Why is the Census compulsory while voting isn’t?
The census form in particular is an impressive-looking beast: at 32 sickly mauve pages, each stuffed with text and speckled with tickboxes.
But more interesting is the seven-word dictum that greets you cheerlessly before you even open the envelope: your census response is required by law.
This is in contrast to the local elections paraphernalia coming soon to a doormat near you: registration forms, confirmation forms, polling cards; all labelled “important”, but not actually necessary.
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Rejoice! Cameron is planning to take over the No2AV campaign
David Cameron is seriously worried about losing the AV referendum. You don’t have to believe me on that, just listen to the whispers across the media landscape.
The upside looks to be that the Conservative party will effectively take over the No2AV operation and Cameron will front it. I am more than happy for this to happen. The downside is that they are planning to pour more of their City-backed money into the campaign.
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How Ed Miliband could win the AV vote for Labour
Having tied himself firmly to the mast, Ed Miliband has a vested interest in ensuring the referendum on Alternative Vote is won.
There are, of course, snags. There’s little that can be done about the dishonest advertising campaign claiming that it will cost £250m. But another problem looms for him: how the referendum is being framed. And this is where the Yes camp has failed.
The No2AV campaign illustrates how our democracy is up for sale
Imagine if you had a few millions to spare, and had deep vested interests in influencing an upcoming election or a referendum. Would you donate some of the money to a political party? Perhaps.
Instead, why not set up your own front organisation? You can use that to bombard people with political ads online as well as in print, without any real scrutiny. Surely that’s better than donating money to a party and then hoping for kickbacks?
In effect, that is the regime we have right now.
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Two reasons why Libdems might not benefit from AV
For everyone, from the BBC and Peter Kellner to Nick Clegg himself, there are assumptions that LibDems will benefit from the referendum in May.
And after all, haven’t the LibDems in the past suffered a good deal from the ‘wasted vote’ argument, which AV would put an end to?
But there are two good reasons why this might not happen.
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Alternative Vote contains FPTP within it
As a #Yes2AV supporter, I am sometimes asked this question: “Will there be an option, in AV, to just vote for one party when not wanting any of the others in at all?”
The answer is YES. Under AV, if you simply place a ’1′ next to your favoured candidate (rather than a cross), then you are voting as if it is FPTP (the current system), and that is completely allowed.
In fact, there is a very important point here: It really is unnecessary for FPTP-lovers to oppose AV at all. FPTP is ‘contained within’ AV.
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The UK a safe-haven for terrorists? Try war criminals
contribution by Spencer Wright
In a dusty corner of the Coalition’s new Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill lie a series of amendments that really have failed to gain the mass audience they deserve. Hidden away under a rather dimly lit “Miscellaneous” sub-heading, is Section 151 – “Restriction on issue of arrest warrants in private prosecutions”.
The origins of that section lie in events a year ago, when an arrest warrant was issued by a senior judge in Westminster against former Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, for her part in the attack against Gaza in 2008/9.
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The law doesn’t apply to policemen spraying CS gas
contribution by Gary Dunion
When asking where was the Met’s Defence Council authorisation to carry pepper spray or CS gas, I was missing something.
I assumed it would be an obscure Amendment Act or similar, but it turned out to be a giant elephant in the room.
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The free market and political establishment is betraying us
contribution by Ben Beach
General strikes and unrest have engulfed tens of millions, from Algeria and Iran, Tunisia and Egypt, Greece and France to Spain and Portugal. Here, the biggest student movement in decades has occupied scores of universities, organised massive demonstrations and precipitated national acts of civil disobedience.
All of these movements have a common theme – nothing less than the fundamental remaking of society.
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The government should consider weekend voting to increase turnout
The political reform agenda is likely to be dominated by a spring referendum on the alternative vote and a promise to bring proportional representation to the House of Lords.
But there are two much smaller ideas the government should look to pilot during the year; 2011 should see weekend voting and increasing the number of polling stations tested out.
Raising turnout in public elections is a widely shared aimed that rapidly runs into two difficulties.
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A new report shows why ‘the Big Society’ won’t really work
A major new survey shows that the recession has increased the demand for charities’ services at the same time as the cuts and the increase in VAT will make it harder for charities to provide those services.
