the job and the management were accused of using underhanded tactics to catch the workers!

My first association with a Union and I can't even remember which one it was, was when I applied for a job with security/courier company.  By the time that I did that the Tories had brought in legislation outlawing the 'closed shop' but, the friend who had told me to apply for the vacancy told me that there were two questions on the application asking a) Would I be willing to join a Union and b) if I answered yes to the former question, would you agree to have the Union Subs, (your membership payment fee) deducted directly from your salary.

He told me that if I answered no to either question I wouldn't even get the interview!  So, I answered yes on the form, got the job, joined the Union and had the membership fee taken from my salary.  And that was my first involvement with a Union and while I had seen what they could achieve from a distance, when it didn't really involve me when I was in the Army, I was now up close and personal to it's slimy  underhanded ways, even although they apparently had less power!  The local Union rep and his mates had the best and easiest runs, they were paid for full shifts and didn't work them.  There was overtime every Saturday on a nice easy run down the A9 to meet another vehicle coming up from Edinburgh and the drivers swapped vehicles, the Union reps two mates got this every week in rotation, no offer to anyone else, no chance of getting a chance at it, so while it was all new to me and the local management seemed scared to say or do anything, after a couple of months I had had enough, told the depot manager, in writing that I was leaving the Union and that they were to no longer take subs from my salary.

I also asked around to see if anyone else who never got the offer of the overtime was interested, and plenty were, so I made up a rota and gave it to the manager.  God did that all cause ructions with some Union twat coming up from Edinburgh for a chat, I refused the offer.  But that and what I had seen from a distance previously has coloured my feelings on the Unions until this day.

And, of course, it is the Unions who bankroll the Labour Party.  Having said that, I have approached every election with a clean slate as it were.  I have voted for the local Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem candidates over the years in the various places I have lived depending on how well they have presented themselves to me in the local hustings.....

Over the last 30 years starting with Thatcher, then Blair, really complimentary to each other, Brown, don't make me laugh and now Cameron and Clegg, could be a comedy act if it wasn't so tragic and one of them hadn't lost his scruples in the back garden of No 10 a while back. And lest we forget the 'king in waiting'  Ed Milliband, the guy who has made an art form of talking out the side of his face so we really don't know what message he really wants to give us.  There isn't a decent one amongst them, there really isn't.  Ask yourself, whether you are here in the UK or wherever you are somewhere else in the world reading this, do you trust any of your politicians, I will be surprised if the answer is yes?

Sleazy story after sleazy story keeps appearing, whether it is about MP's and their expenses or Members of the House of Lords being jailed, but then being allowed back in to vote on laws that we have to abide by.

Tax relief for the rich and austerity measures for the poor. VAT increases, Fuel Tax duty increases, Cabinet Ministers telling us, when there is NO POSSIBILITY OF AN IMMEDIATE TANKER DRIVERS STRIKE, to fill up our fuel tanks and jerry cans, causing a run on petrol stations, immediate increases in fuel prices at some petrol stations, and petrol stations running out of supplies, causing a crisis, where none existed.  The NHS being sold off to private enterprise, because that's exactly what they have done. Prescription charges rise by 24 pence and of course it is not surprising that the sickest people in our society are the poorest, so it's like another tax hike on them.  Police budgets being slashed, courts letting down the innocent while letting off the guilty.  A man being jailed for racial abuse on Twitter but no action being taken against police officers for racially abusing a black man. Pensions being reduced in real terms and frozen. Houses being allowed to be built on flood plains. Social housing being ditched in favour of affordable housing that no one can afford. Children leaving school who are illiterate and have no hope for the future, it goes on and on and on.  

We are spending billions on wars that we had no right to be involved in, and don't give me that crap about supporting the downtrodden peoples of the countries we have gone to war with, we, and by we I of course mean our politicians,  supported the same regimes for years while their leaders killed and tortured the very same people we are now giving 'our' democracy to, yeah right!

We continue to give billions in overseas aid to dictators and countries who spend most of what we give them, on their military to keep their people in check, yet we want to take bus passes of our own pensioners, who are these people trying to kid.

Politicians have really and seriously become a joke in my eyes, not a hold my sides laughing joke, but a sick repellent, taking the piss out of the electorate, joke    


Then we have the various Unions demanding, I call it blackmail actually, bonus payments for bus drivers, tube drivers and Tom, Dick and Harry, do do what they are paid to do during the 2012 Olympics and threatening strike ballots, if they don't get the payments they are demanding, and I don't hear the Labour party condoning those.  Most of us still lucky enough to have jobs still have to work and put up with the inconvenience that the games are going to bring to London and the surrounding environs but we aren't going to get any extra for it and Unions, like politicians wonder why the general public, in the main, despise them.....


Six million people have withdrawn their party membership from the two main parties between 1992 and 2010, have you?  Labour took another kicking and it was a kicking from 'Gorgeous' George Galloway in Bradford during the week, and while they are obviously licking their wounds they clearly aren't that desperate to get back up there and find out what happened as Ed has declared he is not going anywhere near the place for at least a couple of weeks, or was that years!

So here's the thing, who are you going to vote for in the local elections, because from what I can tell, local politicians are just as bad as the national ones.  They all promise the you the earth to get your vote, but once in office, they really don't give a damn about the electorate.

