Why I'm against the death penalty

ByrneToff writes on twitter...

Only reason I can find against the death penalty is the inability to remedy miscarriages of justice. #hotvote

The reason I can never support the death penalty is that a) even if this were the only reason, it's an important one. Our justice system is not infallible, juries not always unbiased, judges not always privvy to the absolute sum of evidence that may change a sentence. To kill a person is an absolute act that can't be done, and so at the very least we need to be 100% sure the decision to do it is based on completely solid basis...which we can't be sure, ever.

But also b) I value human life. I also value the worth that a human life of an unusual disposition can bring, and that reformation of a person someone would think worthy of the death penalty is a net benefit to society. At best the death penalty is stagnation, given the other option would be to remove the individual from society anyway.

If we have people that are capable of doing things that require the death penalty... serious premeditated murder for example, then they are people we need to understand. Can we gain any more insight in to human psychology and even effects of society on individual behaviour if we simply kill them and be done with it? Why waste such an opportunity purely for retribution?

And of course if you manage to reform the individual, to be confident of their ability to be a positive force in society...even if this is still done from within some level of detention or supervised living...then society has benefited from turning a bad apple in to a good one.

Most support for the death penalty comes from those that are either driven by bloodlust, unable to see that there are no overall benefits to killing a person for their crimes other than for the *potential* temporary good feeling that revenge may or may not bring...or they are those that see these people that are a drain on the state and would rather they weren't, through non-existence.

It's actually the second people I fear the most, as the line between being a drain and a criminal and being a drain and not being a criminal is not very wide at all. But if they have a point it's only because we hamstring our ability to lessen this "drain" by catering too much for the original bloodlusters.

We're too afraid that actually making prisoners productive for society, within the realms of modern human rights, will send the bloodlusters in to a frenzy of outrage...and politicians obviously believe that a significant amount of their electorate are those very type of people.

It just doesn't make logical sense to support the death penalty. We can benefit much more from engaging with criminals, authoritatively and firmly, but humanely...aiming to bring about a net benefit to society regardless of (but especially if) they are rehabilitated. Killing them denies any potential benefit, and results in no better holistic outcome for society than our current system.

British Gas and a worrying trend

You may well have already heard, British Gas and their parent company, Centrica, have posted some profit numbers and they're "disappointing" for the company. £1.3bn profits, a 19% drop in profits, is seemingly not good enough news during times when wholesale energy prices are rocketing and the economy is stagnating. British Gas itself seems to have taken the brunt of the "loss" with an over 50% drop in their operating profits to £270m.

As Ben Goldacre here says... the reporting is lax, there is no context. £1.3bn is huge, but it's especially huge if the company was only taking, say, £1.4bn in turnover. The reality is that their revenue was £11.5bn, a margin of around 13%. I have no figures to back this up, but an anecdotal search shows this is about "normal" for the energy industry, as far as profit margins go...maybe even "good". In the solely British Gas court, the first half of 2011 residential revenues are £4bn, which paint it as a particularly weak arm of Centrica this first half of 2011.

But shouldn't we have more context? By allowing the press release to essentially be regurgitated we're forgetting the history of how British Gas got to a profit of £270m in the first place, from profits half a decade ago of only £90m, and the situation Centrica are in as a long term trend.

For a start Centrica are currently looking at a 13% margin, this is really no different from where they've been in the past (slightly down in terms of real profit amount, though insignificantly so), 2005 saw around 11% margins, 2006: 9%, 2007: 12%, 2008: 9%, 2009: 9%, 2010: 13%...all the time with increasing revenues from 13bn to 22bn in this half a decade space of time.

Then there is British Gas (residential only), 1.5% margin in 2005, 2006: 1.3%, 2007: 9%, 2008: 5%, 2009: 8%, 2010: 9%. It's currently looking like 2011: will end up being somewhere below that 9%, perhaps as low as it's 2008...yet still with profits that are 3 times what they were half a decade ago, and almost doubled revenues to boot.

Note: you can get all these figures from the Centrica website, such as here.

Let's never forget, this is a company that still hasn't acted fairly to consumers over the disparity in energy charges versus wholesale energy prices. Indeed this is an industry that still hasn't acted fairly.

The interesting thing may well be *why* the price rises are being justified, If you look at todays release you'll see the following statement...

In residential energy, the combination of higher commodity prices and significantly lower consumption resulted in operating profit being less than half the level recorded in the corresponding period last year. Average residential gas consumption fell by 18% in the first six months of the year, and electricity consumption was 3% lower, reflecting the milder weather conditions together with underlying energy efficiency improvements.

This is the danger of a business mentality operating our core utlities in the country, profits come first, and a drop in usage of services (and thus a drop in revenue) is seen as a reason for declining profits. If the danger to Centrica/British Gas's business is lack of use, be it from warm weather conditions, or energy saving measures, then it's only answer is to cut parts of it's business, a potentially unworkable solution given the inevitable rise in the demand over winter, or to raise prices.

When not using energy becomes a reason to increase the price of energy, the exact opposite of the way supply and demand works, we surely have to ask the question of whether or not businesses are fit to run these vital services in the model they currently do. Beholden to their share holders, when the only way to keep both your profits and your profit margin up, to keep your profits in growth, during a time when less energy is being used for a myriad of reasons...the only answer is to increase prices.

The question has to be where do we go from now without solutions like Nuclear and/or accelerated roll out of sustainable local energy? As consumers it is now both in our interest to not use energy (lest we help push up wholesale prices as supply diminishes) and to use energy (lest we not use enough of the potential supply and force companies to increase prices anyway to cover their losses), truly stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Open University fee increase, blame where it's not due?

A tweet this morning...

lecanardnoir retweeted by dnotice2012

Tories/LibDems forcing Open University to more than treble its prices. Destroying something precious for ideology. http://qako.me/qMhCeU

The basics are this, the Open University has declared that their 60 point courses will now cost £2500. This is up from £700, a £1800 increase. It's an institution with 250,000 students, of which around 70% are likely to be doing no more than part time (60 points or less), while 30% are doing full time courses. There were about 83000 full time equivalent students.

Now, HEFCE funding was to the tune of £140mil in 2009/2010.This amount of central funding is about the same as 2011/2012.

The tuition fees in 2009/2010 were in the region of £650 per 60 points, a full time equivalent cost is therefore £1300. 78000 students needing to pay an extra £3700 per year for full time equivalence of a new £5000 fee is £307mil extra money for the OU as income.

This is more than double the current HEFCE funding in it's entirety.

Blaming the government for the current fee change seems a little premature. Obviously the policy of reducing central funding is a bad one, one I don't get behind at all, but even if we assume all OU courses fell in to a category where HEFCE would think of cutting funding significantly (potentially all together) the OU would only need to increase fees to £3000 for a full time course, or £1500 instead of £2500 for the 60 point module.

The reality is that with over 20% of OU FTE students studying courses that fall under funding that wouldn't be fully cut in the ategories HEFCE has for subject types, not even all of this £140mil will need to be found elsewhere in a worse case scenario.

Funding cuts are set to bite, but universities are savvy businesses more than altruistic learning centres. Yes the OU has to put up it's prices because of government policy to cut fees (government policy that the Labour party were completely on board with implementing themselves when in power, so let's not pretend that either the Tories or Labour are any different in this), but it's gone further than that. Unless it is also receiving significantly less funding from other funding bodies, and the type of student attending is drastically changing in terms of numbers of "paid by employer" places, the OU seems to have simply used the opportunity to pad their margins and make themselves more comfortable for the years ahead.

The OU sets out it's stall in this press release, and while it makes a passing comment about funding changes the main gist is one of carving it's niche out further. With funding changes to allow students on part time courses to receive maintenance loans, and their perception of an increase in students wanting to go in to part time study while they work...it seems the OU sees an opportunity to increase it's margins while still coming off as extremely good value for money by comparison to traditional universities.

Hot air ruining our economy?

I'm not going to spend an age going over how ridiculous the ONS and Gideon's appraisal of our economy is. I'm not going to dwell on why forecasters didn't appropriately factor in the effect of an extra bank holiday to their GDP growth estimates. I'm not going to ask how it is that a predicted economic boost around olympic ticket sales has somehow turned in to an economic drag.

