May 2nd, 2005
Major reason why this commentary comes so late is that we were unsure whether to call upcoming British elections illegitimate outright or wait and see what happens next. It is certain that elections will be marred by irregularities and serious vote rigging, especially postal votes, but it is still unclear whether this rigging will impact significantly election results and whether all three major parties will take part in this. Our final decision was to wait for the election day, check out every report on voting irregularities and then put them into account with final results. If all three parties decide to cheat and deceive voters then it is hard to do anything. It was an easy call in Zimbabwe elections where opposition clearly presented massive rigging and lodged the complaints but if both, or three sides are silent then it is next to impossible to point out in the right direction. One important change in these elections is that OSCE will be monitoring elections for the first time. They are already furious about postal votes and there is a strong possibility that they even declare entire elections illegitimate. Irregularities will be reported for certain. Our advice to OSCE is to tightly monitor any irregularities regarding voters lists, postal votes and final results published by election committees around UK not to waste time on voter intimidation. OSCE has previous past of only watching if there is any violence around polls or if people were prevented from voting but completely ignoring dead people votes, ballots stuffing and outright forgeries of final scores. UK elections are one of major elections because many see UK as a cradle of democracy in modern items. Any success of cheating and vote rigging will have dire consequences around the world for democratic process and most probably irreparable damage will be done with no chance of going back.
Some info from BBC regarding imminent vote rigging on May 5th:
The Conservatives have said the general election could be decided by as few as 800,000 voters in marginal constituencies.
Tony Blair has said it could be just a few hundred.
So what happens if you are not fortunate enough to be among that number? Does your vote count for anything at all?
And what if the massive increase in postal voting at this election leads, as some observers fear, to a big increase in electoral fraud?
Mr Folkes claims Britain's first-past-the-post electoral system "reduces the number of people who are targeted by parties to about 2% of the voting population".
As a result, the ERS says it could safely declare the result in 425 constituencies in England, Wales and Scotland tomorrow morning.
So what is the point in voting on 5 May if you live in a safe Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat seat?
"To express confidence in the system of democracy," says Mr Folkes.
Labour, for example, did better in 1997 and 2001 in key marginals than their national share of the vote.
But what about concerns over vote fraud?
Two vote-rigging scandals involving postal voting in Birmingham and Blackburn have undermined confidence in the system, according to some experts.
"Every time there is a story in the press about vote fraud it reduces confidence in the system," says Alex Folkes.
"People think what is the point of voting when the fraudsters have already decided the outcome.
Full story here.
Another story:
Officials have expressed concern over the implications of postal voting, as more problems emerge across Britain.
In North Wales, officials have had more than 50 calls about envelopes not sticking, while in Lancashire 16,000 papers are having to be re-sent.
Fourteen completed ballots are said to have been sent in error to a company in Shropshire and two East Anglia councils have admitted paperwork problems.
Returning officers' leader David Monks said the situation was "very serious".
He added: "There is, I'm afraid, a very, very complex set of rules that we have to go through to send out these postal votes.
Full story here.
Some more disturbing quotes:
Five million people will vote by post on 5 May even though there have been concerns about the system's security.
Earlier this month, a judge found postal voting fraud to be "widespread" in the 2004 local elections in Birmingham.
This is a total disgrace for all people around the world who truly believe in principles of democracy. It is unbelievable to what distance will some people go to take the power but the real question here is why voters even bother to vote for this people in the first place? Can you seriously expect from those elected this way to care about you and your problems. What we do not understand here is why people vote postal if they will be present in their election districts on the day elections are held? For them obviously democracy and elections are something irrelevant and unimportant. Human stupidity never cease to amaze us because these people believe that who is running the country is no issue at all, that their lives are independent on what is going on in political life. Usually when it is too late they curse their decision but why make same mistake over and over again. Absentee ballots are good things but only for those who are absent not absent minded, who care nothing about their country at all. Lukashenko used millions of postal votes to insure change of constitution and his imminent third term as absolute dictator in Belarus. Question here is who is copycat, Tony Blair or Lukashenko? FS Net is strongly against any Internet, postal or early voting because all these methods are unreliable, susceptible to easy vote rigging and all of them further alienate people from elections and their participation in politics in general.
