There’s a lot of idiocy going around online, a huge amount of hyperbole, including DoS attacks on the Lib Dem phone lines, and flashmobbing the LibDem meetings.

Um, guys? It’s not the Lib Dems you need to persuade. Here’s why:

The Liberal Democrats are a democratic party

This means the leadership can’t just jump into bed with any other party, there are rules (the “triple lock”). In summary, 75% of MPs and 75% of the elected Federal Executive must agree to a deal. If they don’t, but the leader wants it and a majority of each do, then a special conference is called, at which 66% of conference reps have to agree to it. If they say no, but the leadership still want it, then a full postal ballot of members can happen, at which a simple majority can say yes.

Without approval? No deal. As commenter Mark Lightwood observes on a previous thread:

75% of Lib Dem MPs will not sign their own political death warrant – which is what agreeing to a deal with the Tories that doesnt have PR in it amounts to. It just won’t happen. Clegg knows this, and is a smart guy.

Mark appears to be a Green member (Mark, care to confirm?), but is spot on on this. Without a substantial commitment to STV, Lib Dem MPs know that propping up the Tories would lead to them losing their seats at the next general election. They won’t approve a deal.

So it goes to a special conference. I’m a voting member of the party, and would attend such a conference. For me, I joined the party specifically to campaign for electoral reform, it’s the main reason I’m involved. That’s true of a lot of members. For the rest? It’s a commitment that’s in the blood of the party. As the founder of modern liberalism, J. S. Mill, observes:

nothing is more certain than that the virtual blotting out of the minority is no necessary or natural consequence of freedom; that, far from having any connection with democracy, it is diametrically opposed to the first principle of democracy, representation in proportion to numbers. It is an essential part of democracy that minorities should be adequately represented. No real democracy, nothing but a false show of democracy, is possible without it.

And by minorites, we’re not talking “minor parties”, we’re talking everyone under or unrepresented in Parliament.

No agreement without a commitment to genuine electoral reform (and not just some fudge as if AV is enough) will work with the Lib Dem party. The membership won’t allow it.

If you’re wanting to lobby someone, and wondering why the Lib Dems are even talking to the Conservatives, turn around and ask the Labour party Where’s the offer we can’t refuse?

Tories are reticent for reform, but I believe they can be persuaded. Labour? Labour sold out their promises again and again. Even now, they’re not making a serious offer.

Stop wasting your time and theirs by harassing Lib Dem MPs, let alone paid Lib Dem administrative staff. Lobby the big two parties, the two that didn’t put a genuine commitment to genuine electoral reform as a bottom line issue in their manifesto. To read/listen to people moaning at this stage because Nick is attempting to find a workable solution with the Tories is nothing short of ridiculous.

In areas that are considered to be “safe”, a) voters are less likely to be interested and b) parties are less likely to run competetive campaigns, targetting resources and activists on marginal seats they may gain or lose.
Electoral Reform Society: Election already over in nearly 400 seats:

The Society has listed 382 seats which are ‘Super Safe’ in that they will not change hands even with a landslide on any conceivable scale. The Society points out, however, that there are many more seats where the outcome is a very safe bet, even if an upset is not beyond probability.

It is my belief that turnout is likely to go up, overall, in this election as it’s the first election since 1992 where the overall result is not a foregone conclusion.

But for residents of 382 seats out of 650, the local result is already a foregone conclusion. There’s a spreadsheet on the site to download; if you live in one of the seats listed, and you’re considering not voting, make sure you’re registered to vote. Go to the polling station.

Don’t put an X in the box.

Write “No Safe Seats; make my vote count” on the ballot paper.

Why should you do this? Because at an election, the returning officer must get the agreement of a representative of each candidate before a ballot can be rejected. Your already selected future MP will get to know how frustrated you are.

Prediction: after the election, if it’s as close as it is now, a large number of Conservatives will complain that they were robbed and that Labour got more seats than they deserved, or words to that effect; you already see this with the “we won the votes in England” meme.

They will, of course, completely ignore that the Lib Dems and Greens barely scraped the number of seats they deserve. What they don’t take into account is that the ‘safe’ Labour seats are very very safe.