What I am going to say though, is this notion that somehow the weather is to blame for our economic situation is utter bullshit.

I can understand that the weather may have certain effects, slight ebbs and flows that can make some minor changes to our economy. I can even slightly accept that yes...maybe a bit of snow and freezing weather does discourage some people from going to work those few days...discourages them from spending. But today's claim that it's too WARM? Pull the other one.

Take a look at the GDP growth data over the last few years. The temperature of our summer's has increased every year (pretty much) for the last decade or so. Perhaps it's a crass analysis, but GDP hasn't stalled as the country has had warmer and warmer years, infact it has been very consistently rising...recession aside.

If warm weather, and indeed cold winters, were really a problem for economies, then we should be seeing a tailing off of GDP growth from 1998 to 2008, not a straight trend line.

I am not prepared to accept is that we should at all focus on what must be a miniscule impact on our economy from the weather, it is political opportunism to pick on the weather as an excuse; it shows just how little of the economy is out of the control of government influenced factors if anything, since this is the best excuse they seem to be able to come up with.

The problems with our economy lie at the heart of the decisions made by the Treasury and this government, not with abstract or uncontrollable factors.

If people had jobs they weren't afraid of losing at a moment's notice, with a good salary that wasn't eaten away by inflation every month, if food prices weren't soaring, if fuel prices weren't allowed to increase by over twice the rate of inflation, and if we weren't in post-banking-crisis that helped to ensure borrowing for those suffering from all the above was even harder than normal...maybe then they'd be out spending more, working harder, living happier and putting our economy on the real road to recovery that we seem to have missed the turning for many, many months ago.

We are, like it or lump it, a consumer economy right now. Extra exports would be ideal, but no-one can magic up a manufacturing industry to save our economic growth in a single parliamentary term. If this government want to keep us out of another recession they need to realise their mantra on "private sector creating jobs" just isn't going to cut it. Even if they currently are creating jobs, the signs are that the jobs are part time and not at all conducive to either a) increasing our GDP by any meaningful factor or b) allowing those people to spend money, since they will not have enough to do more than purchase essentials. If this government is serious about the economy they will take the lead like only a national government can and make those jobs happen themselves, directly or indirectly, and do the right thing for the short term recovery of this country...and therefore hopefully lay the foundations for a longer term return to normal.

Dear Right wingers...

Your own views, as disgustingly selfish as they can be, are not being called extremist. Stop getting your underwear in a twist over people legitimately saying someone who holds the same type of views as you is extremist in their views.

Wanting to end all immigration? Selfish, backwards thinking, ironic given your stance on free markets. Wanting to kill people that you feel have advanced the cause of immigration too far? Extremist.

Your tendency towards the traditional family unit, and fear of homosexuality? Old fashioned, bigoted, sexist. Wanting to kill people that work towards gender and sexual equality? Extremist.

I hope you can see the difference, and in the future maybe see the same differences between your Muslim kin too, you're really not all that different.

The problem with Police and Crime Commissioners

Plans are afoot for a move in this country to elected police and crime commissioners. The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill 2010-11 is currently going through the House of Lords and will see it's third reading on Tuesday. They've been pushed forward by the Conservatives, the only party to suggest such a plan in their manifesto.


WHAT ARE THE PLANS?

In short, to quote Mrs Theresa May (Home Secretary), the plans put forward are to "shift power directly into the hands of the public as they elect police and crime commissioners to lead the fight against crime and disorder in their areas."

This means elections held at the same time as "normal" elections, such as local or general elections, to put a single person in charge of strategy for local policing, to decide budgets, and to take responsibility for the senior officers in the police force.


WHY ARE WE TAKING THIS ROUTE?

Is this plan genuinely seen as the best option by the government for deciding police strategy? Is it fair to assume there is a hidden agenda, that there is a desire for greater political involvement in our police forces?

New governments mean new changes, sometimes to situations that have already been tried and failed in the past. Policing seems to be one of those areas where politicians feel the need to make a change regardless of the need, cost or sensibility of the alterations.

It makes little sense for this government to push these plans go ahead, given that it may very well result in police forces being run by politicians from either Labour or Lib Dem colours rather than Tory ones, and so it also must be that the Conservatives also feel that this change won't, ultimately, make much of a difference to the national strategy of policing.

Governments may well be able to say they wish to take power away from centralised sources, but I doubt any would say they want to lose power of the country's law enforcement after all.


POLICE APPROVAL RATINGS

What the plans may do is reflect well under current methodology of police approval studies, and give the Tories something to crow about nationally come the next election. But as we can see from the British Crime Survey 10/11, there's already a long term trend of increased approval of the police, and crime itself is on a downward trend.

This isn't to say that new plans couldn't improve these trends, to make crime fall and approval rise faster.

If the public feel they are influencing the police force, albeit making them happier about the force in the process, this doesn't also mean the police are more effective at their purpose and stated aims. It doesn't mean that the police will be operating cost-effectively. And it does run the very real risk of the public thinking they should be having more influence than they ultimately will end up having, potentially damaging approval ratings, and trust in the force.


POLITICISATION?

Simply put, having people elect the person responsible for police strategy (on what would likely be a low 30% level of turnout) doesn't mean that someone right for the job makes it in. Far from it. We know that rather than knowledgeable individuals with experience in the field, parties will field politicians, and the election material will be "Let Labour run your police force" or "Lib Dems for more police on the beat".

We won't be electing individuals that fit the task at hand, though some of us may try to find out what the stances of each candidate for our area are, most will align with their political leanings and go with what their preferred party tell them to do. You vote Labour for your local elections, you'll probably vote Labour for your local police commissioner too. As far as accountability goes it's pretty thin on the ground.

And there is very real evidence that people that intend to get in to this position will do so by playing up to populist stances, without it necessarily being the right direction to take. Take this research conducted on the actions of public prosecutors (mostly elected) in the US.

The theory predicts that when re-election pressures are high prosecutors increase the number of cases taken to trial and plea bargain less. Data from all forty-three districts in North Carolina over twelve years provides empirical verifcation.

As a job, it's not comparable, but it shows us really what we already know...where personal power is predicated on the "success" of persecuting others more compared to your rivals, you will do what you can to achieve that. It's not a remote possibility that elected police commissioners here would seek to tie up police budgets on schemes that aren't cost effective but do provide favourable figures in the eyes of the public...or at least the area of the small handful of the public that is likely to return them for a second term.


SHOULDN'T THE PUBLIC HAVE A SAY?

The main gist of the whole plan is clearly the drive for more democracy, or perhaps as is more likely the greater illusion of democracy; Yet my stance is no, the public shouldn't have a larger direct say.

For a start, what do the public know of the nuances of police budgeting and crime fighting strategy? Some may have very detailed knowledge, many will have none. As I say above, the public will rely on trusting parties, at which point the public are merely delegating their voice to a party machine rather than having a true say of their own.

What the public should have is confidence that their communities issues are being listened to and dealt upon, something that doesn't need a directly elected official, and confidence that where there is wrongdoing or incompetence on behalf of the police force that it will be quickly and comprehensively dealt with. What it needs on the issue of crime is that common sense is applied as to who is being brought to justice, a remit not even in the hands of local police forces themselves. With criticisms of both the IPCC and CPS, as well as the invisibility of the police authorities that currently run some of the tasks that the police commissioner would take over, there are much more concerning areas of policing that could be improved and bring trust in the entire crime and justice system up another level.

Nick Herbert, a Minister involved in pushing the legislation forward, has called views like this "Elitism", which is a very crass way of trying to switch off the political debate about such a potentially large change to the way our police attempt to do their job.


HEADING IN BLIND

I for one don't think it's elitist to ask that we don't make policy up on the hoof, that we set out a proposition (That the police could be reducing crime faster, and improving public relations quicker), and then carry our appropriate research in to similar models, how they've worked, how frequently they're used, and if the model isn't used then why not; to legislate potentially for small scale pilot study of the model that seems most in tune with out aims.

