Most exciting UK election in ages? In one sense... (Part One)

That's the line being taken by the UK media, of course every election is presented as a "once in a lifetime" chance, when it rarely ever is.

What is deemed exciting is that the polls for the past few years have indicated that neither major party is likely to win a majority of seats.  There are two reasons for that.  

Firstly, boundary changes that were recommended by the Electoral Commission, but which perversely need Parliamentary approval to be implemented, have not been.  This is largely because the current boundaries tend to favour Labour and the Liberal Democrats, because both parties have constituencies that have proportionally fewer voters than the ones currently held by the Conservatives.  So some MPs represent fewer voters, meaning their votes count proportionally more than those in others.  The Liberal Democrats refused to support the boundary changes in coalition, so for the Conservatives to win a majority of seats, the party needs, on average a 4-5% higher share of the overall vote than Labour, which would (notwithstanding the next point) have more seats than the Conservatives, even if the Conservatives had a higher proportion of the vote.  Remember, this is still the vagaries of First Past the Post (and voters rejected a mild form of electoral reform in a 2011 referendum). 

Secondly, minor parties are making a significant impact, in varying ways.  Not the Liberal Democrats, who expect to get hit because a fair proportion of its voters didn't agree with it backing the Conservatives and may feel lucky to win half the current lot of seats.  UKIP is taking support from the Conservatives in the south, but also Labour in the north (it is polling a strong second in many traditional "safe" Labour seats, primarily because of immigration-phobia, but also perceptions that Labour is a party of the so-called "metropolitan elite". It will be pleased to get at least 3 seats. The Greens are having a small impact too, mainly taking some Liberal Democrat voters (as the Liberal Democrats were the green evangelists of the past) and Labour ones, although the Green run Brighton Council's disasters and the shockingly poor performance of Australian born (yes I don't know why Australian Greens migrate to pollute the planet with their ideas) leader Natalie Bennett.  It will be surprising if it wins more than the one it has at present.

Yet none of those parties is having the impact of one that has a much smaller percentage of the UK wide vote, but which could win more seats than the Liberal Democrats, UKIP and the Greens combined.  It is the Scottish National Party.  Fresh from losing the independence referendum, it has rallied the 45% support that the independence idea gained into direct electoral support.  It is eviscerating both Labour and the Liberal Democrats in Scotland, and is looking like winning most seats there.  By wiping 30-40 seats from Labour's tally of "safe seats", it looks highly unlikely that Labour could win a majority.  

So, the most likely outcomes of the election are for the largest party to try to cobble together a coalition or series of confidence and supply agreements, with one, two or even more parties, and to fail and find the second largest tries the same.

From a psephological point of view it is interesting.  The Conservatives could pair with the Liberal Democrats again, and possibly UKIP, and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland might back the Conservatives, perhaps the Alliance Party could too.  However, the Greens, SNP, Plaid Cymru and the SDLP (from Northern Ireland) have all indicated they would "block" a Conservative government, and so might back Labour.  The Liberal Democrats have said the largest party in Parliament is the one it would most likely work with, but UKIP is highly unlikely to go with Labour.  The DUP hasn't ruled out supporting Labour as long as Northern Ireland got its pound of pork.  Meanwhile, Sinn Fein wont take up its seats, although there have been rumours of Labour-Sinn Fein discussions.

So from a pure who does what with whom equation, it's interesting.

My suspicion is that there will be another election later this year.

However, in terms of the variety of what is on offer, it is more nomenclature than substance, as I will write about shortly.

Proper political interviews from the UK...

Whether he stays or goes should be irrelevant, because incisive political interviewing on New Zealand television is, at best, as scarce as a Macaya Breast Spot Frog.

So for my kiwi friends, I thought I'd show you what exactly you are missing out on.  Bear in mind that while the UK is not devoid of decent political interviewing, it isn't common here, and the best of the current lot - Andrew Neil - has been prohibited, by the Conservative and Labour Parties, from interviewing the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.

Why?  Because he asks straight questions, seeks sources, has research done to find contradictions between statements of others from the same party, stops politicians taking over interviews and refuses to let evasive answers be tolerated.

