http://AndrewJamesCarter.com/

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If too many people vote Tory on Thursday, Friday 6th May 2010 will forever be known as the day when the entire LGBT community ran screaming from the British Isles.

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I told myself yesterday that I’d cut back on blogging for the time being. I’ve been writing a lot lately (mostly because I’m currently recuperating from an ankle injury and unable to walk) and I know I won’t be able to maintain this blog-rate in the weeks to come.

Slow it down, I told myself, only blog when things absolutely need to be said.

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Phillipa Stroud. For Christ's sake...

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Well thank you very-damn-much Phillipa Stroud.

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The End is Nigh
Philippa Stroud is making headlines today because of her Church – which is doing sterling work exorcising the demons which make people gay. Or lesbian. Or anything outside the standard heterosexual goalposts of right-wing Christianity.

Did I say “sterling”? I meant “ludicrous”.

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Careful! - She might be gay...

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Well, we all know Christians can be a bit nutty from time to time. Anyone remember the crusades? Spanish Inquisition? That whole paedophilia thing? What does it matter if there’s one more of them?

Except that she’s head of the Centre for Social Justice – the Tory think-tank that dreams-up all of David Cameron’s Social Affairs policies.

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The Big Heterosexual Society
That’s right – the woman behind the very core of the “Big Society” – the woman in charge of making the Conservative Party more equal, more fair, more balanced… is a raging, delusional, extremist homophobe.

Every policy out of the, ironically named, Centre for Social Justice in the last five years has been – at least in part – designed by someone who thinks the gay community should be corralled into some sort of massive prayer-pit and not allowed out until they can prove their new-found distaste for Cher.

Thankfully, this information has now been brought to light.

Or perhaps “stepped into the light” would be a better metaphor.

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Demongate
It’s early days in what the media will likely soon dub gaygate or, if we’re lucky, demongate.

At least, I’d like to think they will, but with the entirety of the sensationalist-machine arrayed in the tory camp – many doing their best to exorcise homosexuality already – so I doubt we’ll see much more of this. The Tory press will quash it and the Labour/LibDem press are not those traditionally known for ramping up stories beyond their worth.

Still, we can dream.

Or perhaps we shouldn’t – just in case Phillipa Stroud finds out and tries to see if our heads rotate 360-degrees.

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So who is Saint Stroud?
Aside from being God’s foremost weapon against the evil hoards of perfectly-normal-people, Stroud is the Tory candidate for Sutton and Cheam (in South London) – currently held by Liberal Democrat Paul Burstow who introduced the “Care of Older and Incapacitated People” Bill and voted against the Digital Economy Bill.

Burstow sounds like a nice guy. Plus he had a comfortable 7% margin of victory back in 2005…

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Paul Burstow. Striped-tie enthusiast. Apparently.

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…and he’s expected to lose.

That’s right, Ms Stroud is likely to win. She will go from loony think-tank leader – to loony parliament member. Dear God, don’t let her out of her tank!

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So – for God’s sake – if you live in Sutton and Cheam, it is imperative you vote LibDem on Thursday!

The Power of Christ Compels You! The Power of Christ Compels You!!!!

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(Yes, I was really hoping the current Sutton and Cheam MP would be called Chris so I could use the “Power of Chris” line. Unfortunately, it was not to be. It’s almost as if some kind of “higher-power” was out to stop me… Must be Thor.)

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The Lib-Dem immigration policy is worth a second look.

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What follows is an attempt to counter-balance the huge campaign of fear and misinformation currently being perpetrated by the right-wing media against Nick Clegg’s stance on Immigration.

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The Clegg

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Since the majority of hits to my blog arrive through twitter, you’re probably already aware of the shameless media bias surrounding the general election. You’ve probably read other articles lamenting the influence of people like Rupert Murdoch, over the hearts and minds of the UK’s voting public.

And, I’ll admit, even if I double my best-ever readership, only four-hundred people will ever read this article.

So why bother?

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A Call to Arms
It is, I admit, an attempt that seems doomed before I even begin. But, if you agree with what I write here; if you learn something you didn’t yet know; or if you simply want to help make some effort – however small – to turn the tide against the Mail, Sun, Times, Telegraph, News of the World, Sky and every other media outlet invested in seeing a conservative government – and trampling democracy into the dirt to see it happen… If you want to stop that, then get someone else to read this – retweet, share, email, whatever you can.

I just feel the need to do something. To set the record straight where it has been so cruelly and immorally skewed. Whether you already agree or – more importantly – if you disagree, I beg you to read on. You might just find yourself pleasantly surprised.

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Bigotry is Bigotry
First of all, I’d like to make a few things clear – things which, in the light of bigotgate – seem to have suddenly become acceptable and defensible. There are problems with our immigration system – no party denies that. However, to blame these problems on the immigrants themselves – as Gillian Duffy now famously did – is nothing short of intolerant, prejudicial bigotry.

