as individuals
One of the objectionable features of the Euro-voting system is the artificiality of the electoral divisions. Their synthetic nature can be inferred from their names: North West, South West and so on. My own region,ghd sale, the South East,Nike Air Max, is perhaps the most unnatural of all,Nike Air Max 90 Australia. It lacks any focal point. Or, rather, its focal point is London, which is outside it.
Canvassing with Anne Milton: the Guildford MP is two miracles away from sanctification
Still, if it did have a centre,ghd, that centre would be Guildford, where the South East's bureaucracies are housed, and it to this prosperous corner of Surrey that I have repaired in the closing days of the campaign: Burpham, Wonersh, Blackheath, Elstead,Mulberry outlet, Farnham – and . I'm starting to feel bullish about .
Why am I bothering,oakley pas cher? With more than six million voters in my patch, no amount of canvassing will appreciably . I suppose I'm motivated by a combination of Kantian imperative and curiosity: knocking on doors is a way to find out what people are saying. And one thing I've learned, to my pleasure, is that people are more discerning about their MPs than you'd guess from some of the media comment,lunettes oakley. The two local MPs here,Mulberry bags, Anne Milton and Jeremy Hunt, are well known and well liked. I haven't heard a single "they're all the same"; but I've heard several remarks along the lines of "we're lucky here, Jeremy is one of the clean ones". As for Anne, who commutes every day and doesn't take a penny from her Additional Costs Allowance, her description in this newspaper as "saintly" seems to have penetrated every household in Guildford. People recognise her and shout greetings. Several constituents rush up for a beatific hug. I half expect someone to present her with a sick child to be healed.
Why am I telling you this? Because I am worried by the number of people who are exploiting the expenses crisis to revive the case for proportional representation,gucci pas cher. Look, there may be perfectly honourable arguments for PR, but the one thing it isn't is a solution to the current scandal. On the contrary, we've just seen a massive vindication of the principle that people should be allowed to hire and fire MPs as individuals.
Trust me on this: I know how at first hand how PR works. I could have spent the past four weeks in front of the television, and it would have made no difference whatever to my prospects. If candidates have no cause to fear the voters,Louis Vuitton Handbags Australia, accountability is diminished. That's why we should have . And, in case you think I'm urging a system on others that I wouldn't accept myself, let me close by suggesting a return to one-member Euro-constituencies; and let's have open primaries for them, too.
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it is surely better for everything to be out in the open.
It's hard not to admire George Monbiot for . As he says, journalists often have a giving-it-out-but-not-taking-it problem. I know a columnist,lunettes oakley, for example,gucci, who often writes that Britain needs to export more weapons, but who has never, to my knowledge,Mulberry bags, divulged that he goes shooting at the expense of a prominent arms dealer. This doesn't stop him dismissing MPs as uniquely venal and corrupt.
What has prompted Monbiot's transparency? He explains it like this:
The question of who pays for public advocacy has become an obsession of mine. I’ve seen how groups purporting to be spontaneous gatherings of grassroots activists, fighting the regulation of tobacco or demanding that governments should take no action on climate change, have in fact been created and paid for by corporations: a practice known as astroturfing.
He's on to something, though it doesn't follow that these groups are wrong to oppose regulation. As Delingpole , this is the 'Motive Fallacy',Mulberry bags. You might have a personal interest in saying something, yet it might none the less be true. Still, it is surely better for everything to be out in the open,chanel.
Oddly, though, Monbiot says nothing about the money and influence on the other side. Yes, the oil, tobacco and () pharma lobbies are active in politics – every day I spend as an MEP teaches me quite how active. Even more frenetic,louis vuitton outlet, however, are the poverty lobbyists and green NGOs: Oxfam, Friends of the Earth, War on Want,ghd hair straighteners, the WWF,Mulberry outlet,??and, .
The global corporations and the global NGOs are mirror images of each other. Both distrust the democratic process, preferring to reach understandings with key opinion formers. Both, accordingly, love the EU, immediately intuiting that it was designed to be immune to public opinion. Yet, for some reason, most of those who complain about the anti-democratic tendencies of the multi-nationals have a blind spot when it comes to the eco-lobbies and anti-free-trade campaigns.
Incidentally, just to anticipate some of your comments,louis vuitton outlet AU, all Conservative MEPs record and publish every meeting they hold with lobbyists. I took the decision some years ago . When a lobbyist requests a meeting, I reply that I should be happy to talk any of his clients who are my constituents, and that they should get in touch with me directly. I am, I realise, being very unfair to the overwhelming majority of lobbyists, who have regulations of their own to ensure ethical behaviour. But, like Monbiot, I've become obsessed with the way in which the democratic process is circumvented,oakley france. Transparency won't solve the problem; .
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however thoroughly they have been refuted
At what point in last week’s leaders debate did Nick Clegg register his single worst reaction from the watching public (as measured by the “worms” with which a representative audience signals its approval for what it is hearing),air max Australia?? The answer is that Cleggie held up pretty well for most of the 90 minutes, but crashed when he started attacking David Cameron for having the "wrong" allies in Europe. The worms turned,Mulberry handbags.
It was a kind of gnomic,Mulberry outlet, Lib Dem : a moment when an out-of-touch,cheap ghd?party leader appeared scorn the instincts of the nation as a whole,sac chanel pas cher. Most people believe that immigration is not being properly controlled, and resent the idea that this makes them bigots. Likewise, most British people want to live in an independent democracy, and resent the idea that this makes them nutters.
I know that BBC reporters and Lefty bloggers will find this hard to accept. For months,oakley france, they have been propagating truly vile stories about our Eurosceptic partners – stories which,cheap ghd, zombie-like,sac gucci, keep coming back, however thoroughly they have been refuted ().
But you know what guys? It hasn’t worked. The smearers have ended up more stained than the smearees. When you imply that opposition to the EU makes someone a xenophobe, you don’t change his attitude to the EU,louis vuitton outlet, but you do change his attitude to you.
Just watch what happens if Cleggie launches into another of those “we’ve-got-to-get-over-the-fact-that-we-lost-the-Empire-and-anyway-why-can’t-we-be-as-sophisticated-as-the-French” routines tonight. Come on,ghd straighteners, Nick: make our day!
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