People in the following wards will be able to vote in this year's local elections to the borough council:

Bagley
Haughmond and Attingham
Bayston Hill
Meole Brace
Belle Vue
Montford
Castlefields and Quarry
Pimhill
Column
Sundorne
Copthorne
Underdale
Hanwood and Longden

The other wards in the borough are not up for election this year.

Also people in the parish of Great Hanwood will be able to vote for parish councillors. The other parishes are uncontested.

Going to put the preverbial spanner in the works and say, do go nuts David, does it make a lot of difference who votes for who ?

P.S. Youre photos are very detailed David on the other thread!

I would say that it is important to take part and vote in all elections, even local ones which are not "as important" as national ones.

"Use it or lose it" - would you rather have local democracy abolished?

Do you really think that 'local democracy' have that much power locally? If yes why dont they have any say in the unitary situation? I mean why could they not stop this from happening at borough level?

Because the structure of government in this country is controlled by Parliament, which is only right.

The borough and county councils provide many services and have huge budgets and they play a large part in your and my lives. Everything from education to street cleaning to regeneration projects...

So yes, the local councils do have power locally, but only local powers. National matters such as the structure of government are, quite rightly, controlled by the national legislature - Parliament.

So out of all this who has the final say?

Out of what? Whether Shropshire goes unitary? Parliament.

Parliament is supreme in the end.

That concludes my thoughts on this then !

I certainly would not want them abolished but there is a ' puppets on strings' scenario here dont you think?

It is, but many decisions affecting the local level are made by the local authorities, such as our borough council. Which is why it is still important that people take part in local elections, because the councils do spend public money and make decisions which affect us on the ground on a day-to-day basis.

I agree totally.

Our local councillors decide how much money will be taken out of our pockets through council tax. They set the car parking charges, for example, (did you know you can park all day in Ludlow for 60p?) and decide how our money is spent. You may think the £28 million to be spent on the new theatre would be better spent on building houses. There again you may take the view that this a good long term investment as it will raise the profile of the town and lead to an increase in visitor numbers, trade and jobs.

This is the time when you have a chance to make your feelings known. Your local councillor or his/her canvassers may come knocking at your door. There will be leaflets galore. At the end of the day, you get to cast your vote and help decide who will make the decisions as to how much of your hard earned cash you get to keep.

If you don't use your vote then can you really complain about how much you have to pay for local services?

On the "final say" question, BBC News 24 reported the other day that SABC are seeking a judicial review of the government's decision to place Shropshire on the list of authorities/counties that may or may not move to unitary status. If it gets clearance to initiate a review, then the judiciary might cause an upset there.

Also, legally speaking, the final authority has never been Parliament; it used to be the monarch (unlike in the US, the legislature can't & has never been able to overrule the executive), even though convention has dictated that the monarch never uses the Royal veto and hasn't done so since pre-Victorian times. But (s)he could.

Today, however, it's actually the ECJ that has the final authority, as it's able to strike down most pieces of legislation if it so wishes (and particularly since the Human Rights Act was passed). Part of the controversy over said legislation when it was under debate was that, after centuries of cheery independence, it removed our legislative supremacy and passed it on to Brussels.

So, in theory, you could challenge the decision to make Shropshire a unitary authority all the way up to the ECJ or ECHR if you so wished. You'd probably have a great deal of difficulty justifying any claim your human rights have been violated, though. :-)

The borough council are taking the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to a judicial review, not Parliament. They are saying that the Department for Communities and Local Government do not have the authority to do what they are doing (ie. forcing unitary authority changes). Which could be correct. But that is the government, not Parliament. If Parliament passes a law saying that we have to go unitary, then we have to go unitary. No one and no court can argue with that.

Parliament is the final authority and has been since the Glorious Revolution of 1688/89. The monarchy, whilst still a powerful force within the constitution, has no actual political powers because it can't use them! The Queen only in absolute constitutional theory could use her powers of veto, but it would go against hundreds of years of constitutional convention.

