This Alternative Vote thing is important

Unfortunately it’s turned into a bit of a petty squabble.  You might have seen the ‘No’ campaign bizarrely telling us babies will be in danger if we vote for change or heard ‘Yes’ campaigner Chris Huhne likening Baroness Warsi to Joseph Goebbels in retaliation. But let’s put the nasty rhetoric aside and take this rare opportunity to decide what’s best for us, the ordinary British people who have honest views and preferences about the country we live in.

There has been a lot of debate – and Johann Hari brilliantly cuts through the crap here - but for me it comes down to this. First Past The Post (our current system) works well in a two horse race; one candidate will get over 50% of the vote and therefore have a clear and justifiable mandate to govern. When there are more than two sizeable parties though, it makes sense to be able to rank those we support in order of preference.

The Alternative Vote system (AV) enables us to do this, simply by asking us to write the numbers 1, 2, 3 and so on next to the candidates we like best (if we choose to that is, if we just want to support one candidate that’s ok, we just put a 1). If a candidate has enough first preferences to take them over the 50% mark, they win. If not, second, then third preferences and so on are taken into account until we find the winner. This means that no party has the right to govern without getting more that 50% of the vote. Simple.

In the 1980s, more of than half us of us didn’t want Mrs Thatcher in power, but because of First Past The Post she managed it anyway. With Alternative Vote, she’d have been forced to listen to the majority views of the nation.  Same with Blair in the noughties.

Incidentally, this is precisely why the BNP are actively campaigning for the ‘No’ campaign. They know that at most, on an exceptionally good day for them, they might be able to get 25% or even 30% of the vote in some areas, and in these instances First Past The Post could deliver them a seat. With AV, they wouldn’t stand a chance.

So, if you fancy shaking up the way we do politics in this country, and helping give all of us more of a say, go and vote yes on Thursday.  If enough of us do it we can make a difference.

“Becoming the President”

Barack Obama’s speech at the Tuscon memorial service this week was the most inspirational thing I’ve heard in ages.  He completely sidestepped the debate around inflammatory political rhetoric and focused entirely on the tragedy and how we can learn from it.  It would do his call for unity and compassion a disservice to draw comparison with Sarah Palin’s more aggressive and retaliatory response, but if nothing else it went to show how head and shoulders above her he is as a leader.

While Palin spent most of her airtime attacking her critics, Obama with dignity and humility, dedicated his speech to the victims and their families. He spoke of empathy, humanity, faith and hope, and I was left feeling moved and inspired. That the right-wing Fox network – normally vitriolic in their criticism of Obama – thanked him for “becoming the President” speaks volumes.

No doubt American politics will soon revert back to the more familiar hyperbole, point-scoring and manipulative rhetoric.  But for a moment this week they could all look to a leader that can, on occasion, transcend political divisions.

No more heroes.

Nicky Wire recently lamented the lack of politically minded bands out there in his brilliant Quietus conversation with Tony Benn and Simon Price.  Perhaps it will only be a matter of time though;  Britain’s generally pretty good at turning social turmoil into powerful reactionary music.

Notwithstanding the odd stand-out song like Elvis Costello’s Tramp The Dirt Down or The Pogues’ Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six, I’ve never been a huge fan of explicitly political music (I’m ignoring my ill-advised flirtation with The Levellers in 1990).  I always preferred Billy Bragg’s lovesongs to his Red Wedge, and The Jam never quite did it for me the way they paradoxically did for David Cameron.  But so many of Britain’s defining bands have been inspired by frustration with society (Joy Division, The Smiths, The Stone Roses, Manic Street Preachers, Arctic Monkeys to name but a sprinkling), I would hope that the forthcoming worse-than-Thatcher cuts might just prompt someone out there to pick up a guitar.  In the ugly face of injustice, you can only spend your Saturday nights being spoon-fed capitalist pop by Simon Cowell for so long.

John Harris rightly bemoans the rustic authenticity of Mumford & Sons and the “comically abstract” Everything Everything as worryingly toothless representatives of the current scene, and admittedly it’s hard to see where the next angry young men and women are coming from.  But we’re yet to feel the full impact of the coalition’s policies; the talk is frightening, but the reality won’t kick in until next year – perhaps then we’ll hear a passionate voice sing out amidst the chaos.  In the meantime I’m off to write a song about Nick Clegg.

Osborne’s, ahem, right hand man.

It isn’t the forming of a coalition government with the Tories, it isn’t the reluctance to distinguish LibDem policy from Conservative, it isn’t even the endless banging on about the mutual trust he’s discovered in his relationship with Cameron.  I’ve tried to see past Nick’s demographic likeness to Dave, and I accept the arguments about a new politics, plural progressivism and the necessity for compromise.   I’ve even been quick to stand up for him in pub arguments, citing the policies he’s managed to get through – AV referendum, income tax threshold etc. – and berated those trying to take us back to an undemocratic two party system.

But the thing that finally pushed me over the edge wasn’t his support of the spending review, but the gleeful back-slapping of George Osborne that accompanied it.  I understand that in a coalition it doesn’t pay to appear divisive and obstructive if decisions are made that aren’t a cosy fit with your own party’s views, but to be so visibly complicit with the Tories was hard to take.  I know we’re in new political territory with this coalition but it seems to me that there’s a right and a wrong way to handle yourself.  If Clegg chooses to greet these harmful and deeply unfair cuts with a smile and a “well done old boy” pat on the back, then I’m afraid I just can’t believe he’s on the side of the many anymore.

Why Equality is Better for Everyone

Just finished this and found it quite inspirational.  It clarifies and justifies what I’ve been intuitively feeling for ages – that inequality makes for unhappiness, whoever you are.  I don’t think the evidence has been set out so comprehensively and convincingly as this before though, and refreshingly it gives us a lot of reasons to be hopeful about the future.

