Forum Topic

VOTING FOR JOHNSON IS A DISASTER

What kind of human votes for someone who uses offensive terms like picanniny (wrong spelling I am sure,  but then i don't use racist language like that) and suggests the Stephen Lawrence Campaign is nothing more than witch hunt?  Someone self serving and utterly thoughtless that's who.You need to educate yourselves on the disasters this man is involved with.  Go look uo the www.theyworkforyou.com and see how that pathetic toff is a bad performer in parliament. He simply cannot be bothered to represent the people of Henley properly. HE IS RANKED IN THE BOTTOM 10% of MPs.  Are you really so deluded that you think this moron can go from being a low-ranking underperforming MP of a sleepy universally white rural Oxfordshire seat to representing the world's leading multi-cultural city? If you do you need your head examined. If he can't cope with 70,000 voters how can he cope with 7 million people? I wonder what Boris will do if he is elected Mayor and he doesn't get his way, will he arrange to have his rivals beaten up like he has tried in the past? The man has serious control issues.Then there's Johnson's pathetic promotion of the new routemaster.  The routemaster was an environmental hazard and the new one is no more efficient.  The design means less people on board by virtue oif engine position and the wheel axles are wholly unbalanced and it can't take corners. It also happens to be designed by a family friend of his.  His obsessive mantra on the the bendybus is ridiculous, it is actually a far more sustainable method of mass transit whether any of you like it or not. Boris has made hollow promises to the people of Surbiton and Kingston that he will change 18 Zone 6 stations to Zone 5 shaving 350 off their travel bills a year.  That would be fine if Boris wasn't plainly lying. These stations are not within mayoral control as TFL has no juridiction over a vast majority of SWT stations.  He can't enforce it but he'll keep on lying about it.  A horrid shallow promise he cannot keep.  This is just the tip of the iceberg of his pathetic promises. Then's there's Bogus Boris's rotten environmental credentials which are just shocking. How does removing the congestion charge from any where solve the problems we have? What's his plan? Pesronally i think we need to make sure home counties car drivers pay for clogging and damaging the roads and streets we ultimately pay for in repairs. He also wants to allow motorbikes to use bus lanes. I mean seriously, is this man really an Oxford graduate? His environmental b*llsh*t is further demeaned by his links to Veola Environment who are a company responsible for nine river fish kills incidents in the south east last year alone through mismanaging foul water services to local authorities.  The company has been found guilty of pollution incidents more than any other environmental services provider in this country. Why do you want him as mayor when he's THIS BAD?The man is an A class sh*t of epic proportions and people who vote for him are either retarded, selfish, or living in cloud cuckoo land.  I make no apologies for my harsh assessment of people who wish to vote for Boris Johnson. You will wreck London voting for this upperclass oaf.  He is a disaster like nothing we have ever seen before and we deserve better than this utterly horrendous human being.It won't be just the Polish leaving in droves if he is elected. That thing representing London on an international stage will be gut-churningly shaming for every one of us.  Oh and before the Bogus Boris fans all scream blue murder about Red ken. He really isn't all that red considering some of his policies. and no my views on Ken aren't great either.  But at least he isn't Johnson.

