Watford by-election candidates to take part in hustings (From Watford Observer)
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Lib Dems, Green Party and UKIP agree to participate
1:40pm Tuesday 30th October 2012 in News
Three of the five political parties standing in the central Watford by-election have committed to take part in a hustings debate before the vote.
The Liberal Democrats, Green Party and UK Independence Party have all agreed to attend the event on Monday, November 12, which is being held in the Centre Point Community Centre in Raphael Drive.
The event is being held by the Radlett Road Community Association and will give people a chance to put their questions to candidates standing the November 15 by-election.
The ballot was triggered when Liberal Democrat Watford borough councillor Chris Leslie resigned his seat to take a job in the Midlands.
As as well as the Liberal Democrats, Greens and UKIP, Labour and the Conservatives are also standing in the by-election.
Comments(32)
Andrew1963
says...
9:05pm Tue 30 Oct 12
Sara
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9:55pm Tue 30 Oct 12
Reg Edit
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8:25am Wed 31 Oct 12
Andrew1963 wrote:Andrew,
Who arranged the husting meeting? Is attendance by UKIP an indication that Reg thinks they can win?
Anyone can win, they just have to get more votes than anyone else.
If enough people vote UKIP, they will get a UKIP councillor.
The Conservatives are unlikely to win as they are probably not doing any work for it (a lost cause), Greens are a protest vote, a joke party and not a very funny one at that so hopefully no-one will vote for them in any great numbers, that leaves UKIP, Liberals and Labour as the serious choices.
Considering it would be unhealthy to have another Liberal councillor - they are abusive enough already with our taxes with their huge majority, so it would make sense to reduce their majority and therefore not vote Liberal. It may also send a message to our dotty mayor about some of her unwelcome dotty schemes.
That leaves Labour and UKIP as the logical choices.
It may therefore be a straight choice between Labour and UKIP for anyone who doesn't want another Liberal.
Who knows what will happen? There are many people who have not forgotten the damage caused by Labour last time they were in power in Watford, and more recently in government. Labour were an irresponsible shambles in every sense of the word.
UKIP does therefore represent a sensible choice for the voters of central ward.
UKIP stands for people power, common sense, low taxes and value for money at local level. Labour (and the Liberals) are a tax and spend party.
Who would you rather have on the council?
Sanity 750
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9:15am Wed 31 Oct 12
For the record how many leaflets have UKIP distributed in the Ward over the last year? How many residents have UKIP spoken to? How many leaflets and doorstep canvassing will UKIP do during the election?
I can’t believe you are criticising other parties lack of effort when UKIP are destined to finish last, as they did a few months ago in this Ward. Results for May below;
Carole Ann Bamford The Conservative Party 186
Fred Grindrod The Labour Party 532
Rabi Martins Liberal Democrats 816
Su Murray Green Party 106
Renie Price UK Independence Party 76
Sanity 750
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9:28am Wed 31 Oct 12
You describe the Greens as a “joke party” but they polled significantly better than UKIP in May.
So does that make UKIP beyond a joke?
Reg Edit
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9:57am Wed 31 Oct 12
Sanity 750 wrote:Sanity,
Reg,
You describe the Greens as a “joke party” but they polled significantly better than UKIP in May.
So does that make UKIP beyond a joke?
No party is "destined to finish last", that's just a silly thing to say.
That is the same as Soppy Sal Brinton saying that only the Liberals could win in Watford at the general election and we all know what happened to that liar, don't we?
She was never elected, thank goodness!
The thing about elections is that results can and often do change from one year to another. You must have noticed, surely?
Where candidates come in this by-election is up to the good voters in Central ward and how they cast their votes, based on what they know of the candidates and parties.
When I described the green party as a joke I was of course speaking of their policies. Getting 106 votes does not change that - why should it?
I am satisfied that most people reading this article would have understood my comments and the point I was making.
By-elections are different to normal elections, people vote more tactically.
As explained in my previous post there are even more reasons for people to vote UKIP in this by-election.
Let's see what happens, shall we?
dontknowynot
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10:50am Wed 31 Oct 12
Labour 8
Green 3
Con 1
independent 1
UKIP 0
So locally UKIP appear the biggest "joke" followed by the conservatives (omitting the independent) and only then the Greens; who as the third largest party could hold the balance of power in 2014 if Labour do well in the Mayoral and locals of that year.
Reg Edit
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11:20am Wed 31 Oct 12
dontknowynot wrote:figures do not lie but they may be interpreted in many ways depending on what agenda is being pushed.
for the record LD cllrs 23 +dotty
Labour 8
Green 3
Con 1
independent 1
UKIP 0
So locally UKIP appear the biggest "joke" followed by the conservatives (omitting the independent) and only then the Greens; who as the third largest party could hold the balance of power in 2014 if Labour do well in the Mayoral and locals of that year.
