Benefit sanctions target the most vulnerable in our society - like the parent who had their benefits stopped after missing an appointment because their baby was in intensive care for example. A total of 466,000 people were hit by sanctions which saw them barred from claiming Job Seekers Allowance for an average of between four weeks and three months. However, 2,000 repeat offenders were hit by significantly harder sanctions and had their benefits stopped for the next three years, including 49 single parents and 978 people under the age of 24. A statement from Mr Boles withdrawing the comments followed remarks to his local newspaper, suggesting the Tories could amend the current sanctions regime. Nick Boles said “In the run-up to the election there is not a lot we can do, but we can get the case studies together where the sanctions seem to be most unreasonable … The beginning of a parliamentary term, when people are looking at things afresh, is the best time to make a change.” But what happens after the elections? The government do as they wish and the people who vote for them remain trapped in the sanctions, left to go without basic needs such as Food and nappies. The Trussell Trust Charity who run the local Foodbanks and The Grantham Passage pick up the people effected by Sanctions and Benefit cuts. The case studies are there and the people are real. Infact Gill Thompson and Cathie Wood have come together through impossibly tragic circumstances. Both of their brothers died, hungry, with no money to buy food, after their benefits were stopped. How many more people need to die? Would we leave an animal without food, No? The owners would be prosecuted. As a Grantham constituent who votes I would urge Nick Boles and fellow MP's to start supporting the people who vote instead of showing they care more about the party line and climbing up the party ladder. Look at repealing these benefit Sanctions before the Election.

This is important because the poor are getting so far deeper into poverty.

It is still legal to discriminate against people in Northern Ireland in relation to the provision of goods, facilities and services on the basis of the person's age unlike in Britain and the Republic of Ireland. Older people in Northern Ireland endured the 'Troubles' for many years and looked forward to the 'peace dividend', only to find that their elected representatives can't agree to give them the same protection under the law as is enjoyed by older people in the rest of the UK & Ireland. The Northern Ireland Executive includes a proposal to introduce legislation to outlaw age discrimination in its Programme for Government in 2011, but has so far failed to get agreement in the Assembly for this over the last 4 years. Prof. Mark Lawler of Queen's University Belfast has described how many older people were being denied possible life saving and enhancing cancer treatments each year purely on the grounds of age.

If this is a true Labour value it should be adopted across UK Labour.

The Queens Sovereign Grant for 2014-15 was £37.9 million, although this is a drop in the ocean according to republic.org.uk which estimates that "When all [the] hidden expenditure is included, the real cost of the monarchy to British taxpayers is likely to be over £299m annually". There is no way this can be seen as value for money, especially while the most vulnerable in our society are facing the prospect of an even more savage cap in the amount a household can receive in what (for the most part) is a vital, and necessary, lifeline. To find out more about the campaign visit www.charliekb.wordpress.com/2015/03/03/slash-their-benefits/ www.joshua-hill-walsh.com/

Public provision of water services in Scotland should continue to be a point of pride and a point of principle. Water is a service that should continue to be delivered for the benefit of the people. Public water provision in Scotland has resulted in the lowest average water bills in the UK for both households and businesses. Let's keep it that way by maintaining the responsibility and the benefits of water provision in the hands of the public sector here in Scotland.

There are estimated to be 1000 North Korean refugees living in the UK – that is an incredibly small number. But now the Government has confirmed that Britain will now automatically ship away the small number of North Koreans whom manage to escape from one of the world’s most oppressive regimes and make it to the UK. For North Koreans who do not have any information about the outside world when they escape the country, an option to choose another country to settle in should be guaranteed. A recent court ruling that means Britain regards all North Koreans as South Korean citizens and is likely to refuse them asylum. These people face amazing obstacles in order to escape the brutal regime, including famine (the arduous march), disease, forced labour camps, torture, reprisals on their families including the death penalty (North Korea has a guilt by association policy) and slavery both in North Korea and in China. For those that do cross the Tumen River into China thinking this to be their salvation they then find themselves sold into a life of slavery on the black market or hunted down by North Korean agents and the Chinese authorities to be forcibly repatriated to North Korea where death or starvation awaits. These people risk so much to escape such a ruthless regime in North Korea and Britain now decides not to help and to turn its back on the very, very small number that make it here? North Korea is in a category of its own when it comes to human rights violations. It is a totalitarian state where many people are enslaved and tortured. All forms of freedom of expression are repressed and people are purged using the death penalty, there is mass malnourishment and outside Kim’s Pyongyang it is commonplace for people to starve to death. Amnesty International reports that many North Koreans, including children, are detained in political prison camps and other detention facilities in North Korea. Conditions are dire. Torture is rampant and public execution is common. Many of the prisoners die of malnutrition and overwork. No refugee should be refused or prejudiced on language or cultural difference. Why should Britain cherry pick whom it helps in this way?

