To AV or not to AV

As part of the coalition agreement with the Liberal Democrats, the Conservative Party agreed that there be a referendum on electoral reform in the UK. The Liberal Democrats as the UK’s long standing third party has always sought this in order that it get a more proportionate share of seats in the House of Commons. However, whilst it has always supported a form of proportional representation, the best it could get is a referendum on perhaps the smallest possible change to the electoral system – it is called the Alternative Vote or AV, and is similar to the Preferential Vote system in Australia.

Of course New Zealand went through electoral reform in the 1990s, because Jim Bolger was willing to hand it up on a plate for no good reason at all, in the midst of the economic reforms being continued by Ruth Richardson. New Zealand’s electoral reform process was complex, and was undertaken in a period of heightened anxiety about the economy and distrust of politicians (mainly because Jim Bolger lied in the 1990 election campaign, fully aware that the Nats had to backtrack on promises to abolish student fees and the superannuation surtax because of the massive deficit Labour left it with).

The electoral reform debate in New Zealand was ably driven by a coterie of leftwing politicians, celebrities, activists and a compliant media, all dissatisfied that both Labour and National had policies that today might only be seen with ACT. The left drove the Electoral Reform Coalition, and opponents to MMP only campaigned late in the day, with Peter Shirtcliffe (and later his daughter Janet) arguing largely on the basis on what was wrong with MMP. National and Labour both had no official view on the matter, whilst NZ First and the Alliance, with their pinups of Winston and Jim Anderton self-servingly advocating MMP (although the media rarely challenged that self interest).

In the UK it has been quite different. AV is NOT a proportional system. It simply means every MP would need a majority of preferences to get elected. Constituencies where the leading candidate gained less than half of the first preferences, would see the second preferences of those who voted for the bottom candidate get reallocated. This would continue until one candidate crosses the 50% threshold.

The real arguments for and against change are actually quite simple. A strong argument can be made that in a fully representative system an MP should have the support of the majority of voters in a constituency. That can either be done by having a runoff ballot (as in the French Presidential elections) or some sort of preferential based voting. If the highest value in an election is that majority counts, then AV can be supported.

The argument against is that people’s second or third preferences shouldn’t decide who gets elected. What AV would enable is for people to vote for whoever they like as a first preference, including any small party, safe in the knowledge that given the low probability that minor candidates could do well, second preferences could be given for the least offensive major candidate. It gives those with views not represented by major parties a better chance, which may be seen as benefiting those parties unfairly.

However, the debate has not been about that. The Pro-AV campaign has been claiming it will “change politics”, make MPs more accountable and should be supported because the Tories oppose it. It has been supported by the Liberal Democrats and some in Labour (including Ed Miliband), largely because they think a majority of UK voters are leftwing oriented.

The anti-AV campaign has been pushed by the Conservative Party based on a whole host of erroneous reasons. It is claimed AV is a lot more expensive, which it isn’t. It is argued that it is wrong to support a system only adopted by Australia, PNG and Fiji (with a quasi-neo-colonial/racist overtone that such countries are inferior). It is claimed first past the post is popular, yet the only developed countries that share it are Canada and the US. It is claimed AV is too complicated, yet somehow the Irish can get their heads around STV and continental Europeans all have far more complex systems. Most stupidly an analogy is drawn between an athletic race and the person who came third winning.

In other words, the argument has been infantile and insulting. It is presented either as a radical change that will make a big difference (which it wont), or as a complex, expensive system that only Australians use.

The Conservatives simply think they cannot get a majority of support and will lose if AV is put in place. The entire campaign for first past the post is based on retaining strong single party government (which outside the context of the Thatcher administration is hardly welcome).

So the question for me is what to do? Most of those who I have some broad political alignment with will say “no” to AV, because it will benefit the left. Yet, inherently any system based on representation should, at least, gain the endorsement in some way of a majority of voters in any constituency. Whilst AV may benefit the Liberal Democrats, the truth is that the party faces serious losses because it is in coalition with the Conservatives, so the future political map is difficult to predict. UKIP came third in the last by-election, comes second in the European Parliamentary elections and is a serious alternative for those who want less government.

So I am going to vote for AV. Primarily because, in principle, I want to be able to vote for a smaller party and for that vote not to be wasted by enabling me to choose a tolerable second best option. I think it may enable politics to be more diversified on the “right” by giving UKIP more of a voice. It will do the same for leftwing parties like the Greens and BNP (nationalist socialism), but I am NOT beholden to thinking that the Conservative Party really holds the monopoly on political sanity in the UK – it needs to be challenged. It is a rather inept and bumbling advocate for capitalism and a highly inconsistent supporter of freedom and less government.

