May 5th

It's currently 4.22 in the morning after polling day. I am tired and supremely pissed off. The following blog will come under the following headings:
An account of my day
Do people get what they deserve?
AV fuck up, who is to blame?

An account of my day
Well, first of all I voted. I put a little mark on my ballot so I could spot it if I counted it later.
Then I was sent to a polling station by the organization formerly known as "Yes to Fairer Votes". I was there for three hours in the warm weather giving out leaflets to about 10 85 year olds who turned out to vote. However, I did have the pleasure of the company of the UKIP candidate for the area. He knew a lot of people in the area through his business and family. We talked about everything from the EU (obviously) to feminism, party funding, national debt and electoral reform. Personally I am instinctively pro-EU because of my lefty upbringing, but I don't have any strong arguments. I actually agree with a lot of what UKIP say on Europe. It is too undemocratic and we don't need the EU to tell us what kind of lightbulbs to use or apples to eat. However, my answer to this is to reform the EU, not to leave it altogether as I think the trade benefits, movement of labour and the need for a strong unified global voice are important. I also find it strange how UKIP argue for more trade agreements etc. with the commonwealth. I don't see why they prefer the commonwealth over the EU and can't help but think that there may be some underlying imperialism at work. I also put it to him, after he had commented on the beauty of free markets, why he opposed the free movement of labour. The markets, surely, are capable of ensuring a well-balanced population with people where they need to be. He replied that it actually doesn't benefit 3rd world countries to be allowed free movement as we end up stealing all their doctors and nurses. (Don't quote me on this, I'm paraphrasing a bit [or would be if I knew what paraphrasing was])
As for party funding, we both agreed that there was too much money in politics and favour a low cap on donations by individuals so parties would need many donations, rather than a few big ones. I've said this for a long time, but I was surprised that a UKIP candidate agreed with me. I get the impression that UKIP, even more so than the tories, rely on wealthy backers. I have done my fair share of political campaigning but have never seen a UKIP volunteer delivering leaflets or canvassing. However, they do have big billboards and signs on the back of trucks. Also, the UKIP £ logo is probably meant to be a symbol of Britishness, but one can't help but speculate that it may be an in-joke by the party's wealthy leadership.
So after three hours and having persuaded literally no-one I headed back to uni to shout at people on the concourse for a bit.

In the evening I was counting votes for the local elections. On the one hand this is an exciting experience as there is the feeling of being at the heart of the election, but it is also quite tedious, particularly by 3 in the morning, and there is a lot of waiting around. It's also ironic that by being at the count you get less of an idea what's going on than if you were at home watching events on telly.
What I like about events like that is seeing all the people in different coloured rosettes chatting politely to each other. That is, apart from the single BNP candidate, who was circulating the room trying to taunt Labour and Lib Dem candidates and make a scene. He opted for calling the elderly Labour volunteers at my table peadophiles. What a lovely man.
Party-political slave that I am, it was quite distracting to hear the feral hoots of Labour members as their councillors won ward after ward while I was trying to count, but what was more uplifting was how close a lot of the results were and as a counter seeing the sheer number of Lib Dem votes. You get the impression in the media that there are no Lib Dems left, but this simply isn't true.
The massive Lib Dem defeat was not exactly fun to watch but it's not like it was unexpected. It's like when your 110 year old great grandmother pops her clogs. You knew it was coming but it's still hard to come to terms with when it happens.
The next day I was counting for AV. This took less time but was oh so much more depressing. I knew already from opinion polls and seeing referendum ballots the day before that it was lost and counting all the no votes on only a few hours sleep was not a bundle of laughs.
I pity the Lib Dems and Yes people at both counts. It was depressing for me but at least I was getting paid good money to be there.


Do people get what they deserve?
I watched a documentary once on call centres featuring depressed call centre workers and angry call centre customers. At the end, one of the customers summed the situation up well. He said that the cheap, impersonal, battery farming approach to customer service was the fault of the big companies for trying to increase their profit margins, and the fault of consumers for always demanding lower prices and not being prepared to pay for the extra bit of service. I think the same can be said of British politics.
People complain that they're all the same. Cameron, Clegg, Milliband. Which fresh-faced, political cliché do you prefer? You may as well flip a coin. People complain they try and appeal to the lowest-common-denominator, having broad, meaningless policies like the 'big society' summed up in vacuous soundbites that fit comfortably into headlines or YouTube clips. This is true. But we deserve it.
The very same people who complain about style over substance consistently vote for just that. Personally I don't dislike Ed Milliband as a Labour leader. He's not as self-servingly tribal as many and seems to be moving the party in a better direction. But all that is meaningless. He will never be Prime Minister, least not if he keeps along his current trajectory. If he ever wants a chance of election he needs to change his voice, style and learn to make a witty speech.
It's the classic market dilemma. The consumers blame the producers and the producers blame the consumers. What we all need to do is grow up.
You can't force people to take an interest but there must be a solution. 60% of people not voting in the second national referendum in our history is shocking, and by rejecting AV the British electorate have shot themselves in the foot again. Next time people are complaining about all politicians being the same they can just fuck off as far as I'm concerned.




AV fuckup: who to blame? 
This AV referendum was a fuck up, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. But who, or what, is to blame?

• The No campaign

The Yes campaign is angry, and rightly so, at the no campaign. The sheer level they stooped to with the £250m (that Blunkett admitted was made up on polling day) and their various other lies such as the BNP getting multiple votes, the end of one person one vote and people who come last actually coming first. However, it's likely that even if we had an honest debate (the Yes campaign wasn't perfect either) No would have won. What I want to know is why they chose this tactic instead of legitimate argument. There are some reasonable arguments against AV. For example, they could have pointed out that Ed Milliband was behind his brother in every round of voting and only one because of the in-some-cases next-to-last preferences of voters for other candidates. This is quite convincing. They could have also pointed out that it wouldn't have actually made a difference in a large number of seats, or that it can sometimes be even less proportional. If they had gone for this approach instead the Yes campaign would not be left with this niggling feeling of having been cheated. Anyone who thinks the public were given fair information and a clear choice must have been out of the country for the last few months.

• Circumstances

In many ways this referendum could not have come at a worse time, both in a large sense, at a time of big government cutbacks and when the strongest advocates of electoral reform are disliked across the political spectrum, and in a more random sense that the royal wedding was last week and Osama bin Laden was captured three days before the referendum, stifling whatever limited debate we might have hoped for. Without information, voters are likely to go to a polling station, see something they know nothing about and vote against it. Also, with the lack of proper broadcasting on the subject, voters had to rely on what they were told by the yes and no campaigns, which can't be a good thing.

• The Yes campaign

As I said before, the Yes campaign hasn't been perfect. However, I don't think it is 'to blame'. It did not have the resources of No to AV, or the newspapers on-side, or the majority of politicians. I read a comment, I think it was in the Guardian, criticizing the Yes campaign for having to enthusiasm for AV. I think this is unfair. Certainly in my experience there was loads of people prepared to pour time, energy, money and dignity into the Yes campaign. Some of us wanted PR, some were happy with AV, but we all knew that this was a better system than FPTP, and if we failed electoral reform in the UK would die for the foreseeable future. I don't think you can fault thousands of volunteers trying to improve the country for the better in the face of the fear and lies of the establishment.

• Nick Clegg

People have blamed Nick Clegg for a lot of things, should AV be one of them?

There is quite a convincing case that Nick Clegg should not have agreed to an AV referendum. Whether that meant saying "PR or nothing" or having no referendum and looking for more concessions in other areas. This was likely to be the only referendum on the voting system in our lifetimes whether won or lost; should it really be wasted on AV? Also, there is a stronger case for PR and it may have rallied more people to the campaign. However, having said that, if there had been a referendum on PR which was lost, people would have said "maybe we should have made a smaller change to begin with". There are also stronger arguments against PR, such as constituency links and hung parliaments. 

The personal unpopularity of Clegg may have damaged the campaign. Unfortunately some people are tribal or ignorant enough to vote against a positive change because someone they don't like supports it.

