BA strike – a complete load of ballots
At last, someone’s come up with a clean, decisive system for holding elections. The way it works is everyone has a vote, and then the management of British Airways and a judge decide the result. They’ve tried this method with the ballot for a strike amongst cabin crews, who voted 7,482 to 1,789 in favour. So the courts ruled that this didn’t count because the Unite union didn’t mention, in some of its announcements, that 11 ballot papers had been spoilt.
There has been the odd critic of this ruling, such as the President of North Korea who said, “Oh that’s going TOO far”, but you can see BA’s point. Because there may have been many union members who were only prepared to support the strike as long as the number of spoilt ballot papers wasn’t a prime number. Imagine how cheated they’d have felt if they’d lost three days’ pay, assuming the number of spoilt papers was 12 or something divisible by seven and then they’d found out the shocking truth when it was too late.
Nick Clegg is so nice!
Though we are impartial at TMP, we have to admit that Nick “Calamity” Clegg has done well. Before the leadership debates less than 10% of the public thought he could be prime minister. He had to plaster a picture of himself next to St Vince Cable on the Lib Dem battle bus just for Joe Public to realise which party he was in.
The national interest went that way
However since his shining performance at the first debate, his popularity skyrocketed, the media loved him, he was dubbed “the British Obama” by some hysterical elements of the liberal press, even right-wing female hacks have claimed to fancying “No more than 30 women” Nick.
David Cameron is impressive
Gawd bless Dave.
His starting election speech back in April was filled with inspirational references from JFK to Barack Obama, he asked the Great British public to join him in the next UK government. Beaming with pride, he presented an expensive looking hardback manifesto showing that this was a “serious” party for Britain. The polls in April were showing a decisive Conservative victory, “Vote for Change”, he said, and they did. The problem is it wasn’t the change he wanted.
For the first time since 1974, Britain has a “hung parliament“. Dave warned us that his friends in the financial markets may give Britain a bad rating if the public didn’t do or know what was good for them.
I’m black and a community worker. Why should I vote?
I make no bones about the fact that I am disillusioned with politics. I know I’m not alone in feeling this way but I had a real dilemma in writing this post. Do I spread my discontent or just leave everyone to make up their own minds?
I overcame my apprehension because I don’t like lemmings. I believe we need an informed and enlightened electorate if we are really going to make a difference.
GE2010 Spotlight: Asylum & Immigration Policies
As part of The Multicultural Politic‘s coverage on the General Election, we will be reviewing the parties’ manifesto pledges and policy of particular interest, we start by looking at the important and emotive topic of immigration and making our own case for a different policy direction.
What is striking about the mainstream parties (the so-called Big Three) Asylum and Immigration Policies is that there is a lot of consensus. The choice on immigration is limited to the question of having an reformed, stricter and “final” undocumented workers’ amnesty law or not, having an immigration cap administered by an absolute number or by a points system (including a regional one). The issue of the real need for ageing Britain to have more immigrants is completely ignored, this sends the message that more immigration (particularly African and Asian economic migrants) is bad for Britain. Immigration needs to be talked about a lot more, especially evidence based arguments as opposed to the usual appealing to emotion and xenophobia.
Protest at Zuma’s UK visit in solidarity with South African Shack Dwellers
As South African President Jacob Zuma visits London today, members of the Abahlali Solidarity UK campaign will hold a protest at 10 Downing Street to demonstrate against the repression of South African shack dwellers’ movement Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM).
AbM activists were attacked on September 26 and 27, 2009, at the Kennedy Road settlement in Durban , South Africa. Two nights of violence by masked armed men that caused Anglican Bishop Rubin Phillip to say democracy itself was ‘under attack’ in South Africa. Read more
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Can Diane Abbott be Leader of the Labour Party?
A guest post by Kwaw Nelson
So at the eleventh hour, Diane Abbott MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington squeaked through the nominations process and made it on to the final short list of contenders for the leadership of the Labour Party. But did she do it on merit and she is capable of being leader of the Labour Party?
These are provocative questions and especially so because Diane Abbott is black. But they are also legitimate questions given Diane Abbott’s record as a parliamentarian over some 23 years.
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