Governor Shwarzenegger (R-CA) seems to be all along in California. The typically Liberal, Democrat dominated state has a republican governor, who is having the usual problems getting bi partisan support for any of his ideas.

With Democrat majorities in both hoses of the California State Legislature Arnie has two choices – work with the Democrats or tell the Democrats what you really think of them and as a result achieve nothing until your term expires

Well it appears Arnie has now chosen the latter of the two options. In a veto letter to the congress Arnie has set out why he will not support Assembly Bill 1176.

However if you read the letter closely, the first letter of each of the middle lines, spells out f-u-c-k y-o-u.

Arnie’s spokesman says that this merely a coincidence!

In response to Nick Clegg’s speech to conference earlier Eric Pickles MP has said

"After this muddled conference, it's now clearer than ever that if you want to get rid of Gordon Brown and his big brother state, and if you care about our schools, our quality of life and our liberties, you need to vote Conservative for a progressive, liberal government."

Surely now Eric must admit to living on another planet. The Tories are not liberal, they’ve never been liberal and they never will be liberal

Why is it when Parliament is sitting constituents have a hard time grasping the idea that Monday to Friday MPs work in parliament?

I've worked for a MP for 10 months now and every week I have pretty the same conversation at least once. It simply is;

“can I speak to My MP?”

“Unfortunately no – He is in Parliament at the moment but you can see him at his advice bureau...”

The title is Member of Parliament; yet this simple title seems to fly straight by when constituents are involved. They expect the MP to be in the constituency office, personally dealing with every enquiry that comes into the office. I can speak for other MPs offices, but the one I’m working in does anything from 50 to 100 cases a week – ranging from the nice and simple, to long and complicated and everything in between.

So constituents expect the MP to be in the constituency all the time, especially when Parliament is sitting. Its become my experience that some people will only speak to the MP – that’s fine, that’s why MPs have advice bureau, but unfortunately part of the job of being a MP means your away from the constituency office 4 to 5 days a week (unless your a London MP) and the reason they’re away, is that they are representing you in Parliament.

Why is it everyone thinks MPs are on a 80day holiday?

So now that its recess I can have an all new conversation – mostly consisting of
“MPs are on a 80 odd day holiday”

Right first things first – ITS NOT A FUCKING HOLIDAY.

Just because Parliament is not sitting doesn’t mean that MPs stop working. Parliament does not always sit on a Friday, yet MPs work on that day in the constituencies. Yet this idea of working in constituencies seems to not have spread to when parliament is on recess.

Now I agree that 80 days is far to long, and there are simple ways of dealing with that problem (I favour the Canadian System where Parliament sits three weeks out of four – so that the MP works in the constituency for that week). However until someone has the balls to change the lengh of the summer recess were stuck with – so lets make the best of a bad situation.

I was asked today whether the MPs advice bureau will still go on as “there on recess”. I have a feeling no matter how many times I’m told this over the next few weeks the message wont get through. People will choose to believe that MPs have stopped working for the whole 80 day period and the simple reason is that despite they know better the media will always report a ‘scandalous’ break from parliament rather than what it actually is – just working in a different office

The Birmingham Post has published a list off all claims for the MPs in the area

Included in the list are;

Liam Bryne (Lab - Hodegehill) & Roger Godsiff (Lab – Sparkbrook) who haven’t released his receipts yet
Caroline Spellman (Con – Meriden) who claimed £102.13 on a sat nav system - becuase she doesn't know her way around Birmingham

I managed to miss both of last year’s federal conferences. In March when the party went to Liverpool, I went on a different kinda party, to New York which is an experience I will never forget and had an amazing time with the friends I went.

I missed Bournemouth for completely different reason – I was broke. And going to New York earlier in the year clearly hadn’t helped that. So whilst almost the entire party went to Bournemouth I started my new job in John Hemming’s Office, as one of his caseworkers/researchers.
So now 18 months after lasting going to conference, I’m planning on going to both this year and fortunately as a staff member, I get my pass paid for by the party.

Friday
I’ve spent the last couple of days at home, recharging my batteries and spending a little time with my family, whom I have seen since Christmas. Fortunately, for where we are right now; my parents live in Barnsley which is an hour by train away from Harrogate. Even more fortunate with a railcard, it cost the grand total of £5.30 for a single ticket to get here.

I found one important thing out about conference. Whilst the official business takes place in the hall, the more important conversations are happening elsewhere, normally in the conference bar. Everybody, well pretty much everybody ends up in the bar at some point. If your looking for someone they’re in the bar...which is something to say about the state of our party.

Saturday
I’d love to give a full and detailed report back of conference business from Saturday, but I can’t. Unfortunately I was a little under the weather (or hungover as it more accurately called). I did however make to the Howard Dean speech. Now my expectations for this were quite high, perhaps a little to high. It was a good speech, the content was perfect for the crowd – how to win and how America will change. However as good as the content was, it was let down by the performance of it. Gov. Dean sounded unsure in parts, speeding up and then stopping suddenly for no reason.

In the evening the continuing theme of lessons from America continued with the inaugural Lib Dem Voice Fringe. So popular was this fringe, that the wall in the small room had to be taken down, and a wave of twitter updates suddenly appeared reporting this to the world.

The fringe itself, once it got going was very interesting. Hearing from two people who worked on the Obama campaign was informative and insightful. And then hearing from Mark Pack, with his criticism of the campaign and Ed Davey on what we should do next, provided one of the best fringe events I have ever attended any lib dem conference.

And then it was off to Glee Club, where the continuing strange tradition, of drunk and semi drunk liberals continues to become even stranger. And yet is the thing that cant be missed. Glee club is the party we ll say were not going to, but we all go to. It is the event that ends conference, a strange idea when conference only officially started just over 24 hours earlier.

It is a shame though that with the Spring Conference there is some feeling of let down. As there is only really two days of conference (if you take Friday evening to count as half a day and Sunday am to be the other half) there is no opportunity for the real variety in the debates that are seen in the fringes at the longer federal conference in September. I know its not possible to bring this full variety to effectively one days worth of fringes, but for me the spring conference just feels like a let down.

Sunday
No I could be considered a little biased when it comes to the other main speech that I saw, but it was ten times better than Howard Dean. Kirsty Williams AM, the leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats spoke today about the party’s rise in Wales, as well as the failure of the Labour-Plaid coalition in the Welsh Assembly. Now as I said I am slightly biased as I worked for Kirsty for 6 weeks last summer as an intern in her constituency office but the speech was exactly what was needed. An attack on New labour (and plaid) and presenting the liberal alternative to the continuing problems faced.

So a good, all be it short conference for the party. I continued with my tradition of not attending the leaders speech – nothing personal Nick but I’d like to get to London before the food shops all close so I’ll have half a chance to do a food shop for the week. And now we can all start our countdown to Bournemouth, a mere several months away.

