Diddy politics

So last week we had our council elections. Woo.

Now, I feel people should vote, especially women, as other people* worked rather hard in the past to ensure that we can. So I always vote regardless of the election's importance.

*Mr Pankhurst especially. Yes. Much more than his wife or daughters.

And so, on such a day as last Thursday, I find myself at the polling station. Sadly this time with not one clue what I'm voting for. I'm not sure why, I do normally find out. I think this may be due to not caring much because councils are pretty much useless regardless.

Outside polling stations there are usually candidates seeking your vote. This time there were two. So I told these two young men outside that I didn't know what I was voting for and that they had one minute to convince me.

They spoke. I listened. I asked idiotic questions. They answered. The SNP chap gave me a card with his name on and told me to copy it, which impressed me more than the non-answers they gave me.

Bloke two was the second Labour candidate, he had no card and so made less impression. But in light of the other parties being respectively hateful and hated, those are the two parties that don't hurt.

Results were good, even if nice SNP bloke didn't get in, his SNP colleague did. Bye bye 94 LibDems in Scotland, including one in my area. We don't forgive easily.

Which reminds me, I must buy the local paper so I can get a simplistic explanation of the implications.

Voting sickness

I feel ill. Literally ill. I am so very nervous about the result of the election. And so this is going to be mostly a flow of incoherent consciousness...

I found this interesting website today: votematch.org.uk (handy how I don't make links be links, huh?) which has taken up a large chunk of my day.

Unsurprisingly, I came out as matching Liberal Democrats. I think they're rather marvellous, I like pretty much all they say and, erm, yes they could promise the moon on a stick. But still.

Unsurprisingly, I don't agree with the Conservatives at all. 6% concurrence, and I can be sure that the matter on which we agree (for there is but one) is that it'd be nice if people started to get married again. Unlike them, I'd extend it to any couple, but that wasn't asked.

Surprisingly, I matched rather well with the Green Party, other than on the small issue of environmental issues.

SNP also, except I'm not passionate about getting rid of Trident and don't particularly have a burning urge to be independent.

Labour: mostly I agree, but I don't have the anarchist streak required to be a true Labour supporter.

UKIP: relatively sensible on SOME things. Don't agree with them on, erm, Europe, which is a bit of a sticking point.

BNP: I am convinced they must be a joke party. Really. Have a read of their manifesto, it's amusing.

Or, it's quite terrifying that people think like that, get away with it and have supporters. They make appalling statements and actually seem to think it's ok. They use the term "from the third world" as if this is the most despicable thing of all. Some people clearly don't realise that some immigrants actually came from parts of the world we wouldn't want to go on holiday to!!! And I'm not entirely sure where they draw the line at who they classify as immigrants. Anyone who isn't caucasian and a native English speaker is my guess. And I think "from the third world" is a search-and-replace effort for a nonPC term.

But they say it. And get votes. Not very many. But here's the scary bit. On many issues, the Tories share the exact same viewpoint as BNP.

For example, they both think that anyone convicted of a crime that wasn't born in this country should be deported. I have heard this genuinely justified, without even qualifying "crime" as serious.

Tonight I listened to a Tory MP state that we "have to stop Labour's open door policy".

Why is this?

I haven't actually heard a single reason why it is a bad thing that we have immigrants in this country, legal or not. It is merely stated that they are here. They use our health service! As they would expect to. As they should. They take our jobs! And pay taxes. I don't see the problem. I don't understand why it's a key issue.

Ok, I am from Scotland and any incomers are welcome due to our declining/aging population. We have NHS dentists again! We have cool delis! Alex Salmond loves stating how cool we are about immigrants.

Most of us.

So, maybe it's different down south. But it would be nice if people could explain the problem, I just don't get it.

Aside from immigration and the BNP/Tory crossover, I don't agree with anything else the Tories say (apart from marriage). I don't want a Tory government. I detest David Automaton Cameron.

And people are going to vote for them, because they have been brainwashed by the media into hating Labour. Who aren't that bad. Really, they're not.

There's a LOT of "anything but Labour" about. Which is why I feel kinda sick. If we don't vote Labour then that means...

I dream (in a futile manner) of a Liberal win, (in a hopeful
manner) of a Labour win or (in a semi-realistic manner) of a hung parliament, and console myself that if the Tories do win, Scotland will be swiftly independent.

Wittering over. I remember now I'm not meant to talk about politics because I'm an idiot. Ah well.

