Ray Barry tried some old-fashioned canvassing with a modern twist: spiderman driving around the Wolverhampton South West constituency delivering key messages through a megaphone. Roger Crawford did things on an altogether bigger scale, driving a double-decker bus, emblazoned with slogans, around Oxford East.

Here are Ray’s and Roger’s results:

WOLVERHAMPTON SOUTH-WEST
Paul Uppal Conservative 16,344 40.7 +2.6
Rob Marris Labour 15,653 39.0 -4.5
Robin Lawrence Liberal Democrat 6,430 16.0 +2.5
Amanda Mobberley UK Independence Party 1,487 3.7 +1.2
Raymond Barry Equal Parenting Alliance 246 0.6 +0.6
Majority 691 1.7
Turnout 40,160 67.9 +4.8

OXFORD EAST
Andrew Smith Labour 21,938 42.5 +6.5
Steve Goddard Liberal Democrat 17,357 33.6 -1.6
Edward Argar Conservative 9,727 18.8 +1.5
Sushila Dhall Green 1,238 2.4 -2.1
Julia Gasper UK Independence Party 1,202 2.3 +0.6
David O’Sullivan Socialist Equality 116 0.2 +0.2
Roger Crawford Equal Parenting Alliance 73 0.1 +0.1
Majority 4,581 8.9
Turnout 51,651 63.1 +5.6

A message from the Australian non-custodial parents party:

Hi Ray

Congratulations in Wolverhampton SW.

You made a good effort. Your percentage of the vote is in line with what we get here in Australia.

We find that people who vote for us normally would vote for our Australian Labor Party (your Labour Party but with a “u” deleted – for Australian marketing reasons). This is because our Labor voters tend to be from our lower socio-economic areas.

Therefore I would presume that you may have taken some votes away from your Labour Party, that would have otherwise gone to that party. You have made some impact. This is by making slightly easier for the Conservative candidate to win.

Regards

John

The constituency of Wolverhampton South West, made famous by Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech, became the focus of the immigration debate again today.

Equal Parenting Alliance candidate Ray Barry said immigration had become a “political football” yet closer examination showed the effects on unemployment had been misrepresented.

“So much long-term unemployment traces back to people losing touch with their children. There’s a strong correlation between it and people being alienated from their kids, which drains the heart out of them,” he said.

Link to full BBC report

When my wife left me 10 years ago, it was a life-changing moment for me. I have seen nothing of my eldest 2 children ever since, and now I no longer see my 3rd and youngest either, even though all 3 live less than 2 miles away with their mother and her boy-friend, and I have fought legal battles costing over £100,000 in a futile attempt to remain in touch with them, and to be a father to them.

I was born in Darlaston and went to St Chad’s grammar school in Wolverhampton. I have lived in the city most of my life, and I am a life-long Wolves supporter. I spent 30 years in the Civil Service around Birmingham and the Black Country, and I have a good understanding of the local economy. I also trained as a priest, I have a Theology degree, and I do voluntary work, taking youngsters who have disabilities or other problems to school.

I received my pensioners bus pass this year, but continue to work, as many of us do. I run a disability consultancy from home. I have an MSc qualification for it, and solicitors engage me to help their clients return to work and get their life back on track while their personal injury claims are being fought over.

I run a help-line for Real Fathers for Justice, and deal with around 30 heart-rending cries for help every week from mothers and fathers facing the prospect of losing touch with their children. I also work as a “McKenzie Friend,” a legal term for a lay adviser who helps parents at court who cannot afford a lawyer.

I have none of the encumbrances of the major parties. Rob Marris is a fine man and an excellent constituency MP, but he has been obliged to support the Labour policies which have brought misery and poverty to the country. If elected, I would have no such party whip to obey. I would be completely free to represent the interests of the good people of Wolverhampton South West, and I have many skills I can bring to bear on your behalf. My 30 years in the Civil Service have taught me how to work behind the scenes, where most of the real work is done, and I can hold my own in debate in any company and on any subject, as can be seen from these clips from BBC’s the Big Questions, and Trisha. I am well able to stand up for Wolverhampton’s interests in Parliament.

