Mayor London - Election

Mayor London and local elections are taking place today and the main two candidates is Labour's Sadiq Khan and the Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith. 

What I think should have been regular election campaign between these candidates has got very nasty. This was Zac Goldsmith has accused Sadiq Khan of sharing a platform with terrorists. 

Zac then wrote an article in the Mail and Sunday to try and get some votes. However the accompanying picture to this article was nothing short of disgraceful as they used a picture from the 7/7 terrorist attack that happened eleven years go. 

To me this was a particular turning point of the campaign and it highlighted the depth to which the Tories will go to secure that win. 

The polls suggest that Sadiq Khan should get a comfortable win. Howevver the last General Election all the polls were pointing to hung parliament and the Tories ended up getting a majority. So hopefully this time the polls are more accurate. 

David Cameron - Tax avoidance

It has been a while since I have blogged about UK politics and it's main because I am still disappointed with the those 2015 results and I am not particularly happy with Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. 

One story has renewed my interest in UK politics and that is David Cameron and his father's tax avoidance scheme. 

One is clear that neither David Cameron or is late father did anything illegal. However when David Cameron was first asked he told journalist that it was a private matter and yesterday four days later finally admitted that he had told some shares in 2010 and made £18K. 

I think what makes most people angry is the fact that he was not forthcoming with the details when asked and he is making money on the side and not declaring. 

This at the time when British people's wages are not rising and cuts in the NHS and education budgets. 

Will this lead to David Cameron resigning? Probably not but it would have damaged his reputation and will struggle to be able to discuss tax avoidance without people thinking that is what he has been doing. 

US election 2016

Ok I have finally gotten over the disaster of the UK General Election. As this year US election, I though it was about time I started blogging about it. 

I have to say that I am surprised that Donald Trump is actually been taking serious and could potentially be the republican candidate. 

I am also surprised that Hilary Clinton hasn't been fast tracked to the democratic nomination. 

This US election has been quite suprisein get for me as I would have thought that Jeb Bush would be more popular with the republican voters. 

I am still waiting for Donald Trump to announce this was a big joke and he had no plans of running for the presidency. However I now realise he serious and I should take his campaign seriously. 

The little I know about Donald Trump I have no idea why he would be fit to be the President of the United States. 

All I can see is that he is running on an anti Muslim ticket and that seems to have got lots of interest. 

Bernie Sanders is another potential Democratic nominee who seems to be very popular. He comes across a little old school and a bit like Ed Miliband and look how that ended up. 

I have finally tuned in and taking interest it is an important election apart of me which that Barack Obama could run again.

Labour Party after the General Election

I cannot begin to express how upset I am about the current state of the Labour Party. I am not impressed with any of them standing for leadership of the Labour Party. 

Quite frankly I can the imagine the Tories are loving every minute of this debacle. None of them in my opinion has any realistic chance of becoming Prime Minister. 

What's more concerning is that Labour becoming more left wing than ever which seriously reduces any realistic chance they have of becoming elected to into power. 

So right now I am boycotting all UK political news because when I read about the Labour leadership battle does not really seemed to be going well. 

Once the Labour leader is selected we can look that person realistic chances of becoming Prime Minister. 

What happened to Sandra Bland?

According to the Texas Police Sandra Bland committed suicide three days after being arrested. This death through suicide came as a shock to her family and friends. 

I think what brought it to the public consciousness was that the video of Sandra's arrest which was then released into the the public domain. 

In this video Sandra is clearly upset with the Sheriff and uses a few choice words and the Sheriff then gets upset and promptly arrest her. 

I think Sandra's could have had a little more respect for the Sheriff but that does not in any way justify the total abuse of power and a lack due diligence that I think led to her committing suicide. 

Before she was checked into her cell she was given paper work to complete and in one these paper work she admitted a previous suicide attempt but other paperwork makes no mention of the suicide attempt. 

This makes this particular Texas county look incompetent and if they had showed due diligence then I believe this would have gone some way in preserving Sandra Bland's life. 

The investigation is ongoing and of course it will not bring back Sandra but at least they can review their practices to ensure that something like this does not become the new norm. 

General Election - A Conservative majority

Well I am still getting over the shock of the Conservatives winning the General Election and getting majority. The shock started on the 7th May when the BBC exit poll predicted that the Conservatives would win 316 seats. 

At first I thought this had to be a mistake but as the night unfolded true the Conservatives ended up getting 332 seats. 

How did they do this? 

Now this was the big question because all the polling companies predicted a hung parliament. Labour won most of the seats in London, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham. 

However the conservatives managed to win six seats from Labour and over twenty five seats from the Liberal Democrats. 

The Tories targeted their coalition partners knowing that their seats would be vulnerable and they were right and Liberal Democrats now only have eight MPs and I was not too surprised by this as I expected them to be punished for going to partnership with the Tories. 

So this was a thoroughly unexpected result and now the Tories now have the mandate to carry on making cuts to public services. 

It's not the result I expected or wanted but Labour now have this result behind them and work on winning those middle class votes in 2020. 

UK General Election - 6th May

So it's been a while since I have blogged but I have been following the political campaigns pretty closely. It goes without saying that all the parties of fighting of each vote. 

It has been fasincating to see what the parties have been doing to try and get people to vote for them. 

I think Labour led by Ed Miliband have done well to be so close in the polls. Ed has had a strong message about making the UK a fairer society and get people who are not paying tax to pay tax. 

However his message may not be getting through due to the backlash from the right winger media. 

They are doing everything in their power for Ed to come across as incompetent. What they don't realise is that they coming accross as bullies which is why is not helping the Tory campaign.

The Tory campaign has been an unmitigated disaster, after they had spent the last year telling the British people how well the economy is doing we find out the economy is going backwards and there has only been 0.3 growth in April. 

Yet David Cameron is at pains to stress how the UK is thriving but the reality is the ones at the top have benefited whilst rest of the UK keeping it's head above water. 

Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats is trying to cling to power by stating that if there is a hung party then they will be the kingmakers which is unlikely as the polls are suggesting they will lose half there seats. 

UKIP have been making a lot of noise but they have gone quiet about there determination to leave Europe as they know it's not a vote a winner. They will be lucky to get three MPs.

So it's there is still all to play for but I am hoping that Ed and his wife Justine will be standing on the doorsteps of No10 as he is elected Prime Minister.