NOTICE OF MEETINGS

MEET HUGH SALMON

Saturday 1 May (6-8pm)

Chatham Hall, Northcote Road SW11 6SR

and/or

Tuesday 4 May (8-10pm)

The Alma Function Room, Alma Rd SW18 1TF

Having attended public meetings where the major parties have supplied their candidates with booklets containing the answers to any questions they may be asked, I pledge to the people of Battersea that ALL your questions will be answered openly and honestly and in YOUR own best interests (with no Party Line).

DON'T FLOAT - VOTE!

A much better shot of the Float (i.e. without me in it!).

IMPORTANT MESSAGE

To all 'Battersea Constituency' residents:

The reason my address is not in the ballot paper you may have been sent is that I have moved house within the constituency.

When I signed the forms I needed to submit to stand as your Independent cross-bench MP, I was at my old address in Bennerley Road, where I had lived since 1991.In between my doing this and now, Sunday 26 April, I have moved to Mysore Road on Clapham Northside (still within the constituency).

Thanks to BT, who have still not connected my phone, I have been unable to get broadband other than on my Blackberry. Yes, I could have gone to an internet cafe but this has been a punishing schedule!

It has also meant that I have been unable to update this blog. I am very sorry about this.

The good news is that from now until the Election, I will be out and about on the milk float I have rented (DON'T FLOAT - VOTE!).

Just off to St John's Road now. Yesterday, I was on the Northcote Road.

If you see me, please do come up and say hello. I am keen to meet you…..

Anti-slavery

I've been asked if I am against modern-day slavery and trafficking, to which the answer is YES.

Heathrow over the top

I have been asked if I am in favour of the building of a third runway and sixth terminal at Heathrow Airport.

Here's my answer:

"No, I am NOT in favour of Heathrow expansion. We live on an island which makes it absolutely ridiculous for any planes to fly over our capital City at all, let alone more of them."

Strident about Trident

A constituent has asked me:

"I am writing to you, in your capacity as a prospective parliamentary candidate, to ascertain your views on nuclear weapons.
I am particularly concerned about the cost of Trident and its replacement at a time of national and global financial crisis. Many cutbacks are being proposed across the public sector, yet the replacement of Trident is expected to cost in excess of £76bn. In a situation where Britain's security needs are very different from those of past decades, with no state threatening the UK, the onus is on those who prioritise money for nuclear weapons above other commitments to make the case for such huge levels of spending. Spending money on nuclear weapons means we cannot use it for other more socially useful spending, or on helping to solve the problems of poverty and climate change.
I am also concerned about Britain's security. I believe that retaining nuclear weapons will make us less safe. Many of the threats we face as a country, from terrorism to climate change cannot be tackled by nuclear weapons, but their retention has the potential to make us less safe. The more that countries such as Britain justify their possession of nuclear weapons on the grounds of an uncertain future, the more likely it is that non-nuclear states will seek to use the same rationale to justify developing their own weapons systems. For this reason, there is increasing international demand for the global abolition of nuclear weapons as the best way to secure our safety. In fact, a majority of UN member states, including China, India and Pakistan, already back a Nuclear Weapons Convention, which would ban these weapons in the way that chemical and biological weapons are outlawed.
I have included two specific questions below to which I would appreciate yes/no answers. Your answers are likely to affect how I vote in the forthcoming election.
My questions are:
If elected, would you vote for or against the replacement of Trident?
If elected, would you back UK support for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, banning all nuclear weapons internationally?

Here is my reply:

"I can confirm I am completely anti-Trident. My view is that, with modern media techniques and opportunities available, we should be more intelligent about how to win over the 'hearts and minds' of people we see as enemies. Blowing people up is not an option I am prepared to consider."

I then referred my fellow constituent to the Blog which I posted on Brand Republic on 18 March http://tinyurl.com/y4rca5s and have re-posted under 'Day Two' below...

Accountability in Politics

Here are some facts:

1. In 1992, I was appointed Managing Director of a subsidiary of Lintas in London, a company owned by Interpublic.
2. Soon afterwards, I realised the company was being fraudulently managed.
3. I reported this fraud, which I feared was criminal, to the holding company.
4. They fired me – not the protagonists of the fraud.
5. In order to cover up the fraud, they told lies about me.
6. After five long years of forced unemployment, Lintas Worldwide admitted that they had lied about me and that I had been ‘justified in bringing the proceedings’ (lawyer-speak for admitting the fraud).

My lawyer told me that, in his opinion, three Directors of Lintas should have faced criminal proceedings as ‘accessories to the crime’. When I asked him if we should report them to the police he looked at me, shook his head, and advised me not to be so naïve.

Result? Effectively a five-year degree course in the law of defamation. Alwaysuseful if you are in advertising. But I never worked for a major multi-national advertising agency again. Apparently I became ‘damaged goods’.

So, I am sorry, although I received ‘substantial compensation’, I am still really angry.

Today (6 April 2010), the General Election has been called. And the MPs expenses remain up-in-the-air. Unresolved.

Let me give you my perspective. Not facts. But where I stand, what I believe – as they say on TV, allegedly.

Here we go.

Can we really believe that, out of 646 MPs, not one of them was honest enough to blow the whistle?

Were the MPs who flipped their houses acting individually, purely by coincidence, knowing that they could weasle out of paying Capital Gains Tax in this way?

Or was this a scam of which they were commonly aware and pretty much all of them knew what they were up to?

And did none of this ever get near any of the people who are anywhere near the Party Leaders (all of whom have had to repay expenses themselves)?

And, if the Party Leaders were Chief Executives of companies where systematic fraud such as this was taking place, should not they too be accountable for the behaviour of their employees?
I believe they should.For the avoidance of doubt, I am talking about Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg here.

On their way up through their careers in politics, did it never reach the ears of any one of these three – or any of their closest colleagues - that these expenses scams were being perpetrated by any of the MPs in any of their three parties?

Either they knew what was going on and turned a blind eye.

Or they didn't know - in which case are they 'fit and proper' people to be leading their parties? Who is accountable for the financial behaviour of these flipping MPs?

I believe the answers to these questions are as clear as daylight.

And why it is time for people like me to stand up and be counted……

Bolingbroke(n) Hospital

So Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, says 'he will do all he can to help' convert the Old Bolingbroke Hospital into a desperately needed new Secondary School in Battersea.

He has written to Wandsworth Council saying he will be happy to 'work with you' to see whether a school on the Bolingbroke site 'offers a better solution' than the proposed ante-natal and GP centre.

There's a commitment then.