by Tom Rogers
I ended up sending 35 questions to local candidates. Here they are:
QUESTIONS TO CANDIDATES
1. Which of these five do you believe a Member of Parliament should put first: moral conscience, nation, country, constituency or party? You can only select one (there is no absolutely right or wrong answer).
2. Please explain your answer to 1.
3. Do you believe in God?
4. Do you support the British Monarchy?
5. Overall, do you accept that the state too big and too interfering in people’s private lives?
6. Should the D-Day veterans regret their actions?
7. Who matters most – engineers, medical doctors or entrepreneurs?
8. If you don’t live or work in the constituency, why are you standing here? If you do live or work in the constituency, why didn’t you stand before now?
9. In your view, what should be the Number One local priority for our new Member of Parliament?
10. What arrangements will you make for constituency surgeries? How often will surgeries be held in the constituency and where? Will you hold open surgeries?
11. Rail fares are now expensive. What do you propose should be done to improve the situation for passengers?
12. In my opinion, cycling infrastructure in the constituency is poor. I appreciate this is a local competency, but as the Member of Parliament, would you support improvements, and if so, what would you do to encourage action by the local authority?
13. In your assessment, how has Brexit affected the constituency and the region? Please include both positive and negative consequences/ramifications.
14. If a realistic proposal were put forward to reverse Brexit in some way, would you support or oppose it?
15. Please explain your answer to 14.
16. If I want to get high, why should the law stop me?
17. Does Britain still need a strategic nuclear deterrent?
18. In what ways do you think Britain has benefitted from the domestication of the European Convention on Human Rights into our laws in 1998?
19. Do you think 16-year-olds should have the vote?
20. Which should come first: that the police reflect the community they serve or are effective in impartially policing the community they serve?
21. Should schools base their curricula on the needs and requirements of employers?
22. In the long run, is it better for young people to pass or fail their school exams?
23. Do you think prisons should be abolished? If ‘Yes’, what would you replace them with?
24. Should the death penalty be permitted for murder?
25. Do you think it is better in general for NHS management to be lay or clinically qualified?
26. Do you support the local devolution proposals?
27. Irrespective of your answer to 26, if the proposed devolution scheme is approved, what plans do you have to contribute to the new arrangements as a Member of Parliament?
28. If you are elected to Parliament, will you vote in favour of continued British support for the Ukraine in its armed conflict with Russia?
29. If your answer to 28 is Yes, could you explain how intervention in this conflict is in the national interest.
30. Do you believe that the white British people have a right to their own country?
31. Do you support an end to mass immigration?
32. If your answer to 31 is No, could you explain how mass immigration benefits the country?
33. Did you support the lockdown and mandatory wearing of masks against Covid-19?
34. Were you vaccinated against Covid-19?
35. I usually spoil my ballot paper as it’s rare that any candidate is electorally suitable. What can you say to change my mind this time?
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I think I would read your last question and decide not to waste my time replying to you.
You have already shown your beliefs by your questions
That doesn’t make sense. Why would anyone be offended by the last question?
The purpose of the exercise was to gauge the intellectual depth of the candidates and test how they respond to difficult questions that put them in a corner. I’ve actually done this before – at the two previous elections, I sent local candidates a list of similar questions, then posted the replies to a different blog that no longer exists. Unfortunately, the main parties don’t reply – no doubt to avoid controversy, they are paranoid about the media, but a sign of the times.
You confused me with your bad English. I think it would be clearer if you had put it this way:
“I would not have wasted my time, as you have already shown your beliefs by your questions.”
To which my response would be that this still does not make sense, as the questions are not worded to imply any beliefs beyond the obvious premises that form the questions. For instance, I ask:
Q30. Do you believe that the white British people have a right to their own country?,
This does imply that I think there is such a thing as the ‘white British’, which others may believe is a category too mutable to be useful, but the question is not loaded or rhetorical, it does not imply a position one way or the other as to a possible answer. I might believe the answer is No.
Please let us know the.answers.
I’ve got you all on tenterhooks, I know. I have two replies so far. Will post them up after work.
I have so far received two replies. I’ll post one of those tomorrow. For now, I’ll give my own answers to these questions:
1. Nation.
2. Because I think that is the most urgent consideration.
3. Yes, but I am unsure if God is a metaphysical being or merely a surrogate concept for something that may be forever beyond human-directed sciences, because it cannot be rationally established or understood.
4. Yes.
5. Yes.
6. Yes.
7. Engineers.
8. Not applicable. I am not a candidate (and don’t want to be).
9. The local hospital.
10. Not applicable.
11. For a start, I would put the railways back into public trust and restore the old rail subsidy so as to lower fares.
12. Remove joint cycle-pedestrian lanes. Pursue a segregated cycling infrastructure, with a published cycle network. Establish a local cyclists’ forum for consultation between the council and cyclists and other interested parties.
