May, 2009

Politics — 38 Comments
15
May 09

With lies like these I’d rather the LibDems fiddled their expenses

As the Westminster expenses scandal drags the reputation of all MPs down into the gutter whether they deserve it individually or not, you’d think that politicians would be extra-careful to keep their noses clean during the European Parliament campaign for the election on 4th June.

Obviously no-one told the LibDems. Yesterday they launched their election campaign leaflets in London which stoop to new lows in lying to the public to trick them into voting LibDem.

Three leaflets that I’ve seen all use a similar tactic of exploiting voters’ ignorance of the European electoral system into fooling them into voting tactically as they might in a general election for the UK Parliament in Westminster. Continue reading →

Politics / Sutton — 3 Comments
13
May 09

Is Sutton Council too white?

The Sutton Minority Ethnic Forum is running a project called the Shadow Councillor Scheme, which lets people who may be interested in becoming councillors find out more by closely following a councillor for a month. While everyone is welcome to apply to the project, the council says that:

We are particularly hoping to attract interest from Sutton’s minority groups to help improve the political representation of the borough’s minority ethnic communities.

There seem to be two assumptions in this statement. The first is that there aren’t enough ethnic minority councillors (hereafter “ME”) and the second that the ethnic composition of the council actually matters. Continue reading →