Best day of the year

Democracy Day

'Today is the best day of the year for Newport' proclaimed Newport's mayor Allan Morris.

The two day  celebration of the Newport Chartist martyrs on November 4th 1839 is turning out to be a resounding success. Today the annual remembrance event will take place in St Woolos Cathedral cemetery at 4.30. Congratulations to Les James (pictured), Patrick Drewitt and new ginger group Accent for bringing together descendants of the Newport Chartists from across the world.

This is only the start. A petition was launched to call for November 4th to be declared a Democracy Day Bank Holiday. We are due an extra one. Many of the major events is the early struggle for justice for working people took place in the Autumn. In true Chartist tradition a petition to Parliament has been launched. We are working on having it available to sign on-line. This is the wording.

To the House of Commons.   
The Petition of concerned citizens, followers of the Chartist pioneers of democracy,
Declares that there is a popular demand for an Autumn bank holiday, that there is a need to celebrate, protect and extend the democratic rights won by past generations and that November 4th is an appropriate date to commemorate those who sowed the seeds of democracy in Wales and England.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons should establish a Democracy Day bank holiday in England and Wales on the Monday nearest to 4th November.
And the Petitioners remain. etc

Oinking Senators
Had the joy of meeting a truly heroic figure in Washington last week. Senator Tom Coburn recovered from what was diagnosed as 'terminal cancer' as a Congressman to blaze back as a Senator for a self imposed limit of two terms only.

He believes that 100% transparency will clean up the lobbying stables. Regulation would be cumbersome and they always find the loopholes. He cites Virginian as an exemplar of transparency that is working g. Would our self-righteous lobbying trade accept full transparency of all their donations, gifts in kind and meetings. It could be a cheap practical path to reform.

Senator Coburn told us that he was often the 'butt' of the Senate because he does not play along with self-serving pork barrel culture of mutual help for politicians. We heard of one Congressman who was a high school teacher and wrestling instructor who amassed a multimillion fortune in office.

Coburn's main reputation is based on his opposition to the parliamentary anti-democratic practice of 'ear-tagging' pork barrel items onto bills. It's impossible to do here because such bills would fall as hybrid. In the USA you can tag on to health bill irrelevant money for a bridge to nowhere in Alaska, or a sculpture park in Idaho. Here are some of his recent comments that illustrates the independence of this fine politician.

Last week the Washington Post said under the title Oinking Senators:

We applaud Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, for fighting the good fight against porkbarrel spending. While he lost a battle this week on a vote that would have prioritised children's health care above lawmakers' superfluous pet projects, we laud his promise to continue fighting the war against needless earmarks.

On Tuesday, Mr. Coburn offered an amendment that would have stalled funding for pork projects until Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt certified that every child in this country had health insurance. Mr. Coburn's colleagues smacked down his amendment by a 68-26 vote, a tally that included 23 members of his own party defecting from his movement toward fiscal restraint.

After rejecting Mr. Coburn's measure, senators then proceeded to attach $400 million in earmarks, many unrelated, to an appropriations bill funding the Departments of Labor, Education and Health and Human Services. Such unrelated pork projects and their hefty price tags ranged from $1 million for a celebration at Vermont's Lake Champlain to $500,000 for field trips to the Chesapeake Bay. There was even a curious provision for $500,000 toward a "virtual herbarium" in New York and $50,000 for an ice center in Utah. It is unconscionable that senators were willing to place these projects above health-care reform.

Comments

[London Lobbyist]

You ask "Would our self-righteous lobbying trade accept full transparency of all their donations, gifts in kind and meetings?" Donations and gifts to individual politicians are, unless de minimis, banned by the APPC Code. Donations to political parties are covered by the PPERA as you know. So what are you referring to? As for meetings, I'm unclear what the reform is that you are seeking, but surely it should be for the politician to declare who he or she has met - and I would support that - rather than for the private company or individual?

If you are to make these kind of recommendations, please make them less wooly and wishy washy.

[Paul Flynn]

'Wishy washy'? We have not started yet. I can promise you that our propoasl will be very precise but they will not be completed for many months yet. More on my posting today.