If elected, my Main Manifesto Commitments would be:
1) Family Law reform: If parents separate, children spend
equal time with each, unless they both agree otherwise.
2) A Minister for men, to ensure men and boys receive
equality in Health, Education and before the law.

And by the way, why does Wolverhampton need the £22million “world-class” bus station which the council have promised us? Wouldn’t a Wolverhampton-class bus station and a £22million council tax rebate be better?

1. Family Courts will be made open, with no caveats. They will be brought into line with the Crown and Magistrates Courts.
2. There will be, in law, a presumption that each parent is of equal value, i.e. has equal status, resident parent or not.
3. There will be a greater emphasis on mediation with the aim of keeping far more cases out of the court system. If a case goes to court, agreements made at mediation will be taken into account.
4. The issue of Family Law reform will be a priority.

Roger drove a bus with 40 protesters through the streets of Oxford, and met with Mr Bellingham at Witney, by arrangement with the Police, who escorted the bus, and brokered the meeting.

Roger added that Henry Bellingham seems to have a good grasp of the issues, and that he intends to continue with consultations as part of these reforms, including fathers’ interests groups.

T 01865-760553, E wgeorgestanden@btinternet.com

I am Agent for parliamentary candidate Roger Crawford of the EPA..

Roger Crawford 60 is standing in Oxford East for the Equal Parenting Alliance (EPA) in the general election. The EPA is linked to NewFathers4Justice.

Roger is “The Court Jester” pictured last year demonstrating on Carfax Tower on 18 June, and at Oxford County Court on 4 November, calling for better Family Laws.

The EPA wants a presumption of equal access for spouses to their children after separation or divorce.

Two important dates this week:-

Tuesday afternoon 6 April 2010 Roger will be in Oxford for interviews – ring Roger 07849-522180 or me 01865-760553.

Then Saturday 10 April 2010, Roger and EPA members, in Batman/Superhero costumes, will be demonstrating in and around Oxford East in an open-top bus.

In the morning we will tour the constituency itself. In the afternoon we will tour Witney, David Cameron’s constituency, and visit David Cameron’s house. All this has already been discussed with David Cameron himself and his Office.

Yours sincerely, George Standen (Agent – address above)

Candidate – Mr Roger Crawford, The Pigling, Woodview Nurseries, Shefford Rd, Meppershall. Beds SG17 5LL. Mob 07849-522180, Tel 01462-814575, Email Roger jester-rog@talktalk.net

So what do you expect if you have something called an ‘Equality Minister’? She will impose gross injustice wherever she can in the interests of a coercive and preposterous ideology. Harriet Harman’s proposal that companies should positively discriminate in favour of women job candidates (ie discriminate against men) is yet another example of the way in which feminism got hijacked and turned from a campaign for fairness for women into an onslaught against men. Her proposal is not only totally unfair — job candidates should be appointed on grounds of merit, not chromosomes – but is based on the false premise that the gender pay gap proves that women are the victims of systematic discrimination in the workplace.

But this is simply untrue. Granted that there are indeed specific instances of discrimination against women, the generalised claim is false because it ignores the differences in behaviour between women and men at work. As academics such as Professor Catherine Hakim of the London School of Economics have long argued, such iconic feminist causes as the ‘glass ceiling’ and the ‘gender pay gap’ are in very large measure the outcome of the choices made by women themselves.

Of course there are exceptions, but in general women have very different expectations from men about work. That’s because many women have another set of competing priorities – child rearing. As a result, they tend to want to work part-time. Even those who work full-time tend not to put in the same hours of overtime and so forth that men do because they are less interested in getting to the top of their profession — mainly because unlike men they don’t usually define themselves through work and have less interest in power and status and all those guy things. All these factors mean that even if they are doing the same jobs as men they are not doing it in the same way. So why should they expect to be paid the same?