The ECJ does not have the final authority - it cannot over-rule Parliament, only the government (ie. you can take the government to court there and win a case against them). The EU is not a sovereign entity - it's powers still come from the national Parliaments of its member states.

As I have stated, it is only the government which SABC are challenging. They know perfectly well that if an Act of Parliament is passed then that's it. Game's up.

Basically our constitution is a mess because it isn't written down. It's built up over centuries of legal rulings and thus only lawyers can understand it, earning themselves huge sums by doing so.

It's correct that the EU isn't sovereign, if the UK government didn't like an ECJ ruling it could just leave the EU and the ruling wouldn't apply.

The ECJ is only able to strike down legislation and act as ultimate court of appeal because parliament has allowed it to have that power. Parliament also has the ability to take that power away if it wants and so Westminster is still ultimately in charge

That's how I understand it too Jonesy.

No offence meant, but it's not a valid argument in my view to say that the ECJ isn't sovereign on the grounds that we can leave the EU. On that basis, you could also say Parliament isn't sovereign because we the people can decide to ignore the law(s) it passes - Shropshire could declare unilateral independence(!) for example. In law, the institution remains sovereign until such times as it surrenders that sovereignty or there is a secession/revolution, by force of arms if necessary. Parliament doesn't have to approve a ruling by the ECJ for it to have the force of law - if it did, Parliament would be the sovereign entity and not the ECJ. Currently, the latter overrules the former, and hence it is sovereign.

You still need the royal signature for any legislation to actually acquire the force of law, even if convention dictates that the monarch no longer raises his/her voice in opposition. During the early 1900s' debate over the Parliament Act, the threat was made (although they found a more potent one in the end, when King George threatened to create hundreds of new peers in order to get the Bill past the House of Lords). Even today, if the Prime Minister opposes the legislation & advises the Queen to dissolve Parliament before she signs the Bill into law - which has happened - then the royal veto actually has an effect, because the Bill falls and an election takes place.

For the record, though, the royal veto hasn't been used since 1708, by Queen Anne, and the Glorious Revolution had relatively little to do with Parliamentary power, in my view - it was more about Anne & Mary getting rid of James II, who was bringing all those nasty Catholix into government :-)

The Glorious Revolution and the resulting Bill of Rights set down the system of government which we have followed continuously since. It was rather important!

And Parliament is the source of British sovereignty. There is no (legal) arguing with that! Whether it be Shropshire County Council, the Scottish Parliament or the European Union, other bodies only have powers because Parliament allows them too. It alone grants and withdraws rights, laws and government over the United Kingdom. Parliament also has the final say on the succession of the monarchy and who is to be monarch. When Edward VIII abdicated in 1936, he couldn't abdicate officially until an Act of Parliament was passed.

All this referendum waste of taxpayers money in which more than half of us didn't vote was for the benefit of our local councillors who have egos the size of the Titanic.
It's about time the old school tie/ old boys network that has run this town is put out to grass IMHO.

I am born and bred salopian but moved 20 years ago to Birmingham. I have no longer any ties to the town apart from a couple of old friendswho I ring from time to time. They tell me you have a thriving BNP branch there who are standing in the elections!
Are these local people or newcomers?

mm...parts of the Declaration of Rights (later encoded in the Bill of Rights, 1689) were indeed important. However, there are parts which are less attractive, such as the exclusion of Catholics from the succession. There are also other legal rights not encoded in the Bill of Rights which are still granted to us (habeas corpus being the first that comes to mind). However, it remains a fiction to say that it was all about noble thoughts of democracy - it had more to do with the idea of preventing acts of the kind James II had been up to. The effect was to introduce democracy, but you only have to look at how many reforms were needed subsequently to realise that it was a consequence, not the aim. The motives behind it were not the altruistic kind that were behind the US equivalent etc.