The survey found that:
not only will the sector be hit by departmental spending cuts, but also by decreases in other sources of income. This is largely due to market forces and decreases in the general public’s disposable income. We expect that the cuts, particularly those to welfare, will increase demand for services, causing further pressure for charities to meet beneficiaries’ needs.
Why local and national referendums are a really bad idea
contribution by Paul Evans
In the not too-distant, we are going to be offered a referendum to decide which voting system we prefer in the UK and Northern Ireland. This is the equivalent of being offered a trial-by-combat to decide who should be awarded a peace prize.
Referendums have very little by way of respectability in terms of making voting fair. Nor are they widely seen as a means of forming good policies. Yet they have gradually slipped into the British constitution in recent years without much by way of discussion.
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Thrashing royal Rollers: some public relations tips
IT IS entirely possible that the people who smashed up the royal Rolls Royce last night do not have McCann Erickson, Burson-Marsteller or Weber Shandwick on a retainer, and are largely making up their public relations strategy as they go along. And Daily Telegraph commentator Damian Thompson is clearly a man who can spot rank amateurism when he sees it.
What happened to the heir to the throne and his wife constitutes ‘a richly-deserved PR disaster’ for the anti-tuition fees cause, he opines today. The thing is, all the PRs I know – and like most journos, I know scores of the air-kissy darlings – seem to measure their performance in column inches.
Labour Yes! campaign unites party on vote reform
The Guardian reports Labour leader Ed Miliband’s support for the launch of a Labour Yes! group which will campaign for Labour voters to vote Yes in the referendum on the Alternative Vote.
This confirms the party leader’s commitment, in his first conference speech as leader, to supporting a change in the voting system.
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Help clean up Corporate Lobbying in Brussels
contribution by Nishma Doshi
Public spending cuts, tax evasion and the lack of proper financial regulation – these are the “solutions” to a financial crisis and a recession.
Instead of investigating as to why the banks collapsed or even considering regulating them to ensure that this never happens again, the European Union has handed bankers a blank cheque, supporting bail outs and demanding austerity when governments find themselves in dire straits.
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Four questions Labour will have to ask over voting reform
Former Cabinet minister Ben Bradshaw is to lead a Labour campaign for a Yes vote in the Alternative Vote, it is reported in today’s Guardian.
Fittingly for Labour’s contribution to a pluralist campaign, the Labour Yes campaign will engage a very wide range of Labour voices, with Compass and Progress from the left and right of the party joining forces too.
Ed Miliband has committed to supporting a Yes vote and I expect that most prominent Labour figures will also do so. But others in the party are uncertain or agnostic.
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The danger for Labour if it supports AV reform
Jackie Ashley argues this morning that it is in Labour’s strategic interests to campaign for the Alternative Vote (AV) should a referendum be held on electoral reform next year.
She argues that if it fails to do so then the party would be putting tactics before strategy.
If only the decision the Labour party faced on whether to put their full weight behind a yes vote was so simple.
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#IagreewithHarriet – sign our open letter backing expulsion of Woolas
On Friday, after Phil Woolas was found guilty of lying in his election leaflets, Labour’s Deputy Leader Harriet Harman took the obvious and common sense decision to announce that he would be suspended from the Labour Party and that Labour wouldn’t be wasting its limited resources on helping him launch an appeal.
Today, we hear reports that some Labour MPs have told her that she is a “disgrace”, that “she should consider her position”, and that there was “real anger” at the event, with a lot of “shouting” from enraged MPs, as a result of this decision.
As a grassroots Labour supporter, I am sickened by this kind of self-indulgent behaviour.
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How Scotland Yard is back-tracking on the phone hacking case
This morning three newspapers report on their front-page that Scotland Yard is looking into re-opening the phone-hacking enquiry.
Putting Coulson aside for a minute, their approach to this investigation stank from the beginning and this u-turn is no different.
Late last night the New York Times also hit back at the Met – saying outright they obstructed the paper’s own investigations.
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Exposed: how Tories run the ‘No-2-AV’ campaign
It was revealed yesterday that the founder and Chief Executive of TaxPayers’ Alliance, Matthew Elliott, had stepped down from day-to-day running to lead the ‘No’ campaign in advance of May referendum on the ‘Alternative Vote’ system.
The press release says that Elliott “has accepted an invitation to lead the ‘No’ campaign in next year’s referendum”.
So we called the ‘No 2 AV’ campaign up to find out more.
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