In fact, women are not exactly going to the barricades over this issue. It’s only Harriet Harperson and the sisterhood who are agitating about this because it’s all part of their anti-man agenda. It’s an economic variation on what they did to rape law, whereby they forced through changes which loaded the legal dice against male defendants in rape cases because the conviction rate in such cases was said to be ‘too low’. But that presupposes that the men in such cases are all guilty and their female accusers never tell a lie – two propositions which have been proved over and over again to be wrong, quite apart from ditching the presumption of innocence which helps define a free society. Nevertheless the law was changed and pressure continues to be applied to make even more changes to get the rape conviction rate up. Because whether in the workplace or the bedroom, as we know, all men are guilty of the oppression of women.

It is a great mistake to write off Harriet Harman, as many do, on grounds of demonstrable stupidity. She is one of this administration’s great survivors. One of the reasons she has survived has been her ruthless use of the woman card against men who haven’t got the cojones to stand up against this gender bullying. Let’s hope that this time, with the business world up in arms, her latest wheeze is dismissed with the contumely it deserves.

This morning we see in the press yet one more plank in the Government’s campaign to vilify and demoralise boys. Psychologist Linda Papadopolous published her report on the sexualisation of youngsters. Commissioned by the Home office, the report finds what everyone already knows, that children are exposed to inappropriate sexual images. The sub-text to the report, however, is that girls are victims of sexual abuse and boys are to blame.

The facts of domestic abuse are studiously ignored as this band-wagon rolls on. The British Crime survey shows that young men, rather than young women, are the group most likely to experience domestic abuse. The recent NSPCC survey, published as part of this same campaign, concluded that while 25% of girls experienced violence in relationships, so did 18% of boys.

While the evidence points to domestic violence and domestic abuse being something which impacts on boys and girls in approximately equal numbers, all of the attention is given to girls as victims and boys as abusers. This is not true academic reporting, and the likes of NSPCC and Linda Papadopolous should be ashamed of their part in it. The fact that they were paid out of a programme called “violence against women and girls” gives a clue to the findings they were expected to come up with, and they dutifully wrote what the pay-master wanted. They would, after all, hope to get more work from this source, wouldn’t they?

The simple fact is that this campaign is nothing more than propapaganda, driven by a feminist core within Government, and it is crushing and oppressing the spirit of our young men and boys.

The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey 2008-09 published its results on 15th December 2009. Scotland’s chief statistician reveals that in the last 12 months as many men as women were victims of partner abuse, and perpetrators of abuse were also in almost equal proportions (48% men, 45% women).

The results of this survey are irrefutable. With a sample size of 16,000, this is the largest study of its kind ever conducted in Scotland, and there is another key reason why its results are so reliable: it investigated more deeply than is normally the case. As Scottish journalist, John Forsyth put it:

“The research has to be commended for its rigour. When asked whether they had been subject to domestic abuse since the age of 16, only 3% of men and 14% of women said yes. However, when asked to report specific conduct by a partner that falls within the definition of partner abuse, the number for men rose 5 times to 15% and for women by half to 20.9%. This is hardly surprising given the tens of millions that has been spent by successive Scottish administrations on campaigns, support services and organisations targeted at women, encouraging them to recognise and report domestic abuse. In the same period precisely nothing has been spent on efforts to encourage men to recognise and report domestic abuse.”

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
16,000 interviewees were asked about their experience of physical or psychological partner abuse both since the age of 16 and within the preceding 12 months. The findings included:

• 18% of adults who had had at least one partner since the age of 16 reported having experienced at least one form of partner abuse. The figure for women was 20.9% and for men 15.3%.

• However, in the most recent 12 months the figure for both men and women was 5%.

• The data for the last 12 months showed that young men aged 16-24 experienced physical and/or psychological abuse more often than young women and more often than any other demographic group.

• For persons experiencing partner abuse in the last 12 months, 48% of the perpetrators were male and 45% were female.

• Police came to know about 35% of incidents of partner abuse reported by women in the preceding 12 months but only 8% of incidents in which a man was on the receiving end. 40% of men told no-one compared to 21% of women.

Our thanks to Australian Senior Researcher, Greg Andreson, for bringing this to our attention.