I don't think it's elitist to use all this data to make sure we have a good idea that is likely to work before we spend £130 million to implement it.

The Lords seem to agree with this, when on the 11th of May they voted for Amendment 1 on a margin of 188-176, scrapping the notion of an elected police commissioner completely from the legislation (though the government have presumptuously said they shall keep on with it)

[The Lords must] ask ourselves whether we really understand what we are changing and why; and, above all, whether we fully appreciate what the consequences of that change will or could be. I am not against change, but if it is to be positive it needs at the very least to do more good than harm, and preferably it needs to demonstrate that what it creates is better than what came before. I am very concerned that the evidence base for making this change is incredibly thin, and that the consequences of implementing it have not been thoroughly researched or properly thought through.

Baroness Harris of Richmond

I urge people to read the debate held in the Lords on 11th May, as it's an incredibly sensible one that cuts through a lot of the supposed benefits of this plan.


STANDARD PRACTICE?

When it comes down to it, this legislation doesn't follow standard practices for our democracy, we understand the need for local democracy and that's why we elect entire councils of local politicians rather than a single politician for the entire area, and when we elect our representatives for the entirety of the UK we don't just elect a single individual or a party and give them full control of our nation.

The principle of more direct accountability of police authorities is one that can be positively discussed, it's a model we all understand. By contrast the nearest we have as a model in the UK to police commissioners are elected mayors (such as Boris Johnson in London).

If there is one thing that perhaps the last few weeks have shown us is that power corrupts, the involvement of the police and politicians in collusion with the press for their own self-serving ends shows the danger of a lack of independent oversight and the danger of an organisation or set of individuals feeling beholden to someone with an over-abundance of power.

Do we necessarily need a single individual holding all the cards, pandering to populism (though only in the majoritarian sense, since the views of the minority that take part in their elections shall be all they need to concern themselves with), and significantly more vulnerable to media (tabloid) attacks on their actions due to their single party standing?


IS NOW THE TIME?

So surely, with all of this in mind it is not the right time to think about plans as "grand" as this? Now is not the time for creating a job so easily corruptible, not when we have organisations that are much better suited for the job of holding police forces to account, if only they had a little more power.

Police authorities are unelected bodies, but are made up of people that are both interested and knowledgeable parties, as well as politicians that have been elected (yes, directly elected!) and are a more accurate route of information from local communities around a police force's area to those that hold that police force to account.

There is no doubt that these police authorities need to change. They're silent, they lack teeth, they essentially don't justify their own existence as it stands...yet it would take minimal changes to give them the powers that the government wishes to gift to the single role of police and crime commissioner. Administrative reforms that make it clearer who they are, how they can be contacted, and what they've been doing...as well as a larger move to publicise their existence, would cost significantly less and be significantly more balanced than trying to get the same work from a single elected party line politician.


GOING FORWARD

If the latest Lords bill is to be believed (though it is a little contradictory since the amended bill has been published), what will return to the commons is a plan for a non-elected body, made up of representatives that are stakeholders in local areas, that will alone have the power to create this police commissioner from it's own membership as it sees fit.

We have the opportunity to tell our MPs, when this bill finds it's way back to the House of Commons, that we would prefer that they don't politicise our police force any further than it already is, without proper study at least, and that we also don't want our time and money wasted by trying to revert the Lords' plans back to their own when they now provide a more stable reform.

Liberalism and sentencing

The problem with the Charlie Gilmour conviction, for those that support and take part in UKUncut, is that he's probably the best example of someone actually genuinely deserving of a punishment. His actions (and those like him) made young people look bad, they undermined the efforts of the protestors, they strengthened the defence for what was a shambolic and dangerously organised police force, caused very real damage, targeted the head of state's son, was allegedly uncontrollable while on intoxicating substances, and (if we believe one Lib Con commentator) clearly didn't care much whether he did real serious harm to the police either.

Yet he was standing on the side of UKUncut, and they as well as their supporters seem unable of accepting that people on their side need to be punished any more than those on the right wing press and in the government wish to accept that the authorities acted out of line. It's blatant and disgraceful hypocrisy.

So of course, it seems, the only action is to try and claim that it is perfectly acceptable to do such things, as long as it is in the face of the state authorities...that "he didn't really hurt anyone" and that therefore his actions should be ignored. The stance seems to be as socialists (ironically) and as liberals we should just let it slide.

But the law is a liberal tool as much as an authoritarian one. Charlie and his fellow protestors may not have actually hurt the Royals in their car that day, not physically, but psychologically they clearly had some effect. This is just as relevant when it comes to the intimidation effect that violence can have when perpetrated by any side. But a different object picked up, a different direction thrown, the result could have been very different.

The law rightfully chooses to condemn actions and intentions, not outcomes. The kid that threw a fire extinguisher off the roof of a building, narrowly missing a police officer, was charged not for "almost killing someone", but for doing something that was clearly extremely dangerous, regardless of how likely it was to injure anyone. (Though I will come to Woollard's charge shortly)

So if it is perfectly liberal to accept that charges are right to be brought, for the purpose of the protection of other people's liberties, is it liberal to suggest that the sentences that they also carry are fair?

Ultimately this isn't a question of liberalism, but of logic and realism. The realities are that judges have a good idea about where their sentences need to start from and for what reasons. Previous examples of sentencing may help to give context to that judge. As such it's unlikely for a judge to ever give a suspended sentence, or a community sentence, to someone who has done something that (under the law) is just as serious as someone that got jailed traditionally for the same level of activity.

Indeed, the point I raised wasn't that the sentence itself was the best type of sentence that could be handed down, or that I agree with how the law of violent disorder is sentenced; it was to point out that claims that the sentence was politically motivated, or that it was inflated unfairly, as I was reading by various UKUncut supporters yesterday on Twitter, is a nonsense point of view to take.

It's just diresepectful and false to claim that this sentence is anything other than what someone else doing the same thing outside of a protest would have also got.

I guess this is where those people are getting their panties in a twist, they can't quite make out the difference between understanding that due process has been carried out fairly, and understanding that a sentence range for a particular crime might not be the right punishment.

This is where nuance is needed. Mr Woollard, who threw the fire extinguisher off the roof of a building, showed real remorse for his actions...acted in the heat of the moment...he was stupid but he was not violent. He is actually, in my mind, the victim of being the first and most public figure in this situation; as such I am not surprised but am saddened he was found guilty of his charge of violent disorder.

So in this case I feel that the sentence is out of step with reality, that Mr Woollard's intentions have not been adequately considered. I hope that an appeal will go ahead, and I hope that at the very least he has his sentence drastically reduced now that the public furore has died down, if not his charge over turned completely.

The other person charged by the same judge presiding over Charlie Gilmour's case, who threw sticks at the police, was on the other hand clearly violent. However my view on his sentence would vary depending on the situation. Was this person kettled when he was acting violently? Was his throwing of things at the police only something he did in one incident (as long as that incident spanned)? Did he come to the protest without the intention of fighting the police? If the answer to all of these is yes then I feel that not enough of a mitigating factor is made of how police provoked such reactions. If the answer to any is no, then his sentence starts to becomes more reasonable, though in my view suspending it if he is a first time offender would make the most sense from a liberal stand point.

Which brings us to Charlie. We know that in the situations he was being charged for he was not provoked, we know he went from one incident to the other with ample opportunity to "calm down", we also know that he was under the influence of serious drugs which is never going to work to your favour (nor should it) in sentencing. But again, prison is unlikely to really serve anyone involved with the best outcome. To be humbled by the process of publicly being dragged through the courts is likely to be enough, a suspended sentence to keep you under control for a while a good chance to reflect on how to not let your fellow protestors down in the future.

As a liberal I will question the public need for bringing some of these convictions, and I'll always question in a more wider sense whether the sentencing is appropriate for the crimes in modern day Great Britain, but liberalism doesn't even come in to the subject of whether or not due process, with all of the rules it has to abide by, has been carried out properly. Illiberal for saying that following a fairly transparent procedure is the right thing to do? Please...

