I'm making a speech at the Bristol Pensioners Convention tomorrow. Will I stop at nothing in my quest to indoctrinate the masses?
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Labour Candidate for Bristol East
Trolls have decamped to Twitter...
Kerry McCarthy
Labour Candidate for Bristol East
A Future Fair for All
My blog = my rules!
As Monica says in Friends, "rules are good, rules help control the fun!"
First: if you're after a detailed response, please email or write to me. If you're a constituent (or perhaps a very special case), I'll respond; if you're not, you'll have to contact your own MP. Ditto if you want to introduce a subject which bears no relevance to my original post.
Second: I don't have a problem with trenchant criticism of me or the Government, or vociferously expressed opinions, but if I regard your comments as offensive I won't allow them to appear. (I don't like having to moderate comments, but have reluctantly come to the conclusion that people cannot be relied upon not to abuse my good nature!)
First: if you're after a detailed response, please email or write to me. If you're a constituent (or perhaps a very special case), I'll respond; if you're not, you'll have to contact your own MP. Ditto if you want to introduce a subject which bears no relevance to my original post.
Second: I don't have a problem with trenchant criticism of me or the Government, or vociferously expressed opinions, but if I regard your comments as offensive I won't allow them to appear. (I don't like having to moderate comments, but have reluctantly come to the conclusion that people cannot be relied upon not to abuse my good nature!)
Thirdly: I might just randomly delete comments from certain people because I'm getting thoroughly fed up with them and want them to go away and annoy someone else for a while. You know who you are.
That's all - although I reserve the right to create new rules as and when I feel like it. My blog = my rules!From under the floorboards
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21 comments:
Probably not.
Bristol Evening Post got a photo of your visit
Here
Old holborn; that picture was funny, but also in extremely bad taste. On an earlier post you congratulated Kerry on keeping her blog open, so perhaps a bit of restraint is in order.
Kerry; on a previous post you said in reference to OH's blog that most of the people you know thought it offensive - and that's the point in a nutshell.
You and your companions live in a political bubble, completely cut off from the real world. Please don't waffle on about 'meeting the people' because the people that go out of their way to attend your carefull orchestrated events don't represent the real world either.
Instead, take note of the comments here, no matter how offensive you find them. They really do illustrate how many ordinary people feel. If you truly want to represent all of us, instead of simply taking part in some crazy political experiment, then listen to them.
Ordinary people do not want their towns flooded with economic migrants, even my Hindu freinds are telling me this.
Ordinary people do not want to be watched and monitored 24/7. We don't want our emails and browsing habits stored on computer. We certainly don't want compulsory ID cards either.
Ordinary people do not want to be dictated to by faceless MEP's. We know that much of what takes place in Parliament nowadays is simply rubber stamping the dictats from Brussels.
Ordinary people don't give a toss about the polar bears, or Obama the New Messiah for that matter. They're too busy worrying whether they wil have a job in the New Year.
Most important of all, ordinary people simply do not beleive a single thing this government tells them anymore, from Bliars lies about WMD to Jacqui Smith's outrageous claims that people are coming to her in droves demanding ID cards now, because they can't wait any longer. (there's a few thousand airline pilots who don't share that view either)
Sadly though, I don't think that the ordinary people who post here are going to change your mind one little bit.
Carefully orchestrated events? You obviously know nothing about the NPC!
Bet they took the batteries out of their hearing aids once you started...
Kerry - your reply "Carefully orchestrated events? You obviously know nothing about the NPC!" illustrates what many find exasperating about politicians.
Rather than answer the points raised, or show any sign of having paid attention to them, you make a flippant response to a single point.
Whilst I do think it is good you have this medium for conversation open, and you are to praised for engaging as you do I do think you are missing a trick by not paying attention to what you are being told.
Like it or not, and as true as it is or not, the impression is there that any criticism or complaint seems to be ignored and shrugged aside. If you really want to combat the mixture of apathy and rage with which politics is viewed then tackling that impression might be a start.
I don't think some people on this blog understand the distinction between someone who doesn't listen and someone who doesn't agree
Exactly. I read your comments. I read your blogs. I read your comments on other MPs' blogs. I 'hear' what you are saying.
I just don't agree with you.
Kerry
First, I'm really not politically extreme. I work and pay my taxes. I happen to vote conservativemostly - that doesn't make me a bad person.
I truly think that you and your colleagues in the Commons and government do not understand the very real frustrations of us ordinary people - I mean people like me.
We see our taxes being wasted on people who "work" the welfare system, on MPs' expenses and gold plated pensions (while we who have saved for years see our pensions either stolen by the exchequer or by market collapse)
At the same time, your government spy on us constantly and want to do more of the same via storage of our communications, or by issuing us with compulsory ID cards, or by putting us in prison for 42 days without charge. And you wonder why we feel as frustrated as we do?