13. Cannot answer as it is too early to say, but I would observe that the one problem is that the government’s response to Brexit was muddled and this resulted in economic harm and uncertainty, which in turn muddies any attempt to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages, and clouds any assessment of the drawbacks and benefits so far. Locally, harm has been done to the fishing industry. This could be seen as a negative consequence of Brexit, but if the government had handled our exit better, everything would have been fine.
14. No.
15. I strongly favour Brexit and would oppose tooth and nail any attempt to reverse it.
16. The law shouldn’t, but there is an argument that prohibition is a necessary evil. I am undecided on the issue. As matters stand, we seem to have a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ position. It may be better to leave it that way. Though it is muddled, it is pragmatic.
17. No. In my opinion, there is no further strategic need for nuclear weapons and NATO is redundant. I think the continued status of Britain as a nuclear military power is odd and is down to a belief amongst the political elite that we should have an interventionist foreign policy. I would adopt a position of strategic neutrality and review the UK military doctrine accordingly. In particular, defence should be just that: our armed forces exist to defend the Home Islands and overseas territories, not to bully and intervene in other countries’ affairs. I would withdraw from NATO and request the closure of all US bases and the withdrawal of American forces within two years. I would phase out our nuclear deterrent over 10 years but notify the United Nations and treaty bodies that we will ‘retain capability’, meaning that we will retain a capacity to re-commission a deterrent under changed circumstances. Consequently, I would also withdraw from any international treaty that forbids us to re-commission such weapons.
18. The main benefit is additional remedies for ordinary people. I believe the Human Rights Act 1998 should be repealed but we should try to remain within the ECHR as it is of benefit to have an external court available to reviews decisions of the domestic judiciary and the actions of public bodies.
19. No.
20. The police should be effective above all else, and I believe the only prerequisite for this is independence and impartiality.
21. No, but schools should have regard for the needs and requirements of employers.
22. Fail – find out early on who you are and what you are bad at.
23. Yes. I think long-term confinement in closed prisons is inhumane and in the distant future will be seen as analogous to chattel slavery. Obviously, it’s not quite the same thing because a prisoner is a convicted criminal (or a suspected criminal on remand), but even if somebody is a serial killer or some other reprehensible type, it’s still wrong. However, I think this is a ‘social evolution’ issue and falls outside politics, and clearly, even under ideal conditions, there are dangerous and violent people who would have to be confined somewhere. I would replace closed prisons with a mixture of solutions: correctional units, training colleges, secure psychiatric care, therapeutic prisons, democratic communities of offenders, and other things. This is in addition to measures aimed at stopping people becoming offenders in the first place.
24. Yes, but only under a reformed criminal justice system. I would abolish majority verdicts, for instance.
25. Lay. I think clinically-qualified managers could be less transparent.
26. No. I agree with devolution, as Whitehall is too powerful and the country has always been too centralised. But in my view the relevant powers and competencies should be devolved down to local government level. If local authorities then wish to form strategic partnerships, they can do that informally or fund their own measures. The old pre-1974 county borough system should also be restored and a review should be undertaken of the local government tax system.
27. Not applicable.
28. In an imaginary, fantasy world in which I were elected to Parliament, I would oppose any further involvement in Ukraine and call for a shift of Britain’s military doctrine entirely to neutrality and home defence.
29. Not applicable.
30. Yes.
31. Yes.
32. Not applicable.
33. No.
34. No.
35. Not applicable.
Answers from the Yorkshire Party candidate are below. For background, the Yorkshire Party (link: https://www.yorkshireparty.org/home/). The party is basically the Yorkshire equivalent of the SNP in the sense that they are social democratic and “progressive”, while calling for regional autonomy. The difference is that, unlike the SNP, the Yorkshire Party is not calling for full sovereign independence, just devolution in the form of a Yorkshire assembly or parliament.
I agree with the Yorkshire Party’s stand against “London-centric politics” – a good slogan – but I cannot vote for them for three reasons:
– first, they are clearly leftists and while I appreciate some of them may be well-meaning, their social democratic position is just code for abolishing white civilisation and implies giving up any sense of ‘Yorkshire identity’. Ironically, this would in the long run undermine any effort at political devolution to Yorkshire – their very objective – because our Yorkshire identity arises because we are white. In reality, they view Yorkshire in much the way Ted Heath did: an administrative unit of a techno-economic entity known as the UK (hence the amusing Private Eye sketch about him in which he was satirically depicted as the rather dull and technocratic managing director of Heathco);
– second, despite being a native of Yorkshire, I do not agree with the concept of ‘Yorkshire independence’ in any sense of that term, whether sovereigntist or not. I do often call for ‘independence for Yorkshire’, but only in good-natured humour, in the same vein as I used to joke around on here and elsewhere with the late David Davis that I am Minister for Yorkshire (and Minister for Women’s Affairs, etc.). I see the idea of a Parliament for Yorkshire as a bit of a joke.