From day one when Tony Blair announced elections there were many indicators of imminent foul play. His first decision was to seek support of Chancellor Gordon Brown. After getting it, his ratings suddenly started to soar. Excuse us but what kind of an impact has that on voters? Blair never mentioned any change in his policies but simply a fact that he will stick with Brown if he wins elections. After that, leftist media around the world started with their lies about great economy under Tony Blair and Labour, Health system second to Castro's only, education second to Castro's again and so on. There is only one problem with them and that is that they truly struggle to find out a single reason why Tony Blair and Labour should be reelected at all. Differences over Iraq suddenly have disappeared, their attacks on his relationship with Bush are nowhere to be found. Once again we ask voters if they can trust these people at all. Can you really ignore Iraq or any other accusations against Blair that were flying in abundance for the past years? This is nothing but power grab for more looting of UK from shady figures in Labour Party. Labour has already showed that they stand for only one principle and that is power grab no matter what and no matter how costly, where their supporters are left clueless and in darkness. Why do you vote for them in the first place? Other two major parties are different story entirely and all who vote for them know why and what they can expect if their chosen ones win elections. Labour is simply selling fog that no one in UK needs today. Most of Blair's and Labour's promises are nothing but blatant lies similar to what John Kerry offered last November to Americans. Problem with Britons is that unlike Americans who saw clearly through Kerry's lies and vigilant Republican Party that never stopped fighting for better America they are most probably going to give up en masse and surrender their lives to mercy of Labour con artists. Big part of blame goes to other two major parties that are almost silent and simply wait to lose again. Except questions about Iraq they are dead silent. In order to win elections you must raise your voice so that large crowds can hear your message clearly. There are plenty of good questions for Tony Blair on official Conservatives web site but the problem is that those questions are not disseminated properly to media and people in general. What is the point of their political fight if their message can't reach people to whom they are supposed to lead? Cubans don't have those problems and their leader is always on TV, radio and in papers. If Bush and Republicans had adopted their approach then Gore would have been elected for the second time in a row last November.
The thing that concerned us the most was Putin's statement that he will not run for the third time for presidency in 2008 and immediately after that Blair's exact statement that he will not seek another term as PM in four years from now. Wow! It seems that Labour is still under Moscow control where Moscow decides who is going to be next Labour PM. Truly shocking and appalling! We knew about Kostunica and Lukashenko and their obedience to Moscow but this is too much. Do you always have to call Moscow to get their permission on how to run your country?
Some of good points from Conservatives why not to go for Labour:
1. Drugs in schools are becoming rampant in UK but Labour is indifferent.
Seizing on Mr Hart's comments, the Shadow Home Secretary said: "This pronouncement shows the damage that Labour's mixed messages on drugs have failed our children, with drug use amongst young people at an all time high."
He protested: "Unlike Labour, Conservatives will actually fight the war on drugs. To combat drug use amongst children we will encourage schools to introduce random drug-testing if heads and parents wish it, by providing the funding for testing machines in each local education authority area. We would also reverse the government's dangerous declassification of cannabis and fund a major advertising and advice campaign with a clear and consistent anti-drugs message."
2. Drinking is also rampant, especially underage drinking but that obviously suits Labour. Those who are on drugs and drunk can't think about government policies, they are perfect zombie voters. The best thing is to start early with vices because when you are old enough to vote your mind will be so incapacitated that you won't be able to even go to the polls and vote. You will go postal.
Over the last eight years consumption of alcohol has climbed by 16 per cent, much of that increase driven by the heavy drinking culture.
The number of people cautioned or found guilty for drunkenness has fallen by more than 15 per cent under Labour - down by 10,000 a year.
Labour have failed to deal with binge drinking, and now they want to make it even easier to get drunk 24 hours day.
They have already effectively decriminalised underage drinking.
Over 80 per cent fewer people are dealt with by the police for buying alcohol under the age of 18.
