Tory tactics on voter registration are eroding democracy

Firstly, please register to vote here if you haven't done so. It's as important as it's ever been:

In 2009 the tories changed the way voters are registered so it is up to the individual rather than the head of a household. It was done under the pretence of stopping electoral fraud despite hardly any cases of this. This means that millions will drop off the register. Millions who wouldn't vote tory.

Electoral Reform Society campaign

For such an important democratic change there has been no TV campaign. A recent pension campaign saw Iain Duncan Smith spend £8.5 million of tax-payers money advertising it. 

As a student I was not informed enough to know about the voting process - a complete failure of the school system in a supposedly proud democracy. Being only just past 18 I had never voted before. Luckily universities would register students on mass. Under these rules there is a huge risk that many will be too busy to remember while studying, worrying about finances and generally being students. Those who move house or don't have mortgages with the insecurity of private rented accommodation are also at massive risk. The trend is that it's poorer people who are disproportionately affected. Facts reveal the tories' ulterior motive to gerrymander elections

Voters must be registered by December 1st 2015. The original date for registration was December 2016 but opportunistic self-serving tories rushed the date forward in the summer to deny a voice to those they care little about. Even the independent Electoral Commission has attacked these government manoeuvrings.

The conservatives want to rig their chances at elections next year by introducing the new system when there was no great call for it. This means registered voters will have to re-register if they want to choose the new London Mayor and Scottish & Welsh parliament next year. Why the haste? Of potentially even greater concern are boundary changes, rejected under the coalition (missing the Lib Dems yet?) but since a tory majority they are to become law in 2018 for the following election. These will be based on the electoral register of next month and therefore favour Cameron & co. if non-tories have dropped off the list. These changes are to make each constituency equal size yet shockingly they disregard non-registered voters.

Now to counter blatant tory manipulation the race is on register as many as possible before the coming in a matter of weeks. Labour are leading the charge here. With our antiquated broken voting system it is more important than ever to get involved in the democratic process while vested interests try and engineer a monopoly of power.

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Media reporting of the Swedish neo-Nazi killer and other white extremists

Appropriately grisly subject matter for Halloween. I have written before about how the media reports of racially motivated murders when the assailant is white. Here are some more case studies:

A week ago (23rd Oct 2015) a Swedish terrorist stabbed a teacher and pupil to death while 2 others are in hospital recovering from wounds. It was deemed a neo-Nazi hate crime by the police and given little coverage by the mainstream. It has sharply fallen off the agenda since. This happened in a town where mosques were burnt down in the 90s. Imagine it was white majority churches.

How many would remember the attacker's name or even the incident itself?
How much profile does the media give acts of extremism when the perpetrator is white? Researching this article has proved a lot harder than you'd think for a story about a Nazi violence only a week old.

Some analysis of the narrative:

The terrorist motives are clearly being softened. They emphasise the killer's mask being like Star Wars character Darth Vader which is firstly inaccurate and secondly not as attention-worthy as the true intention behind the crime. This trivalises a terrible act. The mask actually represents his own perverse tribute to the Nazi storm-troopers. They also did not specify which ethnicity he targeted. Minority lives don't matter in their agenda.

 Dog-whistle site for sinister bigots, Breitbart implied the school of mainly migrants deserved attacking with this divide and conquer headline:

There is a similar narrative from Daily Beast. Another terrorist Dylann Roof, murdered 9 black people at a Charleston, SC church in another racially motivated act of terror. DB acknowledge he was a white supremacist contradicting their initial defence of him based on superficial Facebook journalism.

In the aftermath there was extensive burning of black churches which you would think would be major news. The UK TV outlets that covered the killing did not broadcast any of this. Too much truth for Middle England let alone Middle America.

Michael Brown, the black teenage police victim in the incident which sparked the Ferguson riots was even compared unfavourably to white serial killer Ted Bundy by the relatively liberal New York Times. The lengths the media go to provide this good/evil judgements contributes to a racial landscape that sees significant funds raised for the killer policeman and rallies in support of him.

The black shooter in Virginia never received such a defence from the same publication:

It seems the media pick and choose who they apologise for. How can the killer have played the 'race card' when his former employers settled out-of-court on his lawsuit, effectively acknowledgement of  his claim of discrimination.

Based on such evidence, it is hard to defend Daily Beast against accusations of racism in the reporting of killers. There is growing evidence that this exists at multiple media organisations, including unsurprisingly Fox News but even the liberal news outlets mentioned. Tim McVeigh was afforded this measured humanising piece from the Washington Post in 1995. How many of us even know who Tim McVeigh was? The only terrorist who saw proper US judicial process after killing 168 people including 19 children.

Even the justice system seems to have a problem. This is the shocking case of a US cop who executed a black man and was given immunity.

The Huffington Post do a brilliant synopsis of the whole issue:

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The establishment groupthink at the heart of the BBC

Print journalism was famously called 'the Fourth Estate', a remark attributed to MP Edmund Burke at the 1787 introduction of press reporting in parliament. He was emphasising the importance of holding government to account with complete independence - unlike the 3 other estates of the time (the Commons and two Lords).

The following highlights the conflict of interests within the supposedly culturally diverse BBC undermining Edmund' Burke's tenet of democracy in the contemporary media landscape. 

James Harding, Head of BBC News

• Went to same independent school as George Osborne.
• Went to Cambridge.
• Worked as a financial journalist.
• Worked at The Times owned by Rupert Murdoch.
• During his time at the paper he had to apologise for withholding information to the High Court during the Leveson inquiry.

Laura Kuenssberg BBC political editor

• From a well-connected family. Relatives include the last Governor-General of colonial Nigeria, a High Court Judge and the founder/president of the Royal College of GPs.
• Worked at ITV

James Landale, BBC News Deputy Political Editor

James Landale in David Cameron's kitchen

• Went to Eton with David Cameron.
• Worked at The Times.

Andrew Neil, presenter on the BBC Daily Politics

 Andrew Neil with David Cameron, Grant Shapps and Spectator editor Fraser Nelson

• Tutored by Vince Cable during his University of Glasgow days, who he would later interview many times.
• During university was a member of the Conservative Club.
• Worked for Rupert Murdoch as Sky's chief mover in the early days.
• Worked at the right-wing free market Economist and right-wing Sunday Times.

Andrew Marr BBC Marr Show presenter and ex-Political Editor

• Married to Jackie Ashley from another mostly establishment media org The Guardian and daughter of a Labour life peer. Life peers are a thing that exists in 21st century Britain
• Made use of a High Court super-injunction to prevent the media reporting the truth, nevertheless he continues to be regarded highly as a journalist in mainstream circles.
• In April 2003 made the report below celebrating  Blair's illegal Iraq invasion.

Allegra Stratton, BBC Newsnight reporter

• Cambridge alumnus
• Married to James Forsyth political editor of the right-wing The Spectator magazine owned by tax exiles the Barclays Brothers, who also own the right-wing Daily Telegraph

Nick Robinson ex-Political Editor 2005-2015, now at BBC Radio 4 Today show

• Founder member of Macclesfield Young Conservatives
• ex-Cheshire Young Conservative Chairman
• Former Young Conservative National Advisory Committee member
• As a student he was President of the Oxford University Conservative Association

The BBC Board of Trustees

Rona Fairhead, Chairman of Trust

Rona Fairhead being questioned about financial irregularities

• Cambridge alumnus
• Also works for HSBC and PepsiCo
• Declines to answer questions about Swiss banking irregularities.
• Admitted failings when her bank received a fine for money-laundering 
• Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for 'services to industry'

Roger Carr, Vice Chair

• Worked in the City
• Business background at Thames Water, arms company BAE systems & energy giant Centrica
• Knighted

What does this mean for any public interest issue that challenges the weaknesses in their inevitable consensus. It doesn't have to be conspiracy for decision-making to be influenced by mostly privileged backgrounds. All homogeneity by definition has blind-spots.

Would James Harding ever take aim at his powerful old boss about his bigotry or non-dom status?
Would Allegra Stratton ever scrutinise on the financial matters of the Barclays Brothers?

Would Rona Fairhead ever green-light an investigative series on the workings of HSBC, a bank that has already proven to be corrupt and a major part of our economy?

The names are inter-changeable, the outcomes similar.

Below is some background to journalists at The Times I published previously here

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Corbyn won by a landslide. The propaganda intensifies

It's been a summer of the refugee crisis and Labour leadership saga but it's now that time of year when shirking careerist elitist MPs are declared fit to work and will emerge from their expenses paid houses to swamp parliament.

http://politicalscrapbook.net/2015/09/mp-expense-overclaims/

Last week Tory-run BBC news had Daily Politics back on air with the usual cast of establishment careerists (mostly men) like Andrew 'plebgate' Mitchell and Tristram Hunt who was parachuted into a safe Labour seat because he was on the telly. Having put up the pretence of showing heart over the refugee crisis the war-machine quickly moved to make the case for more self-serving western imperialism. This was the trend of the week seen in The S*n and PMQs both used as platforms to push for a war. Would any of the establishment volunteer themselves of their loved ones to go fight? And who would really benefit from war? Perhaps this massive arms fair in London might hold some clues.

Later they had Waylon Smithers brown-noser, Toby Young smearing Labour which was mirrored on Newsnight. Just to be sure a Panorama hatchet job by 'journalist' John Ware was broadcast, in which 'experts' questioned Corbyn's electability while showing pictures of his rallies being attended by large crowds. They also smeared Corbyn's diplomacy fro including enemies, conveniently forgetting UK ties to despotic regimes around the world like wealthy Saudi Arabian fundamentalists - who by the way are not at all concerned about their fellow Muslims seeking asylum.

Talking of foreign policy, Israeli PM Netanyahu met David Cameron because presumably it's OK to call apartheid tyrants 'friends' if they are our apartheid tyrant. Israel is what S. Africa was before the 90s but with a greater death toll. This undermines so-called 'British values' our PM continually pushes and u;ltimately leaves us with no real diplomatic legitimacy in the Middle East even with moderates.

Then Corbyn won by a landslide - the largest mandate of any leader ever. After his victory he chose not to appear on Andrew Marr's BBC weekend politics show because he was fulfilling a promise to visit a mental hospital in his constituency.

The Times, as a paper full of tory elitists (If you don't want to visit the UKIP link then see image below) who trade on being progressive metropolitans went into full demonisation mode.

That's it for me. I'll see if the Labour party's still there in the morning. Maybe they'll abolish pubs or something. It's been a pleasure.

— Philip Collins (@PCollinsTimes) September 13, 2015

@PCollinsTimes I know, I get that feeling with 'journalism' in The Times too http://t.co/fdvoGvWKnv #JezWeDid

— JeSuisFedUp (@JeSuisFedUp) September 14, 2015

There were accusations from the usual voices who never before cared for women's representation or having quotas that his cabinet was sexist, even though there were more female members than the tories have, in fact more than ever. Sky news wannabe journalist Dermot Murnaghan even pontificated about whether Corbyn's casual dress sense could get him elected.

If you want to know what a proper mainstream media journalist looks like then watch this. It created the usual social media outcry, a measure of how low our standards and expectations have fallen.

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The tories want the tube strikes to sway public opinion against working people

Many London commuters today and tomorrow are upset that tube workers are inconveniencing them. As a local resident I am in this position. Personally I refuse to react in a way that simplifies a complex issue into one tweet-sized rant sent while we struggle to exploitative jobs we probably hate anyway.

The tories have a union reform agenda and aided by the usual media they are playing politics with working people's lives.

Firstly some misconceptions:

• Tube workers agree to work nights - it is about the implementation

• It is not just well-paid drivers on strike. Unions are have other tube staff as members too, including low paid workers.

• There are serious health and safety concerns about the roster proposals of TfL.

• There are politics at play - and it is coming from the top:

So it appears that LU are encouraging the strike by with unrealistic demands. Such tactics raise suspicions of a tory strategy (via Boris Johnson) to solidify a lot of misinformed public opinion against workers to push through 'union reform' (destroying workers' rights). 

They also want to automate the tube. It's a possibility as long as some money saved go towards helping the many made unemployed, having dedicating their lives to one job. Tory governments are not known for compensating those whose lives they ruin - ask any miner. 

Commuters should remember that every job lost to technology means another individual not paying tax and probably on benefits undermining the fabric of families and communities. We never seem to recognise or measure the human cost.

But never mind because tube strike is preventing you getting to work - maybe working on another great tech tool that will probably put you and your loved ones livelihoods in jeopardy.

Automation has limitations. How long until a robot can help save lives in an emergency like 7/7?

This government have proved at every stage to be ideological game-players from austerity to the welfare bill. They are shaping society to their advantage to a degree that no other government has done. Any government including 'politically astute' (conniving) George Osborne clearly has agendas beyond the issue itself.

And as for a wider reading of our society:

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