Gordon Brown finally bowed to the inevitable pressure and today quit as Labour leader. Sort of. He will resign as leader once the party has elected a replacement, although that will take a few months. Meanwhile Labour have entered into formal talks with the Lib Dems and it looks pretty obvious that Brown's departure is key to any deal being struck. The Conservatives, who fell 20 seats short of becoming the governing party, are apparently furious that Nick Clegg is prepared to talk to a party who didn't get enough seats to govern on their own. Work that one out. To be fair, they seem more upset that an unelected Labour PM might be followed by another unelected Labour PM. That's true, but so is the fact that not enough people wanted David Cameron to become PM, so now he's reduced to pretending he likes the Lib Dems and their policies.

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In case you haven't already seen this, here's Sky News presenter Kay Burley having a democracy-provoked meltdown live on television -
http://bit.ly/aBvpky. The subject of her hysterical ire was David Babbs of pressure group 38 Degrees, who just seemed slightly bemused by the whole episode. The reason for Burley's anger was that 38 Degrees have been protesting in London for voting reform, although during the course of the interview she seems to get confused and think they're protesting about the Lib Dem / Conservative talks and begins shrieking at Babbs like a deranged right-wing banshee.

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Members of the civil rights campaign group, the Real Fathers for Justice (Rffj), today held coordinated protests around the UK.

In Belfast where activists staged a demo last night then back this morning on the West link (the main route into the city from the M1), and in Middlesbrough, where demonstrators held a protest over the A66 into the city during rush hour.



The action is to highlight continuing failures in the family courts and the politician’s reluctance to deal with the problem.

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All today we will be running a Poll on the leaders debate.

You can view the Poll here > Leaders Debate Poll

R8 Your Politiciain

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In an earlier article I mentioned what I saw as blatant bias in the UK press towards the different political parties. While some papers, such as the Sunday Times, have been clearly more right-wing in their tone in recent weeks the Sun has taken to deliberately misleading it's readers. In an article that can be found on their website they report an exchange between Labour minister David Miliband and a potential voter in Swindon. The same story was also carried on the Guardian's Election Live Blog. According to the Guardian, the voter, John Doyle, owns two pubs and accused Miliband and Labour of not doing enough for publicans. Doyle then told Miliband he would be voting for the Liberal Democrats. Doyle was then invited into a nearby school to speak personally with Gordon Brown, emerging afterwards to say that he was impressed with Brown and had now decided to vote Labour.

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On Saturday R8 Your Politician had the pleasure of interviewing Conservatives and Unionist candidate for south Belfast Paula Bradshaw.  We wanted to start our series of election interviews with candidates who the people may not know much about.  The electorate are used to watching the same Politicians on tv and the news media for years.  We thought we would start off by interviewing those that were not to well known to the electorate or first time candidates.

R8 Your Politician interview : Paula Bradshaw , Conservatives and Unionists Westminster candidate for South Belfast from Patrick Lismore on Vimeo.

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I'm typing this and keeping an eye on Twitter, where Paul Lewis is Tweeting straight from the so-called 'Spin Room' backstage at the Leader's Debate. George Osbourne has been trying to convince him that Cameron won, only to get a very public dressing down from Peter Mandelson. In fairness, Osbourne probably has a lot to do to convince journalists not employed by Rupert Murdoch that David Cameron won. I thought Cameron was pretty solid but not brilliant. Brown was better than I think most people would have expected beforehand, while Nick Clegg will be the happiest. He had little to lose going in and will probably have impressed quite a few people. Going back to Paul Lewis, he Tweets that neither the Labour nor the Conservative spin doctors are denying Clegg was the winner.

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David Cameron invited everyone to join his 'Big Society' and take part in government today during the marathon launch of the Conservative Party elecetion manifesto. I thought yesterday's Labour manifesto was pretty solid, if uninspiring; this one seems to be full of good intentions that will inevitably fail. For a start, the Conservatives have been talking it up as 'a Californian manifesto' on the ConservativeHome website. Given the state of California's economy at the present time that might not be the best comparison to make. Cameron's insistance that 'we're all in this together' has been mocked by both Labour and the Lib Dems and been labelled 'DIY government'.

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Criminals Tighten the noose

Jesus what a shite day I am having. Woke up this morning as bright as a button only to read to my dismay about the passing of the Digital Economy Bill. What is the Digital Economy Bill? The Digital Economy Act 2010 is an Act of Parliament which includes provisions about:

the online infringement of copyright, including copyright and performers’ rights and about penalties for infringement
the functions of Ofcom
internet domain registries
the functions of the Channel Four
the regulation of television and radio services
the regulation of the use of the electromagnetic spectrum
the Video Recordings Act 1984
public lending right in relation to electronic publications
the bill proposes adding a clause to the Communications Act 2003 with the effect that Internet Service Providers could be forced to disclose details of their customers who repeatedly infringe copyright, on production of sufficient evidence, to copyright groups or face a fine of £250,000 for non-compliance.
ISPs to be required to block access to sites that allow "substantial" infringement.

Right browsing through all that Jargon you may think that seems fair enough it is Government trying to protect company's and artists against piracy but this is actually more sinister. This Bill will allow the unelected secretary of state for business, currently Peter Mandelson, to order the blocking of “a location on the internet which the court is satisfied has been, is being or is likely to be used for or in connection with an activity that infringes copyright”.

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Gordon Brown launched Labour's manifesto today and was immediately accused of being a Blairite by some of the more blue-tinged press. My initial reaction, after getting over a front cover that looked like something from the 1950's Soviet Union, was that it was actually pretty good. Granted I haven't read all 76 pages, but the main points look like the work of a party that has finally realised that it needs to to reconnect with an electorate disillusioned with politicians and politics. Depending on the political outlook of the paper you read it'll either be be a disaster or the first significant step in the Labour Party retaining power. If I get a chance I'll get a post up about the approach the newspapers in the UK have taken to this year's election later in the week. If they continue as they have started this campaign, the press here will never be able to criticise their US counterparts on the grounds of blatant bias again.

Back to the manifesto. To start with, I prefer the Labour election slogan of 'A Future Fair For All' to the Conservative message of 'Vote For Change', which sounds like something rejected by the Obama campaign in 2008. Labour's slogan should appeal to their grass-roots socialist supporters while remaining popualist enough for ordinary voters. I know the slogans were unveiled a while ago but I just thought I'd throw that in!

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As you would expect R8YourPolitician has been watching UK Politics now for the last year and now that the election has finally came, what a let down.  After watching that massive 2 year campaign to see Obama get elected and observing the amazing political campaign leveraging of social networking, social media and engagment.  

Things looked very promising in the UK, election had to happen in 2010.  A chance for the electorate to stand up, be counted and vote.  Remember the promised Lisbon Treaty ReferendumS, remember that War based on lies of Weapons of mass destruction.  Who can forget in a western democratic capitalist free market country the government stepping in and nationalising Northern Rock, pumping billions of the country's money into banks, bailing them out because they failed.  We will not even mention the expenses and lobbying scandals. 

This article is not about the above its about the trend data that we can see on the public searching for these common terms, Parliament, House of Commons and Westminster.

article continues ...

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 Today I launched my pamphlet, Lost labours, with Nick Clegg.

As somebody who has a long involvement with the Labour party, including editing the New Statesman magazine, I have been able to give a frank and honest appraisal of a decade and a half of New Labour. And in it I explain why I can no longer support them, and am instead turning to the Liberal Democrats. You can read a more condensed version in an article I wrote for the Guardianhere.

Alongside one million other voters, I deserted Labour in 2005 in protest at Iraq in favour of the Liberal Democrats, the only party to oppose the war. My decision to back the Lib Dems in 2010 is based in a more fundamental appraisal of Labour’s record together with a positive assessment of the Liberal Democrats’ platform.

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R8 Your Politician would like to take this opportunity to make Politicians aware that this website is here for them just as much as it is here for the public.

R8 Your Politician welcomes feedback from Politicians on how to better improve the website content and quality.  Politicians are invited and welcomed to submit articles for publication on the site and request changes and updates to their profiles and rating pages.  If you have an important issue or piece of legislation you are trying to create awareness about please send us the articles.

R8 Your Politician also welcomes and invites all Politicians to record and submit a short video so that we can add it to your public profile.

Politicians make sure we have all your official, updated profile information.  Emails will be sent to all Politicians asking for profile information.  Make sure to include links to everything you want added.  Blog links, Website links, Twitter & Facebook links. 

Lastly Politicians spread the word amongst your colleagues in your party.  Encourage your constituents to engage, rate you and leave a review of your work.

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 A member has asked R8 Your Politician could they nominate Tom Elliott MLA for Politician of the Month.  R8 your Politician were not considering starting the Politician of the month section until we had a resaonable size of Politicians on board.  

However this evening while browsing Twitter, infact when responding to a tweet from Sadiq Khan MP.  The link to Mr Elliott's profile was sent to Mr Khan as an example of a Politician who has endorsed his profile.  

Then when browsing Mr Elliotts profile I noticed on his latest twitter feed a message to his constitutients asking them to "Please let me know how you think I am doing - " 

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Northern Ireland: Amnesty makes Bill of Rights call to United Nations

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