Strange Bedfellows

I was going to try and cut down my political blogging to make way form more SF/Comic/general nerdyness but the coalition government looks like it’s going to be churning out some interesting stuff for the next few years and so I will probably continue to comment on politics issues despite others doing it far better than myself. Don’t panic, there will also be more geeky goodness to come.

So, some interesting observations on our new government. First and foremost, as a sandal wearing muesli munching lefty it’s been quite funny to see the abject fury of many Tories that they don’t have a government all to themselves. For some reason they seem to believe that because they voted Conservative they are owed a conservative government, despite more people voting for someone else. Still, the party whose ideals clearly didn’t suit over 60% of the population are more or less in charge and surely that’s better than nothing for all the Tories out there? No? Well tough.

I’ve been drawing a parallel with 1997 regarding the Tories. In 1997 when New Labour was looking ever more distant to its socialist origins I often asked “old School” labour supporters how they could follow a party who had ditched much of what they stood for. “Ah” said the old labour supporter, adjusting his flat cap and sipping a half of mild (That bit probably isn’t true) “They’re just doing that to get in, you know, get it past the middle classes, once they’re elected Blair and his lot will be out and the old labourites will take over again” I wondered about the fairness of this, but since what you see on the manifesto is rarely what you get I let it lie. Of course, it came as no surprise to me that the party who won as New Labour indeed ruled as New labour, but the old trots must have been shocked when no one wanted to support a leadership coup on the guy who had won such a landslide. There is a difference in the Tory party, but it has similar echoes. Obviously for starters they didn’t have a landslide, or indeed a majority, although it seems many people think they still are owed their time in charge regardless of the election results, the opinions of Tory voters clearly, in their minds, outweighing everyone else. Second is the shock that the party hasn’t dumped all that compassionate stuff they mentioned while trying to be elected. What’s even more fun is that the wingnut hard right thatcherite contingent believe that Cameron lost the election (Open for discussion) and that if the party had been in full on Thatcherism mode then it would have been in the bag, where the percentage of votes and indeed seats really doesn’t reflect this. Do they believe that the many Labour and Lib-Dem voters didn’t vote Conservative because it wasn’t right wing enough? Or do they think that they could have won more votes off of UKIP and the BNP? Or perhaps are they more deluded than the old trots in ’97, not just believing that the party will do an about face but that people decided to vote the polar opposite to their way of thinking simply because it wasn’t available.

The Coalition itself is interesting as well. Both parties have risk and reward in equal measure. The Lib-Dems get a better chance than they would have in opposition to enact their policies, they can claim experience in government to quash the old argument hat they are “inexperienced” and finally, they can show a coalition works, important if you’re trying to sell PR to a public whoa re told by our dear press that coalitions are two steps away from anarchy. They risk loosing votes to Labour (Depending on how it reforms post defeat) through being seen to side with “The Enemy” I’ll be particularly interested to see how much ground Labour and the SNP take in the Scottish parliament elections. Second, this will be a bad few years with heavy cuts and a very good chance of increasing unemployment. This double whammy may kill the Lib-Dems next election, or should they have things turned round in 5 years (Assuming it lasts) will they gain ground. Meanwhile the Tories get to be in the driving seat of Government, Dave gets to be PM and they are definitely the controlling stakeholder. They also get to pass some of the blame for the coming painful years on to the Lib-Dems, effectively meaning only one big party can capitalise from these intervening years. It’s also been very useful for Cameron, he can blame the ditching of many of the more wingnut Tory policies on the necessity to get the lib-dems on board, where, from what the scuttlebutt has been saying, the negotiators were asking for the lib-dems to demand concessions. They risk a party split over this, with the “Wets” and Lib Dems on one side, and the Thatcherites on the other. This could be a very damaging split.

Cameron has played this incredibly well though, kudos to the man (Still don’t like him but I’m man enough to say when someone’s impressed me) the increased 55% for a no-confidence vote should keep the coalition stable, and in fact I’d suggest to Labour MPs to make sure it stays, you can rest easy in opposition while the coalition doles out cut after cut, and foster even more division and resentment in the Tory party. Second, the fixed term, with any luck they’ll get a couple of years of recovery, important to salve the wounds of the oncoming cuts, but they need time to blot the memory of the hard years, plus it makes both parties look like they want fixed terms.