However, I do so holding my nose – because as much as the left in the UK will take solace from an unlikely win for AV (polls are strongly against reform), I think it is a misguided measure of an electorate that is actually more conservative, more euro-sceptic and less keen on government than they may think.

That day

Whilst most of the British media and many (but not all) switch their brains into neutral for the taxpayer funded wedding of the year,  Christopher Hitchens writes that the best thing that Kate Middleton and William Wales could do is abdicate:

If you really love him, honey, get him out of there, and yourself, too. Many of us don't want or need another sacrificial lamb to water the dried bones and veins of a dessicated system. Do yourself a favor and save what you can: Leave the throne to the awful next incumbent that the hereditary principle has mandated for it.

I for one will be fleeing to the West Country to avoid the crowds, tat and banal tourism (led curiously by airhead Americans and continentals).   Some, I hope, will be protesting a handful on the guest list including the following murderous scum:

- Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz (second in line to the Saudi Islamist theocracy which has intervened in Bahrain to suppress dissent and does not tolerate any basic political freedoms);

- Crown Prince of Bahrain (the regime that is turning its guns on its people).

I have nothing personally against either of them, any more than I have of any random strangers.  They mean nothing to me.   However, what is telling is how far too many people, who call themselves conservatives, wax lyrically about merit, about people being allowed to achieve, keep the proceeds of their success and to live their lives as they see fit.   They talk of how society should mean that people can aspire and achieve, and that those who do not, should not have their lives subsidised, propped up or featherbedded at everyone else's expense.

Yet they embrace the least meritocratic, most featherbedded state institution there is - hereditary monarchism.

For a country to move beyond views of class, or even bigotry against regional accents and dialects, there needs to be a mature discussion about the future of the British "constitution".  The House of Lords has been moved from a hereditary institution to a politically stacked talking shop.   It would be appropriate to discuss the future of the monarchy, particularly when the future monarch does not remotely meet the test of being political neutral or impartial.  Charles is a buffoon, who is not fit to be head of a book club let alone a country.

My only hesitation is the motivation of many of those who want a republic.  The likelihood they would advance a constitutionally limited government is not high.

However, the reason to not proceed should not be because of any perceived merit in the status quo - for if the only reason to continue with the monarchy is because the alternative could be worse is no ringing endorsement.

So whilst the millions of airheads watch a wedding of two mediocrities in some peculiar fawning  ritual, I'll be ignoring it.  Although, I know many of you wont be able to resist the spectacle.

The slaves commemorate their dead leader

Today is one day in the year when I can always feel thankful.  For it is the day that 24 million people who live in the world's largest prison are required and expected to celebrate the birthday of their dead, but still constitutionally empowered, President.

The cold soulless omnipresent photo of Kim Il Sung

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (you need that name to top off the entire effect of this vile absurdity) has Kim Il Sung as "eternal President" as he lies in state at his immaculate marble and granite palace in Pyongyang.  Koreans unfortunate enough to be on the northern side of the DMZ pay tribute to this wily murdering warmonger every day, bowing four times to his embalmed corpse.  They all have this very photo in their homes, offices, schoolroom, looking down upon them all, everywhere.  Yes Orwell was prescient. 

The prisoners are all expected to give gifts, but in turn they also get small gifts for their children.  They are, of course, expected to be grateful for they have "nothing to envy in the world" according to state media.  However, whilst they get gifts for their children, they are not foolish - they now sell them on the black market because food rations are so meagre.

What is particularly tragic is that the country is so closed that most of the slaves actually like him.  Why?  Because he maintained such a totalitarian grip on media, publishing and in completely rewriting history (and removing those who inconveniently know the truth) that he has painted himself as a hero.

His tale is that he founded a revolutionary army in his teens and he led that army to defeat the Japanese and expel them from the Korean peninsula by 1945.   The truth is that he led a small brigade in his late 20s who fought the Japanese in a few battles, but then fled to the Soviet Union.  Korean was liberated from Japanese enslavement because the US defeated Japan, helped by Chinese partisans (nationalist and communist) and the latecomer Red Army at the last minute.   

His tale is that he arrived in Pyongyang to crowds celebrating his return as a famous hero, when he was virtually unknown and installed by Stalin as a compliant local who would help mould Korea into a client state.  