It don't matter if you're left or right

Earlier I posted about Charlie Gilmour, an idiot that decided to put himself in the crosshairs of the authority, antagonised police, riled up protestors with rhetoric to break the law, attacked (however feebly) a royal convoy, allegedly threw paving stones at police, and caused property damage, all while on LSD and Valium. He got 16 months for a portion of this, and within the law got exactly what could be expected.

The thing that was a little unexpected for me was just how right wing the left wing could be. There are, of course, several tactics in the blogging/discussion world to try and undermine or derail an argument. Reductio ad absurdum, where you try and make too simple a case about something in order to disprove another's point; whataboutery, where you almost accept that the other person has a point but aim to "disprove" by talking about something similar as if it's more important; and hyper-comparison (for want of a real term), where you take two points made and attempt to portray them as something the other person has linked much more closely than they have and then use that strawman (false argument set up to be burnt down) to claim to disprove something else.

*phew*

These are all tactics I see over and over again with vehement right wingers on issues such as Climate Change, crime rates, immigration, over-eager legislation (on subjects like Terrorism), internet freedom, etc, etc.

I guess I just didn't realise that these kinds of comments, Daily Mail-esque in their simplicity and lack of objectivity, aren't really the purview of "The Right" anyway, but of people in general that are unable to distance the realities of the world from what they wish to be true.

Yes, I don't think Charlie Gilmour should have got 16 months, however the point of contention for that view is not this particular case but the oversight of the CPS and, to a greater extent, how fit for purpose some 25 year old laws are which are now used by the CPS.

Does what the police also did on the day matter to this reality? No. Does it mean I agree with the police action of the day? No. Perhaps this is too multi-faceted and complex stance for those in the UKuncut movement to comprehend, I'm not entirely sure.

What I am sure of, and now glad to know, is that in reality it is just heavily partisan people that get down and dirty with the tactics of not engaging with the real subject, and skirting around the facts of the matter, regardless of whether they'd describe themselves as Left wing or Right wing.

Charlie Gilmour - sentenced fairly within the law

There's a bit of a fuss going on about Charlie Gilmour, and how apparently it's outrageous that he has been sentenced to 16 months in prison (which, we all know, will only end up being 8 or so).

This outrage is bollocks.

You only have to take a look at the sentencing history for "Violent Disorder", coupled with Mr Gilmour's nature in court (allegedly giggling at scenes of his actions), tempered by the fact he pleaded guilty and apologised for certain (but not all) actions...

Attacking a police officer by throwing bottles - 10 months
Encouraging others to KILL police officers - 12 months
Revenge attack on property, with "attack" of person, person of good character - 18 months
Taking part in a riot, repetitive attacks on riot police with state of mind to "re-arm" with projectiles, second offence - 3 years

16 months, given that Charlie doesn't exactly seem remorseful of the main elements of the charge (which is the threat, as little as it was in reality, he put members of family of the head of state under, and the encouragement for others to break the law), seems pretty much bang on all things considered, doesn't it?

Now, perhaps the sentencing range (maximum 5 years) for this offence is too harsh, that'd be a fair stance to take...but to call this sentencing "political" or "outrageous" is to just not have bothered to check what is normal in sentencing this kind of offence, as it stands in law.

Why yesterdays strikes were more successful than most

I would usually start this kind of entry by saying "People aren't stupid", unfortunately a year's worth of politics where people have been given the opportunity to prove it has actually proven opposite. Instead I will say people are selfish, and very prone to putting things in to their own frame of "would I win or lose if it happened in my situation" versus "does them getting what they want detriment me also?".

It's for this reason why I feel that yesterdays strikes were successful, unlike strikes by other parts of the public workforce that have happened periodically through the past.

Past strikes have never tended to breach past the "selfish" barrier. Calls to get an even bigger pay rise than they're getting just don't go down well, regardless of how justified they are. Yesterdays calls were not that simple though. While publicly about the pensions public workers get, those that listened to supporters of the strike through the day would have got the message that pensions were already reformed to not cause a strain on the tax payer, and that further reforms are just a pay cut.

Here it's where people put their own selfish frame of reference to the test...and see no reason to be petulant. It's not going to actually cost them any more (or less, taxes aren't going to be reduced because of any further reforms), and they can equate it to their own job. "Would I be happy with my boss taking away some of my pay but not giving me anything in return?"

Overall the framing of yesterdays strikes, clumsily handled into a failure by those that spoke against them (Check out the Today show on Radio4, which led to this factcheck, among others, about affordability of public sector pensions), meant that no-one could see any detriment to themselves, and therefore were free to feel empathy for the situation those workers find themselves in.

And for that reason I think those unions that took part were very much right to go ahead, despite negotiations still ongoing. It's all well and good to claim that you should wait until negotiations have finished, but that assumes that both parties are going in to the boardroom on an equal footing, and that those holding the purse strings intend to be objectively fair. Leaving a strike until after the negotiations stall only leads to the striking side being painted as wanting too much out of the deal, of being unreasonable in negotiation.

By striking now it has been nothing more than a protest, a statement that this avenue is not one that public sector workers are going to accept without a big fight. Sometimes that is necessary to make the balance of power more even in that negotiation room. And when you have a subject like this, it isn't hard for the public to find themselves on your side either, so why not take that opportunity and get that message out while you can?

Injunctions, and privacy, and twitter, oh my!

We're at an interesting crossroads in our public social development. Twitter, pub or bar for the internet masses, is gaining more and more attention for the "Civil disobedience" of breaking injunctions, and with it an interesting paradox over which human right is more important is being fought out.

Which is more important, our right to say what we want (within legal boundaries) or to have a life that is free from prying eyes? I cannot say that I feel the right to say what we like is more important, myself, I know that most people that are so eagerly flouting the injunction laws might feel a whole lot differently about the subject if we were to turn on them and start publishing details about their every day life.

But then the question about the whole Imogen Thomas affair was never really about the privacy of just one individual. It's perfectly acceptable for one person to wish to keep their life private, but does that mean they have a veto over that other party ever expressing themselves about it, in however much detail they want? Surely there must be something that those, certainly feminists, must feel leaves quite a sour taste when one person, a man, can control the voice of another because they put their priority first?

Of course, don't believe for a second I think this is about gender politics, it's the privilege of the rich and the powerful that is at play here. Equally, however, those people being rich or powerful (or both) doesn't mean they don't have the same rights as everyone else. I am not one that subscribes to the idea that "you must expect it" if you become famous.

It is the focusing on twitter aspect of the whole situation that is most intriguing though. Prosecutions for those that flaunt the law? Unworkable as far as I can see (or hope). Speculation and rumour should never be treated as anything more than that. If there are those posting evidential proof of something then they are clearly breaking the law when it comes to injunctions such as the one involved in the Imogen Thomas case. Simply blurting out a rumour (however true it is known to be, or ends up being) in 140 characters or less is a very different matter.

I call it the pub/bar for the masses for a reason, for all that users and commentators alike hold Twitter up as a bastion of free speech, it is nothing more than a (large) public area. We all enter the building as we log in, we take up our seats with those we enjoy the company of, and sometimes we overhear things from the table behind us. Sometimes someone just has to say something that means everyone around hears.

So, when do we regulate and legislate against public and social gathering? By the words spoken in the last month we would assume that were it possible the courts would rather that they had ears in every conversation in the pub, every bus stop chat, every tea-break room. For that is what is being assumed here...because the internet is so documentable, able to be logged and catalogued, evidence preserved so easily... that rumour is unacceptable, and some would therefore say human nature is unacceptable. It's an affront to our freedom of association at the end of the day, with courts saying individual privacy should be upheld at any achievable length of manipulating the boundaries of association between individuals.

And it is for that reason that I ultimately disapprove with this witch hunt against twitter users. Not because I believe that they have a right to pry, to abandon someone else's right to privacy, but because the right for them to speculate and to feel free to speculate with one another is the most important aspect of a free society. A society where we do not feel that we can talk amongst one another freely, about subjects we wish, even in an environment where others may be able to overhear us, is a terrifying prospect of authoritarian proportions.

