More Tory hypocrisy - and close to home

Another fine moment for Paul Uppal MP.

He voted for a motion to ban strikes in the emergency and transport sectors unless a majority of those eligible to vote cast a ballot in favour (i.e. 50%+1). Now I could go on about the massive weight of biased Tory-inspired laws (retained by Tony Blair because he's a Tory wanker) which work to prevent this happening, but instead I'll remind you of Paul Uppal's electoral record and position on AV, the electoral system which proposed that MPs have to get 50%+1 just of those who bother voting, to be elected.

Did Paul support a system which would have required him to persuade 50% of those voting (not the electorate, unlike the law he tried to apply to strikes)? He did not.

Did he get voted in by 50%+1 of the electorate?
He did not.

Paul Uppal, Conservative	16,344	40.7%
Rob Marris, Labour	15,653	39.0%
Robin Lawrence, Liberal Democrat	6,430	16.0%
Amanda Mobberley, UK Independence Party	1,487	3.7%
Raymond Barry, Equal Parenting Alliance	246	0.6%
Candidate	Votes	Share %Conservative majority:

691

Conservative majority: 691.
Turnout: 67.9%.
So Uppal is MP thanks to 40.7% of the 67.9% who bothered voting.
So of the 60,000 or so eligible voters (and don't forget that Uppal counted non-voting trades union members in his spiteful little motion), he was 'elected' by 16,344 of them: that looks like 27% to me.
So by his own logic, he's illegitimate. Time to resign on principle.

Feel the irony

There's a strike on down south. A very small group of people have withdrawn their labour in a dispute over pay. Only one person, Christine McGee, is scabbing, selling out her erstwhile comrades.

So what, you may ask?

In a delicious irony, these workers are tour guides at the Tolpuddle Martyrs Museum. Tol-what? Only the venue, 175 years ago, in which six heroic farm workers were deported to Australia for forming a trades union, kicking off nationwide protest.

How revolting that management of such an institution should behave in the same way as the authorities back in the day.

 McGee, however, said she was happy to continue to show people around the court. She said: "I find this extremely boring. It is up to the other guides to decide what they want to do. We are all individuals."

How ironic, too, that McGee has signally failed to understand the Martyrs' point, despite explaining it to visitors day in, day out. Shame on her.

Solidarity with the New Tolpuddle Martyrs!