Site overhaul got delayed for personal reasons and issues with the internet connection at my new place, but I’ve been keeping my journal going, and have written a tribute to Chris Lightfoot over there. The bloggers blogger, he’ll be missed by all of us.
Author Archive
RIP Chris Lightfoot
Tuesday, March 6th, 2007Blair planning something?
Tuesday, January 16th, 2007I recently discovered that my (soon to be former) MP has a blog, on MySpace. It’s actually not awful, for a MySpace blog, but today, he’s speculating Blair Resigns? :
something is definitely in the air. I don’t know what it is, but if Blair announces his resignation by the end of this week, you read it here first.
So the Westminster bubble says something is up. It would, of course, be a good thing for him to go. Here’s just hoping the constitutionally illiterate morons don’t make much running with getting Brown to got for an early election, we need to give the man time to mess things up utterly.
National Databases: A vision of madness
Monday, January 15th, 2007Ian Parker, a writer new to me, has an excellent story on the dangers of the database state that ends with:
In a free society, the rights and laws protect the individual from the government. In a dictatorship, the rights and laws protect the government from the people.
So very true. We’ve written at length here in the past about the dangers of the National Identity Register, but as Ian says:
I can hear Mr Blair protesting now that this is not what all these laws are for, but Mr Blair, please understand, THIS IS HOW THEY WILL BE APPLIED, if not in a dictatorial regime, certainly one in which it is very easy to hit all your targets when the laws are all on your side.
(via)
300 years of Great Britain
Thursday, January 11th, 2007I am reminded that this year will mark the 300th anniversary of the Act of Union that created Great Britain. There are those that would like it to also be the last, a subject I’ve written about extensively in the past. Indeed this desire seems to be spreading both North and South of the border:
devolution was supposed to defeat nationalism. That was what George Robertson, the former chief of Nato, famously said would happen: devolution would kill nationalism ’stone dead’. Not so. For England increasingly feels the intrinsic unfairness of devolution. Now John Reid, a Scottish Home Secretary, presides over a department that has limited powers in his own constituency of Airdrie and Shotts. Soon Gordon Brown will move into 10 Downing Street, to make laws on health and education that have no play in North Queensferry, where he lives. Meanwhile, a nation ashamed of the Iraq war tries to shake off culpability by turning to the SNP.
Me? Well, I still stand by the words I wrote in my very first post at teh old site, now to be found here:
Great Britain was founded in 1707, nearly three hundred years ago. The anniversary approaches. Are we doing anything about it? Let’s be proud to be British, and remember that we are also English, Welsh, Scottish or whatever. Let us look to the future and be proud of our heritage, not look to the past and try to bolt the doors.
I’d like to celebrate the foundation of this great nation. Look to the future, a liberal, tolerant, open minded society that truly does live and let live.
Given that this useless Government appears to be doing and planning absolutely nothing, anyone got any ideas?
Mass Lone protest
Wednesday, January 10th, 2007Via D-Notice I see that this afternoon is another registration day for one of Mark Thomas‘ Mass Lone Protests, forms to be handed in at the Police Station on Agar Street, just up from Charing Cross station. As I’m in London (flat, then job, hunting), might as well register my presence.
If anyone else cares to join us, I’ll probably be in a pub for a bit afterwards as well (no idea which pub, naturally, I’m not, yet, a Londoner)…
Halliday on the worlds worst ideas
Tuesday, January 9th, 2007Professon Fred Halliday has written an analysis of what he believes to be the twelve worst ideas in international discourse. On some of his points, I agee completely, on others, he is completely off base. I seem to recall thinking that when I studied his theories properly, but that was a few years ago now. (more…)
Europe: A vision of the future?
Monday, January 8th, 2007Written a lot about Europe in the past, I think I’ve found and tagged most of the old posts but have probably missed hundreds. One of the subjectst that comes up time and again is that, while I don’t like the EU as it currently stands, I like it more than the current alternatives, and truly believe it can be reformed and improved. I share this view with James Clive Matthews, who has written an excellent post on the need to take the long view and broken down his philosophy on Europe and Britain’s involvement:
10) Most individual nations are simply too damned small to have much chance of surviving on their own in the long term. Throughout history, the general trend has been for states to grow larger and larger, until some kind of limit (either geographical or geopolitical) is reached, because the larger the area you cover, the more versatile your production and the more self-sufficient you can be. – This is my primary reason for being pro-EU: I simply cannot see how a country as small as the UK (or, indeed, any European country) can survive on its own in the longer-term. Just as I see national identity being formed largely from negatives, so too is my pro-EU stance.
