Kent Police could teach Uganda a thing or two

Firstly congratulations to Kent Police for being in Stonewall's top ten LGBT friendly organisations for the second year running.

Secondly, I received the email below from Peter Tatchell and I have emailed Ann Widdecombe asking her to back the EDM which condemns Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill. It will be interesting to read her response. Can I urge others to do this too.

Please ask your MP to sign the Early Day Motion on Uganda

London – 14 January 2010

Labour MP Harry Cohen has tabled an Early Day Motion (EDM 575)condemning Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill. The Bill proposes the death penalty for certain categories of same-sex acts, including for repeat offenders, and life  imprisonment for merely touching another person with homosexual intent.

A copy of the EDM follows below.

“We hope the EDM will send a signal from the British parliament to the Ugandan government that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill constitutes an unacceptable attack on the human rights of Uganda’s lesbian, gay and bisexual citizens,” said Peter Tatchell of the London-based LGBT human rights group OutRage!

“This Bill violates Article 21 of the constitution of Uganda, which guarantees equality and non-discrimination:

21. Equality and freedom from discrimination.
(1) All persons are equal before and under the law in all spheres of political, economic, social and cultural life and in every other respect and shall enjoy equal protection of the law.

“It also breaches the equality and anti-discrimination provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which Uganda has signed and pledged to uphold.

“We are very grateful that Harry Cohen has tabled this EDM. He is a long-standing ally of the LGBT community and has championed gay equality for two decades. Way back in the early 1990s, he was one of the few MPs to ask Parliamentary Questions and write to Government Ministers, pressing for the repeal of homophobic laws. We thank him,” added Mr Tatchell.

The EDM reads:

ANTI-HOMOSEXUALITY BILL IN UGANDA

Harry Cohen MP

That this House calls on the British Government and the European Union to press the government of Uganda not to proceed with its Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which violates the equality and non-discrimination provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the African Charter of Human and People's Rights; abhors that this Bill, currently before the Uganda parliament, proposes the death penalty for repeat homosexual acts, extends the existing penalty of life imprisonment for anal intercourse to all other same-sex behaviour, including the mere touching of another person with the intent to have homosexual relations and imposes life imprisonment for contracting a same-sex marriage; notes that under the provisions of the Bill membership of providing funding for gay organisations
advocating gay human rights and providing condoms or safer sex advice to gay people will result in a sentence of between five and seven years for promoting homosexuality and that a person in authority who fails to report offenders to the police within 24 hours will incur a three year prison sentence; further notes that this monstrous proposed law contains extra-territorial jurisdiction so that it will apply to Ugandans who breach its provisions whilst living abroad, even in countries where such behaviour is not a criminal offence, and that such Ugandans living overseas could be subject to extradition, trial and punishment in Uganda; and demands that the Ugandan government uphold international humanitarian law by abandoning its Anti-Homosexuality Bill, decriminalising same-sex acts between consenting adults in private, and outlawing discrimination against gay people
http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=40154&SESSION=903


What you can do

Please ask your MP to sign EDM 575 on Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill

You can email your MP direct via this website:

www.writetothem.com

Just click on the link and enter your postcode. It will tell you who is your MP and you can email him or her direct. Easy.

All you need to do is write as follows:

Draft letter to your MP [or use this one]:

Dear (insert your MP’s name),

As one of your constituents, I urge you to sign EDM 575, tabled by Harry Cohen MP. It condemns Uganda’s draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill. This Bill proposes the death penalty for some same-sex acts and life imprisonment for others. The Bill also proposes up to seven years jail for anyone who advocates gay equality and three years jail for parents who fail to report their gay sons or daughters to the police.

See a copy of the Bill here:
http://www.ukgaynews.org.uk/Archive/09/Nov/Bill-No-18-Anti-Homosexuality-Bill-2009_Uganda.pdf

And a summary of the key points of the Bill here:
http://www.petertatchell.net/international/uganda-anti-homosexuality-bill–a-briefing.html

Please also consider writing to the Uganda High Commissioner in London:

Her Excellency, High Commissioner Joan Rwabyomere, Uganda High Commission, Uganda House, 58-59 Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 5DX.
Phone 020-7839-5783, Fax 020-7839-8925 or E-mail:
info@ugandahighcommission.co.uk

Thank you.

Insert your name

Widdecombe agrees with Daily Mash

Great quote from the Daily Mash: "More than half the world's journalists who have read Nigel Lawson's book now accept that the atmosphere could not possibly have been affected by setting fire to millions of tons of coal, oil and gas every single day for 150 years while at the same time chopping down most of the really big trees."
Local Tory MP, Ms Widdecombe, sadly goes along with those journos in her following of Lawson rather than the overwhelming majority of climate scientists and international opinion.

Public Whip - Check you MP's voting record

There is a fantastic, but under used resource for tracking what our MPs are up to. Public Whip is a fantastic way of finding out exactly what you MP has been doing. It is especially good for people in Maidstone as we have Ann Widdecombe and the great thing about Ann is that you can't guess which way she will vote on any topic!

