John Hemming's Web Log

The attack on the aid convoy to Gaza has to be seen as a job for the international criminal court to investigate as an act of piracy. It does, however, raise the question as to how it becomes possible to move towards peace in the Middle East without greater intervention from international bodies. Somehow there needs to be international peace keeping action to keep the sides to the conflict from attacking each other. At the same time bodies such as the ICC need to get involved in invesigating and prosecuting what are war crimes (that includes bombing the Israelis with rockets - which was some time ago).

Those who have followed the issue of my exile now ex flatmate now ex Senator Stuart Syvret will know about the fact that he left Jersey in protest at the undermining of the rule of law by the authorities in Jersey. He was then disqualified as a Senator, has returned to Jersey and is a candidate in the by-election for the seat he was disqualified from. I am hoping that our new government will take the issue of the Rule of Law in Crown Dependencies more seriously than the previous government.

The link is a story in today's telegraph based on a research project reported in the Lancet. What it finds is that the UK now has the highest child mortality in Western Europe. It is approximately twice the rate of Sweden.

A number of public spending cuts have been announced today. What is absolutely certain is that the UK Government has to cut the deficit reasonably quickly. Germany is paying around 2.633% on its government debt. The UK is paying 3.516 on government bonds and Greece 7.8%. This is all based upon how risky investors perceive the debt. If we don't show a commitment to bringing the deficit really under control then the interest rate we have to pay goes up. This year's forecast deficit is over £150,000,000,000. Just for that borrowing interest of £5,274,000,000 will be due to be paid each year. At the Greek interest rate this would be £11,700,000,000. This has a massive long term effect.

The second coalition agreement has now been published. I have it in a PDF form and it would be messy to simply copy the text into the weblog hence I am not publishing it here. It is here.

What does Liam Byrne's "joke" say. He left a note saying: "I’m afraid to tell you there’s no money left.” The point about the money is that without funds the government is limited as to what it can do in assisting the weak in society. Labour Ministers may have had a laugh creating a "scorched earth" environment for the next government. But it is no joke.

Harry Hayfield seems to be running a web log which reports election results. I will, therefore, cease posting election results on this weblog. His weblog is http://postgeneral2010.blogspot.com/

6th May Halton UA, Mersey LD Christopher Martin Carlin 1117 (38.9) Lab 1153 (40.2) Lab 1062 LD Trevor Edward Higginson 1044 (36.4) Con 364 (12.7) BNP 235 (8.2) Majorities 55 / 91 Turnout 102.83% Reigate and Banstead BC, Redhill East Green 1882 Con 1398 Green 1361 Con 1364 LD Soo Abram 1335 Con 1274 Green 1043 Lab 880 Lab 635 UKIP 509 Ind 140 Turnout 66.34% Preston City Council, Riversway Lab 1140 LD Liam Pennington 807 Lab 803 LD Stephen Wilkinson 709 Con 466 Con 407 Turnout 53.2% Warwickshire CC, Nuneaton St Nicholas Con 3195 (56.3; -8.5) Lab 1616 (28.5; +9) Green 589 (10.4; -5.4) Oth 280 (4.9; +4.9) Majority: 1579 Turnout: Con Hold Percentage change is since June 2009 Test Valley BC, Anna Valley Con 1804 (63.5; -0.3) LD Tony Evans 836 (29.4; +9.9) Other 202 (7.1; -9.5) Majority 968 Turnout 75% Con Hold Percentage change is since May 2007. Wokingham UA, Shinfield South Con 1949 Con 1820 LD Elaine Spratling 1188 Green 664 Green 251 Con hold Chesterfield BC, Brimington South Lab 1500 (...

Ed Balls appears to have been attempting to rewrite the history of last week. Gordon Brown resigned as Prime Minister before the partnership between Liberal Democrats and Conservatives had been agreed. On Monday he indicated that he was willing to step down as Labour Leader to facilitate a rainbow coalition. On Tuesday he resigned as Prime Minister many hours before an alternative coalition had been agreed. If that is not Labour taking away their bat and ball and refusing to play I don't know what is.

There has been a roller coaster ride since the General Election and there has not yet been a week since the first results were declared. The Country faces some very serious problems. The facts are clear 1. The Country needs a stable government and it will take the full term of a parliament to sort out the deficit. 2. The Labour Party took their ball and bat away and refused to play. 3. A minority Conservative government would not give sufficient stability. Those three points mean that the only conclusion in the national interest is for the Lib Dems to enter into coalition with the Conservatives to provide stable government. This requires compromises on both sides and what we will see is likely to be more of a centrist government than a centre left government (which is what a Lib Dem Government would be likely to be). The fact is, however, that the agreement that I have just published is a major step forwards on a number of issues beyond that of the deficit. 1. Fair taxes. Reduc...