Enjoy, imagine this in New Zealand.... (and yes I know Lindsay Perigo would deliver, but New Zealand broadcasters have been braindead on current affairs for over 20 years now, so I've lost all hope)

Exhibit 1:  At 4:09 watch Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett get grilled on the parties far left spending spree lunacy and economic illiteracy, and belief that belonging to ISIS and Al Qaeda shouldn't be a crime in itself.

Exhibit 2: At 4:00, watch Labour Deputy Leader Harriet Harman tie herself up in her own party's policy contradictions, helped along by a proper interview.   

Exhibit 3: At 4:05  watch UKIP Leader Nigel Farage get grilled about the comments of some candidates (this is a year ago, before two Conservative MPs resigned, defected to UKIP and got re-elected at by-elections)

Exhibit 4: From the start, Scottish National Party Deputy Leader quizzed over its policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament.

Exhibit 5: From 1:55 Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Liberal Democrat MP Danny Alexander, on the failures of increasing capital gains tax to raise additional revenue, including near the end, the Liberal Democrats not having paid the bill for policing at its previous conference.

Exhibit 6: From 1:04, Transport Secretary, Conservative MP Patrick McLoughlin, confronted about security at railway stations, environmental approach to transport.

 and more if you like....

John Pilger – hyperbolic fiction writer and fan of Putinesque fascism

For many years John Pilger has been the pinup polemicist of the far-left, he takes evidence and facts of actual situations, and uses them to justify his inevitable conclusion that some atrocities, suffering or disaster is the fault of Western governments and businesses.  Of course, like any decent polemicist he takes quite a bit of accuracy, points that are difficult to refute, and then uses it to hitch onto his predetermined line.

The enemy of humanity is capitalism and Western liberal democracy, and humanity’s friends are those who accept governance by socialists, nationalists, theocrats and other leaders who epitomise opposition to those enemies.  By contrast, he depicts Putin’s Russia as a proud sovereign state, ignoring blithely its suppression of dissent, and the vast corporatist gangster run corrupt economy it represents.   I can only guess it is because it reminds Pilger of his beloved USSR.

Now he has let out a vituperative narrative about the globalsituation that is long, but starts with treating the United States as morally equivalent to Nazi Germany, which should be enough to tell you what he is, a raving charlatan:

 

Had the Nazis not invaded Europe, Auschwitz and the Holocaust would not have happened. Had the United States and its satellites not initiated their war of aggression in Iraq in 2003, almost a million people would be alive today; and Islamic State, or ISIS, would not have us in thrall to its savagery.

It’s history for simpletons, and is almost laughably childish.  Yes, Auschwitz would not have happened as such as it was in Poland, but to claim that the Nazis would not have committed genocide in Germany before then is ludicrous.  To claim “almost a million” people would be alive today had Iraq not been invaded, is equally ludicrous.  Even the controversial Iraq Body Count website counts a total of one-third of that figure.  To claim even that presumes the Hussein demagogues would have not executed opponents, not invaded neighbours and not spawned proxy attacks in the Middle East.  Pilger, you see, treats the Hussein regime as having moral legitimacy and a right to exist.   It also ignores the inconvenient truth that most of the deaths were due to insurgents Pilger and his ilk supported.   

You can’t have it both ways, supporting terrorists resisting the invasion, and then blaming the other side for the people they massacre.

Furthermore, to blame ISIS on this is even more ludicrous.  ISIS was spawned in Syria, as resistance against the Assad regime (which Pilger implicitly supports, and which has always been aligned with the USSR/Russia historically), it spread to Iraq due to sectarian bigotry of the Iraqi government supported by Iran (another regime Pilger implicitly supports).  

I could go on, as pulling apart Pilger is like the proverbial shooting fish in a barrel, it’s too easy. However, given it’s too easy, I’d thought I’d summarise his turgid piece into a series of bullet points, you’ll get the picture rather quickly:

Greece votes for a dream, and it is only that

The news that Greece looks like getting a far-left government let by the soft communist Syriza Party has excited some commentators, but what is perhaps most deceptive is the claim that it is a "rejection of austerity", as if the choices to Greek people were like a menu.

