ANDY BURNHAM MP, NOT FIT TO LEAD THE LABOUR PARTY

Only a couple of days ago i wrote what is below for the Friends of the Earth campaign to stop water fluoridation. Amongst other things i warned of the danger of the return of Andy Burnham MP. Now we learn that he has thrown his hat into the ring for the Labour Leadership contest.

THE WAR ON FLUORIDE MAY BE SEEM TO BE OVER BUT THE SKIRMISHES WILL HAVE TO CONTINUE.

With the departure of the Labour Party into the wastelands of opposition, its nice to think that they have taken their fluoride with them. Sadly the fluoridistas can be found in many places and there are many mugs of all political persuasions who can be seduced into wicked ways. Consequently we must remain vigilant, continue the work of opposition and spreading the word about the dangers of fluoride and fluoridaiton.

Having said this however, its important not to continually duplicate our work or reinvent the wheel by passing on the same old details. Its not just the fluoridistas with their "safe, effective and Optimal" twaddle that become victims of pedantry. The anti movement can easily fall victim to this in their zeal to publicise the truth. At such times, opinion and fact can easily become confused.

Now that the Labour Party are debating who will be the next leader one should be cautioned that besides the Millibands, and Ed Balls, our old " friend" Andy Burnham has already had a couple of mentions in interviews about leadership. Some of my fellow campaigners have reassured me that Burnham is strictly lightweight. I hope they are right and leave you to decide whether he is a fact or merely an opinion. . But he does have a way of popping up where he is least expected or wanted.

We must continue to target not just the Burnhams but also newly elected MPs and Councillors, especially those who have not expressed any opinion so far. We can save ourselves a lot of work now and reduce the size and complexity of our letters and press releases 30by concentrating on the most obvious and self evident aspects of water fluoridation and only reiterate the more detailed material if challenged or when more details are requested. Some of these key points are as follows.

Fluoride is toxic in all its forms to humans and animals and toxicity depends on both dosage and the time scale.

Fluoride is even worse when containing trace elements of other toxic chemical.

In the vast majority of cases, it has little or no value although it is good at killing rats and roaches.

A patient can only be prescribed medicine by a doctor on a one to one basis having obtained the individuals consent and considered his general health and medication.

A politician, elected or otherwise is not your GP and has no right whatsoever to prescribe this muck to you.

Since writing the above we have learned today, 14th May that Andy Burnham has of course changed his mind from his original statements about the Labour Leadership in which he seemed to rule himself out of the contest. Now he intends to stand as a potential leader. Its important that we dont underestimate this change.

Many of our number tend to not only dislike Burnham but actively dislike him . I am pleased to count myself amongs these dissenters. His performances always looked nervous to me and many consider him a lightweight.. one friend said he reminded him of a rabbit caught in car headlights. He is certainly always on hand and more than willing to help, when the Labour Government needed someone to do a dirty job. Its bad enough that he helped push the thoroughly nasty piece of legislation known as the Water Act 2003 through a virtually somnambulent House of Commons. This Bill was a nasty Piece of junk full of weasel words which actually empowered the SHAs to order the the Water Companies to add the toxic fluoride waste to our drinking water. And this even if every living soul in a community actively opposed it, including the Local Councils. Thus the act was a sneaky piece of work designed to hoodwink anyone unwise enough to assume that our MPs were intelligent and selfless people, concerned only with the betterment of their faithful electorate. Come the day, come the man as they say and of course Andy Burnham and his cronies at the British Fluoridation society were ever willing and able to do their damnedest to see the Bill went through.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Burnham was rewarded by advancement into the ranks of minister and became Secretary of State for Health.(sic) Naturally it was not until we pointed out that he was working for the Fluoridistas when he became a minister (and therefore batting for both sides with potential financial gain to the members of the press,) that he suddenly found it necessary to resign from the BFS due to the rather obvious conflict of interest. We know now that many MPs were tweaking their income via expenses but to do this when one is a Minister of the Crown does seem to be pushing the boat out a bit.

It was Burnham of course that also brought us such unwelcome and far from benign legislation as ID Cards and databases, yet another fine example of the decreasing importance of Democracy and Human Rights. Clearly there is little Burnham won't do to further his interests and now its payback time. After days of denying any interest in the leadership contest, today he changed his mind and was ready to take part. Possibly this was fueled by resentment that two of his babies, ID cards and the databases had gone down the tubes when the new Coalition Government abandoned them. Its also true that Fluoride has lost its champions in the Labour Government, Little wonder that he wants to get even. Now via the leadership he could gain control and at some time in the future lead a new Labour Government into an Andy Burnham style Police State, replete with ID Cards, Public Order laws Databases and all the other paraphernalia of the proto-fascist state.

People have short attention spans and easily forget the prior activities of Burnham so its important that we remind our friends and neighbours what a piece of work Burnham really is. I have said in my blog on several occasions that someone who spends all his time pushing fluoride onto an unwilling audience and environment is really not fit to be an MP and if we add to this the other activities and shenanigens of Burnham, he is definitely not fit to be a minister let alone the Prime Minister. I think we should all be told.