I'm middle aged now and both my parents fought in WW2. They didn't fight for today's Britain, they fought for freedom; its an obcentity that having done that, they could in the near future be stopped by a policeman demanding their "PAPERS".
I really believe you need to stand back and think about what we, law abiding tax payers want of our elected representatives instead of following blindly what the treasury or home office want of you, or following some polical ideology that means nothing to us.
If you don't, the eventual inevitable conclusion will be not enough people paying tax to support the welfare state and at the same time an inexorable increase in extremist polical party support.
That's why we have elections.
"That's why we have elections"
Not on my watch.
Comrade Kerry - you are to cease your interactions with the individual known as Old Holborn. The Kommittee for Guidlines on Blogging has declared him a non-entity and he will be rehabilitated by the appropriate authorities
"that's why we have elections"
Kerry,I was trying to put a reasonable explanation as to why you receive some of the comments you do and why ordeinary people feel frsutrated. And this is all you can come up with?
You have stated on many an occasion that you want to "engage" with your readers. Is that it? Is that the limit of your "engagement". If so, then you deserve the comments you get.
Your lack of respect for my parents' and millions of other peoples' parents' sacrifice leaves my feeling astounded and very very angry
Actually Kerry I feel very insulted on my parents's behalf vy your pathetic response. In it you have the disconnect between us "law abiding and tax paying citizens" and you, our MPs. Have you really become so far removed from us ordinary folk?
And as a final point, your previous dismissive commnent in response to my post explains precisely why ordinary folk are turning to extreme polical views.
Kerry - you rally need to THINK this through .. I'm no revolutionary, I don't want to string you up. I'm just frustrated by what you and your givernment are doing to our country
"That's why we have elections"
What confidence can people have in their elected reps, when so many Labour MPs have junked their manifesto-commitments? A candidate's manifesto forms the basis of a contract of good faith with their electors. This contract has been broken by your party on such matters as the smoking-ban and ratification of the EU Constitreaty.
Parties should whip their MPs into voting for the manifesto-commitments upon which they were elected. Candidates for office should make clear, through their campaigning, to what extent and in which policy-areas they intend to depart from their party's commitments.
I'm told by Labour that this point of view is "naive" and that "nobody reads manifestos anyway".
What do you expect from me? You say you're a Conservative voter, so it's hardly surprising I don't agree with most of your views. You have the opportunity to express your dissatisfaction when you vote, and through your comments.
I've already explained elsewhere on this blog what my views are on the role of the state and the balance between the collective good and individual liberties.
If I don't agree with you, it doesn't mean I'm ignoring you, it doesn't mean I'm not listening. It means I don't agree with you.
I was very angry with the Thatcher government. I voted against it. And I joined the Labour Party and worked my socks off to make damn sure the Tories didn't get elected again. That's democracy.
What do I expect of you? Well, the same thing as you profess to want; some sensible debate. And although tone is difficult to ascertain in written comments, I think I detect nothing but disdain for me because I vote conservative. You've forgotten that once you've won an election, you are supposed to govern for, and engage with, the whole population, not just those that voted for you
Andy, I've already explained my views on most of the issues you raise elsewhere. I've tried to initiate debates on the welfare/ work issue several times, and if you look at my speeches in the Commons, in particular the child poverty stuff, you will see that too. But I can't reiterate it every time someone comments, otherwise I'd never get anything done, hence the perhaps sometimes rather dismissive tone.
Why is it my blood runs cold every time a politician starts talking about the collective (or common) good?
Hitler was very big on the common good and look how that turned out. Not that I'm comparing you to Hitler, but I am highlighting the potential dangers of the notion of "collective good".
It has been used to justify some of the greatest atrocities in human history. And it's odd, as there's no such thin as common or collective good.
For a start, there's no such thing as a collective. It's an idea and as such doesn't exist outside the human skull. On the other hand, an individual is a real thing that does actually exist.
"Good" is meaningless subjectivity. There' no absolute of goodness or badness. In this context we have a small group with the power to force their personal idea of goodness onto everyone else. Let's hope future politicians don't have a more skewed idea of goodness than today's crop, eh? Especially if *balancing* their idea of goodness against individual liberty is the norm.
The brings me lastly to liberty. It is, arguably, another real thing. It is a measure of the scope of things you can do before men with stab proof vests and night sticks lock you up.
So what you're saying is that imaginary and/or arbitrary concepts should be *balanced* against real things?
Surely individual liberty, being real, should come before any politician's idea of collective good?
MRab2 said: 'there's no such thing as a collective'
I think dear old Maggie once said something rather similar and look how well that turned out.
Ever read Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan? Or Rousseau's Social Contract? You might find them instructive.
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