3. Drugs and alcohol always precede increase in crime rate. During 8 years of Tony Blair's leadership, crime rate has constantly increased therefore increasing corruption overall. Blair's only answer to these accusations are plain lies and nothing else. Labour distorts this picture by using forged statistics or irrelevant data to portray that crime is actually failing constantly!? This is similar to Clinton-Gore economy graphs for 2000 elections where they presented logarithmic scale pointing to infinity about economy under them. After Gore lost elections these graphs are declared false and the right ones actually indicated steady decline that finally resulted in economic bubble burst in early 2001. They tried then to accuse Bush of ruining economy although Gore blocked his presidency until 2001. You can't ruin economy if you are not even in the White House. In addition to increased crime rate in UK, Blair and Labour sabotaged police and withdrew many police officers from the streets so that criminals can freely terrorize law abiding citizens.
New figures, published as the general election campaign reached its halfway stage, revealed that violent attacks shot up by nine per cent in the last three months of 2004, the fourth quarter of consecutive increase.
There were more than 1.1 million violent crimes in 2004, the first time that violent crime has been that high; sexual offences went up 18 per cent on the same quarter in 2003; gun crime offences in 2004 were up 10 per cent compared to 2003; and drug offences have continued to rise, with a further three per cent increase in drug related offences.
Yesterday Mr Blair brushed aside the views of a policeman who asked him, 'Why do you continually make my job harder by telling the general public that there are more police officers than there has ever been, when for every police officer you have put in the rank and file on the street, you have probably put another four in offices.
I've heard first-hand from police officers whose squads have had their 'morale sapped' by the burden of paperwork and who feel that they are 'tied up in paperwork'.
But then, it is no wonder that they feel like that when you consider that the Home Office is second guessing them at every step, and flooding their working day with paperwork.
The seven minute stop form will take up, if the Home Office's figures are correct, the equivalent of an astonishing 3,000 man years per annum.
To people who fear walking down their own streets, this is absurd.
They want police on the beat catching criminals, not filling out forms.
Police officers don't need to sit in the police stations but to be out in the streets catching criminals. Stupid stop forms and increase of bureaucracy to protect rights of criminals and stay them away from prisons is absolute nonsense.
4. As always with socialists taxes are needed to fund their broken social programs that only help them and bureaucrats getting richer. Robin Hood is not a national hero in UK for no reason so why then people overhelminghly vote for more taxes is beyond us.
Mr Osborne pinpointed the evidence of independent experts, including the IFS, IMF, OECD and the ITEM Club, who have all acknowledged that the Blair government is spending so much that taxes would have to rise in the event of a Labour third term. He told conservatives.com: "This month, a poll of 26 independent economists has revealed that 90 per cent of them expect taxes to rise if Labour won the election."
And he also targeted Chancellor Gordon Brown, whose forecasts for government borrowing in his 2001 pre-election budget turned out to be completely wrong. "He said he would borrow only £12bn over six years - and ended up borrowing £124bn. He was out by over £100bn. No company would hire someone with this record as their finance director."
Mr Osborne said: "Because Mr Blair and his Labour government always runs out of money, he always needs to raise taxes. At this election, the question is not whether Mr Blair would raise tax if he won the election, it is which tax would he raise: will it be: capital gains tax on homes, VAT on food, or National Insurance - Mr Blair's tax of choice?"
What Brown did is similar to what Gray Davis did to California when he squandered 100 billion dollars. Davis was recalled in 2003 because of that so we wonder why would voters support someone who stole 100 billion pounds of their money collected through taxes and why don't they ask where that money actually went. Is it for Indian casinos like Davis did or is it for similar Scottish casinos? There is excellent commentary regarding Gordon Brown in Guardian:
Our simple recommendation is not to trust state treasury to someone with one eye closed all the time and sometimes even both. It is your money after all.
5. The most laughable comment about Blair and Labour is that they are good for business. Similar to Clinton-Gore team, Blair inherited good economy and only used it to plunder more money for his broken social programs. Blair like Clinton never improved economy or make it special, they just used Reagan-Thatcher model. That implies that if Conservatives win, economy will be definitely not worse than their own model employed during Reagan-Thatcher era and most probably will be better because as their creators they are certainly the best qualified for job of improving it further. Business under Labour can only go down not up no matter what.
Conservative employment and social affairs spokesman in the European Parliament, Philip Bushill-Matthews MEP, denounced the Government's duplicity today as Labour MEPs joined with the Communists to vote in favour of a report by a Spanish Socialist MEP abolishing the individual opt-out from the Working Time Directive.
