Former UKIP-MEP's confession of expenses fraud an insult to Eastern region voters, says Green former Euro elections candidate [Press release]

Reacting to former UK Independence Party Eastern Region MEP Tom Wise's guilty plea today at his trial for false accounting and money laundering, Dr Rupert Read, Councillor for Norwich and former European election lead candidate, said:

"If only Tom Wise had had the basic decency to admit that he is an expenses fraudster a few months back, I surely would have been elected Green MEP for Eastern England, in June. For this admission would have destroyed the public's sense of UKIP as a Party that could potentially stand up against expenses fraud.

"As it is, his having held out for four years before admitting guilt, wasting huge amounts of public money on the legal process in the meantime, has meant that once again UKIP have two MEPs in Eastern England, managing to hold onto a second MEP by narrowly defeating me, by just one per cent, on June 4th.

"It is shameful that UKIP managed to get in on an 'expenses scandal' vote, under these circumstances.

"The Green Party will be back to defeat UKIP next time, now that it is becoming clearer by the day that it is simply a joke to think that you can vote for clean politics by voting for anyone other than the Green Party."

Rupert's Read archived - please goto www.rupertread.net henceforth.. Thank you!

This blog is ancient - ten years since we archived it. For all my content nowadays, please goto www.rupertread.net Or to www.climatemajorityproject.com Or to www.twitter.com/GreenRupertRead Thanks!

More on why 20's plenty -- without need for any further 'trials'...

There are a number of reasons for setting a default speed of 20mph throughout the 'unclassified' road network in residential parts of a city such as Norwich. Most important perhaps is that of driver recognition as to what the speed limit is. If you have 20 mph as the default then you not only establish this limit clearly, but you also adjust the driver's recognition as to what is the "normal" speed in such residential areas. The most important aspect is that drivers set 20 mph as the norm with those 30 mph areas or roads being seen as 50% faster, rather than seeing 30 mph as the norm with 20 mph as 33% slower. The psychological adjustment of normal speeds in residential areas is key to the success of reducing speeds and therefore danger to pedestrians and cyclists. Therefore any trial, pilot or whatever, that only implements 20 mph in a tiny proportion of the city is not modelling 20's Plenty in any realistic manner. When considering the val...

Stansted: a reflection

The key question, in relation to protsts like that at Stansted last week, is: which side are you on? Are you on the side of big corporations profiteering from completely unsustainable climate-destructive behaviour? Or are you on the side of people with no vested interests just making a non-violent stand, at considerable cost to their own time and money, for the sake of all our futures? It doesn't seem to me a hard judgement to make... Rupert Read Green Party Councillor, Norwich, and Lead Candidate for Eastern Region for the Greens in the 2009 Euro-elections. DID YOU KNOW: A vote of about 10% across Eastern Region on June 4 2009 would be enough to get me elected to the European Parliament... http://rupertsread.blogspot.com

Rupert's Read

Search This Blog