There is a fine balance to be found, if it can ever be found, to allowing that "tittle tattle" while also allowing those that value their privacy recourse to punish those that have gone too far...but it can never be expense of collective freedom.

The Scottish elections, an example of where AV benefits

As I write this I believe the SNP have a majority in government (65 seats, still counting) in the Scottish Parliament. The interesting part of it is that in terms of vote share the Liberal Democrats are nose diving as people leave the Lib Dems to vote SNP. Labour on the other hand aren't doing terribly, they're losing some share as are the Tories, a natural effect of a general swing to the SNP. Yet Labour are also losing a lot of seats, more than their reduction in share might suggest. Why?

Despite Scotland having a semi-proportional system, these seats are being won on our FPTP system. What these results show, very clearly, is that those who have voted Lib Dem in the past are only ever thinking to vote SNP in their second preference. Through truly being swayed to vote SNP as their true first choice, or realising that their chance of a united majority against Labour can only come about with the SNP getting their votes, Labour are losing out because they appear to be the party that have gained in the past due to votes being split between SNP and Lib Dems.

This is about as pure an example of why AV is so beneficial, how many Scottish seats at the last election may have fell to the SNP under the FPTP stage of the elections using AV instead because of the system's inherent property for stopping parties that don't have direct competition getting a foothold in areas that they're not wanted.

As a final example, look at East Lothian, seat to the Labour Scottish leader.

Iain Cumming Gray Labour - 39%
David Berry SNP - 38.5%
Derek Scott Brownlee Conservative - 16.6%
Ettie Spencer Liberal Democrat - 5.9%

Is that a seat that it looks like Labour deserve? Sure, Tory Scots are unlikely to pass their preferences on to the independence loving SNP, but nor are they likely to pass votes to their arch-rivals Labour. This election has shown that Lib Dems are much more likely to desert to the SNP.

It may be unlikely, but I still hope deep down the public has not been duped by the lies of the No campaign, and that we in the UK elections...unable to temper a bad system with some form of proportionality as the Scottish can...move to a fairer system that does not penalise voters that have a choice between similar candidates.

What happens if No wins?

With a poll out that shows something like a 20 point lead for the No campaign there is a part of me that has to prepare for the possibility of people voting against a fairer voting system, and for a continuation of the terrible topsy-turvy system we've currently got. But what will the No campaign have achieved if they win?

PR?

One argument being peddled is that a No vote will enable a much quicker move to a PR system for the commons. This is despite all reality that the Tories and Labour do not want a PR system. The Tories will never vote for anything other than FPTP, and Labour will stretch at most to AV+, which isn't PR but addresses a small part of the problem of single member constituencies.

How we will get to the PR system that most want, STV, when both of the biggest parties in the country do not want it and consistently talk it down (after all, why would they want a system where they both have to give up seats for MPs that people really want?), after a result which is a resounding "No reform" statement, I will never know.

No more coalitions?

Polling is all over the place, and it may well be that we move away from the three party system that we currently reside under. However if this did happen it would also mean no coalitions under AV as well as FPTP. However if the Lib Dems turn things around (as they appear to be doing in some local election polling) then we're still looking at another coalition (or at least Hung Parliament) in 2015.

Given Labour and the Tories don't want to work together, this only leaves the Lib Dems to prop one or the other up. So voting no doesn't stop coalitions, and it actually makes it harder and slower to get out of the hung parliament territory we're in right now (AV is much better for making large changes where the public wants it).

Fair winners?

The main reason I've supporter AV is because of this one fact... FPTP does not deliver fair winners in seats where opinion is split. FPTP, in fact, PENALISES popular opinion if more than one candidate falls under that area of support. If your constituency is heavily environmentally minded, with a Lib Dem and a Green being the two "greenest" in the constituency, people that want a Green focus actually can cause themselves to lose out.

It's ridiculous, but a No vote helps to ensure that someone who is TRULY "third place" in the local area wins ahead of one of two candidates that are pushing policy the majority of the constituency want.

Money saved?

I've written here before, but we'll be spending near to £50-60mil on this referendum even if it is lost. And after that, we barely save any money as the cost of counting extra rounds is miniscule compared to the costs that are already incurred for an election.

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So when it comes down to it, if we do vote No tomorrow then the only thing we've proved is that as a nation we'd rather cut off our nose to spite our face, that short term personal politics is actually more important than meaningful reform (and thus politicians will be enthused to know that focusing on talking down their opponents rather than talking up their own policy is the way forward in the future), that we'd rather that vocal minorities win against loose majorities every time, and that reform of the house of commons is not something that we're interested in.

The only thing that keeps me positive about the possibility of a No win tomorrow, given that my faith in the public to not shoot themselves in the foot will be destroyed, is that the possibility of a parliament only evolution of how the Lords is formed can mitigate all of the terrible elements of our democracy this referendum will have enforced, and ensure that even if we're too stupid to vote for it, we still have an opportunity to have our voices better represented.

Stokes Croft and the horrible stench of hypocrisy.

It's been a couple of evenings now since the Stokes Croft riots, however riotous rather than spectator like it actually was, and it's been interesting to read about the various views on what has been going on. From the police we have official statements about the operation, press releases as they are an therefore highly dubious as to their factuality. Yet on Twitter and Youtube we have other accounts as to the operation's effectiveness.

I don't wish to promote alleged police actions of "brutality", and I've been pretty damn vocal against the tactics of kettling and charging innocent protesters in London. However reading reports like this from Oli Conner just take the piss.

However, it didn't take long before everything began to switch. I couldn't say what happened first, the police arming themselves with riot shields or people dragging dustbins and bits of wood onto the street to build a barricade. One thing I can say with absolute certainty is that the police could have prevented what was to happen next by demobilising and leaving the area with the people that they had arrested. But they didn't, and stubbornness instead provoked a riot.

Emboldened, the protesters turned the tables on the police, standing in front of their vans, not allowing them to exit - giving them a taste of what it feels like to be kettled. As the riot shielded officers came back out of their van and formed another line, everyone sat down in front of them linking arms. The police swiftly responded with violence.

Yes, the police are the authority. Yes, the police should know better. But you know what, it's absolutely un-fucking-acceptable to state that one side "provoking violence" is their fault, while on the flip side it is only their response of violence after being provoked that is the problem.

What we have here is an almost playground-esque tragedy. I have no doubt that police were given stupid orders...it seems to happen a lot these days. But ultimately the police on the ground are just workers, trained in a specific way, and generally left to their own devices to carry out a blanket task. If they are told to stay and defend an area and stop people, that is what they'll do. If the people they're trying to stop start to get violent, no matter how small a group, they will revert to training.

Is this right? No. Absolutely not. But it is understandable, despite what commentators around the web may try to alude to otherwise.

Equally I understand entirely why a group of people feeling unheard, ignored entirely, or simply persecuted in the short term by the authorities present, may feel so obliged to "stand up" to authority. That doesn't make such a childish action right either.

Authority or not, we're meant to be civilised human beings. I don't believe that in the face of brutality or oppression people should back down, but there is no evidence of the police going around and seeking out to oppress or to brutalise. The people that were hurt were hurt because they, or those around them, chose to confront and oppose themselves and become the antagonists.

Take a look at this video, for example (warning, it's cut together by people sympathetic to those that aren't the police, yet still moronically is showing why the police withdrawing was a mistake).

This wasn't a protest that the police were shutting down, this wasn't a group of people acting innocent and enacting their rights. Whoever "started" it doesn't really fucking matter, what happened was two groups of people...one no doubt briefed to expect trouble and trained to deal with it, the other spoiling for trouble after a pint or two...came together and neither felt they could withdraw.

Except only one group could be expected to take this stance, the police. They're there to maintain law and order. They failed, but it would not be seen as acceptable in any way shape or form for them to simply walk out of there after tensions had snapped. As we see from the video above, when they did leave absolute dickheads decided the best way to further their cause was to help provide the mainstream media and hand-wringers alike exactly the ammunition they need to say "SEE...they're just a bunch of criminal wasters!"