In fact, the choices are far more stark, because what Greek politics is and has been ever since it joined the Euro (indeed one could say ever since it joined the European Economic Community), is an exercise is mass deception and reality evasion.

The troubles of the Greek economy are not due to "the Germans", nor are they due to "the bankers", they are due to the peculiar, though not unique, mismatch between the part of Greek society that wants money from the state (and protection for their businesses or jobs), and the part that doesn't trust the state at all, to the point that it egregiously evades taxation on a grand scale.

This mismatch used to be managed by stealthily stealing from most ordinary Greek people through continual devaluation of the drachma. 

Then it was covered by structural adjustment transfers from the EEC/EU, as Greece gained money to build transport, energy and civic infrastructure, and of course the ongoing subsidies for its agricultural sector.   When it joined the Euro, the Greek government gained access to easy borrowing in a hard currency at low interest rates, so it ran further deficits.  The OECD describes Greece's economy as thus:

In Greece, economic difficulties go deeper than the direct effects of the recent crisis and fiscal consolidation is urgent. Difficulties have been brewing for years, so when the crisis came, Greece was significantly more exposed than others. Besides the severity of its fiscal problems, Greece has, over the past several years, gradually but persistently lost international cost competitiveness, resulting in widening current account deficits, a deteriorating international investment position, and a poor record of inward foreign direct investment. 

Greece has a highly regulated protected economy, with a bloated state sector. 

Syriza wants to protect the economy even further, increase the state sector even further, cut taxes and thinks that banks in other countries, supported by taxpayers in northern European Eurozone states, will help Greece out.

There are, in effect, two paths.

Either a renegotiation of existing loans to be written off or extended is achieved, and Syriza quietly folds its promises on state sector pay, free electricity (indeed any further giveaways), and Greece remains in stasis.  or

Greece defaults on debts and leaves the Euro.

In the former scenario, it looks like at best Greece might get some easing of terms of debt repayment, but the idea that it will get half of its debt written off again, is unlikely, given the previous deal saw private Greek government bondholders accept a 50% write down of debt.  There is little real chance the Greek government could get anything from the private sector, so any further loans will be government to government.  

If Greece gets the sort of deal Syriza hopes for, it will set a precedent that Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and even French and Belgian governments will want to replicate.  At that point, you would have to wonder how much tolerance voters in Germany, the Netherlands, Finland would have for propping up their profligate southern neighbours (let alone the former communist bloc countries that went through much more radical and painful structural reforms than Greece should be facing). 

The real risk is that voters in those countries eject governments that agree to bail out other governments with their money.  After all, who wants to be seen to be bailing out Italy?  German guilt over the war can't be stretched that far.   It threatens unravelling the Euro and even the entire EU project, as parties like Syriza effectively want a fortress Europe that looks closer to the former COMECON than a customs union.

The latter scenario has seemed less likely, but I'm not so sure.  A deal gets offered to Greece that extends the terms for existing loans, in the hope that Greece engages in reforms, but ultimately Greece will run out of money.  At that point, it faces either not paying its pensions or public sector workers, or issuing a new currency, and then the Greek economy finally collapses under the weight of its fundamental contradiction.  A western European standard of living cannot be sustained with an economy that is akin to a wealthy developing country, 

The only solution to this is to reduce the costs of doing business, address the corruption within the regulatory/subsidy/state contract/tax system, remove protection for existing businesses (and jobs) and to cut the role of the state, while enabling the state to be more effective in carrying out its core responsibilities.

However, the outgoing Greek government only made modest progress on this, and Syriza is philosophically opposed to making life easier for the private sector.  Syriza believes in the state owning larger businesses and licensing/protecting smaller businesses.  It believes in a generous welfare state and public sector, and wants lower taxes on everyone except the "rich", who of course have either already left or have at least set up their accounts in a way that they are away from the hands of the taxman.

Even if Syriza does get a deal that avoids a default, it will only delay the next crisis.  An anti-business, anti-free enterprise party will continue to strangle Greece just like similar policies have done for many years.  