Mr Howard said an examination of the major English-speaking economies would show that Britain is growing slower than the rest, while our income per head is now - for the first time - lower than Ireland's.
"We have dropped from fourth to eleventh in the world competitive league. I don't want the British economy to follow the European model. Labour, for all their fine words, do. I want Britain to change direction," he said.
Mr Bushill-Matthews said:
"Once more, Labour's claim to be the party of business is shown to be all talk. Labour MEP Stephen Hughes has again defied the UK government's official line to lead the vote on behalf of the whole European Socialist bloc in favour of abolishing the opt-out. The government has stood by and done nothing. It seems that contrary to the government's stated commitment to fight to retain the opt-out, ministers are actually quite happy for the opt-out to be scrapped by the Brussels back door.
Joining communists is certainly bad for business because we all know how bad is communist economy. Just take a look at Russia, East European countries and Cuba.
We would like also to remind you of David Blunkett affair, Labour mayor of London who introduced entry fee for motorists in London downtown, retina scan introduced in some British schools, ban on fox hunting, terror in Zimbabwe. Even after total disgrace Blunkett is set for return to his post which tells us about no moral, ethical and legal values in Labour Party. Read more here. Ban on fox hunting is especially irritating when we know that crime rate is sky high in UK while police officers are being removed from streets. Indirectly this implies protection for thieves and criminals by Labour Party which is something that they should be ashamed of. Their reason to imposing that was cruelty to animals and when we compare it to the protection of rights of criminals introduced with certain stop forms then analogy is more than striking. We are not going to discuss Labour manifesto or their promises because simply they are bunch of liars similar to Gore and Kerry in America. Don't forget what is happening in Zimbabwe right now, a former British colony left at mercy to Stalinist dictator Mugabe. This terror started during first Blair's term and continued unhindered until this day. Pointless and impotent sanctions never produced anything good except emboldening Mugabe to terrorize people of Zimbabwe even more. It is responsibility of former imperialist countries to take care of their former colonies even after they have given them their independence. You can't just plunder them for decades and then leave without even looking back. Blair has no intention of stopping Mugabe at all, he will just watch silently and pretend like he is concerned. Check out our Zimbabwe News section for horrors going on there. What Britons can realistically expect to happen if Labour wins on May 5th is:
1. Business and every citizen will be significantly burdened with huge taxes which will lower living standard and turn off business from UK. Don't pay attention on forged graphs similar to Clinton-Gore ones in 2000. Check out your bank account instead.
2. There is not much for Blair to delay Euro in UK. His appeasement to EU and especially French will one way or another result in Euro becoming national currency whether people like it or not.
3. Filthy lying leftist media will continue witch hunt against royal family encouraged by extremist elements from Labour which will finally end monarchy already in shambles.
4. Gay marriages will become legitimized.
5. Personal freedom will decrease significantly by massive introduction of retina scans, less privacy protection, leftist media terror by publishing everything and anything about everyone, government freedom to spy unhindered on citizens. Socialism always meant protection of collective rights not individual ones.
6. Idiotic and unrealistic global plans will continue to hurt UK and most probably will collapse entire economy like during late '70s. Enrollment in Kyoto Protocol was already proved as unrealistic and UK is back in fulfilling quota while billions of dollars need to be spent pointlessly. Initiative for helping poor countries by massive cancellation of debt will only further hurt world poorest nations by fooling them that they can borrow endlessly without ever thinking on how to repay their debts. At the same time landers will be deprived of interests resulting in loss of money and less credits in the future for those who pay their debts. Labour already has plans for further taxations and money borrowing from other funds to cover this deficit which will further destabilize UK economy and for what? Cancelling debts to Mugabe or any other little dictator will only help their tyranny which will further increase poverty.