Pretty much everything about our societies – life expectancy, mental and physical health, education, poverty, crime, business, culture, community – improve for rich and poor alike, when those societies are more equal.  And, crucially, more equal societies are better equipped to deal with climate change and technological advancement – probably two of the defining phenomena of the 21st century.

Have a read, and if you like, get involved at http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/.

Love. And Marriage.

A couple of months ago there was a bit of a kerfuffle following Rev Dr Giles Fraser’s claim on the Today Prgramme that modern weddings are overblown and narcissistic.  And let’s face it, he has a point.  They don’t always have to be that way, but a lot of the time the occasion itself drains the life out of the reason for having it.  Chelsea and Mark, Tom and Katie et al set the bar exorbitantly high, but in our woeful attempts to cling on to their dress trails we’re forced into spending ludicrous amounts (GBP20,000 a time on average) on our ‘special days’.

Rebecca Mead in The Guardian reckons:

“The trauma of planning a wedding under such commercial pressure is, in some sense, a stand-in for the experience of real nuptial trauma that was experienced by earlier generations”.

Is this true?  Have we become so materialist that we’ve taken the weight and significance associated with committing to a single person for life, and re-attached it to decisions about placemats?  By the time most people get married these days they’re already living together with sex, a car and a mortgage, so their focus shifts to dresses, lists and catering.  Meanwhile, the bloated wedding industry greedily spurs them – and their maxed-out credit cards – on.  Lump all this in with the conspicuous presence of religion, over-bearing parental pressure and archaic, generic vows, and perhaps it doesn’t add up to much.

Having said all that, I’ve actually really enjoyed a lot of the weddings I’ve been to.  If you can fight your way through stubborn vicars, self-interested family members and soul-destroying wedding magazines, it’s eminently possible to pull it off.  I wouldn’t go as far as Cameron and call for a tax system that penalises people who happen not to want to get married (how crazy is that by the way?)… but if you do want to, then great, I’m right there with you.  I love the romance of the occasion when the couple has room to make it their own, the meeting of families and friends and the sense of celebration.  I love the established ritual that both unites us with and sets us apart from other cultures around the world too.

So if you’ve made that big decision, and you’re both happy with it, I wish you all the luck in the world for your big day.  Just try not to let god and marketing get in the way.

The Wilderness Downtown

Found this via Phil Teer’s blog.

Maybe more experimental/novelty than a truly immersive experience with your past, but pretty cool nonetheless..

When do we get to ask Dave?

Most of us now know about Ian Tomlinson (walking home, attacked from behind by PC Simon Harmon with his badge removed, family lied to about the cause of death, suspect pathologist employed by the police, fifteen whole months of investigation, bewildering decision this week that Harmon should have no charges to answer), but for the uninitiated George Monbiot describes the case eloquently in today’s Guardian.  Pertinently, he notes that if the roles had been reversed – equivalent civilian attack on policeman – the wheels of justice might have been better oiled.

My question is: what does our Prime Minister think of it all?  He was quick to comment on the “callous murderer” Raoul Moat for whom there should be “no sympathy… full stop.  End of story.” but on this similarly high profile matter he’s gone all quiet.  The thing is, I didn’t really care for Cameron’s views on the Moat case and the obviously horrendous accompanying Facebook group – his absolutist moral advice designed to curry public opinion actually made me feel a bit sick.

But with the Tomlinson case – innocent man dies of heart attack minutes after being beaten from behind by a policeman who’s deemed to have no case to answer – I kind of feel I would like to hear from him.  After all, the buck does really stop with him on this sort of thing; ensuring justice is done, upholding the right to peaceful protest, being able to walk home from work without fear of attack from passing policeman etc.

It’s almost as if he enjoys wading in when there’s a popular target to aim for (like the RIP Raoul Moat You Legend Facebook group), but when there’s a public outcry against individuals and systems he’s responsible for, he’s happy to keep schtum and devolve responsibility.  Come on Dave, tell us what we should be thinking about this one.

Manu

At the end of our trip we spent a month in the Peruvian Rainforest with CREES.  The setting was extraordinary; howler monkeys, tarantulars, hundreds of butterflies and millions of ants.  We were very well looked after, but only had electricity for an hour or so a day and were reliant on rain to fill the stream which fueled our pump system for (cold) water.  As you can imagine we got a real feeling what it’s like to live so closely with nature.

During our stay, we spent some time volunteering on various projects designed to improve our relationship with the environment and help local communities achieve the same thing.  One of the projects helped neglected women begin to farm their own produce, and in doing so improve their self esteem.  We also monitored Blue-headed Macaws at a local clay-lick and set leaf traps to assess the amount of carbon present in our part of the jungle.

One the things that hit me hardest was the impact of US company Hunt Oil (Dick Cheney Vice President in 2009) in the region.  Their helicopters provided a sinister soundtrack to our stay as they shipped in supplies and workers from other parts of Peru.   Local men however, tended to be employed at the harshest end of their exploratory digs for gas and oil, and we’d sometimes see ex-workers with amputated hands and arms – results of their time at the front line.

Hunt Oil’s mandate to be in the area at all is still being contested in the courts amidst accusations of misleading Impact Assessments and bribing native communities, but the government’s will to make Peru an exporter of natural resources allows them to keep working for the time being.  Meanwhile, as Hunt continue their search for riches, 20,000 dynamite mini-explosions and harmful road construction continue to destroy the most bio-diverse place on the planet.

Peruvian jungle

We’re heading to the Manu Biosphere Reserve in the Amazon rainforest for the next internet-less month with these guys.  See you late June.

R.