This is, largely, my primary reason for support as well, Britain gave up the Empire before my father was born, and joined Europe before I was born. (more…)
New year, new writers, new look?
Thursday, January 4th, 2007Well, I guess it’s about time to try to end the hiatus here. I’ve personally been busy wrapping up at my old job and enjoying a break, but while I’m still ‘between jobs’ as they say, and moving to London soon, that’s no reason to not do stuff here.
Anyway, I’m hoping to invite a few more writers on board over the next few weeks and months, and get back to a few that expressed an interest before. The first new writer is already on board; John Franglen is another friend from University I’ve kept in touch with, studied economics, and is now studying design; he wrote a peace for his journal that tied in with a few of my thoughts on a popular issue, so I asked if he’s like to re-publish it here, a nice little explanation about why hypothecated taxes are, generally, a bad idea.
I plan to update the look of this place (I’ve been learning Wordpress theming) as well, but that’s a medium term goal, and also install a few plugins to support OpenID login and thus authors from other sites writing here without registering, which will be nice. In the meantime, if anyone would like to write the occasional peace, comment here or email; contact address is currently on the About page…
US election swingometer for the utterly obsessive
Monday, October 30th, 2006I get confused following US elections, especially for the House. Mostly because of the weird borders they’ve gerrymandered in order to ensure as many safe seats as possible. Lovely. Also, they don’t seem to do a ’swingometer’ style analysis, at all. It’s all about current polling data, very little public psephology. Fortunately, blogging allows all of us to exhibit our random obsessions, and Iain Weaver has prepared a fairly good swingometer analysis for the US 2006 elections. Definately a handy resource to refer to on results night.
And yes, I keep forgetting to post stuff. Sorry about that, I seem to have lost my anger recently, which is weird given the amount of stupidity around out there at the moment. I have however been in contact with a few potential contributors, so when I get things sorted out we might actually see the site moving again. Also? I hate rich text editors, no idea how I managed to turnt eh damned thing on. Ah well.
Election battlegrounds for 2009 – Target: Tooting
Sunday, October 15th, 2006The Boundary Commission has almost completed their review of constituency boundaries. Anthony Wells of UK Polling Report has run an analysis of the new seats and completed a very excellent guide to the next election, with target seat list for the three main parties and a breakdown of the notional 2005 results and swings needed for each seat in the country. Scary amount of work there, but very impressive. There’s a comment box for every seat, and he welcomes contribution from anyone with local knowledge or facts he may have missed. An excelent resource that I suspect will get a lot of use over the next few years. As for Tooting?
From the 214 seats the Conservatives notionally hold on the new boundaries they would need to win an extra 112 to get the 326 seats necessary for a majority. In order of marginality, the 112th most winnable seat for the Tories is Tooting.
Information, as they say, is power.
Myths, realities & voting systems – cutting out the crap
Friday, October 13th, 2006There are a large number of oft-repeated tropes about electoral systems and the impact of any change away from the Simple Majority system we use for Westminster. Most of them are either lies, fallacies or half-truths. I’ve written about electoral systems a lot over the last year, but I can’t cover anything. Fortunately, Paul Davies is paid to write about electoral systems, and he’s pretty good at it as well. He’s written a series of articles over the last week debunking the main myths, and they’re definately well worth a read.
A lot of these myths are based on examples from systems that no sane people are advocating for the various UK governments, and thus should be still-born. Unfortunately, they’re not, and it seems that there will always be people that think that shouting ‘look at Israel’, ‘look at Italy’ or ‘PR gave us Hitler’ are valid arguments against electoral reform.
Overcrowded jails and prison reform
Wednesday, October 11th, 2006Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have a sensible, adult debate about crime, punishment and rehabilitation without it devolving to the mudslinging about being “soft on criminals” that we sometimes see stuck as labeled on anyone who thinks the current system is palpably failing?
(more…)
New Government in Sweden – Blogging foreign minister?
Saturday, October 7th, 2006Well, that’s was a surprise; wasn’t folling too closely the cabinet formation, then this turned up in my feedreader. Carl Bildt talking about his appointent to the Govt oh his blogspot blog. He’s been quite a good read for sometime; although there are no comments, the posts can be quite incisive. Hmm, wonder if Milibland can learn from actually being interesting?
