Spotted on my last foray into London on the outside of the Art Nouveau Finsbury Town Hall. I guess it's rather aposite given the events of the last few days.
He was elected as a Liberal MP in 1892 and was the first Indian to sit in the House of Commons. He was a founding memeber of the Indian National Congress and a mentor to Gandhi. He was also paternal uncle of the rather un-Gandhiish J.R.D.Tata.
I wonder what he would amke of the mess that the Mother of Democracies is in at the moment?
I guess that I should come clean and say that I voted Lib Dem in Thursday's election. Yes there are issues that I differ from the manifesto on - I'm less than convinced of the need for big government from Brussels and I'm less than sure that an amnesty for illegal immigrants is the way to go (though I acknowledgement that that is at least an attempt to deal with the continued problems that we have with immigration). I believe that renewing Trident at the very least needs to be at the very least looked at - because it aint an independent deterrant and its not too effective against the enemies that we face. I believe in fairer taxes where those who can afford to pay more to the sociry off've which they make their money should do, I believe that education will shape the future of this country and that that is where we need to invest, I believe in maintaining public services as much as possbible in a harsh economic environment, I beleive in a low carbon economy. But most of all I beleieve in electoral reform. Because this simply isn't working. A party that has 10% of the popular vote should have 10% of the seats in the house. I'm sorry but it IS that simple. We need concensus politics not the monkey house at the zoo that we see week in and week out at PMQs. Yes that will mean seats for UKIP and the BNP but thats democarcy and UKIP and the BNP do reflect some peoples fears. And you cant defeat these dickheads unless you confront them and take them on face to face on open debate. We should be able to votefor what we want rather than a least worst option. We need a UNITED kingdom not a divided one. Back to the matter at hand - we had a hustings at work which I attended which I really enjoyed. The Tory candidate came across as supercilious and the Labour guy as defending the indefensible who the hell can a union guy be a Labour MP when Gordo is every bit as anti-union as the Tories? Tony Juniper, the Green Candidate couldnt make it which was a shame because I would have liked to have heard his ideas. Simon Sedgewick_jell turned up as a bit of a comedy turn but didnt impress...so Lib Lem it was. I had Friday off so that I could stay up to watch and made it til 6.30 when there were less than 100 seats left to declare and by which time it was pretty much decided that it was going to be a hung parliament.... Stick it out Nick a commitment to a commission dont mean dick...
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