By Election Results.

Labour have won the by-elections in Ealing Southall and in Blair's old constituency of Sedgfield.

Ealing Southall - Was a bit messy, i would have gone along to campaign for us, but couldn't as i had school and then was away on Duke of Edinburgh expedition in Scotland, but glad to see we won, as was expected. Was a really good kick in the nuts for good ol' Davie C.

Labour's majority was reduced by over 7% with a 5¼% swing to the Lib Dems, with the Tories again in 3rd, God it is good to see the Tories doing badly! The Greens had a decent result, finishing in fourth followed by George Galloway’s Respect Party (hate the man and i am so glad that he has been banned from the Commons for i think it is 17 days), UKIP, the Christian Party, an Independent, the Monster Raving Loony Party, English Democrats and two more Independents.

I was slightly surprised that the Fascist BNP didn't do better, as normally in places with a large migrant community, such as Ealing, you get a few racist, disenfranchised bigoted white van men sorts who turn to the far right. Glad to see that such people were in short supply, guess they may have voted for the EDP or some of the independents.


In Balir's old constituency we also won, as was expected, but with a big fall in our majority.

Phil Wilson, but Labour saw its majority drop by 14% with an 11% swing towards the Lib Dems who leapfrogged the Tories to take second place with the fascist BNP doing rather well coming in fourth place, rather worrying eh?

More Social housing.

Great! We need more social housing, just hope that we make sure that we follow through properly. In fact we need to build even more that Brown outlined. Brown said we will build 3m more houses by 2020, but several estimates say that by then the number of house holds will have increased by 3.5m! So we are just about breaking even, although that is the most extreme estimates.

We need to build lots of affordable housing, furthermore we cannot rely and expect the private sector to simply do it for us. We must Build some ourselves (i mean the state should build them). If houses are built by the state then the state has better control of housing stock, that way we can ensure that those who realy need houses get them. We can limit multiple property ownership and vastly decrease the number of empty houses. Many people simply don't use some houses, keeping them as an investment for the future as a means of generating more wealth, by most accounts clever but immoral.

If the state controls or at least has greater influence over the housing stock then we can control the stock of housing, ensuring that the poorest and 1st time buyers get a home. Additionally, we can then disuade people to live alone, we can encourage joint living, either by selling to coupples or those living together at a lower price or by saying that they have a lower rent payment.

Well, whatever we do, we need to build more houses, the absolute minimum amount bult must be Barkers 100,000 a year. I would rather have a housing surplus than what we have now, that would also mean that we wouldn't have an economy partly driven by house prices.

Browns mini Queens speech.

Yesterday at PMQ's Brown announced 23 peices of new legislation, his own personal Queens speech, made by himself! Among his announcements, Brown canceled the super casino for Manchester (what you think of that? - surely a good thing.), he announced plans to build more social housing - surely needed, we can only hope that unlike with similar announcements in 94', 98' and other recent occasions that they will actually stick to their word in building more AFFORDABLE housing, something Brown was vague on, as in he didn't say that the minimum 70,000 affordable houses to prevent meltdown should be built, he merely said more should be built, should he have said more affordable houses specifically? Among this he announced much more. I haven't got enough time right now to go thought them all, but may at a later date if i can be bothered.

For more info see:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6292392.stm - Browns bills at a glance.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6291864.stm - Browns building programme.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6288524.stm - Housing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6291764.stm - Super Casinos.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6290882.stm - Downplays Iraq terror link.

Government of all the talents.

What is all this about? Trying to get Lib-Dems in. Seems a bit cunning to me. To be honest i am ill at ease with the idea. Also, if i were a backbench Labour MP I would be so pissed at being overlooked. In fact just as a party member I am annoyed, don't we have good enough MP's?

Whay have we got people like Digby Jones in the cabinet. He is by no strech of the immagination a socialits and as the bias socialist worker point out, he has a history of union abuse (http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=12337) , not unsuprising from a former boss of the CBI. To be so hostile to the unions, and to be a Labour minister is peverse, especially as the Labour party was founded by the trade unions, traditionally having more of a trade unionist ideology than a socialist one. Anyway, this bringing in outsidres all seems a bit odd to me. But if it means we win the next election then I won't complain too much, just so long as it doesn't last too long. How about labour MP's in a labour givernment, not outsiders appointed by Lordships of convenience.

What about collective ministerial responsibility?

Following Sir Digby Jones's (a new trade minister who is given the task of promoting British trade) comments the other day in the papers saying that Brown should lower certain business taxes leaves collective ministerial responsibility in ciaos. He hasn't even been in a week and he is already speaking out of line. If he disagrees with government policy he should resign.

In addition to ol'Digby, Harman appears to have no respect for collective ministerial responsibility. - She criticised the war in Iraq to win votes off Cruddas. She said there should be an apology for the war. Yet, in spite of all this she didn't resign. If she opposed a key bit of Government policy - the war and the lack of an apology - then she should have resigned and should now resign! Does collective ministerial responsibility mean nothing to these people!

The convention of Collective ministerial responsibility states that if a minister disagrees with key government policy, then he/she should resign. This convention encompasses the whole of government, as a result of this not only did senior cabinet ministers like Cooke resign, but also lowly government ministers such as Denham also resigned.

If people disagree with key government policy then they should resign or keep stum. End of!

Things now.

So, we have a new PM and a new cabinet. Brown will be, in my opinion a good PM, someone i will have no problem canvasing on behalf of at the next general election. We have waved good bye to Blair who is off to the middle east to try to sort out the Israel-Palestine problem. All i can say is best of luck to him.

Basically on this blog i will comment on things as they arise.