Rt Hon Geoff Hoon MP
Secretary of State for Transport,
Great Minster House,
76 Marsham Street,
London,
SW1P 4DR

Dear Rt Hon. Mr Hoon MP,

On behalf of a great-full nation, thank you....thank you for making our normal working live impossible for the last five days. Why is it the Department of Transport, which during normal weather is semi competent at best, is able to cause the entire country to shut down in one demonstration of miss-action (I’m aware I have answered my own question, but let’s keep going anyway)

Why is it that your department is in capable of watching a weather report? I mean its not difficult, BBC news and Sky news show at least two an hour. And even if you miss them the BBC news/Sky news websites provide weather reports.

Maybe I’m being too hard on you, as lets be honest the weather isn’t the only reason your department is so spectacular in its failings

So let’s look at all of your recent spectacular failings.
• Well there’s been the ‘improvements’ to the West Coast Mainline which resulted in it being shut for almost an entire week (and lets remember that was only four weeks ago)
• Then there is the spectacularly stupid decisions to build a new runway and terminal at Heathrow (completely ignoring any notion of reducing C02 out put from this country)
• And now we have your department not watching a weather report

By the way I’m sure there are more failings but these are the ones most recent in my mind
The fact that weather isn’t a science, more of an educated guess shouldn’t have been forgotten but nevertheless within a 72 hour window they are usually pretty accurate. But that should not be an excuse for not being ready for snow. I could understand not being ready for a snow storm in winter if we lived in sub-Saharan Africa, but we don’t – we live in northern Europe which has cold winters (and in our case almost always shitty summers), and cold winters mean we often have temperatures below zero Degrees Centigrade.

Now as you have all failed to watch the weather reports, I’m going to assume that you all failed even the most basic lessons of science. So he is a very quick lesson for you when the temperature gets below zero degrees centigrade water freezes. And when water freezes on roads they need gritting, to ensure they can still be driven on.

Now that is about as simple as I can make it and hopefully you are beginning to see where you have made your mistake. You see having enough grit to last a few weeks would, again would be ok if we weren’t so far away from the equator. What we need is enough grit for the roads so it doesn’t run out, or get close to running out after only a few days.

Now as for the railways – why is it Norman Baker MP can get on a train in Norway, and get all the way to the North Pole (and be there on time) yet a Virgin Train can not leave Birmingham New Street because it has been snowing for about an hour.

Please not other train operators also spectacularly failed over the last few days and it is unfair to blame this completely on Virgin Trains...although that isn’t going to stop me.

Why is, it the trains are so bad on a normal day, let alone and the slightest change in Weather? Virgin Trains have brought a new level to the word incompetent. 4 four weeks ago Sunday I was going to London. Now whilst I got to London roughly when I wanted to, the same can’t be said for the other people on the train, as you guessed it the train had been delayed.

Actually whilst were on the subject of Virgin Trains being delayed, can I just say that if by chance your train is delayed, and they get you into the station on-time...be prepared for a smug announcement for the train manager – believe me I’ve had to listen to one and it was unbearable.

Anyway Mr Hoon you are running a shameful department. To honestly expect everything to carry on as normal when the world changes so quickly, is one of the labour party’s more ridiculous notions. The fact of the matter is with no preparations at all, your department has brought the country to a complete standstill with no action, followed by no-action, followed by even less action.

Yours Sincerely,
Stephen Morgan

Someone who will never vote for you, and perhaps one of the few people in the country who didn’t blag a day off work this week to play in the snow

Credit Crunch hits fire-fighters

Six Arizona fire fightershave been arrested for deliberately starting fires, so that they could be paid to put them out.

The six now face numerous charges, and if convicted could be in jail for up to 10 years.

Inauguration = Emergency

President Bush has declared a state of emergency in Washington D.C ahead of the inauguration of President Elect Obama. The emergency has been declared, so that the city has access to federal funds to pay for the security operation and not because the Bush administration is planning another disaster like their response to Katrina.

Illinois just got stranger

In a somewhat bizarre moment of history, later today Illinois governor Blagojevich will chair the Senate for its opening session. Blagojevich is about to be tried for impeachment in the chamber, but he could stop this from happening, if he doesn’t bring the new senate into session.

With the governemnts announcement that shops will no longer be allowed to have cigarettes on display, in a vain attempt to stop people, or more specifically teenagers from smoking.

Whilst I would rather people didn’t smoke, ultimately it is up to the individual whether they do so or not, and the government on another of its nanny state lecturers. What exactly do the government think they will achieve with this? Instead of having an open and frank discussion, they want hide the problem away.

The logic for hiding cigarettes away is right up there with the logic of “Duck and Cover”. It seems that the government think that, the only reason 11-15 year old start smoking is because they see the packets of cigarettes in the shops. This is utter crap people don’t take up smoking because they’ve seen a pack of cigarettes; they do so because they’re pressured into it.

So once this hasn’t worked, which I guess the government will work out in what 9-12 months, they’ll go onto their next stupid idea. Now unfortunately I haven’t got a TARDIS so I don’t know if this will happen, but my prediction of the next stupid idea will be this;
The government will ban smoking on TV before the watershed – because children only smoke because it ‘looks cool’

Can’t the government just realise that people are free to live their lives as they want to, and not how some stuff old men in Whitehall, who lets remember when the smoking ban went through tried to exempt themselves.

This is just typical of New Labour; hide the problem in the corner, pretend that it doesn’t exist and then clearly all is solved.

I think its a shame. I think its a shame when our elected representatives demonstrate that there humanity is buried so deeply that its hard to see within them. What respect I held for Cameron and Brown was lost on Wednesday, when they took a tragic event and played political ping-pong with it, and not for a second did they think about what they were saying and how it would effect the situation. Instead the two jumped up and down to grab the attention of the press sit in the gallery above them

They jumped up and down, ignoring the issue, trying to look compassionate, but failing so spectacularly. They took there humanity and left at the door of the chamber and spend 10 vile minuets shouted across the chamber at each other, forgetting the entire issue. They spend 10 minuets playing politics, when what was really needed was for them to stop shouting and act like adults.

For 10 minuets we watched the Prime Minister and the Leader of the opposition disgrace themselves beyond belief, and quite frankly they no longer deserve to call themselves Rt.Hon Members.
And what did they achieve with this little shouting match? Very little. In fact the pair of them have achieved nothing substantial with this entire affair.

“Mr. Cameron: You accused me of party politics about this— [Interruption.] My apologies, Mr. Speaker; he accused me of— [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I appeal to the House again: it is not good, at a time when we have heard this news about a little child who has gone before us, that we should be shouting across the Chamber. Let the Leader of the Opposition speak, and also— [Interruption.] Well, if the Leader of the House lets me do my job, she can do her job. Let the Leader of the Opposition, and also the Prime Minister, speak.

Mr. Cameron: The Prime Minister accused me of playing party politics. I did not mention who runs this council—and I did not mention who ran it when Victoria Climbié was tragically killed—and all I am asking is that the Prime Minister withdraws his accusation that I was in any way playing party politics, and not asking a perfectly reasonable question about a tragic case. I was putting to him a point made by his own Children’s Secretary, so I ask the Prime Minister one more time: please just withdraw the accusation that I was playing party politics, because he knows I was not.