Parliament does not grant/withdraw rights, laws and government by law. It proposes a bill to the sovereign for assent. It is deemed to have "passed" these things by convention. The distinction is relevant if you're talking legal theory and unwritten constitutions. The same applies to the Declaration of Abdication Act 1936, incidentally. Edward VIII had not officially abdicated until he signed the Act into law, not from the moment Parliament's two houses approved it. Even today, Parliament can pass an Act deposing Queen Elizabeth II but unless she signs it into law then she can hang on to the throne like grim death.

The point of all this & the main thrust of my original argument being that the loopholes in the parliamentary (and peculiarly British parliamentary) system can be, and sometimes are, exploited when (un)necessary, so it seems to me to be dangerous to make confident blanket statements about something.

Besides, and there's legal arguing with everything, if you hadn't noticed already :-)

I understand everything you say and I know that Acts of Parliament require Royal Assent, but it can be argued that only Parliament makes laws. Anyway, Royal Assent comes automatically these days and on many occassions it isn't even the Queen granting it but Royal Commissioners (ie some Lords who have been appointed by the Queen to act on her behalf)!

On the topic of our constitution, it is not entirely correct to say that it is unwritten. It is uncodified (that is, it is not in one place written down as one document) but there are many written Acts of Parliament which form part of the constitution, as well as older texts such as the Bill of Rights and Magna Carta. Conventions are also written down, in countless legal and political books. The machinery of government, the courts, etc work fine with our uncodified constitution and have done so for hundreds of years. I do not think it neccersary to create a super dooper new codified constitution for the United Kingdom - it would only lead to massive arguments and a huge waste of Parliamentary time!!

Yarss.. I think the only virtue of a written (okay, codified...) constitution is that there's no scope for arguing such-and-such-precedent doesn't override such-and-such-other-precedent/law, which you can do with ours in some circumstances. The fact that common law judgments also form part of the constitution has led to a couple of headaches in the past. Loopholes aren't always good.

But personally, I too prefer the constitution the way it is - except, of course, when the government & courts don't work fine, which they've failed at doing many hundreds of times in the past hundreds of years. :-)

They seem to be one family spreading themselves as candidates over the town.

I don't like what they stand for and I hope they get no votes though from some of my experience of Shropshire it's unlikely to be the case.

There isn't a thriving BNP branch in Shrewsbury and hopefully there never will be. Amen to that!

This is what I found in Wikipidia....I was just curious about the BNP

According to its constitution, the BNP "stands for the preservation of the national and ethnic character of the 'British' people and is wholly opposed to any form of racial integration between 'British' and non-European peoples." The party is "committed to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration and to restoring, by legal changes, negotiation and consent the overwhelmingly white makeup of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948." Accordingly, the BNP proposes "firm but voluntary incentives" to remove non-Whites from the UK, advocates the repeal of all anti-discrimination legislation, and restricts party membership to "Indigenous Caucasians."

WOW! It appears they could be fitted for white robes and hoods over here in the States. :angry:

They are racist fascists, yes.

The BNP are obvioulsy both racist and have fascist views but what about the major parties? I think some politicians and moreso according to google, Tories seem to be putting their feet in it just lately regarding racism. one 'Bucketmouth' Tory front bencher went in March this year. I couldnt type what he was quoted of saying but heres the link oops! .....! Its a bit Tim nice but dim dont you think!

Good candidates for publicly-sponsored euthanasia, though. :-)

No, they're neither racist or fascist - Just a party with common sense policies.

IMMIGRATION - time to say ENOUGH!

On current demographic trends, we, the native British people, will be an ethnic minority in our own country within sixty years. To ensure that this does not happen, and that the British people retain their homeland and identity, we call for an immediate halt to all further immigration, the immediate deportation of criminal and illegal immigrants, and the introduction of a system of voluntary resettlement whereby those immigrants who are legally here will be afforded the opportunity to return to their lands of ethnic origin assisted by a generous financial incentives both for individuals and for the countries in question. We will abolish the 'positive discrimination' schemes that have made white Britons second-class citizens. We will also clamp down on the flood of 'asylum seekers', all of whom are either bogus or can find refuge much nearer their home countries.

EUROPE - back to British independence!