The system is at fault, not those caught within it.

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Immigrants: Knowledge Check
Immigration is key to this country’s economy. Before the recession, unemployment was at its lowest in almost thirty years – despite the UK population being at its highest peak ever. This means that there were more people working than ever before – more money flowing through the economy – therefore more wealth for the UK.

That’s how the economy works. That is, in actual fact, what the economy is.

Were it not for the immigrant workforce, the economy would have been even weaker when the “credit crunch” hit.

Immigrants also form the spine of the NHS. A large number of doctors and nurses are migrants to the UK. Were they not here, the NHS would be facing a staffing crisis.

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Immigrants are also less likely to claim benefits than UK-born citizens.

They also pay a higher rate of tax.

Don’t accept people telling you that immigrants are lazy spongers who came here to cheat the system and get an easy life. Simply to be here, they have to work harder and pay more than those of us fortunate enough to have been born on the correct side of a line on a map.

If you blame immigrants for the problems of the immigration system, you are – whether you realise it or not – bigoted.

But given the prejudice and intolerance paraded by the right-wing press, it’s not hard to see why such views are widely considered acceptable – and why no politician (to my knowledge) has yet spoken out to defend Eastern Europeans after Gillian Duffy’s comments.

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The Core Policies
So, with no further delay, let us begin. I’ll come to the Lib Dem’s amnesty in a moment, but first let’s look at the other pledges from the Liberal Democrats:

• Create the first specific UK Border Police Force. Currently the National Border Force lacks the powers and measures to properly police illegal immigration. The Liberal Democrats would turn the NBF into a proper Border Police Force – with the powers and abilities of all other law-enforcement agencies.
  Neither Labour nor the Tories plan to do this.

• Encourage immigrants to Settle where they are Needed. By improving Labour’s “points system” to encourage immigrants to settle where they are needed – such communities will benefit from a larger workforce and a greater tax-base (immigrants to the UK pay a higher rate of tax than citizens). This would also prevent large numbers of immigrants settling in communities which are already suffering from high levels of unemployment.
  Again, neither Labour nor the Tories have a plan to deal with this issue.

• Work with the EU to require other EU states to accept more Asylum Seekers. This would reduce the asylum burden on the UK without restricting our humanitarian responsibility towards those fleeing from persecution. The Lib-Dems would also place the management of Asylum Seekers (currently managed by the Home Office) under the remit of an independent agency. This would remove the often counter-productive influence of political and international bias. The Lib-Dems are also determined to end the detention of children seeking asylum and intend to make it illegal to deport people to nations where they would face persecution, imprisonment, torture or execution.
  Yet again, these are issues not addressed by the other main parties.

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Amnesty National
And now for that Amnesty. First, allow me to point out that neither the Tories or Labour have outlined any plans for dealing with the hundred-of-thousands of illegal immigrants currently residing in the UK. Thousands are deported every year – but that’s barely 1%. The problem is that the government doesn’t know where they are and there is no way to find them. Many illegal immigrants are also used by criminal gangs and are unable to seek help or escape because the system would just deport them. The Liberal Democrats are the only party proposing any measure for dealing with this.

So let’s get down to the core of it. This is not a blanket amnesty. It is – as the LibDems say – an earned path to citizenship. In order to qualify for the amnesty, an illegal immigrant would need to:

• have lived in the UK for ten years or more
• have a clean criminal record
• be fluent in English
• be sentenced to community service to pay back to the community (a penance, if you wish)

Currently, these people are here, they are living in the UK, they are using public services – and they are not paying taxes. The amnesty would add an extra 600 000 people to the tax system of the UK – people who are here already and who cannot be found in order to be deported.

And let’s not forget that immigrants pay a higher rate of tax than those born in the UK.

The amnesty would also reduce crime – crippling the gangs who rely on such immigrants to survive and potentially locating a huge volume of people willing to testify against those gangs.

In one swift movement, this plan would hugely increase tax revenue and greatly reduce crime. And it has no drawbacks because the people who gain citizenship are here already.

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The Imaginary Drawback
“But there is a drawback,” I hear you cry “An amnesty will just encourage people to come here illegally!”

Do you really believe that? Do you really think that the thousands or millions of people, desperate to reach the UK, will suddenly be further encouraged by this? The promise of clean water, no war or genocide, good education, equal opportunities and the NHS isn’t already enough? You think there could be a significant volume of people just waiting for a one-off amnesty that wouldn’t apply to them anyway (since it would require people to be here before 2010)?

There are already a huge number of people who would love to live in the United Kingdom – it’s a measure of our prosperity – they’re already trying to get here by whatever means they can. I don’t think we could possibly encourage them more than they already are.

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Should anyone wish to read more on the Liberal Democrat vision of Britain, I direct you to their online manifesto. Or, alternatively, you can download the complete manifesto as a pdf.

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