For example, she seems to be backing renationalisation of public services, free university education and banning fox hunting (so far so good), while being against gay rights, a climate change denier, in favour of ID cards, against unions, for the Iraq war and against transparency in parliament (hey, didn't she just stand for speaker????).

Obviously my MP is the most interesting one in parliament, so here's the challenge... beat that record! What's your MP been up to?

Policy Comparisons

This chart shows the percentage agreement between this MP and each of the policies in the database, according to their voting record.

Agreement	Policy
95%	Abortion, Embryology and Euthanasia- Against
12%	Alcohol - increase its availability (provisional)
88%	Alcohol - restrict its availability (provisional)
0%	American imperialist hegemony: welcome (provisional)
50%	Asylum seekers: no rights (provisional)
100%	Ban fox hunting
56%	Big Business - against (provisional)
64%	British Humanist (provisional)
38%	Cambridge Liberal Conservative (provisional)
100%	Civil aviation pollution - For limiting
2%	Climate Change Bill - Strengthen
48%	Common Sense Party (provisional)
25%	Control Orders
50%	Corporal punishment of children - Against
50%	Crossrail - In favour
50%	Current Attitudes towards Climate Change (provisional)
0%	Dogs' tails: docking of (provisional)
19%	Educational Reform Rebel (provisional)
50%	Faith schools: abolish (provisional)
4%	Fast-track planning (provisional)
20%	Foundation hospitals - In favour
100%	Fox hunting - Ban
0%	Fox hunting - Don't ban (provisional)
50%	Freedom of Information Bill 2000 - Strengthen
83%	Gambling - Against permissiveness
100%	Hold a UK referendum on Lisbon EU Treaty
1%	Homosexuality - Equal rights
81%	Homosexuality - Not acceptable (provisional)
30%	House of Lords reform - Elected
48%	Identity cards - Against introduction (provisional)
52%	Identity cards - For introduction
78%	Identity Cards - In favour (provisional)
31%	Income Tax - Abolish 10% tax bracket (provisional)
91%	Innocent until proven guilty (provisional)
1%	Iraq 2003 - Against the invasion (provisional)
56%	Iraq 2003 - For disarmament only (provisional)
99%	Iraq 2003 - For the invasion
100%	Iraq 2003 - pro-invasion (provisional)
99%	Iraq Investigation - Necessary
50%	Jury trials: sacrosanct (provisional)
50%	Local Transport Bill 2007-08 (provisional)
5%	Mental health- easier detention + forced treatment (provisional)
95%	Military expansion - Favour (provisional)
21%	No detention without charge or trial
18%	No to ID Cards (provisional)
50%	Nuclear power - For
100%	Outlaw irrelevant clauses (provisional)
3%	Parliamentary scrutiny - Reduce
82%	Parliamentary scrutiny - Strengthen (provisional)
82%	Pay MPs More (provisional)
67%	Pension fund collapse: bail-out (provisional)
4%	Post office - in favour of Government policy
96%	Post office closures - against
50%	Prisons and probation services: Privatise (provisional)
0%	Pro American Pro War and Anti-Euro Party (provisional)
0%	Pro Science and technology (provisional)
61%	Pro-human rights, pro-democracy (provisional)
62%	Pro-Liberty (provisional)
50%	Protesting near Parliament - Unrestricted
87%	Recreational drugs - Against legalization
67%	Referendum on Europe (provisional)
95%	Renationalisation of public services (provisional)
0%	Right to strike (provisional)
33%	Selective schools: abolish (provisional)
19%	Smoking ban - In favour
50%	Socially Free, Economically Free. True Libertarian (provisional)
50%	Stand as an MP based on signatures of support (provisional)
25%	Stop climate change (provisional)
39%	Taxes - Favour decreases (provisional)
50%	Taxes - Favour increases (provisional)
50%	Temporary and agency workers: Equal rights (provisional)
100%	Termination of pregnancy - against
71%	Terrorism laws - Against (provisional)
29%	Terrorism laws - For
100%	The UK should not ratify the Lisbon Treaty
74%	Transexuality - Against legal recognition
18%	Transparency of Parliament
100%	Trident replacement - In favour
58%	Trust schools: For (provisional)
10%	University education fees - For top up fees
90%	University education fees - Should be free
2%	University tuition fees
46%	Vote 'aye' on every division in October 2007 (provisional)
6%	Vote for Radical Change (provisional)
50%	Voting age - Reduce to 16
58%	War - Parliamentary authority not necessary

Telegraph gets teeth into Widdecombe

The Torygraph have finally got their teeth into Ann Widdecombe:

"The Conservative MP, one of the leading contenders to become Speaker, was sent thousands of articles in which she was named over a four-year period at a cost of 75p each, with deliveries on an almost daily basis."

The bizarre thing is that knowing what the media are writing about you seems to be a reasonable thing to do, I think. It might have saved the taxpayer money if she had used Google alerts (although I'm not sure these were around in 2004), but I don't have much of a problem with this expense.

