Politics and Current Affairs on nostuff.org archive | Chris Keene

Listening to music in three parts

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 23:38:48 +0000

Part 1 Listening to digital music

I have this theory. In fact I have lots of theories. But for the rest of this paragraph I will restrain myself to blessing you with just one. My theory is that we are all moving to digital music before we are ready for it.

I mean listening to it on an iphone/ipad thing, sure fine. We’re all doing that ok. But in the house? or in the car? How do you listen to it there?

Elected Police Commissioners

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 22:13:30 +0000

In 25 days time England and Wales will elect Police and Crime Commissioners for the first time.

Many are cynical that this will politicize high level decisions by the Police, which it will almost certainly will to some extent, but mostly people seem indifferent or simply unaware.

Me. I hoped that the candidates would not be politically aligned with parties, that we could judge them based on their policies and priorities, not because they are connected to the party we usually vote for. But this was always nothing but naive.

Underclass

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 14:54:23 +0000

What’s clear over the last few days is that there is a underclass that remains – normally – hidden from the rest of society.

If you’re reading this in August, try the following link, for me, an eye opening interview with Camilla Batmanghelidjh, director of Kids Company. It starts 11 minutes in, do listen.

It seems clear this is a vicious circle, many are automatically condemned from the day they are born. Society fails them.

UK deficit and protest

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 20:55:50 +0000

The large peaceful protests on Saturday were a success. Clearly Cameron and Osborne (and the little work experience boy standing closely behind them) did not come out and announce an immediate reversal of policy. But the need to think about what these cuts are doing to jobs, living standards and essentially services hopefully will be strong in the mind. Few politicians, no matter how ideological, want to ignore the views of a decent proportion of the public. And while U-turns are unlikely, the knowledge the further cuts announcements will lead to even stronger anger will be hopefully reduced the gun-ho spirit that the Tories have gone about them so far.

Political reform : some quick thoughts

Sat, 15 May 2010 17:57:24 +0000

Suddenly PR is in the limelight and seems to be getting support from those disaffected by politics in the UK. I&#8217;ve long been pondering about how it is best to govern this country. Mainly about where power lies: The UK, nations, regions, counties, local councils, etc.

Some thoughts:

We need a Constitution. No “we’ve already got the Magna Carta” is not a valid answer.
The Lords needs thinking about. Almost removing hereditary peers has been a massive step. An elected upper chamber is the obvious solution. Though I’m not 100% behind it. Voting brings in a whole range of cons, pandering to popular opinion, short term-ism, and attracting those who want to be ‘politicians’. The current setup, for all its faults, avoids some of this. Appointing ‘good people’ to a upper house has merits and when it works it ensures a group of generally wise people with varied experience and skills can debate and pass legislation. The problem with elected members is that only a small set of people want to stand for election, canvas for votes, etc… and they generally are not the best for the job.
However, ‘who selects who sits in the Lords’, and ‘how do they ensure a balanced upper house’ are questions that are hard to answer, and maybe an elected upper house is the only workable solution. If so, I would want long terms (10 years for example) to avoid short term thinking, and measures to avoid whips and parties dictating free thinking.
While all those Westminster traditions are cute (the ‘other house’, ‘my Honorable friend’, divisions rather than instant votes), they actually stop the important process of good law making. They need reforming. The Digital Economy bill was a good example of this. While those (there was only 40 or so) in the house were almost universally (and across party lines) against various points and the bill in general, when it went to a vote (division), hundreds emerged from the bars etc to vote as the whips told them to. They had no idea what had been discussed. They may not have even read the bill, but vote as they were told they did. An instant vote taken in the house would have avoided this.
We need clear and simple rules about how the nations are given power. Westminster being responsible for the UK and England is stupid and broken. For example when the Treasury was faced with an urgent need to cut spending they looked at what they could cut. This included UK spending (Defence, International Development, national policing, etc) and English services (Education, NHS England, etc). Defence couldn’t be cut, we are still fighting a Blair war, and we have promised to ring fence International Development. But… what about the English Higher Education budget. That could be cut. And few would notice. Scottish HE funding is decided by the Scottish Parliament, whose budget is set by formula, so wasn’t an option to be included in the cuts (this is not a Scottish dig, another time it will be their formula ‘tweaked’ for the worse, the point is this happen at different times in different ways for the two nations). To me this highlights the problem well of our mixed up way of running the UK. Each nation should have the same local powers….
Yes that means a English Parliament. Yes that would come with costs.
Fixed term elections are an interesting idea. It would avoid the advantage a ruling party has of choosing the best time for them to call an election, and bring about an element of certainty of when election will take place.
Voting is difficult at the moment as we are effectively voting on so many things. Who will make a good Prime Minister, Which party has the best policies, which party is best placed to run the country, which local candidate is best to serve your local needs, which local candidate has the best policies. I’m not sure what the answer is…
…Maybe we need to elect those to run the executive separately from electing those to sit in the House of Commons. Would be a very big change but worth a ponder.
Obviously PR is on the cards. It has pros and cons but I think now the Pros massively out weigh the cons. The current system is simple – in a good way. Who ever gets the most votes in my area gets the seat. Party with most seats runs the country. However, it seems the country is moving away from a two party system (the two main parties now receive far less of the over all vote than they used to), and therefore this system is representing the voting habits of the nation less and less. Other countries have moved to PR quite successful in the last few years. Scandinavia, New Zealand and Germany seem to do it well. We can learn from Israel and Italy’s mistakes.
For me, the current system has another flaw. The party that has the most MPs (who mainly vote as the whips tell them to) runs the executive (which creates the Bills and controls the whips), Makes the whole parliamentary process somewhat pointless (rubber stamping).
I’m actually quite optimistic about this coalition government. While no tory fan, the two parties have compromised mainly on giving up their most extreme ideas, the Lib Dems make Tories more socially responsible, the Tories ensure the Lib Dems do not follow some of their more wacky ideas. It does actually make democracy work very well. By definition, the policy areas they agree on (e.g. scraping ID cards and the associated databases) are those which most people voted for (anyone voting LD/Tory voted for a party with that policy), are the things that got through the negotiations with ease. Surely a good thing.

