UK General Election

This short animation is excellent:

http://tinyurl.com/32cg2q3

UK General Election 2010: 27 days to go

I was out yesterday evening delivering LibDem leaflets through local letterboxes. I wonder if people really read the leaflets. I know that they moan about feeling ignored if they don't receive leaflets. "I shan't vote for X because they didn't bother to canvas my vote." I do look at the leaflets I deliver, but rarely consider them of interest. They are usually full of platitudes, with attention being given to knocking one or other rival parties / rival party leaders / rival candidates.

I live in a constituency where the LibDems are contending with Labour who are long-standing incumbents. The City of Durham constituency, in the heart of a former heavy industry region, and until recently one of Labour's safest seats, and at which the Conservative candidate used to poll the second largest number of votes, has gradually become a marginal seat at which the Conservative candidate now risks losing their deposit. The presence of Durham University means that there are undoubtedly some people who hold Liberal Democrat values. However, there is no way on Earth that half the voters are Liberal Democrats at heart. The only way in which the LibDems can hope to have their candidate elected is to persuade would-be Conservative voters to vote LibDem instead. This is done by emphasising that the Conservative candidate has no chance of winning, and that the best way to avoid returning the Labour candidate, the incumbent MP, to Westminster, is to vote LibDem. Would this not be a dishonest distortion of the political complexion of the constituency? For in reality the constituency is about 50% Labour, 25% LibDem and 25% Conservative. Surely the votes cast should reflect these proportions? However, underlying the attempt at distortion is the antiquated, unsophisticated, first-past-the-post voting system. Other elected governmental bodies in the UK use a form of proportional representation to elect their representatives, resulting in a more honest picture of the political complexion of the electorate. I should much prefer an immediate switch to a voting system that is better than that which encourages local parties and voters into a kind of dishonesty. I am enthusiastic to be part of the democratic process, even if it is merely delivering leaflets, but I am not comfortable being part of a system that attempts to persuade people who hold Conservative values to vote LibDem simply to prevent the Labour candidate from winning. My political philosophy, although most closely expressed in party political terms by the Liberal Democrats, is still much closer to that of the Labour Party than that of the Conservative Party.

UK General Election 2010: 28 days to go

One of the less seemly aspects about the run-up to a general election is that politicians of one or other persuasion will offer tempting words that seem to contradict what they have spent the previous 4 or 5 years asserting. Whilst I can remember back into the 1970s talking enthusiastically about exchanging the still-current unrepresentative first-past-the-post system voting system for some form of proportional representation, the issue remains a long-standing Liberal Democrat policy. However, there is a significant credibility gap when Johnny-come-lately Labour Party politicians (such as Ben Bradshaw on last night's edition of BBC 2's Newsnight programme) bob their heads above the parapet and state that they too have long been staunchly supportive of proportional representation. There is an equally yawning credibility gap when Conservative politicians propose wacky populist ideas such as the direct petitioning of parliament for debate, as though they, the Conservative Party, have forever championed the wishes and rights of poor and ordinary people.

Although the attention being given to whether National Insurance tax (paid by employers as well as employees, as distinct from income tax which is paid only by employees) should be raised feels like phoney sparring, the issue has drawn out into the open the Conservative sympathy towards business leaders: should the cost of repairing the economy be borne by the little people, in the form of reduced public services, or shared between the people and business, in the form of a tax? Public engagement in the election will begin in earnest when the politicians begin talking about migrant workers, immigration and the EU. I regret that the somewhat nationalistic prejudices (about which they feel proud) and mildly xenophobic attitudes (which they deny, but cannot refute) of many white British people makes it difficult for them to listen to fact, reason and rationality. Were the Conservative Party to propose strict limitations on 'foreigners' taking work in the UK, I believe that the Conservatives would easily win an outright majority. Were the Conservatives also to have the courage of their deep-seated convictions and offer the electorate the tantalising possibility of somehow distancing the UK from the EU, the Conservatives would win a landslide victory. I do not understand the Liberal Democrat enthusiasm for a referendum on Britain's engagement with continental Europe - turkey's voting for Christmas is a phrase that comes to mind. I believe that these are the issues that many people would prefer the electioneering politicians to be addressing.

