Diana Abbott for Labour leader!!

I'm a big fan of historical narrative in politics, like the way after George Bush, the next US president had to be either black or female. Despite elections, there was no way an old white guy could be the next president.

So similarly after Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, it just doesn't seem right that the UK Labour Party should have some kind of male leader next, especially not one from the Ed/Miliband Venn.

Initially my money was on Harriet Harman to be the female candidate for Labour Leader, but it makes more sense that Diane Abbott has stepped into the ring.

God knows where I saw it, but some Libertarian blogger mentioned that it only costs £1 to join the Labour Party, so it wouldn't be too difficult to round up the internet masses, join, vote for their favoured candidate then let their membership lapse.

Anyhoo, to this end, I've started a Facebook Group: Join the Labour party just to elect Diane Abbott as Labour Leader!!

You know it makes sense.

The Spice Girls of Westminster

Sometime last week, I was moving house and doing trips in my Smart car from my empty hulk of a house to the storage place, and I heard Kirstie Allsopp on Radio4. She reminds me of a girl I used to know, confident, brazen, bubbly, conservative. Slightly sad eyes, with a child-like innocence. Anyhoo, it was some debate about how there were so few female cabinet ministers in the coalition government, and so few female MPs.

I'm paraphrasing, but Kirstie's point was that being an MP is a male game, there are plenty of women in politics, but they're mostly behind the scenes as lobbyists and researchers and officers, rather than chasing the fame game as MPs. Some sectors are dominated by women, publishing and lobbying she said.

Her point reminded me of some article I read in the Daily Record in 2007 about how grave diggers (a male profession) were paid more than primary school teachers (a female profession). Its not quite as simple as women get paid less than men, rather, people are free to take whichever jobs they want, women don't chose grave digging and so don't earn the same pay.

The thing is, the barriers stopping women from becoming grave diggers and men becoming primary school teachers are different to the barriers stopping women from becoming MPs.

Charlotte Gore has a neat take on the subject of female cabinet ministers.

You know what I’d love? I’d love to be able to write something along the lines of “every single woman who’s a minister or cabinet minister is there out of merit and ability to do the job, rather than tokenism. That matters more than the numbers.”

I’d love to be able to write that… but I’d have to be a fool to believe it. For it to be true, it’d have to be true of every single minister – not just the women. The exception that disproves it, quite obviously, is George Osborne, someone who’s as qualified to be Chancellor as I am.

To become a cabinet minister, you've got to not just personally choose to pursue that career, even if there are all women shortlists and special arrangements for childcare and family friendly flexible working hours, you've still got to get elected, persuading your constituents to vote for you over voting for the other candidates, male or female. Your ability to be elected has to outstrip the electability of your competitors.

Even then you've got to stick at it for more than one length of government.

And then to become a cabinet minister, as Charlotte points out, you've got to become part of the prime minister's trusted circle, you've got to be amongst his best mates. Its not enough to be great at your job, or to have carved out a specialist subject niche, like Housing or Defense. You've got to do that and be mates with the PM.

And clearly these things are difficult to do.

The one strategy that occurs to me, that might get more women into cabinet, rather than having diversity targets or all-women short lists, would be a girl-group, collaboration between the women PPCs or MPs, a gaggle if you will.

So, that in the same way that when Dave is PM you get George as Chancellor, or when Nick is PM you get Vince as Chancellor, you know that when you elect Diana, you get Mary and Florence too, or when you elect Geri, you get Victoria, Emma, Mel and Mel.

Its a brand thing. Some political brands ought to be WOMEN, not a pro-women party or policy, but something self-evidently dominated by women.

Hmm, maybe some folk already do this.

Coalition Venn

Gotta say, I really like this Venn Diagram from The Daily Telegraph
Not sure how up to date it is, but it helps to focus the mind.

On public spending

This morning I went to the shops to get some coffee, I didn't have quite enough change, so I had to use my credit card, and sadly there's a minimum spend on credit cards, so I had to buy some more stuff. Its a shame cos I'm trying to save my pennies at the moment, with being unemployed and everything.

Anyhoo, over on the BBC website there's a story about how Charles Moore refused to pay his TV licence as a protest against Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand's Sachsgate phonecall.

He went on: "The question was, how to protest. Normally if you don't like a service or a political party, you can at least withdraw your custom and choose another. With the BBC, there is no such option.

"So disobedience seemed the logical response... when my licence fee came up for renewal, I would pay the sum instead to Help the Aged, out of respect for Andrew Sachs. Until Ross was sacked, I would keep my television and go on watching it."

Sadly this sort of thing is forbidden, c'est interdit, and Mr Moore was fined £262.

Its a similar thing with public spending and taxes. Mark Wallace of the TaxPayers Alliance made a similar point the other day in an article on ConservativeHome

Councils are at best semi-accountable at the moment. Every year, or three or even four years I get a vote on who my councillor is. Even then, many of their policies are not decided by elected councillors. In between elections, I am legally compelled at the threat of prosecution to hand over as much money as they demand.

