Who Should I Vote For?
Who Should You Vote For? has been garnering a lot of attention the last couple of days, in the sort of gentle, five-minute-distraction way that you'd expect.
But all political "What kind of biscuit is my ideal girlfriend?" quizzes suffer from the same problem. Asked how I think we should balance the economy, run a fair and effective education system and provide free healthcare for 61 million people, my instinct is to feign a migraine and go and have a lie down. I try to keep as politically well-informed as possible, but that just makes me aware of how little clue I have about what we should do about anything. I suspect that if people weren't so inclined to assume their opinion is always the best one, this would be the majority view.
To me, voting for the party that best fits my ill-informed reckons seems like picking the doctor most likely to tell me my headaches really are that brain tumour I've been worrying about. The last thing I want is for Parliament to do exactly what I would do if I were in charge. If I were in charge I'd bum everything up. I can barely butter a slice of toast without ruining the NHS and causing at least two major diplomatic incidents.
I don't want to choose leaders based on what they'll do; I want to choose them based on why they'll do it. That's a matter of principles, of course, and that's a well-established political line. It's also a demand for evidence-based policy – one of those phrases that sounds very clever until you think about the alternative. I don't have time to work out how to save the economy, straighten out democracy, stop climate change and make the NHS work. That's what politicians are for.
Unfortunately, this split doesn't run so clearly across party lines, and it's much harder to judge from policies and manifestos – you can reach any position irrationally. I'll try to work out who I can trust in all sorts of ways – in between plotting complicated graphs about tactical voting, judging my local candidates' haircuts and coming to terms with the fact my vote won't make any difference – but Who Should You Vote For? will just have me supporting a party who looks for their mobile while they're talking on it and tries to put cereal away in the fridge.
Adrian Sanders on Tittle-Tattle; or, Look What I Made Out Of This Molehill
Radio 4 is a wonderful station to wake up to: you never know if you’re going to get hard-hitting political discussion or Evan Davis attempting to play Bohemian Rhapsody on the paper and comb. But if you can’t get it on FM, there are severe downsides. If you’re up late, or you leave the radio on, there’s a very real risk you’ll end up listening to the Daily Service. And, worse still, your morning will be rudely interrupted by Yesterday in Parliament, a mere five minutes of which is enough to make even the most optimistic among us break down in hot, salt tears over the way our elected representatives behave.
Normally the awfulness is simply that many of the people we have sort-of chosen to serve us think that shouting ‘YAAAAAAH!’ at every possible opportunity is a valuable contribution to democracy. This morning, I caught an exchange that nicely captured some of the more nuanced ways of being a useless tit that Westminster has to offer. It starts about an hour into this video, if your setup is deemed suitable by the PICTsies, and there’s a handy transcript on Richard Taylor’s blog.
The discussion centres on Adrian Sanders’ belief that local websites can’t fulfil some of the functions of local newspapers because ‘Most of what’s online is [...] tittle tattle’. Now clearly, that's a ludicrous opinion, and I think Sion Simon's response to it – utter stupefaction coupled with insistence that ‘that’s a ridiculous view’ – is just about the only possible one. It’s troubling that an elected leader should be so hopelessly out of touch with the modern world, and revealing that Sanders thinks online voices perfectly respectable so long as they are his. But there are plenty of people lined up to defend online media and to demonstrate how much of print media really is nothing more than ‘tittle-tattle’, so I’ll lay that aside. Because, as is so often the case when we say something stupid, what really troubles me isn’t what he said, but how he said it.
Not only does Sanders fail to offer any justification at all for his opinion, he seems entirely untroubled by any sense that his opinions require justification. His first remark about Stoke on Trent’s Pits n Pots is simply ‘But it’s not news, it’s just tittle tattle’: to Sanders, this isn’t even a matter for discussion. It’s an accepted fact because Adrian Sanders has declared it so. When asked if he’s read it, he has nothing more to say than ‘No’, in a manner so dismissive Taylor feels he has to gloss it. And just to top it off, when challenged on his summary judgement he thinks that all he needs to offer as justification is ‘It’s a website’, in a tone so patronizingly self-assured he sounds like an nine year old pointing out that Ellie must be wrong because she’s a girl.