His tale is that the US invaded in 1950 and he and his army fought back the imperialist invasion, despite US use of biological weapons and heinous atrocities committed against Koreans.  In fact, he invaded south Korea, brutally took over nearly the whole peninsula before the UN Security Council authorised a US led multilateral counteroffensive that would have defeated him, had Mao not gotten frightened by MacArthur's rhetoric and saved his skin.  There is no credible evidence of biological weaponry being used in the Korean War, and tales of US atrocities are grossly and obscenely exaggerated (but not completely without foundation).

His tale is that he rebuilt the country into a workers' paradise whilst south Korea lived under the tutelage of US capitalist slavedrivers using south Koreans as subjects, oppressing them under a brutal military dictatorship.   The south Korean people's single hearted desire being to reunify the country under Kim Il Sung's leadership.  The truth is that while dictatorship DID reign in the south until 1988, and working conditions in the 50s and 60s were harsh, the dictatorship was nowhere near as pervasive as Kim Il Sung's.  Living standards in south Korea soared since the Korean War, materially surpassed the north by the late 1960s and virtually no one in the south have any time for Kim Il Sung.  He is widely hated in the south.

His tale is that he developed a unique special ideology, called Juche, which empowers humanity and has millions of followers and acolytes around the world, who look upon him as their leader, a genius, "peerlessly great man" and numerous other sycophantic titles.  The truth is that he had academics concoct a contradictory and vague philosophy of isolationism, nationalism and pseudo-monarchical hypocrisy, which is virtually unknown in the world except for a strange handful of peculiar malcontents found in the likes of India, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Stoke on Trent.

His tale is that his people have nothing to envy in the world, that the world is full of famine, disease, exploitation, oppression, war, slavery, crime, depravity and death.  The truth is that he has created a country that has lost millions from famine, imprisons people in their home towns, tells them where and when to work, denies them privacy at all levels, demands their constant unquestioning obedience, lies to them on a scale and extent that is almost incomprehensible (virtually nothing positive about the outside world is ever reported, and with the exception of a tiny elite, little is shown of foreign culture, news or major events - such as the moon landing).  

His tale is that he has always worked long hours, tirelessly for the people, always giving them wise guidance and helping in all fields, and his knowledge and skills are unbounded in their brilliance and breadth.  He being a modest man who demands little, but gives all.  The truth is that he lived the life of a wealthy king with numerous well appointed palaces, food, drink, clothing and consumer goods from around the world, enjoyed his own "joy division" of especially selected beautiful young women to enjoy orgies that would make Berlusconi jealous, and by the mid 1960s had so ruthlessly purged any challenges to his rule that he could relax. All the time he called for his enslaved people to work ever harder, more tirelessly than before, filling up their "spare time" with activities either to defend the country, or extra-curricular activities for the monthly "celebrations" of him, his inarticulate playboy son, the party, the country, the army or Juche  Meanwhile, there has never been room for anyone disabled in the workers' paradise.

So whilst Libyans fight to depose their megalomaniacal ruler  (who has long been loved by the Kim gang), and others go about their daily life.  Be grateful for a moment that you're not in a country led by a lying murdering corpse, where you can't leave, where you are denied the truth of his life and his rule and are told to sacrifice more every day and you have nothing to envy in the world.

Icelanders shrugged

Taxpayers in Iceland are fed up.  They have in the past year or so faced two referenda on whether they, personally, should be responsible for the costs of bailouts of depositors of privately owned Icelandic banks.  Quite rightly they told the UK and Dutch governments (and the EU implicitly) to go fuck themselves.

So what is it about?

Well the Icelandic government set up a Depositors' and Investors' Guarantee for its banking sector.  It was set up as a legal obligation under the European Economic Area decision to follow EU Directives on banking guarantees.  In short, if Iceland wanted to maintain free access to the EU markets for its goods and services, it had to comply with EU laws demanding state guarantees for banks.

So it did.  One private bank, Landsbanki set up aggressively with branches in the UK and the Netherlands, offering retail bank accounts with highly competitive interest rates.  It attracted 300,000 customers in the UK and 125,000 in the Netherlands.  Another bank called Kaupthing Edge was also part of the Icelandic banking boom, but for simplicity let's leave that one out for not.

The long and the short of it is that Landsbanki collapsed.  It had been over leveraged with extensive foreign debt linked into banks outside Iceland.  The bank was put into receivership and the Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority declared that domestic deposit holders would be protected.

For UK depositholders the situation was clear.  The UK government guaranteed them up to a relatively high limit, which meant they were safe from any risk.  However, the UK government wanted this guarantee to be born by the Icelandic Depositors' and Investors' Guarantee, which was effectively bankrupt.   So it confiscated the assets of Landsbanki in the UK, under anti-terrorism legislation, albeit rather late as Landsbanki had already moved most of its assets back to Iceland.

