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Glasgow East : an utterly insincere tribute.

Well done to the likes of Mary Honeyball MEP, Diane Abbot MP, Wendy Alexander, and Harriet Harman for their work in helping elect a Scottish Nationalist Member of Parliament in Glasgow East.

Though these politicians were just the public face of the metropolitan, anti-catholic and illiterate coalition of bourgeois interest that is the Labour Party, their work should not be forgotten.

I am sure that Mrs Honeyball, who has recently lifted her head from her study of Catholic disloyalty and noticed that Belgium is falling down around her, should now take her skills and opinions and help Harriet Harman audition for the role of Kim Campbell. Well, I say, 'lifted her head'. I mean, 'released her grip on her office flunkies hands'. Those poor pale labourers in the salt mines of her office have no doubt been forced to wield the crayon over pictures of people in the newspapers and colour them papal red, or occasionally orange, when Ms Honeyball has been in the office and not downstairs collecting expenses. I understand that she recently sent them out like John the Baptist to tell surprised local Labour groups that their boss wasn't a bigot, while she went 'shopping at Herod's', as it were.

After all, Mrs Honeyball, like all Members of the European Parliament, does not have to worry about running for election as no one can actually vote for or against her.

Oh, and goodbye to the UK too. Wha's like ye, Gey few, they're all deid and all that....

UPDATE: It seems someone needs an indication of why I stress that MEPs are not personally elected as far as the UK goes. They are elected by a closed party list. People vote for parties, if they bother to vote at all (and most who do are party hacks) and those the party has nominated to its list are elected in proportion to its vote. It is not that this is some mediating system like the American electoral college; this is a system of party 'democracy' that is really nothing of the sort.

If you do not like an MEP, you cannot vote against them; if an MEP does not like their constituents, or understand them, or have anything personally appealing, it does not matter.
All systems are flawed in their own way. The clear flaw in this system is that it is one that strengthens party apparatchiks and that voter choice of individuals, and individual responsibility, does not matter because individuals are not personally elected.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I think you need to do some research,. MEPS are elected, like MPs. The next elections are June 2009.
12:32 pm
Martin Meenagh said…
Hi
MEPs are not elected personally, like MPs. You cannot cast a vote for them. Instead, a vote is cast for a closed list of regional candidates, which cannot be changed. The list is under the heading of a party.

The only ways in which an MEP could be personally elected would be if the system was the same as for westminster, and they represented one group of constituents, or if the list was open.

Go and look up your droop quotients, Mary
1:01 pm
Martin Meenagh said…
I might also point out that 'european elections' in this country usually attract really bad turnouts because people don't like voting for parties that then appoint people who are in good odour with them.
1:05 pm
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