I've been largely impressed with the way that those opposing the Tesco store in Stokes Croft have handled themselves, the way they've mobilised support and tried everything they can in the face of clearly biased planning laws to enabled business to win out over communities. I can only assume they have had little part to play in the actions of two evenings ago...I hope that assumption is correct.

What happened in Stokes Croft was pitiful and made no-one look good. But don't kid yourself that this was unwarranted police brutality. If you go looking for a fight with a guy with armor and a big stick you're looking to get hurt.

And if you're happy to stand amongst those people while not looking for a fight, you're an idiot and I have little sympathy for you. Document these "abuses of power" provoked by anti-social elements from a better position where you won't be mistaken for one of the law breakers in the heat of the moment, and stop thinking that police officers are somehow unable to distinguish between innocent and guilty in that moment any more than you seem capable of distinguishing between a police officer fighting scared or fighting for fun.

AV elects the most popular candidate...

A bit of a recap here...but it's not good enough to pretend that AV elects the least worst candidate.

If three candidates, Tom, Wendy and Kim stand for election, and get the following shares under FPTP, then Kim would win...

Tom: 20%
Wendy: 36%
Kim: 44%

If Tom never stood, then under FPTP Wendy would win, assuming that half of Tom's supporters vote for Wendy, and half don't bother to vote at all...

Wendy: 51%
Kim: 49%

If the first election was run, we'd likely say Kim was the most popular (or held the most votes), whereas if the second election was held we'd have said Wendy was the most popular.

Using FPTP's very own definitions then, it's clear that AV round 1 would result in the first set of shares, and then result in the second set of shares. Wendy would rightfully win as the more popular candidate...but more than that a candidate with majority support and true endorsement from the local area.

This process is especially important when you consider perhaps that Wendy is a Labour candidate, Tom is a Green candidate and Kim is a Tory candidate. The population (as the second result shows) are clearly leaning towards green-left ideals. Under FPTP, with all three candidates standing, the population (who are clearly green/socialist) would end up with a conservative candidate.

So AV re-runs FPTP elections to eliminate vote splitting that can allow a candidate that doesn't represent a constituency to win, and it does so by electing the most popular candidate just as a FPTP election would. A fairer system for better democracy!

A month to go before the AV Referendum

So we're almost a month away from the Referendum vote, as well as local elections widely expected to see the country stand against the cuts that are being foisted upon them by electing a landslide victory of Labour council seats nationally.

I wanted to reiterate why it is I'm voting for AV:

1) I believe in the constituency link between voters and their MPs

We don't need to go for PR in our House of Commons, a strong constituency link is a positive factor for MPs to do what local people want...but only where they feel those local people can get rid of them. FPTP fails the second part of that sentence, as too many MPs know they need not consider as wide a range of voters as possible. Only around 1-2% of all voters mattered in 2010.

2) Proportionality can now be delivered more quickly, and more fairly, by reforming the House of Lords

But I do want proportionality in our politics...yet this referendum has screwed that consideration up for the House of Commons.

The House of Lords is our answer. If AV is lost in May, then the Daily Mail, the Tories, Labour...it'll all be swung as a victory for FPTP. None of them want a more proportional system than FPTP or AV. If AV is won then we'll have to bed it in and test it for several elections. Either way PR in the House of Commons is off the table for at least a generation.

House of Lords reform, however, should happen by the end of the current parliament if the coalition agreement is to be believed. We can have a house that scrutinises our laws, and even introduces laws of it's own, that is proportional to our national wishes.

To me this is a perfect system, a national government elected via run-off popularity in each constuency, and a representative chamber that ensures all law passed has to have been agreed by a group of politicians with political views proportional to our nation as a whole.

Yet listen to most in the Yes or No debate and you'd think that this option never existed. *sigh*.

3) AV is a more equal, and therefore more fair, voting system for voters

FPTP doesn't treat everyone equally. It gives everyone the same voting opportunity (as does AV, for the record), but it gives more influence to those who choose to vote with the crowds. If you want a minority candidate, but choose to vote for Labour, Tories, or the Lib Dems...your vote will be worth more in the system than those that vote with their hearts.

AV lets everyone vote the same way, and ensures that everyones voice is equal in the results. This is fairer for all involved, allowing people to vote how they want for the reasons they want...not forced to either vote against their wishes, or to vote in a way that means they might as well not have turned up to vote at all, as it would be under FPTP.

4) AV increases marginality through greater chance to change MPs, this is linked to increase in turnout.

Take a look, studies show that AV allows seats the change hands more frequently than under FPTP. This chance has, in research, been linked to increase in turnout.

People simply turn up more the more they think their vote will matter. So along with AV actually meaning that 25% of the country that really don't count may actually make a difference, the act of them making a difference may encourage more to turn up as well.

This only helps to enhance the legitimacy of the government that is eventually formed.

5) AV stops extremism from getting a foot in the door

FPTP is the system that lets extremist parties have a chance at winning with a tiny share of the vote. To illustrate, though they themselves aren't extremist, the Lib Dems won a seat in 2010 on 29% of the vote, less than a third of those voting!

This could have been any party that could generate a swell of minority support, Lib Dems, Labour, or even the BNP. AV ensures that the only parties that win are those who actually have the endorsement of local voters, and thus cannot be extremists in that area.

6) AV enables greater transparency

If a Labour MP wins right now, they only have some idea of why they won. Was it national politics, was it an overwhelming case for their manifesto, was it the lack of a local candidate that would split their vote?

With AV that Labour MP will be able to see who transferred votes to them. Was it Liberal Democrats and Greens, or was it the BNP and local candidates? By having this information that MP knows much better how to serve their constituency. It's a level of transparency that simply doesn't exist under FPTP.

This, of course, doesn't mean that all of a sudden Labour MPs are going to singing from the BNP hymn-sheet...right now those like Phil Woolas make educated guesses as to how many BNP supporter votes they can poach and act accordingly.

Let's have a system where candidates have more freedom to be who they really want to be, without having to pledge to being more racist/liberal/green than they necessarily want to be, or even potentially need to be.

7) AV is opposed by the Daily Mail, most Conservatives, the worst of Labour's past, and the BNP.

When the people most involved in restriction of our liberties, and the promotion of so much hatred and fear, are the people saying we shouldn't vote for AV...well I just instinctively feel I'm on the ethically correct side of this debate. Petty? Perhaps, but petty based on preferring people to have equal rights and access to the political system...unlike those currently saying "Vote No to give Clegg a bloody nose" and other such short-termist anti-democratic nonsense.

What have we learned: 11th March

So it's been another fun (your mileage may very) week for AV discussions.

Starting off last Saturday, the 5th of March, Bristol had it's debate on AV. From this we learned that Chris Skidmore, a Tory MP, is willing to throw his party leader under the bus if it means winning a relatively minor point in a discussion...inferring that perhaps Cameron shouldn't have won his leadership of the Tory party given he didn't get the most number of first preferences in the first round.

All in all we learned from the whole debate that Chris Skidmore is woefully under-prepared to deal with the issue of discussing AV; a man that clearly relies on people to be completely uninformed so that his deceptions pass by as if fact.

We also learned that unfortunately the markets have moved towards the No vote winning, as well as polling, which suggests that unfortunately the No tactic of lying to the electorate (the Big Lie tactic as some have described it might have worked through the last month.

We also learned that the Tories would rather stop voting reform than concentrate on local elections. So little is their care for the public that they're cutting services for left right and center, they are abandoning even trying to make the case for their localism! David Cameron intends to personally take more of a visible role in the campaign and the party itself is throwing more resources behind it.

We still don't know who is funding the No campaign and by how much though.

We learned that historians don't know their history, as a bunch of right wing history "buffs" sign a letter crafted by (wait for it) Chris Skidmore claiming a bunch of facts that are actually historically incorrect.

We learned that some people still believe that a vote for No will have a better chance at delivering PR, after all the Murdoch owned press start a party to celebrate FPTP, and half the Labour party and most of the Tory party go on record to talk about it being an endorsement of our "traditional and time honoured system", and in an environment where the two main parties STILL don't want to move to a PR system.

More than that though we learned the main person pushing for it actually just wants to keep FPTP for the House of Commons anyway, so is hardly the right person to rely on to push PR at any point.

