Politics - a very strange business

Well this week has been a tumultuous one in politics in the UK. But in all the gloom surrounding the Labour party I have managed to find a silver lining. The loss of Caroline Flint is no loss at all to the country. I am perfectly happy to let her fester on the backbenches. She is without doubt one of the most condescending and objectionable of MPs I have ever come across. She talks down to people, interrupts and sneers at people who do not agree with her. So to see her resignation in a fit of pique yesterday was a particular treat.

I suspect that after tomorrow's European election results it would take a miracle of biblical proportions to save the Labour party. Purely on figures in the local elections the Lib Dems finished second to the Tories. Consevative Central Office must be hoping, praying and keeping everything crossed that their glorious leader Dave has no skeletons in his closet or doesn't do anything stupid before the election.

One criticism of Labour is that they have lost touch with real people. From my perspective they were never in touch in the first place. On arrival after their much trumpeted no more sleaze we had Ecclestonegate, Hindujagate to name but two. Our current glorious leader raided the pension funds creating many of the black holes that now engulf them. He sold off the gold reserves. He abolished MIRAS thus attacking middle England and many hard working families. He got the NHS to increase staffing and gave them money to do so. He then increased National Insurance thus taking money back. Then there was the war in Iraq which was illegal, there was the dodgy dossier and the hole cut and paste of an unsourced American student's PhD thesis. No WMD. The way in which they managed to avoid ANY criticism following the Hutton and Butler inquiries.

The complete misjudgement on the Gurkhas.

Then we have the expenses scandal. In this our local MP insisted that she was entirely justified in taking taxpayers money to furnish her London flat. MPs should only be allowed to rent furnished properties and the sooner she is gone along with other MPs the better.

It seems that now 24 hours is a long time on politics. I urge you all to use your vote wisely but in any case at least use it. We need a change of system which allows independently minded MPs of whatever persuasion to buck the control of the whips and to actually give us a parliament of which we can be truly proud.