No Candidate Deserves My Vote!

The “No Candidate Deserves My Vote!” party has one aim and that is to introduce a bill to Parliament to have a “None of the above” option added to every local and general election ballot paper of the future. That way you can exercise your democratic right to vote to say that none of the parties currently make the grade for you. It will also encourage your democratic responsibility to turn out to vote.

For everything else Steve of Stevenage will act as an Independent so don’t ask me about health, education, defence or the economy... come and tell me!!!



Tuesday 30 March 2010

2-Tier Democracy strikes again!

Remember I told you that the Comet were only going to invite the Con, Lab and Lib Dem candidates to their hustings?  Well, the Churches are at it now too. Churches Together in Stevenage (CTIS) are also holding a hustings and although I will be invited to tender my answers to the questions and have a couple of minutes to introduce myself I will not be allowed to join in the Q&A session owing to "time constraints". Perhaps they got their lead from the Comet?

But the best bit of all is that I am a member of CTIS myself...!   You got to hand it to them, no "jobs for the boys" there...   but then not exactly fair, equal or impartial either...   as a lay preacher in a CTIS church I feel a few sermons are in order!

Monday 29 March 2010

2-Tier Democracy

Running as a General Election candidate I keep coming across a definite "them-and-us" 2-Tier democratic process. There is Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem and then there are "the others" of which I am a member. A kind of "Elite" party and "Plebian" party divide if you like.
The latest incident was last week when I discovered that the Stevenage Comet local newspaper was hosting an election candidate hustings for a business forum but had only thought it necessary to invite half the candidates. I will leave it to you to guess which half? To make matters worse, when I pressed them on the matter the reason given was lack time available for the number of questions. It struck me that halving the number of questions was the easy solution.
If we are not careful we will end up with a democratic system along the lines of nations like Iran where anyone can set up a party as long as it is Conservative, Labour or Lib Dem!

Thursday 25 March 2010

Darling puts off declaring cuts until after the Election

I am sorry, I am new to this game but is not the purpose of an election to vote for what a party is going to do? So how can you do that if they are not going to tell you until after the election? Now I am not going to be part of the next government, just an MP is as far as I can go, but I am going to tell you right now BEFORE the election where I am going to get the money from. I am going to gang up with Vince Cable and he and I are going to rob the banks of OUR money and then when we are done with that we are going to cut them down to size so they cannot hold us to ransom ever again.
So, if the Labour party refuse to tell you what you are voting for, the answer is simple... don't vote for them!

Monday 22 March 2010

Politics at an all time low!

If the expenses scandal wasn't evidence enough for a sea change in politics then comes along outgoing MP's using the dying embers of their priviledged positions for personal gain with seemingly no shame or respect to the people who elected them there to represent them.
I have been questioned about my lack of experience in politics but if that lack of experience means I don't know how to cheat on my expenses or line myself up for cushy executive board advisory jobs or be a non-Dom is that lack of experience really all that bad a thing?
Seriously folks, if you want a sea change in politics you are going to need to vote for a whole new bunch of politicians so make sure you choose the ones with no experience!

How does a "None of the above" option actually work?

Let us suppose that in every election there is now a "none of the above" option on the bottom of every ballot paper. If it does not get the majority vote then one of the candidates will have won and are duly elected. Although this is stating the obvious I included it to show that "none of the above" is still a First Past The Post (FPTP) voting system.
Now suppose that "none of the above" gets the majority vote? What has happened here is that the electorate have declared "no confidence" in the candidates standing for election in that constituency. The "No Candidate Deserves My Vote!" party however, does not believe in having no governance so this situation has to cause an immediate and automatic by-election and the electors come out again to either vote for new candidates that they can believe in or new policies or both. If the same candidates peddle the same policies then the electorate simply votes "none of the above" until the situation changes. The essence here is the voter has an option to say NO until the prospective representatives find out what the voter wants and provides a votable set of policies or stand as Independent on their character credibility.

Wednesday 17 March 2010

What about your expenses?

I have declared that my motivation to finally get up and do something about our political situation was spurred on by the expenses scandal so mine had better be spot on. I have decided to declare all my expenses in an Excel spreadsheet downloadable format from my campaign website.  My goal is to ensure that the expenses spreadsheet is never more than 24hrs out of date. Please note that whilst I am just a candidate I don't actually get any of my expenses paid back.  There is no tax payers money in my campaign at all, I am largely self-funded with donations from a few supporters, but you can see for yourself: http://www.steveofstevenage.org.uk/about/expenses.htm

Monday 15 March 2010

What do you do with an MP?

