This Editorial at a Glance:

• Political Apathy ;

• Democracy wilting on the Vine?

•  Thieving Magpies – Rifkind and Straw;

• The Terminal (in)credibility of the Lancashire CFA;

• Who would waste a vote on any of them?

Dear Reader,

the Editor of the Bugler cannot recall in the many decades of his interest in politics that there has ever been such weary apathy in the Electorate of the UK as the nation drifts aimlessly and disinterestedly towards this next General Election in May.

In fact the word apathy hardly does justice to the Electorate's palpable sneering and jaundiced attitude to politics and politicians of all shades. It seems that even the 'wanabee' politicians are too embarrassed to announce their candidacy when  perhaps of more concern ought to be that the UK's democracy is clearly in terminal decline.

Is this what encourages the thugs of this world like Putin to flex his winged muscles off Beachy Head?

Perhaps democracy has served its purpose for the 20^th century but in case there are those in the bureaucracy who clearly have not noticed it, the remainder of us are well into the 21^st Century, and a new model of democracy which actually works and is accountable to the People needs to be created…

Later the academics of history will no doubt attribute all this collective electoral indifference to the natural decline of an empire but that hardly seems to fit the current symptoms, or malaise …

Just when those worthy few in Parliament who do their duty to the best of their ability are breathing a slight sigh of relief that the electorate just might be thinking that the self-disciplining of MPs is working in Parliament along comes the next two gravy trains driven by Rifkind and Straw, or should that be, Lord Man of Straw?

A pair of perpetually self-serving political rogues with allegiance to their one-man one- party states(themselves) who at a master stroke, where self-evidently their greed exceeded what laughingly passes for their brains, have once more confirmed in the Electorates’ mind that there are more bad apples than barrels. Just two more boars(bores?) wallowing in their trough of luxury.

Their sheer audacity was breath taking. On the one hand one informs us he does not get paid and that all his MP’s salary goes to the ‘Rifkind Charity’, which apparently begins and remains at home, whilst the other informs us he is off to the Lords. Says who?

Pray do tell us who says so, or has promised this elevation in ermine, because we will be footing the daily bill this gravy train driver signs in for, when or if he gets there.

Even actual comedians, as opposed to parliamentary clowns, refuse to tell political jokes anymore because they want their audience to laugh, not wince, howl, groan, or throw things…

The signs of the end of a Parliament are all around though the excuse is that this austerity is all attributable to the financial heamorrhage that the UK is suffering where it seems that the treatment is more terminal than the disease. This austerity  is of course for the vast majority who keep their savings here and pay taxes on it…for a second or third time…

Meanwhile the pot holes spread and get deeper; the poor get even poorer-which this coalition celebrates; more innocents fall through the social safety nets, and the old get to be more inconvenient, though it seems in the inhuman balance sheet that at last they might be useful in keeping the NHS at work.

This is another Duncan-Smith eclectic of economics which as ever translates into paying the needy even less, and the rich even more, whilst of course the wealth gap increases and public resentment bubbles up through the cracks in the gold plated cobblestone driveways of their mansions.

Locally the time is long overdue to advance into this New Year and follow up those issues which continue to erode what remains of the credibility of the Lancashire Combined Fire Authority, its local politicians, and local politics in general as the Lancashire electorate face a simple first choice in the looming General Election. Namely  whether to vote or not. 

A decision which strikes terror in the hearts all politicians, or instead on the day, to go for a pie and mushy peas, which by comparison in the sense of well-being, is hardly a contest.

With the advent of the General Election the Lancashire Labour Group have now been in charge of the LCC and the Combined Fire Authority for 2 years. Long enough to take action against the corruption which continues to bedevil the LFRS and because there can be no excuse for their failure to do so the Labour Party’s political credibility in Lancashire is, in this respect seriously damaged, if it was not damaged enough already.

The mantra of the Labour Group is to chant that it is the defender of front line services and what is more so that a Fire and Rescue Service? Yet it palpably tolerates corruption, racism, tokenism, and criminality in those it allows to ‘manage’ the Lancashire FRS.

The Bugler asks the simple question how can any black gay lesbian, driven by a natural vocation to care and serve, and with a decent healthy career ambition already established within the LFRS succeed in their God given ambitions against such rampant discrimination where only White Anglo Saxons Protestants(WASPS) of a particular shade of racism and colour seem to be recruited and advanced ?

What hope or encouragement can there be for others who are yet to be recruited if they see such an unmistakably bigoted and discriminatory local authority organisation?

Will those 'ethnics' in service simply be driven out, withered on the vine of promotion, or will aspiring applicants and their applications be ‘lost’ in the forest of applications under this bigoted glass ceiling? A ceiling controlled by the likes of Hamilton a proud racist and thug who controlled the recruitment until he was suspended lately for thuggery and racism? Now there is a surprise…

But the LFRS is not an organisation which has glass ceilings per se it simply has one ‘WASP’ revolving door coupled with racial and gender ‘tokenism’ with not the slightest desire to allow the law or morality to intrude into such matters or trouble its corrupt corporate governance by such trivia as public conscience.