The following document is now public, but I don't know where it is on the web so I am publishing it here. Conservative Liberal Democrat coalition negotiations Agreements reached 11 May 2010 This document sets out agreements reached between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats on a range of issues. These are the issues that needed to be resolved between us in order for us to work together as a strong and stable government. It will be followed in due course by a final Coalition Agreement, covering the full range of policy and including foreign, defence and domestic policy issues not covered in this document. 1. Deficit Reduction The parties agree that deficit reduction and continuing to ensure economic recovery is the most urgent issue facing Britain. We have therefore agreed that there will need to be: - a significantly accelerated reduction in the structural deficit over the course of a Parliament, with the main burden of deficit reduction borne by reduced spending rather than i...

Given that I probably need to go to London today I will aim to hold a consultation session for Yardley Lib Dem supporters later today. I will provide details of the location to anyone who emails me and/or puts a note through the office door by 1pm.

38 degrees have been spamming Lib Dem MP's email boxes. The problem is that emails are being sent by 38 degree on behalf of people all over the country. So many emails are being sent that it is impossible to read them. The danger of this is that it prevents emails from constituents being read. I have configured my spam filter to ignore the 38 degrees emails. This may cause other emails to be rejected, for which I apologise. However, I am still managing to get emails from consitutents. Now is an important time for MPs to be able to liaise with their constituents quickly. What 38 degrees are doing is acting to prevent this. They should stop. If your emails to me are being rejected please put a note through the constituency office door and I will find a way of you being able to email me.

If there is a demand for this I would intend to organise a meeting in Yardley for Yardley Lib Dem supporters to discuss the issue of what the Lib Dems should do in a hung parliament (as in the one that is now hung). Can anyone interested in such a meeting please write to or email my office.

The employment tribunal hearing this week is not the end of a legal dispute about the pay structures that Birmingham City Council had operated over a number of years. However, it does bring to the fore the problems left to the current administration by Labour. The Council faces potentially a really large additional bill for compensation because indefensible bonus schemes applied to much of the male workforce, but not the generally female jobs. The problem, however, arose because of the schemes established by Labour when they were in control of the authority as has been recognised by the Birmingham Post in Iron Angle Labour spin doctors in London were quick off the mark, seeking to present the city council’s Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition as a bunch of incompetent, merciless, misogynists discriminating against downtrodden women. Sir Albert Bore, leader of the council’s opposition group, fumed that the whole issue of equal pay had been mishandled. Birmingham would now pay the p...

Tesco are saying the following: TESCO GIVEN GREEN LIGHT FOR YARDLEY SWAN CENTRE Tesco is preparing to restart activity at Yardley after being given the green light from the Secretary of State on a CPO inquiry that has held up the scheme. Following the decision Tesco is now in a position to complete the necessary land assembly of the site and to prepare for construction work on the scheme, which includes an 80,000sq ft Tesco Extra store, creating around 500 full and part time jobs. The next stage in the process will be include tendering for a main contractor to be appointed for the construction phase. Tony Fletcher, corporate affairs manager for Tesco, said: “Now that the period of appeal is over, we can concentrate on completing the remaining land acquisition required for the scheme and move forward with bringing the new store and retail offering to fruition. “We are aware that the hold-up has caused much frustration to local residents so we are delighted to be able to restart the prog...

I have spent some time getting all the details together about the policy in respect of votes for prisoners and have written the following letter to the paper. I would appreciate it now if the Labour Party stopped claiming that the Godsiff paedophile leaflet is true. Furthermore it has also been delivered in Yardley Constituency. ================================================================================== Roger Godsiff's dreadful leaflet is also factually wrong. Firstly, Liberal Democrat candidates stand on the policies in the manifesto - which makes no reference to this issue. Secondly our policy was changed after the 2005 election. He is referring in his leaflet to a policy paper from 2002. In 2006 Ming Campbell said that the most serious offenders (those referred to in Roger Godsiff's leaflet) should not be allowed to vote. In April 2009 David Howarth made our policy clear that the judges should decide who loses the vote. This could mean that serious tax evaders who ar...

The pupil premium scheme allocates an additional £2.5 Billion to schools across England. For Birmingham this would mean £112,527,324.

Imagine a criminal court in which you are told that unless you plead guilty your lawyers will be taken off you and you will have to cope with all the procedures without any help. What we have in the family courts (see link) is a situation where legal aid can be (and is from time to time) removed merely because people are uppity enough to want to disagree with the local council. In this case (see link) the parents had legal aid refused and acted as litigants in person and won their case. To me this is another really scandalous situation which the government are clearly responsible for. The government's response is to change the law to ban the identification of the family concerned. Dreadful.

It does appear that the traditional UNS methodology for seat projections cannot cope with a Lib Dem surge. I have done some calculations on a retention swing. That is a calcalation on the basis that in each seat the national transfer of votes is replicated. However, if Labour have lost a third of their votes nationally they lose a third of their votes that were cast previously in each seat rather than the same percentage of the total vote in each seat. This is a more complex calculation, but it produces more reliable results. It needs more work, but a first cut of the data is available here