Vidz at YouTube
• Criminal MPs Protest – 1, 2, 3, etc.
» LINKs to follow shortly in a comment below, once editing and uploading is complete


MASS PARLIAMENTARY FRAUD
"The system of MPs' expenses was today condemned as "deeply flawed" with blame heaped on both MPs and the Commons fees office as 390 politicians found to have been in breach of allowances rules were told to pay back more than £1m."
~ Polly Curtis and Hélène Mulholland
» from "MPs' expenses: system 'deeply flawed', says Sir Thomas Legg", guardian.co.uk, Thu 04 Feb 10 –  http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/feb/04/mps-expenses-deeply-flawed-legg

If any other organisation discovered hundreds of its members had been systematically defrauding it for decades, what do you think would happen? Mass arrests? Bulk prosecutions? Perhaps so, but not for 'the Mother of all Parliaments', oh no – a pitiful, preposterous, and paltry FOUR criminal prosecutions for false accounting are supposed satisfy the 'public' demand for justice:

• Eliot Morley – 57, MP for Scunthorpe: alleged to have dishonestly claimed a total of £30,428 more than he was entitled to in second home expenses on a house in Winterton, near Scunthorpe, between 2004 and 2007 - including 18 months after the mortgage on the property was paid off.

• David Chaytor – 60, MP of Bury North: charged with claiming almost £13,000 in rent in 2005 and 2006 on a London flat which he owned. He is also accused of claiming £5,425 in 2007 and 2008 to rent a property in Lancashire owned by his mother. He is also alleged to have used false invoices to claim £1,950 for IT services in 2006.

• Jim Devine – 56, MP for Livingstone: alleged to have claimed £3,240 for cleaning services and £5,505 for stationery using false invoices in 2008 and 2009.

• Paul White, Baron Hanningfield – 70, ex-Tory Spokesperson for Communities, Local Government and for Transport: faces six charges of false accounting, relating to claims for overnight allowances from the House of Lords between 2006 and 2009, when records allegedly show he was in fact driven to his home near Chelmsford, Essex.


MINIMAL PUBLIC PROTEST
Our protest was due to begin at 10:00, in time for the Parliamentarian criminals appearance in Court at 10:30. But after a bicycle circumnavigation reconnaissance at 09:50, I saw a mass of media folk moving away, having been told by the rozzers outside that the swindlers weren't due to appear until 14:00. So I made a DIY protest postponement sign – see 'B1. Justice & Protest Postponed – empty press & protest pens' above – and hung around to 10:25, by which time only FOUR protesters had showed up!

So myself and a comrade returned to my home, and tried all methods of emergency mobilisation available – email lists and contacts, Facebook messaging, text and voicemail messages. On returning at 13:40, we found ourselves among only SEVEN protesters, outnumbered by the media professionals in the press pen outside the Court by seven to one.


MEANWHILE, IN COURT
The swindler Labour MP scum told their solicitor Gerald Shamash to tell the magistrate that they didn't want to go into the dock, like 'ordinary' criminals have to do! Chief metropolitan district judge Timothy Workman was having none of it, so they were led in to the dock and locked inside, where the all chose to plead 'not guilty'. As with most serious criminal cases, this first appearance was, legally, merely a prelude to setting a date for a substantive court appearance in a Crown Court: in this case, all four Parliamentarian fraudsters are due at...

• Southwark Crown Court
• Date: Tuesday 30 March 2010
• Address: 1 English Grounds (off Battlebridge Lane), London SE1 2HU
» Location: Street View / Interactive Map –  http://tinyurl.com/SCC-SVmap


NOT WITH A BANG BUT A WHIMPER
The majority of the seven protesters outside Westminster Magistrates Court were mobilised by Election Meltdown, but four from an email list of 64 is only 6%. We were led to believe "Whitechapel Anarchist Group, Class War and some of the Dale Farm travellers support groups are already mobilising for this", and two of us were in a prior Class War meeting when those in attendance were apparently enthusiastic about pelting the Parliamentarian criminals with rotting food.

But NOBODY from any of these groups showed up in the afternoon.