What's bizarre is that Greece's northern neighbours have faced much more serious levels of reform and restructuring in the past twenty years than it needs to, but they did it.  Bulgaria and Albania are both much poorer than Greece on a per capita GDP basis, but have economies in much better shape. 

The tragedy is that too many Greeks have voted for a dream that they too can convince taxpayers in other countries to buy them a standard of living they don't earn themselves, and that they can convince banks and other private investors to risk their money with a government that is unwilling to pay them back.  It is a dream, and it is about to become a nightmare. 

What I wrote before about Greece, two years ago, remains true.  

What went wrong with Greece

Greek voters have rational choices, but they reject them

Greece's tragedy should be a lesson to all

Greece for dummies. Austerity = living within your means

Greek crisis is a taste of things to come

Greece is collapse under the weight of its own contradictions

Greece's socialism catching up

Page 3, libertarian techniques for authoritarian gains

There are two dimensions to the #nomorepage3 campaign that has been waged by leftwing British feminists against The Sun newspaper that I agree with.

Firstly, it is avowedly libertarian to ask, rather than force, a publication to not publish something you don't like, and to ask people to boycott it.   By and large the campaign has been about persuasion, not force.  However, that's about as far as that goes.

Secondly, I personally find the page 3 topless image in a newspaper to be rather dated and not so interesting.  If they disappear for commercial reasons, I wont care.

However, every other side to the campaign is quite odious, patronising and fundamentally Orwellian in its philosophical position.  The reasons for the campaign are claims that publishing images of topless women "objectifies" them, portrays the view that "women only exist as sexual objects and nothing else" or even that it promotes the latest trendy slogan "rape culture".

It is only when you deconstruct the reality behind the photographing and publishing of the image, and the alleged contribution to crimes that the insidious authoritarianism of the position is apparent.

1.  The opinion of the model is deemed irrelevant:  Bearing in mind that the women that appear in The Sun choose to do so, and apparently get paid rather well for it, it is curious that their opinions are dismissed by the feminist left.  In an almost archetypal example of the sort of "class-bias" that the feminist left sometimes rally against, these women are treated as though their views don't matter.   This is exactly what the feminist left accuse "the patriarchy" of doing, but they do it to the women who they presume are not university educated or who are complicit with the patriarchy (bearing in mind that the most radical feminists eschew men for political reasons altogether). 

Here are women, who through their own conscious volition (which the feminist left would stand up for in respect of many other choices regarding their bodies, like marrying another women, getting pregnant, not getting pregnant, having an abortion) choose to expose their breasts for a camera for a newspaper.  The women are not forced to do it, the newspaper is not forced to print it, and nobody is forced to buy the newspaper (and many others are on the market).  Of course, those opposed to "page 3 girls" don't buy the newspaper, which is entirely appropriate.

Even worse are some who will claim the model is a "victim", even though none of the models believe themselves to be victims.  This is classic totalitarian psychology, whereby you seek to convince someone who has made their own choices and decisions that somehow, someone has taken advantage of you and that your decisions were made fraudulently.   The "victims" don't understand that they are victims, and if only they understood the philosophical position of the protestors, they would realise they are being exploited.

Yet in this totalitarian world view, if the women don't accept that position and even actively argue against it, they are dismissed as being "victims" or worse, "sell-outs".  There is no scope for ideological plurality in their world.  At no point does the feminist left think that the point of view of the women posing really matters, because they look down on them and diminish their minds, in exactly the way they accuse men of doing.

2. They speak for "all women":  Frequently the claim is made that the image "objectifies women" or "makes them look like they are just sexual objects", on the basis that women never want to be seen that way or thought that way.  For those asserting this, it may be perfectly valid and indeed for most women most of the time, this may be true.  It is unlikely that most people want to spend their entire day being treated by others as a potential sex partner rather than whatever other roles they pursue in life.  Of course, the likelihood of this happening will tend to reflect how relatively physically attract someone is compared to others of their sex, and the demographic of those they interact with. Healthy, fit, attractive young women will get looked at by men (and some women) because they are sexually attractive.  Indeed, sometimes, some women dress and present themselves so they can be seen that way, they want, sometimes, to be seen sexually by men.  That's their choice, as appalling as it may seem to the feminist left.  Again, the feminist left would ignore women making that choice, or say they are obviously "victims", perhaps playing out "sexual abuse" they experienced from men.  However, once again, the totalitarian world view comes out that women should never be treated as sexual objects, and those that choose to do so, need help.   Women can't be free to choose to seek to be seen in whatever way they wish, they must fit the "accepted" range of the feminist left.