Bomb plots, rocket launchers and a news blackout?
Friday, October 6th, 2006Unity mails me pointing to his latest article here:
The Police raid two houses. In one they discover “a record haul of chemicals used in making home-made bombs”, in the other the find “rocket launchers, chemicals, and a nuclear or biological suit”.It’s a terrorist plot, right? It’ll be all over the national news in a shot?
Wrong on both counts, apparently… because the two men caught with this nifty little haul of equipment aren’t Muslims, they’re BNP supporters, one of whom stood for election in Colne only last May.
Um, rocket launchers and chemical suits? Leon, Jamie, Fridgemagnet and bat020 have more.
A politician says something not at all offensive about running his consituency surgeries, and a policeman gets reassigned, both are screamsheet headlines. BNP members get arrested in an apparent bomb plot conspiracy? Where’s the headlines?
So now it’s Dave WebCameron
Saturday, September 30th, 2006Tom Watson asks:
Seriously, I’d be interested to know what people think about this stuff. Is it a new way of communicating or just clever marketing and spin?
Both, I think. As Paul Walter observes:
Does he think we were born yesterday? If you were going to do a videcast would you do it while you were doing the washing up?
It’s obviously staged and intended to make him look like a ‘normal’ person, right down to the flat not being 100% clean and tidy. But, essentially, while it is a little cynical, it’s a sign that politicians are learning and adapting to the new media environment. (more…)
Europe deregulates? Oh, the horror…
Thursday, September 28th, 2006We all know that the EU exists solely to make life difficult for people by introducing new, pointless regulations. The very idea that it could make life easier by allowing us free travel, movement, standardising weights and measures and giving us rights if we choose to live or visit any other member state is complete anathema, right? James C. M.:
How DARE they give shoppers choice? How DARE they remove pointless domestic regulations that prevent pensioners and single people from being able to buy anything less than half a loaf when all they might want is a few slices
It’s terrible, isn’t it? Deregulate and allow consumers to choose, so that, for example, a single bloke living alone can buy small packets of stuff that goes off quickly so that he can eat it all before it goes off?
How awful…
D’you think there’s a chance that the Europhobic might, possible, acknowledge when the EU does something they’ve been asking for? A little internal consistency? Nah, silly question, I know.
European Venn Diagram
Thursday, September 28th, 2006For those that find remembering which countries are part of what, the Pedant General has created a venn diagram that’s reasonably comprehensive.
He forgot Croatia in the accession countries, and hasn’t covered Council of Europe at all, but, well, the rest are all there. The reasons for us to not be in Schengen still elude me, but there y’go…
Wolfgang [redux] and Brown’s constititutional plans
Monday, September 25th, 2006Remember this time last year, when they kicked the lifelong party member out of the conference for being honest? Well, guess what? This year?
They’re not even letting him onto the conference floor. That’s despite him now being elected to the NEC (via).
In other news, Gordon Brown is rumoured to be planning to announce plans for a constitutional convention, complete with full written constitution. Maybe Helena Kennedy managed to get to him? So, the question is, is it posturing, is he a genuine reformer, has he been putting up with Tony’s authoritarianism, or is it something he’s going to fuck up completely?
Why is it that even when they’re saying exactly what I want to hear, I don’t believe a word this lot say? Time will tell I guess. (via)
STV – how it could work in Britain
Sunday, September 24th, 2006Just briefly, in the comments tot he Tactical post, the topic has drifted to how preferential systems, especially STV are better and negate the need for tactical votes. I thought I’d bring the discussion to the top again. Dave asks:
From the limited amount I know of STV it sounds really good.I know its probably been writen else where, but could you briefly say roughly how you think STV would work in the UK?
I assume you would need much bigger constituencies? or would you suggest similar size with a lot more MP’s?
If the constituencies were too big then the politics wouldn’t seem as local surely?
Right, without sourcing too much, you’re looking at (more…)
Nifty wallpapers
Saturday, September 23rd, 2006One of the blogs on the blogroll is a contradiction in terms. A Tory atheist with a sense of humour. She’s done some nifty wallpapers that amused, I especially liked the Cameron one, and the Brown one will probably be good for many years to come. Go download, before the puppy gets it.