The Prime Minister: I think the whole House will now want to find unity around these three things: first, this tragic incident must be investigated in every possible way; secondly, the Lord Laming review is the right inquiry to have; and thirdly, now that the full case review has arrived with the Children’s Secretary, he will take the necessary action. I hope the whole House can agree that these are the right things to do, and we are doing the right things to get the right answer.

Mr. Cameron: Obviously the Prime Minister does not feel able to withdraw what he said.”

Did David Cameron ask all those questions because it was the right thing to do, or was he just making sure that he would be in the papers the next day? I know what I think, but I’ll leave it to you to decide. I know one other thing though, Cameron didn’t look like a Prime Minsiter, he looked like a man desperate for the limelight, and desperate for attention.

And as for our illustrious Prime Minister, he too looked like he was desperate, but only desperate for media attention. He did not need to engage in a shouting match, and yet he did anyway. He did not need to anger Mr Cameron and draw him into a political discussion about this, and yet he did anyway. Yes Mr Brown you are the Prime Minister, and have been for some time but it appears no-one told you how to do the job properly, so here a few quick guidelines.
Tip number one, PMQs is when you answer questions, not ask your own ones. If you don’t want to answer the questions, resign and sit on the backbenches; but for as long as you sit by that dispatch box on a Wednesday your job is to be scrutinised by the Chamber. And the second Tip – trying acting like an adult for once.

There is so only one politician, who is making sense on this issue, and I’m not just saying this as she is a lib dem. Lynne Featherstonebrought some grounding to PMQs on Wednesday when instead of shouting and jumping up and down to get on TV, she talked about the issue at heart;

Lynne Featherstone (Hornsey and Wood Green) (LD): “I was leader of the opposition on Haringey council at the time of the Victoria Climbié tragedy, and I was told that lessons would be learned and that such a thing should never happen again. Yet it has happened again. Although I welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement yesterday that Lord Laming would lead a national review of child protection services, in terms of Haringey that does not go far enough. I hear what the Prime Minister says about looking at the report, but that report will not guarantee the safety of children in my borough. I ask the Prime Minister to look at that report, but also to call for an independent public inquiry.”

Lynne asked the only sensible question during the whole proceedings and she did it without shouting and playing to the camera. She seemed to be the only person who remembered that this wasn’t an issue for party politics but a tragic and terrible event that should never has been allowed to happen in the first place.

With Obama’s electoral victory earlier this week, he now has to begin to think about his new administration, which will take office in approximately 70days, or to be precise at 12.00 Eastern Standard Time, on 20th January 2009.
Now unlike the Westminster system where the cabinet members start when they are appointed America’s presidential system requires that all cabinet members are confirmed by the Senate.

Now obviously this shouldn’t be too much of a problem come January but it still means that President Obama will be Cabinet less for quite some time.

There are currently 16 Cabinet Secretaries, and although within the Cabinet they are equal (in terms of power) in reality his isn’t completely true. This is because every member of the cabinet is on the Presidential Order of Succession: and as long as they qualify for the office (they have to be born in America, been a permanent resident of the United states for the last 14 years and over the age of 35) then should the worse happen they could be the next president. Of course this is incredibly unlikely, because the highest ranked member of the cabinet on the list; is behind the Vice President, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro-Tempore of the United States Senate.

In fact no member of the US cabinet has ever succeeded the presidency although precautions are taken to ensure that should the worse happensome one would still be president

For the record here is the current list of Government Departments, the Secretary of State for them and the order they currently are within the order of succession;
• The State Department – Condoleezza Rice.
• The Treasury Department – Henry Paulson
• Defence Department – Robert Gates
• Justice Department – (Attorney General) Michael Mukasey
• Interior Department – Dirk Kempthorne
• Agriculture Department – Edward Schafer
• Commerce Department – Carlos Gutierrez
• Labour Department – Elaine Chao
• Health and Human Services – Michael Leavitt
• Housing and Urban Development Department – Steve Preston
• Transport Department – Mary Peters
• Energy Department – Samuel Bodman
• Education Department – Margaret Spellings
• Veterans Affairs – James Peake
• Homeland Security – Michael Chertoff

Now despite the ‘equality’ of all the members there are, like here in Britain there are more important members of the cabinet. They were for so much time known as the ‘big four’; and consisted of the Secretary of State, Secretary of Treasury, secretary of Defence and the Attorney general, although this list now includes another member – the Secretary of Homeland Security. These are the 5 members who garnish the most press coverage in America, and outside of the West wing staff, the President and the Vice President, these 5 people are the most well known members of the administration.

So when President Elect Obama begins to announce his Cabinet nominations, these are the 5 departments that everyone should look out for. And in typical political style names are already either being leaked to positions or just generally thrown at positions in order to make news
The below list has come from various news sites;

Secretary of Defence

Robert Gates. The current Secretary of State is popular amongst both Democrats and Republicans and when he was confirmed by the senate the vote was 95 to 2. The only people who didn’t vote for him were 2 Republicans who voted against his nomination and 3 senators abstained from the vote – they were former Sen. Elizabeth Dole, and current senators Evan Bayh and Joe Biden. During his confirmation hearings Gates said that America was not winning the war in Iraq

Secretary of State

Senator Chuck Hagel. Hagel is a retiring Republican Senator from Nebraska and has been linked to the Obama campaign on previous occasions. He was mentioned as a potential vice presidential candidate, before Obama picked Joe Biden. And whilst he never publically campaigned for Obama, like Lieberman did for McCain, Hagel still carries much weight and respect from the new president elect. So much so he has been linked to two cabinet positions –

Secretary of State or Secretary of Defence. He has characterized the war in Iraq as one of the 5 biggest blunders in American History and that the country should learn from the mistakes of Vietnam.

Senator John Kerry – The Junior Senator from Massachusetts has been along supporter of Obama, endorsing him early in the primary election campaign.

Senator Richard Lugor (R- Indiana) – Another republican who is being linked to the position and another who thinks the war in Iraq is not working. He has also campaigned for an end to the use of Chemical, Biological and Nuclear Weapons.

Governor Bill Richardson (D-New Mexico) – Richardson is a former US Ambassador to the UN, as well as a Secretary of Energy. Both took place under President Clinton. He like Hagel was linked to the Vice Presidency position. He is very popular amongst the senate democrats and harry Reid (the majority leader in the senate) has signalled that confirmations shouldn’t be to hard - "There's no one more qualified to be part of the president's cabinet than Bill Richardson and I would hope that he's under consideration."

Secretary of treasury

Lawrence Summers– A former Secretary of Treasury under Bill Clinton and is currently serving as a member of Obama’s economic transition advisory board.

Timothy Geithner – The current head of the Federal Reserve and a former Under Secretary of State for International Affairs in the Department of Treasury from 1999 to the end of President Clinton’s term.
Paul Volcker – another economic adviser to Obama and another linked to the position of secretary of the Treasury.

Robert Rubin - The final rumored candidate is another former Treasury Secretary for President Clinton.

Attorney General
Eric Holder - he is a former Deputy Attorney General, under the Clinton Administration, and served as acting Attorney General for the first few weeks of President Bush’s term, until John Ashcroft was confirmed by the Senate. He was one of the three people Obama asked to look for his vice presidential nominee, and has also been a prominent legal advisor for the President Elect.

