1st Rave

Attended my first rave last night well a Techno party in a pub in Dereham and it was quite an eye opener.

Since 1993 I have been going to nightclubbing off and one thing that struck me last night was how friendly people were without the large amount of booze being drunk that you get in nightclubs with the aggro and aggression that goes with it.

A drug called MDMA which I guess the new version of ecstasy seems to be the drug of choice and very popular.

Maybe I am weird but I no not get the point of going out and getting wreaked when partying any drug be MDMA or booze true I did have a pint of larger shandy during my nightout but that was enough to ensure I had a good night.

Drug use should be a personal choice the state's policy of prohibition of certain drugs has spectacular failure the system of licencing we have in UK works OK for Alcohol users.

Of course where some individuals get into health related problems through excessive drug use then the state has a duty of care to help those people.

For example when people go into a pub and buy a pint of beer they know what they are getting and that a pint is a pint and not an 8th of a pint and of a certain quality.

Given the vast amounts money that are wasted on enforcement of prohibition of drugs and the potential for Government to gain tax revenues the current UK drugs policy is quite simply a no brainier.

British GP

The British GP was without doubt a very exciting race but the internal going ons at the Red Bull between drivers Mark Webber and Seb Vettel make for a challenge for Team Principal Christian Horner.

Having two people of simular ability but different personalities can cause strains in any teams witness Tony Blair and Gordon Brown for example.

Mark Webber's comment on the radio at the end of the race "not bad for a No 2 driver" was very telling hopefully both drivers will now be very commited to get results at the upcoming races, without hopefully taking each other off the track as happened at Turkey.

The one rule in motorsport is above all do not take out your team mate.

With Germany being the home race for Vettel the pressure will be really on should be a very tight race indeed.

The Budget

Well its budget day today and its an opportunity for me to share some pre budget predictions.

Income Tax allowances up by £1,000
Duty of Fuel up 2p per litre
VAT up by 2.5%
Beer Duty up by 2p per pint
Duty on Spirits up by 10p per litre
Tobacco duty up 5p
Vehical Excise Duty up £20
Capital Gains Tax up
Social Benefits ie Old Age Pensions, Job Seekers Allowance frozen ie real terms cut
Capital programmes ie like the A14 improvements deffered
Public sector pay frozen ie real terms cut

Charles Clarke and the NEC Elections

It was interesting to read in today's EDP an article about Charles Clarke the former Labour MP for Norwich South who for I have actively campaigned for over the years.

Charles is totally right in his view that the Labour Party must learn quickly the lessons for the defeat if it is to avoid 20 years in opposition as happened after the Labour Government of 1974-79 suffered defeat.

With hindsight when Charles called for Gordon Brown to stand down after Labour disasterous European Election campaign it was probably the right call.

However it would have taken a very special leader to halt the slide as the mood of the country was that it was time for a change even if it did not know what type of change it wanted.

UK politics could over the next few years be very different if plans to reduce the number of MP's from 650 to 450 go ahead along with the introduction of Proportional Representation through the alternative vote system it is possible that we might never see a Labour Government again with an overall majority.

I am pleased to see a friend of mine for my time on the Labour East Regional Board and fellow former Labour Parliamentary Candidate Julian Ware-Lane running for the election to the Labour Party National Executive Committee.

Two Chief Secretaries and more questions

Its been a rather interesting 48 hours at the Treasury firstly it turned out that David Laws had paid his partner £40k of taxpayers money he was not entitled to and now his replacement Danny Alexander seems to have dodged Capital Gains Tax.

It was dodging of Capital Gains Tax that resulted in Hazel Blears resigning from the Cabinet and Ian Gibson giving up his Norwich North seat.

If Nick Clegg and Dave Cameron are serious about restoring the public's faith in politics its hard to see how Danny Alexander can remain in the Cabinet.

With the standard's of MP's exected to be so high at the moment it looks like we will be seeing lots more politians running into scandals in the coming months and years.