• The electorate

There is a major problem of people simply not caring about voting systems. In fact, I wonder why they always pick the worst issues to have referenda on. Who would have actually read the Lisbon treaty before voting on it? But even so, 40% turnout is bad. I know that I've already criticized the media for providing the necessary information, but people's reliance on the media is also a problem. They should be able to take the responsibility of finding out the facts for themselves and making up their own mind. And, again, we're back to supply and demand. The media doesn't talk about electoral reform because it doesn't sell papers. It's a vicious cycle.

It has been a more historic than usual set of local elections this year, aside from the predictable drubbing of the Lib Dems, we have been left with the very real possibility of Scottish independence as a result of the unthinkable happening: an overall majority in a proportional assembly. This would have a seismic impact on British politics. Any hope of a Labour shift to the left would be thwarted as they would need to appeal to the more conservative English electorate in the absence of their Scottish stronghold, and even without independence Scotland has been proven to no longer be as reliable to the Labour party as it has been. Whatever happens they will now need to look further afield for support. Those people who declare a permanent Tory majority in a Scotlandless UK I feel are mistaken, however, as sooner or later the English will want a change of government whoever is in power. This may also provide a niche for the Lib Dems who could exploit their perceived shift to the right in an independent England to become the second party and main opposition to the Tories, although this is wild speculation.

More important, however, is the future of electoral reform or lack thereof. There won't be another referendum on electoral reform in this parliament, and even if there's another hung parliament at the next election, would either Labour or Tories offer a referendum, and will the Lib Dems even bother to seek one after they have been defeated so comprehensively? It seems futile even to keep it in the Lib Dem's manifesto, as reform seems to have been rejected so wholeheartedly.

My view is that the British electorate are probably not as opposed to reform as it may appear and the proPR anti AV impact may have made FPTP look stronger than it is, but all that is irrelevant now. RIP electoral reform and any chance of Britain ever becoming a democracy. *transferring all eggs to basket of Lords reform*

If you know who is to blame for AV, please post below. And tell me their postcode and any achilles heels they may have.

William Hague and AV

On 17/2/2011 I received the following email from William Hague:







Dear Alex,


Without your help, Britain's traditional voting system could be ditched for something that is unfair, expensive and allows candidates that finish third to win elections.


On May 5th, there's a nationwide referendum on whether to replace the system of First Past the Post with the 'Alternative Vote' - or AV. The Liberal Democrats demanded this referendum as part of the Coalition agreement - but the Conservative Party are actively campaigning for a 'No' vote. Here's why:
AV is unfair. With First Past the Post, everybody gets one vote. But under AV, supporters of extreme parties like the BNP would get their vote counted many times, while other people's vote would only be counted once.
AV doesn't work. Rather than the candidate with the most votes winning, the person who finishes third could be declared the winner.
AV is expensive. Calculating the results is a long, complicated process, which would cost the taxpayer millions.
No-one wants AV. Even the 'Yes' campaigners don't actually want AV - they see it as a convenient stepping stone to yet more changes to how we vote.


HOW YOU CAN HELP
Go to the No to AV website and sign up to receive emails
Ask your local Conservative Association how you can help their campaign against AV
Join the NO to AV group on Facebook or follow them on Twitter
Forward this email on to 5 friends.


Together, we can win this referendum and save our voting system.


Thank you,




William Hague

Foreign Secretary





Unsurprisingly I disagreed with much of this so I replied:


Dear Mr Hague,

I received an email from you yesterday asking for my help in the 'No to AV' campaign. You stated your criticisms of the system. However, it seems that you misunderstand several key elements of the Alternative Vote electoral system as a number of the claims you make are inaccurate. Obviously a man of your stature would not deliberately mislead people, so perhaps I can show you where your errors lie and help you understand how the Alternative Vote works.


The first point you make is:

"AV is unfair. With First Past the Post, everybody gets one vote. But under AV, supporters of extreme parties like the BNP would get their vote counted many times, while other people's vote would only be counted once."

This is not the case. Smaller party candidates drop out after the first rounds, so votes for them are then counted according to second preference. As their first choice is no longer in the running it is difficult to argue that their vote is being counted multiple times. Furthermore, the way you have written it appears to imply that the BNP will get more votes as a result. Even if their votes were counted 'many times', these votes would not be for the BNP, they would be votes for a (presumably more moderate) second preference. Perhaps you should make this more clear, as at the moment you appear to be implying that AV will mean more votes for the BNP.

