Tag Archives: politics

by | April 16, 2011 · 8:00 pm

a final word on Yes2AV

So far in this debate I’ve not really seen much from the Yes lobby that tells me why theirs is a good idea; it has all been about the FPTP system being wrong and that AV is great, but why?

As any of you that have read my previous posts on this topic will know I am against it, but again, to be fair, why?

Well, in what will, hopefully, be my final blog on the subject, here’s why:

What is the point of your vote? It is to elect the person that you would like to have represent you. Now this has become slightly corrupted in that you probably really vote for the party that they represent rather that the person. There is a distinction, but let’s leave it at that for now.

You get the one choice, and why would you want a second choice? Now the AV lobby will have you believe that you might have a second, third, or more choice, but is it really true that someone will say “I’m voting for party A, but party D would be my second choice, and Party F my third choice”? I really doubt that.

What is far more likely is that they will say “I want party A to win and party B to lose”. Let’s face it, someone who votes Tory is going to want the Labour party to lose and vice versa, so what can they do?

Under AV they can either vote as they do now choosing their one favoured candidate, leaving the other candidates boxes on their form unticked,

or they can vote for more than one candidate and put the one they don’t want to win as far down the list as they can

or they could vote for their favourite, plus some of the others, but not the one that they don’t want.

If they take the first option then there is no difference from now. If they take either of the other options they are voting tactically.

Now we need to be honest here and acknowledge that, apart from some specific areas of the UK, there are two main parties; Conservative and Labour, then there are the LibDems, and then the rest. Can anyone really say that this is not the case? You only have to look at the numbers to see it, or just glance at history. Apart from the current coalition, or the war years, when did we have anyone other than the top two in power?

So if you are voting tactically and you want either Conservative or Labour to win and the other to lose, then you need to make your second choice one that is going to attract enough votes to push the unwanted candidate down, and the only realistic second choice for most is therefore LibDem.

In one of my other blogs on this subject someone has commented about how many LibDem voters complained last year that they had not voted LibDem to get a Tory government, but isn’t that what AV is about. I, too, remember that now and understand her point.

Persuade me I’m wrong if you can, but as I see it if someone is elected on a raft of second, and possibly third, choice votes, how is this better than what we have now? Unless you are one of those who have successfully voted tactically that is.

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by | April 8, 2011 · 4:30 pm

more on the yes2av campaign – is there a scandal that we should know about?

I am all for a fair fight, good open debate and accepting the results at the end, whatever they may be. My own campaign against the yes2av lobby is, I hope, a good example of putting an alternative argument forward so that people can make up their own minds, albeit that I do hope that my arguments do influence people towards my way of thinking.

And so I am appalled the read via another blog quoting from The Spectator that the Electoral Reform Society, who would have much to gain financially from a Yes2av vote being successful, are sponsoring that campaign. Read the blog and reference to the article here and make up your own mind.

It is old news maybe, having been published in late Feb this year, but was news to me until this morning.

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by | April 8, 2011 · 8:30 am

more on why I’m voting No2AV on 5th May

Deciding who will represent you in parliament and, ultimately, who will run the country is not a marketing survey.

If someone asks you to rate your top 5 or 10 hotel chains, supermarkets, airlines, fashion outlets or whatever then ranking them in order makes sense. It gives a feel for how people see the market and who they rate as number one. You could do the same with one of those, for me puerile, talent and reality shows to decide who to vote off.

But deciding the outcome of an election this way is, to me, completely bonkers.

Yes, I want to see electoral reform and a better way of representing the people, but I do not believe that AV has any place in such reform, so I’m voting No.

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by | April 7, 2011 · 7:11 am

vote no2AV on 5th May – have you spotted the irony with yes2av here?

Having had more Vote Yes for AV material thrust at me the delicious irony of the 5th May referendum has finally broken through to me: The vote is a first past the post one! If more people vote for it than against it will succeed, and will do so by the very system that it desires to eradicate,

So it 15% of the population vote for it, and less than that vote against, it will be passed by a minority.

