Tactical withdrawal by French socialists leads to defeat Front National

The French Front National have failed to take control of any regions in last week's elections after an unprecedented pact between the socialists and conservatives which saw candidates stood down to help keep Marine Le Pen's party out of power.

Last week's regional elections had overtones of recent elections this side of the channel where left and right have united to stop UKIP from challenging the status quo. The big difference here, of course, is that UKIP isn't a racist party.  But despite the efforts of Marine Le Pen to make her father's party more moderate since she took the helm, it's still some way from being transformed into the kind of moderate party that can gain enough mainstream support to win elections.

The decision by the Socialists to withdraw candidates from the second round of voting to help the conservative Republicans is controversial and undermines the democratic process. Voters marked their preferences knowing how the votes should be split between the Socialists, Republicans and Front National. So-called tactical voting belongs in the ballot box, it is wrong for parties involved in the election to manipulate the result with tactical withdrawals.

If Le Pen continues to reform her party between now and the next election, it is hard to see how they can fail to capitalise on the 6.8m votes it received this time round.

UKIP MEP Jill Seymour launches "Christmas for Cumbria" campaign

West Midlands MEP Jill Seymour has launched a ‘Christmas for Cumbria’ campaign, collecting festive gifts to deliver to flood-hit families in the north of England.

She has set up a drop-off centre at her constituency headquarters in Bridge Road, Wellington, and will be delivering all of Shropshire’s donations to the region early next week.

“We’ve all been touched by the terrible scenes over the past few days, where families watched helplessly as their homes, possessions, and all their Christmas preparations, were destroyed,” said Mrs Seymour.

“And when the flood water finally disappears, the hard work really starts. That’s when these families have to return to their severely-damaged homes trying to salvage their possessions.

“This appeal isn’t about providing furniture, bedding or blankets – it’s about the people of Shropshire giving the flood-hit families of Cumbria a special little treat for Christmas.”

Mrs Seymour is urging people to wrap up a gift and deliver it to her office, Independence House, 27 Bridge Road, Wellington, TF1 1ED, any time between 9.30am and 4pm from Monday to Thursday this week.

“It would be a big help if they could be marked up so that we know if the gifts are for males or females, adults or children.

“I plan to drive up to Cumbria on Tuesday next week with Shropshire’s donations, and hopefully put a smile on some people’s faces at such a difficult time in their lives.

“I want the people of Cumbria who have been affected by these devastating floods to know that they are in thoughts of families here in Shropshire.”

For more information, call Jill Seymour’s constituency office on 01952 924040, or email enquiries@jseymourmep.co.uk

All EU leaders opposed to restricting benefits

The unelected president of the EU Council, Donald Tusk, has told MEPs that every EU member state is opposed to restricting in-work benefits for EU immigrants and that David Cameron will have to give up on the idea.

It also looks like he's got to wait until February to see what bones he's going to be tossed to spin into a "victory" after Angela Merkel phoned him up and told him it's not going to happen before Christmas.

Cameron told he will have to compromise on immigrant benefits compromise

The unelected president of the EU Commission, Donald Tusk, has told David Cameron that there are "substantial political differences" over his "demand" to prevent in-work benefits being paid to EU immigrants for the first 4 years that they live here.

Faced with the impossibility of EU countries agreeing to end open borders and determined to keep us in the EU, the only option Cameron has is to make the UK less attractive to benefits tourists. He has "demanded" the right to stop in-work benefits (but not out of work benefits like child benefit, unemployment benefit, housing benefit, disability benefits, etc) for EU immigrants for the first four years they live here. Bizarrely, Cameron's immigration compromise is designed to make the UK less attractive to people coming here to work and more attractive to people coming here just to claim benefits.

This is already a pathetically weak compromise that fails to address the underlying problem - free movement of people - and the expectation is that further compromises to the compromise will have to be made. It's difficult to understand what further compromises can be made without rendering the whole thing completely pointless rather than largely ineffectual as it is now.