This is important, because the false guarantee swayed members vote to support the Governments position. It is important to uphold the position that ministers that mislead the house should be sacked.

I personally feel, rightly or wrongly, that if British Telecom were allowed to buy the 'Everything Everywhere' company, it would be like Tesco's buying Morrison's or Sky buying I.T.V. We need a competitive market place to create employment and drive consumers standards to higher grounds. The reaching long term implications of this potential sale, would have to result in job losses and if the public does not raise it's concerns about potential huge company sales such this and similar situations and attempts like it, we could be guilty of scratching our heads in 5 years time and asking ourselves "Where did all the work go?" In the last 3 years, I have found B.T. and E.E's customers standards to be poor and if they become no longer in direct competition with each other, how will their customer services ever improve? We are still recovering from a double-dip recession and the last thing the business market needs is an eventual streamlining of a big phone network. This must be stopped and it is in all of our interests to stop B.T. buying E.E. I have already contacted my M.P, Andrew Turner, about this matter and hope that others are able to find the time to contact their M.P. too.

The current campaign to get potential electors to ‘engage with’ politics fails to 'engage with' Russell Brand's insights (and with the frustration of those who care but feel impotent). The problem can be qualified very simply: 1. The reason why non-registered potential electors do not register is because they do not see the point in registering. 2. The reason why non-registered potential electors do not see the point in registering is because they do not see the point in voting. 3. The reason why non-voting potential electors do not see the point in voting is because: a. They cannot see any options which have a worthwhile chance of promoting their political preferences. b. There are never any ‘none of the above’ options. How could those who care but feel impotent express their despair, and their frustrated desire for a better process? c. Our lousy current voting processes would anyway ignore most of their votes. How could those who care but feel impotent make their votes count? Ideally, of course, all citizens in a liberal democracy would be able to express their political preferences through ‘fit for purpose’ democratic processes. However, if the de-facto democratic processes are not ‘fit for purpose’, and those in power have a venal vested interest in maintaining the consequential democratic deficit, citizens have to seek first to change those ‘not fit for purpose’ democratic processes by whatever means (including high-profile ‘focussed outrage’). Where would South Africa be now if Nelson Mandela had played by the rules of apartheid? Where would India be now if Mahatma Ghandi had played by the rules of the British Empire? Where would women’s rights be now if the suffragettes had played by the rules of their menfolk? Where will the UK be in 50 years’ time if the constitutional reform movement urges us to play by the current not ‘fit for purpose’ democratic processes? Those who care but feel impotent despair when they note that nine of the eleven members of the PCRC (Political & Constitutional Reform Committee of the Westminster Parliament) are members of the two dominant ‘covert coalition’ Parties; the very Parties which benefit from the current democratic deficit. They wonder ‘why would turkeys vote for Christmas?’. Unfortunately, the constitutional reform movement currently puts forward two conflicting messages to potential electors: 1. The constitutional reform movement (rightly) informs us that the vast majority of us will/would be wasting our time and dissipating our democratic energy by registering and voting (because the lousy current voting processes will ignore most of our votes). 2. The constitutional reform movement (wrongly) urges us to register and vote (thereby wasting our time, dissipating our democratic energy, and reinforcing the venal self-serving complacency of those who oppose constitutional reform). Citizens are not fools. They will not buy the above muddled pair of conflicting messages for long. Brand was/is right in his analysis and insights. However, he failed to provide a constructive alternative. Apathy is not a constructive alternative. Not-voting is not a constructive alternative. Taking over St Paul's cathedral is not a constructive alternative. Citizens need to see a positive and constructive campaign for constitutional reform. The purpose of this campaign is: 1. To act as a ‘call to arms’ and a ‘civil disobedience challenge’ for the 'focussed outrage' with which to confront those benefiting from the lousy current voting processes (i.e. the current Conservative and Labour Parties), who would otherwise of course simply wring their hands, obfuscate and drag their feet (as they always have done). 2. To convince those in power that resistance to constitutional reform is untenable, and that they had a venal vested interest in ‘embracing’ the campaign for constitutional reform (however reluctantly) before ‘events’ overtook them. Those who wish to explore the wider context for a campaign for constitutional reform in the UK can find more detail in two working papers: 1. The working paper 'A Campaign for Constitutional Reform in the UK' provides a blueprint for such a campaign. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B695R-_ui4mWMFNOV2tZeEwwTms/view?usp=sharing 2. The working paper 'Optimising Democratic Governance' provides an in-depth exposition of the principles underlying that campaign. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B695R-_ui4mWZTFLMmFMaUREUms/view?usp=sharing

