I voted no because ‘I don’t like Renzi’!

This posting is only partly about the recent Italian referendum on constitutional changes but stay with me as it references things happening here too.

I can’t claim to know a great deal about recent the Italian Referendum but what got me was an interview conducted by the BBC in Rome where they were asking people attending a football match how they had voted. Amongst those being interviewed was a chap who said I voted no because I don’t like Renzi. Renzi was the Italian Prime Minister calling the referendum.

Now excuse me but what kind of answer is that for a response to a question about how and why you voted one way or another? You are asked a question about your country’s constitution and your answer is that you voted a particular way because you don’t like the person who asked you the question!!! Wow that’s just ridiculous.

I don’t know why the chap said what he did. Was he showing off to his mates? Or, more worryingly, was he telling the interviewer and therefore goodness knows how many TV watchers that this was his genuine reason for voting the way that he did?

It reminded me of hearing that some people here in the UK saying that they voted ‘no’ in our EU referendum because they wanted Cameron out. It was as though they had not got their heads around that fact that Cameron would simply be replaced by another Tory who was probably more unlikable! Of course they got their wish and we now have a prime Minister who seems to be awaiting divine guidance to plot a Brexit course!

Behind all this both Cameron and Renzi called referendums that they then lost and in both cases it finished them off. Both also succeeded in putting their country into crisis. Neither had read the sage advice that voters will usually set their face against what the government of the day wants of them. Another example is Nick Clegg’s now almost forgotten referendum on changing the UK voting system. He had less than no chance of getting that one through after his run in with the electorate over tuition fees but he pressed the self destruct button too!

Surely the lesson of referendums, in democracies that hold them infrequently, is that many voters will answer a different question to the one they have being asked. The Swiss may be the exception to that rule though as their whole democracy seems to be referenda based.

Now about that proposed second EU referendum……………..

Cameron’s Government is destroying all the good in the UK

I increasingly despair about the present Tory Government. Just look at all the massive down sides of Cameron gaining an overall majority:-

* Social housing to be sold off when there is a huge shortage of affordable rented housing.
* Cutting back on sustainable green initiatives and putting future generations at risk from even greater climate change problems.
* Attacking trade unions who brought about many social advances that we all (including Tories) now take for granted.
* Trying to reduce your and my rights and in doing so making the state less accountable to us all.
* Hitting the most vulnerable in society with massive welfare cuts whilst the official Labour opposition stood back and abstained!.
* Taking food from children in our schools who otherwise may not get a decent meal at home.
* All but ignoring the appalling refugee crisis across Europe

This is an appallingly selfish Tory Government.

Tories are ‘green’? No but they think we are!

I want this to be the ‘greenest government ever’ trumpeted Cameron when the Coalition Government came to power in 2010.

key_green_laws

Well yes it was probably a reasonable aspiration back then but only because the Lib Dems forced the Tories down a credible ‘green’ route.

However, since the Tories were given an overall majority by the electorate in 2015 they have done nothing but row back on all the environmental steps forward made in the previous 5 years ‘over their dead body’ by those bastard green Lib Dems.

Instead of ratcheting up the green policies as we need to do to save our world from environmental catastrophe they have been doing just the opposite! At best sitting back and saying we will reach our green targets (which were too low to start with) and at worst putting future generations at huge risk of that environmental catastrophe in its many forms. And all because Tory leaders think that Tory voters don’t care much for environmental issues and Cameron’s wafer thin House of Commons majority only cares about making the rich richer.

This is what the Lib Dems wanted to do to tackle climate change at the 2015 general election.

Five green laws:

A Nature Bill: key measures include legal targets for biodiversity, clean air, clean water and access to green space, extending the Right to Roam and establishing new marine and coastal reserves.
A Heating and Energy Efficiency Bill: key measures include building on the Green Deal with a national programme to raise the energy efficiency standards for all Britain’s households. We will legislate to boost renewable and district heating programmes and heat saving standards.
A Zero Waste Britain Bill: key measures include establishing a “Stern Report” on resource use, with binding targets and a clear action plan to reduce waste and end biodegradable landfill.
A Zero Carbon Britain Bill: key measures include introducing a decarbonisation target for electricity generation, expanding the powers of the Green Investment Bank and banning electricity generated from unabated coal.
A Green Transport Bill: key measures include establishing a full network of charging points for electric cars, only allowing low emission vehicles on the roads from 2040 and reforming planning law to ensure new developments are designed around walking, cycling and public transport.

Sadly, the electorate did not agree and backed a Tory party of very different views.

Also sadly Labour hardly makes any noise about environmental/green issues at a national level these days and at a local level their ‘green’ credentials are in tatters since they decided to build on Sefton’s high grade agricultural land.

Green Belt campaigners, outside Maghull Town Hall.

Green campaigners outside Maghull Town Hall fighting against their own local authority over building on high grade agricultural land.

So who can stop the Tory’s mad policy plan to seemingly make our world a less safe place now and for certain so for future generations? One day, and that may not be very far down the track, people will say the Tory Government of 2015 – 2020 helped to cause harm instead of trying to stop harm to our world and that is a sad reflection on our times and maybe on us all collectively for allowing such a government to be elected.

We do not deliberately put our children and their children at risk yet collectively we often vote for very short-term matters whilst ignoring the far greater threats that we should be focusing on. Damn that Daily Mail way of viewing our world.

BBC news and all other media outlets – Give us a break!!!

Headline – Today Cameron slagged of Miliband and Miliband had a pop at Cameron

Headline – Cameron has eaten my hamster says Miliband tearfully.

Headline – Miliband ‘borrowed’ my bike and has not returned it says angry Cameron.

Headline – I am the victim of a smear campaign says Miliband as Labour in turn calls the Tories everything fit to burn.

Don’t you think we have heard enough of this child-like cat calling from supposedly senior politicians? Don’t you think we would much prefer the media not to repeat this drivel?