Image credit: Guido

Paul Nuttall appointed leader of UKIP MEPs

Paul Nuttall MEP has been appointed group leader of the UKIP delegation in the EU Parliament.

Nuttall was elected as an MEP for the north west of England in 2009 and was re-elected in last year's historic EU elections which saw UKIP gain the most MEPs of any UK party.

Tube passenger gets throat cut by extremist in revenge for Syria

A man has slashed the throat of a tube passenger and threatened others in London whilst shouting "this is for Syria".

The man reportedly stabbed a passenger multiple times, including slashing his throat and threatened other passengers before police tasered him. As he was being led away from the scene he shouted "This is what happens when you fuck with mother Syria, all of your blood will be spilled".

And so it begins ...

Conservative leader of Shropshire Council resigns and reported to police for misconduct in public office

The Conservative leader of Shropshire Council has resigned as a councillor and director of a council-owned company amid accusations of misconduct.

Cllr Keith Barrow was investigated by a firm of solicitors on behalf of the council after he was reported to their standards board by UKIP councillor Dave Tremellen for failing to declare an interest in the appointment of a firm of accountants for the council's IP&E company. The investigation concluded that although he had acted improperly in failing to declare that the accountants being appointed were his personal accountants he didn't exert any undue influence.

Barrow unexpectedly resigned yesterday before news of him being reported to West Mercia Police for misconduct in public office was made public. We understand that a second referral to the standards committee was due to be made yesterday on a related matter.

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Irony?!?! A time loop?!?!

Ok this blog entry in Bloggers4UKIP by RadioFreeUK to let you know that I included a blog entry from here - Bloggers4UKIP in the RadioFreeUK.org Friday show!

It was a great item - and deserves to go on record, even it events have moved on a bit!

It was Stuart Parr's analysis of David Cameron's letter to the EU Commission on his 'demands' for reform! (snork!) and can be heard here:

http://www.radiofreeuk.org/show/20151204/4/

RadioFreeUK.org is a ground up thing... I can do the tech - and have been... but I can't do *everything* (but pretty much have been!) - take a look (or listen!) its kind of BBC Radio 4 but without the pro EU, left wing 'progressive' agenda. Its young, dynamic, it has a long way to go and will change a lot over time.

Take back the media! support RadioFreeUK.org for #EUout!

Labour hold Oldham West & Royton

Despite the best efforts of John Bickley and his UKIP team, Labour managed to hold on to Oldham West & Royton in yesterday's by-election.

Despite the bookies getting twitchy, the election had already been won before election day thanks to Labour's postal voting machine which generated a massive 25% postal turnout.

UKIP's vote share was up 2.8%, Labour's was up 7.3%, the Lib Dems lost their deposit and the Tories dropped 9.6% of the vote since May. Overall turnout was down 19.3% from the general election.

Candidate	Party	Votes	%	+/-
Jim McMahon	Labour	17,209	62.1%	+7.3%
John Bickley	UKIP	6,487	23.4%	+2.8%
James Daly	Conservatives	2,596	9.4%	-9.6%
Jane Brophy	Lib Dem	1,024	3.7%	0.0%
Simeon Hart	Green	249	0.9%	-1.0%
Sir Oink A-Lot	Monster Raving Loony	141	0.5%	N/A

Well done to John Bickley and his team for an excellent election campaign.

Oldham deserves better than Labour, vote John Bickley

Voters go to the polls in Oldham West & Royton today to choose a replacement for the late Michael Meacher who sadly passed away in late October.

Oldham has been described as a "one party state" due to Labour's dominance in the city as the former party of the working class. But the city that once elected Sir Winston Churchill - thought by many to be the greatest and most principled leader we've ever had - deserves better than four more years of Labour, Jeremy Corbyn and the IRA supporting communist tax dodger, Jim McMahon.

UKIP is the only party that can end Labour's rule in Oldham and give people in the north and MP that works for real people, not corporate interests or unaccountable quangos and organisations. John Bickley is a successful businessman from a working class family, not a career politician.

