A few observations on respect

Understandably the airwaves are full of the news that George Galloway has triumphed in the Bradford West by-election, with accusations full of recrimination coupled with other articles containing supposed enlightened comment flying about left, right and centre. Methinks all need to calm down as one or two matters do not appear to have been considered, namely;

• What percentage of the votes cast for Galloway were postal votes;
• What percentage of those postal votes were from the ethnic electorate;
• What were the percentages of ethnic votes by races and religion;
• What percentage of those postal votes could be considered 'justifiable';
• Galloway has in the past shamelessly played the 'Palestine' factor while campaigning; consequentl he brought together his anti-war, pro-Palestine views and aimed his message at the ethnic community;
• Galloway is a politician and consequently any views he expresses about speaking and caring for the people of Bradford West can only be viewed with suspicion, especially when one bears in mind his parliamentary attendance just before and after the 2005 general election.

In view of the above I would tend to disagree with those who hold that this result was a rejection of the Lib/Lab/Con and all for which those parties stand. Is not the public perception of our political elite as one that comprises white, educational elitists who have never had a real job and consequently invite ridicule when they talk about hard-working families? Was this not a by-election and not are such events renowned for protest votes?


Cranmer has written what can be considered a condemnation of Ukip and Nigel Farage, which brought forth a comment on twitter that Ukip needed to change their strategy in order to win - a comment which, in turn, prompted my response querying how can one change something that does not exist in the first place. To be fair to Ukip, it could be suggested that they were on what may be termed a hiding to nothing in a constituency that contains significant numbers from abroad, a section of our population that Ukip have vowed to repatriate.


It is worth considering other factors following the result of Bradford West. 

• With Galloway being a 'lone voice' in Westminster, will he now be ostracised by his fellow MPs?
• Has Galloway 'debased' our electoral system with what may be termed a cynical campaign in which he targeted and exploited ethnicity?
• Has the policy of multiculturalism not polarised the political views of electorates as a result of ghettoising areas of the country - for example, Bradford, Leicester and Newham?
• Would Direct Democracy, with that system's inbuilt ability of the electorate to challenge government policy, have allowed multiculturalism and wars to proceed?
• Had Direct Democracy been the 'norm', would the platform on which Galloway stood have existed; and would politicians such as Galloway exist?

Just asking....................

Promoting the European Union - and 'honoured'?

Cranmer has a post on the award of KCMG to Dr. Michael Leigh for services to the enlargement of the European Union - a post which ends with the words "Not so much cash for honours, but trash for treason.". Following on from Cranmer it is possible by scrolling down the Diplomatic Service list to see that Leigh was not the only person honoured for services to the European Union because awarded an OBE is one Paul Edward Adamson, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher, E!Sharp, Brussels, for services promoting the European Union.


E!Sharp is an interesting organisation in that Wikipedia informs us it is a bi-monthly publication with a circulation of just 14,756 (Jan-June 2009). It is an organisation that has articles by Neelie Kroes, the present Digital Agenda Commissioner, Pierre Vimont, the present Executive Secretary General of the External European Action Service and other ex-employees of the EU Commission. It is obviously a source of knowledge in that prominent on the home page is a reference to EU jargon-busting, a reference that contains just 7 entries: 4 under 'A' and 3 under 'B'. The 'about us' section is equally crammed full of facts about employees etc - not. All this rather begs the question just exactly for what did Adamson receive his OBE?


Just asking.......................




Afterthought: Of course it 'mitre' be said that Cranmer (and I) are a tad late as this subject was raised three days ago by Ian Parker-Joseph.