Given that a few luvvies are queueing up to urge a Yes vote from their fans (who will no doubt vote Yes without understanding why), and that there is a small campaign in favour, but no apparent cry to oppose, we face the strong possibility of having a political nonsense thrust upon us. As WSC might have put it; “never in the field of politics have so few done such damage to so many” (well, other than New Labour of course).

We need change, but not this one. Perhaps I should take to the streets.

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by | April 6, 2011 · 1:32 pm

why I will be voting no2av next month

Despite many of my friends seeming to support the proposed change to the way we elect our politicians I will be voting No on May 5th.

I am in favour of electoral reform, and think that a change is overdue, but this solution is, I think, very poorly designed and unlikely to give us anything better than we have now. In fact I truly think that it could make things worse.

It is a shame that, after waiting so long for there to be a chance of doing something better, all that  is on offer is such an appalling mess. I hope that it does not come to fruition, but am concerned that if my wish comes through it will be a while before we get another chance. Even so, I cannot see the point in voting for change just for the sake of it, especially one that I think is so bad, and so I shall be putting my cross in the No box.

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by | March 22, 2011 · 2:31 pm

letters to the editor – disposing of unpopular leaders

Sir

So our Prime Minister and his government believe that it is acceptable to have an unpopular leader assassinated. Perhaps they should be carefull of what they wish for….

I think that we should be told.

Yours faithfully

Surprised of Swindon

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by | March 7, 2011 · 5:35 pm

leave Andy alone

Why do the media have it in for Prince Andrew? We can’t be responsible for the sins of our friends, assuming that we even know about them. At the moment there isn’t even a real allegation against him, let alone anything else, and a bunch of publicity seeking individuals draggings his name around the edges of a scandal should be treated with the contempt that they deserve and be ignored.

There are a lot of people in this country who had a reasonable Christmas because of the work that HRH brought in for their employers, so leave him alone and let him get on with doing the good that he does. And while you’re at it, leave his ex alone too.

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by | March 5, 2011 · 8:48 pm

a tale of two hackers – part 2

Last week I had a bit of a go at the founder of Wikileaks, and I feel a bit of clarification may be needed. I’m not against whistle blowing, although I did once come a cropper doing just that myself, but last week I was drawing a parallel between those who seem to want to elevate Mr Assange to sainthood and the case of Gary McKinnon.

My issue with Julian Assange is that knowledge is power and needs to be used with care. I frequently am rude here about politicians, but there is a responsibility issue at hand and politicians have a difficult job, more so the further up the ivory tower they get. My beef with them is often about how ill prepared they are to wield the knowledge and power that they have.

There are times when the people (whoever they may be) have a right to know things and there are times when they don’t. That decision has to be made by someone. Now we are all human and fallible, but when we are entrusted with those decisions we have to do our best to do the right thing.

The problem I have with Wikileaks is that I don’t see any sign of accountability, let alone responsibility. Mr Assange and his supporters are happy enough to attack The System, but look what happens when things get rough; it’s that same System that they look to to protect them.

It takes courage to wield knowledge and power. I don’t see a lot of that in Mr Assange, and nor do I see it in the way that the US government is behaving towards Gary McKinnon. Maybe there is an irony there.

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by | February 26, 2011 · 1:58 pm

a tale of two hackers – the campaign to #freegary goes on

One the one hand we have an individual who is being lauded by the lovies and hailed as a hero by certain elements of the community. A man who has pleaded guilty to charges of hacking and has placed the lives of many at risk by publishing information that he and his supporters claim that we, the public, have a right to know about, regardless of the fact that there are nasty people around who can use what he is making public to their own twisted advantage.

