... does it? i received this, today, and replied (below)
Dear Luke Leighton What will you do to restore trust and participation in politics? If you expect to win South West Surrey next week, we want to know what you will do as a Member of Parliament to restore trust and participation in politics.
We are an alliance of organisations including the Community Sector Coalition, Civic Voice, Citizenship Foundation, NAVCA, WEA and others, with members in almost every constituency. We will publish responses to this message through our membership and on our website, www.democracymatters.info.
We are deeply concerned that people do not trust politicians, parties or the political process and feel powerless to influence decisions. This lack of trust and participation in civic life matters greatly for the health of our country.
For democracy to be real, people need to know how the system works, how to influence decisions and how to have an effective voice.
We are therefore asking you to
1. Make public your support for the independence of citizens, community groups. charities and voluntary organisations to lobby, campaign or speak out about the issues that matter to them, respecting the Charity Commission’s guidance on campaigning (CC9); 2. Support our efforts to provide accessible and affordable practical political education so that all citizens can understand the system, get their voice heard and influence decisions about things that concern them; 3. Help local government implement the Duty to Promote Democracy in partnership with local education providers, community groups and civil society, through independent "democracy hubs".
We got a positive reply to our letter from David Cameron, Leader of the Conservative Party, and expect to hear from other party leaders shortly. But we also want to tell our members about your support, as their own prospective member of parliament.
Members of the Democracy Matters alliance enable citizens to have an effective say by providing information, advice, education and support to take part in society. Many of us ran regional road-shows across England last year, involving over 600 people from local community and voluntary organisations and local MPs. We hope to run similar events throughout the UK during the next parliament.
After the election we will publish a guide to promoting democracy and practical politics, including responses to this message from individual Members of Parliament and the political parties represented in local and national government.
We will also hold a public meeting in Parliament after this election and look forward to your support.
Please reply to ppc@democracymatters.info
Yours sincerely,
Titus Alexander Convener Democracy Matters Alliance Mobile: 07720394740
www.democracymatters.info
titus@democracymatters.info
Democracy Matters grew out of nine regional road-shows involving over 600 people from community and voluntary organisations and local Members of Parliament. A summary of the main points was published in Campaigning is OK! which can be downloaded from http://static.novas.org/files/campaigningisok-456.pdf This was launched in the House of Commons in July 2009 by an all party panel including the Third Sector Minister Angela Smith, Shadow Minister Nick Hurd MP and Greg Mulholland MP
(see: www.navca.org.uk/localvs/infobank/ilpunews/campaigninglaunch .htm ). Learning Power: a contribution to the national skills strategy makes the case for practical political education, based on the work of the Scarman Trust. See: http://static.novas.org/files/learning-power-262.pdf with reviews by Francis Maude, John Hayes, Bernard Crick, Helena Kennedy and others.
If you want information from Democracy Matters in future, please join us at: http://www.democracymatters.info/html/join.html
On 27 April 2010 15:05, Democracy Matters <ppc@democracymatters.info> wrote: > > > > Dear Luke Leighton > > What will you do to restore trust and participation in politics? > > If you expect to win South West Surrey next week, we want to know what you will do as a Member of Parliament to restore trust and participation in politics.
dear democracy matters,
to answer the question, first i must give you some background.
democracy as deployed in athens is one of the most powerful governance methods i've encountered. random selection (effectively jury service) has powerful advantages: you get people who have no known personal or vested interest involved in the process of decision-making.
democracy as deployed _now_ is one of the weakest forms of governance known. to allow politicians to "fight" over what must be done, in a state of constant opposition, results in ridicule that is nothing more than "entertainment" but results in a weakened governance where nothing of lasting stability is achieved or even attempted, out of fear of alienating voters. the next parliament merely rips up the tracks laid by the previous government, which is at risk of happening again in four to five years time.
additionally, focussing of power by way of "party whips" into the hands of one man (the Prime Minister) for example leads us to have bills such as the "Legislative and Reform Bill" which was on its 2nd reading before anyone noticed its similarity to Hitler's 1936 "Enabling Act" - an Act which allowed him to shut Parliament the day after it was passed (because it was "reasonable") and declare himself Dictator (because it was "reasonable").
yet what we have is what we have.