Governor Janet Napolitano (D – Arizona) has also been mentioned for the post. Like Senator Kerry she was an early supporter of Obama during the primary campaign, and before becoming Governor of Arizona she served as the States Attorney General for Three Years. If she doesn’t get a position in the new administration, she will likely serve out the remained of her term, and then challenge McCain for the senate seat at the 2010 elections.

Secretary of Homeland Security

Tim Roemer - a former congressmen from Indiana and a member of the 9/11 commission.
Raymond Kelly - the current commissioner of the New York Police Department, and a former Under Secretary for Enforcement, within the Treasury Department. Many of the agencies he used to supervise are now a part of homeland Security.
James Lee Witt - a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, under President Clinton.

Other Potential nominees

Governor Tom Vilsack - for Secretary of Agriculture

Senator Max Cleland - Secretary of Veterans Affairs

Former Governor Howard Dean, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius and former Senator Tom Daschle are mentioned as possibilities for – Secretary of Health and Human Services

Congressmen Jay Inslee - Secretary of Interior

The news media keeps reporting that Obama will announce his decisions shortly, and whilst they may be true for the big 5, it is unlikely that we will here the names of the full cabinet before January. There are of course other matters: specifically that both Senator Obama and Biden will have to resign there senate seats, before the 20th January. One person being talked about for Biden’s seat is his sonBeau Biden who is currently serving as Delaware’s Attorney General, as well as a tour of duty in Iraq.

But all that is to be sorted out, and there is plenty of time before January

Today Conservative PPC Margot James (Stourbridge) said that homosexuals have a duty to vote conservative at the next election.

Ms James said that homosexual couples often don’t have children and thus they should vote conservative to get tax breaks. I was thinking that this would never get passed the pro-family conservative base, but then it came to me. This is just an extension of the Conservative’s favourite family policy – you must have two parents; a man and a woman. This isn’t support of the homosexual community by the Tory party this is a just new way or persecuting against their rights, and let’s be honest if some of the Conservative Party had their way, they would round up homosexuals along with any other minority group, and deport them out of this country.

But the idea that homosexuals do not benefit from taxes is completely wrong. Yes maybe they don’t have children, but the children who are currently going through the state school system (and thus benefitting from the taxes) may grow up to be in all sorts of fields that can be a benefit to the whole society (e.g. doctors and nurses).

So this PPC, who is openly gay, thinks that the ‘new modern’ Conservative Party can simply wash away years of actively promoting homophobic polices – especially the hideous bit of legislation known as Section 28. The idea that the Conservative party is open and friendly towards the homosexual community is one of the most ridiculous notions presented by the conservative party in recent times. Having met some of the Tory party activists and councillors from across the country, I now know that these people just spit bile and venom at anyone who doesn’t agree with their way of thinking.

So it’s obvious to me that that Ms James has never met these people, as if she had she would never had said; “gay people should not just vote Conservative, they have a duty to vote Conservative.” Duty? Duty to vote Conservative? I don’t think so. Yes people have a civic duty to vote but quite exactly why an entire community should all vote for the conservative party is beyond me. Ms James as well entitled to voice her opinion, but the idea of the entire homosexual community voting Conservative, is as about as likely Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit leaving the Conservative party and joining a Communist party.

The scars of section 28 can’t be removed by Cameron’s showman politics. When the repeal of section 28 went through the House of Commons, the vast majority of Conservative MPs voted against it. And this of course was the second attempt to remove the bill; the first was stopped by the Conservative peers in the House of Lords. Now maybe Ms James forgot about all of this, because of course this only happened in 2003.

There is of course another area where the Conservative Party was able to show its homophobic credentials – the equal age of consent laws. Those with good memories; will know that it only passed after the Parliament Act was used, and this only happened because of a group of peers led by Baroness Young kept stopping the bill in the House of Lords.

Even more recently the party changed its rules so that during selection meetings, the panel can not ask a candidate about his or her sexual preference. This was three years ago. Everyone else grew up along time ago and realised that a candidate’s private life, is that; It’s private. It’s not up for discussion at a selection meeting and it is not a qualification for the job.

So, what Ms James was talking about, the proposed measure that gays should vote for the Tories and in return get tax breaks, is just another example of the modern Conservative party not promoting equality, rather they’re fighting against it. As normal (for them) one section of society will have different rules than the other, and even within the homosexual community there will be a difference in attitude from a Conservative Government; those that conform with their ideals will be rewarded, and those that fulfil their human rights to live their lives as they choose to and going to be punished by the government. So as I said not equal but segregated; the Tories not tolerant, just Homophobic and Ms James is just naive.

Ever since the first rumblings of unhappiness within the labour party towards Gordon Brown, the media have been out in force looking for the plotters who wish to oust the prime minster, in the vain hope that Labour won’t loose the next general election. And then they started to untangle the ‘plot’. First they found the Lancashire Plot and now they’ve found its bigger more powerful brother, and slowly but surely they helped to out the MPs who had, had enough with Gordon. So, the media have found one ‘plot’, and now they’re at it again.

So what do The Western Mail, The Time, and The BBC all have in common?

They all believe that there is a plot amongst senior Liberal Democrat officials, both at the national level and in Wales, that there is a ‘stop Lembit becoming president’ campaign. The Western Mail first reported the story, that several senior Welsh lib dem’s, are exercising there democratic right to choose who they want to be the president of the party, and by doing this they’ve chosen Baroness Ros Scott. So the Western Mail thinks that this is a plot, as the six obviously aren’t allowed to individually choose who they want to be leader, nor are they allowed to announce who they want to be leader or exercise any democratic right, that we as party stand for.

So that is one ‘plot’, the other is at the federal level, or at least according to The Times. This morning they reported that senior Lib Dems, including Vince Cable, Chris Huhne and Danny Alexander are secretly plotting to prevent Opik from winning the presidency. The article also points to Ed Davey, who ran Nick Clegg’s leadership campaign, being one of the main people running Ros’ campaign.

So again, the media have decided that when politicians make an electoral decision, they clearly can not make this on their own, and their must be something else going on.

So that’s a group of Labour MPs who all want Brown out of office, a group of lib dem’s who have publically endorsed Ros Scott and a second group of Lib Dem’s, who are being accused of trying to stop Lembit from winning.

Are these plots? Or maybe, just maybe these are politician’s exercising there rights to say whatever the hell they like. But obviously if you write a newspaper, that doesn’t matter – and it’s defiantly a ‘plot’.

...that the current US elections have all been seen before. A ‘rouge’ freshly elected Democrat VS a almost liberal, old guard Republican Senator.

Yes the sixth and seventh series of the fictional TV show, the West Wing seem to be playing out once again before eyes, only this time the ending isn’t scripted.

The similarities are all to apparent, in the primary process on the show, the Democratic race saw, a fictional congressman called Matt Santos, who had little legislative experience, entered the race against the person who everyone assumed was going to win (in the shows case Vice President Bob Russell), whilst in reality Obama entered in to the race which everyone assumed was Clinton’s to win.