And then we have a gentle soul who managed to break through the layers of security and hack into places he also had no right to be in, but did nothing malicious once there, simply had a poke around for interests purely of his own. The only publicity that has come from his actions has been brought to our attention by those whose security he breached.

One is seemlingly pretty safe and is being protected by laws in the UK and the other is, once again, seemingly on the brink of being handed over to the US where he is unlikely to get anything like a fair hearing.

I find it obscene that it is the second of these chaps that is facing being handed over, despite him being one of us, a UK national, whereas the first one, not a UK national, is the one that we are protecting.

I know that the charges they each face are different, but why are we not protecting Gary McKinnon? Julian Assange, in my opinion, is a very dangerous man who has little regard for the safety and security of others, and has done what he has done in the full knowledge of its implications for others, whereas Gary is a harmless person with a recognised medical condition who did not set out to damage anyone, and nor did he.

Julian Assange has placed the lives of many at risk; Gary McKinnon showed that there was a flaw in security that needed to be addressed. I think that the former deserves all he might get and the latter deserves a medal.

Now I read that Nick Clegg is backing away from his apparent commitment to Gary. Regardless of his gaffe earlier in the week about fogetting he was in charge, if the Lib-Dems are serious about government then let’s see some strong commitment. If the junior partners in this coalition can’t show some backbone then David Cameron should demonstrate how to lead and simply tell President Obama to give up on Gary McKinnon, end of story.

There are things in life worth standing up for and this is one of them. I shall continue to campaign for his freedom and I hope that you will join the fight.

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by | February 22, 2011 · 8:54 pm

we live in interesting times

We live in interesting times. Wasn’t that once a curse? Events through North Africa and into the Middle East echo the stunning scenes as the Berlin Wall came down, taking with it the former Soviet Bloc.

I don’t mean this to sound facetious, but the apparent role of social media in some of what we are reading about, and seeing on TV, maybe suggests that we don’t need costly invasions, just supply a bunch of smart phones and let Twitter and Facebook take over. Sure there will probably still be deaths, for every revolution needs martyrs but there may be less than riding into town with guns and missiles blazing courtesy of an invasion force.

The technological revolution has changed the world so much. As a gawky teenager I watched a moon that had men walking on it whilst also being able to talk to people who had been born before the first powered flight. My parents generation had fought a war at a time when weaponry moved from barely adequate ballistics to the atom bomb in less than 6 years and yet it is getting on for 20 years since US war planes were taking off a few miles from where I live to launch SCUD missiles in anger.

In the early 80’s I began programming computers that I never saw and would have taken up most of my kitchen, but had less computing power that the mobile phone that now sits alongside me. I had to run programmes using less memory that I need to accommodate this sentence on my laptop.

Yes the times are a changing.

We have enjoyed the fact that some parts of the world are apparently at peace when the fact is that there may be quiet, but it comes at the cost of what we would regard as repression. I think that we need to take a breath before we judge others. Why are we right and they wrong? Our world and what we take for granted is as alien to some people as our lives are to them. We readily criticise now the Imperialism of earlier centuries, yet was that not also an effort to impose our ways on others? If that was wrong what gives us the right to repeat the exercise now? If other groups of people have a desire to kill each other, where do we draw the line between intervention and inteference?

This is not a defence of cruel dictators or corrupt regimes. I applaud those who rise up and depose them, but only as long as they can provide a better alternative, otherwise they have just shed the blood of those who have died in vain. How much more blood has been shed in countries around the world after they have rid themselves of the resident despot? Sorry, but life is not easy and things are not as clear cut as we would like them to be when we sit in our comfortable worlds in what we like to think of as civilised countries.

My thoughts are with those who are protesting with hope for a better world in their hearts. I hope that they succeed in their dreams and that their success comes without blood and tears being spilled, or at least as little as possible. It also goes out to the people of New Zealand who have seen Mother Nature rise up against them. Life ain’t easy; it’s a privilege, so let’s not waste it. Times are too interesting to miss.

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