Top Gear vs The Electric Car

s always my blog, due to the bone-idleness of its author, is somewhat late to the
party. But I was honestly going to do a piece on Top Gears attitude to Electric/Hybrid
vehicles. Honest guv.
Anyway, Recently Top gear ran a segment on two commercially available electric
cars, the Nissan Leaf and the Peugeot ion. It has come under some criticism,
particularly from George Monbiot and others. Top Gear have also responded but I’d
thought I should put in my 2.5p (Exchange rate variable) worth.

First, declaration of interests. I am a petrol head. Love cars, Love the internal
combustion engine. Not only that but I do like cars that are bad for the environment,
the growl of an American V8 or the great looks and handling but 1960s fuel efficiency
of a classic british sports car. However, I do despair at my fellow petrol heads from
time to time.

Sadly, it seems most seem to think our love of cars and environmentalism can’t meet.
Indeed it quite often leads to a rather childish inclination towards climate change
denialism (Mr Clarkson, I’m looking at you) This need not be the case. My original
blog post was based around comments by Jay Leno, himself an avid car collector and
driver. His point was alternative fuels would free up the petrol car for the petrol head,
in the same way the car freed up the Horse for the enthusiast. This rings true for me,
as 90% of the car driving population care nothing for A V8 rumble or a supercharger
whine. They would prefer a car that goes from A-B, carrying all they wish to carry
(Cargo, children, sports equipment, cows) and costing as little as possible to buy
and run. My point is always we should nurture this and demand better electric, or
hydrogen cars and better public transport. The former to hopefully reduce the demand
for petrol, lowering prices and the latter to ease up congestion, not to mention the
environmental benefits. However to the piece.

One of the main complaints from Nissan and various articles and blogs, is the comedy
scene where they run out of power and have to push the cars around looking for a
charging point. Many state that they deliberately rand down the batteries to around
40% and selected a town with no charging infrastructure in order to make electric cars
look bad. On this point I disagree.

While charging infrastructure has improved, a good percentage of us live in cities
with little or no charging facilities. Hell, Glasgow has something in the realm of
2 locations and its Scotland’s biggest city, imagine the difficulties of running an
electric car out in the highlands. While Top gear may have laboured this point a bit
the possibility of running out of power miles from a charging point is a fear most of
us have. The Leaf has various clever systems in place to advise you if you have run
the battery too far down to reach a charging location, but like it or not at the moment
running an electric car will require planning and forethought that a petrol version will
not.

The second point which Top Gear made pretty well was the Electric Car’s biggest
fault, the time it takes to charge. Yes again they had some knock about fun waiting the
13 hrs for the leaf to charge, but still, for a complete charge from empty 13 hrs is a long
time.

I am not completely defending Top gear however. They took some liberties. First
there was some dodgy figures surrounding the cost to charge up a car, with many
wondering where they found their particularly high tariff. Second was a discussion
about the lifespan of the batteries and potential damage and replacement costs. The
main fault here is tha they failed to explain that if your battery does go wrong Nissan
will replace it for free, and worth noting that 90% of the battery is re-cycled in the
UK. This fact would have taken the force out of their ranting about some of the
running costs.

I don’t want Top gear to do puff pieces on Electric cars, but while not the hatchet
job some of the critics are making it out to be the Top gear piece was aiming to be
negative, as the bookend studio segment with its tiresome “Batteries are rubbish” line
from May and Clarkson “Humerously” suggesting we could use something called
Petrol. This has never sat well with me, Clarkson has a definite objection to the
Prius, and if he could get past rant mode and provide figures to his argument that they
are more environmentally damaging to build and dispose of, he would actually have a
pretty good scoop, since Toyota make a big deal of the Prius’s green credentials, but
instead of that we get general bluster and various omissions.

I don’t expect purely factual slots on Top gear and realise it is as much entertainment
as informative, but I do expect a little honesty, particularly since, like it or not, within
the next 20 years its more than likely we’re all going to be running an electric or
alternative fuelled car.
Here is the BBC's response, it covers some of the points above, but still fails to mention nissan will replace any battery not holding a charge for free.

Obligatory Phone Hacking Post

Yes, of course I'm going to comment on this.  I was going to talk about less important things but this has been very interesting indeed.

First, as always, this story has been covered better in the following blogs, Obsolete, Zelo Street, Angry Mob, Enemies of Reason, Bloggerheads and 5 Chinese Crackers, also worth reading is Flat Earth news by Nick Davies, who broke this story ages ago and has been doggedly persistent in trying to get this to the publics attention.

Ok, still here?

So, for those not paying attention, there was a Sunday tabloid called the News of the World owned by a big media baron called Rupert Murdoch.  Rupert owned a lot of media and was feared by politicians.  Reporters at the News of the world, in order to get celebrity stories, started hiring a private detective called Glen Mulchare to hack answerphones on the off-chance they contained juicy gossip.  This was pretty normal as most papers were involved in similar and indeed worse breaches of the law on fishing expeditions for gossip.  However it was discovered that said PI had hacked the phone of missing Teenager Milly Dowler, and had even deleted messages to listen to more messages of her desperate family begging her to come home.  This then opened a floodgate, 7/7 victims phones had been hacked, families of dead soldiers.  Terrible stuff, but for those who have read flat earth news, unsurprising.  What it did was cause enough public outcry to start a boycott of News of the World's advertising causing News International to close the paper.

This sorry debacle finally brought into the open the true horror of our press.  Politicians had been scared to act against NI for fears of being attacked by their sizable media interests.  The Police were spiking stories and utterly failing to investigate illegal practices by newspapers in exchange for favourable coverage and a cosy relationship.  While phone hacking was the final trigger to get a proper review it wasn't the only problem, the real issue was the influence of the press, of News international and the complicity of the police.  It also embarrassed many a politician on both sides as they had all been spotted enjoying the hospitality of News International's summer garden party mere weeks previously.  David Cameron took a particularly hefty amount of flak for his close relationship with Rebekah Brooks and his hiring of Andy Coulson, not to mention his response was to try and hold back and see if the whole thing blew over, said NI papers currently being on his side.  It was not to be.

Those of us who have been fighting to get this in the open scored victories, the Arrest of Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks, the calling of Brooks and the Murdochs to a select committee.  Murdoch abandoning his bid to take over BSkyB, a move that was to be waived through by our compliant culture secretary Jeremy Hunt.  The lib-dems have managed to make some minor gains and Labour's Tom Watson has shone.  Its been entertaining to say the least.  It seems that every sacrifice that Murdoch throws in teh hope of all this going away gets eaten up and teh hungry spectre of accountability merely asks for more.  Send down Andy... More, Shut Down the News of teh world.... More, Send down Rebekah... More, Ditch the BSkyB bid.... MORE

The prize however, is going to be a bit more difficult.  Already the Right Wing press are desperate to either paint this as a left vs right issue, with the Stalinist BBC trying to knock out the more efficient private NI.  It doesn't help that Ed Milliband's main attack is around Coulson, rather than the cosy media relationship.
What I want to see is some hefty reform.  The PCC has repeatedly shown itself as toothless.  The remaining right-wing papers, led by the Daily "Hooray for the Blackshirts" Mail are desperately trying to play this as a problem with NI, when they're not playing it as a BBC plot, partly in the hope of occupying NI's position if it is suitably weakened, and partly in the hope that once this blows over they can carry on as normal with no accountability.  Press reform is not in their interests.

The cry has been that Regulation will equal Censorship.  I disagree.  The regulation need not be state, but it also can't be Self regulation.  That gave a system which favoured the press over the public and the "Fast Free and Fair" service the PCC claims only manages the "Free" part.

The goal of regulation is not Censorship.  In effect its quality control.  A newspaper is a business.  At the moment it is more profitable for a paper to publish an inaccurate story and apologise later than it is to spend money fact checking.  This must change.  I would propose a variety of options on the new regulator, the ability to impose fines, and in severe cases, to publish retractions in the same prominence and amount for inaccurate stories.  This would be a final sanction for a repeat offender (Say the smears relating to the first Jo Yates murder suspect, later found not guilty) Papers may complain that they can't run a weeks worth of headlines and blanket coverage merely saying they were wrong.  I beg to differ, and the losses this will make, the missed headlines of current events will perhaps make a paper spend that little bit extra on research.  This would be a top end sanction (Others could include suspension of staff and suspension of issues, but the impact must be devastatingly financial)

It should be sometimes accepted that illegal acts may be required to reveal wrongdoing.  However fishing expeditions are not journalism.  If you hacked the voicemails of every MP there would almost certainly be a couple of juicy stories, but Journalist should have evidence before they resort to lawbreaking.  The definition of public interest should also be tightened up.  Celeb shag'n'tell stories may interest the public, but they are not in the public interest.  Knocking these out of the news may force the press to up their game.
We should also look at media ownership, no one owner or company should own so much of our media.  This should limit the influence of any one company.

We should also be able to read reports of meetings between politicians and the owners of companies (Any company) in fact Lobbying as a whole should be much more transparent.

I think what would really help is a cultural change.  The old rule in news, that Dog does not bite Dog meant that those who supposedly hold the powerful to account turned a blind eye at their own wrongdoing.  Perhaps Dog should eat Dog in this case.

Fear Itself

ok, so this was an event I was going to miss.  Serious event fatigue has been going on in my comic buying for some time.  How I long for a wee contained event restricted to a certain family of titles, preferable the X-men while say the Avengers are allowed to carry on regardless.  Seriously, another world-changing event just over a year after the New Heroic age started?  Can't these titles be given a chance at more than a couple of arcs before "Everything Changes?" So it's rather annoying that Fear Itself has turned out quite so well.
Just to clarify, I've not been picking up the Fear Itself book, but many of the books I do collect are now Fear Itself tie Ins, see unless you're willing to just drop a title for a couple of months there's no escaping the huge event.

The plot, from what I can ascertain, Sin, Daughter of the red Skull has found an old Asgaurdian fear god who was so bad he was banished and removed from all of history.  This god has given her a hammer like Thor's and sent 7 others to earth where they have been picked up by several Heroes and Villains, turning them into evil gods.  Sin has also led an attack on Washington using Giant Nazi robots.  Odin is in fact so scared he has withdrawn Asgard from earth taking all his norse gods with him.  Confused, well for someone not reading the main book it can be.  This is wat I would classify as a "Bad" crossover.  Namely you do feel you've missed something if you just stick to your main titles.  So much so that it took several books for me to realise I hadn't missed an issue in between.

This criticism aside, the event itself is great.  Obviously, some heavy hitters get their own big bad to fight, such as Iron Man fighting the Grey Gargoyle or the Avengers fighting a hammer possessed Thing.  Others are involved in general fighting, such as the Secret Avengers being on the vanguard defending Washington DC from Sin's forces, The Thunderbolts trying to secure the raft after a hammer landed and was picked up by Juggernaut or the Avengers Academy pupils involved protecting civilians.  Either way, there is a real apocalyptic feel to this event.  Society is breaking down and the problems are as much rioting, looting and people being scared as they are nazi battlemechs or godlike super-villains.

Fear itself has even got me picking up some extra Limited series.  First, Youth in Revolt.

Youth in Revolt Features Prodigy, plus many of the heroes that appeared in the Initiative, who are re-activated as a volunteer force to try to help.  Sadly a situation in Atlanta develops when Thor Girl accidentally deflects some shots from a policeman with disastrous results.  I liked this on two fronts.  First, its more about stopping looters than fighting big bads, although there is a good moment with Crossbones nearly wiping out Gravity's team.  It's also great if you were, like me, keen on teh whole Initiative idea.  As well as featuring Prodigy, Thor Girl, Cloud 9 and Firestar, it is jam packed with guest appearances from Butterball, to some of The Order, and ist a good read.

Second is a bit odd but worth a look, Fearsome Four.  because of the high levels of fear, man thing has been drawn to New York.  Howard the Duck recruits She-Hulk, Nighthawk and Frankensteins monster to try to prevent his friend from killing too many people.  Its quirky, Nighthawk appears to have gone a bit ga-ga since I last saw him, think more along the lines of the "God Damned Batman" but its worth it if nothing else for some serious Quack-Fu from Howard.

So, I'm still not picking up the main book, but the story is worth the disruption its caused to my regular reads.  In fact, at this rate I'll probably pick up the trade.

Scottish Elections: Results and Fallout

Well, the elections are over, over for quite some time, but I wanted to see the fallout of the campaigns before posting, honest.
So, for those who weren't watching, it was an unprecidented result, in a parliament with a voting system specifically designed to stop any party achieving a majority, with the express goal of keeping the SNP out and an independence vote off the table, the SNP have won the first majority government in Scotland.  Yes, Scotland currently has a government that can be absolutely secure in the fact that it has a mandate from the majority of voters, that's PR for you.
While the collapse of the Lib-Dem vote helped, with most of their voters clearly turning to the Nats, they also made massive inroads into common Labour safe seats.  The response from the Labour side has varied in the blogosphere.  There was denial, particularly during the election, where Labour were convinced it was merely the Lib-Dem swing, despite loosing safe seats to the SNP, or as seen here, Denial mixed with a shrill terror that the Evil Nationalists are re-building Hadrian's wall as we speak.  Or here, where they blame the Tories for their loss.
Fortunately, most of the other blogs have correctly started looking inward for the reasons of Labours Defeat.
Part of it had to be the woeful negative campaign.  Put simply it appeared Labour were confident Scotland would sharpen up from its little dalliance with a party that wasn't them now the Tories were in and all they really needed to do was sit back, make some comments about how terrible the Tories were and the voters would flood back.  It highlights a basic flaw in Labours general national plans so far.  In effect labour are working on the principle that they will win the next election through the virtue of not being the Tories.  That is so far the entirety of their case.  Scotland should be a wake up call that this is not nearly enough.
The other interesting point was Labour's inability to fight on the Centre left, uncommon in westminster elections where they merely have to fight for the same few swing seats against the Tories, but more common in Scotland.  Furthermore, it shows how Labour still take their working class vote for granted, and they shouldn't since they are seeking out alternatives as it sinks in that Labour no longer represent them.  Hopefully this will be a kick up the behind for Labour, however so far the party has been pretty quiet.
So, independence, will it happen.  I know a few nationalists (Hell, I'm married to one) and most of them think it won't happen.  I have to agree, I don't think there is the appetite.  However, the opposition parties should not think that a loss on an independence referendum will mean the end of the SNP.  A lost referendum will actually show that people clearly liked the SNP's policys despite the independence issue rather than because of it, and Labour really should be looking at that side of the SNP and learning.
As for the SNP, the training wheels are off, no more excuses this time, no minority status to fall back on and the "It's Westminster's fault" argument will grow tired if its wheeled out repeatedly.  Interesting times indeed.

The Scottish Election

On Thursday Scotland will go to the Polls.  Ok, technically all of the UK will, everyone's electing councils and selecting a new voting system and Wales is picking its assembly, but I live in Scotland so its my main source of comment.

I initially had a polemic post filled with personal insults to all candidates, but I'm trying to rise above petty name calling in politics for proper discussion (Read as I'm not actually that witty so best stick to discussion rather than insults)

Due to Scotland being civilised enough and clever enough to be able to understand PR we effectively have a 4 party system, The "Big 2" are the SNP and Labour while the Lib-Dems and Tories take 3rd and 4rth, the Greens even get seats, its lovely.

In its first two terms it was a Labour/Lib-Dem coalition.  Yes, we got to see the Lib-Dems ditch their principles over student fees before they did it to the rest of the country.  This last term has been an SNP minority government, and it's not been the disaster I suspected.

The SNP have had a hard transition from opposition to power, they were caught on the back foot many times at the start, however they have proven a minority government can work, it has meant dumping some key policies, taking some defeats and going through everyone elses manifestos with a fine toothed comb to find compromise and common ground.  It seems to have worked, Labour have been making noises that, particularly with the Lib-Dems toxic reputation these days they may go for the Minority option should they win this time round.

To the parties themselves, the SNP have actually done pretty well this election.  They clearly knew their weak points and studied responses to them, so they weren't caught out by questions regarding the Lockerbie Bomber release and on the policies they failed to deliver on, Salmond even admitting one of his student policies never appeared because they couldn't afford it.  In general the SNP are always well served by the leader Alec Salmond.  Salmond is a debater, he likes to argue, many modern politicians, including Labour's Ian Gray and the Lib-Dem's Tavish Scott are speech makers, I may blog about the distinction at a later date. 
In government the SNP were a refreshing change at the tail end of the previous Westminster Labour Government, their combative stance was a refreshing change from the previous "Rubber Stamp" impression that having the same party in charge of Scotland and the UK gave.  Their policies have definitely been more progressive, there have been some good attempts to put Scotland at the forefront of tidal power generation research, and in more social policy we've seen abolition of Student fees, free care for the elderly and free prescriptions for all.  Its quite a buzz hearing envious noises from down south about these in particular.  There have been controversies, the failure to get an independence referendum off the ground is arguably one of their biggest failings, and the M74 extension and proposed Second Forth Bridge lost them support, particularly from the greens.  The continuing farce regarding the Edinburgh Trams hasn't helped, but in fairness that is almost the definition of an inherited problem, and indeed one they tried to shut down in their first year.

So, the challengers.  First and foremost is Labour, who do still seem to believe they are entitled to rule Scotland by some divine right, they caught out the SNP in its early years in power, but has been fairly quiet of late, Ian Gray only appearing now and again to comment on any policy that seems slightly unpopular.  In fact they really haven't impressed much at all lately, they have tried to make the focus of the election jobs after simply pointing out where the SNP failed often left them open to criticism on why they didn't support policy.  This was particularly evident when they promised a council tax freeze and were promptly asked why they had voted against said policy each time it had come up.  They have since been far more careful to avoid being accused of pettily trying to stop the SNP doing anything.  They also have a flagship policy on Knife crime which shows the unattractive authoritarian streak Labour had in its Westminster years is still alive and well.

The Lib-Dems are nervous, very nervous.  Their ditching of policy on student fees at the start of the Parliament was close to being forgotten, they even helped the SNP get the abolition of fees through parliament, so voted against a policy they allowed through earlier.  They were initially quite annoyed, after all, for 8 years they'd been confident that regardless of who won the election, they always got seats.  Needless to say the SNP opting for minority government caught them unawares.  Particularly embarrassing was when the Westminster party decided to try and introduce minimum pricing, after they'd blocked it at Holyrood.  Tavish had a fairly unconvincing scramble trying to convince people that the Westminster policy was not the same thing they'd blocked.  Anyway, now they have bigger problems, Scotland does not forgive those who get into bed with the Tories, who don't get much support up here.  The Lib-Dem campaign lurches drunkenly between trying to disavow the entire Westminster party and a strange sense of impending doom.  They expect a wipeout, I won't put money on that just yet, I suspect they will be hit harder in the councils than in Holyrood, they seem to be aiming to take second votes from Labour as a strategy, and it may just work.

So we come to the Tories, they have one advantage, Annabel Goldie, a scrappy debater and match for Salmond, her ability vastly exceeds her parties popularity.  The Tories have actually not performed badly under the minority government, understanding that getting the few areas of policy they have in common with the Nats is better than nothing they've been agreeable and co-operative, which should be quite an embarrassment to the Lib-Dems and Labour, Tories being more reasonable than you.  Sadly their campaign has been lacklustre, mostly because rather than letting Goldie do her own thing Cameron decided that the guy who managed to only retain one seat in Scotland during the Westminster election was the one to run the campaign.  Any gains the Tories make will be in spite of him rather than because of him.

So, these are our options, obviously we also have the Greens, where Patrick Harvie has become more front and centre, and has impressed in debates, we also have George "the Cat" Galloway standing, and presumably re-familiarising himself with Scotland having spent the last decade near London.  This election the Part of tommy Sherridan, of the Tommy Sherridan party for more Tommy Sherridan in politics, will be played by his wife as tommy has found out that Barlinnie south is not actually a seat.

So, a motley crew, but ours, vote wisely.

Outcasts

Yes, I know we have had the budget (I wasn’t keen) and one of the biggest marches of recent history, but I feel I have to comment on Outcasts

For those who didn’t know, outcasts was the BBC’s latest attempt at a big budget, grown up SF series. In itself this is a good thing, I love Dr Who but I always had fears that the old beeb would assume this was all that was required for its SF output, so it’s good to see them branching out a bit.

The BBC certainly didn’t skimp, it was filmed in South Africa, written by Spooks scribe Ben Richards and brought in some fairly big name actors such as Daniel Mays (Ashes to Ashes) and Jamie Bamber (Battlestar Galactica) and it had an audience who were willing it to be good to show that grown up SF could work in a prime time slot.

Outcasts was set in and around the human settlement of Fort Haven on the planet Carpathia and followed the colonists as they struggled to survive on an alien world. They would face conflict from without, in the form of the genetically modified ACs and a mysterious alien force, and from within as the charismatic and manipulative Julius Berger tries to unseat Tate, the colony’s president.
First, I quite liked it, it was flawed and often slow, but the concept was intriguing and some of the characters grabbed me. Of course this may say more about me, I found joy in Bonekickers.
So, what went wrong? Why did it end up graveyarded on sunday nights? Why did it turn off both sci-fi fans and mundanes alike?

Sadly most of the blame has to fall at Ben Richards feet. The first episode had many mildly intrigued, but not blown away, and the slow pacing sent viewers switching to Gypsy weddings or whatever else was on in droves. This flaw would have been fine on its own and it could have earned a solid audience from genre fans alone, sadly Richards didn’t help himself there.

I can’t confirm this, but Ben Richards appears to be a bit snobbish about SF. His first error was to wax lyrical about how Outcasts wasn’t really SF, it was more a frontier western but on an alien planet, more about people that aliens, space ships and lasers. Yes, anyone who knows SF will roll their eyes at this, it shows a writer who dismisses SF as childish space ships and bug eyed monsters which is kind of insulting to the genre that gave us Brave New World and Blade Runner. This alone did not put people off.

The main problem in my eyes was that the writers, and richards as show runner has to take some responsibility here, hadn’t watched or read any SF before making an SF drama, the net result of that was they didn’t know a hoary old cliché when they dreamed one up. The warnings were there, in interviews the writers spoke of the “space western” as if it was a brand new idea. Old concepts themselves do not make a series bad, but some background knowledge of the genre would have highlighted where the ideas had been tried previously and where they had been better executed. This may have changed some directions and perhaps forced the writers to drop some dead ends and develop some ideas more completely. For example, they had a brief “gold rush” idea with diamonds, and it could have developed further, with people slugging it out for stones that were precious on earth but common as pebbles on carpathia, showing the odd things we value, but it was forgotten pretty quickly.

Finally, Outcasts biggest problem was a lack of internal consistency. People aquired abilities, gizmos that would easily solve problems disappeared entirely (brain reading machine, I’m looking at you) this just seemed like lazy writing and did affect my enjoyment, and I was massively sympathetic before it started.
So, what was good, Cass and Fleur, the two P&S operatives (police) were engaging and likeable and even Tate, who started off giving the impression that they really wanted Patrick Stewart for his role grew on me. The stories picked up as it went on as well, and the reveals of some mysteries were actually pretty good (Cass’ backstory in particular) but it sadly was too little, too late.

I may later post about an alternative way I would have run outcasts if I don’t decide it makes me too much of a monday morning coach

The AV Referendum

If anything should show you that the lib-dems are being royally screwed in this coalition it is the AlternativeVote (AV) referendum.  A Key Lib-Dem policy has always been the introduction of Proportional Representation (PR) to our electoral system.  When the horse trading of the current coalition was going forward the two offers regarding vote reform on the table were a referendum on adopting the AV system from the Tories and an automatic adoption of AV with a referendum on a more proportional system from Labour.  Obviously there was more on the table because based on the voting reform issue the labour offer was definitely better.  Indeed one of the arguments used by many key Tories against AV is that it is not proportional, so they put AV and only AV on the table, then slam the only alternative they offer as not proportional, and indeed AV wasn’t a lib-Dem policy.
The problem is, AV isn’t a proportional system, its better than First past the post, not much but a bit, in the way that a candidate must have attracted over 50% of votes, albeit second and third preferences, to win their seat.  This is an important step since at the last election nearly two thirds of MPs were elected with the endorsement of less than 50% of their voting constituents.  Still, the problem remains, for all of us who wanted voting reform AV isn’t really what we wanted, indeed Nick Clegg himself had made some speeches about how poor a system AV is.
The problem here is that the vote isn’t for anything as simple as whether we want AV or not, both sides are reading more into it.  Bearing in mind the referendum paper will have a simple Yes/No option on it what will be read into the votes is entirely different.
First, a “Yes” vote, on the basic level really means you would like AV implemented, but doe sit, it could also mean you dislike FPTP and would like further reform.  This is definitely the view of many of the Yes campaign’s supporters, the fear obviously is that future governments will still argue that no-one wants a proportional system, and that they wanted AV.  Similarly someone opposed to PR may prefer AV but will fear this as the thin end of a PR wedge.  I believe most of those voting Yes would really prefer the referendum to be worded “Would you like to get rid of FPTP?” as opposed to “Would you like the AV system?”
This leads to the problem of what a “No” vote is read as.  To some voters it may be simply they do not like AV as a system, preferring something like the Single Transferable Vote or some other system that is not on the table.  However, “No” voters should be aware, your vote will be read by those in charge as a vote in support of FPTP and the status quo of safe seats and of big majorities hammering legislation through parliament with your only say being once every 5 years.
This is the biggest dilemma in the floating referendum voter; they don’t like FPTP, but don’t really like AV either, and don’t really like the idea of endorsing either system.  However, this is the first time in my 31 years of life that voting reform has ever been on the table, if the No campaign succeeds I expect at least a further 30 years until another chance presents itself.  This is our opportunity to show that there is an appetite for a change to our politics and indeed possibly for further change, so I will be Voting Yes in the Referendum.
My Yes vote does mainly originate from wanting rid of FPTP, however the quality of arguments from the “No” camp has been poor, be it lying about the cost of the voting system (Vote “No” or the baby gets it) or rather bizarrely combining criticisms that because it is sort of proportional more extremist parties like the BNP will get in (Yes, they trot out the BNP Bogeyman, read that as Vote No or you get the BNP) with criticisms that it isn’t really proportional at all.  Effectively, see argument 1 if you are anti PR, argument 2 if you are Pro, please for our convenience don’t read them both.  Finally they argue that AV will cause more coalitions and unaccountable back room dealing (Unlike what FPTP did in 2010) despite the fact that Australia uses AV and has had fewer coalitions that the UK.  In fact an Australian Politician wrote an open letter to correct all the No campaigns inaccurate statements about AV because of the levels of inaccuracy in the campaigns website.
In the interests of balance, here is the website for the No Campaign, and here is the Yes where they pretty much destroy every argument in the No campaign.  Guess that’s what they get putting the person in charge of the Tax Payers Alliance in charge of their campaign.  Also you can check you are registered to vote here.

Snowmageddon

We’re all doomed, the icy white stuff has trapped us, quick, stockpile bread, milk and petrol in case they run out.

Yes, it has snowed, a function of weather.  Its snowed a lot, we also got trapped by a wave of idiot commentators and idiotic members of the public spouting uninformed opinions regarding the way our infrastructure stands up to the snow.  I thought I’d take a look and try to explain why we appear to grind to a halt in the snow and hopefully bust a few of the myths in the process.

So, to begin, why do our roads, rails and runways seem to shut down entirely when the snow hits while no other country seems to have this problem.

This is actually part of our first mini myth; countries with a similar or warmer climate, such as Belgium, Germany and France do suffer in the snow, to roughly the same extent.  In the previous snow fall there were massive tailbacks on the autobahn and deaths in France due to accidents.  Their trains get slowed down as well.  Their rail networks hold up slightly better, but this is due to their relatively recent construction (Around 1940s-50s) and the lower frequency of services.  As to why we survived better when we got similar snowfalls in the 1960s, quite frankly fewer of us travelled smaller distances to work and did not expect shops to run 24/7.  Back then it was also not unthinkable to call and say you were snowed in.
So, what about countries with snowy climates, Russia, Canada, North America, even Sweden, Norway etc.  How do they keep things running during their far more severe winters?  Well two reasons.
First, they Engineer for it, their infrastructure is built with snow in mind, such as better facilities for clearing points when they freeze and snow drift breaks.  Similarly more of their vehicles can be equipped for snow.  They also have a larger stand-by level of snow ploughs gritters etc, as anyone who had to deal with bitter cold and severe snow and ice every year will have.  Why don’t we, because we won’t pay for the gritters or the stand by crews, and I assure you if we did then come the first mild winter some lump like Eric Pickles or the Tax Payers alliance would be out asking why we are wasting so much money on gritters that are not needed, using the usual faulty memory that plagues those who resent paying a penny of their vast fortunes in tax.
We haven’t engineered our infrastructure for this in the past because there has been little to no requirement.  It make it pretty clear that this weather is unprecedented, or at any rate rare when it doesn’t qualify to be included in the engineering specs for the construction of new roads and railways or the abilities of council vehicles and trains.

Similarly, in places like the Northern US and Canada, a “snow day” is not an uncommon occurrence, where whole schools and workplaces will close for a day.  This official closure allows the authorities to clear the roads without the rush hour traffic getting in the way and compacting the snow into ice.
Finally, as people they are better prepared, many in those parts own snow tyres or snow chains, and just about every municipal vehicle will have access to these as well.  At least now our authorities are looking into buying such things for the next cold snap, hopefully allowing ambulances and police vehicles to avoid getting stuck.

The second question is “Why do we start running out of simple things like bread and milk?”  This is easy.  Particularly for perishable goods such as bread, milk and fresh fruit and veg, most stores now work on a principal of receiving supplies of these on a daily basis, this allows them to minimise losses through spoilage by only stocking around a days worth of such items.  The down side is if the supply chain is interrupted supplies can run short.  This is not helped by people panic buying the minute the snow hits, the stores can take a small run on bread but people filling their freezers quickly wipes out their supplies.  Fuel is a similar case although will usually last slightly longer.  The pres don’t help as the minute they say there are shortages it promotes even more panic buying.  Again in cold countries, this just doesn’t happen because people are used to the weather and don’t get driven into a panic by the possibility of 24hrs without being able to drive to Tescos, something which seems to affect most brits judging by the rushes around the Xmas Day and new years closures.

People also do need to pitch in.  In Edinburgh the Army were drafted in to clear the streets, conversely, in Aberdeen, where this weather is more common most know in heavy snow you dig yourself out, then start digging out the street.  We have a certain complacency that it is the council’s job to clear the snow, which it is, however they will usually have more important routes to clear, so if you want your street cleared quickly, do it yourself.

Finally, and this will sound bad, its high expectations.  In cold countries people understand that it’s best to wait out the snow, allow the authorities to clear the roads then carry on.  We seem to insist that in the face of adverse weather everything must carry on regardless.  People seem to think that with the passing of a snowplough and gritter that roads will magically return to black tarmac.  Well sorry, a snow plough will be wrecked by hardened ice and grit ceases to melt anything below -10.  Grit is tricky to do right, too soon and it will simply be washed away or destroyed by traffic, too late and the snow can dilute the effect.  Finally, things can and still do go wrong.  The M8 closure should not have cost a transport minister his job, no opposition MSP has been able to explain how they would have acted differently.  The M8 was hit by heavy snow during the morning rush hour where, as anyone who has driven it during that time will tell you, it is full.  You could not have got a gritter through that traffic, the traffic then compacted the fresh snow to ice and this causes accidents and in some cases made some hills completely impassable.  I drove a more minor road that day and it was an experience I would not like to repeat.  We need to learn the world will not end if we take one day off work, and the govt needs to stop kowtowing to businesses complaining of the cost and call a few snow days, for the long term good.