Turnout is incredibly low in many of them; that doesn’t necessarily indicate disaffection, it just indicates that there’s no point in going to the polling station when you know the MPs won already. Labour seats see a much stronger falloff in turnout than Conservative seats, Lib Dem seats are in the middle.

The Conservative party says they like the voting system as is, rotten boroughs, safe seats, differential turnout and all.

It’s a damn shame that they’ve never bothered to try and understand it.
——

crossposted from my personal journal

Look, it’s fairly simple. Social Media? You don’t get it. Your video on YouTube has been resoundingly ridiculed due to your terrible performance and complete lack of content. The person who did the production for it? Send them off to the Kremlin for some lessons, there’s a good chap.

Why? Have a look at this. Yes, that’s the President of Russia contributing to his regularly updated blog. I don’t speak Russian, but diplomat Nicholas Whyte, who does, describes it as “an impressive performance“, and even without understanding a word, he comes across as genuine and engaging.

Politicians can, if they put the effort in, use social media like blogs, twitter and YouTube effectively. But if they don’t put the effort in? It’s probably better not to bother than to do something badly.

But then Gordon Brown does everything badly.

Y’know what? I disagree with Justin, Jennie and most Lib Dems on this. He’s right to do so. We can, and should, be attacking this, but not because Cabinet minutes aren’t going to be released. Cabinet minutes should not be released, it’s one of the basic principles of our Parliamentary democracy.

Here’s how it’s supposed to work:

• The House of Commons is elected as a representative cross section of British interests and opinions
• A Cabinet is formed representing the views of enough members of the House to command a majority
  • Appointments are made based on support within the house and talent
• The Cabinet discusses all major aspects of policy and agrees major decisions
  • The Cabinet is bound by Collective Responsibility and do not disagree in public
  • Ministers that cannot agree to a decision at all should resign
  • If the Cabinet no longer commands the support of the House, then the government should fall

In order for this system of government to work correctly, ministers have to be able to have free, open and frank discussions within Cabinet. If after discussion is over they come to a decision that a minister personally dislikes, the minister chooses whether this is a resigning issue or not. Robin Cook chose to resign before the Iraq War started. Clare Short was given assurances by the PM and had those assurances broken, so resigned after the war.  That’s the way it’s supposed to work. That the Government didn’t fall is not the fault of the Cabinet/Parliamentary system of government.

The problem lies not with the way this individual decision was made. The problem lies with the corrupted system that our Parliamentary democracy has become.  This is the way it actually works:

• The House of Commons is elected using a gerrymandered system created in 1947 that encourages:
  • an unrepresentative House with a two-party duopoly
  • A predominance of white middle class men in suits
  • Safe seats allocated by party fiat in which the rebellious are penalised
  • Party loyalty over individual thinking
• A Cabinet is formed by the party leader, made up mostly of his/her friends or political allies
  • Appointments are made based on presentational ability and sucking up
• The Prime Minister makes most major decisions and reveals them to Cabinet
  • Groupthink is both likely and encouraged
  • Discussion and debate is discouraged
  • Ministers who disagree with the PM are aware that challenging is a threat to their career
  • Super majorities from one party mean the Majority is rarely threatened

If a precedent is set for Cabinet minutes to be revealed during a period in office, then full and frank discussion within Cabinet is threatened. That it currently doesn’t happen enough is part of the problem. If we are to retain the good aspects of the British system of Goverment, we need to get rid of the corruption and the parts that aren’t working. Not attack the chances of the bits that sometimes do from happening.

British politics has allowed, over the last 60 years, to become increasingly corrupt and partisan. This is a fault of the electoral system, and specifically the introduction of uniform single member constituencies and the abolition of alternative voting methods made by the Representation of the Peoples Act 1948.

We need to remake and revitalise the Parliamentary system of government. For that to happen, we also need to examine how and why the Cabinet system works.

If it’s decided that the Cabinet should have disagreements in public, that Collective Responsibility can be abolished, etc, then so be it. I can see arguments favouring that, especially in the new information age.

But to call for the abolishing of a fundamental feature of the British system, that has been working effectively for over 300 years, over a single, specific issue in which an abominable decision was made, is to throw out the baby with the rather murky bathwater.

Parliament voted for the Iraq war. The nation almost certainly opposed it. That is the real problem. In defending the principles of our democracy, for once in his life, Jack Straw is right.