Me, I have decided to continue to exercise my right to vote, but only if there is an independent on the ticket. So I won't be able to complain if I don't vote, want a bet.  And what a bloody nose you will give to the politicians if you all vote for an independent in your local elections and even at the next governmental elections. If everyone was to do that, I know that it is probably a forlorn hope, but just think about it.  Things may become a little chaotic, if the main political parties are left standing on the stage at the end of the vote count, and the independent candidates step up to give their acceptance speech. We will still have civil servants in place to keep things ticking along, as Belgium did recently, and it may well lead to the rise of a class of politician and a political party that actually cares about the electorate instead of all those from all political parties, including Labour who are now nothing but professional politicians and have no experience in anything else but the sleaze that is politics today, nor any real connection with the population.

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Jeremy Clarkson, Should be he Sacked?

Jeremy Clarkson, the BBC Top Gear co-host and professional agitator has done it again, he made a comment about taking Union strikers outside and shooting them in front of their families on prime time TV on Wednesday night.

Now I did not see the show go out live, but have of course seen it since as it has been replayed time and time again.  One Union official stated in the aftermath that they were consulting their lawyers to determine what suitable and appropriate legal action could be taken!

Another GMB Union chap was on TV this morning, denouncing that move, but likened Clarkson to a racist thug who was being allowed to get away with it, they were not his exact words, but that was my understanding of his comments and then commented that as a number of GMB Union members had died over the years, that Clarkson, if his apology was sincere, should show how sincere he was by putting his hand in his pocket and provide financial support for the families of those dead workers!

Seriously people, what is going on here.  Clarkson is a Buffoon and he is a Buffoon who earns his money from being a Buffoon with thousands of people following his every word.

Personally I can't stand him or Top Gear any more.  I have never been , as a guy, much into cars in the way that some are but I always enjoyed watching Top Gear.  It was a show that was dying on its feet a number of years ago and then some bright spark had the idea of relaunching it with The Buffoon and his two puppets, and it was a smart move because their anarchic style of delivery and presenting was totally different and injected some much needed revs into the show.

And it worked, the show is, I believe, the top earner for the BBC and now has been franchised out to major channels across the world. But I fell out of love with it a couple of years ago simply because I thought the three of them should have been arrested on numerous occasions for the stupid stunts they pull on the highways and bye-ways of some of our small British towns where they go out and disrupt people by driving a combine harvester or other mammoth monster into streets that clearly cannot cope with them, and they are still getting away with it because of their 'cheeky charm'.  Well I would like to be in one of those places to firmly put my boot on their asses when doing one of those stunts, if they inconvenienced me...

And through all of this, Clarkson makes his comments, whether on the show, or through his tabloid columns or in his annual book offering for Christmas, like and as regular as Santa Claus, (and his book and DVDs are constant best sellers) about all aspects of motoring and life in general and every comment is 'geared' to cause the maximum amount of  controversy, upsetting the small minded and the petty.

I don't get upset by his comments per say, because he is a Buffoon, and I have not been upset by his latest comment either other than the fact that he still makes them.  But the actual comment, upsetting, not so much.

If you actually watched the whole clip and I would point you to it here on the BBC's iPlayer, but I notice that that episode is not available and has seemingly been removed.  You will see that it was said in his usual booming Buffoonery way as part of a series of comments on the whole strike issue and I believe that offence was taken because a) It was Clarkson and b) it gives the Union the ability to keep going on about their case, which is about as dead in the water as I believe is where Clarkson should be, but that is only my opinion and other than his stupid antics where he and his co-hosts disrupt people in the street by their stunts, as long as you remember he is nothing more than a 50+ Buffoon and listen to him, if you must, in that way, why should you be offended by anything he says.

If we are to follow this to the conclusion that the 21000, so far complainers, want, which is head on a stick in front of TV House (or whatever it is called these days), then we may as well say that comedy shows on TV Radio, in underused theatres around the country, and town halls and, pubs, should immediately stop booking comedians for any performance as most of them have darkly comic sides to them, as we as a species do.  How many of those, have seen or heard of some tragedy and not then heard a ribald joke about it, and have never laughed or at least smiled at it, very few I suspect.  Some are comparing it to the Sachsgate when Russel Brand  and Jonathan Ross phoned and left comments on Andrew Sachs phone concerning his granddaughter.  This is completely different altogether, and does not compare.  Then it was two other Buffoons, but look heavens above another two guys who we pay millions to through our license fees, and 'we' all enjoy and laugh with them for years as they act out the part that 'we' want them to, because they are good at it or they are indeed funny, but then 'we' turn on them because some think they have overstepped the line that was never drawn in the sand for them, because 'we' never put a line there in the first place!

It's a big like the tabloid press in that respect, in that you get what you pay for' and while viewing figures for TV or listening figures for Radio, continue to outstrip all of their competition, then maybe the Unions should be asking for the name and addresses of all those people who turn up to watch the shows that they are in, can be taken to task as well, because it is those people who go to the recordings of the shows, who tune in on a Sunday night or buy the books and videos, who are guilty of allowing the Buffoons, to continue to do what they do.

And when the Unions and their Army of outraged members track down the viewers and find that a large proportion of them might be union members, what then.  Or here is another idea, why doesn't the union responsible for the men and women who man the cameras, who hold the sound mikes, who push the buttons in the control rooms, boycott the shows that these Buffoons are involved in, no, ridiculous to contemplate, well yes it is, but then so is complaining about what was nothing more than Mr Clarkson's usual Buffoonery and 'Black Humour'.

Oh, and yes he should be sacked, not for his comment, but the next time he does one of his stupid stunts that disrupts any street in the Kingdom and so too should the producers of the show that allow him to do it.