UK General Election 2010: 29 days to go

It is with a sense of relief that I greeted yesterday's announcement by Gordon Brown about the date of the next UK general election. The coming four weeks will be reminiscent of that passage in George Orwell's 1984 when Winston Smith and his colleagues are frantically busy with Party activity. In contrast to the UK system of government, elections are held on a regular, cyclic basis in France and the US. I wonder what things would be like were the UK to hold general elections on a regular, say, five year cycle.

Although I am not a member of a political party, I have a deep prejudice towards participatory democracy. Accordingly I am a volunteer, posting political leaflets through letterboxes in some of the streets close to my house.

I find it interesting how I have constructed my voting preference:
1. partly on how I have voted in the past (a kind of inertia - I am the opposite of a floating voter);
2. partly on a comparison between my political values and those of party policies (I have already visited Party websites and downloaded/read some of their policy statements);
3. partly on who I see supporting each party (am I ever likely to vote for a party that draws its support from men who vie with Yakuza to cover themselves in body art?);
4. and partly on how 'attractive' I find the political leaders and their team (on this basis, I should prefer to have voted for Ted Heath over Margaret Thatcher; for Michael Foot over Tony Blair; Tony Blair over Gordon Brown; and Paddy Ashdown over Charles Kennedy or Nick Clegg). Were I given the choice, I should rather vote for Barack Obama, who I consider to belong to a class above most British politicians.

My Predictions
The Labour vote will reduce by 5% (77 seats) some votes going to the Liberal Democrats, some votes going to the UKIP/BNP, some votes going to the Conservatives, and some Labour voters choosing not to vote. This desertion will be more pronounced in the Home Counties, Midlands and East Anglia, where there will be the greatest number of seats changing from Labour to Conservative. In the north of England the Labour vote will decline, although by not as much, and it will have less impact on the seats held. Total number of seats: 272

The Conservative vote will increase by 5% (79 seats), some votes coming from Labour, some from the Liberal Democrats, and the rest coming from people who did not vote at the 2005 general election. The Conservatives will lose some votes to UKIP/BNP. The greatest number of newly-won Conservative seats will come from London, the Home Counties and the Midlands. Total number of seats: 289

The Liberal Democrats will neither gain nor lose total votes, being a beneficiary of deserting votes from Labour, but losing votes to the Conservatives. However, as a result they will lose four marginal seats. Total number of seats: 58

UKIP will do well in the south of England, and the BNP will do well in London, possibly East Anglia and parts of the north of England, but will not have any seats in the House of Commons.

The Scottish Nationalists will gain some votes from Labour, but lose some to the Conservatives. The situation in Scotland will remain mostly unchanged.

Plaid Cymru will lose votes to the Conservatives. On the other hand, if they can gain some votes from Labour, the Labour marginal at Arfon might give them a further seat at Westminster (from 2 to 3)

The situation in Northern Ireland will remain largely unchanged. Most of their MPs will vote with the Conservatives, but this will be insufficient for the Conservatives to secure a working majority.

Result: a 'hung parliament' at Westminster. A coalition government will not be formed. Instead, the Conservatives will enter a working agreement with the Liberal Democrats (as happened with the former Lib-Lab pact). There will be a further general election in March 2011.

At one with the world

The traffic in New York City is impatient, and pedestrians are jostling at road junctions. A Buddhist monk had been meditating in Central Park, listening to the song birds and the rhythm of the city. He is now walking serenely down Broadway and starts to feel a little peckish. As he nears Times Square the aroma of fried onions and hotdogs wafts past him. Approaching the hotdog vendor’s cart, he sees that the vendor is reading a newspaper. The monk says to the vendor “Excuse me, could you make me one with everything, please” and smiles to himself at the pun.

The sour-faced vendor, saying nothing, throws a steaming hotdog sausage into a bun, slaps some onions on top, squirts a line each of mustard and tomato sauce, and hands the completed hotdog to the monk. The monk pays with a ten dollar bill, and then waits patiently for his change. The vendor, having returned to reading his newspaper, ignores the monk. After a little while, tomato sauce already dripping onto the sidewalk, the monk asks the vendor, “Excuse me, but where’s my change?” The vendor growls, “Change comes from within.”