Your second point:

"AV doesn't work. Rather than the candidate with the most votes winning, the person who finishes third could be declared the winner."

Again, you appear to have misunderstood the system. It is true that the person who receives the fewest votes in the first round may go on to win, but this would only be if they are preferred over their two strongest opponents by 50% of the voters. Clearly this means an MP needs more support from their constituents than they do under FPTP, which is surely fairer. Perhaps in future communications you should clarify this, as at present you appear to suggest that AV gives a seat to the person with the third most votes, which is obviously untrue.


Thirdly:

"AV is expensive. Calculating the results is a long, complicated process, which would cost the taxpayer millions."

Expense seems to be a peculiar criticism, as your government regularly points out that £110m is spent every day servicing the national debt. This demonstrates that the 'millions' you talk about is clearly a relatively small sum. Furthermore, elections generally take place only every 5 years, so the additional cost seems negligible. Price also seems a bad way to choose an electoral system. It would be cheaper to have no elections at all. This point also seems particularly ironic as your party for several years demanded a referendum on the Lisbon treaty for no apparent reason. Also, you put the high cost down to counting being a 'long, complicated process', but this probably would not be as expensive as you say as the counters will hopefully have a better understanding of the system than you.


Finally:

"No-one wants AV. Even the 'Yes' campaigners don't actually want AV - they see it as a convenient stepping stone to yet more changes to how we vote."

The criticism that 'no-one wants AV' appears to be a bad one as the Liberal Democrats have campaigned for electoral reform for decades, and an AV referendum was in the manifesto of the Labour party, demonstrating that clearly there is some appetite for the system, and democratic legitimacy for a referendum. Also, I don't know if you're aware but there's a rather rigorous 'Yes' campaign with members nationwide who are terribly keen on the system.


I hope I have managed to clear up some things for you, and that you will take care not to accidently mislead people in future. If you want me to proof-read any future communications I would be more than happy.


Regards,








I'll keep you posted when I get a reply.

Is the government's bark worse than its bite? The forest sell-off examined...

I don't understand.

Like many I was mildly annoyed in a British sort of way about the proposed sell-off of the forests, so jumped on the lightly-irritated bandwagon of the slightly disgruntled and signed 38 Degrees' petition.

You may think I'm labouring the moderateness of my disapproval, but there is a reason. I'm not quite sure why I'm supposed to be angry, as neither side of this dispute seems to make a coherent case.

On the surface, headlines like 'Evil Government sells our forests to foreign paedophiles' are shocking, but no-one has really explained why. The government claims that if the forests are sold off (which is not yet final, apparently), they would still have the same ecological and rambling laws they do at the moment, meaning it would make no obvious difference to average Brit. This is partly because the average Brit probably never goes with in 100 acres of a wood. But it also means it would make no difference to the average forest-using Brit. Dogging is already illegal anyway. Now I don't know how true the argument that usage of forests won't be affected is, but I think it's fair to say that the forests won't be felled by angry orcs leaving a barren wasteland after the sell-off. The vast majority of Britain's forests are already privately owned and no-one seems that bothered or restricted from doing things they want to do by this fact. But the question is, if all forest-owners are permitted to do is manage and maintain their forest in accordance with government regulation, under the watchful eye of the forestry commission, why would anyone buy a forest? Obviously, the government's pawns are giving it the whole 'big society' spiel about communities getting together to buy and run a forest. And, to be fair, I think this could happen, right after the revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the withering of the state and the establishment of an anarcho-communist society. Then the communes may well try  to collectively buy and run a forest. But frankly, the government has somewhat  distanced itself from orthodox Marxism, and until communism happens, I can't see neighbours who won't even take a parcel for each other, or refrain from disposing of each others' pets, deciding to buy a forest for no apparent reason. Which leads neatly onto my next point...

