Ironically, apparently and possibly allegedly!

So word has come down from on high that, after checking the nominations and withdrawals, there are now 37 candidates for the 7 available vacancies on the NEC. No mention of who these candidates are of course, that is still privileged information. Ironically the fact that there are 37 Candidates is only available to you if you subscribe to the Members’ Forum Daily E-mail; there is no mention of it on the main party website. I say “ironically” because NEC Candidates have been banned from posting on the Members’ Forum. Apparently at the instruction of the NEC at their meting in June. Again I say “apparently” because mere members like us are not privy to the decisions of the NEC until a sanitized version of the minutes is published, on Members’ Forum. The secrecy and high handed attitude of the NEC is one of the things that we need to change.

One thing that does give me some hope for the future of UKIP is the growing acceptance that local council elections are an important route to getting our country back. I have been singing this song for many years but it is only recently that other members of UKIP have been picking up the beat. One of my aims, should I be successful in being elected to the NEC, is to get campaigning and elections up the agenda.

Question Time tonight is coming from Hartlepool and I will be in the audience. Whether I am picked for a question I don’t know and won’t find out until the program is ready to start. Any of you who have been to Question Time will know it’s not actually a live show; it’s recorded an hour in advance. I spent a few minutes on the phone to Nigel yesterday giving him a run down on local issues and my expectations of the audience. Not difficult to predict a left leaning audience, heavily biased towards the public sector. The North East now has over 60% public sector employment and in Hartlepool I think the figure is closer to 70%. There simply is NO private sector left up here. The biggest “private sector” employer was a Call Centre which closed a few weeks ago with the loss of 700 jobs. After that we have firms who are technically private sector, such as a couple of construction firms but all their work at the moment is building or refurbishing social rented housing, part of the pseudo private sector that has been created by selling off council owned houses to housing associations. More manipulation of the figures! Perhaps this is where I should say "allegedly"

Remember you can ask me anything about my aims and objectives for the NEC at my www.vote-steve.info website. I’m not allowed to carry out ant overt campaigning but can respond to questions. Also I can read postings on the Members’ Forum I just can’t respond to them, not even in Private Messages, heaven forbid that communication might occur in this party, the world would probably end.