Meriden voters at the last election put UKIP on over 12% of the vote. The Conservatives polled just behind UKIP.
The greens never even managed 5% in Meriden.
Would you therefore label the greens in Meriden a joke because of their poll results?
It's not their votes that make them a joke, it's what they stand for.
As I said, let's see how these polls turn out. I predict UKIP will surprise you.
dontknowynot
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11:29am Wed 31 Oct 12
Reg Edit
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11:35am Wed 31 Oct 12
dontknowynot wrote:Reading your previous post, I rather thought you "did".
I am not labeling anyone a "Joke" you are
Sanity 750
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12:00pm Wed 31 Oct 12
I think it’s wrong to attack the Green party in the way you have. By doing so all you are doing is laying open UKIP to ridicule. I respect anyone who puts themselves forward for public office (no matter which party they belong to). I find it harder to respect people who have cheap shots at other parties without standing themselves for what they believe in.
As all candidates are female, I guess you’re not standing? Unless I have attributed the wrong sex to you?
LSC
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12:53pm Wed 31 Oct 12
National politics don't really belong at council level, but many people will judge the candidates in that way.
The 3 main parties have managed to annoy just about everyone over the last 10 years or so, the Greens couldn't get things more wrong if they tried, and UKIP are known mainly for their main National policy, which isn't very relevant in Radlett Road.
I predict a low turn out unless one of them has a pretty strong personality.
Reg Edit
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1:15pm Wed 31 Oct 12
LSC wrote:LSC,
I'm glad this isn't my area because right now I have no idea who I would vote for.
National politics don't really belong at council level, but many people will judge the candidates in that way.
The 3 main parties have managed to annoy just about everyone over the last 10 years or so, the Greens couldn't get things more wrong if they tried, and UKIP are known mainly for their main National policy, which isn't very relevant in Radlett Road.
I predict a low turn out unless one of them has a pretty strong personality.
I tend to agree with you about parties.
UKIP have still not explained well enough that they not only care about who runs this country (the people of the UK) but also how the country is run.
I hope our candidate will be able to get the message across about UKIP being a party of low taxes and high aspirations, with a common-sense approach to whatever issues need to be dealt with. We all know what the Liberals would do if they ran the local council, because they are doing it.
There is room for improvement in the local council but there will be no improvement if all the people of central ward do is elect another Liberal councillor.
Reg Edit
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1:36pm Wed 31 Oct 12
Sanity 750 wrote:Sanity,
Reg,
I think it’s wrong to attack the Green party in the way you have. By doing so all you are doing is laying open UKIP to ridicule. I respect anyone who puts themselves forward for public office (no matter which party they belong to). I find it harder to respect people who have cheap shots at other parties without standing themselves for what they believe in.
As all candidates are female, I guess you’re not standing? Unless I have attributed the wrong sex to you?
Bad ideas need to be attacked. Being green is good. Bankrupting yourself to be green and chasing green dreams at the expense of everything else is not to be applauded.
I like green ideas, but I have the sanity to know that some green ideas do not stack up or are unaffordable.
The green party are blinkered to the reality that green policies have to be paid for. Green is not always good for you.
Windmills, a huge plank of green and Liberal policy do not stack up.
Why would you vote for a party that believes in building ever-more windmills when all the evidence points to their being a great idea that is too unreliable and expensive?
Personally I cannot afford to be as green as the green party would like to force me to be, and I don't think this country can either.
It has not escaped my attention that it is green policies that have seen my fuel bills rise by so much, subsidising green energy.
It is green policies that make UK petrol one of the highest taxed in the world.
Green policies and parties like to take my money and force me out of doing things like heating my house or running my car. I will never vote for such green fascism.
Unlike you, I do not respect people for simply putting themselves up for election.
Here is a short list of some people who have stood for election in the past. I doubt you respect them all.
Hitler. Gaddafi. Hussein. Blair. Brown. Clegg. Huhne. Heath. Kilroy-Silk. Claire Ward. Sal Brinton. David Icke.
Sara
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1:56pm Wed 31 Oct 12
Reg Edit
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2:38pm Wed 31 Oct 12
Sara wrote:Sara,
So it's official: UKIP - tilting at windmills.
very funny, I like your style.
I suppose you are right, I am tilting at these windmills on windfarms.
I think UKIP are against them too but I am speaking as a UKIP supporter, not a spokesman for the party.
