Monthly Archives: October 2011

The death of democracy

Last night’s back bench rebellion in the House of Commons over the vote on a referendum to stay in the EU was not, as many have reported, a humiliation for the Government and David Cameron, it is fundamentally a nail in the coffin of democracy.

Over 100,000 people signed a petition asking for a referendum and judging by the responses when you ask people in the street whether they think we should be in or out of Europe, that 100,000 is just the tip of the iceberg. No, the vote was triggered by the will of the people, only to be defeated by the bully boy tactics of the Commons where MP’s were told which way they had to vote.  Two of those who voted with their conscience, and stuck to their manifesto promises, have been rewarded by being sacked from their jobs this morning.

So how come the will of the people is no longer good enough? Whatever happened to the wonderful system of democracy that we have exported around the world and now go to war over to try and allow other people and countries to enjoy it? Frankly, it’s a farce and a sham.  The end is approaching and vested interests around the country are desperately manoeuvring to try and retain the power that they enjoy and the riches and privilege that come with it.

They should remember that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. You cannot continue to ignore the people and expect to retain the status quo…

Stop patronising us Chris Huhne

It makes me seething mad when Chris Huhne comes out with his trite sayings. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t actually know the guy and I’m sure he’s a nice man trying to do s difficult job but when he is reported in the press it really does nothing for his image.

His latest pronouncement, the one that has me so angry, is a great case in point. When faced with higher energy bills consumers (i.e. you and me) should switch tariffs. And that’s it. The end to all our worries and massive price hikes in the cost of energy from the big six energy companies is achieved by simply switching tariffs. No why didn’t I think of that earlier???  If only I’d known I could have saved myself hours of time on the phone arguing with my supplier and hundreds of pounds in overpaid bills.

All this time I’ve been working under a misapprehension. I’m busily going round berating the Energy companies for the state of my gas and electricity bill and all along it’s my own fault for not switching. I’ve been thinking that it is incomprehensible that we no longer have any control in this country over our energy bills as all the providers are in foreign ownership, and they have put massive ‘green’ hikes onto our bills to pay for the Renewable Energy Obligations and subsidise stupid windmills all over the country. Our ridiculous and unachievable Energy policy that is chasing impossible CO2 reduction targets for no plausible reason any more is set to not only cost us billions more than we can afford to pay but also to condemn the only power stations that are actually producing anything to close.  Couple this with the stupidity of Brussels directives and we’re now officially in a complete mess.

Chris Huhne, nice man though he may be, either is in complete denial over the parlous state of our energy policy in this country or he simply doesn’t understand. I’m not sure which is going to be worse when the sh*t finally hits the fan. But of course, that’s assuming we’ve got any electricity left in this country to power the fan….