Election 2010 – Tackling Graph Abuse
Spring is a time of year that full of firsts. The first newborn lambs. The first snowdrops and daffodills…
…and the first election leaflets to feature an inaccurately drawn graphs, the credit for which appears to be going [inevitably] to the Lib Dems in Camden for this delightful effort>
(Hat Tip: Ben Goldacre)
Obviously, the actual graph that Ben ran across is on the left with my own rather pointed commentary on the right.
So, what are we going to do about this kind of thing?
Rather than run through the usual exercise of taking the piss on a case by case basis, I thought we might try a bit of different approach in an effort to encourage political parties to be a bit more honest in their dealings with the y-axis.
So, today, I’d like to announce the official launch of Liberal Conspiracy’s own Graph-Fix service, which is open to all our readers of whatever political persuasion.
The way the service works is all pretty straightforward.
If you do receive an election leaflet that features a dodgy-looking graph, and it can be any kind of graph from any party, not just the LibDems, then all you need do is send a scan or digital photograph of the graph to me at talkpoliticsuk[at]gmail[dot]com along with the details of the party/candidate responsible and the constituency in which it was delivered.
For purely practical reasons, I would prefer that you only send General Election leaflets – unless you run across something particularly egregious in a local election leaflet – and because there are a fair number of boundary changes this time out, you should also include any information that the leaflet might contain about the source of the information contained in the graph.
I’ll then check the graph for accuracy and, if necessary, redo it so that it provides an accurate visual representation of the information it contains, after which I’ll contact the party in question and send them over a set of corrected image files for future use, including a high quality .eps file for use in their printed materials and jpeg and png files for use on their website.
If we get a few of these, then I’ll also produce a weekly round-up/rogue’s gallery post of the most egregious pieces of y-axis abuse I’ve received that week together with a few suitably sarcastic comments to keep you all entertained.
And that’s all there is to it…
Oh, and regardless of whether you do choose to make use of this service, I would still recommend that you take the time to scan and upload any leaflets you receive to the Straight Choice’s live election leaflet archive.
Tax dodger, moi?
You don’t have to be a non-dom to avoid paying income tax. Over the last 12 months, I’ve paid less than 10% tax and national insurance on my income. This isn’t because I’m a non-dom – I haven’t been abroad for 15 years – or because I have a fancy accountant. continue reading… »
Save the date: 12th June
This is more a note than a full explanation as yet (as I’m currently travelling around S E Asia). I’ve booked the 12th of June as the second Liberal Conspiracy ‘Blog Nation’ event date.
Held in central London (sorry out-of-towners, hence the advance notice) – this event will be a forum of sorts for lefties to discuss, strategise and debate how we can build and push the Left. By that time we may have a Tory government, and so the event will be even more important.
We have space for about 100-120 people. The event will be free to attend but invite only (due to limited space) and focus on lefties who want to build a new left movement. I haven’t sent out any invites yet or even made any concrete plans other than confirm a venue for that date. Hence, this note. More details when I get back at the end of March.
Political Wife Swap
If you are the sort of person who approves of, or allows their voting preference to be swayed even a little by, the interventions in our electoral process by the wives of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, you are a moron who should be interned until after the general election.
I completely agreed with this until I thought of an even better idea.
The position of Prime Minister’s Spouse should be directly, and separately, elected. So we could pair Gordon with Samantha, Dave with Sarah, or maybe even Nick (Clegg) with Nick (Griffin). The possibilities are as endless as the attention span of an ITV early evening news viewer.
The morons would vote for the spouse, and the rest of us would vote for the actual government. Everyone gets to engage with the election on terms that they can understand.
Labour’s collapse in Stoke
Once upon a time you would be hard pressed to find a more solid Labour stronghold than Stoke-on-Trent. The potteries, the mines, and the steel works gave birth to a close-knit working class that produced generations of Labour party activists who absolutely dominated the city’s politics. But all that began to change when the wind of deindustrialisation blew through North Staffordshire. The pits and steel mill are gone, and the ceramics industry is but a pale shadow of a former colossus. In their wake came call centres, casualised retail jobs, long term joblessness and bleak prospects.
The splintering of Stoke’s working class eventually found expression in its politics. continue reading… »
Socialists, Greens makes gains in French elections
On Sunday, the French went to vote in the first round of their regional elections, and delivered a heavy defeat for Right-wing President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Party.
The Socialist Party topped the poll with 29%, ahead of the Centre-Right UMP on 26%. The Green Party finished third with 12%, with the far-right National Front fourth with 11%.
In total, parties of the left gained more than 53% of the vote, the first time in decades that the Left has gained more than half the vote in the first round of any national elections.
In a fortnight, the top two candidates in each region will take part in a run off election, and it is likely that the Socialists will repeat their success in 2004 and retain control of 20 of France’s 22 regions.
The next Presidential election in France will be in 2012. With recent opinion polls showing Angela Merkel losing popularity in Germany, election gains for the liberals and greens in the Netherlands, as well as the troubles that our Tories have been having, the signs are that the centre right is losing popularity all across Western Europe.
New Arguments for ID Cards
This afternoon, I attended a speech by the Minister for Identity, Meg Hillier MP, hosted by the Social Market Foundation. The address was titled “Building a national identity service for all” and presented much softer case for identity cards, compared to the terror-focused arguments of a few years back. (I will link to the full text of the speech when it is published).
