You know AV makes sense.
The arguments just needed to be put in a way that even a man can understand.
Vote yes next Thursday – unfortunately we can’t promise free beer. 😦
Monthly Archives: Apr 2011
AV is the Only Game in Town.
Jonathan Freedland in today’s Guardian tells us why we need to vote yes to the Alternative Vote on May the 5th. Most people in favour of a proportional system of electing our government will fully acknowledge that it is in Nick Clegg’s words a ‘Baby step on the way to Electoral Reform’. But it is a crucial step, it is the first step on the way to meaningful reform and if we do not take it, there will be no more steps for a long time.
We can argue the merits of Single Transferable Vote over the Additional Member System ’till we are blue, red, yellow or green in the face. We can agree that either would be infinitely superior to AV, but what we can’t do is refuse to vote for AV because it doesn’t give us everything we want.
Jonathan Freedland concludes with this lesson from Australia:
Of course AV is miles from perfect, even if it does allow voters to express more fully their true preferences; most reformers would prefer PR. But it’s naive to think that defeat next week would keep progressives’ powder dry, allowing for a future push for full-blooded electoral reform. That’s rarely how politics works. It’s success, not failure, that breeds success.
That lesson was taught in 1999, when Australia held a referendum on whether to remove the Queen as head of state. The alternative on offer was another “miserable little compromise” – with MPs, not the people, electing a new head of state – and some republicans preferred to let it fail and wait for something better. They’re still waiting – and Elizabeth II is still Queen of Australia.
Let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good
A lower fat pasta sauce
To appease my sister who seemed to think that my previous pasta sauce recipe would quadruple the incidence of heart disease in the United Kingdom.
This is the classic ‘Pomodoro e Basilico’. (Tomato and Basil if you don’t speak Italian), traditionally served with spaghetti or tagliatelle, but it goes with almost any pasta you can think of.
The chilli is optional, but it does give the sauce a bit of a lift, the sugar is there to counterbalance the acidity in the tomatoes.
Ingredients (for about six portions)
- 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 3 x 400g cans of chopped tomatoes
- ¼ – ½ tsp dried chilli flakes
- 2 tsp balsamic vinegar
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1 large handful basil leaves, torn into small pieces
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- Grated Parmesan and/or Percorino cheese, to serve
Preparation method
Heat the oil in a saucepan and gently cook the onion and garlic until softened. Stir in the tomatoes, chilli flakes, balsamic vinegar and sugar. Bring to a simmer and cook slowly for 45 minutes-1 hour. Stir in the basil and season with salt and pepper. This can be left chunky or blended in a food processor for a smooth sauce.
Serve spooned over cooked pasta with plenty of Parmesan/Percorino cheese.
My Favorite Pasta Sauce – Pancetta & Blue Cheese
This is my favorite, at the moment, recipe for a pasta sauce. I think that it works best with Penne or Fusilli but try it with any other pasta other than possibly the stuffed pastas like Tortelloni or Ravioli and it will probably be fine.
I use Dolcelatte cheese but Gorgonzola is equally good. Vegetarians can leave out the pancetta and possibly up the cheese slightly.
It is dead simple to make and can be knocked up not much more than ten minutes
Ingredients (for 2 to 3 servings)
- about 100 g pasta per person
- 100g cubed pancetta
- 100ml double cream
- 30 g Dolcelatte cheese
Method
Cook the pasta until it is al dente. The cooking instructions should give you a clue about the length of time that will take, normally about 10 to 15 minutes for dried pasta. Ignore any instructions written in German.
While the pasta is cooking, fry the pancetta in its own fat, add the cream and the cheese stir until the cheese melts. Let it bubble for a couple of minutes, then toss the pasta in it.
Serve with good bread and a cheap Italian red.
Lessons in basic economics No1
Reading this article (Investing in a vineyard? Beware grapes of wrath) in today’s Observer reminded me of an old joke.
Q: “How do you make a small fortune out of owning a vineyard in France?
A: “Start with a large fortune.”
Hazel Dickens
I’m not sure exactly when and where I first became aware of the singing and the songs of Hazel Dickens. In fact I am certain that I had heard and sung along to some of her great Union ballads years before I discovered that she had written them.
Hazel died yesterday (22nd April 2011) aged 75 (obituary here) having sung and fought for working people, especially coal miners and women all her life. She was born and brought up in the West Virginia coalfields. Her voice was unmistakable. Her singing was a major influence on Emmylou Harris and many other ‘Americana’ and modern Bluegrass artists.
Billy Bragg left this tribute to her on his facebook page.
Just heard the sad news that the bluegrass performer Hazel Dickens has died. She was a great union supporting singer and songwriter in the tradition of Aunt Molly Jackson and Florence Reece, who wrote ‘Which Side Are You On’. I had the pleasure of doing a miners benefit with her in Chapel Hill North Carolina in 1988. She also recorded the definitive version of ‘Long Black Veil’ with Alice Gerrard in the 1960s
I’ll leave you my favourite song of hers.