The dispute since then has been because the British government wants the Icelandic government to pay back its guarantees of British depositors.  It claims that under the EEA agreement, the Icelandic government agreed to do this, which may very well be true.  However, Icelandic taxpayers are not happy and don't accept it.

However, this raises the far more fundamental point - who are those who agreed to this and what right do they have to do so?

At a basic level UK and Dutch depositors took a risk in getting accounts with Landsbanki - a risk they largely unconsciously thought was not real because of national government guarantees of deposits. 

The UK and Dutch governments decided to guarantee those depositors regardless of risk, and have used their taxpayers' funds to do so.

The Icelandic government signed up to certain guarantees for deposits, up to 20,000 Euro.  However, there is not enough in the guarantee fund to cover this for UK and Dutch depositors.  Understandably, given it is taxpayers' money, the fund has covered Icelandic depositors as a priority. 

So the relevant governments argued and negotiated, but Iceland's government decided on only paying out 4% of the country's GDP to the UK and 2% to the Netherlands to pay up.   Both the UK and Dutch governments refused to accept this.   A new bill was submitted to the Icelandic parliament for Iceland's taxpayers to cough up 3.8 billion Euro over 14 years.   They were not amused. It comes to around 12,000 Euro for every man, woman and child.  They petitioned for a referendum on the matter.   It was held in 2010 and 93% of Iceland's voters said no.

The reaction from the bigger countries was despicable.  The Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Lord Myners (Financial Services Secretary) said they expected Iceland to meet its obligations, the Dutch Finance Minister said essentially the same.   Iceland's taxpayers had said enough.

The Icelandic government negotiated another deal, spread over 30 years at an interest rate of 3%.

Iceland's voters have just rejected this once more, but with a 60% to 40% margin.

As so they should.  Iceland's taxpayers primarily work in the fisheries, aluminium and manufacturing sectors.  They don't see why they should be responsible for those who risked their money in a private bank they had nothing to do with.  They don't see why their governments should bind them to bail out governments who decided to guarantee nationals of their countries for investment in a private bank.

They are right.

The Icelandic government should work for them.  It should accept that they, as productive, hard-working people don't owe their government, let alone foreign governments, anything.

Iceland has NOT defaulted on sovereign debt, it has not got a major fiscal problem.  It is not seeking a bailout because of years of socialist economics and bloated welfare.

The UK and Dutch governments should leave them alone.  THEIR taxpayers should be demanding the skin of the politicians who demanded they guarantee the deposits of those willing to invest in new banks with high rates of return.

It is especially galling at a time when the UK government is quite happy to throw taxpayers money at Portugal to help bail out its fiscal incontinence.

Icelanders have told the world that they are not responsible for governments promising to use their money to rescue those who chose to invest in a privately owned bank.  They are right.  They shouldn't be bullied to give up their money as a result.

The value of the African Union's deal on Libya

Nil.  Indeed it may make things worse.

Nothing at all.  It is because the African Union is an association of killers, rapists, thieves and scum of the earth.

The only compromise possible with murdering dictators is your own slavery.   Jacob Zuma came from Tripoli having "negotiated a ceasefire" with a man who happily uses jet fighters, artillery and snipers on his own people.  Why not "negotiate a ceasefire" with your next armed murderer?  Or perhaps this is what crime fighting is like in South Africa.

The African Union is chaired by none other than Obiang Nguema Mbasogo - President of Equatorial Guinea, since 1979, having undertaken a coup against his insanely drug riddled murdering uncle -Macias Nguema.   Equatorial Guinea has remained under the iron grip of Obiang, whilst he and his family, including his playboy son Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, enjoy the lavish wealth of one of Africa's richest oil-soaked countries, whilst most of the population remains illiterate and with a subsistence lifestyle.

The African Union has improved performance in recent years, suspending the Ivory Coast and Madagascar because of their political crises.  It should do the same for Libya.  The problem is Libya helps fund the kleptocratic scum and their comfy lifestyles.   Zimbabwe notably has also faced no real sanctions from the African Union.   It refuses to recognise the international arrest warrant that was imposed against Omar Bashir of Sudan in response to the massacred in Darfur.

In short, a club of scoundrels is not a reliable one to eject or punish one who acts as they do.

The rebels in Libya quite rightly are ignoring all of this.  Jacob Zuma, who leads a country that is increasingly looking more and more like a one-party state in practice if not in law, has no standing or credibility in Libya for anyone other than Gaddafi seeking power.