Showing posts with label Sinn Fein. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sinn Fein. Show all posts

Tuesday, 26 April 2011

AV: Yes, No, Undecided

The results of the last opinion poll I can find, which I shall take at face value, are as follows:

Yes - 32%
No - 41%
Undecided - 22%


OK, the 'Yes' voters are most likely to turn out and vote, the 'No' voters less so and the 'Undecideds' are unlikely to vote, so that's not looking good, but if you are 'undecided' at the moment, why not cover your bets by voting 'Yes'?

IF at the next General Election you can't quite make up your mind which candidate you like best [dislike least] THEN at least you have the option of casting a 'conscience vote', a 'comedy vote' and a 'compromise vote;

ELSE IF you support one candidate, and one only THEN you still have the option of casting your first and only vote for that candidate, safe in the knowledge that this is exactly the same as casting your first, second, third etc. votes for that candidate.

ELSE IF you heartily disagree with all the candidates on offer and want to register a protest vote THEN you can look up the results of the previous election and cast your votes in reverse order of how likely they are to win, leaving the most likely candidate blank.

ENDIF.

Footnote: Even if it were the case that under AV, the BNP would grab a couple of seats in Parliament, would that be the end of the world? However little you like the BNP's policies, they are after all a political party which claims* that it wants to get into power first and then start killing people; they are not the political wing of a distinctly anti-British guerilla movement which actually has killed hundreds of people over the decades**, and the UK Parliament has had a handful of Sinn Fein MPs for years without anything terrible happening.

* I don't think their leadership, i.e. Nick Griffin, seriously imagines they ever will, it's just him and a few other cynical racists making a living off the backs of lots of little people.

** I actually agree with the Irish republican cause, but the means they have used (and the way that the USA sucks up to them) turn my stomach, and I'm not impressed with the way things are going in Northern Ireland.

Wednesday, 26 January 2011

It's hard to guess which one is telling a bare-faced lie...

From the BBC:

The prime minister told MPs Mr Adams had accepted a role as "Baron of the Manor of Northstead"... To laughter from MPs, he added: "I'm not sure that Gerry Adams will be delighted to be Baron of the Manor of Northstead. But nonetheless I'm pleased that tradition has been maintained."

However, a spokesperson for Sinn Fein said that Mr Adams' only communication with the House of Commons had been a letter of resignation to the speaker.


The most likely explanation is that they are both lying, of course, which still leaves us none the wiser...
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UPDATE 27 Jan: From the BBC:

House of Commons Speaker John Bercow has ruled that Gerry Adams has been disqualified from Parliament. Earlier, Downing Street had apologised to Mr Adams after the prime minister said he had accepted a Crown title...

Later on Wednesday, Mr Adams said that when he was told of Mr Cameron's remarks it was the first he had "heard of this development". In a statement he said the claim that he had accepted a crown title was "untrue" and that he had "simply resigned". "I am an Irish republican," he said, "I have had no truck whatsoever with these antiquated and quite bizarre aspects of the British parliamentary system."

Sinn Fein: Cutting the crap

Disclaimer: I do not much of like their politics and have no personal sympathy for Gerry Adams etc etc, but hats off to his spokesman, from here:

Under procedures dating back to 1642, MPs are forbidden from formally resigning their seats. They must apply for a position of profit under the crown, which automatically disqualifies them from being a member of the House of Commons. Under those rules, Mr Adams has to apply to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to become Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead. The other office is Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds, a role currently unavailable as it is held by former Strangford MP Iris Robinson...

The rules, available on parliament's website, suggest that the problem cannot be solved by appointing Mr Adams to the role, regardless of his own wishes. They state that an MP wishing to retire must apply themselves to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

A Sinn Fein spokesperson has told the BBC that Mr Adams has no intention of doing so. He said: "It's a non-issue from our perspective. He submitted his resignation and that's it. He's stepped down from that position. He certainly didn't apply for the Stewardship of the Manor of Northstead."