The government's own estimations indicate that they would lose money from the sell-off. This could be something to do with the fact that clearly, if what they say is true, no-one will want to buy a forest. If they will lose money, and it makes no difference to the practical running of things, why on earth would you bother to sell off the forests? The government's answer is that the forestry commission is not good at running forests. Their gift-shops are understaffed and the height of their trees cannot be compared to those in the private sector.

So on one hand we have the problems with the sell-off:

• No-one wants to buy a forest
• It won't make any money
• Waffle about the private sector being better at running forests (eh?)

And on the other hand there doesn't seem much point in criticising it:

• Something like 90% of the forests are already privately owned: no problemo
• It won't make any difference to the general public if the same regulations are in force

If anyone can elaborate on either side of the argument for me it would be greatly appreciated.

Tnx xx

Is Nick Clegg working hard enough?

Perhaps this bothers me more than it should, but the idea that Nick Clegg shuts his box at 3pm Monday to Thursday and noon on Fridays is worrying. http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9382000/9382234.stm
Of course, there may be more to this story than meets the eye, for example he presumably spends a lot of time away speaking or meeting foreign leaders, so on ordinary office days likes to keep his workload to a minimum. I'm also, of course, not against politicians having a personal life and spending more time with their families, and having a cut-off point so they can do that, it's just that 3pm seems a little early.

I'm guessing he doesn't start work much before 9 in the morning, which means his working hours are significantly lower than the average person, which is clearly wrong. Also there are some, a lot, of jobs where doing out-of-hours work from home is expected and necessary. Using the example of my Dad; as a teacher he is in school from 8am to usually around 3.30 to 4pm, already more hours than Clegg, and on top of that has a large amount of marking and lesson planning to do in his own time. This is nothing unusual. Deputy Prime Minister should be, one would assume, a job in which a bit extra is expected. That doesn't mean Clegg should not be able to spend time with his family, but it appears, if this story is true, that he is taking advantage of the flexible nature of his job to work a minimum number of hours.

In Clegg's defence, as Deputy Prime Minister, he is technically responsible for all government departments, but does not have the staff or resources of the Prime Minister to provide the same level of scrutiny, but surely this would make him work harder?

This is particularly problematic in a coalition. If John Prescott had worked short hours it wouldn't have really mattered as he was more of a token Deputy to keep the traditional side of the party happy, given a job without a department to create the illusion of power. However, Clegg has a much more important roll. For a lot of people, myself included, our faith in the coalition is based on the idea that the Lib Dems are constantly battling behind the scenes to get every single possible compromise out of the Conservatives. A big part of this is Clegg's responsibility in his overseeing roll. But if he doesn't put government policy up to the scrutiny he should be, how can we be sure that the government is not the least Conservative it can be? And what's to stop the Tories from taking advantage of Clegg's apparently relaxed attitude and sneaking policy in which Clegg shouldn't be agreeing to?

I don't want to tell people how to organise their time, but it seems that if you want to be a stay-at-home Dad, don't become Deputy Prime Minister.

Update:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12343136
Nick Clegg says he is working hard enough. Obviously you can't believe everything a politician says, but I think that even the laziest MP probably works later than 3pm, so I'm inclined to believe him on this one. Also, the memo was just about submissions to his box, not about going home early like the BBC implied originally. What do you think?

Am I not Conservative?

I just signed up to David Cameron's weekly email. I also signed up to be punched in the crotch once a week. But seriously, I get my regular Lib Dem emails about the wonders of the coalition, but became a little suspicious. The most recent one sold the benefits of the AV referendum, civil liberties and the NHS reform (which I've yet to decide my view on) but curiously mentioned nothing of the spending cuts, which are probably the most talked-about things the government is doing. So I decided to join the Tory mailing list too, which will presumably give me the other side of government policy; the Hyde to the Lib Dem emails' Jekyll, if you like. I could have just 'liked' the Tories on Facebook, but I care what people think about me.
Had a bit of trouble finding the mailing list on their website at first. Probably serves me right for stupidly looking for a 'mailing list' button. Of course in this age of spin it's called 'Exclusive Emails'. It's like an exclusive night club, but instead of mixing with the rich and famous, you're sent a tedious list of massaged government policies. Although maybe my judgement is unfair. I have yet to be exclusively emailed by David Cameron.