We learned that No supporters will use emotional blackmail at the drop of a hat (as if the "AV will kill babies" adverts didn't show this), as Cllr Terry Paul condescendingly asks Operation Black Vote why they're saying Yes. The dummies, don't they know it'll let the BNP in? That's right, vote yes and it'll be YOUR fault that racists get some power.

However we also learned that maybe the No campaign is cross party (or at least equal opportunity backstabbers) as they layed in to Tory Yes lead, John Strafford, and tried to score cheap political smug points by getting the Yes campaign to disown him. How did they do this? They scoured the internet for *anything* they could find from the man to try and pin his balls to the wall, and found three fairly innocuous personal opinions that they then quoted out of context.

Don't give up your day jobs, chaps.

PS. I personally spent a good amount of time researching Australian Election history, and found no proof whatsoever that preferential voting caused a drop in turnout as those against AV claim. Worthwhile learning perhaps!

FPTP gives people unfair influence, AV is a more equal system

Question: Isn't FPTP a fair system because everyone has one vote and there is only one round for it to count in?

FACT: FPTP is equal in process, but not in influence, unlike AV which is equal in process AND equal in influence.

Probably the most popular myth about FPTP is that due to it being so super simple, it must be so super fair and equal too.

It is not.

25% of the population voted for a candidate that came 3rd or worse in 2010's General Election. Their influence on the result was almost non-existant. If, however, they had decided to vote AGAINST their preference and vote tactically then they would have made more of an impact, either by increasing or decreasing the majority of the winner, or potentially even changing the winner completely.

FPTP leaves a gulf in voter power between those that vote for the top two candidates and those that don't.

AV, by comparisons, almost abolishes this unfair situation. AV is a run off voting system which means that if there are no winners (someone with over 50% of the remaining votes) in the round taking place, the least popular candidate is removed from the race and votes are reallocated to those remaining. These rounds each ask the same question, "Who's the best candidate of those remaining now?", and keeps going until a clear winner is found

It is the electoral equivalent of working out what kind of beer you want from the bar when your favourite has been discontinued because not enough people are buying it.

Because of this process everyone has the same input in to the system, everyone has the same opportunity to rank as many candidates as they like, and then everyone also enjoys a fair outcome, the same opportunity as everyone else in each round to make a statement about who is the best candidate left in the running.

FPTP is the act of making a choice, but then being left out in the cold unless you are canny enough to vote AGAINST YOUR WISHES and in line with the more popular top two candidates, creating a divide in equality between those who happen to support the top candidates and those that don't.

Worse still FPTP provides additional weight in the single voting round of FPTP for those that are willing to abandon their true desires and vote negatively and tactically, over and above those that have decided to vote with their heart.

AV is the act of letting the system know your opinion, and then being involved in a much more equitable process of fairly working out who the most popular candidate is as a group...and not assuming that the largest minority, as small as 29% in one constituency in 2010, knows what's best more than anyone else. And best of all the chance of you being punished for voting honestly and positively is almost completely eliminated.

EDIT: Some like to come and say that they wouldn't put their full preferences, so they get less say. This is wrong. While your candidate is in, you get the same amount of say as everyone else, as soon as your candidate goes out you are also out. Is this unfair? Well ask yourself this, if you wouldn't put further preferences under AV, then you'd probably not turn up (or you'd spoil) at a FPTP election where your party wasn't standing, wouldn't you?

In that case you would have actively chosen to not take part, your choice...the same is said here of AV. If you want to choose to give yourself no further influence that is not an indictment on the system, that is you having the freedom to do as you wish with your vote. The system itself hasn't disempowered you, you yourself have.

Did AV really decrease turnout in Australia?

There’s a throwaway charge made towards the Alternative Voting system that has always bugged me. It’s the charge that AV will cause the turnout in this country to drop through its introduction, and the “proof” of this is supposedly a single year’s turnout figures in Australia, the 1922 Federal Elections. So, did AV, or IRV, cause low turnout at the Australian Federal Elections?

But is this even proof? Statistically it’s flimsy, looking at only two years of turnout for comparison, near the beginning of a parliament’s lifetime, and not long after a war effort. But I’ve decided to take it on it’s own basis and look deeper...and I think the realities of what can be drawn from the drop in turnout are not quite what the “No2AV” camp would enjoy.

First, let’s get some background on the country and it’s politics prior to AV being implemented.

We know from our own history that times of great internal discomfort lead to higher turnouts. 1917 was a time when the war was having a huge toll on the Australian’s resolve (as it was, no doubt, everywhere), a controversial attempt was made to try and get the people to agree to conscription, and heavy economic penalties for having got involved in the war, kept turn out high, one of the highest Australia has had pre-compulsory voting.

It’s easy to compare this year for the Australian government to our own 1997 or 2010 elections where national events conspired to push the public in to action to reform it’s own government.

There was also high turn out in 1914 and 1913, however, the former “helped” by the outbreak of the first world war that would later come to hurt the Labor party, and the latter by an increase in in turnout by “Liberal” (conservative) voters in response perhaps to the biggest socialist set of reforms of Australia’s then short history in the preceding government.

Before this point turnout was low, once in the low 60%’s and otherwise in the 50%’s. This is probably more to do with the relatively new status of federal Australia and how it operated...it’s legitimacy in the eyes of the people and how well it was in itself supported...rather than an indictment of the FPTP system that was being used.

History lesson over, what about 1919 and 1922? I’ve gone through the elections from 1914 to 1922, seat by seat to work out if there is anything that can be said to be a clear indicator of a trend. Is there an apathy when asked to rank between 3 or more voters, for example, instead of two? Is there a marginality effect in 1919 that isn’t there in 1922?

Well let’s start first with the candidates. In 1914 and 1917 the FPTP system meant very few seats stood more than 2 candidates, and in 12 and 10 seats respectively they stood only 1 candidate uncontested. This fell to 2 uncontested seats in 1919 and 4 in 1922. In 1919, when the AV system was introduced there were only 27 seats contesting more than 2 candidates, and in 1922 this rose to 44 seats, not even 60% of the total number of seats.

So, for a start we know that roughly around 4% of the 12% drop in turnout was down to two uncontested seats.

Next there is the drop in turnout. From the 1919 year to 1922 there were 27 seats that can say they lost turnout after moving from staging a contest between 2 candidates to a contest between 3 or more candidates. However 29 seats lost turn out by keeping exactly the same number of candidates, while 8 lost turnout despite REDUCING the number of candidates fielded in 1922.

What’s most interesting is that of the top 5 biggest drops in turnout, all 5 either decreased the number of candidates standing or remained contesting with only 2. Turnout drops of 26%, 24%, 23%, and none of them to do with any added complication of having to choose between more than two candidates!

Of the 3 seats that can be said to have gained turnout during 1922, the only seats we can be sure of doing so (due to other 5 other seats having been abolished/reformed between the elections), 2 increased their candidate list to 3 candidates standing, and the other REMAINED on 3 candidates.

Then there is the phenomenon of vote counts actually not dropping, despite turnout doing so, suggesting that in reality a lot of these seats gained a significant amount of non-voting population between 1919 and 1922, rather than people choosing to not vote.

For example, Capricornica... an extra 10600 voters, but only an increase of 0.6% in the turnout. Wide Bay, 5400 extra voters but LOST 3.1% in turnout. Darling, increased it’s vote count by 1700 but lost a huge 12.5% of it’s turnout. Kalgoorlie remained stable on voters but lost an even bigger 20.9% of it’s turnout, similarly Batman lost only 200 voters but also a turnout share of 15.9%

The list goes on, in fact there are only 10 constituencies that have anything like a logical correlation between their turnout figure and voting total figures (comparing the drop or gain in turn out to a reasonable matching percentage... 10% of turnout equates to roughly 3000-4000 votes if the constituency size is staying roughly equal).

This isn’t to say what happened was unbelievable, just that there was clearly a population upheaval in some respect between 1919 and 1922 that caused placed to drop turnout so suddenly while increasing their vote totals

On this subject, of those places increasing their vote total (the number of ballots cast), of 17 constituencies 8 increased their number of candidates, 8 remained with the same number of candidates (2 of those with 3 candidates) and 1 had decreased their number of candidates.