Compare this to private business. Every time I go shopping, I take part in a referendum on which supplier I give my money too. Even better, it is a referendum of a population of one – me. At any time, if I get a dodgy product, poor customer service or an unreasonable price hike, I am free to withdraw my business from any one of the thousands of different companies I deal with in my day to day life. I don’t get outvoted by others, and if I choose to reject Heinz beans as far too expensive, they cannot serve me with court papers demanding I hand them money regardless.

Does Mr Myers still think that Kensington & Chelsea is more accountable than a private business?

This is the really good reason why councils should be more transparent than private companies: if voters are only given a choice about their council service once every year or more, then they deserve as much information as possible to inform that decision. If taxpayers are to be forced to hand over their money, then the very least councils can do in return is show us how it is spent.

I prefer to decide how to spend my own money (or when to save it) myself.

Yon Facebook group 'Tories have no MANDATE to rule Scotland' and their hypothetical counterpart group, 'Labour have no MANDATE to rule England', it all comes down to the same thing, how aligned are you with the UK's political system.

If the party you voted for doesn't form the government,
do they have any right to spend your money?

Clearly under the current system, the answer is yes, they (the winners) have the right, can raise taxes (or lower them) as much as they decide, and them allocate resources in any way they see fit. Any protests against the current system comes down to this, you think your judgment of how to allocate resources is better than those who have been elected.

God knows what I'm trying to say here, probably something about how the government of the last 13 years has been trying to extract as much money as possible from our pockets, keeping them in power isn't going to change that policy.

If you think you could better allocate resources then electing a party that lets you keep more money in your pocket is the wisest course.

Pitchforks

Although Prime Minister Gordon Brown may have fled the capital to his home turf, the Labour government is still in place, in a manner of speaking Gordon Brown is still in Downing Street. Its a nice image, the thought of a mob, armed with pitchforks and burning torches, marching down Whitehall to Downing Street to oust the defeated leader.

So I almost attended a protest at the weekend, a hastily organised affair, that later I read about on Twitter. It was odd though, the mob with placards aloft didn't march on Labour, they marched on the Lib Dem HQ and then the Conservative HQ.

Sure, they were protesting for electoral reform, but it didn't quite make sense in my head. The people they were shouting at had only been elected the day before, yet already the mob were protesting. Had the mob somehow elected the wrong people? Already?

Back to Copenhagen, when tens of thousands of protestors descended on the environmental talks, tens of thousands of activists from all over the world. Did it make any difference to the handful of world leaders who were inside discussing what measures they were to take to tackle climate change? I doubt it.

If climate change is anthropogenic, then there's only a couple of countries responsible, the top five polluters responsible for 90% of emissions, all the other countries are essentially the same as the mob outside, posturing to no end.

Back to the protest mobs, I marched against the war in Iraq back in the day, but I can't march for electoral reform. Iraq was a binary issue, against the war or not. But electoral reform is a rich tapestry.

Personally, I think equalising constituency sizes is far more important than PR, STV, AV or FPTP. Others feel that PR is the issue worth breaking the stability of a nation for, STV has its merits.

But it's all burocracy, admin, red tape and paperwork. There are more important and urgent issues to address in the UK today. Electoral reform is merely a 'would be nice to have' issue. Jesus, how long did Labour spend trying to ban fox hunting?

Stuart Sharpe stuck a wee line at the end of his last blogpost which I feel is very profound:-

I would be fascinated to hear evidence that proportional voting systems directly contribute to improved social or economic outcomes in other countries.

So how did we do

A number of friendly bloggers and twitterers were standing in the election, lets have a quick look at what political upsets they caused.

Old Holborn (Ind)
Cambridge - 7th - 145 votes (0.3%)
Mark Wadsworth (UKIP)
Uxbridge & Ruislip - 5th - 1,234 (2.7%)
Martin Cullip (Libertarian)
Sutton and Cheam - 9th - 41 votes (0.1%)
Nic Coome (Libertarian)
Devizes - 7th - 141 votes (0.3%)
Anna Arrowsmith (LibDem)
Gravesham - 3rd - 6,293 votes (13.3%)

Fair dos to Mark Wadsworth and Anna Arrowsmith, for getting four digits, but they did have their parties' brands to draw people to the cause, so its kind of like cheating.

Gotta say, its all a bit pathetic for the Libertarians. I can just imagine Devil's Kitchen doing his own Downfall rant, for fucks sake 41 votes and 141 votes, I got more than that when I stood for president at Strathclyde University, twice, naked, with adverts that read "Don't just vote for him, Worship him".

But Old Holborn's 145 votes, that's complete pish too, he's an internet celebrity and maverick of the political blogging scene and he's barely rounded up the guys from the pub.

Its just a bit disappointing. Like there are some who'll say well done for taking party, for trying to make a difference, but that's far too generous considering the result.

Back to Strathclyde University 2000 and 2001, when I stood in the student union elections, the first time round I campaigned hard for weeks and secured 172 votes, the winner got around 8,000, the next years I stood in the elections again, but this time didn't bother to campaign, I just stayed in bed, and got 255 votes. Doing nothing was more successful than doing something, but that's nothing to be proud of.