On the republican side the shows similarities are seen again, with McCain resembling fictional senator Arnold Vinick. Both are from Eastern states, both are elderly statesmen, and when you first look at them on paper, they shouldn’t have made it through the tuff conservative Republican primary, and yet they both went all the way through, defeating conservative candidate, after conservative candidate.

And the similarities continue... to the vice presidential nominees. On the show the democrats was a party elder, for massive foreign policy experience and in reality Obama did the same, whilst McCain choose a conservative who would help sure up support from the party base (like on the show except Vinick didn’t choose a woman.

So with all the similarities seen so far, how did the show end (if you haven’t seen the finale stop reading now!!!)



In the end the democrats win, but the election is close...it all came down to Nevada and in the end the electoral college was 272 to 266, but Vinick won the popular vote. So on the show the democrats won, but it wasn’t a complete win - the vice presidential candidate died. So that’s maybe not the outcome most of us are hoping for

Since this topic has once again been raised by Jack Straw, who has by all accounts become obsessed with trying to complete something that has for all accounts being going on for over a hundred years. Now not being the first person to write about this, and I probably won’t be the last, I’m just going to follow what other people have said – coz it worked so well for my dissertation.

So first some background. The House of Lords was the first chamber of Parliament to be created, and it dates back to the thirteenth century, where it served was an advisory council to the monarch of the day. By the fourteenth century there were two distinct bodies, which would later become the House of Commons and the House of Lords, advising the Monarch. One was made up of knights and Burgesses; the other was made up of Barons and churchmen. The two Houses were practically equal, and this remained the case until the early fifteenth century where the Commons denied the right of the House of Lords to influence tax policy.

Hereditary peers have been sitting in the House of Lords for hundreds of years. For most of that time, this only applied to male peers. In the 1920’s female hereditary peers were not allowed to take their seats, as there was a fear that they would promote radical reforms. It was not until 1963, under the ‘Peerage Act’, that woman hereditary peers were allowed to take up their seats.

There are now only 92 hereditary peers who were allowed to sit within the House. There composition is; 2 Labour peers, 3 Liberal Democrat Peers, 42 Conservative Peers and 28 Cross Benchers. These peers were elected by the House of Lords, in 1999 with the exception of the Earl Marshal and The Lord Great Chamberlain who remained so that they can carry out their ceremonial functions. If one of the 92 hereditary peers dies, then a by election is held to ‘elect’ a new hereditary peer to the House.

Reform of the House of Lords is not a new issue; rather it’s an old one. In 1867 Lord Shaftesbury said that “The people must govern, and not a set of hereditary peers never chosen by the people”. Proposals for reform of the House of Lords were seen twice in the 1920’s; with each time the government of the day backing down, but it was not until 1999 that a government passed a major piece of (composition) reform.

So as it stands no there are 4 options for reform of the House of Lords, known as the 4 R’s (a term coined by Lord Norton). The 4 R’s, are; retain, reform, replace or remove altogether.

Retain- House with non elected members

The argument to retain the House of Lords, refers to retaining the chamber in it’s present ‘interim’ state, and keeping the chamber as it is, as it compliments the current House of Commons

The legitimacy of having a completely or mostly appointed chamber, in a democratic state is one of the reasons against this argument of reform; however there are second chambers around the world that’s membership are mostly appointed, for instance the Canadian Senate. The appointments to the senate are made by the governor general, who represents the British Monarch, but in practice they are appointed by the Prime Minister of Canada.

The Canadian Senate is considered to be, on paper at least, a strong second chamber; in fact it has been called “one of the strongest second chambers imaginable, because it has full veto power”. However the issues of legitimacy of the unelected members has meant that despite having the power of a veto over the Canadian House of Commons, the Senate is seen, worldwide as “one of the weakest legislative bodies because it has so little political credibility”.

Reform- House with mixed membership

This section of the debate refers to completing the reform of the House of Lords, also known as the second phase of reform, rather than leaving it in its current ‘interim’ state. This is by all accounts what the government is pursuing, and is an attempt to create a hybrid chamber – part elected and part appointed. This process would see the House of Commons remain as the dominant chamber, whilst the House of Lords would continue to debate and revise.

Replace – House with all elected members

This model of reform would see an end to the House of Lords as its now, and possibly even the name, and it being replaced with an all new second chamber. Within parliamentary systems of government there are second chambers that are elected, and that work alongside the lower house, where the government is predominantly formed from, like the Australian Senate or the French Senate.
In Australia, the senate’s membership is controlled by the country’s constitution, where it states that the chamber must half the number of members of the House of Representatives. This means that currently the chamber has 76 members, and rather than the two chambers being equal, the lower house remains to be the dominant chamber.

One aspect that a potential new upper chamber could take from the Australian senate is the issue of regional representation. The senators, in the Australian Senate are elected to represent an entire state, instead of a single small constituency like members of the lower house. If this was applied to a new upper House in the UK parliament then it would allow the English regions, as well as Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to have a more distinct voice in the political process.

However a fully elected chamber would hold greater legitimacy over the current House of Lords, and if some form of PR was used for the elections the House of Lords would be more representative than the House of Commons. So, in other words the second chamber may be politically weaker than the House of Commons, despite it being more representative of the nation as a whole.
If the second chamber in Parliament was to be elected there would be an issue of whom the government would be accountable to.

Currently the government comes for the most part from the House of Commons, and subsequently it is the House of Commons which, has more power to bring the government to account. This is seen not only through the use of ministerial question time and ministers appearing before Parliamentary select committees but also through the use of votes of no confidence, which can not take place in the House of Lords. These votes can either be held on the issue of a minister or member of the cabinet, such as the vote against then Secretary of State for Health, Patricia Hewitt, or the government as a whole such as the vote against the Labour government in 1979, which the government loss and led to the 1979 general election.

One of the reasons that this system is not part of how the House of Lords operates is because of the historical bias in the chamber towards the Conservative party. This bias would mean that successive Labour governments would potentially be unable to govern as the Conservatives in the chamber would attempt to undermine the elected government. However with the current system of appointments, or the use of elections, it is unlikely that any one party would have a majority of seats within the House of Lords.

Remove Altogether

Surprisingly, the majority of the world’s legislatures are a unicameral; i.e. they have only one chamber. Currently, worldwide there are 77 Bicameral Parliaments and 114 unicameral parliaments and within Europe, there are 17 Bicameral Parliaments, compared with 31 unicameral parliaments.
However, unicameral parliaments are traditionally only seen in countries, where the population is under 5 million (although China, with a population of at least 1.2 billion, being one exception to this rule)

The obvious factor against abolition is the sheer size of the population Great Britain, which according to the2001 census is 58,789,194 and this figure is almost 6 times larger then the largest unicameral state in Europe (Portugal with a population of 10 million), and 12 times larger than the average unicameral state (the average size is 5 million). Therefore, the British parliament requires a larger membership to fulfil its constitutional roles which are much heavier than those seen in smaller countries which have unicameral parliaments. There is however one possible way to have a unicameral chamber – by reforming the House of Commons. But this is questionable – can the House of Commons act as its own safeguard?