3. They seek to end thought crimes:  The end result of the proposed ban is to "stop women being seen as sexual objects", but of course the people they want to stop doing this are men.  They want to stop men thinking, talking and acting certain ways.  Certainly any libertarian would agree that anyone who assaults another sexually is behaving immorally and criminally. Beyond that, it is rude, condescending and stupid to treat most women like that most of the time.  Most employers do not tolerate it, and most women (and many men) quite readily patrol such behaviour.   This is entirely how it should be.  People should treat each other with respect, and it is entirely appropriate for people to campaign to change behaviour that is not criminal.

Yet the feminist left want to go further than that.  In seeking to "stop women being seen as sexual objects" they are seeking a sanitisation of human discourse.  You can see this overlapping with the strenous and successful efforts to regulate sexual behaviour on US university campuses, with the odious concept of "affirmative consent".

If you're unfamiliar with "affirmative consent" it is an attempt to regulate how individuals pair up sexually.  The intention is to reaffirm that just because a woman kisses a man, doesn't mean she consents to intercourse, and it is intended to confirm that if, during any encounter, a woman says no, then it should stop.  In itself, it is difficult to disagree with that intention, but its implementation and net effect is effectively sanitising every step of a sexual encounter by requiring that the man (it is always about men seeking consent from women, other couplings are not considered to be an issue) gain consent for every placement of his hands, mouth, genitals with a women.  "Can I touch you there..?" is required at each step, and at any point if he doesn't obtain consent, and touches her, it is sexual assault and it's all over.   The attempt to sanitise intimate human relations to the point that "can I kiss your neck" "can i kiss your breasts" "can I kiss you belly" becomes what is required at every step without a man being accused of sexual assault,  will kill it.  Particularly given that "affirmative consent" advocates seek such consent, on every occasion, regardless of the nature of your relationship.  If you cannot kiss another whom you have been in a steady loving relationship with for some time, without asking explicit permission, then it loses its appeal.  Indeed, it fundamentally undermines having relationships of trust and the expression of spontaneous affection, which many people enjoy receiving.

The feminist left want page 3 shut down because they want to control what people think, and what they do:

-  Women shouldn't consent to having photos taken of themselves with their breasts exposed;

-  Newspapers shouldn't print those images;

-  People shouldn't look at such images;  

-  Women shouldn't want to be seen as sexual objects;

-  Men shouldn't think of women as sexual objects.

If you deviate from this, you're either a man and so sexist and part of the "rape culture" (consider just what that actually means for those accused, but also how much that diminishes the agency of actual rapists), or you're a women who is either an uneducated "victim" or a traitor to her sisters.

So when it comes down to it, while I'm relaxed about whether The Sun publishes tits or not, I am not relaxed about the philosophy that drives those campaigning against it.  When Islamism, which threatens to treat women as chattels, continues to grow.  When women in the UK of minority backgrounds find it hard to fight misogny within their communities, because the left gives those minorities a "free pass" of "victimhood and disadvantage", you'd think the feminist left would have plenty of targets to focus on whereby women face actual violence.   The blindspots towards sexism within some Muslim communities is palpable, but remember the feminist left police the views within their community like Maoist Red Guards.

Instead, they cling to their 1970s campaigning, at a time when most people can find countless images of women naked online with a series of clicks, many of whom took the image themselves, so they could be admired sexually.

Unless they want to join religious fundamentalists in a new call for censorship of images of womens' bodies, the feminist left might be better just letting newspapers like The Sun, make their own decisions based on what their readers want, or if they think the models are exploited, convince them of the merits of their case.   Better yet, how about re-evaluating their entire philosophical premise - that women should all think the same as they do.