... or, in the UK, it is what we _used_ to have.
with sovereign power having been handed over to the E.U., the crime of treason was committed by Edward Heath, as the E.U. Directives (decided and agreed by "strangers") which must be enacted as law in the member states, "overawes" the Houses of Parliament. these are key words in the 1848 Treason Felony Act - an Act which has NOT been repealed.
additionally, the 1999 House of Lords Act - a "general" Act of Legislation - CANNOT be used to revoke Royal Proclamations ("Letters Patent") granting hereditary peers the right to a seat in Parliament (see Baroness Ashton's reply on this, 29th Sep 2008, clarifying this point). but, by illegally revoking the passes of some 900 hereditary peers, Parliament has been "intimidated" - by order and at the instigation of Tony Blair (and other conspirators).
the unfortunate (some would say fortunate) side-effect of this second act of Treason is to throw into doubt the legality and validity of any law passed since 2000 (including ironically the Lisbon Treaty, as well as several thousand other pieces of legislation); for details, search for Lord Mereworth's legal challenge, initiated in late 2009, to the revocation of his pass granting him access to the Houses of Parliament.
so we have a serious, serious situation in which the entire democratic process in the UK has been completely and systematically undermined... and nobody's noticed!
there's something desperately, desperately wrong and i am at a loss to explain peoples' total lack of interest.
that is just the background. now i answer your question.
what i _have_ done (not what am i "going" to do) is report the crime of Treason at my local police station. what i _will_ do is report the _second_ crime of Treason, tomorrow. i appear to have accidentally stumbled onto something that i cannot now "let go of" or "let rest" until i find out if people are actually interested. which is most unfortunate.
should i find out that people do not care if we are no longer a sovereign nation, i will happily stop pursuing this. the only real way to find that out is by a referendum. it doesn't matter how that referendum is carried out. the politicians didn't bother to consult us; they all promised that they would have a referendum if they were voted in, and they didn't damn well fulfil their promise.
well, unfortunately for them, by going ahead without consulting us, they committed criminal acts: Treasonous acts.
so, there is actually another way to get the referendum that people might seek: by going down to your local police station and reporting Edward Heath for the crime of Treason and all Prime Ministers since as being complicit in that crime (for taking us into the E.U. and handing over Sovereign Power); and reporting Tony Blair and the other conspirators (339 other politicians voted for that bill) for a second crime of Treason.
now, whilst the Crown Prosecution Service has the discretionary power to not prosecute if it is "not in the Public Interest", note the word "Crown" in the sentence "Crown Prosecution Service". all policemen serve Her Majesty, the Queen - and no other.
the critical question is: does the Chief of Police have the balls to make the arrests? i have a feeling that if he knows that he has a sizeable chunk of the UK population behind him, with a record of several million reports of Treason (and their associated Crime Reference Numbers), he will not only have no choice but to make the arrests but also will be able to easily justify his actions to the accused.
so you want to know what i'm doing, to restore trust and participation in politics? starting with _you_, i'm asking _you_ to make the above a matter of public record, and i'm asking _you_ to take up the challenge to restore our shattered political system.
i look forward to receiving another "general mailshot" from you, covering the above in your own words, with a link to a suitable petition, giving advice on what people should do to restore "trust" in our political system.
i should not have to remind you that if you fail to make an independent investigation, fail to do due diligence, fail to take up this task now that you have been informed of it, you will be failing entirely and utterly to hold true to everything that your web site claims to stand for. you state that "democracy matters", but if you do not act to help _make_ democracy matter, then you are no better than the traitors who have undermined our Sovereignty and our Parliament.
these may sound like strong words, but i swear to you that they are mild in comparison to the ones i really should be using.
l.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy