Alex's Adventures on the Infobahn - election

Big Society vs Proportional Representation

2010-05-05T10:58:00+01:00

This will be my last post on the subject of politics for some time. Tomorrow is election day and even though blogging is not yet subject to the oversight of Ofcom the convention of not campaigning on election day seems like a good one to follow.

The campaign has taken a certain negative turn, a number of ministers have been calling on people to vote tactically to keep the Tories out. We'll see how it plays out with the electorate but asking people to vote for you because your not the other guy isn't exactly an inspiring call. Personally the view that the Tories will be making significant cuts to public spending is re-assuring and makes me wonder if we would reach Greek/Spanish-like positions if Labour had another 5 years of failing to tackle the size of the public sector. For all the rhetoric you'd think that Tories enjoy cutting spending and making themselves unpopular instead just being resigned to having to clean-up after yet another Labour crash.

Of all the ideas that have been articulated over the election that of the Big Society has been the most confusing. Parodied as citizens learning to do their own appendectomies or creating new schools when state schools fail it hasn't really moved on from a vague idea. If it's more about local empowerment and greater transparency of decision making then these are things I can support. Unfortunately the whole policy lacks detail on what real practical solutions would be possible. It also suffers from the sharp-elbowed middle-class syndrome as poorer sections of society have trouble getting the most out of public services as it is. Of course voter turnout and social status are closely correlated so poorer people will benefit less from electoral reform anyway. Perhaps this election is just all about the middle classes?

So I agree the national voting system is broken, my vote is worth less than most by virtue of where I live. Some of that could be rectified by better boundaries but really some sort of proportional system is needed somewhere in our national elections. On the other hand changing the composition of the MPs in the House of Commons is going to have less effect on things that matter to me day to day, like the state of the cycle paths and local services. If the big society is about making those things more reactive and accountable to local needs it could have a bigger effect on my life than who occupies Number 10? I suspect I'll still be trying to decide when I'm standing in the voting booth tomorrow.

The only thing I can gaurentee is I will be voting tomorrow, hopefully with more people going to the polls than in the last election.

Interesting Times

2010-04-27T11:50:00+01:00

The election race in my constituency just got a lot more interesting. The suspension of the local Labour candidate offers up some interesting options for the voters. While the Tory incumbent has a fairly healthy majority he does benefit from a splitting of the opposition vote.

Despite kicking the candidate out (who would never win anyway) the party are still asking their loyal voters to "hold their noses" and vote Labour. This to me seems extremely silly as he a) won't win b) if he did win he wouldn't be a Labour MP and c) he seems to be a bit of a loose cannon anyway. If all those Labour voters joined the Lib Dems for this election then the thumping majority of James Paice suddenly looks a lot less thumping. You'd think for Labour central office one less Tory would be something they could live with even if it was a Lib Dem. I usually stay up quite late on polling day, with this development I'll certainly stay up until my constituency declares.

Seconds out, round two

2010-04-22T11:54:00+01:00

The knives are well and truly out for Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats ahead of tonight's debate. They can't exactly complain now they have been propelled from third party to potential front-runners (modulo electoral effects). While the "scrutiny" offered by the British press is predictably smear-like I'm hoping it's policies that will come under more scrutiny in the actual debate.

Tonight's debate is meant to be focusing on foreign policy where the only real issues there is measurable difference between the parties seem to be Europe and Trident.

Trident is a tricky one. A lot of play has been made about it's cost and the extra money that could be ploughed back into defence/other spending if it was scrapped. However the renewal of Trident is a long term project so I doubt cancelling it now would result in a bonanza for the Treasury over the next few years. The effectiveness of Britain's independent nuclear deterrent is even more questionable. The role of the deterrent is to keep your enemies guessing as to if you would or would not vaporise a load of civilians for the transgressions of a rogue state. As time goes on it's getting harder and harder to imagine we ever would. Besides the greatest growing threat is a non-state actor ("terrorists") get their hands on a nuke and I don't think they are dissuaded at all, they would probably want a fire and brimstone response to validate their warped point of view. While I was staunchly against unilateralism during the Cold War I'm finding it harder to come down in favour of nukes now.