If you get the X-Factor you will get AV
Johann Hari reckons that if you can get the voting system of the X-Factor you will get AV .This is absolutely correct. The X-Factor works on a form of AV. If your favourite was voted out this week, then you are perfectly free to vote for your next favourite singer next week. If you hate all of the remaining artists you are perfectly free not to vote. The only real difference being that you can buy as many votes as you want/can afford. (I’m sure that introducing this idea into national elections has occurred to at least some members of the Tory party)
Later on in the piece he makes this comment:
All this is a shame, because there is a real criticism of AV that has gone unheard. It’s that it doesn’t go nearly far enough. Nick Clegg once called it “a miserable little compromise”, and there’s some truth in that. Sauced with plenty of irony, AV wouldn’t be my first preference.
Let me explain. In Britain today, we have a centre-left majority who want this to be a country with European-level taxes, European-standard public services and European-level equality. We have had this for a very long time. Even at the height of Thatcherism, 56 per cent of people voted for parties committed to higher taxes and higher spending. But the centre-left vote is split between several parties – while the right-wing vote clusters around the Conservatives. So under FPTP they get to rule and dominate out of all proportion to their actual support, and drag most of us in a direction we don’t want to go. That’s why the Tories are united in supporting the current system, and throwing a fortune at preventing any change.
He is completely correct, AV doesn’t go nearly far enough.Johann would have us adopt AV+ whereas I would prefer STV. But we will save our differences on that until next time.
At the moment we are both agreed that the important thing is to win the referendum on May 5th, because defeat will consign any hope of voting reform to the dustbin for a generation.
Forget about the co-option of Labour dinosaurs like John Reid and Margaret Beckett, the No to AV campaign is a Tory campaign, funded by large amounts of Tory money. The are fighting AV because the know that there is no way that they can ever command a true majority of the vote, but want to be able to rule the country with 40% or less of the electorate supporting them
The No to AV campaing claims AV will cause spoilt Ballot Papers
The Evening Standard published a story on 7th April claiming that adopting the Alternative Vote (AV) will lead to more ballot papers being spoiled
Adopting the Alternative Vote (AV) for Westminster elections is likely to lead to more spoilt ballot papers and lower turnout, campaigners against reform claimed today.
No to AV published research highlighting the “damaging” effects of the relative complexity of AV compared with the existing first-past-the-post system.
It suggested that elections in which AV was used had higher rates of accidentally spoilt papers and fewer people taking part.
Completing the AV ballot paper is I must admit slightly more complex than completing a First Past The Post ballot paper. It does require that you can count up to, probably about twelve at a maximum and recognise the numbers and write the appropriate numbers. Now most five-year old kids can manage to count and write the numbers up to ten, so hopefully by the time they get to voting age they will have added to their repertoire.
The fact that we have been electing the Mayor of London using AV for the past three Mayoral elections without too much drama does not appear to have occurred to the writer, but never mind don’t let the facts get in the way of a story.
The custom of putting an ‘X’ in the box alongside the name of our favoured  candidate is presumably two-fold, to ensure that the illiterate were not disenfranchised*, and  to reduce the possibility of the voter being identified**.  However working on the theory that complete illiteracy is less common than in the 1880’s I hope that the vast majority of the electorate can count up to twenty, even if the ‘No to AV campaign’ have to take their shoes and socks of to do it.
It should also be pointed out that there is no need to use your Alternative Vote, if you only want to acknowledge the Tory candidate put your 1 in his or her box and leave the others blank. In fact if only one candidate was being ranked , I’m fairly sure that the returning officer would accept an ‘X’ in that box as being a valid vote.
*Â How they knew who they were voting for I don’t know.
** If the powers that be want to know how you voted, believe me they can find out – those numbers on your ballot paper aren’t just to help them count how many have been used.
A new poster for the No to AV Campaign
I think this sums up most of the arguments of the No to AV mob.
The Alternative Vote system is not perfect, but it does ensure that the winning candidate has the approval to a greater or lesser extent of at least 50% of the electorate. The current system allows a candidate to be elected with the approval of as little as 30% of their constituents.
Dark Skies
I grew up on a farm in the Scottish Borders. The nearest house to the one we lived in was about quarter of a mile away, the nearest town was about seven miles away and the nearest city about fifty miles away. When I went outside on a clear moonless night I have no idea how many stars I could see. Above me the of the universe was on display. Later in life I earned my living at sea. Sitting on the fo’c’sle on a warm tropical night looking up at the strange – to northern eyes – stars of the Southern Hemisphere is a memory I will always cherish. Now I live in the South London suburbs, I once counted the stars I could see on a clear moonless night. There were 42 visible. Where have all the stars I marvelled at in my youth gone. They are all still there. But our insistence that there be no difference between daylight and night drowns them out.
About two weeks ago we observed Earth Hour. We switched our lights off at 20:30, and discovered that with the light from the street lights at the front of the house, and our neighbour’s ‘security’ (as in blanket) light at the back, there was enough light, if not to read by, but to do most things.
Read On
A Scotsman in Suburbia 