So, those are the options do we continue to reform the chamber so that there are both non elected & elected members, or bring in elected members and run the risk of the two chambers fighting against each other. Or do we get rid of the chamber altogether and run the risk of the House of Commons fighting with the country at large. Or just perhaps we keep the chamber as it is, and let it do the job that it does so very well.

We were in Yastradgylis today for one of our summer surgery programmes, and fortunately the surgery coincided with the opening of the town’s new, improved library. We were there for over and an hour and a half and I only heard one complaint about it – that the books were the same as before.

Sometimes I don’t understand why people complain. Yes we all have the right to freedom of speech, but is complaining for complaining sake worth the while in the first place? Yes there are problems in the world, and problems in each of our communities, but there is a limit to what our elected representatives can do, after all despite what people may think, they’re only human. And some things are to big to solve on our own, and to expect an instant result for a complaint; is with out a doubt one of the strangest things that people expect for our elected representatives.

So that’s freedom of speech done (for now); now on to the public at large and what exactly they think of our councillors, MPs and AMs. Why exactly do people fail to understand that all the important decisions do not take place in the chambers, at large, at which they sit? Is it poor education or is it because The Sun newspaper is telling them everyday?

Just because Parliament and the various devolved governments aren’t sitting at the moment doesn’t mean that the politicians who sit in them are on a permanent holiday. MPs, AMs, Councillors, they work throughout the year on your casework; when you send a letter to one of them, they work tirelessly to find a solution for you, stay in contact with you and do everything in their power to get a result for you.

So I’m back to the beginning; why do people complain? Well 99% of the time, it’s because they need help. They need advise, assistance, they’re in trouble and they turn to the people that they’ve entrusted with their votes. They’re the people who are looking for answers as to why something has happened, something that usually doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

And I guess for the other 1% of the time, it’s because they can and they’re bored...but of what is for you all to work out as I simply do not know, nor do I really care. Instead of thinking of an answer to that I’ll spend my time helping the 99%.

Wednesday 23rd July

Do we stay or do we go?

We learnt today that David Cameron MP (or C**T as I call him for short) will be at the Royal Welsh Show tomorrow...so the question is do we go there as well, so that there is a good quantity of lib dems to counter act the evil Tory presence, or do we stay in the office so that we can get on with our very important case work?

However for the record David Cameron will likely spend just a few hours there, whilst Roger Williams MP and Kirsty Williams AM, the 2 Liberal Democrat politicians who represent Brecon and Radnorshire were at the show for hours both on Monday and Tuesday, and Kirsty has spent today at the show as well, and the two of them have been attending meetings that greatly affect the constituency, as well as spending time with constituents who have dropped by the stall.

Tuesday 22nd July

I’m so tired  As I write this to you all its 20:41 on Tuesday afternoon, although of course you wont read this for at least a few days (or maybe less if I can blag some internet access at work!!!). Anyway today I've been at the Royal Welsh Show, which for those of you who haven’t heard about it (which included me until last week) is the largest agricultural show in Europe and attracts around 200,000 people over a 4 day period (although this figure is based on last year where after heavy rain, made the site was more like the Somme).

So for those of you who haven’t been to the show, it’s basically in two parts. There’s the agricultural side which includes all the competitions and there is the stall side, and even within the stall side there is 2 separate parts. There are the mountains of local craft stalls selling everything you could ever think off – from tractors to dog pillows, and then there is the side where the stalls aren’t selling so much as there getting you to listen.

So in other words the second side is like the exhibit and conference, and just like conference the aim is to get as much free stuff as possible.
There were only 2 drawbacks to my time there, 1) I was working so didn’t have that much time to go and explore all the stalls or get much free stuff, and 2) we were practically opposite the evil Tories (I’m sire there are some nice tories in the country but as of yet I haven’t found that many, or at least not ones who work for the party). So to avoid the traffic we (I got a lift up to the site with my boss and a couple of other people) left Brecon around just after 7.45am (which meant I got up at 6.30am, which would have been fine except for the fact that the night before I couldn’t get to sleep, and so I had only had a few hours sleep). We got to the site with no problems at all and were at the lib dem stall, which we were going to be running for the day by 8.30am, with the site opening at 9.00am.

The weather in the morning was cloudy and quite cool which made the impression that the day would be cool and a relatively nice day to be out. Instead the weather had a surprise for us – it was bloody boiling. Now I’m not complaining that were finally having temperatures that should be seen in July but by mid afternoon it just became to hot to stand outside on the pavement between the stalls so we retreated to the canvass covering our stall. But that was in the afternoon, we spent the morning handing out leaflets that had been produced for a campaign that is being led by Roger Williams MP.

The campaign relates to the high cost of petrol, but specifically it relates to rural petrol stations, like the one’s seen in Brecon and Radnorshire. You see, whilst the cost of petrol in urban areas is very high, lets say for example it costs on average £1.19 to buy a litre of petrol in a city centre (like Cardiff for example) it would cost £1.23 from a petrol station, from the same company, in a petrol station in Brecon (which is less that an hour away by car, to Cardiff).

So, why is this? Well it costs more to transport the petrol to the rural areas; the rural areas that have little choice of where to buy petrol from and as a result people living in rural areas pay on average at least 3-4p higher than those people living in urban areas. But there is a solution – and EU law which allows governments to have a rebate in rural areas so that the price of petrol can be the same as in urban areas. When the last finance bill went through Parliament an amendment was offered by the Lib Dems to enact this EU law. The Labour party voted against it, whilst the Conservatives (who claim to be a party for rural areas, as well as urban areas) didn’t vote at all.

David Cameron Mp, will be coming to the Royal Welsh Show today....but instead of being all environmental, Mr Cameron will be arriving by hellicopter!

So does that mean that he's no longer courting the green vote?

Having spectacularly failed to blog recently, here is a round up of news items from around the world.

Last week a US governor signed state wide legislation into affect that made cyber-bullying illegal in the state of Missouri. The bill means that harassment is not just defined in terms of offensive communication through written letters or through conversations on the phone, but also includes text messages and messages sent using the internet, specifically the use of social network sites.

President Bush has celebrated his final birthday of his term, aboard Air Force. The President, First Lady and the majority of his senior staff were flying to his final G8 summit, which is taking place in Japan. The President was presented with a wooden box made out of a tree that fell in the White House grounds that was planted Benjamin Harrison’s daughter. The box was filled with letters and cards from White House staff.

And finally on Thursday the by-election in Haltemprice and Howden by election will take place, but now no-one seems to care as a more interesting election is now taking place in Glasgow . Some of the candidates in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election include; Ronnie Carroll who is standing for Make Politicians history Party who want to abolish MPs and parliament altogether in favor of devolving powers to city states. So in theory if elected Ronnie Carroll will have to find a way to abolish himself.

Whilst David Davis is resigning his seat in the House of Commons, the US Supreme Court has ruled that prisoners at Guantanamo bay have the same constitutional rights as American citizens do. The court ruled 5-4 in favour of the fact that the government has no right to break habeas corpus and imprison anyone without a fair and free trial.

So if the United States most powerful court has ruled that detention without trial is illegal, why exactly is our government trying to push through a law which allows for exactly the same thing? Yesterdays vote was a victory for the government, but only in the sense that they won the vote and taken in any other sense it is a loss, not just for the government but society as a whole. When a government has a majority in the 60’s it should not have to buy off opposition MP’s in order to win a vote.