UK now under Con Dem

7 years ago I took the decision to resign from the Liberal Democrats as the left of Centre Party that I joined in 1990 which was so opposed to the Tories had changed into a Centre Right Tory lite Party.

Today the Lib Dems now prop up the Tory Administration in the UK Government not really a great surprise as telling the Lib Dems apart from the Tory Party for the past few years has been increasingly hard.

Will be interesting to see how many Lib Dems now cross the floor and join the Labour Party.

Looking at a post from well known Lib Dem activist and Blogger Nick Starling it might be sooner then you think.

www.norfolkblogger.blogspot.com

Press Release London Marathon

John Cowan Labour Parliamentary Candidate for South East Cambridgeshire today wished good luck to people from South East Cambridgeshire taking part in the Virgin Active London Marathon.

Running is a great way of keeping healthy and avoiding the problems associated with obiesity.

Hung Parliaments and recession

Over the last few days their has been talk of what happens in the event of neither the Labour or Tory Party having an overall majority.

The simple answer is that the political uncertainity would cause the financial markets to go into a state of panic not seen since the start of the recession.

All the good work done by the Labour Government in getting Britian out of recession would be undone in a matter of minutes after the election result.

Real Progress on the NHS

The Kings Fund report out today shows the real progress that has resulted from Labour's commitment and record investment in the NHS.

The reduction in waiting times is very welcome.

The challenge for the NHS over the next few years is dealing with the health inpacts of rising levels of Alcohol and the problems caused by obesity.

In England 46% of men and 32% of women are overweight with a Body Mass Index of over 25-30,

Whist 17% of men and 21% of Women are classed at obese ie BMI over 30.

Oh and before you get the idea that I am some mega skinny person telling you about this I have to confess to my own battle with weight I am currently 14 and half stone battling to get down to 13 stone.

Declaration of interests

As the Labour candidate for the House of Commons for South East Cambridgeshire I am making public all my commercial and financial interests in accordance with Ministry of Justice recomendations.

This will be up on my campaign website www.labourparty-secambs.org.uk

Methadrone

On monday the Advisory Council on Drugs Misuse reports to Jack Straw the Minsiter for Justice on whether Methadrone should be included within the current Misuse of Drugs Act as either a class A, B or C drug.

I have never used Methadrone nor do I have any particular desire to do so however I express my concern over a possible panic ban on the back of a few stories in the press.

In 2008 9,031 people died as a result of a legal drug called Alcohol and another legal drug Tobacco accounts for 80,000 deaths a year.

Banning Methadrone would not stop its use in fact it would just push it under ground leading to more danger for users as dealers cut it with other substances.

The other issue is that even if a ban does dry up supply it is only a matter of months before the chemists come up with a new legal high which may have even more harmful side effects.

Regulation to control the quality and doses of Methadrone would have a far less damaging effect on users.

Tories and VAT

A few years back prior to Labour winning the 1997 General Election I remember going out and campaigning against the Tory Government's plans to put Value Added Tax on domestic fuels.

There for it was interesting to read of Tory leaning Think Tank Reform www.reform.co.uk proposing that VAT be extended to areas such as Food and Childrens clothes.

Indirect taxation hits the weaker members of society the hardest as there have less disposable income the Tories have a pretty bad record of VAT increases.

It was Tory Governments that increased VAT from 8% to 15% and finally to 17.5%.

Whislt the the Tories pretend to be the party of low taxation the truth is far from with plans to give Inheritance Tax breaks to the richest 500 estates in the UK the Tories really can not be trusted when it comes to taxation.

Single parents and pubs

Was interesting to hear today that all three of the mainstream political party leaders have backed Gingerbreads campaign to remove the stigma of being a lone parents.

Whilst backing this campaign might not be so hard for Labour and the Lib Dems back it shows what a long way the Tories have come from party that was attacking single parents as part of its now infamous back to basics campaign.

Single parents still get a pretty tough time and the Gingerbread Campaign is very welcome and well help in removing some of the stigma that single parents face.