Gordon Brown in Kirkcaldy

So, Gordon Brown visited Kirkcaldy today.
The town he grew up in.
So he's not going to be convinced by:
the shiny shiny litter free streets
the jolly happy people
the spirit of joy captured by the marching band

But still, nice to make the effort. Security at its finest: bin bags over bins. Without meaning to be picky, could a potential assassin/terrorist wanting to place a device in a bin possibly overcome a binbag? Maybe not. Maybe if they see a bin bag over a bin they move onto the next one, then the next one, then the next one, then get narked and give up the whole idea and have a cup of tea and a piece of shortbread instead. Maybe.

There was much muttering of "last time you'll see him as PM".

Yes, because the people of Kirkcaldy are really going to vote for anyone else. The last tory vote in Kirkcaldy was recorded in 1765.

The choices of the candidates will be:

Sonny Somebody from the Liberals.
Thingy Smugbutquite-Scared from the Tories
GORDON BROWN, your local Prime Minister
Weirdy Funny Party Candidate from a party that you've never heard of
You wouldn't sleep if you voted for the BNP candidate
Oh that one. What's UKIP all about again?
ISN'T SCOTLAND NICE?? Scottish McScot from the Lovely SNP.

So, two candidates have a fighting chance, and 90% of the voters (aka 16% of the entitled to vote population) just trog on down and stamp their X next to Labour Regardless.

I know who I want as PM, and it annoys the HELL out of me that if I can't just vote for him. No, I can vote for a candidate, and if he/she doesn't win this seat, my vote counts for NOTHING.

Bah.

I am sorry to say that if I had bumped into Snr Brown in Kirkcaldy today, my actions would have been sycophantic. And I may have told a big fib. But I didn't bump into him.

Power from the people

So the people of Manchester said no. They didn't want the "carrot" of public transport investment, instead they objected to the "stick" of paying congestion charges. (Analogies there from the media, they've used that carrot/stick thing 5769 times today).

The problem there: the people. Why didn't the powers that be in Manchester didn't take the hint from Edinburgh and the other place that's name eludes me? People are NEVER going to vote yes on this. Why waste time doing a referendum? Either just do it, Ken Livingstone stylee, which they are legitimately allowed to do, or accept people won't like it and give up on the idea.

People generally don't know stuff. Even clever people, they know about what they know. Votes don't work for this reason. People are asked to vote: they acquire knowledge. Or they don't, but for now we shall credit Joe Public with an inquisitive and intelligent mind. Where do they get this information from? The media, that's where. So in effect, by asking the "people" to vote, the vote is being given to the media. Who aren't renowned for being unbiased and focussing on the facts. They want sensationalism and "this is a good thing which will benefit the greater good" is not sensationalist. The people vote as they are told to, because they believe they have the facts.

Same thing applies when the public are asked to vote on reality TV programmes. There's a problem there with the sort of person that votes on these programmes. The sort of person that pays money for a mostly irrelevant vote. Irrelevant because anyone can predict the outcome: the judges tell the public categorically who to vote for, and the voters follow suit. It always happens. The popular guy never actually wins, it's the judges' favourite that wins. Or in the case of Big Brother, the editing team at Channel 4 lead the votes by carefully selecting what's broadcast.

HBOS is being taken over by Lloyds TSB. Good. Sorted. But the people, who don't have a scoobie about fiscal policy and banking in general and quite like the big posh building in Edinburgh, would have voted "no!!!!! we want it to go under or something, we don't want a takeover, then it would go to that England place". Which wouldn't have resulted in the correct action being taken.

So the public should never be allowed to vote. They don't get it right.

Except, we live in a supposed democracy. We should have a say. It is wrong to impose things on people without consultation. Everyone should be consulted.

A solution: a two stage voting process. The first stage would open to anyone who felt they would be affected by the outcome. This would consist of a series of questions and in order to progress to the second stage, a person would have to demonstrate an understanding of the situation being voted on. This initial stage would have to be carefully constructed so that the likely vote of the person was not revealed, but that their suitability to pass opinion was. Not an intelligent test, not a lot of trick questions so the Mensa members rule the world, it would be a fair test of unbiasedness and willingness to appreciate the facts, which would be made easily and unbiasedly available to allow as many people to access them as cared to find out. This would open up the vote to anyone, so be democratic and should have a reasonable cross section of society represented, but closed to idiots.

Impossible. And quite probably elitist. But how nice it would be.