THE POWER IS OVER BUT THE MALADY LINGERS ON.

WILL THE POLITICIANS MISS THIS GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY FOR ELECTORAL REFORM?

Few people can have missed the fact that none of the main parties in the General election bothered to discus Environmental issues. The exception being the Lib Dems who even replied to our enquiries about fluoridation with a strong rejection of any such policy and its to be sincerely hoped that they will continue to raise this issue whatever roller coaster ride they are now committed to.. The Conservatives did at least reply to the first enquiry but although theorectically opposed to fluoridation they seemed unaware of the legislation already in place which enables the Government to bulldoze such a policy through any public opposition should they choose to. they did not reply to our request for clarification however.

The now discredited New Labour Project did not apparently feel the issue of fluoridation, important enough for them to bother themselves with and far to pre-occupied with everything else to even bother to reply to our second request at all. One must remember that the Labour Government never did have a policy or a mandate for fluoridation but passed it hurriedly into Law in 2003. This seems fairly typical of New Labour. They didnt have a mandate for ID Cards, or massive data bases and displayed a contempt for science and scientists, even those they had appointed themselves. Nor did they feel any restraint to stop them passing fluoridation legislation which all the other parties had given the cold shoulder. In short, the Labour Government have never had a mandate for water fluoridation, dont have a mandate now and were not elected to carry out such a policy. Now that they have little chance of forming a Government and the country is broke, the prospect of fluoridation is further away then ever and the best thing we as opponents can do is to continue to make it difficult and expensive for the pro-fluoride lobby to promote or advertise fluoridation let alone bring it into operation.

All the parties need to seriously discuss and tackle the problems of pollution, depletion of resources and generation of hazardous waste. by increasing efficiency, waste reduction, alternative energies (not including nuclear), and sustainable transport, and, no party that claims to be "greening" itself or its policies can be taken seriously if at the same time it is advocating the addition of highly toxic industrial waste to something as rare and vital as fresh drinking water. In that direction lies not just hipocrisy but actual madness.

If the results of the General Election are saying anyting positive and I for one believe they are, it is that the public now expect politicians of various persuasions to work together for the good of the country, not the party or the individual politicians themselves but for all of us. The parties now have a golden opportunity to introduce PR in some workable form so that massive majorities and political excess will never again allow governments like the New Labour regime (still clinging to power in desperation at the time of writing,) or the conservatives as in the time of Thatcher and Reagan, to blithely play fast and loose with the electorate and its wishes and introduce any old policy simply because they can.

Financially, times are going to get a lot tougher before they get better and in such a climate, any party advocating such a useless and expensive policy as fluoridation is unlikely to get very far and history will not deal kindkly with them. We also have the distinct possibility if the parties cannot agree to work in harmony, of yet another election next Spring or as some say, maybe even this Autumn so this is not the time to relax our pressure on political parties but probably the time to increase it.

Electoral Reform should at the very least make governments more representative and democratic and not make individuals who are tempted to vote for the smaller parties feel they are wasting their time or votes. This has frequently been the most common reason people give for not voting for the Lib Dems or the Greens. Every vote should count and all views and opinions should be heard and debated. Despite the strong rise in popularity for the Lib Dems this time round, when push came to shove the support did not translate into votes and the only reason anyone can suggest is that there was a last minute loss of confidence which made people bottle out.

Our Commisserations go to our campaigners in Liverpool who will probably not be pleased to note that in the local elections, the Lib Dems have lost control of Liverpool Council to the Labour group. Better news from Brighton however who have elected the countrys first Green Party Member of Parliament.. Our sitting MP here in Pendle has also been displaced. He always reckoned that fluoride was a good idea and claimed to have read of its valuable properties yet sadly was never ever able to recommend to me, any of this pro-fluoride nonesense literature or even engage in a debate about it. He has been replaced by a Conservative who told me several months ago when he first came canvassing that he did not like the idea of fluoride.

We dont care what Party anyone belongs to (within reason) because anyone can be green or at least greener, and anyone can oppose water pollution and fluoridatioN and learn to embrace the experience as a steep but necessary learning curve on the road to environmental enlightenment. The first step towards this goal is cross party co-operation and the psychic step even before this must be electoral reform. If the Tory and Labour Party do not embrace this philosophy, there is really not much hope for them. PR must be the default position and the Lib Dems really really must listen to their own members calling loudly for electoral reform. Without it there can be no further progress and the death knell for the Lib Dems will be heard rining across the land. They will never again get a chance like this, a chance which people have waited a couple of generations to realise. All that this really requires is a functioning brain and a conscience two qualities collectively usually known as common sense, a quality which has not been apparent in the recent regime which has seemed overly concerned the the minutae of peoples private lives whilst in other areas change for the sake of change was the order of the day combiuned with an apparent joy in throwing its weight about. Perhaps its time for politicians of all persuasions to truly remember that they are elected to serve, not to rule and heeding the words of Confusious might help them concentrate more clearly on the real issues and the ways and means. As the ancient Chinese Book of Changes says. "The Inferior Person acts through power, the Superior Person does not act this way!"

Brian Jackson.... Pendle FoE