And if you think I liked typing that last sentence you really don’t know me.

His works, agitation and beliefs revolutionised the world, and there isn’t a day that goes by in which we are not all grateful for his work and influence.


He stood up to Roman oppression, believed himself to be especially chosen by God and his beliefs were considered heretical by the religious leaders of his time. Indeed, he changed the way we look at the universe itself, and affirmed that all things orbit around a greater power.

What is perhaps less well known is that he was also a politician, involved in one of the most radical changes to the established order and removal of a man believed to be a nasty and brutal King in thrall to Roman influences. Acclaimed by his peers, he was elected to serve as an MP during the most important Parliament to ever sit, which established that Parliament rules this fair nation, and that governments could be replaced.

So, happy birthday Sir Isaac, and thank you.

What, you thought I’d suddenly got religious and was talking about that Jewish guy? Nah, Newton himself said they got the date wrong, the early Roman church just wanted to hijack traditional midwinter festivities; and anyway doesn’t everyone know that proper Christian regimes (and indeed early colonial New England) banned Christmas as un-Christian?

When you get some nut complaining about the loss of the “true meaning of Christmas”, offer them a beer and a pie. Because that is the true meaning of Christmas. So, y’know, eat, drink and be merry. And go watch Doctor Who.

(Image by Jennie, this article also posted to my journal)

Beggers belief, doesn’t it? I think the worst aspect of the whole story is that the Tory press is completely on side with his story, and even when quoting fire service sources debunking his claim, have still joined in with his incompetent posturing.

So, here’s the full story. Lynne Featherstone, blogging MP and occasional contributor to this site, wrote a post on her blog describing how grateful she was to the fire service for responding to her callout at 10pm after her house started shaking and her gas boiler started sparking in an alarming manner. Quoth she:

I called 999 and the Fire Brigade, moved the car out the drive, put one daughter and dog in the car and the other daughter ran back in to turn off heating and hot water – which did stop the noise. We waited. Within a couple of minutes the firefighters arrived – checked everything – said it was a hammer airlock (probably) and that we had done the right thing.

Just to re-iterate that bit, the firefighters that attended the call confirmed that she had done the right thing in calling them.

Two weeks later, at a meeting of the authority, Coleman and his Tory colleagues in the Assembly tried to have some fun with the story in the presence of Commissioner Ron Dobson of the Fire Authority. He rebutted their claims, making it clear that:

any such call would have gone through the necessary triaging and a fire team would only have visited if it was assessed as needing a crew.

The firefighters on scene said she did the right thing, and the Commissioner of the authority confirmed that an engine would only have been called if they thought it necessary. Despite this, Coleman issued a press release, which was picked up and run with by the Daily Mail, who quote him as saying:

You don’t call the fire brigade – you switch your boiler off and call a plumber. She has shown herself to be completely dizzy.

‘Airheads and airlocks are obviously not unrelated. She can’t tell the difference between an airlock and a major catastrophe.’

Despite being told that she’d acted correctly, followed the guidelines and been through the fire authority triage routine, Coleman still thinks its acceptable to call a female opponent a “dizzy airhead”. This from the man who had previously claimed “he has been passed over for a senior post due to homophobia by fellow Tories.” Glass houses Mr Coleman! You don’t get to accuse others of bigotry then use pejorative language yourself without looking like a complete arse. An ignorant one as well.

According to the BBC, a London Fire Brigade spokeswoman said:

If it’s obvious that there has been an ongoing problem with the boiler, then you can call a plumber. But if your boiler suddenly starts making strange noises in the middle of the night, call the fire brigade.

Once again, Lynne did exactly the right thing and Coleman doesn’t know the guidance issued by the service he’s supposed to be overseeing. In fact, a number of firefighters have contacted Lynne offering her support, and The Fire Brigade Union’s regional secretary for London, Joe MacVeigh, said:

Councillor Coleman needs to decide whether he wants to be a serious political figure or whether he wants to continue playing the role of complete buffoon. He holds a position of enormous responsibility, and he should be dignified and statesmanlike in everything he does. Instead, he blunders around, whipping up controversy, and trying to draw attention to himself at every opportunity. Such an attitude does not befit the office of head of the world’s third largest fire and rescue service. His remarks about [Lynne Featherstone] were disgraceful.