The difference between Don Quixote and myself is that the book implies that there may be something wrong with his noble mind at the end of the story, whereas the body of popular opinion in this country is now becoming engaged with the idea that those who believe these windmills are a good idea are the ones who may not have all the sandwiches for their own picnic.
Considering how expensive they are to build and run (they do not pay for themselves), and therefore the large green subsidies from our hard-earned money that is taken to keep them in service, and the fact that the windmills require backup power stations running all the time in case the wind drops, never mind their blight on our green and pleasant land - May I ask if you are fully in favour of windfarms yourself?
IIt seems your party is fanatical about them, but what about you? You seem sensible, what's your true opinion?
Sanity 750
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3:08pm Wed 31 Oct 12
I’m not sure I follow many of your arguments you are putting forward. Windmills I imagine will not feature highly in a local by-election in the centre of Watford.
The Greens at least locally are relevant. The tilting at windmills you are guilty of is your belief we should leave the EU. That is an argument that was debated and won many years ago. I am personally fed up of listening to UKIP tilting at windmills.
Sara
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4:43pm Wed 31 Oct 12
I am however rather orries about being called 'sensible' by UKIP...
Reg Edit
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5:04pm Wed 31 Oct 12
What an odd post.
It is such a shame that you are now acting like a politician by avoiding answering the question on Windmills.
I can only suppose you would not be able to defend that loopy policy.
No, it's not a local council issue, but it does reflect the mindset of the parties who push this policy, yours included, or should that be deluded?
As for your comment that the leaving the EU argument is settled - Whoa! What planet are you on? You can't honestly believe that can you?
It shows really how deceitful and/or how out of touch your party is with the electorate.
"Totally in denial" is a phrase that I would use about that comment.
You must know that poll after poll will show that the majority of people in the UK would vote to leave the EU if given the choice. It's a hot topic of debate on political forums. You really must have heard about it, it's everywhere.
Settled? Debated and won years ago? You can't be genuine!
Deluded maybe, but not genuine.
And it's not just UKIP talking about leaving the EU. Both Labour and the Conservatives are now considering the EU membership question.
Out of interest, how are the greens relevant locally?
Whoever is first out of Labour or the Tories to offer an in/out EU referendum gets to lead the next government. It's as simple as that.
Sara
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5:10pm Wed 31 Oct 12
I also did not make any point or mention of the EU.
Reg Edit
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5:11pm Wed 31 Oct 12
In reply to you, I am also in favour of renewables where they make sense.
That's why I am not in favour of windfarms.
The previous post marked to Sara is really to Sanity.
LSC
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11:10pm Wed 31 Oct 12
Sara wrote:I don't know how much you know about basic physics. But let me assure you that EVERY action has an equal and opposite reaction.
I have answered the question: which bit of 'I am in favour of increasing the amount of energy that is generated from renewable sources - and that includes wind energy' did you not understand?
I also did not make any point or mention of the EU.
This is where the Greens are just so basically wrong on very basic levels.
There is NO SUCH THING as renewable energy.
Doesn't happen.
Cannot happen.
Will not happen.
Now, we might decide that the price we pay is worth it, but don't try to kid people it is free. It isn't.
Every Joule of energy we extract from the wind means a pollen particle travels a little bit less. A bird migrates a little slower or cannot make it as far.
Every river you dam, every tide you sap energy from, has repercussions to nature.
Every single Joule has a payback price of one Joule. But the Greens never seem to mention this.
It is not free; it is not renewable, and in most cases you have to rape the planet to make the technoligy work anyway; See: Solar panels or electric cars.
Stuff and Nonsense.
.
Sara
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11:41pm Wed 31 Oct 12
Of course you can't invent energy - it has to come from somewhere. But you can chose where you convert it from to get a usable form - usually electricity.
Reg Edit
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8:06am Thu 1 Nov 12
Sara wrote:But is it fair to force high additional costs onto people for the sake of using green energy?
I'm pretty good at physics - an A level and part of a degree.
Of course you can't invent energy - it has to come from somewhere. But you can chose where you convert it from to get a usable form - usually electricity.
Or to tax people so highly for using conventional energy?
I don't think so.
Green energy is a con, another excuse for ever-more taxes being taken from us. That's why governments like green issues so much, it gives them an excuse to take more taxes while telling you they are actually good for you. The Liberals and greens are right at the forefront of all this.
It is almost a religious zeal for them, green = right, everyone else = wrong. There is no discussion, no investigation, no logic, just religious zeal based on spurious science.
Try telling that to an OAP, or a family, or anyone really who cannot afford to heat their home because of these green taxes.