We are opposed to the Single European Currency, and support the overwhelming majority of the British people in their desire to keep the Pound and our traditional weights and measures. At the same time, we are for the best possible relationship with our European neighbours and believe that the nations of Europe should be free to trade and cooperate whenever it is mutually beneficial, though without being forced into a political and economic straitjacket - political unification. Accordingly, we stand for British withdrawal from the European Union. In place of the EU, we intend to aim towards greater national self-sufficiency, and to work to restore Britain's family and trading ties with Australia, Canada and New Zealand, and to trade with the rest of the world as it suits us. Following our withdrawal from the EU, the BNP will use the £43 million per day net contribution Britain at present makes to the European Union to fund many far more useful projects at home.

LAW AND ORDER - crack down on crime!

The BNP will crack down on crime and restore public safety and confidence. We will free the police and courts from the politically correct straitjacket that is stopping them from doing their job properly. The liberal fixation with the 'rights' of criminals must be replaced by concern for the rights of victims, and the right of innocent people not to become victims. We support the re-introduction of corporal punishment for petty criminals and vandals, and the restoration of capital punishment for paedophiles, terrorists and murderers as an option for judges in cases where their guilt is proven beyond dispute, as by DNA evidence or being caught red-handed.

ECONOMY - British workers first!

Globalisation, with its export of jobs to the Third World, is bringing ruin and unemployment to British industries and the communities that depend on them. Accordingly, the BNP calls for the selective exclusion of foreign-made goods from British markets and the reduction of foreign imports. We will ensure that our manufactured goods are, wherever possible, produced in British factories, employing British workers. When this is done, unemployment in this country will be brought to an end, and secure, well-paid employment will flourish, at last getting our people back to work and ending the waste and injustice of having more than 4 million people in a hidden army of the unemployed concealed by Labour's statistical fiddles. We further believe that British industry, commerce, land and other economic and natural assets belong in the final analysis to the British nation and people. To that end we will restore our economy and land to British ownership. We also call for preference in the job market to be given to native Britons. We will take active steps to break up the socially, economically and politically damaging monopolies now being established by the supermarket giants. Finally we will seek to give British workers a stake in the success and prosperity of the enterprises whose profits their labour creates by encouraging worker shareholder and co-operative schemes.

EDUCATION - discipline, standards, achievement!

We are against the 'trendy' teaching methods that have made Britain one of the most poorly educated nations in Europe. We will end the practice of politically correct indoctrination in all its guises and we will restore discipline in the classroom, give authority back to teachers and put far greater emphasis on training young people in the industrial and technological skills necessary in the modern world. We will also seek to instill in our young people knowledge of and pride in the history, cultures and heritage of the native peoples of Britain.

AGRICULTURE - quality before quantity!

We see a strong, healthy agriculture sector as vital to the country. Britain's farming industry will be encouraged to produce a much greater part of the nation's need in food products. Priority will be switched from quantity to quality, as we move from competing in a global economy to maximum self-sufficiency for Britain. We will ensure a major shift to healthier and more sustainable organic farming. We are pledged to ensure the restoration of Britain's once great fishing industry with the reimposition of the former exclusion zones around our coast.

HEALTH - first-class healthcare for all!

We are wholly committed to a free, fully funded National Health Service for all British citizens. We will revitalise the Health Service by boosting staff and bed numbers, slashing unnecessary bureaucracy and by addressing the root cause of low recruitment and retention - low pay. We will see to it that no money is given in foreign aid while our own hospitals are short of beds and the staff to run them. More emphasis must be placed on healthy living with greater understanding of sickness prevention through physical exercise, a healthier environment and improved diets.

TRANSPORT - time to invest!

Increased investment is needed in Britain's public transport system to bring it up to the highest standards in the world. The fiasco of rail privatisation with different companies running services and track leading to higher fares and lower safety also needs to be resolved. Congestion of our towns and cities must be eased by the provision of greater incentives to use rail and bus transport instead of private cars. The first step is to end the crime and squalor that puts so many people off public transport. Motorists must not be made the scapegoats for government failure. Fuel tax should be cut, motorway speed limits raised, and hidden speed cameras should be banned. Far more must be done to encourage the development and use of cleaner fuels.