Likewise I do not support any proposal for an English Parliament. I am proud to be English, but above all I am British and I do not want Britain to break up. I do support devolution in England, just not single devolution schemes, whether regionally or nationally. Instead, political powers should be devolved to local government alongside the adoption of the old county borough system, with a tripartite local government structure. I would apply a similar arrangement in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (I think it would be beneficial in all those divisions of the UK, especially in Northern Ireland). If county boroughs then wish to co-operate strategically with each other regionally or sub-regionally, that should be encouraged, and we could even see a Yorkshire Regional Assembly on that basis – but it should be a voluntary, informal arrangement, not an entirety new tier of government with impositions on the taxpayer;
– third, I believe that the call by the Yorkshire Party for a Parliament for Yorkshire does have sovereigntist ambitions behind it, the aim being to break up any sense of political unity in England and Britain and ready us for another supra-national body to take over (maybe the EU, maybe EEA membership or EFTA or something else). They’re plotting something and I don’t like it!
And if the owners of this site wish to re-publish this as a new post entitled, ‘Should Yorkshire Be Independent?’, be my guest. You now know what this son of Yorkshire thinks about it!
Anyway, here’s the answers from the Yorkshire Party:
1. Constituency
2. It is those people who put faith in me to represent them in Parliament.
3. I believe that there is likely to be and that people have differing views which make them consider different actions and movements in their lives.
4. Yes, because they provide an enormous boost to the economy and are a steadfast head of the country when needed.
5. There needs to be some rule of law otherwise anarchy would ensue. Some people accept that more influence is needed whereas others consider that there is too much. I accept that people have differing opinions but that once a law has been passed then that needs to be adhered to by all.
6. Firstly, I do not really understand the question. But D-Day was a massive turning point in the second world war in the overturning of the Nazi regime. Despite many soldiers, sailors and airmen losing their lives on that day and beyond they were following orders and carried them out to the best of their ability.
7. Medical doctors although they all provide vital services to the nation.
8. I do live and work in the constituency.
9. Healthcare. Although, deprivation, infrastructure and the creation of jobs along with the environment are also high on the list.
10. As and when required but they will be in the major towns throughout the constituency. Probably in public buildings such as libraries.
11. In [this constituency] – the fares need to be managed better but also the quality of the rolling stock and timeliness of trains needs to be looked at. Additionally the [name of local line] should be reopened in order to provide a more environmentally friendly journey from [local towns] and beyond.
12. As you say this is a local issue, but the local authority funding mechanism needs to be reviewed as all local authorities are struggling.
13. Brexit has affected the region through the loss of staff in the care and hospitality profession as well as more costly exports. It has forced the UK to open up other avenues for export sales.
14. If it was realistic I would support it.
15. If the realistic proposal meant more growth and better living conditions for this constituency then yes it would be acceptable.
16. You answered your own question. Because these are laws set by the Government which the whole of the population should abide by.
17. Yes.
18. There is a need for a Human Rights act and it is only proper that we should adopt and amend one already in existence
19. No.
20. The Police are effective in impartially policing the community they serve.
21. Schools – No, Universities or higher education yes. At School age students should be learning the subjects that they enjoy and targeting a career that they feel will suit their personality and skills.
22. Pass
23. No.
24. In my personal opinion – only in extremely heinous situations where all medical reasons for the crime has been committed and there is 100% irrefutable evidence to state that the accused was guilty – not just beyond reasonable doubt but beyond any opportunity for doubt.
25. A mix of both is essential so that all points of view can be taken on board
26. If by local you mean [region], then, given that the deal was all that was available from Westminster then yes. The fact that the deal from Westminster was like a scrap off their table then no. I am in favour of a One Yorkshire devolution with a Yorkshire Regional Parliament.
27. The arrangements are laid down in the devolution white paper which has already been through the House. However, I will be lobbying for greater autonomy and greater funding which will provide a more Fair Funding for [region]. In 2023 Public Spending in Yorkshire was 12% less than in Scotland or London. For Parity Yorkshire should have received an additional £14bn!
28. Yes.
29. It is helping to keep Russia at bay as they are continually sabre rattling towards the rest of Europe.
30. Yes, as do members of other groups within the UK who are British by birth or immigration.
31. I support an end to Mass Illegal Immigration. Many service industries would fall on their knees if immigration was to be cut off – such as the Care Sector and Hospitality.
32. I think I already did so above.
33. Yes
34. Yes.
35. Your vote counts and you have a democratic right to be able to change the way that the election will end up. I would urge everyone to vote which ever way they feel. YOUR VOTE COUNTS – USE IT TO SHOW THAT THE VIEWS OF [constituency] COUNT.
In all, three candidates have replied. I posted the other two replies here [scroll down to comments]:
https://libertarianism.uk/2024/06/29/someone-is-very-worried-about-reform/