Dear Karl Turner

Dear Karl Turner,

As my MP, I would like to urge you to support the various amendments
which have been proposed to the European Union Bill by various of your
parliamentary colleagues. While it would be an understandable instinct,
given that the amendments have been proposed by Conservative MPs, to
vote against them on principle, or to avoid voting for them in the hope
of the whole Bill being voted down, I urge you to act in the national
interest and make this loosely drafted legislation into something which
the whole parliament can get behind and which will protect our
sovereignty against the encroachment of the EU. While (as you may have
guessed), I didn't vote for yourself (Conservative, not UKIP, although
definitely on the Hannan/Carswell wing...), I urge you to support these
amendments as being in the best interests of your constituents.

Also, good work on supporting the No2AV campaign, the concept of
referendums on important matters is an excellent one, but frankly AV
does nothing to help reassure voters that their representatives are
actually....representative! Open Primary ballots and citizen-initiated
recall mechanisms on the other hand I can definitely get behind.

Hope you're having a good new year and Paul Staines (aka Guido Fawkes)
has stopped giving you quite so much grief,

Yours sincerely,

Daniel Bond

The two faces of Alan Johnson

Home Secretary Alan Johnson accused of asylum-seeker betrayal

HOME Secretary Alan Johnson has been accused of "betraying" a respected Hull asylum seeker.

The Hull West and Hessle MP has been charged with ending his support for Emmanuel Njoya and his family after taking the top post with the Home Office last year.

So what we have here is Alan Johnson (Hull West and Hessle MP) being convinced enough of the merits of Mr Njoya's case that he willing to write to the Home Secretary and plead his case. We also have Alan Johnson (Home Secretary) suggesting the case is without merit and deporting a man and his family who may now be killed due to their political allegiance. I will leave the reader to decide on the potential motives behind Mr Johnson's actions, particularly given the likely criticism of the government's record on immigration and the upcoming general election, but suffice to say one of our Alan Johnsons has got it horribly wrong.

There are right ways to reduce the influx of people into this country so that genuine asylum seekers can justifiably be accommodated, but I'm not sure this is it. Won't mention Europe because it doesn't really need saying, but imagine how much easier it would be for genuine asylum seekers coming to this country if the vast majority of migration into this country was by the permission of our elected government rather than because the European Union has decided to allow it. Oops, guess I did mention Europe there a little bit didn't I?

Fine with us

Eurocrats threaten to strike over pay

Eurocrats, threatened with a freeze, are preparing to go on strike

I'm with Daniel on this one: Splendid, please do, might be quite nice for them to have a prolonged strike, interesting to see if anyone actually misses what they do.

Firemen strike, we have a problem.
Teachers strike, we have a problem.
The Police don't strike because it would be a major problem.

Eurocrats may turn out to be their own worse enemies if they strike, surely the wise thing for them to do is to keep quiet and hope nobody notices their (lack of positive) contribution to society. Might even be a good time to re-evaluate just how many (if any) of them we actually need...