Conal Stewart ● 6303d148 Comments

PaulIt is sometimes said that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.  Dave, obviously, is a man with very little knowledge indeed and his penchant for broadcasting the fact makes him a liability to his colleagues, although they seem strangely happy to give free rein to his idiocy nonetheless.  Let me put him out of his misery by explaining what I think he is talking about for the benefit of anybody still awake.Some years ago Gareth Evans, a resident of Ivybridge and then Secretary of Ivytag, was falsely accused by the late former Chair of NITA (an elderly lady who was wheelchair-bound but also an articulate and active member of the Labour Party, natch) of being a racist.  Any sense of deja vu you may already be feeling is entirely uncoincidental, Gareth had said or done absolutely nothing to justify such an accusation, it was made completely arbitrarily as is the wont of these people.Gareth, not unreasonably, refused to accept this and demanded a meeting with the NITA Chair in the presence of myself as his ward councillor.  Simon Anderson, then a member of NITA, was present at the meeting as - I think - was George Burrell.  Unfortunately the former Managing Director of Hounslow Homes was installed in the Chair and he quite deliberately steered the meeting in a direction which led to the NITA Chair never having to answer the question which Gareth wanted to put to her.  I was not even permitted to speak throughout the meeting.I had to leave the meeting before its conclusion to fulfil another engagement, so I didn't personally witness the wheelchair incident.  However Gareth's account of events was that as she came under increased questioning she "fainted", thereby distracting the focus of the meeting and effectively bringing it to an abrupt halt.  My knowledge of Gareth and of his character is such that I would be very surprised indeed if he was lying about this.  Without wishing to speak ill of the dead, I also believe the Labour NITA Chair to have been perfectly capable of pulling such a stunt deliberately, although I of course accept it is possible that her faint was genuine.Recently Dave has begun to interpret this series of events as "ICG goons tipping an old lady out of her wheelchair".  There were at least a dozen people at the meeting when the incident happened, most of them hostile to the ICG.  Had anybody tipped anybody out of a wheelchair I'm quite sure there would have been repercussions.As I recall, Simon (who as you and I know has never been the ICG Chair nor even a member of its Committee) took issue with Gareth and also George Burrell when they posted less than complementary things about this lady on this forum and elsewhere shortly after she had passed away.  Whether or not one agrees with him, this does not translate in the eyes of any sensible person into them being responsible for her having been pushed out of a wheelchair at a meeting some years previously.It is difficult debating on this level because Dave clearly does not follow any kind of logical thought process, neither is he constrained by any considerations of whether an allegation actually contains any truth.  As I have pointed out before, his handlers give him free rein in the knowledge that they can always deny any knowledge of his actions should they go pear-shaped.  The philosophy applied is that of throwing enough mud in the hope that some of it will stick.Sadly there are not enough genuine "neutrals" using this forum for the verdict such low conduct deserves to be delivered.  Where is Jim Lawes when you need him?

Phil Andrews ● 6275d

ChrisPlease don't be silly, even the Labour Party wouldn't be dumb enough to put something like that into writing (well, your predecessors did in 2002 but that's a different story).  However, I received personal testimony from far too many people who heard this kind of thing - on the doorsteps, at faith group meetings, and in The George - for it to have been hearsay.  In my defence I can only call upon the words of the Daily Mail (?) at the time of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry and say "if it isn't true, sue me".Whatever conclusion the police came to at the time of the incident at Sue's home it is certainly not now considered by either the police or the fire service to have been an arson attack.  Nevertheless I do congratulate you on the speed with which you and your colleagues were able to issue a press release, persuade the MP to pay a personal visit to the alleged victim (it takes many people years just to get a reply to an e-mail), and publish an election-day leaflet strongly implying the incident to have been the work of your political opponents, especially in the light of the fact that you must all have been so severely shaken and traumatised at the time.Of course I am in no position to speculate as to how Sue's wheely bin did in fact catch light, but it is only the Isleworth Labour Party who were deluded enough to be capable of thinking that the ICG actually took them seriously enough to wish to cause them and their families injury or potentially even death.  We knew you were a long way behind.  I'm aware that Alan Sheerins was geeing you up during this time and telling you that you had Isleworth in the bag, but you must surely have realised that you were being cynically used as a decoy in a laughably unsuccessful attempt to keep us out of Syon and Hounslow South - didn't you?Chris, I like to think that our relationship has improved since the time of that unfortunate campaign and if you are the Labour candidate in 2010 and you are successful in defeating our candidates then I will be the first to offer you my hand and congratulate you.  Equally I am entirely satisfied that the revolting incidents which marred it were officially sanctioned and were not instigated by you or indeed by Sue or Tony.  I don't hold any grudges and would stand you a pint anytime.But let's not pretend that they didn't happen.  Your credibility with far too many witnesses is at stake here.

Phil Andrews ● 6275d

PhilipSorry, possibly I was being a bit slow.In answer to your first question, very few if any.  My worldview today is probably just about as far away as it is possible to be from my worldview in 1977.  I struggle to think of one issue on which I do not hold a diametrically opposed view.However I ought to qualify that by saying that my worldview as a National Front member in 1989 was also very different from my worldview as a National Front member in 1977.  The party underwent a series of seismic ideological transformations during that period which would probably be regarded as peripheral to those looking in from the outside (both versions were, after all, racist) but were considered very profound from within.  From the National Front of 1989 I would say that my commitment to a form of grass-roots popular democracy and a natural distrust of capitalism and state-centred socialism remain, albeit in a less strident form.I had to laugh at the comments about abandoning one set of values in the quest for electability.  The BNP has about fifty council seats at present and I have not the slightest shred of doubt that had I remained with the far-right it would have been a lot easier for me to have attained such a lowly position of power as I have than by helping form a small locally-based group, build it from scratch and work my proverbials off for fourteen years just to establish its name in the public mind.  Many council officers who I work closely with would confirm, if they were allowed to, that I frequently swim against the tide in my desire to do what I sincerely believe to be right.I have gone as far as it is possible for me to go in politics, and I am happy with that.  It is only through a set of exceptional and coincidental events, including New Labour's self-induced implosion in the local elections of 2006 and its subsequent readiness to walk into opposition, that I find myself a member of the Executive at the London Borough of Hounslow, a level of responsibility which I had never envisaged or prepared myself for.  If you honestly believe that the course I have followed since 1994 has been dictated by a desire to achieve meaningful political power then I must respectfully conclude that you have been pursuing your declared recreational interest a little too enthusiastically this morning.