While Blair likes to be portrayed as close to America and Bush, reality is that he is far away and has no support of America at all. His Iraq participation is more of an exception than a rule regarding his foreign and domestic policies. There is a huge and fundamental difference between his cooperation with America today and what Margaret Thatcher did with Ronald Reagan. Two of them were partners working together, equal and mutually respected while Blair looks like a misguided kid barking at the White House and waiting for bone to be thrown at him. His persuasion of Bush to accept Kyoto Protocol and all other global initiatives were quickly brushed off by Bush administration and were never even considered. It is not a secret that Democrats and Clinton massively support Labour which means that Blair's policies can only cause friction with current Bush administration. We guess that he will follow Bush even to Antarctica but that won't change much. Having Conservatives in power while Bush is US president would certainly do more good UK then Blair's copycat of Clinton's "Third Way" failed policies. Although lying leftist media portrays Blair as different Labour PM friendly to business this can't be true. He is more like an actor trying constantly to deceive everyone. His goals are to waste more money, ruin economy, abolish monarchy, embolden various dictators in former British colonies to continue repression and tyranny and finally subdue UK to Socialist run EU. All of this might be in world socialist interests and particularly Moscow imperialist interests but not at all in interests of British people. Tony Blair acts like a world socialist puppet manipulated form outside instead of a man who cares about his country and his people. Many will point out that similar accusations against him were thrown 8 and 4 years ago but that should not confuse you because standard tactic is to go moderate in the beginning and when stage is closing slowly and you announce no more running for PM then you go for all out plunder and destruction because you have nothing to lose. Just imagine what Gore would have done if he had won in 2000. If you have survived until this day then it doesn't mean you will be able to survive four more years of Labour government. Many in Europe survived WWII until 1945 but yet so many died in the last hours of liberation. Why push your luck further?
Problem is not only in how British voters cast their ballots but also in those who are supposed to take power if Labour is ousted. Both major opposition parties are completely gutless and clueless on what to do in these elections. Their messages although good and appealing are being lost in lying leftist media harangue around the world and domestically. They do not have Fox News or Republican radio stations unfortunately. You must raise your voice and mobilize people or else all your work is for nothing. It is not the problem in leaders of two other parties but their parties in general. They must campaign aggressively with no holds barred if they want even to have a shot at winning elections. Mentioning only Iraq and calling Blair a liar just because of that is too little by any means. It is for regret to see how Conservatives learned so little from Republicans. These elections will most probably be lost thanks to that kind of attitude but that should not be an excuse for continuous slumber. Just remember what Schwarzenegger did in California in 2003. Although Davis had won reelection in 2002, less than a year later Republicans staged recall and removed Davis from his Governor's mansion in Sacramento. There are no Republicans in UK and especially there is no one even close to Schwarzenegger but the formula stays the same. They can for sure continue fighting and force early elections but if they once again decide to wait for four more years of destruction of UK by Labour then Labour will win in 2009 as well regardless of Blair bailing out and the major losers as always will be the people of UK or should we say Federation of Independent British States.
FS Net Editor
Update
It seems that fury about abuse of postal voting will render postal voting obsolete in the future. These stories are from BBC:
Fears about postal voting have prompted ministers to promise new safeguards to ensure public confidence in the system.
A new offence of fraudulently applying for a postal vote, which could carry five years in jail, will be among laws promised in next week's Queen's speech.
Signatures and dates of birth would also be used to check postal votes.
The UK elections watchdog has said all-postal votes should be ruled out in future leaving the polling station as the "foundation of our voting system".
The Electoral Commission has also called for new laws against vote fraud and new ways of checking ballots.
It also wants better verification of voters' identity and more funding to police the postal vote system.
The government is promising new laws on the issue after a judge said postal voting was "wide open to abuse".
Ruling on last year's local elections in Birmingham, Richard Mawrey QC said he had heard evidence of abuses that would "disgrace a banana republic".
Conservative Oliver Heald said: "Last December, the government asserted it would continue with all-postal voting.
"But after the collapse in public confidence in postal voting, Labour must now return to the ballot box as the foundation for our democracy."
Although Financial Times increased margin of Labour lead to 11% just few days before elections and then dropped it next day without any explanation, results seem to be in order but that certainly doesn't justify a strange absence of OSCE report on UK elections. There is simply not a single word about it on OSCE web site although we know that OSCE observers were present during UK elections. It is a sense of general shame and quick cover up to save democratic process in UK which ultimately may even worsen already dire situation.