Voting time

Sat, 08 May 2010 19:04:43 +0000

I was hoping to write something insightful for the election. Time (well, laziness) has meant I shall spew some random thoughts instead… After the election has happened.

Things that are important to me:

Civil Liberties, privacy, and certain fundamentals of justice not being messed with on a whim.
Reforming politics and government, in a slow and discussed manner (not Blair-boy’s ‘hey I’m so bored of a Lord Chancellor, lets scrape it…. who’s turn is it on the Playstation?’). I’m actually not convinced that an elected upper house is the answer, but if it is, it needs to avoid the mistakes of whips, parties, and short term thinking. PR must surely be a better system than first past the post.
This includes a discussion on where we want discussions to be made, nationally or locally, etc. But this requires a public which understands that ‘local decisions by local people’ and ‘post code lottery’ are one and the same (which is used depends if the newspaper agrees with it or not).
A Strong economy, which encourages small businesses (but with fair rules to protect and give employees rights… they are not all ‘pointless red tape’)
A strong economy includes a strong financial sector. But carefully regulated to protect citizens from their mistakes and excess.
A strong safety net for those (and there are many) who need it, whether it be age, ill health, disability, hard times or bad luck.
Review of copyright and libel so they are fit for the 21st century.
Strong planning laws to ensure we have a quality built-environment. but with progressive and new ideas (such as shared space streets, like the excellent New Street in Brighton). Quality public buildings and spaces (such as St Pancras Station and Wembley Stadium) are important.
Education. I don’t have any answers but it needs to get better. Teachers need to be given space to teach, but in return they need to be good (not all are fit for the job). Endless government schemes don’t help, but nor do unions which seem to be simply against change.
Ideas along the lines of ‘some people misuse X, therefore lets stop – and stigmatise X’ are generally a bad idea. Examples of X are ‘benefits’ and ‘not being married (and have kids)’.
High speed trains are needed, to discourage air/car use, and to let people travel with ease, and to help move away from a economy focused around London.While Air/Road use should not be promoted, and in the long run other ways of living/working should be nurtured to avoid the need for travel, there is a need for some road improvements and probably (I regret) an extra runway in the South East England in the decade or so.
We need an enlightened immigration policy. Though we all acknowledge open borders are not suitable for this small country (I am genuinely at a loss why people manage to illegally enter the Schengen Zone – in say Italy or Eastern Europe – and then rather head for prosperous Germany or beautiful France risk their lives on the bottom of a train trying to get in to the grey UK!), we do not want to be a place where others can not come to work, or escape from prosecution. Students and educated workers bring so much benefit to this country.
‘Heath and Safety gone mad’ is the refrain from the right of politics, and those who dislike the state interfering with their lives. This is easy to dismiss as the usual vile of a Daily Mail reader. Though there is argument that some things need to be rolled back. If people do really stupid things then that is their fault (obvious exceptions for children and those with learning difficulties). Vicarious responsibility can be a problem. Of course much Health and Safety law and practice is there for good reason but there are areas that need to be reviewed.
Working together with other European countries makes sense, we have a lot in common, shared values, and common standards benefit us all. But there are areas of the EU which seem wasteful, undemocratic, unaccountable, etc. And these need to be addressed. There needs to be clear lines of what and where the EU can legislate on.
Universities can be great for bringing in high tech companies, knowledge workers, and driving a SciTech, Medical, Creative industries economy. I’m not saying the tax payer should foot 100% of their bill, but cut backs have long term negative effects on a country.