In speaking to people in Stevenage it has become clear that many people are not quite sure what the difference is between an MP and a Local Councillor. As it is very likely that both will be elected on May 6th I thought I should blog something about it.
Essentially, the basic difference is that your MP deals with national issues on behalf of the people of Stevenage whilst your Local Councillors deal with local issues within Stevenage.  Let us not forget that there are also County Coucillors that deal with county-wide issues, Hertfordshire in this case, and MEP's that deal with European-wide issues such as currency, borders, trade and European law etc.
Some examples of these might be: If you wanted to speak out about a law that was being billed by Parliament, either in support or objection, or you might want to have your say about our troops in Afghanistan or the economy and taxes etc, that would be a matter for your MP. If, on the other hand you wanted to complain about the roads in Stevenage or a play area etc these would be matters for your local councillors. Then there are the County Councillors that deal with county-wide issues like our schools and highways and byways between towns. The example I gave about the roads may actually involve any of the representative groups like so: potholes in residential roads of Stevenage would be your local councillor, lighting on a stretch of "A" road in Hertfordshire would be your County Councillor, building a new Motorway from London to Stevenage would be your MP and building a road bridge across the channel might be your MEP.
There are some grey areas that confuse some.  The best example is the Lister Hospital.  This hospital is part of a National Service (NHS) even though it only serves Stevenage and the surrounding area. As such it is a concern to your MP and any such talk about merging services with QE2 Welwyn Garden City would most certainly be an MP issue. Local schools might seem to be a local issue and thus the concern of your local Councillors, however, they are all owned and managed by Herts County Council and are thus a County Concillor concern, the curriculum however, is national and thus a concern of your MP.
Confusing isnt it? But I hope I have managed to clear up some of the confusion. In any case, any of the representative groups can advise you of who you should be talking to.

Wednesday 10 March 2010

Political Shenanigans?

Today I was turned down by my printer for printing my posters, leaflets and banners etc after having got a quotation for the work and then commissioning the first bit of work to be done several days later. The reason given was a "conflict of interest" which can only mean another political party.
I cannot prove it and am not accusing anyone, but it does make me wonder if a little phonecall was made to the printers threatening the removal of a sizable bit of business if they printed my material?

Tuesday 9 March 2010

What happens if you do get the Electoral Commission to change their rules?

As I was voted in with that mandate then, according to the constitution of the “No Candidate Deserves My Vote!” party, I will stand down as an elected MP and the party will be disbanded. This will cause a By-Election in Stevenage (and anywhere else that there is a sitting MP of the party). Of course, in the By-Election, for the first time, you will have the option to vote “None of the above” and I may also stand again as an Independent if Sevenage wants me to.

What happens if you don't get the Electoral Commission to change their rules?

I continue as an MP for at least 5 years pestering continually, if I make enough of a nuisance of myself Parliament will have to pass the bill just to get rid of me. Note: our constitution states that once the "None of the above" option has been made law all standing MP's may stand down and the party will disband.

Monday 8 March 2010

What happens if you actually win?

Pigs may fly, snowmen may be found in Timbuktu and man may land on Mars, but if I do get in, the following will happen:

The irony that in order to have the option to vote for no-one you first have to vote for someone has not escaped my attention. I intend my tenure to be fairly short-lived. There are two things that I am duty bound to do. Firstly, to carry out my mandate and introduce a bill to have the Electoral Commission rules changed to include a mandatory “None of the above” option on every ballot paper of the future. Once this is done the “No Candidate Deserves My Vote!” party will have completed its “raison d’ĂȘtre” and I can stand down and allow what we have achieved to takes its course in the democratic process of this nation. Whilst carrying out my mandate I will, of course, also be MP for Stevenage, and as such will have a day job to represent the people of Stevenage, and its institutions, to Parliament, taking part in the Parliamentary democratic process, working on laws and acts of Parliament through committee and holding surgery in Stevenage to listen to issues and ideas from Stevenage electors that affect the governance of the Nation and Stevenage. In this second role I have no party political manifesto to worry about and thus would act as an Independent, so don’t ask me about health, education, economy... come and tell me!

You have never been an MP before so why would we vote for someone with no experience?

It is worse than that, I have never even met an MP before! However, every single MP in the entire country was first voted in with no experience whatsoever, not only that but none of the current candidates for Stevenage have any experience of being an MP either. Every once in a while you get a government minister promoted to a position such as Education Secretary who happens to have been a teacher in a former profession. This, however, is very rare indeed and the norm is that we are governed by people who have little to no experience in the area they govern. This is where we have to learn to be good listeners to our advisors, Civil Servants and experts in the field.

What is "No Candidate Deserves My Vote!" all about?

Have you ever been in that position where you don’t know who to vote for? Somehow none of the main parties seem to represent you and you have been less than enamoured with the behaviour of some of our politicians? What are your choices?
You can...
  1. Not bother to turn up to vote. The problem with this is that you are no different from those who never turn up anyway and you have had no say. That is hardly democracy.
  2. Spoil your ballot paper. Unfortunately a small percentage of voters do this by mistake anyway so there is no way of telling whether you have spoilt it by choice or accident.
  3. Vote for any fringe party in protest against the bigger parties. This is probably the most dangerous option as you may be voting for something even worse.
The “No Candidate Deserves My Vote!” party has one aim and that is to introduce a bill to Parliament to have a “None of the above” option added to every local and general election ballot paper of the future. That way you can exercise your democratic right to vote to say that none of the parties currently represents you. It will also encourage your democratic responsibility to turn out to vote.
A MORI poll carried out on behalf of the Electoral Commission in 2001 predicted that up to 30% more voters would turn out to vote at an election if they had an opportunity to vote for no-one.

So what made me decide to stand for election?

Well I am certainly no politician that is for sure, but I was stirred into action over the recent expenses scandal, realising that it was a party-wide problem and that our politicians have served us very badly just recently, lining their pockets with our money while our brave soldiers give their lives in battle for this nation. Something has to be done and saying that I have no experience in politics is no excuse for inaction. I have plenty of experience in life and the human condition that qualifies me as much as any other person for office and service to our nation.