Who would want to waste their young lives attempting to serve in such a prejudiced and partial organisation whose raison d'etra is built on bad faith?

Of course the LFRS is not alone in the UK Fire Service in such matters where such ‘subtlety’ is practiced on a daily basis particularly in pivotal arenas such as promotion where being a member of the ‘family’ adds secret points to the advancement trail but where the LFRS is unique is because it does not hesitate to display its venality and barefaced discrimination, in fact it triumphs in it.

The Labour Party, including the Lancashire ‘edition’ trumpets its egalitarianism; its liberty of views and genders; and its freedom of ethnicity for all to succeed when under its current jurisdiction in Lancashire it permits none of those things in the LFRS?

And lest the Conservatives sit back in gloating self-satisfaction that they are pure and wholesome, let us not forget it is they who permit and tolerate a self-admitted fraudster CC David O’Toole to be their corrupt ‘leader’ on the Combined Fire Authority and in complicity with a LibDem-Labour pact which permits O’Toole to sit on their joint Scrutiny Committee no less where he pontificates on how morally the LCC employees and Councillors should conduct themselves. Is that not the personification of hypocrisy?

And struggle though they might, with all the slippery means at their disposal in deterring, obstructing, and distracting Public probing and accountability of O’Toole’s  activities the inescapable facts still remains, which his personal expenses records confirm, that CC O’Toole has without question, in a taped self-admission interview which Sergeant Pearson of the Lancashire Constabulary conveniently ‘lost’, been fraudulently fiddling his expenses for the last 13 years with all Party collective knowledge and now with his Conservative Party’s official approval.

Is this a Party that deserves the electorate’s confidence and votes?

The questions are simple enough?

Why has the current Chair of the CFA Labour's CC De Molfetta; the  Clerk to the CFA Mr Winterbottom, a deputy Lord Lieutenant sworn to uphold the law ; and the current  CFO Kenny all failed to release CC O’Toole and the former CFO Hollands’ expenses to the Public? What is there to hide? More corruption? More theft from the public treasury?

Why has the LCC  Leader Mrs.J.Mein and the Labour Group , the political boss of Labour's CC De Molfetta the Chair of the CFA failed to tackle corruption under their very noses?

They are certainly aware and cannot deny knowledge of it because, repeatedly, the Bugler  has informed them so and will continue to do so until they take action.

Is this a Party that deserves the electorate’s confidence and votes?

What of the role and actions of the LibDem Group at County Hall under CC Winlow who also has knowledge of these repugnant activities? What indeed?

Does anyone know the public position of his group on these matters? Have they ever responded with a positional statement or proposed action, but they all take the expenses?

Is this a Party that deserves the electorate’s confidence and votes either?

One is bound to conclude the Labour Leader CC Mrs Jennifer Mein and her CFA nominee CC F De Molfetta; the Conservative Leader CC Driver and his nominee the fraudster CC O’Toole; and the LibDem Leader CC Winlow all condone and thus tacitly approve the corruption which visibly continues to seep out of the administration of the LFRS at all levels of management.

Must the Electorate of Lancashire conclude that this warped line of thinking will be the harbinger of the ‘management’ of front line services in Lancashire post General Election by all these Parties?  

Are any of them they worthy of a vote?

The Bugler will continue to investigate and publish the O’Toole Affair; the Hamilton Affair; the corrupt practices of Warren and Lister et all as they continue to ignore pension law and fraudulently deny Lancashire disabled Fire Service Veterans, their Widows, and families their justly earned pensions?

Set against the choice between good or ill which Party or candidate can the Electorate of Lancashire in all conscience choose to vote for?

The Bugler has, in quiet satisfaction, celebrated its first anniversary. In that time it has received regular visits from Readers in 89 countries which includes every part of the developed and developing world including from totalitarian regimes whom it seems the UK Government continue to lecture on the pure ‘values’ and ‘practices’ of democracy.

One wonders what they might think about the ‘practice’ of democracy in Lancashire which is more akin to the totalitarianism which the Editor has seen first hand in the Soviet Union?

The messages that the Bugler continues to send out is that there is no place in any organisation, of which the LFRS is the very antithesis of democracy and a living example of the corporate corruption of racism and discrimination at work, or for those who hold and practice such views.

Lancastrians are a decent hard working race of people who do not deserve the political parties, nor the corrupt politicians, who govern them?

Lancashire has a struggling Tourist industry which has much warmth, hospitality, and beauty of the land, sea, and sky to offer the stranger but it finds itself swimming against this tide of puerile political corruption which is negating all its efforts.

Do these politicians ever pause to wonder why the Electorate regard them all with such disfavour and unbridled contempt? Shortly they will know why…

As the Bugler has written before Fire Service Veterans UK wide and their families have voting clout.. please use it… but thoughtfully and tactically.

Perhaps it is time for a change? Time to give the Independents and the 'non aligned' Parties a chance. They could not be much worse…

Perhaps voting tactically  might make a difference?