His absurd opinion isn’t really that important: the world of local reporting will go one way or it will go another, and besides, he sounds so bored by the whole affair I’d be surprised if he can even muster the will to tittle-tattle about it on his MySpace profile. But it’s suggestive of a dangerous arrogance, a belief that because the people of Torbay voted him in four years ago, his opinions have been granted some special weight.
No. Of course a representative system requires MPs to make decisions and form opinions for themselves, but they have a duty to do so using evidence and reason, not merely gut instinct. A gander at Sanders’ TheyWorkForYou page suggests that I probably agree with a lot of the decisions he makes, but if he doesn’t make those decisions in the right way – if he makes them the same way he made his decision about Pits n Pots – then that’s just good luck and he could stuff everything up at any moment. Hopefully, unlike the Widdecombes of this world, he acts in a more thoughtful and considered fashion when he’s dealing with matters of greater import; sadly, his thought processes are inscrutable unless he makes a habit of displays like yesterday. Projects like Skeptical Voter attempt to examine how well political actions line up with the real world, but even when the wiki is more complete it’ll be naturally limited. Sanders, for example, supported MMR vaccination – but he also supported NHS homeopathy, so why should we believe the former position was any more based on fact than the latter?¹
We need our politicians to be honest about what they believe, to avoid the kind of timid positioning that leaves people thinking there’s nothing to choose between. But we also need them to acknowledge that they have a duty to educate and inform themselves, to form those beliefs based on evidence about the real world and to demonstrate to us that they are capable of doing so. Anything less reduces our votes to a throw of the dice.
1: Skeptical Voter tends towards concerns like medicine, creationism and so on where clashes about evidence-based politics are common, but the principle certainly applies more broadly.
Too Many Twats: Tom O’Halloran
The first spammy direct message I ever got on Twitter was this delight from scary right-winger Tom O’Halloran:
Thank you for the Follow ! Please take a moment to look at my plan to take America back: http://digg.com/u1BkxQ Thanks again, and God Bless!
I’m sure that if you're a Republican whose favoured tit has recently lost the presidential election you’d take delight in the chance to ‘take America back’. Sadly, I come from the country that sent bucketfuls of Redcoats to put down the colonies’ noble press for independence, so a ‘plan to take America back’ sounds to me more like a desperate attempt to cling on to the status of superpower.
Looking at this fellow’s delightful website, you’re likely to think him an easy target. In the grand old style of early personal pages, he happily puts up his poetry, and of course mocking poetry is a great deal easier than writing it. Fortunately for my credibility, his poetry page crashes Firefox every time I try to load it, so I can’t engage in the kind of snobbish criticism which – let’s face it – is all my degree really qualified me for. Instead, I’m all but forced to make this post all about his politics.
Tommy’s pride and joy appears to be the plan he so small-mindedly invited me to endorse in his initial message. The first thing I noticed about A Bold Step Back was its advertising.¹ As you read Tom’s unremarkable small-goverment spiel, a little counter ticks upwards, claiming to count how many ‘babies have died from abortion’ since the page was opened. All very exploitatively emotive, you might to think, but wait! This counter counts up in tenths! Clearly, it’s nonsensical to say that you’ve one-tenth killed somebody. I can only assume that this little splinter of the US religious right has realised that the bundle of cells living in a woman’s womb isn’t the same as a full-on person, whatever potential to become one it might have. This is progress: all we have to do now is convince them of the fairly simple logical point that you can’t add up ten of them to make a real baby, as though they were Yorkshire Tea tokens, and maybe we can get a guarantee of bodily autonomy in what are supposedly the most advanced democracies on the planet.
