To restore financial Integrity and fairness with voters.

Our democracy is at stake. One political party is trying to ride roughshod over the will of the British public.

Benefit sanctions target the most vulnerable in our society - like the parent who had their benefits stopped after missing an appointment because their baby was in intensive care for example. A total of 466,000 people were hit by sanctions which saw them barred from claiming Job Seekers Allowance for an average of between four weeks and three months. However, 2,000 repeat offenders were hit by significantly harder sanctions and had their benefits stopped for the next three years, including 49 single parents and 978 people under the age of 24. A statement from Mr Boles withdrawing the comments followed remarks to his local newspaper, suggesting the Tories could amend the current sanctions regime. Nick Boles said “In the run-up to the election there is not a lot we can do, but we can get the case studies together where the sanctions seem to be most unreasonable … The beginning of a parliamentary term, when people are looking at things afresh, is the best time to make a change.” But what happens after the elections? The government do as they wish and the people who vote for them remain trapped in the sanctions, left to go without basic needs such as Food and nappies. The Trussell Trust Charity who run the local Foodbanks and The Grantham Passage pick up the people effected by Sanctions and Benefit cuts. The case studies are there and the people are real. Infact Gill Thompson and Cathie Wood have come together through impossibly tragic circumstances. Both of their brothers died, hungry, with no money to buy food, after their benefits were stopped. How many more people need to die? Would we leave an animal without food, No? The owners would be prosecuted. As a Grantham constituent who votes I would urge Nick Boles and fellow MP's to start supporting the people who vote instead of showing they care more about the party line and climbing up the party ladder. Look at repealing these benefit Sanctions before the Election.

This is important because the poor are getting so far deeper into poverty.

It is still legal to discriminate against people in Northern Ireland in relation to the provision of goods, facilities and services on the basis of the person's age unlike in Britain and the Republic of Ireland. Older people in Northern Ireland endured the 'Troubles' for many years and looked forward to the 'peace dividend', only to find that their elected representatives can't agree to give them the same protection under the law as is enjoyed by older people in the rest of the UK & Ireland. The Northern Ireland Executive includes a proposal to introduce legislation to outlaw age discrimination in its Programme for Government in 2011, but has so far failed to get agreement in the Assembly for this over the last 4 years. Prof. Mark Lawler of Queen's University Belfast has described how many older people were being denied possible life saving and enhancing cancer treatments each year purely on the grounds of age.

If this is a true Labour value it should be adopted across UK Labour.

The Queens Sovereign Grant for 2014-15 was £37.9 million, although this is a drop in the ocean according to republic.org.uk which estimates that "When all [the] hidden expenditure is included, the real cost of the monarchy to British taxpayers is likely to be over £299m annually". There is no way this can be seen as value for money, especially while the most vulnerable in our society are facing the prospect of an even more savage cap in the amount a household can receive in what (for the most part) is a vital, and necessary, lifeline. To find out more about the campaign visit www.charliekb.wordpress.com/2015/03/03/slash-their-benefits/ www.joshua-hill-walsh.com/

Public provision of water services in Scotland should continue to be a point of pride and a point of principle. Water is a service that should continue to be delivered for the benefit of the people. Public water provision in Scotland has resulted in the lowest average water bills in the UK for both households and businesses. Let's keep it that way by maintaining the responsibility and the benefits of water provision in the hands of the public sector here in Scotland.

There are estimated to be 1000 North Korean refugees living in the UK – that is an incredibly small number. But now the Government has confirmed that Britain will now automatically ship away the small number of North Koreans whom manage to escape from one of the world’s most oppressive regimes and make it to the UK. For North Koreans who do not have any information about the outside world when they escape the country, an option to choose another country to settle in should be guaranteed. A recent court ruling that means Britain regards all North Koreans as South Korean citizens and is likely to refuse them asylum. These people face amazing obstacles in order to escape the brutal regime, including famine (the arduous march), disease, forced labour camps, torture, reprisals on their families including the death penalty (North Korea has a guilt by association policy) and slavery both in North Korea and in China. For those that do cross the Tumen River into China thinking this to be their salvation they then find themselves sold into a life of slavery on the black market or hunted down by North Korean agents and the Chinese authorities to be forcibly repatriated to North Korea where death or starvation awaits. These people risk so much to escape such a ruthless regime in North Korea and Britain now decides not to help and to turn its back on the very, very small number that make it here? North Korea is in a category of its own when it comes to human rights violations. It is a totalitarian state where many people are enslaved and tortured. All forms of freedom of expression are repressed and people are purged using the death penalty, there is mass malnourishment and outside Kim’s Pyongyang it is commonplace for people to starve to death. Amnesty International reports that many North Koreans, including children, are detained in political prison camps and other detention facilities in North Korea. Conditions are dire. Torture is rampant and public execution is common. Many of the prisoners die of malnutrition and overwork. No refugee should be refused or prejudiced on language or cultural difference. Why should Britain cherry pick whom it helps in this way?