ENVIRONMENT - a cleaner, greener future!

Our ideal for Britain is that of a clean, beautiful country, free of pollution in all its forms. We will enforce standards to curb those practices, whether by business or the individual, which cause environmental damage. "The polluter pays to clean up the mess" must become a fact of life, not an electioneering slogan. In towns we would work to replace the brutalist modernism of 1960s-style-architecture with a blend of traditional local styles and materials and ensure that developments take place on a more human scale.

FOREIGN AID - time to spend our money on our own people!

We reject the idea that Britain must forever be obliged to subsidise the incompetence and corruption of Third World states by supplying them with financial aid. We will link foreign aid with our voluntary resettlement policy, whereby those nations taking significant numbers of people back to their homelands will need cash to help absorb those returning. The billions of pounds saved every year by this policy will also be reallocated to vital services in Britain.

PENSIONERS - pensioners before asylum seekers!

The conditions in which many of Britain's old people are forced to live are a national disgrace. We are pledged to ensure that all our old folk are able to live in comfortable homes, and will restore the earnings link with pensions. Elderly people who have paid a lifetime of taxes and reared families should not have to sell their homes to pay for care.

NORTHERN IRELAND - an end to sectarianism!

Britain has shamefully allowed the terrorists in N.I. to come close to winning when the IRA could have been destroyed years ago. Government weakness has led to hundreds of deaths and given those same terrorists a share in government. We would end all attempts to force the people of Northern Ireland to accept foreign interference in their affairs and deal with terrorism - from whatever side - once and for all. No one with links to a terrorist organisation that refuses to lay down its arms should be allowed to enter government. We would abolish state-supported segregation in education. In the long run, we wish to end the conflict in Ireland by welcoming Eire as well as Ulster as equal partners in a federation of the nations of the British Isles.

DEFENCE - no more cuts!

Successive cuts in defence spending have left Britain's armed forces perilously weak. We will boost Britain's armed forces to ensure that they are able to deal with any emergency, and defend our homeland and our independence. We will bring our troops back from Germany and withdraw from NATO, since recent political developments make both commitments obsolete. We will close all foreign military bases on British soil, and refuse to risk British lives in meddling 'peace-keeping' missions in parts of the world where no British interests are at stake - a position of armed neutrality. We will also restore national service for our young with the option of civil or military service.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS - Britain's interests first!

Britain's foreign relations should be determined by the protection of our own national interest and not by our like or dislike of other nations' internal politics. We would have no quarrel with any nation that does not threaten British interests. We will maintain an independent foreign policy of our own, and not a spineless subservience to the USA, the 'international community', or any other country.

DEMOCRACY - letting the people decide!

The British people invented modern Parliamentary democracy. Yet in recent years the British people have been denied their democratic rights. On issue after issue, the views of the majority of British people have been ignored and overridden by a Politically Correct 'élite' which thinks it knows best. On immigration, on Capital Punishment, on the surrender of British sovereignty to the EU and in numerous other areas, democracy has been absent as Labour, Tories and Lib-Dems conspire in election after election to offer the British people no real choice on such vital issues. The BNP exists to give the British people, that choice, and thus to restore and defend the basic democratic rights we have all been denied. We favour more democracy, not less, not just at national but at regional and local level. Power should be devolved to the lowest level possible so that local communities can make decisions which affect them. We will remove legal curbs on freedom of speech imposed by successive Governments over the last 40 years. We will implement a Bill of Rights guaranteeing fundamental freedoms to the British people. We will ensure that ordinary British people have real democratic power over their own lives and that Government, local and national, is truly accountable to the people who elect it.

Compared with some of the insults and threats of violence that local BNP candidates have received over the telephone (oh so brave) from one or two pathetic anti democratic cowards - that one is pretty tame.