Of course, TPO (I have yet to work out why he uses this initialism) is quite capable of being objectionable without any help from his advertisers. He doesn’t even gesture towards a neutral, reasoned view of the world. He describes himself as ‘hard Core Anti Obama’. Not against his policies, not against the things he’s done in office. Just against him, because he’s not horribly right-wing. He also runs a foul little blog which declares:
As I set up this blog, I am taking a rather unusual route, building an outline, a framework of as yet empty posts
Which is to say, he is constructing a list of people under his headline and hoping that some evidence he can use might just emerge, which would be a despicable enough strategy even if the ideology behind it was all tickety-boo. Of course, if his ideology wasn’t horribly messed up, he wouldn’t have a page dedicated to implying that the Clintons arrange murders faster than his silly, ignorant brain can keep track of.
Tom boasts about being a ‘married’ ‘child of God’ but has an animated GIF of a neon stripper on his website. He runs ‘pro-life’ adverts but is apparently proud to be a ‘Gun carrying NRA Conservative’. His website won’t let me make fun of his poetry, he posts Glenn Beck videos on his unapologetically prejudiced blog, and he maintains a page featuring nothing but an uncontextualised list of words. I am not ashamed to say that he is the only Twitter spammer I have ever bothered to block.
[1] I really mean this. Cynically, before I looked at any of the content, I had a quick search in the hope I could find some anti-immigration stuff that would be nicely incongruent alongside the proudly Irish feel of his Twitter page. I know, I know. I’m terrible. But the upshot is that before I saw any actual content, I saw his horrid adverts.
Moving Diagonally Towards A Reformed Second Chamber
From the July white paper on House of Lords reform, as pointed out to me by my lovely and far-more-politically-astute-than-I fiancée:
The Government considers that any appointed element in a reformed second chamber would be an effective way of securing the continuation of a number of independent members.The presence of a significant minority of independent members would both distinguish the second chamber clearly from the House of Commons and complement the work of the Commons by providing non-partisan viewpoints in the legislative revision process.
Oh, well, that sounds eminently sensible. Independent members, appointed for their expertise, ready to serve the country without being beholden to a party or political organisation. Lovely.
The Government considers it would be difficult to justify ‘automatic’ consideration for membership for any one group above others...
Sounds fair. If the point of the appointed proportion is independent, why not just have one system of application/nomination that treats everyone equally? It can consider the experience of distinguished civil servants and the like just like everyone else's. Marvellous.
...with the exception of serving Church of England Bishops (see paragraphs 6.45 – 6.52).
Well, naturally it'd be justified for Church of England Bishops. They've got such excellent hats! I'd even go so far as to say that those hats are so excellent that
there should be a number of seats reserved for Church of England Bishops.
No, no, I'm being silly. Obviously you wouldn't need all of paragraphs 6.45 to 6.52 to demonstrate how delightfully unconcerned with its own absurdity the mitre is (perhaps in an effort to effectively represent the established church.) It takes a far more complex, nuanced kind of silliness to fill that much space.
6.45 The Church of England’s unique place in society and the valuable role it plays in English national life, both religious and secular, is widely recognised.
Other groups and organisations this is true of include the Guardian, the Scouts, the compilers of the Listener crossword, the crew of Countdown and the actors who have played Doctor Who. I don't think that means they should be granted legislative powers. Not even Peter Davison.
Within England, the position of the Church of England is that of the Church by law established, with the Sovereign as its supreme Governor.The relationship between the Church and State is a core part of our constitutional framework that has evolved over centuries.
And you certainly can't change the constitutional framework during constitutional reform. Where would that lead?
The presence of Bishops in the House of Lords signals successive Governments’ commitment to this fundamental constitutional principle and to an expression of the relationship between the Crown, Parliament and the Church that underpins the fabric of our nation.
It certainly does that, much like the presence of dried bog-roll on a public toilet ceiling signals successive visitors' commitment to throwing wads of wet paper at it.
6.46 However, the Church of England’s role stretches further than constitutional principles.The Church takes a leading part in a range of spheres, both religious and secular. In partnership with many of the UK’s other religious communities, the Church offers spiritual support to everyone, regardless of their beliefs. The fact that the Church’s staff and volunteers often live in the heart of the community they serve adds to the effectiveness of this support.The Church of England Bishops’ position in Parliament reflects this culture of promoting tolerance and inclusiveness.
Of course, 'the UK's other religious communities' don't get a look-in because there isn't room, and naturally if your organisation is based on, say, an ethical stance, community action, themed puzzles or pretending to be a Time Lord then you're not even worth thinking about.
I could go on (mainly because Chrissy did, thanks to having to read this thing through for professional reasons), but this stuff is almost mitrelike in its readiness to reveal its own silliness so it hardly seems worthwhile. Committed readers of the document will find lots more headbangingly anachronistic stuff about the Monarch to accompany the bits about the Church, and a few refreshing sentences noting that the Lib Dems at least have a modicum of sense. Alternatively, you could just get your doodles stuffed.
How To Win Friends And Influence Hooligans
Sir Steve Bullock, Mayor of Lewisham, isn't terribly pleased about the Climate Camp setting up shop near him. He has every right not to be, of course, though given that the whole reason he's commenting on it is that the camp is on his doorstep, he'd be a more credible commentator and politician if he'd go and visit before using his position to assert a vague, unfounded prejudice. Come to that, even making a reasoned argument would win him a few points; sadly, he seems determined to assume that the Camp will wreck the site and upset the locals, against all evidence to the contrary.
In truth, it's probably fair enough that he didn't bother with even those token efforts: given that his jumping off point was an insulting and unjustified comparison of Climate Camp to the West Ham/Milwall hooligans. Fairly obviously not a winning move, but of course Mayor Steve didn't mean it like that . Those of us who weren't impressed had "missed the point"; Steve had made himself "very clear". Inevitably, he his sorry that "[his] views may have upset some readers" but considers himself wholly inculpable in the matter. After all, what possible reason could readers of the blog post "Football and Climate Change" have had to think he was making a direct comparison?
Oh. Right. Despite his failure to respond to criticism directed to his Twitter account, our dear mayor is "really quite keen on all this modern cyber communications stuff", so I'm sure he'll be pleased to learn how good the internet is at preserving ill-advised remarks.
Update: It looks like Google has updated its cache to reflect the change. For now, a search for the old title still shows up Steve's little tweak.
Before Going Into Politics, He Had Been A Pro Wrestler
Last night, I had a dream in which Gordon Brown body-slammed a macaroon.
Needless to say, my support for the Labour party has dropped enormously since I awoke.
An International Reputation For Quality
Not so very long ago, the worst thing I could tell you about Lancaster University was that its 2006 prospectus has a shiny goldish cover that looks really quite naff, and is a bit ugly and mish-mashy inside. Since those carefree, innocent times, there have been Goings On at Lancaster. You may have read about them.
Their first mistake was to invite a bunch of companies with decidedly dodgy records when it come to human rights to a conference that they might get more involved with university research. Understandably, this riled some of their students and postgraduates who were of the opinion that their education might be better off if it were not driven by and towards companies like Shell, BAE Systems (they make things for killing people) and so on. Which is really fair enough. So, they organised a protest - a peaceful protest, mind - and, reportedly, were assured during it by the police that they were doing nothing wrong and could carry on. Which is really fair enough.
A few months later, they were served with court summonses, accused of "aggravated trespass" and facing a maximum of three months in prison. Which is really not fair enough.
Now, Lancaster seems pretty proud of its history of student activists. They even name colleges after them. And yet here they are, wantonly prosecuting the ones they've got now for an entirely peaceful protest. The only explanation I can think of is that they're trying desparately to make people forget how ugly their prospectus (and, come to think of it, their logo) is, and while that end is easy to sympathise with, their means are simply unacceptable.
There's an online petition yonder, you may very well wish to sign it. Alternatively, you could go and complain in person, but they might have you arrested.