This is, incidentally, the same Brian Coleman who managed to claim nearly as much expenses on taxis last year as both the Mayor and the other 24 GLA members combined. He’s also one of the very few AMs I’d heard of before I moved to London, and it wasn’t for good reasons then, in fact his response to a small legitimate protest outside Parliament was to condemn the protesters for damaging the London tourism trade, prompting a one friend to describe him as a ‘tedious cock‘

He doesn’t half have an ability to attract insults his way. I was quite impressed that for quite some time, my old post was the first result in Google for the search “Brian Coleman AM”, despite that blog being abandoned and never that successful. Liberal Conspiracy is, of course, a much bigger and more prominent site. If you’re as fed up as I am of this tedious, incompetent buffoon claiming massive expenses and overseeing services he blatantly doesn’t understand, then writing to the Commissioner and the Mayor would be a good start. Lots of people linking to this post with the text ‘Brian Coleman’ as the anchor would push this post up quite quickly as well. Which wouldn’t achieve much.

But it would be quite funny.

The BBC gives their report on the speech the headline Blears attacks political bloggers, and the Guardian has gone further with the headline as Nihilistic new media and the subhead as:

Unless and until political blogging adds value to our culture, it will continue to fuel cynicism and despair

Blears raises some good points about the rise and threat of the unresponsive commentariat–many bloggers rail against the likes of Polly Toynbee and their self-contradictory statements, so when she says:

I can understand when commentators disagree with each other; it’s when they disagree with themselves we should worry.

I think she’s spot on. But when she comes to blogging she goes completely off base and becomes an adherent of the (always wrong) repeated meme of the likes of Iain Dale:

The most popular blogs are rightwing, ranging from the considered Tory views of Iain Dale, to the vicious nihilism of Guido Fawkes. Perhaps this is simply anti-establishment. Blogs have only existed under a Labour government. Perhaps if there was a Tory government, all the leading blogs would be left-of-centre?

Um, Hazel? There are no accepted metrics for proving who the most popular blogs are, but I, like many other contributors here, am a fan of the Wikio rankings. If the ‘top blogs’ range from Iain Dale to Guido, then that means you’re only looking at the top two, because there’s no one in between them. But if you want to look at the top ten? Oh, look, what’s that at number three?

# 1 Iain Dale’s Diary
# 2 Guy Fawkes’ blog
# 3 Liberal Conspiracy
# 4 Blah! Blah! Technology
# 5 xlab
# 6 ConservativeHome’s ToryDiary
# 7 The Devil’s Kitchen
# 8 Liberal Democrat Voice
# 9 politicalbetting.com
# 10 Labourhome

That’s right, it’s us. Now, I know that some people are convinced that market socialists like myself are ‘right wing’, but I self-describe as a Millian socialist, and am convinced that Mill’s liberalism is the very definition of left wing. And I definitely think that most of the rest of the contributors here consider themselves to be left of centre, don’t know about you.

In fact of the top ten blogs in this country, as counted by Wikio, two are tech blogs and eight are politics blogs. Of those eight, one is non-aligned left wing^[3], two are partisan conservative^[4], two are non-aligned right wing/libertarian^[5], one Lib Dem^[6], one Labour^[7] and one non-partisan analysis^[8] edited by a prominent Lib Dem^[9]. So that’s two definite, four arguable right-wing; two definite, three arguable left wing^[10]; and one neutral.

And that’s completely ignoring the much more disparate and dispersed nature of blogging, with large numbers of separate campaigning communities focusing around nodal points (such as The F Word for feminist blogs, for example) and many of us preferring to write for friends, contacts, party colleagues, etc instead of trying to chase the headlines or get themselves elected. I got back involved in political activism through reading (and then writing) blogs. I was persuaded to join my political party by bloggers. There are a large number of constructive, thoughtful blogs out there, and many of them are increasingly successful.

As James Graham puts it, she’s made this speech and criticised blogging:

on the day that a black man called Barack Hussein Obama won the presidency of the USA with the largest popular mandate anyone has ever achieved in the history in the world, fuelled significantly off the back of social media – of which blogging played a large part.

Ms Blears?

Unless and until political blogging adds value to our political culture, by allowing new and disparate voices, ideas and legitimate protest and challenge

We already are. You’re just not paying attention. Welcome to the 21st century.

