Alternative Votes And the Three-Legged Race

As a child I was energetic enough, wiry and fit, but team and competitive sports didn't, and still don't particularly interest me. Sitting on the side-lines watching a cricket match in the comfortingly warm sun of a late summer's afternoon was activity enough for me, even though I didn't understand cricket. Alternatively, perhaps a sauntering walk to a favourite spot beneath the shade of an old oak where I could sit with a book and sense the evening creeping up on the world to envelope us all in night-time’s comforting blanket.

Come sports day, of course, every effort would be made to ensure no one felt left out, it never occurring to anyone that a person might simply dream of being left out. Consequently, we timid touchline layabouts were drafted into some games considered so easy that anyone could play. Quoits, the sack race, different versions of the egg-and-spoon race, throwing bean bags about and, of course, the three-legged race.

Two children would be tethered together at the ankle and, incredible as it may seem, were expected to run towards a finish line such that they would prove the acme of triumph in co-operation. Of course, the true intent of those into whose charge our innocent parents had entrusted us soon became apparent as a series of stumbles, falls and tearful cross words met with peals of uncontrollable laughter from the side of the track where, if there was any justice, I would have been sitting during this three-legged farce.

You never saw the much celebrated top athletes of the school taking part in this absurd buffoonery and for good reason. Athletes are fiercely competitive and the last thing one needs is to be hobbled by some spotty Herbert with a flare for sonnets and coming in last. The school athletes would compete on their own terms and just as well or who would play the games at whose side-lines I might sit and dream?

On May 5^th UK citizens are being asked to vote on electoral reform, on whether to replace the first past the post system currently used in general elections with the alternative voting system. Make no mistake, this is important because it will determine the method and outcomes of all future elections; You can find out more from the Electoral Reform Society.

Who gains from this reform? We are led to believe that the voter will benefit because his or her vote will have a greater chance to count but I have serious doubts. Do we really want a three-legged government, with two (or, heaven forfend, maybe more) parties tethered together in a forced marriage hobbling down the track, stumbling, falling and uttering increasingly louder complaints about how unfair it all is that this or that party's agenda is being subsumed by the other?

What would that look like? Well, you only have to look at the growing resentments at the grass roots of the current coalition government. There is a sense that the Tory party is being hobbled by its farcical partnership with the bookish Liberal milksops while the liberals hear this government routinely referred to as Tory because no one believes the Liberal party is in any way setting the agenda for change and governance.

There is no illusion about which party in this three-legged race is the athlete and which dragged from the touchline to run a race in which they never expected to be entered. The liberals have not been in government for almost 100 years and I can't help think this is because not that many people want a Liberal government and perhaps we should consider the possibility that the current system works very well in that it has recognised that fact. Maybe the alternative voting system is going to give us what we have consistently rejected for almost a century, a Liberal government.

Back on my schools sports fields if anyone had suggested reforming sport so that someone who came in behind the winner, the first past the post, might still take the trophy would have been laughed to derision. If anyone had suggested the athlete coming in first, having trained long and hard all year, should share the glory with another who has been consistently rejected for the team would have been considered mad. The also rans and the three-legged hobbledehoys were expected to be good losers and if it didn't suit them to lose urged to make a greater effort next year.

In the race of life there are winners and losers and coming in last is a mighty clue to the fact that you didn't try hard enough. Maybe the Liberal school report should read, “Must try harder next time.”

BBC News - Councils defeat government over school buildings

A Tory turns out to be a law-breaker; well who would have thought. Of course, this is typical of the party that considers itself the natural party of government. Just as Mubarak is driven from office after 30 years of emergency laws and phony elections the Tories are shown to be pressing ahead with their idealism-based reform without consulting anyone. The arrogance and flagrant disregard for people is to be expected but surely not to be tolerated.

“The education secretary's decision to axe Buildings Schools for the Future (BSF) projects in six local authority areas was ruled unlawful as he failed to consult on it.”

BBC News - Councils defeat government over school buildings

BBC News - UK economy suffers 0.5% contraction

At a time when the IMF are forecasting better than expected growth in the world economy the UK economy has suffered a 0.5% contraction. The Office for national Statistics reports that, even allowing for the atrocious weather in December, the economy has still experienced a 0% growth.

The figures have been described as “horrendous” and “disastrous” but when he was interviewed today on the BBC News Channel the Chancellor, George (Oik) Osborne, could only talk about the weather. It is a dreadfully awkward and obvious piece of political ducking and diving, depressing to watch, but to every question (and there were some good ones) he responded with talk about the weather.

People across industry are describing this government’s strategy as regressive and lacking imagination and direction yet the only thing on George’s mind is the weather and the question, “How can I get away from this intelligent and probing interview?” He has to be the most cack-handed Chancellor in many a long year, a political operative of mediocre qualities at best and his arrogance is matched only by his callous incompetence.

BBC News - UK economy suffers 0.5% contraction

BBC News - Cameron hails 'revolutionary' Whitehall data website

Following plans to make the unemployed work at menial tasks for £1 an hour the government is now planning to hand over the auditing of the civil service to – well, you and me. Ironically, it is the unemployed who might be best placed for time to do this job.

Funny, but when I put my cross next to my candidate of choice at the last election I was convinced I was helping to build a government that would do the job. It seems that while they are dead keen that all the people they are planning to put out of work should find a job, even if it is for £1 an hour, they themselves seem curiously workshy.