Conservative MP for Telford invents abusive comment from constituent

The Conservative MP for Telford, Lucy Allan, has been accused of doctoring an email from a constituent to include an abusive closing comment.

Unfortunately for Lucy, the constituent in question posted screenshots of the original email exchange showing that the email had been "sexed up".

When details were posted in the Telford group on Facebook, Lucy Allan allegedly reported the constituent's Facebook account resulting in it being suspended for a day. Faced with a barrage of negative publicity, Allan first claimed that the last line "Unless you die" was sent in another email before finally admitting that it was taken from someone else's email and added to Rusty's.

Allan is one of this year's new MPs, ousting Labour MP David Wright from his marginal seat in this year's general election. But inexperience is no excuse for breaking the strict MP/Constituent confidentiality or for making up abuse from constituents. It's lucky for Lucy that "Rusty Shackleton" is a pseudonym - not that she knew it at the time - because attributing false comments to somebody that could damage someone's reputation is libel.

"Rusty" has started a petition calling on Lucy Allan to resign which has been suspended while the parliament petitions people "check it meets petition standards". Apparently this might take a few days by which time most people will probably have forgotten about it. Which is convenient.

Cameron told AGAIN that he can't restrict benefits for EU immigrants

The leaders of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have told David Cameron that they will block his futile attempts to stop immigrants claiming benefits until they've paid into the system for four years.

Although curbing immigration still remains one of Cameron's key promises despite spectacularly failing to prevent it rocketing over the last few years, he has dropped it from the list of "demands" for his sham renegotiation. He is instead pathetically trying to discourage people from wanting to move here by making them wait for benefits rather than defy the EU.

Men and women segregated at Labour meeting in Oldham

Pictures of a Labour Party campaign meeting organised by Labour Friends of Bangladesh in Oldham show the women and men clearly segregated.

The pictures were shared on Twitter by Labour MP Debbie Abrahams and immediately drew criticism with UKIP's candidate, John Bickley, who said:

How can it be acceptable in modern Britain that a political party that wishes to represent all the people, and in particular the various communities of Oldham, thinks that it's ok to segregate by gender?

This isn't a one-off either. Earlier this year man-hating female supremacist Harriet Harman defended a segregated Labour event in Birmingham saying it was better to have a segregated meeting than a men-only one.

Peterlee Labour councillors found to have bullied former clerk

Labour-run Peterlee Town Council has agreed to pay £200k in compensation to its former clerk after an independent panel found that it had bullied her when she was on sick leave.

Two Labour councillors - Mandy Thompson and Bill Jeffrey - apparently questioned whether the then clerk, Jane Russell, should be paid her full £60k salary after being off sick for more than 6 months and inappropriately involved the police.

The council is also expected to have to cover a £100k legal bill.

Grant Shapps resigns after taking responsibility for bullying that led to activist's suicide

The International Development Minister, Grant Shapps, has resigned amid claims that he failed to act on allegations of bullying and sexual assault against a youth activist that led to his suicide.

Shapps said that although he could find no written record of a complaint regarding the alleged abuse of 21 year old Elliot Johnson, as party chairman he was taking responsibility and resigning.

His predecessor, Baroness Warsi, wrote to Shapps earlier this year asking for action to be taken against the youth organiser alleged to have been responsible or at least complicit in the abuse, Mark Clarke. Even though Clarke had been struck off the Conservative Party's approved candidate list over complaints about his behaviour, Shapps decided to give him "a second chance" and appointed him as director of the Conservative youth programme that was allegedly responsible for driving Elliot Johnson to take his own life.

Grant Shapps has done the right thing in resigning as his judgement was clearly incredibly flawed. This isn't the first report of bullying or abuse in the Conservative Party but the first one I can recall with such a tragic ending. Clearly the Conservative Party has a problem that they need to address and having one of their own peers leading an investigation into the problem isn't going to solve it.