Overall, interesting times for those of us who consider politics like sport.

A Discussion on Immirgation

This article won't be a discussion on immigration per se.

One of the arguments you hear from the right/anti-immigration side is that parties like UKIP and the BNP (Yes, I mention them in the same breath because they are the same) are merely a symptom of not being allowed to discuss immigration without being called racist, or indeed as some papers say, in between headlines and front pages about immigration, "You can't talk about immigration".

So, I'm putting in a suggestion on how a discussion on immigration where the pro immigration side, will discuss immigration without calling you racist, bigoted or any other accusation of that ilk regardless of how racist you get.

This isn't a free ride, any anti-immigration types who participate have to agree to some terms of my own devising, gleaned from many a head/brick wall interface type conversation I've had with them in the past.

First, argument must be conducted online in a discussion forum type environment, this allows both sides to cite articles, studies and websites and have plenty of time to read and counterpoint them.

Second, Argument must be based on facts, statistics and reports, not anecdote, opinion or editorial. The number of times I've been in a discussion and quoted, for example that Legal migrants are entitled to all our benefits, as they have come over here with a job at some point and therefore paid tax, Asylum seekers get £30 odd a week and illegals get nothing, being illegal. Only to be told that "I see them every day and they get more than that" Back it up, with facts and figures, otherwise I might as well respond "No they don't, I see them not get benefits every day." Similarly, the oft stated claim that "They don't integrate" prove it, both sides, have studies been done. I recall one (Can't find a citation sadly) which actually said your average muslim migrant read the sun, watched X-Factor, supported the local football team and worried about immigrants (Seriously) how is that not integrating.

Third, the anti-immigration side have to specify at each point who "They" are. Again I've been in arguments where "Immigrant" flits between someone in from the EU, someone on a student Visa, economic migrant, illegal migrant and asylum seeker. (In truth this is because most anti-immigration types don't know the difference)

Fourth, leave your tin-foil hat at the door. There is no point pretending to have a discussion with someone only to respond to a set of facts with "Oh well they would say that" If you have a fault with the figures, by all means, lest see a factual backing up of these, or a scientific deconstruction of the methods. I've seen this done in just about all of migration watch's stuff and its a perfectly valid form of argument. Claiming the figures were "Made up" because they don't fit your view is not.

Finally, both sides must be willing to give ground. Again the pro-immigration lobby (Aside from their more lunatic fringes) are better at this, accept that people have concerns, that these can be in the form of their communities changing, and that sometimes an influx of migrants makes them feel like they're being squeezed out, and their voice may not be heard (A bit like being me in a seat where everyone else is happy with Douglas Alexander) the anti-immigration side will similarly have to be open to accept that the line fed to them by the daily mail is actually based on a slanted editorial agenda and that their life views may in fact be wrong. (Sorry, that in itself is slanted, but purely because the bulk of research I've read shows it to be the case)

The tabloid calls for open discussion mean on their terms, basically say what we like without accusations of racism. The structure I suggested would produce a real discussion, but not one I suspect the anti-immigration supporters would enjoy.

What Went Wrong?

The results are in, and the good news is we have a Hung Parliament, bad news is the change didn't go as hoped. Tabloid fear mongering and the usual last ditch of the traditional parties in "Vote for anyone other than us, get them" worked once again to deliver the usual, bland old election result. We also lost a good MP in the form of Dr Evan Harris (LD) and kept some particularly poor ones in Nadine Dorres (Con) and David Tredinic. Overall very disappointing. Only good news was the Greens won a seat.

I was looking forward to a wide open election, no seat is safe, who knows who would win. A combination of the expenses and the lib dem surge should have given this, but instead voters decided that they fear the unknown, and got it anyway.

Worse, as we speak Nick Clegg may well be selling his granny for a taste of power.

That's unfair, but from experience in the Scottish parliament, the lib dems will drop any flagship policy for a go at being in charge. Basically, as I stand, if he gives up PR for forming a government, well, the Lib Dems won't be getting my vote for a very long time.

Nick has other options. My prefered one is to form the "Rainbow Coalition" Lib dem, Labour and lots of smaller parties, with a goal of electoral reform and fiscal stability. Problem is that this is about 100 times more likely to collapse than a simple 2 party coalition, and this would certainly mean that a future election campaign would be run with a "Don't want a hung parliament again do you" a shame because it is the more grown up, evolved form of democracy.

The other way I would be interested to see would be a minority Tory government, heinous as the concept of 5 years of conservatism is, the current party is already tearing itself apart over not winning, and the offer they tabled for the Lib Dems in public showed very little in the way of compromise, it could be a good excercise in growing up and not always getting your way to have to get each policy through on its merits and on bill by bill agreements, much as the SNP do in Scotland.

A mean part of me also sees how much the torys are tearing themselves apart over not winning, and so I can only see further division when they don't get their own way and can't do favours for their big donors. In that vein I also hope that should Cameron end up in Downing street and Mr Murdoch comes asking for his pound of flesh, Cameron response is "Where's my majority you feeble tuppence" closely followed by "And by the way, I'm going to legislate against you ruling so much of the news medial you useless bastard" Indeed I hope the "Sun wot won it" myth is finally gone, since tory support fell away once the sun got on board.

For a last bit of Tory bashing, I do find it funny that the torys are now doing the "Back room deals" that they said were a terrible undemocratic thing, guess that only applies in a Lib-Lab pact. Second, some top tories are calling for Cameron to be removed and replaced as leader, so, they'd have a PM who was not elected, much the same criticism that they used on Gordon Brown the past few years eh?

Bloody hypocrites.

The Obligatory Election Post

As some who live in britain may be aware, there is an election going on. Now, I've been trying to shy away from political blogging mainly due to my inability to do it particularly well, but I'll once again have a crack at it.

Many blogs will start with the phrase "Now I won't tell you who to vote for" but I'm different, I will, sort of, not really. At least I'm honest in trying to influence your vote, of course the reach of this blog particularly in a blogsphere full of blogs about the election means the effect will be about as much as my actual seat (Ultra safe labour), but, like voting for someone who isn't Douglas Alexander, I'll still write it. So, who do you vote for.

First, turn up to vote. I can't stress this enough, whatever level of hell we end up in its twice your fault if you didn't even bother getting out to vote. Spoil your ballot paper, write a protest, it doesn't get officially counted but you never know. Either way get off your sofa and Vote.

Second, if you have a good constituency MP, vote for them, regardless of party (Unless you find their politics particularly odious). Good constituency MPs are worth their weight in gold and don't let simple tribalism or anti-labour/tory sentiment do you out of a good one. How do you know? Well ask around, have they ever helped anyone you know? Do they hold regular surgeries, and finally, bt by no means foolproof, how often do they break ranks in votes. In general safe seats are held by one of two types of MP, good constituency MPs who could get voted in as an independent if de-selected, or Yes men (Douglas, I'm looking at you) who are more concerned about being de-selected by the party than serving their constituents. The former can break the whip without fear of reprisal, the latter can not.

Third, obviously considering the last post, don't vote conservative. I don't like being so blatantly partisan, but Don't. Now, you may ask why. Well I personally dislike their policies but there si something greater than my whims. Teh Tories are tied in very deeply with Rupert Murdoch and its been fun watching his papers scramble with the fear that the election may not be the forgone conclusion that Labour was in 1997, but a Tory loss this year would finally dispel the myth that the Murdoch papers decide election results rather than, say merely back winners. This would hopefully mean that never again will our leaders do shady deals with this millionaire tyrant in order to curry his favour, and the hopeless optimist in me also hopes for the new government, whatever its configuration, to perhaps consider the implications of one man holding this much power in the delivery of news and finally do something about it.

Fourth, Break safe seats, you may not unseat a candidate, but try to unseat some safe labour or tory ministers, or at least make the election night that bit less comfortable. Preferably do this voting for a smaller party, such as the Greens or indeed the lib-dems. You may not shift the yes man, but hopefully it will be a reminder of who they work for.

Fifth, ignore the scaremongering of a hung parliament. Alex Salmond of the SNP is right, despite my post about compromise politics, Minority governments and coalitions are the ultimate destination of true democracy. It means those who didn't vote for the winners can still have their views mean something, yes all too often the politicians take the huff and stop playing, but if we keep returning balanced parliaments they'll get the message.

Finally, vote for who you believe in, ignore all the parties saying candidate X will never win, they only won't win if no-one votes for them. In '97 safe seats fell, and they hopefully will this year. IF you like the greens, Vote green, if you like the lib-dems, vote lib dem, if you like UKIP or the BNP, stay at home (Ok vote, but you're wrong in just about every way) with any luck by next election we will finally be rid of this antiquated voting system and we can then see real change.

My vote, is private, but I'll tell you where I'm leaning, as I have no green candidate, its between the Lib-Dems and the SNP. The Lib-Dems, because It would be a real kicker for them to actually win the same or better seats than the other two. contrary to what the papers report the surge started before Nick Cleggs appearance on the leaders debates (Which also, contrary to what they said, he won and Cameron lost, on all fronts) because somehow people decided that they might win, and therefore weren't a wasted vote. They definitely represent the most liberal views of the big three. My other choice, the SNP. I'm still in principle opposed to Scottish independence but they do have some other attractive policies and have signed up to the Power 2010 pledge. Plus in the Scottish Leaders Debate Alex Salmond said the most sensible things about immigration (Here's a hint, it was the very opposite of the Daily Mail's stance) anyone has said all campaign. That alone is worth support.

Lets hope this all turns out, there's a feeling that we're close to real change, Not the kind Cameron is pedaling, I mean ground breaking change, it's a dream, so close you can touch it, I almost don't dare speak about it lest it melts and vanishes for all time. Its hope.

So am I a Syfy fan now?

The UK Sci-fI channel has followed its US companion and re-branded to SyFy. This is despite most people thinking the re-branding was stupid and pointless. Presumably it is in aid of something like "Brand Cohesion" or "Reflexive corporate image synergy" or some other meaningless marketing rubbish, probably dreamed up by the same person who said "Why are we just selling to geeks, if we call it the Syfy channel instead of Sci-Fi we'll remove that stigma that has stopped people watching it for ages. It even has a tagline "Imagine greater" and why when I am World dictator marketing people will have a hard time of things. I can't believe anyone looks at Syfy and thinks "hmm" then sees "Imagine greater" and says "I'm sold"

No, marketing dude, that was probably the period, which Sc-Fi is only just coming out of, where the channel seemed to be trying to show as little Sci-Fi as possible.

I remember the old days of the sci-fi channel, it was unashamedly geeky, Bionic Wednesdays, where a whole afternoon was filled with repeats of the Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman, MST3K, Quantum Leap. Sure, it lacked anything you hadn't seen before, even its films were usually old, and not the blockbusters either. But damn it I watched it, because sometimes I want to see old SF series. The channel evolved a little in the early 2000's, taking a slightly "Weird" approach it almost looked like the guy who is an enormous geek but tries to claim he's more "Alternative" Still, it hadn't lost too much of its geeky content, and even netted some of the better leftovers from Sky and BBC clearing the US Schedules. Without Sci-Fi then I wouldn't have seen Now and Again. They also introduced themed slots, like saturday morning carrying a couple of hours about Anime, with reports on japanese culture and usually a couple of Anime series (To my memory it was the excellent Neon Genesis Evangelion and the odd but fun Martian Successor Nadesco) along with themed horror nights on friday nights. These two periods represent in my opinion some of the best programming on the sci-fi channel.

It went a bit downhill from there, the channel seemed ashamed to keep showing its old repeats and similarly didn't buy anything particularly expensive, what resulted was a mass of duff "Direct to DVD" movies, usually involving Dean Cain fighting some giant reptile. It got worse, as they expanded (And I firmly believe the SyFy name change was part of this) into showing documentaries on dangerous wildlife and extreme weather. Now you may show Killer Shark vs Giant octopus IV, and I'd even allow some sort of super storm/volcano/asteroid drama as a kind of "What if Disaster movie" but the documentaries were pushing it. Similarly sometimes they'd show duff action films, no objection in principle but let bravo sho the non SF ones. I refuse to believe there is a shortage of duff SF themed action films.

Recently things have been improving. Sci-Fi got some fairly high profile series like Knight Rider, Warehouse 13, Sanctuary and Dollhouse. In fact the name changing away from Sci-Fi has preceded an increase in actual Sci-Fi on the channel, as if the marketing bod was distracted by his re-branding excercise and the geeks got to pick the programming.

My advice, Capitalise on this success, try and get some more original series, but remember, you need schedule padding, people will watch repeats of Quantum Leap and I know will definitely jump at anime series and MST3K if you can get those. New programming isn't the be all and end all. I have no objection to the crappy B Movies, I watched Warbirds (WWII female pilots and US soldiers vs dragons) and it was poor, but enjoyably so. Things like this need a home and Sci-Fi or even Syfy could be a place for them. Avoid turning into Bravo 3 and there could be a future in the old nerd yet.

Compromise Politics

Well, the official election campaign is finally underway, as opposed to the unofficial one that we've had for the past year or so. Hopefully in 6 weeks time we'll have a little more policy and a little less posturing and soundbites.

Ha! Forgive my cynicism. At the moment we're looking at (According to polls) a potential hung parliament or a Tory Government with a small majority. This should be exciting, it should mean that politics will move away from the big majority, ram legislation through regardless mentality that has plagued our politics for more than 30 years. Sadly I fear this won't happen.

I suppose it all started with Thatcher, as most things inevitably do. Although brighter sparks than myself may be able to trace this back further. Thatcher took out the "Wets" those who didn't subscribe entirely to her ideals. It meant that her party would stand united behind any legislation, and with the majority get anything through parliament. This basic idea of working politics has prevailed since that time. Combined with the rise of the "Career Politician" this has made politic more like a debating society, where debates are won or lost rather than an agreement reached where legislation is honed and perfected through the means of open discussion.

Its a myth that is seemingly widespread that compromise is bad, a myth not helped by the media describing the smallest change of tack or compromise as a U-Turn, defeat or flip-flopping. Politicians should be free to say "I'd not seen it that way before, my mind has been changed by facts and good arguments" instead government and opposition alike are trapped in a bizarre Colonel Cathcart like existence where they weigh up "Feathers in Caps" and "Black Eyes" and hope the former outweighs the latter. Since the major players appear to care more about looking good than passing decent legislation it generates an MP that values the approval of party over the approval of constituents, particularly those in the 60% off Safe or Ultra safe seats. You'd have to be pretty confidant in your MP skills not to be de-selected for one of those, clearly most aren't. Barak Obama said recently that perhaps it should be a politicians job to make good policy rather than seek re-election. Judging by the behaviour of MPs Re-election is their goal.

This has a bad knock on effect on politics. Since avoiding "Black Eyes" is prioritized above good policy parties will go towards making the opposition (or government) look bad rather than contributing positive changes to policy.

This is very apparent in Scotland, where the SNP chose to form a Minority government, this initially had me interested, in a minority they would have to use argument, persuasion and compromise to get things done. This should have been very interesting indeed. Sadly Labour and The Lib-Dems aren't playing. Labour through badness and the Lib-Dems seemingly through a childish fit of pique after being snubbed to form a coalition as they expected. To this end they have adopted a stance of obstructing and blocking as much SNP policy as possible, seemingly with the singular view of saying at the next election "What have they done eh? Nothing"

Look at that closely, two major parties have actively decided to say "No" pretty much all the time, stalling and slowing any policy change in the hope of using it to gain power next time, that's 4 years of childish huff.

This is my fear with a hung parliament, rather than shake up the "big Majority" style of politics instead we'll see the big 3 vie for position until one thinks they have enough leverage to call another election and get the big majority they all crave.

Science and Politics

This post has been running around in my head for a while. Doubt that will improve on its clarity, consistency or how well argued it is.

I’ve been reading the book Bogus Science by John Grant. In its introduction it covers an interesting case of politics vs. science. Post-war America, and there is a shortage of lead. This leads to a search for additives that could expand the life of lead acid batteries. There were many of these on the market and so the National bureau of Standards conducted testing. All the additives failed to improve the performance of batteries and most faded away, all except one, called AD-X2, the difference was not that AD-X2 actually worked, it was every bit as useless as its competitors, but the man in charge was good at lobbying politicians. The case for whether AD-X2 worked spanned administrations, cost hundreds of thousands of tax dollars and demanded re-tests and resignations. All because politicians thought for some reason that persuasive debate could alter the results of an empirical scientific test.

Oddly enough, although with somewhat less open and shut tests, this continues in present day UK.

The first is the recent Parliamentary Sci Tech Committee Evidence Check on Homeopathy. This was purely a committee established to check for evidence on the effectiveness of Homeopathy. Unsurprisingly for anyone with a smidgen of knowledge on the subject the evidence check revealed Homeopathy to be no better than a placebo and advised on removing NHS funding. This has been blogged by better men than me including Ben Goldacre, The Quackometer and David Colquhoun.

The Society of Homeopaths reacted badly, badly in the way that every world religion might if a parliamentary evidence check deemed the existence of God unlikely, or indeed badly as if someone had just seriously threatened a major stream of revenue. (Of course not, that would be cynical) They threw around accusations and smears about those involved and, well I’d advise you to read the blogs above for more on this.

Anyway, one of the things they managed was to convince an MP to put forward an Early Day motion expressing concerns. The MP, David Tredinnik, who claimed for astrology software on expenses and wanted to use distance healing as health policy. Obviously a sharp scientific mind. Now this doesn’t really matter, EDMs aren’t debated and rarely amount to anything, however it has attracted the signatures of over 60MPs. What this demonstrates is that regardless of evidence, and this was a check on evidence, not opinion or anecdote, it takes very little to get an MP to sign an EDM, yes that’s how desperate for votes they are. Worse was probably the Lib Dems, who had quiet a few signatories, and who came out with the final fallback for the person who knows deep down they’re not going to win on evidence “More Evidence is needed” Oh yes, the Oil Company favourite “More research is needed” is one of the most obvious stalling tactics, and would suit the SoH and its ilk fine. Apparently 200 years of research where the only trials showing Homeopathy better than a placebo are badly run small trials. Any well organised large trial shows no better than placebo, so are we back to AD-X2 with Homeopathy, keep testing until you get the result we want? Regardless what we do know is an MP will always take votes over evidence.

The second to come to mind is of course the humorously named Nut sack affair. For those who came in late, the government’s chief scientific advisor did a big round up on the evidence for harm caused by drugs. His report was based purely on scientific research but demonstrated that many currently illegal drugs such as cannabis and ecstasy were in fact safer than Alcohol. As this went against two very important things, the governments current drugs policy upgrading the classification on cannabis, and more importantly, disputing the mainstream media’s view that “Drugs are Bad, except for Alcohol and tobacco which have wealthy backing” the government decided not to follow the recommendations. Nutt was clearly tired of being ignored for what was basically political reasons and so revealed his findings publicly, for his trouble he was sacked and we had to put up with a cross party harrumph from MPs about how they were elected to lead and these scientists should bloody well keep their facts to themselves.

This demonstrated one of the unshakable truths of when science and government collide. No amount of evidence can beat a policy that will upset the views of the right wing press consensus and therefore middle England, (or as described by some ministers “We have to consider many other factors”). Sadly this is the major problem evidence based policy faces, from the mounting evidence that sending petty criminals to jail merely acts as a gateway for greater offences (And the lambasting that a Scottish Justice secretary got for suggesting not sending many minor offenders to jail is evidence of this) to drugs policy the evidence clearly shows that science can find out what it likes but should be prepared to be ignored if it doesn’t fit existing government policy.