David Cameron announced a new age of transparency, when ordinary people will be able to check on whether the government is keeping to the pledges it has made. Maybe he should look closer to home. He is already in government with Nick Clegg and the LibDems who have broken almost every pledge they made before the election.

BBC News - Cameron hails 'revolutionary' Whitehall data website

BBC News - David Cameron launches Tories' 'big society' plan

 

Speaking to the BBC before the speech, Mr Cameron rejected suggestions that the plans [for a big society]were "cover" for substantial cuts in public services in many areas as the government tries to cut the deficit.

"It is not a cover for anything," he told BBC One's Breakfast. "This would be a great agenda whether we were having to cut public spending or whether we were increasing public spending.

"This is not about trying to save money, it is about trying to have a bigger, better society."

Margaret Thatcher told us that there is no such thing as society, meaning of course that there is no autonomous entity called society to catch you if you fall and we all have to take responsibility. Now David Cameron tells us that there is little else but society, meaning – well the same thing really.  They are two sides of the same coin.

It was worrying to hear him tell Phil Redmond that he got his “Big Society” idea from watching Grange Hill. What I want to know is, if we are all going to take more responsibility for things and government is going to do less, will we pay less in taxes, moving the resources as well as the task to the big society, or will we pay the same or more in taxes leaving the weak to go to the wall – Social Darwinism which has always been a key Tory philosophy?

BBC News - David Cameron launches Tories' 'big society' plan

Exclusive: The Breathless Celts

With the new Condem alliance threatening cuts of between 25% and 40% across the board and in all departments this column can exclusively reveal how the regions, and especially the peripheral, Celtic nations of the UK will carry the brunt of those cuts.

A  leaked document today reveals that the North of England will be closed from Friday to Monday, while the Midlands will close early on Tuesdays and Fridays. Regions further south will remain open, but will see a ban on every mode of transport except walking and piggy backs. Residents across the UK are encouraged to go to bed early, especially as the days get shorter, to save on electricity. The Home Counties are under review, although there are no plans for any such radical money-saving measures because that’s where David Cameron lives.

But in a move that some commentators say makes Margaret Thatcher look like a socialist citizens of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are being asked to hold their breath when there is an ‘R’ in the month. The leaked document reveals the government’s concern that there isn’t enough air to go around after MPs have debated the issue. Other ideas for making such savings include restricting women to only breathing out, an idea that was rejected when someone pointed out that most women can talk breathing in, a feat of multitasking considered vital to the nation.

A member of the Welsh Assembly, when asked to comment, said that policies were still under consideration and everyone was holding their breath in anticipation of official announcements. “After all”, she observed, “we might need the practice.”

BBC News - Duncan Smith considers incentives to relocate jobless

“Unemployed people living in council homes could be offered incentives to move to areas where there are jobs, the work and pensions secretary has said.”

It was only going to be a matter of time but even I am surprised at how quickly this Condem government has come around to Norman Tebbit’s way of thinking. And this old recidivist Tory policy has been dusted off and wheeled out by the acceptable face of Ian Duncan Smith (left). They have already started thinking of the disabled as benefit cheats and the old as retiring too early, now they are talking about the working population as work shy and feckless people who need to be encouraged to “get on your bike” and move across the country to find work. Their disdain for “the great unwashed” is palpable, shameful and all-too-typical.

And where are these jobs for which people should mount their bikes and ride? They are depending on the private sector taking up the slack but have absolutely no control over that and so no guarantee of a jobs market to which bikes may be confidently ridden.They have plans to savagely cut back on public services, throwing hundreds of thousands of people out of their jobs, swelling further the ranks of the unemployed and shrinking considerably the amount of money people have to spend.

With millions more unemployed, belts being tightened and significantly less money to spend in the country what on earth reason for hope can the private sector have in the prospects for growth and expansion? Why should they invest in a country that has more and more people out of work and less and less money to spend? In a shrinking market and a growing liability? But of course the next step in this grand design (Oh, the plan, the plan) is to get rid of the minimum wage so that those nice people at the CBI can bank on a growing population of slave labour.

I am reminded of that verse in Exodus which declares that “there arose a new king over Egypt, that did not know Joseph.” That king’s policies led to slavery for Israel. In the same way it might be said that a king arose in Downing Street about which this new generation knew nothing; but they will soon learn, they will soon learn. Welcome to the 1980’s, a place of individual wealth and collective poverty, of blaming the poor and celebrating the wealthy, of social Darwinism, a meritocracy in which only the strong survive.
BBC News - Duncan Smith considers incentives to relocate jobless

Brave New World

I don't usually do political comment but I have been catching some of the budget debate in the Commons after the ConDem Alliance emergency budget. I can't let this moment pass without offering my heartfelt condolences to all those who voted for the fair-minded, progressive, metrosexual, Europhile champions of minorities, the LibDems only to wake up to the nightmare of a totally macroeconomics driven, right wing, minority bashing, homophobic, slash and burn Tory budget. I have one proverbial piece of advice for you. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Now you have seen that the Liberal party only flies a flag of convenience and is more than happy to negotiate principles for power you know better next time.

I think perhaps the country might resist the temptation to toy with proportional representation now they have seen what happens when their favourite cuddly politicians take power. It has been a lot like watching the film Gremlins. One minute you just want to run up to nice Nick Clegg and shake his hand, the next Calamity Clegg is doing monstrous things to your job, your public services and your bank balance. Take it from me, if it isn't nailed down they will have it off you before you can say "redundant and homeless" - unless your a city banker of course.