New Name

The astute of you out there (and I use astute very loosely here. Perhaps it isn't really the right word; maybe 'not blindingly thick' would be more appropriate) will have noticed that the name of this blog* has changed. This is because, put bluntly, the last name (WHICH WILL BE MENTIONED NO MORE) was poor. I hated it to the point where it actually made me physically sick.

So, I changed it. I believe, and I'm sure you'll agree with me, that it's a suitable title; after all, I'm a cheery chap, and there's little in this world to get riled about. So bear with me a while until I decide to change it again. It'll probably be fairly soon.

*I can't fail to notice that as I write this, Google Chrome's spell-check doesn't recognise 'blog' as a word, and has given it the red line of death. Nor does it recognise Miliband, or radicchio. Keep up, Google Chrome.

The death of a dictator and the sorry state of modern morals.

Every paper seems to have had one image splayed over their front pages; that of a grimacing old man with a bullet wound in his head, hair matt and sticky from blood, eyes clamped shut. Pitiful it may be, but this picture is a sign of triumph for many. But for me... it just seems outdated, jingoistic and unnecessarily gruesome.

Yes, through the lense of the media Colonel Gaddafi may have been a bloodthirsty tyrant who did unspeakable things, but then again, so have many other people. But for crimes, whether at a local or national level, there are courts. It is when 'justice' is devolved to the hands of a bloodthirsty mob that it is at its most blurred, at its most questionable.. And it is for this reason that I find myself uncomfortable with the cold-blooded killing and the subsequent media frenzy that howled for blood and photos. There was no need; no need for the murder, no matter how it was justified as 'execution', or excused as 'crossfire', no need for the ubiquity of the image of a dead man to satisfy the masses' baying for blood.

By no means am I defending Gaddafi. Of course he should have been punished. But punished by law, order and authority; not by vigilante justice. The end result would almost definitely have been the same. Gaddafi was always going to die following his being deposed, despite imprisonment probably being a preferable alternative; a way of separating us from him in terms of morals and method. The cruel-minded may even say that life imprisonment is a harsher punishment than a quick death. But if he had to die, at least death by court would have been a more modern, more appropriate way. Better that for the 21st century than the savage, archaic habit of stringing up he who opposes you so all may jeer at his bloodied corpse.

A Very Middle Class Crisis

When it comes to newspapers, I'm a chap of routine. The i on weekdays, as it's cheap and easy to read; the Independent on Saturday, due to its 'Errors and Omissions' column and the 'Say what you see' column at the end of the magazine; the Observer on Sundays as, hey, everyone needs a bout of left-wing journalism littered with typos every now and then. As such, every Sunday morning I take the short walk up to the Tesco Express near my house clutching my £2.20, and take the short walk back trying to prevent the paper from blowing away (I'd like to say that I decline a plastic bag because I'm eco-friendly, but the truth is that I'm just lazy at times).

And so it was today. But when I reached the paper section of the shop, calamity struck. The section which usually contains the Observer was empty. I refrained from panicking at first; sometimes, it is misplaced and has another paper shoved on top. I checked each section. This was not the case. Now, panic started to ooze into my being. There was no Observer.  This was unusual; living in an area where the locals would vote for a piece of swede if it had a blue rosette attached means that the Observer is usually the last paper left. But not a single one was to be found. Luckily, I have a back-up plan for such an emergency: the Independent on Sunday. There was one left, and I picked it up. I calmed down a little; the situation wasn't perfect, but it could have been a lot worse.

As it was, it did get a lot worse. The paper felt unusually light. I opened it to find that some blaggard had pilfered the magazines and the New Review. This was not on. I put the paper down, and felt a blood vessel start to throb in my brain. I had to buy something; walking into a shop, spending the best part of ten minutes dithering, then leaving with nothing would have made me, as it is technically described, look like a bit of a numpty. Besides, I had set off with the intention of buying a paper and, by Jove, I was going to leave with one.

So began my agonising decision. In front of me were stacks of the Fail on Sunday, the Telegraph, the Sunday Times, and a whole load of local papers. I discarded the latter immediately; I am not on best terms with local papers, especially their tendency to have as their front page story something which the nationals declined to include as ten words on their most obscure and unread page (Man buys fridge. Fridge doesn't work. Fury. Fridge replaced. Contentment). Eventually, I chose the lesser of many evils, and picked up a copy of the Sunday Times.