The other area for debate is Europe. I'm sure Labour will on their usual attack on the Tories that siding with European Conservatives and Reformists group is tantamount to supporting homophobia and racism. It's true some of the members of the group have less than spectacular domestic records but the actual European agenda is what you would expect, fair trade, secure clean energy and greater transparency of EU institutions. Pro-European I may be but it's certainly not without a desire to see some sort of reform in Brussels (and Strasbourg). Europe is a very broad church and it would seem right to be able to co-operate at the European level without that implying support for sovereign domestic agendas.

The Second Prime Ministerial Debate airs tonight at 2000 BST on Sky News, BBC News and Sky 3

Post Match Analysis

2010-04-16T15:16:00+01:00

Our polling cards arrived this morning. Now I know I can vote I'm still a little conflicted about who to vote for. Last night I tuned into ITV to see if I can clear up that confusion.

The debate was certainly livelier than the chancellors debate. Part of that was down to the aggressiveness of the moderator Alistair Stewart. Perhaps he felt he had to cut people off mid-flow to demonstrate he was in control of the debate (despite the times he obviously wasn't) but it annoyed me. I'd prefer the firm but tolerant David Dimbleby who will be moderating the final debate. Although I'm sure all the parties where monitoring talk time awarded to each participant I doubt any of them will complain, it did feel as though Nick Clegg was getting more than his fair share.

The coaching all the participants had gotten was very obvious. Some where making sure to address the camera, some the questioner. All of them employed the trope of recalling anecdotes as part of their response to questions in an effort to "bond" with the audience. After around 60 minutes you started noticing a tendency to fall back on rehearsed lines, David Cameron in particular fell back to the £1 in 100 illustration which I assume is part of the "message" when discussing savings. Gordon Brown had a few prepared jokes up his sleeves, "It's not question time, it's answer time" and "You can't airbrush your policies like your posters", which were actually quite good lines but their delivery came across as very forced much like his occasional rictus smile. Cameron looked uncomfortable and uncertain at points, normally a confident orator I think he found the dead quiet more disconcerting without the noise of the House of Commons behind him. Nick Clegg was by far the most relaxed and confident. He even made some good meta-references to the debate format, breaking the rules by getting acknowledgement from questioners if he was answering in the right way.

By the end it felt as though it had been a long debate. The format is still too restrictive, especially with the strict deadlines on rebuttals forcing them all to stick to prepared soundbite points. While I appreciate the need to be "fair and balanced" all of the participants were clearly frustrated that they couldn't fully develop some of their points.

While Nick Clegg certainly won on style I don't feel he was pressed enough on policy points. He was happy to sit back and take pot shots at Cameron and Brown slugging it out between prepared attacks and quoting statistics. While it payed off for him in this debate I doubt he's going to get off that easily in the next two debates.

I'll be watching the next debate with interest.

Under starters orders

2010-04-07T13:38:00+01:00

It wasn't exactly the most surprising announcement but the race is now on for who forms the next government. Anyone not registered to vote has about 13 days to make sure they are registered for the election.

According to the Electoral Reform Society there isn't much point voting as all our seats are dead certs. It seems like a council of despair and misplaced for a number of reasons.

Leaving aside the civic duty aspects of voting (whoever you vote for, or spoil your ballot) this is going to be one of closest elections in a long time. We have a record number of incumbent MPs standing down this election ensuring more election battles between new candidates. For those election battles where the incumbent is fighting the seat there is a wealth of information that allows voters to see their MPs actual performance. Given the turbulence and disrepute politics has fallen into over the last few years I'm sure those "safe" seats are feeling a lot less safe now.

Although my political complexion is broadly of the blue variety I'm starting to go off my local MP. His lack of record on transparency and disappointing record equality are leading me to consider other candidates. I'm voting for my local representative not a voting peon for the national party. Unfortunately the LibDem representation so far has been less than stellar. While it's hoping too much for no negative campaigning this year I'm really not persuaded by arguments telling me to vote for someone because the other party will do X. It's a shame as a 7.5% swing looks doable if the Lib Dems can pull votes from both the Tory and Labour in my constituency.

Anyway there is all to play for over the next 4 weeks, we shall see how the country decides soon enough.