As someone who worked in the building industry for over twenty years and watched the BBC 2 documentary entitled Inside the commons. In my personal opinion The palace of Westminster would need to be closed in the near future to be refurbished as a grade 1 listed building that was built in the 1840s. This type of refurbishment would come under heritage restrictions and cost the tax payer up to 3 Billion pounds. With services like the NHS and local government in this county coming under Budgetary pressures it's called austerity. Can we really justify this immense expense of a future refurbishment of the palace of Westminster with out first giving the people of Great Britain a referendum if they agree the massive cost to the tax payer . Democracy may judge that the general public say they want MPs to do there business in another way in there constituency locality. With out the filibustering of Prime ministers question times.

Over 80% of people in Britain now believe the gap between rich and poor is too big. The UK’s current tax system exacerbates this inequality. These are two of the findings in a report about the tax system in the UK by The Equality Trust entitled ‘Unfair and Unclear’ http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/sites/default/files/attachments/resources/Unfair%20and%20Unclear_0.pdf The report concludes ‘The gap between perceptions, preferences and reality when it comes to the UK’s current tax system should be of deep concern to politicians. Building a system that is fit for a fair society must now be a priority.’ Major tax reform to tackle inequality does not seem to be in any party manifestos for the election in May 2015. (Just minor window dressing!) Do you want a tax system in Britain which favours the rich or do you want a tax system which delivers fairness and opportunity for all? The poorest 10% in our society pay a much higher proportion of their income overall in tax (because of taxes like VAT and Council Tax). This is not generally realised because the tax system is so complicated. Is it not time to rebalance this? Austerity has been borne by the poor, while the rich have prospered. Is this not an outrage which should be redressed? We are told time and time again we cannot afford basic living standards for the poor, and yet we can afford massive remuneration for the rich. The ability for everyone to own a home, once a flagship Tory policy, has become an impossible dream as house prices have been forced up because of irresponsible lending, second homes, ‘buy-to-let’ and building luxury accommodation for the super rich to have as an investment, often lying empty. The system is broken and major action is necessary. I, as a concerned voter who does not see anyone to vote for, wish to see specific measures like these being adopted: 1 A ‘Making Tax Fair’ Bill to be drawn up to change the tax distribution in line with the Equality Trust’s broad recommendation: o From poorest 43%; mid 36%; richest 36% (of income) o To poorest 15%; mid 22%; richest 39% (of income) as a contribution to all taxes (inc VAT, Council Tax, Fuel Tax, etc as well as Income Tax – see report for list of all taxes) 2 A wealth tax on the richest 1%, to help redistribute the vast wealth amassed over the last few decades, gained while the rest of us were in austerity, and while the system has been designed to make the rich richer. 3 Action from government to force corporations and rich individuals to pay the tax they owe. It has been government policy since the 1980s to allow large tax breaks because of the ‘trickle down’ effect. We have known for a long time this is a myth and in fact the flow goes up not down. But the tax breaks are still in place! (War On Want are leading a campaign on Tax Dodging specifically to address this – click here if you haven’t supported it already http://www.waronwant.org/news/latest-news/18270-tdbcampaign) 4 A tax on luxury property left empty. It is a scandal that parts of London are left uninhabited, property having been bought by members of the super-rich elite as an investment and then left vacant. Often local people are evicted to make way for these. 5 A tax on second homes left vacant more than half-time. It is a scandal that local people cannot buy homes because of inflated prices. 6 A review of ‘buy-to-let’ to make it prohibitive, so that the conditions are reversed that led to the prediction that by 2032 more people will have to rent (at inflated prices), than own their own homes Please lend your support by signing the online petition. If enough of us do, we can put pressure on the next Government to act responsibly to ‘rebuild a tax system fit for a fair society’, and significantly alter the nature of the debate during this election. When you sign the online petition, we will present it to all political parties and ask for a response to be published pre-election. I believe in ‘wealth-for-all capitalism’, where people in all walks of life can work hard to achieve individual rewards while contributing to the ‘common-wealth’. Together we create one nation which works for everyone. I despise the ‘greed-is-good capitalism’ experiment, begun in the 1980s. It has ended where many predicted it would – many greedy and selfish people have worked the system to their own advantage, with government acquiescence, at the expense of everyone else, having amassed vast personal fortunes, and having looted the infrastructure of the country. Two nations have been created – the very rich and the very poor. This will continue after the election unless the 99% of us, who do not benefit, put pressure on to stop it happening!’ Please add your voice to this online petition so that we can reverse this process and again create Britain as a fair society. PLEASE SHARE WITH AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN!