Make sure your vote counts! At the recent local government elections in London and other parts of the UK (May 2014) the current "first-past-the-post" electoral system served as a huge barrier to local democracy, with voters' genuine choices not reflected in the seats allocated in local councils. For example, in the London borough of Hackney, the Labour Party took 50 out of 57 seats (88%) seats from 58% of the vote, whereas the Green Party received 20.5% of the vote but not a single council seat. The Liberal Democrats received 8% and have three councillors, and the Conservatives with 12% have four councillors. The numbers from "first past the post" elections don't add up. Most of Europe (including Scotland) uses variations of proportional representation in local elections, only Britain still clings to "first-past-the-post"; it is archaic and outdated. As the Joseph Rowntree Foundation concluded in a 2000 study, the system "does not always perform effectively against standard criteria used to assess the performance of electoral systems". Some boroughs have opted to elect an independent Mayor, local governments should also be able to choose to use a fairer voting system. We propose offering councils proportional representation (PR) at the next local elections, using the Additional Member System. Make everyone’s vote count.

This is important to allow a fair and balanced presentation of the separate parties arguments without the unrelenting bias faced by the YES campaign, this is already being seen by the public in that the press are lining up AGAIN to demolish the SNP while the press have every right to decide who they support, what they should not be allowed to do it lie about the SNP,Which as anyone who was part of the Yes campaign will know they did with impunity, The OSCE is The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and will support the freedom of the press to report in a fair and unbiased manner without pressure from government and provides oversight of elections and referenda to ensure a fair and interference free poll. Heres the OSCE http://www.osce.org/

Though many Minsters and MP's tell obvious lies that do not require much effort to identify some go to much greater lengths to pervert the truth. Though it is commonly accepted that constant lying is part and parcel of politicians way of life, it has lead to very bad governance and law making. This is because people, like me, do not have time to go through ever statement to check for lies. The shear levels of lies is currently so high it is easier for me to assume everything they say is a lie. However many people have come to take these lies to be true and as a result support policies, parties and politicians to the detriment of this country. A register of lies will put an end to this and restore some semblance of honesty to government.

Repeatedly the benefits bill has been discussed by politicians and the media as being too large that we cannot afford it, despite it including housing benefits, pensions, disability allowances and job seeker's allowance, all of which help the poor, old, sick and unemployed in a time of need. The details of these social benefits are well known and publicised. The Conservatives have just promised to freeze this benefits bill to help cut the budget deficit if they are elected at the next election. Recent research published in the Guardian [1] has shown that at least £85bn was given to large corporations by the government to help make the rich richer in the financial year 2011-12 alone, but with the budget deficit we just cannot afford it. This information was hidden; it is about time that the government publishes the amount given in corporate benefits - so called wealthfare - and starts considering this costly expense as an area to cut to reduce the budget deficit instead of welfare because the poor cannot cope with anymore cuts. We are all in it together, as Prime Minister David Cameron keeps saying. We've cut social benefits, it's now time to cut corporate benefits. [1] Aditya Chakrabortty, "Cut benefits? Yes, let’s start with our £85bn corporate welfare handout", The Guardian, Monday 6 October 2014 20.30 BST, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/06/benefits-corporate-welfare-research-public-money-businesses.

This is an issue that I have heard from some people in my own area, as well as this is repeated news stories of people losing their homes over this issue. A link to one such story is here http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/Stoke-Trent-City-Council-forced-evict-25-tenants/story-23048087-detail/story.html The authority has confirmed that in the last year a total of 65 tenants were evicted, with many already in rent arrears before the introduction of bedroom tax in April 2013. But 25 of that number went into arrears purely because of the levy, after previously being able to afford their rent. Nobody should face homelessness over this all the while they are at least attempting to avoid it by moving.

Recognition to bring about piece and with an overwhelming number of Conservative and Labour MP`s members of friends of Israel, the Palestinians will need all the help they can get.

This system needs to be introduced to prevent fraudulent claims as has happened in the past. If the system is workable for benefits, then it can work just as well for expenses.

Because Britain should provide an example to the world of how a legal system's first duty is to protect the country's citizens

Until just a few years ago we, as a nation, were beholden to the USA under the terms and conditions of the Lend-Lease agreement during World War 2. We have paid our debt to the USA in full, both in cash - with massive interest - and in human lives. We no longer have to join in their wars and we should be a peaceful island nation which just gets on with our global neighbours and trades peacefully with them.....rather than being a belligerent nation which spends a disproportionate amount of its GDP on its military and getting involved in warfare that we can't afford. Wouldn't our nation be so much better if we used this money to make life in the UK better and healthier for the people who live here? Warfare is paid for from the taxes we pay - we choose that our tax is spent on positive outcomes for the people of the UK, instead of bombing distant countries just because they have an issue with the USA.

The current Home Secretary Teresa May has recently announced that she intends to include the creation of so called "Terrorist ASBOs" as part of the Conservative election manifesto. While on the face of it this appears to be a laudable idea, the impact on freedom of speech is unacceptable in a democracy. In particular I draw your attention to: "The definition will also include anybody who seeks to ‘overthrow democracy’." To me it is a very short step from "seeks to 'overthrow democracy'" to 'speak in opposition to the government'. The government always considers itself the very epitome of democracy so opposing its views can all to easily be considered an attempt to overthrow it. If this proposal became law it would be a totally unacceptable infringement of freedom of speech. The Home Secretary needs to be informed as quickly as possible that her idea is not supported. Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/terrorist-asbos-to-silence-hate-preachers-pledged-by-tories-for-election-manifesto-9763288.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2774285/I-ll-silence-preachers-hate-vows-May-Home-Secretary-ban-extremists-speaking-public-spreading-poison-social-media.html

There have been widespread complaints of irregular practices associated with the No side in the independence referendum. But even if we accept the vote itself wasn't rigged, that still doesn't alter the fact,that the referendum certainly WAS. Nobody can pretend the NO side won fair and square. There can be no question of saying "Congratulalions old chap, well played". The cheats played with every trick in a very dirty book. The cheats won a cheats' win which won't last. The blatant bias of the British State Broadcasting Corporation and practically all of the State-sponsored mass media rigged the referendum. The blatant lies about "You'll lose your pension" , which continued to be repeated to frighten old age pensioners, long after such stories had been comprehensively demolished, rigged the referendum The false promises of rapid and genuine Home Rule being delivered within a few months rigged the referendum. Despite having the BSBC and all the mass media on their side, in the last week of the referendum campaign, in a complete panic, the NO side resorted to general-election-style politicians' promises which they can't possibly keep. It is this blatant rigging described above that makes the "result" both dodgy and temporary. They ran a general-election-style campaign, focusing on personalities and political parties. They ran a general-election style campaign in making worthless politicians' promises. Because the NO side ran that kind of campaign, of course the "result" won't last a "generation". It is already coming apart. It is in this context that Blair Moffat and others are seeking to impose an anti-democratic rule that this dodgy result has to be "respected" for 25 years. That is an attack on free speech, when it's perfectly obvious the result isn't even much "respected" now, and that it will become less respected as the months and years pass. Please sign this petition to The Presiding Officer of The Scottish Parliament, against the anti-democratic proposal put forward by Blair Moffat, and in favour of the sovereignty of the people of Scotland, who are the only authority qualified to decide when they want another referendum

Public spending has grown fortyfold since the start of the 20th century and no new mechanisms have been introduced to oversee this. We can: address the democratic deficit; increase accountability and control over government; update democracy for the digital age, applying time-honoured democratic principles with new technology; directly mandate policies, not political parties; and make the civil service more efficient by attaching budgets to policies, not time periods.