Phil Andrews ● 6277d

Nigel I am not sure that proves anything, my own experiance as a politician is that you try to deliver a manifesto you all so try to deliver commiments you may make to the community, the reality is you are working against others who are trying to do the same so ie you want a school crossing you promise to try and deliver a school crossing but half a dozen others want the same so you have to compete or make the biggest noise to justify your wants againts others so yes you can compromise with others and say I will have mine this year and I will support yours next year...there again you may lose out altogether as you did not make the best case...You still have to go back and justify this to your community.This is very very simple explanation of politics and does not take into acount political groupings..most things that you fight for to get for your community, just do not happen overnight because you have to get the budget the commitment to what you want the support from others and sometimes cross party support, going back on the school crossing idea it took me nearly 2 years to fight for a school crossing, anyone of the so called bright sparks of this council who try to cod you differant then they are liars, I know I have actually been there.Most people evan if they are political do have an honest intension of fighting for there communities and trying to deliver the best services they can, but with politics you have to fight others who say they can do better than you and you have to prove they can't, hence all the squables on this site. But thats Politics for you!!!!!

Dave Hughes ● 6278d

TonyI'm sorry friend but you are letting your guard drop now.  Your comparison between Dave Hughes' status as a current member of the New Labour Party who espouses the party and its policies on this forum, and mine as someone who left the National Front twenty years ago and denounces its political ideas frequently and publicly, is ludicrous and sadly detracts from the seriousness of your whole argument.  You still seem to be trying to muddy the waters between cause and effect, but I am afraid there is just too much documentary and other written evidence that the "non co-operation" state of affairs between New Labour and the ICG is entirely of their making and not ours.  Whilst I do honestly admire your efforts, which both in their sincerity and their professionalism greatly exceed anything on offer from the party itself, as the saying goes one truly cannot make a silk purse from a sow's ear.So to answer your questions:Am I suggesting that all New Labour supporters should publicly denounce the party?  No, I am inviting the New Labour Party to publicly denounce idiotic and easily disprovable allegations made by one of its high-profile members but for whatever reason, sadly, it seems disinclined to do so.Have they all committed a crime by thinking differently from myself?  Er... no, but I can't recall ever suggesting that anybody should arrest them.  Can the party control the views of its members, should it, our group doesn't seem to?  No, no and how glad I am that we don't.  But if a leading member of the ICG came onto this forum and made a statement which I knew to be false and I was asked whether it was the view of the ICG I would respond in the negative, not remain silent.Ask the man himself?  With his track record, just how much credibility would you really attach to his answer?