The greens are not relevant in Watford or anywhere else for that matter. Green ideas, recycling etc are good. The green party is not as they just cannot and will not see the whole picture.
The greens will make us all live green even if it kills or bankrupts us. Neither are attractive options and so they must be stopped, along with the Liberals who embrace such dangerous beliefs.
Reg Edit
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8:35am Thu 1 Nov 12
The Liberals want to impose a new tax (surprise surprise) on people who own homes valued over £1m. I think they reluctantly changed this to £2m because imposing it at £1m would hurt them in areas like Watford and the south-east.
So, the Liberals have thought up a new tax. They want more of our money.
Of course, a mansion tax like that would not affect most people would it, so who cares?
Well, there are two things to consider.
1. Is it fair to tax people based on the size of their assets, paid for with money that has already been taxed at source?
Owning a house worth £1m or £2m in the South-east does not make you rich, it just means you have a large house. So no, it is not fair at all.
2. Do you trust the Liberals or any government, once they have introduced such a tax, to leave it there? (Income tax was a temporary tax introduced during the first world war to help pay for the war. It's still with us almost 100 years later).
After all, we are all in it together, right? Right?
There's a recession on, the government wants more of your money, why don't they lower the threshold to say £750,000? After all, we are all in this together.
Better still, why not £500,000? There are a lot more houses of that price around, much more tax to be collected.
In time, why not remove the baseline altogether and tax every house? We are all in this together after all.
People have no control over house prices, but the Liberals don't care, they just want your money.
The fact that someone in Newcastle could live in a 15 bedroom mansion with grounds and not pay the mansion tax whilst someone living in a medium-size terrace in a nice part of London would pay it does not offend their sense of fairness.
Mansion tax, another thing the Liberals want to bring to the people of the UK.
Now if that is not a good reason to refrain from voting Liberal out of principle, I don't know what is.
At least dick Turpin had the decency to wear a mask.
LSC
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9:54am Thu 1 Nov 12
And a lower market value will mean less tax, therefore making the property more desireable and raising it's market value and therfore making it in the higher tax bracket and lowering the value...
And so on. It won't work.
Greens fall into two camps. The niaive and dim, and the ones telling porkies.
I don't want either in government at any level.
Reg Edit
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11:24am Thu 1 Nov 12
Whoever would have thought it?
I'm with you LSC, I don't want to see either of them in government at any level.
LSC
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1:00pm Thu 1 Nov 12
Sara wrote:Can you tell me, in simple terms, just how long it takes a wind turbine (which of course doesn't work all the time anyway) to 'pay back' environmentally what it costs to be there in the first place?
I'm pretty good at physics - an A level and part of a degree.
Of course you can't invent energy - it has to come from somewhere. But you can chose where you convert it from to get a usable form - usually electricity.
Let's see, we have lots of plastics made in factories that are renowned for producing toxins and pollution. There will be ceramics. Alluminiun; an alloy, so you'll need a factory for that using some sort of fuel to heat metals up, lots of copper windings, which have to be mined and processed, some concrete, various glues, a specialist crane to erect it, dig up the ground for wiring it into the national grid...
The list is a long one.
So I ask again. How long before all that is offset by the 'free' power it generates?
I think you'll discover the answer is about 15 years, which is a shame because the turbines last about 10 before they need replacement or a major overhaul of moving parts.
And I'm being generous on those figures, and haven't even mentioned maintianence and the computer system somewhere controlling it all.
Greens: Give us the REAL facts and we might take you seriously.
Reg Edit
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1:48pm Thu 1 Nov 12
thanks for adding the science to what many of us have known for a long time. Wind power is a con, a waste of time and money for electricity generation.
The Liberals (and greens) can't get enough of it though. Why is that, Sara?
Reg Edit
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1:01am Fri 2 Nov 12
Embarrassing for Lie-zzy to be caught before the election, but no surprise to those of us who have heard about the liberal lie machine and election dirty tricks.
Watford does not need tricksters and liars as councillors. Time to give this one a wide berth.
Sorry Dotty, you didn't get away with it this time.
By the way, was Dotty getting paid by us, i.e. meant to be at work, when she helped open/publicise Lie-zzy's cafe earlier? There's a WO article about it, earlier this year I think.
It's good to help your friends, I suppose, but not on our time and at our expense!
Naughty naughty Dotty, you should know and act better!
Sara
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12:11am Fri 16 Nov 12
The result was: LD Lizz Ayre 716, Lab 550, Con 151, Green 83, UKIP 59.
So what was the surprise?
Reg Edit says...
5:10pm Tue 30 Oct 12
If not, why are they not attending?