Why the Telegraph didn't question her voting record on expenses transparency is beyond me though. How can anyone who has voted against making expenses explicit and public put themselves forward as a speaker candidate?

They have also failed to mention the gardening claims that Ann has submitted. While they are not huge, I can't see why taxpayers should have to pay for these. If MPs want the state to pay for a second home then they should choose a small flat.

The same goes for cleaning. Sure, I don't expect MPs to do all their own cleaning if they are working 15 hour days but why should the state pay? This has nothing to do with a second home, they would still need to clean if they lived in one home rather than 2, they certainly would be making more mess by living in two???

Widdecombe - more denial

More appaling crap from Ann Widdecombe, but a big congrats to Rob Callaghan and the Maidstone FOE group for getting this in the press.

I have been waiting for her to start promoting smoking as a healthy lifestyle option, or caution against travelling too far in a single direction for fear of falling off the edge of the world. Perhaps when she realises that cats will die in the 6th mass extinction she will have second thoughts?

Cameron claimed to be green but then allows elected members to trumpet anti-science / anti-truth views like these (and Widdecombe is far from being alone!). If he wants to show some leadership then he should sack them. The stakes are far too high to have idiots like these in a future government.

Of course Widdecombe won't be an MP by then, but I have no confidence that Helen Grant (Tory PPC for M & the W) will be much better.



Marc from Throbgoblins spells it out really well today:

MPs expenses in Kent

Letter to the Kent Messenger in response to their piece on MP's expenses this week. This is the link to how the Maidstone MP voted on allowances last year.

Dear Editor,

It was good to read that Ms Widdecombe is one of the lower claimants for MPs expenses in Kent, especially as she voted against MPs expenses being made public last year.

The whole system of expenses is a mess, as almost everyone agrees, and the mess has clearly been driven by a desire to mask pay rises. As someone who commutes to London from time to time, there is simply no need for any MP in West Kent to claim a second home allowance. Although the train service from Maidstone is not great it is certainly easy to get to and from Westminster in a reasonable time.

We urgently need transparency for MPs expenses. These people hold immense power and can only be accountable to the electorate if we know what they are getting up to! It is no wonder people are disenfranchised when they are kept in the dark by politicians.

Civil Liberties

Just when you thought it was safe to photograph a policeman or wave a placard, two important piece of news that are the latest nails in the coffin of civil liberties arrive today.

I hope everyone went out photographing the police yesterday, cause you needed to get it out of your system. If you snap a cop today you could face 10 years. Even if the cop is doing something wrong.

This is from Penny Red: "Set to become law on the 16th of February in the UK, the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 amends the Terrorism Act 2000 regarding offences relating to information about members of armed forces, a member of the intelligence services, or a police officer. Laws are being introduced that allow for the arrest - and fining, and imprisonment for up to ten years - of anyone who takes pictures of officers 'likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism'."

So when the police are harassing peaceful protesters at a demonstration, the demonstrators can't even protect themselves by gathering photographic evidence.

Secondly, The NETCU look like they are being replaced by the CIU... The CIU or Confidential Intelligence Unit (clearly intimidatorily named to be like the CIA) seems to be taking on the role of defeating domestic extremism. I'm all in favour of defeating extremists but my guess is that they won't target people who hand billions of squid to bankers, or people taking bungs to amend the law in the favour of greedy corporations, or even politicians that claim that the overwhelming majority of climate scientists are wrong and that her economist friend knows more about climate change than them.

Target the terrorists and those who are out to cause people harm, not those who are trying to raise awareness of the biggest problem that has ever faced mankind.

Widdecombe defeated!

More happening at Kingsnorth this weekend. Kingsnorth is really becoming the front line in the battle against runaway climate change. This comes on the back of the good news with the climate change bill which gained royal assent yesterday despite the attempts by our local climate denying MP, Ann Widdecombe.

Of course there now needs to be real action to actually reduce our CO2 emissions. This means not building runways and road. It means retrofitting our homes with the best possible insulation. It means sorting out our transport. It means working, buying and playing local. It means focussing on building communities.

Sadly I don't see much hope of this from the grey parties at present.

Widdecombe outed as climate denier

"I have read Nigel Lawson's book on climate change and I believe that we are moving far too fast on the basis of some pretty challengeable science. I am therefore not even supporting the Climate Change Bill let alone any additional measures.", wrote Ann Widdecombe in a letter to me last week.

It amazes me that someone in public office would prefer to believe the opinion of a former chancellor over 99.5% of climate scientists over a scientific matter. More than amazes me, it horrifies me. It is like suggesting that smoking cigarettes is good for you.

Last year Caroline Lucas ruffled some feathers when she compared climate change denial to holocaust denial. If we don't address man made climate change NOW, there will be far more deaths than during the holocaust. The New Scientist has described the environmental problems as the 6th Mass Extinction. Anyone denying the scientist should resign now and make way for people willing to try to ensure that there is a future.

I will be writing to the other PPCs to see where they stand.