I don't have an extensive history with the Times. Every now and then, I will sit and tut at it in the Library, as it is there and it is free. Other than that, it has entered my house only twice. The first time was when my mum bought it for her sister in Texas; it was the time of the Royal Wedding, and it had the best pictures. Fair enough. The other time was when it was free at WH Smiths with a magazine that my dad was buying. I don't remember much of either time.

And so it is that today, I take a step into the unknown. Downstairs, the Sunday Times awaits me.

Quite frankly, Neil Armstrong has nothing on me.

And now for something disappointingly serious...

The Problem with PR

Proportional Representation is often cited as the 'fairest' of the electoral methods, and the most democratic it could be before slipping from representative to direct democracy. Perhaps it is; after all, the party preferences of the nation are reflected exactly in Parliament, with every vote counting. Compare this to First Past the Post, where the percentages of votes and seats accrued by a party are often grossly different, and many votes go wasted in a constituency which traditionally always selects the same party.  However, PR is by no means perfect. I will examine some of its flaws here.

Firstly, there is the most commonly cited argument of the coalition government. This particular one is disputable, depending on one's personal views. PR will almost definitely result in a Hung Parliament after each General Election; parties very rarely achieve over 50% of the nation's vote, meaning no-one has a majority. The result is the need to form a coalition of two parties or more. This is where one of two issues arises. 

While no one of the three major parties gains more than half the electorate's votes, the 50% mark can usually be reached when the total for two of the three are added together. It is very doubtful that Labour and the Conservatives, traditional enemies, would form a coalition. Therefore, if a two-party coalition were the main objective, the Liberal Democrats would usually become the junior partner. This means the fate of each election would effectively rest with them; they choose who to go into government with, assuming their seats would cause a majority for either Labour or the Tories. This could lead to criticism, as they would have a disproportionately large amount of power, deciding as they would which party becomes government.

The alternative is discounting the Lib Dems, and attempting to form a coalition with many other smaller parties. However, this would lead to coalitions made up of many partners, any of whom could theoretically block a bill if it weren't to their taste. For want of a better example, Weimar Germany showed the inefficiency of a PR based Parliament. Any proposed bill would have to be seriously based on compromise, which would leave no partner fully satisfied.

The next flaw in PR is that it would remove local representation. An advantage of plurality based systems, like FPTP, is that each area has a recognisable candidate whom it has chosen to represent them. PR does away with constituencies, therefore removing local representatives, and a direct link to the House of Commons for the electorate. How does an unhappy person voice their complaint to Parliament, without a local MP who can be held accountable? Theoretically, each party could allocate its MPs to a region, but this process would be messy, and there is no guarantee that the allocated individual would suit the people they were meant to represent.

The final issue is similar to the last, in that people have no choice over who is actually elected. Yes, they choose the people on an indirect, macro level, but they have no say over individuals. Say a party has a devious, cunning member who would be very useful in a democratically elected governmental position; a latter day Peter Mandelson figure, if you will. Such a figure would probably be seen as unelectable by the people, regardless of how useful the party may find him. However, under PR, he could be put at the top of the party list, ergo meaning that as long as he chose to run for Parliament, he would always find himself with a seat.

This is why I do not believe Britain should move to full PR. However, I don't feel either that it should stick with FPTP, or even settle for the Alternative Vote. My method of choice is a form of the Additional Member system. The Commons would have a slightly raised number of seats (say, 700), and the number of constituencies would be reduced to 500. Each constituency would elect an MP via a system like FPTP, or preferably the Instant Run-off method (think London mayoral elections: numbered preferences, if no candidate achieves a majority of number 1 preferences then everyone bar the two highest candidates are eliminated. Preferences are distributed until a majority is achieved). The remaining 200 seats are allocated on a proportional basis based on the nationwide vote tallies. It combines strong government and local representation with elements of electoral fairness.

  

Get something off my chest

I have an announcement. Some will deride me for it, and others have already mercilessly mocked me. "How can you?" they ask. They don't understand.

So... It's best to just stop denying everything, and get this out of the way.

My name is Chris, and I am a Liberal Democrat.

We're not all useless. Don't listen to the Daily Fail.

Serious Stuff

If you're looking here for serious journalism/political commentary... then I'm afraid you'll be sorely disappointed. However, my dear ol' bruv is co-editor of a really quite good political and news blog, The Grapevine. So, if you want high quality serious stuff, then yeah, give it a go.


It's won awards and everything.