Cllr. Gavin Ayling

David Davis has resigned his constituency seat expecting, one must assume, overwhelming support for the position rational politicians have taken over the suggestion that imprisoning innocent people for forty two days is acceptable in a free democracy. Davis deserves our support and respect for this brave decision.

Last night’s debate, and the brave Labour rebels in particular, showed that democrats from across the spectrum care passionately about rights and freedoms. MPs of all parties hold courage and conviction about these values and few more so than David Davis.

Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty

Thank you DUP. I am no longer free — I am to be compensated, sure — but I am still at the mercy of the state and, assuming the Lords are spineless or overruled, I can be imprisoned by the state with no evidence against me for 42 days.

I feel a little sick.

“95% of the Lisbon Treaty was the Constitutional Treaty.”

Adur’s results are in

The bottom line is that the Conservatives retained all their seats and with the postal votes counted it’s a reasonable turn-out and satisfying majorities in every ward.

Congratulations to the successful candidates and thanks to the electorate for not subjecting us to nuisance politics.

The numbers in Worthing are similarly reassuring with the Conservatives picking up one seat and the Lib Dems retaining their tally.

Obviously I’m delighted about the results so far for the Conservatives but we’re yet to see how Adur’s results come in — I’m not counting too many chickens.

That said, I’m sure that Debbie Kennard has won Buckingham Ward in Shoreham. Based on our canvas data, though, there was an interesting stat I’d like to share.

Unfortunately Debbie wasn’t able to canvas the whole area due to a combination of factors including getting less help from people like me! Apologies Deb if you’re reading this.

But of the two-thirds of homes that were canvassed, over 20% turn-out was experienced, while the third that was not canvassed only showed a 10% turn-out. And our canvas records show that the turn-out was slightly higher among Conservative pledged voters who were canvassed than ‘Againsts’.

So this is a lesson to us all. Canvassing definitely helps increase turn-out!

The BBC and ITV have been accused of attempting to stymie political debate. They objected to part of the content of this video by the Christian Choice Mayoral candidate about a mosque in London:

Now, watch the first half of that video (and don’t get suckered in — religion and politics are separate things and I cannot condone the Christian parties that are united behind this candidate) and tell me whether you see anything offensive. I don’t.

Now, back on message:

Vote Boris in London
Vote Kennard in Buckingham Ward
Vote Conservative in Adur

The National Union of Teachers strike tomorrow will affect some West Sussex schools including some in Adur. Check out the list on the West Sussex County Council’s website: List of schools affected

I’ve written before about Mrs Alibhai Brown (search above), but she’s at it again and deserves to be taken down a few more pegs.

A colleague disagreed with me about the tone of Yasmin’s piece. What follows are some extracts from my responses:

The colour of someone’s skin has absolutely nothing to do with their attitude to anything, any more than people with size nine feet all think the same or act the same, or make the same decisions.

There are stereotypes, of course, which is why one of my friends calls himself a ‘coconut’ and their half-Philipino friend once called himself a ‘banana’, but the same may be true of people with big noses. They’re likely to have a chip on their shoulder, no?

Yasmin has every right to say what she thinks, but that doesn’t change whether she’s wrong or not. And she is wrong: morally and when it comes down to whether something is true or not.

Race becomes an issue because people place so much emphasis on it — aside from some facial features its even more meaningless than skin colour. Compare, for example, Colin Powell’s skin hue with that of George Bush and Condoleeza Rice. Colin Powell is actually as pale as George Bush. Now lets suppose skin colour was somehow relevant to someone’s attitude or political outlook, how should Colin Powell behave? White or black?

And while she’s making these sweeping generalisations, are black people more left-wing or more right-wing? Is strong family a policy of the right or the left? I would say right, but how much stronger is the family unit in Italian, Hindu and Muslim families, those supposed Boris-haters? Is positive discrimination a sop to their guilt-ridden white population or is it a genuine attempt to help those people who are not given as many chances because of racism in the white-dominated management structures? I’ve yet to meet someone who has thought carefully about the situation who would benefit from positive discrimination (a non-white in other words) who supports it. But positive discrimination is a policy of the left (and Ken) and not of Mr Johnson. And what about homophobia? Mr Livingstone (and other left-wing extremists) welcome Islamic preachers who spout homophobic diatribe, while the right (and Boris) condemn them. Yasmin would claim this is a race issue, but I would argue that it is just bad manners: if you invite and welcome someone with openly hateful views without publicly criticising those views, you are implying support for them. It is not racist to condemn preachers of hate (and no-one outside the BNP to my knowledge has condemned Islamic preachers without referring to those among them who preach hate) but it is homophobic to embrace them.

So back to my point, is it left-wing or right-wing to be non-white? Is it reasonable to suggest that a particular colour would vote for Boris? And is it acceptable to label people that you are criticising by their skin colour?

James asks whether, as religion and politics don’t mix, do sport and politics?

And the answer is sort-of (in my humble opinion):

I believe the protests in London and Paris about the transportation of the Olympic flame through the cities on the way to Beijing was appropriate and laudable. If our government was abusing human rights I would expect us all to be protesting. Now that our government is supporting those that abuse human rights we should still be protesting.

Tibet should be free of oppression by China.

That all said, Britain should not withdraw from the upcoming Olympics because that would be unfair on a generation of athletes, achieve less than nothing and be an inappropriate way of protesting.