So what went wrong? Were we mis-led? Did Class War have a subsequent change-of-mind? And whatever happen to all the 'public' outrage, let alone the justified class hatred of London anarchists and the left?

Please feel free to leave your answers, observations, and explanations as an 'addition' below this story.


WHATEVER NEXT?
The Great COP-15 Cop-Out in December 2009 showed how the Powers That Be cannot even be prevailed upon to meet their own woefully low expectations in co-operating to halt the Catastrophic Climate Chaos Crisis into which they are plunging humanity and our ecosphere. So it's time to begin making ourselves ungovernable by their Parliamentary representative democracy, by developing our own Participatory direct democracy – through the People's Assemblies called for by the emergent Climate Justice International. And in doing so, we can help ensure the corrupt 'political classes' are marginalised.

Over three Election Meltdown Mobilisation gatherings, our numbers, reach and plans have grown from strength to strength (notwithstanding the wee glitch reported above). From co-creating a May Day Carnival in Parliament Square, fed by four convergent Carnival Parades, to taking up the call from the Climate Justice International to convene People's Assemblies in the Square and elsewhere, these are exciting times for those who would actively create a popular, truly democratic, and ecologically harmonious future for human civilisation and our biosphere. We're an Open Network collective, open to individuals and groups who'd like to collaborate face-to-face and online, to build a better world for all life on Earth – so YOU are invited, to help broaden out these initiatives, add in your own to the mix, and spread the word before the UK general election: there IS a 'System Change not Climate Change' alternative to the mainstream party's planet-wrecking austerity measures – because We Weave Our Destiny With Our Own Hands!

• Election Meltdown Mobilisation gathering #4
• EMM#4.1 – Saturday 13 March 2010, 15:00-18:00
• EMM#4.2 – Sunday 14 March 2010, 15:00-19:00
• Downstairs at The Foundry, Old Street tube (exit 3), 80 Great Eastern Street, London, EC2A 3JL‎
» Location: Map / Street View –  http://tinyurl.com/Foundry-SVmap
» Phone Contact: 07 854 390 408
» Queries: email –  election.meltdown@gmail.com
» Election Meltdown Mobilisation #4: Facebook Event –  http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=335605841164 – click on 'Attending', then 'Invite people to come' and invite your friends to join us

“The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during election of members of parliament; as soon as the members are elected, the people is enslaved; it is nothing. In the brief moment of its freedom, the English people makes such a use of that freedom that it deserves to lose it.” ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau (French philosopher and writer whose novels inspired the leaders of the French Revolution, 1712-1778)

• May Day Carnival & People's Assembly
• Saturday 01 – Thursday 06 May 2010
• Facebook Events:
» 1. May Day Carnival & People's Assembly –  http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=335415173924 – click on 'Attending', then 'Invite people to come' and invite your friends to join us, and finally choose a Horsefolk-of-the-Apocalypse-led Carnival Parade, and do the same:
» 2a. Red Horse Carnival Parade –  http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=338167061775
» 2b. Silver Horse Carnival Parade –  http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=315494162167
» 2c. Green Horse Carnival Parade –  http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=363481372782
» 2d. Black Horse Carnival Parade –  http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=340247816939
» 'A Mayday Tatlin Tower Hometree in Parliament Square (Banshees Remix)' – 3D animated visualisation of a space hijacking icon for a directly democratic People's Assembly; video, 1:20 –  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5_qZvQm1-Y

“Real change comes about not because we vote for it, but because we fight for it, shout for it, work for it. Placing hopes and fears on who holds power, or who will gain power through voting, is wasting time which might be spent in creating alternatives, both for ourselves and for our communities.” ~ Chumbawamba, 1987

• Election Meltdown on t'InterWebs
» Election Meltdown website –  http://meltdown.uk.net/election/election.html
» Election Meltdown on Facebook –  http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=288264051071 – click on the [Join] button
» Election Meltdown – Activists Group –  http://groups.google.com/group/election-meltdown-activists-group – click on the 'Join this group' link in the LHS column
» Election Meltdown – Free Forums –  http://electionmeltdown.freeforums.org – click on the [Register] button


Up the Revolution,

Tim Dalinian Jones


Footnotes

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