For society this is perhaps our greatest loss; our loss of our rights. These rights are the very thing that terrorist hate about us – the fact that we are free to choose who and what to believe, the fact that we have the rights to say what we want, protest against the government and have the freedom to live our lives as we see fit. By passing this law, and the other civil liberty infractions that the government has perused over the years, we are being forced in to changing our way of life, and as a result are we not letting the terrorists win?

After 7/7 the most important underlying message that our political leaders told us was to go about our lives as normal and not change a single thing, yet despite this advice the politicians seem to ignore it and slowly but surely they pass law after law which means that our way of life can, at least not for now never return to the way it was.

There is only one ray of sunshine to all of this, and that is at least for now this law will not reach the statue books. Whilst the government has a majority in the House of Commons, it does not have this in the House of Lords and unlike the spineless opposition MPs who were bought with empty government promises the membership of the House of Lords cannot be bought so easily. The government will have to overcome the combined effort of the Conservative party, the Liberal Democrats as well as the cross benchers, who for the most part hold the balance of power in the chamber, and this combined group will likely vote down this legislation, and with the DUP only having a handful of peers in the chamber, the government will have to look elsewhere for new friends to help them out.

So the bill will not pass, at least not any time soon, and it will be sent back to the House of Commons, and so the game of political ping-pong will start and the two chambers at the heart of our democracy will fight it out for the heart of our rights. And once the House of Lords has rejected the bill 3 times, the government will ask the speaker to invoke the parliament Act, and the fight for our rights will move from the legislative branch, to the judicial branch (just like it has done in America).

So the fight will have moved, first it will go to the High court, then either to the Supreme Court, or if it still isn’t ready it will ironically go back to the House of Lords, where the Law Lords currently sit and have the right to vote in the chamber. Assuming that neither side accepts the ruling of the Law Lords the fight will end in the European Court of Human rights, which take one look at the bill in all its glory and then take one look at the European Convention, of which we are signatories to and strike down the bill as it violates Article 6 of the convention – specifically the right to fair trial.

So that is what we can expect to see and this fight for our freedom. It all seems like a waste of time when the conclusion is well known that this bill violates the heart of our freedoms and will be, eventually, ruled illegal by the courts.

Every political commentator, whilst waiting for the results from London to come through, is talking about the national picture, after yesterdays vote . The big question; that everyone seems to be asking is what if the predicted national share of the vote was seen at a general election.

Well thanks to the BBC, and their general election seat calculator (from the 2005 general election), as well as the exit poll/research they used last night we can see how many seats each of the three parties would have had if it had been a general election. Last night the national (predicted) vote went; 44% Conservative, 24% Labour, 25% Liberal Democrat and 7% went to other political parties.

Based on those results the Conservatives, not surprisingly would form the new government, with a massive 459 (up from 192 MPs) seats in the House of Commons. Labour would be on 107 (down from the current 351 MPs) and the Liberal Democrats, despite polling 25% of the vote would only be on 56 seats (down from 63 MPs). The other political parties would make up the remaining seats in Parliament, with a combined 24 MPs. This would mean the Tories would have a majority of 272 MPs according to this projection. To form the government, under the current number of seats in the House of Commons which is 646, the majority party needs 324 seats, and clearly the conservatives pass this margin spectacularly.

Now obviously this wouldn’t be the full make up of a new parliament, because last night only saw elections in selected areas and there were no elections in either Northern Ireland (which has 18 MPs on its own and none of these are from the main political parties) or in Scotland (where the Conservative party has only a single MP, out of the 59 which represent constituencies in the country).

Add to that, no matter what is said at the end of the day these were local elections, and for these local issues are the most important. Yes national policies come into affect but there are places throughout the country where the threat to council run public services or the performance of the council over the last year takes priority over what is happening in Westminster.

With 2 of the 3 Lincolnshire councils, to hold elections this year, reporting results it has been a night for the Conservatives, and unfortunately a bad night for the Liberal Democrats.

Here in Lincoln the Conservatives have gained a seat from Labour to take their majority to 3. The council make up is now 18 (Conservative) 14 (Labour) and 1 (Liberal Democrat) – please note that the BBC have got it wrong on their website, and the way that I know this is that I was at the count and saw Helen Heath re-elected by a greater margin than she was elected by last year.

In West Lindsey, the Conservatives took 4 seats from the Lib Dem’s, which has switched control of the council from Lib Dem to Conservative

As for North East Lincolnshire, it appears that it will remain no-overal-control but the Lib Dems will be the majority party at the council, they are predicted to be just 1 seat short of forming a majority council.

So the race is still going on, and maybe just maybe soon we will know who will face John McCain in the fall and have a chance to become the next president of the United States.

The race officially began in January with the first primary, and it unoficaly began in 2003 when Hilary implied that she may run in 2008, whilst ruling out a run in 2004. And here we are a mere 4 months later, after the official start, and unlike the Republicans, who have nominated Senator John McCain, who out of the original possible contenders, is best described as the ‘liberal Republican’ – in other words he may not be pro everything but he unlike most republicans feels that maybe just maybe the 10th Amendment to the constitution should be followed instead of ignored when it comes to something that you don’t agree with.

Anyway, back to the democrats; as it stands Senator Obama is in the lead with 1,652 including known super delegate endorsements, to Senator Clintons 1,508 delegates. The grand total required to win the nomination now stands at 2,025 – the reason for this is the super delegates. As they represent 19% of delegates there numbers fluctuate, meaning that until the convention the exact number of super delegates can rise and fall. This can happen through many ways – e.g. the resignation of any super-delegate, like former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer, or the death of a democratic member of congress such as the late Tom Lantos. But of course with the loss of a member, by whatever means, always sees a replacement take over, but in the case of Gov. Spitzer’s former place his replacement as governor – the former Lt Governor of New York David Paterson was already a super-delegate.

So, Obama is 373 delegates away from the nomination, Clinton is 517. The total number of delegates left, from the primaries is 566. Now this means that in theory either candidate could win by gaining the most delegates from the remaining primaries, but in practice this is very unlikely as instead of having winner takes all primaries, the reaming races see the delegates split along the lines of the vote. This means that the race is likely, although Obama could still win out-right, to be decided by the Super-delegates.

There is, currently 307 super-delegates who are yet to pick a side – including current House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Vice President Al Gore. But many of these have suggested that they will follow the way of the votes and side with the nominee who has the most support from the party at large, meaning that if things stay the way they are, Senator Obama will clinch the nomination away from Senator Clinton, but it will go down to the last race, and maybe even down to the convention itself.

One thing is for certain though, this is the most expensive election in US history, and not just in terms of the money being raised by the candidates, but also the effort it is taking to protect them. Senator Clinton, as a former first lady is entitled to protection provided by the US Secret Service for the rest of her life, providing that she does not re-marry (and thus leave President Clinton). That meant that from the moment she started to campaign she was unique from every other candidate in history – she was having Secret Service protection before the outcome of the primary process was clear to the world.