This is important, because the false guarantee swayed members vote to support the Governments position. It is important to uphold the position that ministers that mislead the house should be sacked.

I personally feel, rightly or wrongly, that if British Telecom were allowed to buy the 'Everything Everywhere' company, it would be like Tesco's buying Morrison's or Sky buying I.T.V. We need a competitive market place to create employment and drive consumers standards to higher grounds. The reaching long term implications of this potential sale, would have to result in job losses and if the public does not raise it's concerns about potential huge company sales such this and similar situations and attempts like it, we could be guilty of scratching our heads in 5 years time and asking ourselves "Where did all the work go?" In the last 3 years, I have found B.T. and E.E's customers standards to be poor and if they become no longer in direct competition with each other, how will their customer services ever improve? We are still recovering from a double-dip recession and the last thing the business market needs is an eventual streamlining of a big phone network. This must be stopped and it is in all of our interests to stop B.T. buying E.E. I have already contacted my M.P, Andrew Turner, about this matter and hope that others are able to find the time to contact their M.P. too.

The current campaign to get potential electors to ‘engage with’ politics fails to 'engage with' Russell Brand's insights (and with the frustration of those who care but feel impotent). The problem can be qualified very simply: 1. The reason why non-registered potential electors do not register is because they do not see the point in registering. 2. The reason why non-registered potential electors do not see the point in registering is because they do not see the point in voting. 3. The reason why non-voting potential electors do not see the point in voting is because: a. They cannot see any options which have a worthwhile chance of promoting their political preferences. b. There are never any ‘none of the above’ options. How could those who care but feel impotent express their despair, and their frustrated desire for a better process? c. Our lousy current voting processes would anyway ignore most of their votes. How could those who care but feel impotent make their votes count? Ideally, of course, all citizens in a liberal democracy would be able to express their political preferences through ‘fit for purpose’ democratic processes. However, if the de-facto democratic processes are not ‘fit for purpose’, and those in power have a venal vested interest in maintaining the consequential democratic deficit, citizens have to seek first to change those ‘not fit for purpose’ democratic processes by whatever means (including high-profile ‘focussed outrage’). Where would South Africa be now if Nelson Mandela had played by the rules of apartheid? Where would India be now if Mahatma Ghandi had played by the rules of the British Empire? Where would women’s rights be now if the suffragettes had played by the rules of their menfolk? Where will the UK be in 50 years’ time if the constitutional reform movement urges us to play by the current not ‘fit for purpose’ democratic processes? Those who care but feel impotent despair when they note that nine of the eleven members of the PCRC (Political & Constitutional Reform Committee of the Westminster Parliament) are members of the two dominant ‘covert coalition’ Parties; the very Parties which benefit from the current democratic deficit. They wonder ‘why would turkeys vote for Christmas?’. Unfortunately, the constitutional reform movement currently puts forward two conflicting messages to potential electors: 1. The constitutional reform movement (rightly) informs us that the vast majority of us will/would be wasting our time and dissipating our democratic energy by registering and voting (because the lousy current voting processes will ignore most of our votes). 2. The constitutional reform movement (wrongly) urges us to register and vote (thereby wasting our time, dissipating our democratic energy, and reinforcing the venal self-serving complacency of those who oppose constitutional reform). Citizens are not fools. They will not buy the above muddled pair of conflicting messages for long. Brand was/is right in his analysis and insights. However, he failed to provide a constructive alternative. Apathy is not a constructive alternative. Not-voting is not a constructive alternative. Taking over St Paul's cathedral is not a constructive alternative. Citizens need to see a positive and constructive campaign for constitutional reform. The purpose of this campaign is: 1. To act as a ‘call to arms’ and a ‘civil disobedience challenge’ for the 'focussed outrage' with which to confront those benefiting from the lousy current voting processes (i.e. the current Conservative and Labour Parties), who would otherwise of course simply wring their hands, obfuscate and drag their feet (as they always have done). 2. To convince those in power that resistance to constitutional reform is untenable, and that they had a venal vested interest in ‘embracing’ the campaign for constitutional reform (however reluctantly) before ‘events’ overtook them. Those who wish to explore the wider context for a campaign for constitutional reform in the UK can find more detail in two working papers: 1. The working paper 'A Campaign for Constitutional Reform in the UK' provides a blueprint for such a campaign. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B695R-_ui4mWMFNOV2tZeEwwTms/view?usp=sharing 2. The working paper 'Optimising Democratic Governance' provides an in-depth exposition of the principles underlying that campaign. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B695R-_ui4mWZTFLMmFMaUREUms/view?usp=sharing