This is not a full list, but just some of the ideas that came to mind. Feel free to comment.

Nick Clegg’s Fault. Beware the REAL Nasty.

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 13:03:19 +0000

Tonight is the second party leaders debate. As most in the UK know, Nick Clegg came out of the last one well, using a underhand tactic of using intelligence and good sense to answer the questions. #iagreewithnick immediately became a twitter trending topic.

The upshot of this is that the Lib Dems now have the slight chance that they will come a respectable third in the forthcoming election, instead of just a distant third. Obviously this is a matter of national emergency.

People power : twitter is highlighting & affecting important issues.

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:33:50 +0000

A few weeks a go (why, the 12th Oct in fact) I was sitting at my laptop during the evening, doing this and that with Twitter ticking away on the right. I glanced at the newest tweets to pop in and noticed one from secretlondon.

Curious, I read the Guardian article it linked to. A gagging order to stop a paper report the proceedings of parliament. This is not very good. I muttered and got back on with the this and that. A few minutes later another tweet from secretlondon came in:

naughty boys and lots of sheep

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:58:26 +0000

I Don’t normally write about this sort of thing, but this is crazy.

Trying to ascertain the facts is almost impossible, even though supposed quality broadsheets have written huge amounts about it.

So what happened?

Russell Brand has an evening radio show on Radio 2.
This is pre-recorded (really? every week? this is the biggest scandal!)
Last week he had Jonathan Ross on the show (presumably to promote his book), though it has never been made clear whether he was co-presenting or a guest
Andrew Sachs – an actor who was in Faulty Towers – was due to be interviewed on the phone to promote a TV show.
Andrew is 78
Russell phones Andrew while chatting to Jonathan, there is much banter going on, both are known for it.
When they are put through to the answer phone the banter continues, references about Andrew’s granddaughter are made, including implying Russell has slept with her, though these are done in a somewhat joking fashion (Brand: “Andrew Sachs, I did not do nothing with Georgina – oh no I’ve revealed I know her name”)
The Granddaughter is currently touring in Satanic Sluts burlesque group.
Various reports (including the Times, which is less inaccurate than most of the press) said she had slept with Russell.
Reports keep on referring to them talking about Andrew Sachs killing himself on hearing the talk about his granddaughter, though the one edited transcript I have seen does not mention this at all.
After the show was recorded, the Times claims that a junior produce contacted Andrew Sachs to confirm it was ok to be played on air (which I understand is actually normal practice), though does not state if they actually got permission, i.e. what his response was. (from the times) Apparently a senior executive (or senior editor – to me there’s quite a difference between an executive or editor) vetted the recording before going out, presumably due to the new guidelines which mean senior staff (above the show’s producer) have to sign off controversial content.
After the show went out there were, apparently, two complaints.
Roughly a week later the Mail reports on it, and then 18,000 more complaints are made, one wonders how many have actually listened.

Since Tuesday this has been at the top of every major UK news site, including the websites of the ‘broadsheets’. Ultimately it is all about a few minutes of talk left on an answering machine.

Olympic medals by population

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 15:05:14 +0000

The table below shows number of Olympic gold medals (for the top three countries) as of 18/8/2008. It also shows the number of golds divided by total population (in millions, otherwise the numbers just look silly). It also shows the number of golds divided by the number people participating in the Olympics for that country.