Phil Andrews ● 6292d

"TonyYou make rather a lot of assumptions."-------------Do I? Let's go through them then-------------The statement I made in November has been lifted without any reference to the wider context of the debate in which it was made and twisted, perhaps inadvertently, into a refusal on our part to co-operate with New Labour's democratically elected representatives.----------------It was you that cut and pasted your statement verbatim,how have I twisted it,I remembered it but certainly didn't twist it...You and you alone wrote it.----------------In fact if you are at all familiar with Hounslow and its recent political history, and I'm guessing that you are, you will be aware that in actual fact the reverse is the case - it is New Labour whose stated policy it is not to co-operate with ICG councillors, not the other way around.  Remember they even went happily into opposition rather than contemplate revisiting this policy.------------Given the evidence,I respect them for that.------------My comments referred not to democratically elected members, but the whole New Labour culture which has permeated the council's operation at all levels, from the mentality which informs the bureaucracy through to the satellite groups and bogus community groups which combine to form the whole complex infrastructure of our local government.  It is this self-serving industry which I and my colleagues are pledged to eradicate, and to replace with structures which are designed to serve the community rather than the regime.--------------Do you have proof that this is the case,or is this how your group  perceive it to be,it's all too easy to throw mud.After all I could say that I think the recent allotment of £1.5 million to estate residents (for which you claimed credit) is an attempt to buy votes,I don't, but do you see what I mean?--------------The question of whether Dave Hughes is an official spokesperson for New Labour is a moot point which was addressed in my previous posting.  He is a well-known and well-connected member of the New Labour Party in Hounslow.  Local New Labour officers have protested on this forum that he is not a spokesperson for the party, but have declined to distance themselves or their party from some of the more absurd comments which he has made, such as the allegation about the Hounslow Homes Management Review being a precursor for the privatisation of our housing stock.  It is reasonable to assume that they use Mr. Hughes as a useful idiot, one who can be deployed to spread wild and false rumours about the intentions of the administration which they can later distance themselves from if needs be.-------------Right Phil so it's reasonable for me to assume that as you were very well connected with the National Front,that what you say now is really the National Front speaking by proxy?Once again I don't think this to be the case.-------------It is at best ill-informed, and at worst disingenuous, to suggest that it is the ICG which discourages dialogue with New Labour rather than the other way around.-------------Phil,it was you that wrote that you wanted to eradicate the last vestiges of New Labour...that sort of makes it impossible for them to give you a cuddle doesn't it? I'm sure there have been many other instances prior to that posting were you have made your feelings towards them quite plain,no it is you who are being disingenous.I'm reminded of the schoolboy who pokes the boy in front repeatedly with a ruler,then when he reacts,claims that "He hit me sir".-----------  There is no contradiction between opposing a party through the democratic process and recognising and working with its elected members along the way. -----------So where is your problem with New Labour then,it seems they do exactly that?----------- You are stoning the messenger, Tony.-----------Particularly bad choice of words on your behalf methinks.I'm not trying nor ever will try to stone anyone,just trying to make sense of it all.

Tony Wood ● 6292d

TonyYou make rather a lot of assumptions.The statement I made in November has been lifted without any reference to the wider context of the debate in which it was made and twisted, perhaps inadvertently, into a refusal on our part to co-operate with New Labour's democratically elected representatives.In fact if you are at all familiar with Hounslow and its recent political history, and I'm guessing that you are, you will be aware that in actual fact the reverse is the case - it is New Labour whose stated policy it is not to co-operate with ICG councillors, not the other way around.  Remember they even went happily into opposition rather than contemplate revisiting this policy.My comments referred not to democratically elected members, but the whole New Labour culture which has permeated the council's operation at all levels, from the mentality which informs the bureaucracy through to the satellite groups and bogus community groups which combine to form the whole complex infrastructure of our local government.  It is this self-serving industry which I and my colleagues are pledged to eradicate, and to replace with structures which are designed to serve the community rather than the regime.The question of whether Dave Hughes is an official spokesperson for New Labour is a moot point which was addressed in my previous posting.  He is a well-known and well-connected member of the New Labour Party in Hounslow.  Local New Labour officers have protested on this forum that he is not a spokesperson for the party, but have declined to distance themselves or their party from some of the more absurd comments which he has made, such as the allegation about the Hounslow Homes Management Review being a precursor for the privatisation of our housing stock.  It is reasonable to assume that they use Mr. Hughes as a useful idiot, one who can be deployed to spread wild and false rumours about the intentions of the administration which they can later distance themselves from if needs be.It is at best ill-informed, and at worst disingenuous, to suggest that it is the ICG which discourages dialogue with New Labour rather than the other way around.  There is no contradiction between opposing a party through the democratic process and recognising and working with its elected members along the way.  You are stoning the messenger, Tony.

Phil Andrews ● 6292d

TonyI was not challenging New Labour to commit to the all-party cohesion agenda.  They are, as far as I know, already committed to it.  Indeed the Deputy Leader of the Labour Group, as is so often her wont, has declared it to have been "their" idea in the first place.Then Dave, in response to a posting by myself on the completely unrelated topic of Ken Livingstone's exit speech, made a comment which implied that he did not support the cohesion agenda which, as Lead Member for Community Safety, falls within my portfolio area.As Dave is a leading local member of the New Labour Party, has the ear of the Keens and is a former Executive councillor, I was concerned that he might have been speaking for his party.  Whilst certain of his colleagues have posted on here to assure us that his ramblings are his own and do not necessarily reflect the party view, they have never to my knowledge disassociated themselves specifically from any of the actual statements which he has made.  They seem happy to retain a position which offers them the best of both worlds, having a spokesperson who makes wild, unsubstantiated and usually untruthful allegations which some forum readers might take seriously, in the knowledge that if things go pear-shaped they can take a step back and say "nothing to do with us, guv!"The community cohesion agenda is important to us in Hounslow.  It is about uniting people and building a common identity at a time when our society is under threat from extremism in a number of very different forms.  It is certainly too important to be cheapened by the likes of Dave Hughes and his infantile and imbicilic political games.This is why I sought reassurance from the sensible New Labour people who use this forum that his comments did not reflect the views of his party.  Thus far, alas, you are the only person to have replied.