On the flip side, the 17 (to be consistent) constituencies that lost the most vote totals consisted of 10 remaining on the same number of candidates (2 of those with 3 candidates), 5 increasing the number of candidates and 2 decreasing their number of candidates.

And when it comes to marginality the obvious expectation seems true. The most marginal seats in 1919 were the best at increasing vote totals, and tended to minimise the loss in turn out. in the seats where the margin was about 5.5% or lower in 1919, out of 16 seats 9 of them gained vote numbers, with an average drop of about 9% in turnout boosted in part by a few modest turnout increases in 2 areas.

Take the 16 from the side with the least marginality and that average drop in turnout goes up to 15%, no turnout increases whatsoever in any of those areas, none of them gaining higher vote totals.

Just splitting the seats in to two halves shows the half with the more marginal seats had a 3% better performance on turnout than those without marignality.

Finally there’s the issue of the longer turnout trend. 12 of the 75 seats, at least, experienced an ongoing turnout drain from 1914 all the way through to 1922. The introduction of AV didn’t alter that direction. Another 22 seats increased or maintained their turnout in 1919 compared to 1914, a good result considering that 1914 was a year of going to war and 1917 was hot off the heels of controversial conscription legislation being defeated.

Due to uncontested seats, and some seats being incomparable through boundary changes, this only leaves 19 seats that it can be said, for sure, that lost turn out after the introduction of AV despite turnout increasing in 1917. 14 of those seats didn’t contest more than 2 candidates in 1919 and 6 still didn’t contest more than 2 in 1922.

From all of this data we can see that marginality still has a strong pull on how turnout changes in line with the national mood, we can also see that constituencies that adopted more candidates were more likely to get more votes cast, even if this resulted in a drop in turnout due to population factors. Consequently the seats more susceptible to lower turnout were those with fewer candidates standing.

And finally we can see that out of all the seats that we have data for, only a maximum of 15 (from 75, including seats we have not enough data for) can actually be identified as having consistently lost turnout while moving towards multiple preferences.

(As a side note, it was interesting to find in my research that Australia had several seats that uses AV as a means to, essentially, run primaries during the election. Multiple candidates from the same party standing against each other, resulting in a head to head between two people from the same party in some cases...another benefit of AV that I’ve talked about in the past, actually evidenced in use!)

Of course this is just what we can measure! There are plenty of other unaccountable things that could be at play that could affect why turnout changed both from a national and a local perspective:

As with 2001 in the UK, a huge turnout drop after the 1997 high turnout, there is no reason why a stabilising country after war simply wasn’t interested in politics, especially during a time where all the parties seemed to be chopping and changing so frequently to find the right identity and level of power. Maybe people just genuinely didn’t care who was winning.

The usual local issues could have their effect...multiple candidates not different enough to warrant choosing between, poor local campaigning, lack of faith in the system from a local perspective. These feelings can change election to election.

Was centralisation of government a problem from the start in terms of endorsement? We know that turnout was in the 50% area at it’s inception, was it only war and it’s aftermath that grabbed the nation enough to be inspired to vote up to the 70% and above mark in the first place?

Did immigration play it’s part, how did the “type” of population that was arriving in it’s largest numbers since the early 1910’s in the country play it’s part in who felt the need to vote and who didn’t?

How did the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918/1919 affect the turn out, especially in Tasmania where around a third of the population were affected? (Coincidentally, perhaps, Tasmanian turnout dropped by around a third that year, unlike most other areas in Australia)

Perhaps it was to do with an aspect of the system we can’t measure...the fact that Australians have to rank every candidate standing may have felt counter productive for example. “Vote 2nd preference for the candidate I dislike?!” I can just imagine the absurdity of the notion at the time!

So...the conclusion:

We just don’t know why turn out dropped in 1922 to the level it did! The figures seem to show that if there was a problem it wasn’t in the preferential nature of the voting system not long since introduced. Voting numbers went up, yet turnout fell dramatically; voting dropped in areas where they had to choose between only two candidates just as much where they had to suddenly rank between three or more.

Population increase appears to be key, combined with a lack of will to vote, and the long studied trend of “safe seats” helps bring that turnout down lower where it’s occurring. Along with 2 more uncontested seats than in 1919 that can be seen as the cause of a 1/3rd of the drop in turnout, perhaps the mystery of where the voters went isn’t that big of a mystery at all.

The only thing we can genuinely say is that being confronted with ranking more than 2 candidates was not a key factor in a decrease in turn out, and in that sense...given how close 1919 and 1922 Federal elections were to First Past the Post in their application during those early years...I think it is highly speculative, and more than a slight stretch, to believe it was the preferential nature of the system that caused the significant proportion of the drop in turn out.

Given that it is this preferential nature that is the only thing the UK AV system would share with Australia, not the requirement to order all preferences, nor the particular style of constituencies at that time of history of only usually standing two candidates, there is no reason to believe that introducing AV would lead to a decrease in turnout here in the UK either.

But, in the interest of fairness, I should also say that if turnout does increase under an AV election in the UK it is no more a reason to claim that the voting system has enfranchised voters either. Trends are the only thing that matter in this kind of data, several elections at the very least are needed to compare to similar periods of time in history to determine any difference in voter apathy influence because of the system.

When we’re making claims, whether it’s about the cost of the voting system, how it’ll engage the apathetic, or the likely political outcomes of it’s use such as making statements about it’s coalition making powers...we need to actually base these claims on reality, measurable reality. It’s not enough to have some anecdotal evidence, such as 1922, and inflate it with your own meaningless opinions.

EDIT: Link to the data for these elections...

EDIT: Antony Green, who runs an excellent blog that gives plenty of analysis to bogus "No" campaign claims, has also put an insight up as to the lack of link between AV and fall in turnout.

FPTP doesn't guarantee a winner has the most 1st preferences either...

Question: Do you think it’s unfair that AV takes in to account people’s second preferences to determine winners?

FACT: FPTP is no more sure of winners having the most first preferences than AV.

FPTP might only let you put one vote, but it ASSUMES that it is your first preference, and no doubt you assume they are all first preferences. This is wrong. Tactical voting is happening up and down the country, where people put a cross against someone other than their true first preference...and in some constituencies supporters don’t have their preferred MP standing at all, so have to vote for their second choice!

The reality is that a FPTP winner could win on LESS 1st preferences than the person that came second had, and further more the FPTP can easily also be disliked by over half the voters taking part in the election too! If that isn’t truly giving the gold medal to the runner up I don’t know what is!

Take this example...

Red: 40%
Blue: 60%

You’d say Blue was the winner, under AV or FPTP right? Under FPTP you may also say that Blue has the most first preferences.

How about if I told you that Blue is made up of supporters of Aquamarine (10%) Blue (30%) and Cyan (20%)? Half of the votes for Blue are second preferences, meaning Red actually has more first preferences but still lost. Red rightfully lost, of course, as it’s clear that the majority prefer a Blue of some kind.

But take a more "realistic" example if you will, North Cornwall...

Liberal Democrat 48.1%
Conservative 41.7%
UKIP 4.9%
Labour 4.2%
Mebyon Kernow 1.1%

We cannot know how people vote here, but a Labour result of 4.2% is extremely low. Could it be that Labour voters are propping up the Lib Dems to save the seat from going Tory? This is, of course, speculation (FPTP doesn't show us enough information, unlike AV), but if 7% of that Liberal Democrat vote is actually 2nd preference Labour votes, and all of the Conservative vote is 1st preference...then FPTP has failed the main test that so many of it's supporters hold up as it's main strength.

So, I repeat: FPTP does not guarantee that the winner has the most first preferences, it is an ignorant assumption to believe that it does.

All this leaves is one difference between AV and FPTP (for the purposes of how much mandate a candidate has), and that is that AV ensures that the MP elected does have the most support. Both systems can’t guarantee the winner is the one with the most first preferences, so it is common sense that we make a change that at least means that our MP is actually popular rather than unpopular in their area.