ETA: The Independent has a good writeup on this one today–thx for pointing it out Bob.

ETA2: Matt Wardman has received and published a full transcript of the text, many thanks for this Matt, I’m trying to read through it now.

If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting.
(my emphasis)

The story began to gain widespread traction, especially after being broadcast on a McCain/Palin supporting site called Sarah’s Army (post now removed), it was then picked up by The Drudge Report (buggered if I can navigate that site to find the story) and investigated fully by sites such as Huffington Post and then into print media such as a slightly sceptical Telegraph.

Today, the campaign worker in question has admitted it was a fake story, bringing Mr Moody’s prediction into play. Given that both 538 and Electoral Vote are both predicting an Obama landslide, is this finally the moment when the Republican supporting media will finally admit McCain’s done for?

Will Ms Todd be used as a convenient scapegoat, will they blame McCain for being ‘too moderate’ or will the palpable anti-science incompetence of Sarah Palin be accepted?

Or will the Republicans, like the post ’97 Conservatives over here, be unable to understand the depths of their own failure and be condemned to decades of opposition as they refuse to understand the way modern America is truly rejecting their extremist positioning?

ETA: Morus has more at Political Betting along a similar line, asking Who will get the blame in the GOP?

in the interests of goodwill and justice

Seriously. This petty little fundamentalist bigot who misused a long outdated law as part of his personal crusade against freedom of expression now wants to be let off the costs of the case in the name of “goodwill”.

No Mr Green, you lost any goodwill when you continued your petty campaign long past any sensible point. You lost our goodwill when you declared your intent to appeal against the ruling in a petty and vindictive manner. You want justice Mr Green?

You’ve got it. Pay up, the justice system demands those who bring frivolous cases pay the costs when they lose. Your own Press Release doesn’t even manage to persuade me:

‘It should be enough for Mark Thompson and Jonathan Thoday that they got away with blasphemy, insulting God and the Lord Jesus Christ, at least in this life. For these rich, powerful men to pursue me into the bankruptcy courts over money I don’t have would be vindictive.’

Both sets of solicitors have also threatened to chase the donors who gave the money for the original action, but it is far from clear that a court would allow that. Even if it did, Green is adamant that he will protect the donors’ identity, even if that puts him in contempt of court.

‘I should go to prison rather than reveal their names, even if I could remember who they were,’ he told both Thompson and Thoday.

It’s no more vindictive than the way you waged your national campaign against the Opera, picketed theatres, threatened charities and called for boycotts of stores, persuading Sainsbury’s and Woolworths to withdraw the DVDs out of fear of protests from your annoying coterie of fellow extremists.

You complain about the money the BBC ‘wastes’ on things you disapprove of (such as a Gaelic TV channel, the digital services, etc) but now want it to waste money covering the costs of your pettiness? No. You brought the case. Time to pay the piper.

For those interested, there’s an online petition and a Facebook group as well.

Cross-posted from my journal by request

Do you think if you’d had a better sex life, he wouldn’t have done this?

In all seriousness, is that even a valid question to ask? Is it in any way relevant? Is Steve Wright excused for killing at least 5 women because his wife didn’t put out enough? As Jennie puts it:

I’ve lost count of the times I have objected to this infantilisation of men – that they can’t be held responsible for their own actions; it’s all the fault of their mother/lover/grandma/female school teacher/murder victim/whatever – on feminist grounds, but surely it’s wrong from a male point of view as well? Don’t men want to be grown ups? Do they actually want to be mothered and smothered into irrelevancy?

Can’t speak for the entirety of the gender, naturally, but this one sure as hell doesn’t. Both Iain Weaver and comedian Mitch Benn give more details on this loathsome excuse for an interviewer, and it has enraged Debi Linton so much that she has started a petition to sack Kay Burley from a position she is palpably unsuitable for.

I have no real belief that such a petition will be effective, and I’m equally uncertain about the efficacy of OfCom, but it can at least be used to highlight the issue. The comments on the Sky News website are gratifyingly negative about the interviewer and the question, so there may be a chance.

Your opinions: is there any justification for asking this question at all? Isn’t it about time the media grew up about sex and relationships and stopped trying to blame crimes on innocent bystanders?