Saturday
(0)This is almost enough to make voting a worthwhile exercise again:
Tony Martin - the farmer who was jailed for killing a burglar - may stand as an MP.Mr Martin has been campaigning for a change in the law since being released from prison six months ago, where he after served three years of a five year sentence.
He told the Daily Mirror: "Everywhere I go people tell me how they are living in fear, but none of the political parties seem to be prepared to do anything about it."
And I am not sure if Mr Martin will be able to do anything about it either but he should stand anyway. The joyous spectacle of the bien-pensant convulsing in a fit of bug-eyed, brain-melting horror as Tony Martin steps up to take his seat in the House of Commons would make the whole exercise worth it. A thousand times worth it.
Go for it, Tony.
UPDATE: Having offered my instinctive support, it has just occured to me that Tony Martin may not actually be allowed to stand for Parliament due to his criminal record. Pity. I get the feeling he would romp to victory.
How strange! I would have though a criminal conviction was nothing less that 'on the job training' for being an MP... ah, but no... I see your point... for that it to count properly as 'work experience' for a prospective Member of Parliament, Tony Martin would have had to have been convicted of theft
Posted by Perry de Havilland at February 7, 2004 04:36 PM
Carr for PM??? Are you suggesting David is a power mad klepto?
Posted by Perry de Havilland at February 7, 2004 07:07 PM
I thought John Wilkes was elected as an MP despite his not only being convicted of a crime but while he was actually imprisoned for it at the time. Have the requirements for MPs changed since then, or have I gotten my history wrong?
Posted by Tim Starr at February 7, 2004 08:09 PM
Wasn't Bobby Sands a convicted terrorist when he became an MP?
Posted by Jon at February 7, 2004 09:40 PM
There are plenty of bien pensants right here, who consider Tony Martin to be somewhat infra dig... I just think that while he might not be ideal dinner party guest material, he was hard done by, deserves well of the republic through his efforts at vermin control, and is both more respectable & less scary than many Commons incumbents. Perhaps he could take his shotgun to Westminster.
Posted by Tony H at February 7, 2004 09:51 PM
From a comment on Peter Briffa's blog about Johnathan Aitken running again:
The BBC are wrong. People sentenced to over twelve months imprisonment are ineligible to stand for election while they are in custody (or on the run from custody). Once they've served their sentence they are free to stand.
(The exception is offences for electoral fraud, but Aitken wasn't guilty of these)
So nothing's stopping Tony Martin, rightly or wrongly he's done his time.
Posted by Mark Holland at February 7, 2004 09:51 PM
Mark beat me to it, but also: Carr for PM! I'd work on that campaign day and night.
Posted by Jackie D at February 8, 2004 01:11 AM
Yea! Carr for PM! Can I donate a campain contribution or would it be illegal coming from abroad?
Posted by Katherine at February 8, 2004 01:29 AM
Sorry Katherine, overseas campaign contributions are indeed illegal. That was one of the first steps our new masters took to lock out opposition.
Generally: Don't get your hopes up.
Since a bill announced for the new parliament is to disbar Lords who have been convicted of criminal offenses (specifically in order to remind people about Jeffrey Archer), I imagine they'll find a way to tack on a similar criterion for seats in the Commons. (Probably through a second-reading government amendment in the Lords.) Look out for preparatory mutterings from the direction of the bureaucrats who oversee our nominally sovereign democratic institutions, the Electoral Commission and the Commissioners for Standards in Public Life.
As for having "done his time", that quaint conception of justice has been going out of style for some time now. The prevailing and popular view is that you should be marked for life by anything on your file (conviction or not), rather as in China.
Posted by Guy Herbert at February 8, 2004 08:25 AM
I would like to see Martin run in Blair’s constituency.
Posted by David Farrer at February 8, 2004 01:40 PM
I would like to see Tony Martin run in Ealing North - the constituency currently represented by Stephen ("The people have spoken - the bastards") Pound.
Have I mentioned that he is my MP?
Posted by Simon Jester at February 9, 2004 01:30 PM
Unless they've done something else to electoral law while my back was turned, he can stand in as many constituencies as he can get deposits and nomination papers for. Can only take one seat tho'
Posted by Guy Herbert at February 9, 2004 03:25 PM
I'm an American who doesn't follow English politics particularly closely, but what I don't understand is why the Tories haven't seized the self-defense/home defense issue and made it a centerpiece of the next campaign. It sure seems like a common-sense conservative issue to me. Are Tories wimps on this issue, or what?
Posted by PapayaSF at February 10, 2004 01:31 AM
If the Tories backed Tony Martin to be their party leader, they would win the next election by a landslide.
Posted by Cobden Bright at February 10, 2004 01:04 PM