Pubs play a very important role in the community and are as much an asset as post offices the pub industry has been in decline for a number of years factors such as changing lifestyles all are factors however one measure that would help would be a reduction in beer duty.

The Labour Government has recognised many of the challenges that the pub industry faces and John Healey has been appointed Minster of Pubs.

At the Labour Party Conference in Brighton last year I meet with John Mann MP of the All Party Beer Group and the Chief Executive of the Pub Industry Association to raise my concerns at the decline of the pub industry.

A question of Leadership

This week has been a challenging one for John Terry outed by the News of the World having an affair with a french underwear model.

The decision to remove Terry from being England Captian must have been a hard one for the England Manager however the danger is that John Terry's affair with not only anybody but the ex-girlfriend of a team mate might have weakend the respect that other players in the England Team.

Who ever the England Manager chooses to be the new Captain lets just hope they can keep there mind on football.

A day in London

Had an amazing day yesterday was down in London on business getting a photo done for my Election leaflets at the House of Commons.

One of the more amusing moments was in the Parliamentary Labour Party Office where when lining up for photo's along with Sharon Taylor, Leader of Stevenage Council who is standing in Stevanage for the General Election when in come Chris Mole Ipswich MP and Transport Minister on route to another appointment in the House so he kindly asked to jump the queue.

There is something I find rather amussing about the Transport Minister jumping a queue in a rather ironic sort of way.

Once the photo's were finished headed to College Green for an interview with Winkball.com.

Headed down to Tate Modern which turned out to be much more than the 10 minute walk the Policeman at the House told me it was once there was thrilled to see work by Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon amoung others and a rather interesting film involving a naked couple passing a ball between each other.

On the way home I saw on the train Chryl who I dated about 3 years ago and Tony Wright, MP for Great Yarmouth.

Broken Britian I think not

Dave Cameron's political opportunism at the tragic case of two dysfunctional boys who carried out an attack simular to the killing of Jamie Bulger in Bootle in 1993 is in rather poor taste.

Events of Children carrying out violent attacks are thankfully rare.

Questions must be asked how in the future disturbed children can be spotted and given suitable professional help.

Strange really that the Tories propose scrapping the Sure Start Scheme which will increase the chances of spotting children who may have serious emotional problems.

Photo's

Having a nightmare trying to sort out my photo for the Election leaflet.

The orginal photo was not the right size which means I am chasing around to get a suitable photo sorted.

Least my blog is now live on the Evening News website.

Cold of runny nose type

Feeling very feed up with a cold and fever have spent most of the day indoors sleeping today.

The last couple of days have been quiet busy getting ready for the General Election preparing leaflets and Chairing a Council meeting last night.

Because of this rather annoying cold my planned activities for the weekend of going tothe Gym then to play pool with Becky have had to be deferred.

Notes on a Scandal

Saw the Panorama report tonight on the growing scandal effecting Northern Irish politics involving the first Lady of Northern Ireland.

Sex, Loans, possible corruption not to mention some breaches of the Councillors code of Conduct.

Just wondering how on earth Peter Robinson can carry on as First Minister ?

A week is a long time in politics

As the saying goes a week is a long time in politics.

Wednesday attempt by Geoff Hoon and Patrica Hewitt to force a secret vote on Gordon Brown was quite rightly given a very short life by the majority of the PLP.

Divided parties do not win elections and the timing of this stabbing of the Leader in the back was rather damaging to say the least however the public I believe are still not stupid enough to put the Tories back in charge of the UK Government.

If life in politics is challenging for Gordon Brown spare a moment for Iris Robinson wife of DUP Leader and fellow MP Peter Robinson as if having and affair with a 19 year old toy boy was not bad enough questions are now being asked about financial issues involving her lover and herself.

Maybe Mrs Robinson was trying to live up to the character in the Graduate also called Mrs Robinson who has an affair with a toy boy.

Maybe I would not take so much pleasure in the Robinson's discomfort were it not for Mrs Robinson's homophobic views.