The new reasoning centres around access to public services. Many people, the poorest people, don’t have any form of identification at all: no passport, credit card, driving licence, or even household bills in their name. ID cards, says Hillier, will provide a solution for these people, guaranteeing that they can quickly access the public services they need. The idea that a robust and trusted form of identification can be a tool for empowerment is something that the liberal left, instinctively against ID cards, needs to consider.
The approach is not without problems. Hillier says that people may miss out on a job, because employers are legally required to check you have the right to work in the UK, and inadequate identification might hinder this process. Likewise, she says people may miss out on renting a flat, or be refused a bank account, due to lack of ID. This may be so, but the hurdles that ID cards are designed to solve are actually regulations put in place by the government! Why not lower the hurdles? Why not create a new, entry-level type of bank account, with less overdraft and laundering possibilities? That way, ID barriers and credit checks could be safely reduced (perhaps some economists amongst our readers could comment on the practicalities of this, or whether such accounts already exist).
Discussing the technicalities of the new card, Hillier mentioned the ubiquity of the iPhone and other modern gadgets that can run any number of applications. “Why not put a chip in the phone?” she asked. After all, it is the chip that is the important bit, not the waterproof plastic. Quite right… but the wags will soon ask why we can’t put chips in our foreheads, too.
Ashok Kumar RIP
Sad news that Labour MP Ashok Kumar suddenly passed away today. Thoughts of all of us at Liberal Conspiracy are with his family.
MPs were shocked today to learn of the sudden death of Dr Ashok Kumar MP. I didn’t really know him, and consequently was surprised – pleasantly surprised – to see this email from the BHA paying tribute to his brave work on humanist issues.
BHA mourns Dr Ashok Kumar MP (1956-2010), politician and distinguished supporter of Humanism
The British Humanist Association (BHA) has expressed its sorrow at the death of its Distinguished Supporter, Dr Ashok Kumar MP. Ashok Kumar was a great supporter of the BHA, a committed and active member of the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group, and a self-described life-long “liberal humanist”.
Andrew Copson, BHA Chief Executive, said, ‘Ashok was a long-standing supporter of Humanism and often went out of his way to get involved in and further humanist issues in Parliament. Ashok was especially interested in education, and was opposed to the divisive and discriminatory “faith schools” system, preferring inclusive schools and objective religious education, not religious instruction. In fact, Ashok spoke of the dangers of segregation and religious indoctrination consistently over the last decade, and in almost every Education Bill.’
‘Ashok also took the lead in Parliament in campaigning for a national holiday on the anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, in honour of one of the fathers of modern science and one of Britain’s greatest scientific minds. The loss of Ashok’s commitment, good humour and humanist outlook will felt by many in and outside of Parliament.’
Speaking in a House of Commons debate called in 2006 by his fellow humanist MP, Dr Evan Harris MP, he commented on the failure of Alan Johnson to ensure that faith schools would take pupils of other backgrounds:
‘I am against segregation, and I think that in his great spirited way the Secretary of State was trying to break down barriers and avoid future segregation. For that he was slapped down by the whole religious lobby. I find that very sad, because the Secretary of State was thinking, as we say in new Labour, for the long term—not tomorrow or the day after but perhaps 15 or 20 years’ time. We do not want groups of people in society who believe that one religion is superior to another—a generation in which some believe that the only way is jihad and others believe it is Khalistan, and in which there are also Hindu fundamentalists. By the way, I am of Hindu and Sikh descent, and I am very happy to be so, although I am a non-believer. I was raised in both of those beliefs and went to a state school. I had no problem with learning about all faiths.’
Against multiculturalism
Guest post by pagar
The policy of multiculturalism is built on two theories.
Firstly, there is the idea that human beings need, at a very primal level, some sort of attachment to cultural heritage. Without such attachment, the argument goes, people are likely to be less fulfilled and lack personal foundation. Without our cultural reference points, we are but leaves blowing in the wind.
Secondly, multiculturalism demands that all cultures have equal value. Indeed, it says that the value of a culture cannot be empirically measured because there is no fair starting point. The person making the comparison and value judgment will necessarily do so from a position that is informed by their own culture.
When these two theories are put together, we are logically driven towards embracing diversity- where everyone is encouraged to celebrate and codify the differences between cultures. Divergence is seen as positive and homogeneity is outlawed. In this climate immigrants are not required to integrate into the host culture and it is considered wrong and regressive for anyone to ask or expect them to do so.
But for liberals, the multiculturalism agenda brings with it some difficulties. continue reading… »
Cameron TV love-in bombs in the ratings
Trevor McDonald Meets David Cameron attracted nearly 1.7 million viewers on ITV1 last night, Sunday 14 March – less than half the audience for Gordon Brown’s interview with Piers Morgan on the same network last month.
The Conservative leader opted to submit to a fly-on-the-wall documentary rather than an interview, with McDonald and the cameras following him at work and at home.
ITV1′s resulting 60-minute documentary attracted 1.689 million viewers and a 10.8% share from 10.15pm, according to unofficial overnights.
This compared with Morgan’s interview with Brown, seen by 4.2 million viewers, a 22.7% share, when it screened in the same Sunday-night slot on 14 February.
If that weren’t bad enough, the Guardian are also reporting that Cameron was well beaten in the ratings by both Match of the Day 2, on which the featured games were Man Utd v Fulham and Sunderland v Man City, and by a repeat of episode three of Great British Railway Journeys, which saw Michael Portillo travelling from Todmorden to York with a trip on the Embsey and Bolton Abbey Steam Railway thrown in for good measure.
What else can you say but…
…Mwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
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