I live in a country of 300 million people, of which 10 million are illegally present. It would be impossible to even begin to remove them from the United States. The money spent on attempting to reduce this number would be astronomical. It will never happen.

From what Red Squirrel posted, I actually see some good points....e.g. taking care of pensioners and foreign aid.

But IMO, to stop immigration and offer generous relocation packages for immigrants to go back to their country of origin? To stop immigration, you would have to stop ALL VISITORS from entering the UK! I don't know about in the UK, but a lot of our illegals entered the United States with valid visas. For the most part, money is the reason they made the move in the first place. They're not going back! And, from what I remember, you guys are taxed out the *** now. Who is going to fund all this? It would seem to me that we'll all be a distant memory before any of these proposals would see the light.

We are a very small Island Mark the states is somewhat bigger!

People entering this country have to be filtered in some way. One thing I will say for the BNP is that they will stand up as an opposition party should. The Cons are not strong enough to do this I feel and they couldnt manage the situation effectively for example what have they done as an opposition party to oppose labour policies.

Labour ministers are just realising the mistake in letting too many immigrants in this country. So we need some drastic action fairly quickly I feel

The BNP is racist, as you can see from the policies RedSquirel has posted, many rely on treating British citizens in differing ways depending on skin colour, religion or ethnic origin. The BNP never seems to talk about repatriation for anyone but 'non-europeans' ie 'non-whites'? They don't care about the illegal white South Africans, Australians or Americans who have overstayed their visas, just those with different coloured skin.

I'm not sure how 'immigrants' will be incentivised 'to return to their homelands' when many of these people have lived their entire lives in the UK and have little or no ties with any foreign country. By making such an offer, it is making it plain to those who have no interest in leaving that they are not welcome here. This sends out a very negative signal regarding the tolerance and hospitality of the English people and is frankly insulting to millions of good citizens of this country who happen not to be white.

As for the economic policies which seem to be a combination of protectionism in global trade (going against everything that Britain has ever stood for and what made us rich), a Robert Mugabe style land-grab from foreign owners and Yugoslav-style compulsory workers self-management in businesses. This shows how naive and/or cavalier the BNP are when it comes to economic policy.

The whole programme seems to be strong on tax cuts while at the same time proposing vast new expenditures, another sign of irresponsibility. If the voters genuinely think that all these promises can be paid for by the relatively small amounts to be saved from ending all foreign aid (thereby trashing our international reputation), withdrawing from the EU and stopping non-UK citizens claiming social security benefits, they are sadly deluded.

The main goal of the educational policy seems to be to instill an arrogance and a superiority complex in our youth via an unashamedly nationalist one-sided reading of history.

Like all nationalist parties around the world, the BNP seems to think that if only the state contained people from one ethnic group and nobody else, all our problems would be solved. No nationalist party anywhere has ever been able to show that this is true and in fact we can see from history that usually when these people come to power, the nation suffers.

It's a good job that the BNP will never have power and don't have any sort of following. If they ever did come to power I would be on the first plane/boat/train out of this country.

I entirely agree Jonesy.

The BNP may win a few council seats in some less well off areas in some cities, but they will never be mainstream. Thank God.

There are two BNP candidates ( who have the same surname) standing in the Borough wards of Castlefields and Meole, both Conservative seats.

They said that about the lib dems David. There are getting so many parties now winning seats in a general elections , that we could have a coalition based on the opinion polls of the tories currently.

Maybe but none of the mainstream parties would work with the BNP.

Would and will have to are obviously two different statements but some of these parties including the BNP will have some say in which the way things are shaped politically in the future ' the tail that wags the dog'

There are four BNP candidates in Shrewsbury this year - two more are standing in Sundorne and Underdale. Seems to me like the party is growing locally. Even'The Independent' has something to say about this. - http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2444454.ece

What about the other parties standing in this year's local elections? What are the Tory's chances of keeping their lead of the council?
Do the independents and smaller parties have much of a chance this year or will it boil down to the main three as per usual?