Phil Andrews ● 6293d

AndrewHe also rather ignores the fact that as Lead Member for Community Safety I am spearheading Hounslow's Community Cohesion agenda (alongside Councillor Peter Thompson), and have transformed the useless talking-shop which was the Multi-Agency Partnership Against Racial Harassment into a new organisation - Hounslow Against Racial Harassment - which proactively tackles racism and racial harassment in our community.  Interestingly, the Labour councillors who serve on this committee rarely bother to turn up for meetings, whilst the ICG, Conservative and Liberal Democrat members play an active role (no votes in it, I guess).I am also currently setting up a schools and youth project which will enable me to speak directly to young people to warn them about the dangers of extremism drawing heavily upon my own experiences (yes, this is the very same one that I offered to do under the last administration but was knocked back as it didn't accord with their political agenda).He further ignores the outreach project which I announced at the last Borough Council meeting to engage members of the Somali and other more recent immigrant communities with a view to removing barriers to integration.  And the work which I did under the previous administration (alongside himself, on the one occasion when he bothered to turn up) on the Race Harassment and Bullying Scrutiny Panel.All in all it would seem I am taking a rather complex and convoluted path towards achieving my secret goal of imposing a racist and "facist" agenda on the people of Hounslow.  Wouldn't you agree?

Phil Andrews ● 6296d

I am one of the humans who is going to vote for Boris. When I look at what Ken has done for London I see no choice. He invites what he calls a moderate muslim to city hall who advocate throwing homosexuals off tall buildings and who believes its alright to use children as suicide bombers. He introduces a low emission policy without any proper consultation the net result of which is that we Londoners are now paying more for all goods and services delivered by road. To what end ? The Chinese are building two coal fired power stations a week and India the same.He introduces a congestion zone which is now more congested than ever knowing full well that even if we all gave up our cars tommorow his public transport system could not cope. Or you could try and tell it to the 58 year old man being made redundant by our company because the 2 year old truck he drives costs £200 per day to drive in London and the company cannot afford to replace it. So when it comes to B*llsih* as you put it Ken is a hard act to follow. As for racism what was it Ken called the Jewish reporter ? Was it not a nazi? but never mind says Ken. I did not mean it, I was tired at the time. A big surprise really as this is the man who took a taxi from Blackpool to London at the ratepayers expense. Given also that Ken surrounded himself with overpaid, cronies who are now by all accounts are leaving the ship rat fashion before the auditors arrive it does not say much for his judgement.I think you should also understand that the word (Piccaninny correct spelling by the way) means Negro child and is derived from the Spanish word Pequenomeaning small and is to be found in the Oxford English Dictionary how is this racist ?. I for one would advocate an intellignce test before allowing someone like yourself the right to vote

Robert Ayres ● 6297d

1. Are you really so deluded that you think this moron can go from being a low-ranking underperforming MP of a sleepy universally white rural Oxfordshire seat to representing the world's leading multi-cultural city? If you do you need your head examined.2. What kind of human votes for someone who uses offensive terms like picanniny?3. The man is an A class sh*t of epic proportions and people who vote for him are retarded, selfish, or living in cloud cuckoo land.  I make no apologies for my harsh assessment of people who wish to vote for Boris Johnson. You will wreck London voting for this upper-class oaf. 4. I wonder what Boris will do if he is elected Mayor and he doesn't get his way, will he arrange to have his rivals beaten up like he has tried in the past? The man has serious control issues. You really are a pratt. What I said was, that it is alright for him to be offensive about Boris Johnson and anybody voting for him is deluded etc etc, and you think that is funny do you?  Enlighten me; Is there any proof that he has tried to have his rivals beaten up.......otherwise this statement IMO is libelous!If we do not agree with him, we either want "our heads examined, deluded, selfish, living in cloud cuckoo land". "After all history has taught us that the best way to peace love and understanding is to react violently to any perceived insult. Does your comment above also apply to Conal, your not related to him are you?I also don't think that picaninny is the racial crime of the century either, my understanding is that it has it's origins in South Africa and meant "a small child"!Just as a matter of interest who are you two voting for?

Account suspended ● 6299d