Ashamed of being Labour not a one-off

I thought it could just be a one-off the other day when I discovered that despire there being no mention of it on his leaflet, that Brent North PPC Barry Gardiner is the Labour candidate, but chucking out a pile of rubbish from the kitchen, I find another of his leaflets from a few weeks ago, still with no mention of his Labour membership.


Its not even the Labour red colour scheme, just some weird mix of other party's colours, UKIP's purple, the Green's green and LibDem's yellow.

Having said that, there is a little bit of Red, and the death knell for Labour candidates, he's got a picture of himself with out-going Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Has he not read Guido? What kind of politician doesn't read Guido?

How can Labour not win?

I could be a little late on this, but there was a big old fuss the other week general electionland after the first Leaders Debate where the LibDems got a bounce, became the most popular party and still ended up the third biggest party in parliament.

Folk were asking, or more like demonstrating how Labour could come third in the popular vote but still be the biggest party. The BBC's Election Seat Calculation proved its worth, but its missing something.

In the Euro elections the other years, UKIP came out of nowhere and trounced Labour, but they're nowhere to be seen in this General Election. Maybe they'll get some seats, just one or two, maybe they get a few more. Maybe the media has got it wrong, this isn't a three horse race, and we're got the rainbow of political parties and coalitions is going to be the only way forward from now on.

Anyhoo, here's the Election Seat Calculator showing how Labour could come fourth in the popular vote and still be the biggest party.


The 'Other' segement could easily contain a larger party like UKIP or the Greens, or one of those regional parties. If that's not clear evidence of the need for electoral reform, I dunno what is. Although in my own naive way, I reckon its just a case of balancing constituency sizes a wee bit, and just the Electoral Commission needing to get their act together.

Ashamed of something in Brent North

The letterbox in my new house fills up daily, never stuff for me, just junk mail, stuff for previous residents and those election leaflets.

I glance at the candidates, read what they have to offer, and chuck the leaflet in the bin. It wasn't until a few moment ago that I discovered my incumbent MP was Barry Gardiner, he's been the Labour MP round here since 1997.


Which is odd cos I thought he was standing as an independent, his leaflet says nothing about which party he belongs to.


Is he ashamed of being the Labour candidate?

Maybe it doesn't matter which party he belongs to, he's his own man, able to make his own choices in parliament. Its possible, but sadly this isn't the case. According to The Public Whip website, in the past 13 years, he's only voted against the whip 13 times, out of 2601 votes.

So, after supporting Labour policies in the House of Commons 99.5% of the time he's now trying to hide the fact that he's the Labour candidate

VoteMatch Trends

The jury's still out on how biased VoteMatch is. Its this website, you answers your questions and based on policies and your priorities it tells you which parety is your best match in teh general election.

After reading Mark Pack's piece about polling, I thought I have a look at how VoteMatch fares over time on Twitter, checking out which parties people are saying VoteMatch recommends for them.



Looks like Twitter folk like teh LibDems.

Is VoteMatch biased?

eeeh,that Iain Dale, he had a blogpost about a site called VoteMatch, you answers yer questions and it tells you who you should vote for. That Iain Dale reckons its a bit biased.

I have taken their test five times now. Four out of the five times I came out decidedly UKIP. It was only when I took it and pretended to be David Cameron that I came out majority Conservative. Even then it was touch and go. I wonder if other Conservatives have found the same.

If you go through the questions, of course there are overlaps between parties, but it seems to be that some answers may have been incorrectly weighted. Even when I answered the test giving what I would call "mainstream Conservative" answers, I still come out as marginally UKIP.

I reckoned it was a bit bias too, me and the missus are at different ends of the political spectrum, but we ended up with similar results. So I gets onto Twitter and mouthed off about it, and a few moments later I get a response from @VoteMatch.

They suggested I searched Twitter to see what other people were reporting. So I did and I made me a pie chart of the last fews day's worth of people who took the test and then posted on Twitter.

Looks like its not particularly biased towards UKIP, if anything it would be biased towards the Lib Dems, or possibly there are more Lib Dems on Twitter than in real life.

I get Iain Dale's thing about conservative space being more weighted towards UKIP than the Conservatives. But on the other hand, they did mighty well in the last EU elections, maybe it is that sort of proportion this time round too.

You see on VoteMatch, you get to chose which parties you're likely to consider voting and which you aren't, which is why hardly anyone reports that VoteMatch suggested the BNP or Labour, cos very few people who are one Twitter would consider voting for those parties, but most Tories would at least consider UKIP.

**UPDATRE**
Days pass, its Monday now, and I'm still checking twitter for updates about VoteMatch and building up a pie chart using Google's graphs API.

I know, ts crazy, Labour are in fourth place.

However there are entertaining grumbles on Twitter,


rather neatly slapped down by @VoteMatch themselves.


So is there a neat way of quantifying how reliable each party is at following up its own manifesto policies and pledges? Or just messy ways that involve wading through dozens of parliamentary votes?