Ever since the assassination of Robert Kennedy the major candidates at a presidential election of received Secret Service protection, but this usually only happens within 120 days of the actual election date. But the word ‘usually’ doesn’t apply to this election, as now both of the Democrat candidates have been protected by the Secret Service for the vast majority of the campaign.

In Senator Obama’s case he was given secret service protection after there were worries that threats against his life maybe made, or even acted on (much in the same way that in the first series of 24 the character of David Palmer was given Secret Service protection.

What’s more Senator McCain, who has been confirmed as the Republican nominee for quite some time now, is yet to get his own Secret Service detail – but only because he hasn’t asked for one yet.

So, back to delegates. It is now a numbers game, for all the strategists to work out all the possibilities following results from each of the remaining primaries. One thing is for sure, whilst the democrats look like a fighting rabble Senator McCain is looking more and more winnable, although he is struggling to get any media coverage as everyone it seems, for now at least, is far more interest in watching two Democrat Senators fight on national TV, day after day after day.

I know that I’m late blogging about this, when you consider that it happened Tuesday night/ Wednesday morning, but it’s official now John McCain will be the Republican Nominee for President of the United States. Whilst for now we are no closer to knowing who will be the Democrat nominee will be, since Obama and Clinton still remain neck and neck in the race to, be in the race to the white house.

It is looking more and more likely that the race is going to be decide by the Superdelegates. Although there is still a chance that the voters will decide the outcome of the primary process, this is looking slimmer and slimmer, and so the Campaigns move on; today to Wyoming and Tuesday to Mississippi.

Me on the other hand; I will actually be in America when the next primary takes place. I’m off to New York tomorrow, hence my absence from the party conference in Liverpool, to attend a student conference at the United Nations.



The one day conference which will see a debate on whether or not the five permanent members of the Security council should give up their Veto, added to other educational activities on Tuesday and Wednesday morning, including visits to Ellis Island and the Tenement museum will see me out of the country for the first time since I went to university, and the first time I’ve been to America in over 5 years.



In fact the last time I was there (in America) I was in New York, a mere 18 months after the 9/11 attacks. Like last time I will again visit ground zero, which was a strange experience the first time. A site where thousands of people died; and tens of thousands of people’s lives changed forever; for it to now be a tourist attraction just seems wrong. But that unfortunately isn’t the worst thing about the site. I’m hoping that times have changed and that what I remember being there is no longer there.



Last time I was at ground zero it was a cold it was a foggy Sunday morning which just added to the cold effectiveness of the site. But opposite was something I did not expect to see, people capitalising on the tragedy by selling all things American.



Posters, photos and American flags decorated over everything and there they were not seeing the tragedy but seeing a chance to make money.

So will New York have changed? At the moment I don’t know, but so much has changed since that dreadful day that it now impedes upon all of our lives, and of course our elections.



And America is no different; terrorism and the war on terror remain key issues for the campaigns that are fighting across America, for the chance to fight for America. Mississippi is next for the Democrats, whilst the republicans look to unite around John McCain and the one interesting thing now for the republicans will be; will McCain let President Bush who for the most is seen to blame for all that has happened since that day, campaign with him. He faces a choice bring Bush along to unite the party, or risk bringing Bush along and alienate the rest of America against a new Republican administration. For the democrats we all wait, and I’m fairly sure to say, in boredom to see will one give up to help the other. Will it be Obama or Clinton, or could we get very lucky and despite the negativity of the campaign see the dream ticket of either Obama/Clinton or Clinton/Obama in the race to the White House, a race that will not finish for over 7 months.

The US Presidential election is still over half a year away, and while we are almost sure that Arizona Senator John McCain will be the nominee for the Republican Party; we will not likely know who his main opponent from the Democratic Party will be until after the North Carolina primary on May 6th.

But with the results already so close there is the possibility that neither nominee will have the 2,025 delegates needed to win the nomination, and if after the results have been counted and delegates divided up on May 7th, then the Democratic Party will have no nominee and will in essence be broken in half. One party official said that the result will lie with the super delegates, but if they have to make the call over the party at large then this will be compared to the Supreme Court decision in Florida, at the 2000 election, which saw Bush win despite Al Gore wining the popular vote.

So if the result now lies with the small group super-delegates, are super-delegates democratic?

Well no, they’re not, but then again they are. On the one hand they were not directly voted into this position of being able to vote for the party’s presidential nominee but on the other hand almost all of these have been voted for by the party, as they are elected officials. And under party rules this is perfectly legal, and can happen. But in a party that’s name is democratic, is it right for the will of the people to be changed by a small group within its own party?

Take Massachusetts for example, where the states two senators, Senator Kennedy and 2004 Presidential nominee Senator Kerry have endorsed Senator Obama. However Senator Clinton won the states primary. So after the first round of voting in August, at the nomination convention and the results are tied, as is the prediction at the moment, with no clear winner, is it fair for these two senators to ignore the wishes of their own state?

Well under the rules of a primary contest; when people vote in a primary they do not vote for how their states super-delegates vote, they vote for what are known as ‘pledged’ delegates, who are divided up according to the votes for the candidates, and at the convention they vote accordingly, whilst the super delegates are ‘unpledged’ and are free to vote as see fit.

The super-delegates are any member of the party who is either; a Senator, a member Congress, a State’s Governor or a former Party leader such as President Clinton, as well as some senior activists in the party. Super delegates do have the right to change their mind at the convention, which means it is perfectly reasonable for both the Massachusetts to change their vote for Clinton, but with that Clinton runs the risk of loosing some of the super-delegates, especially those from the Black community in America, who are beginning to switch sides and support Obama.

Congressman David Scott, who represents a district in Georgia, has said he will vote for Obama at the convention, despite already endorsing Senator Clinton. He said “You've got to represent the wishes of your constituency”. His district gave more than 80% of its vote to Obama, and because of this he will vote for Obama and not Clinton. Other members of the congressional black caucus, who have endorsed Clinton, are thought to be thinking of doing the same thing and switching their vote from Clinton to Obama.

Because Super-delegates can change their mind at any time, and in fact do not even have to endorse a candidate their views are hard to track, which makes getting an accurate count of how many delegates have, incredibly difficult. Currently Obama has 1,116 of the pledged delegates, to Clinton’s 985, while according to the AP Clinton has won more super-delegates (241) compared to Obama (164). This means that the actual totals the candidates are on are 1,280 to Obama compared with 1,226 for Clinton.

So the super-delegates are making an already close race, even closer, and they could be the king or queen maker. But whether or not this right or not is highly debated, not least within the Democratic Party; Speaker Pelosi the highest ranking Democratic in Congress has said "I don't think it was ever intended that super-delegates would overturn the verdict, the decision of the American people,"

Whether or not they are needed to cast the winning vote is still unsure, as some of the larger states in the union are yet to have their primaries, and the votes in these states could give one of the two senators the necessary delegates they need to win the nomination.

One quick note though, on the Republican side; Senator John McCain who is the virtual winner of the race has received another vital endorsement this one from former President George H.W. Bush. Whether or not this will help McCain solidify the republican party behind him, whilst the Democrats continue to fight remains to be seen