www.nigel-harris.com

Nigel Harris was born and bred in Shrewsbury & Atcham borough before coming up to Cambridge University to study for a Master's degree in Physics. Following a year in which he worked in Cambridge and Brussels as unanimously elected President of the International Association of Physics Students (IAPS), he has worked in Cambridge, Reading, Dublin, Paris and Leeds as a computer programmer in electronic commerce and online banking and plans to come down from Yorkshire with his girlfriend of seven years to work from Shrewsbury upon his election to the House of Commons.

Spam is Censorship

One of my domain names receives over twelve thousand junk e-mails per day. Junk is often sent to multiple random surnames within this domain. So like many I use a spam filter to reduce system load and protect my users from time-wasters. Censorship occurs when filters mistakenly remove e-mails personally intended for the recipient. For example, an architect once couldn’t reach a construction company with e-mails containing the word “erection”. However a cautious filter can leave the user overwhelmed with hundreds of daily e-mails. Typically (s)he will view only e-mails from people (s)he knows or with subjects that match e-mail previously sent out. Viewing any other mail risks infection by a virus, trojan or worm and wasted time. When out of the blue, a stranger with a legitimate statement or question sends an e-mail, this will often be ignored unless the sender name and subject relate specifically to the recipient’s world. In e-mailing this newspaper, I used the subject “Shrewsbury & Atcham - Election 2005 - "World" Prospective Parliamentary Candidate” and the sender name “World political party”. Had I simply used “Hi!” & “World” respectively, this message might have been filtered into the spam folder and thus censored, albeit unintentionally. The existence of large quantities of spam forces self-imposed censorship of one’s incoming mail. It is of paramount importance for freedom of e-mail communication between strangers that police cooperate worldwide to locate the spam gangs and isolate them from the internet, preferably in spartan prison cells. As your MP, I would raise this issue forcefully in the House of Commons and parliamentary subcommittees.

This from www.spamhaus.org:
Spam, now at 75% of all email traffic arriving at most ISPs mail servers, is set to increase still further thanks to new features in proxy hijacking software released by spammers. Many major email services report a large increase in spam coming directly from the major mail relays of other ISPs. Spamhaus sees this change and the increase in spam as a threat to be taken seriously, as unchecked, at the current pace spam levels could reach 95% of all email traffic by mid-2006.

Fair Immigration in a Safe World

Economic migrants, tourists and asylum seekers wish to enter the UK, to share in and possibly contribute to our prosperity, culture, safety and freedom. We have every right to interview prospective immigrants to determine whether they offer us a fair deal, be it as individuals or as a family travelling together. Ideally this interview process should begin outside the UK, for example at a British Consulate, and be concluded with an agreed immigration contract before any individual walks freely down a UK street. A fair immigrant brings to the UK skills and experience of benefit to our society and resources to sustain him in law abiding domicile. Upon the expiry of the immigration contract we should review his activities and decide whether to offer an extension or to insist upon his emigration from the UK. The seeker of asylum can receive from us a much more precious gift, a safe world. Our arms dealers should export arms only to highly democratic governments. Our businessmen should respect the ordinary people of undeveloped countries with which we conduct trade and negotiate fairly. Our diplomats should vote for fair trade within the World Trade Organisation, and within the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund insist upon no collection of debt that denies a population basic healthcare and education. At Gleneagles this summer, we should hold the entire G8 to these standards, in homage to our great economist, John Maynard Keynes, who tried to negotiate a fair global deal at Bretton Woods, only to be rebuffed by the American economist.

Candidates standing in Shrewsbury & Atcham

Emma Bullard - Green Party - Protect the environment

Richard Burt - Liberal Democrats - Preserve Civil Liberties

James Gollins - Independent

Nigel Harris - World Party - Seeks a worldwide online participatory democracy

Michael Ion - New Labour - Would follow Tony Blair's commands too loyally.

Daniel Kawczynskij - Tories - Didn't attend the 2003 Peace March in Hyde Park

Peter Lewis - UKIP - Wreck our mutual support deal with continental Europe.


The PPC for World is in the middle of the ballot paper, providing an excellent chance for voters to save Nigel Harris's £500 deposit which he has pledged to donate directly into party funds upon its successful recovery. Doesn't every candidate tell you (s)he is going to win? This is because of the tactical voting pressures exerted by the First_Past_the_Post system. Indeed at the national level, there is a double/squared "First Past the Post" in operation, firstly upon winning individual seats by having the most votes, and then upon winning the right to govern by having the most seats. Proportional Representation does not require the candidate to express such fanciful optimism as even 5% of the vote can elect a party's candidate into some seat somewhere.

www.nigel-harris.com