I couldn’t find anywhere on the web details of the number of participants per country. The numbers used below where based on comments made by a TV commentator, and I could only remember the first digit of each! (I hadn’t expected the need to recall it at the time). Needless to say, take these numbers with a bucket of salt.

mobile phones, desires, frustrations and musings

Thu, 22 May 2008 07:31:34 +0000

I mentioned in my last post that my current phone is a Motorola RAZR2 V8. I got this because of its shape (nice to hold), large screen and large keys. These may not sound like funky features but are actually what are important to me.

I look at the iphone and nokia n95 with envy, the answer to all my problems is in these phones. Why? Which one? Why do I crave these when I do not use the features on my current phone.

mobile phones (and me)

Wed, 21 May 2008 08:29:08 +0000

I want to talk more about mobile phones. Earlier I talked about why I think they have the wrong name, now I want to talk about ‘the phones in my life’, I can’t promise this will be captivating reading but I know as if I don’t write this now it will come up in later postings as the mother of all tangents, so better to do it now as its own entry. Apologies for such a blatant me me me post.

Mobile Phones (naming)

Sat, 03 May 2008 13:01:22 +0000

First up… The name is wrong. I hear people rant I don’t want a camera on my phone. That’s reasonable. I don’t want my TV to make coffee. You say phone and people think thingy with numbers, a little speaker on one end and a little microphone on the other. It should also go ring ring when someone is calling your number (unless you are in the US, in which case is should just go riiiiing, but enough conversation on the transatlantic differences in ring style already). Only an idiot would want a camera on said device.

Upper Peter…

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 20:36:09 +0000

…or Northern Rock. ho ho ho

There has been zillions of stuff in the press of late about our friends Northern Rock.

They had the genius idea of rapidly increasing their mortgage business, and instead of using deposits as (a good part of) the supply of money to pay for the mortgages, they instead borrowed from other banks. Borrowing from other banks is normal, but doing it to such an extent was the thing that made Northern Rock different. They got all their eggs and placed them all in a basket. Only they kept needing more eggs. And one day there was no one to give them more.

The great rock ‘n’ broadband rip off.

Sat, 02 Jun 2007 16:17:32 +0000

This was kicked off when I was asked to recommend a broadband service for someone. Their use would be low and they needed cheap. Wasn’t that interested in download caps or speed (so I don’t really mention it below), and I presume they will be with the service for at least 12 months (so if a provider offers free connection/signup if you stay with them that long I consider it free). Fine, I thought they might be able to get a deal for £11.

Brighton New council priorities

Fri, 25 May 2007 17:19:07 +0000

See this Argus article: New council leader spells out his party’s priorities, from the article:

Review Labour’s plans for a rapid transport bus system while re-examining the monorail project

Revisit the controversial school lottery scheme which has divided the city

Push for underground car parks in new developments to ensure extra homes do not add pressure to the already overstretched road network, and

Concentrate on delivering less congestion by removing build-outs while putting plans for a park and ride on the back burner.

OK. Council Tax, sounds good but what will need to be cut (unless we can find savings, or the increase in the number of homes brings about a big enough increase to sustain things).

Brighton and Hove local elections

Fri, 04 May 2007 15:04:11 +0000

The Tory’s have a majority, but not overall control. How? Look around you and play spot the tory voter. Sure there are quite a few well off people, but vastly out numbered by those who look ‘brighton-ish’, students and others who just don’t look like tory voters (of course, plenty of the well off, business types also vote labour, especially in Brighton). I just don’t walk around town and think that the majority of people I see are likely to vote tory (yes I know how stupid that sounds, can’t judge by looks).

Brighton local council elections : May 2007

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 20:07:59 +0000

I live in the Preston Park ward in Brighton for the May 2007 elections.

A couple of days a go I had received anything from any party so went for a look on the net.

Labour
Conservatives: Two sites [here and here] neither of which mentions the local elections or what they stand for. Not impressed.
Lib Dem
Green Party

What do I consider when deciding my vote?

Policies of the LOCAL party
My perception of their ability to run the council
Candidates of my ward (Preston Park)
Not as a protest vote or as a message to the national parties

My choice is Labour: They have done a good job in the last few years (though no party has overall control, they have the majority). I like the fact that the council has been progressive, the sucess of the Jubilee library as one of the first PPP projects to produce such an impressive building can not be over rated. In fact the whole area around the library has been handled well and created a pleasant area of town.