h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Umm... it was sunny and there weren't any signs for Manchester Picadilly?



A largeish plaza with a largeish municipal building with steps and pillars and things.

I think.

I really was looking for signs for Manchester Picadilly.



B

The good folk at mysociety.org (the builders of the truly wonderful FaxYourMp.com) have built a website where those who don't want to vote can proclaim their reasons - http://www.notapathetic.com/

One, it's a bit out of character on the part of mysociety.org to put together something like this. They spend most of their efforts trying to get people engaged in the political process, so giving people a space to disengage is a bit odd. Never mind.

Two, with a few exceptions, all the comments and reasons posted there are truly pathetic. It's got me really angry with them, and more determined to vote come May 5th.

I tried reading the site, GD, but my ire started rising.

Thanks for posting it though.

B

Well to cheer you up a bit: here are two sites advocating exactly the opposite strategy...

Billy Bragg's rather sweet site campaigning for tactical voting in Dorset to get rid of Oliver Letwin - http://www.votedorset.net/

And a wholly vicious site dedicated to getting rid of David Davis by the same methods - http://www.ditchdavis.com/index.php (the "Is Davis Alan B'Stard" page is particularly good if you are of a certain age )


And now, just how trouble am I going to get into for posting those two links...

Ben,

If you ran a campaign asking people to draw an extra box marked Jedi, and then tick it, it may just work.

Alex

P.S. YOU are entitled to your opinions, but the rest of us get to hear them anyway.

Just googled for it, it's on the side of the free trade hall (now a fancy hotel) might take a walk down to have a look at it during my lunch on Monday. Easiest way to the station from there - walk to the tram stop and get the tram

Incidentally, I decided to look up the quote "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party", having finally had it jogged back into my mind the umpteeth time I saw this conversation heading.

Do you know where it comes from?

I'd assumed it was a stirring speech by Lenin or Trotsky or maybe even Enoch Powell.

Nothing of the sort.

Its a typing exercise!

Now there's a thing.

Ben

tpying ecxerxcises suick.

Hey B!

I want to discuss this one with you because it's your kind of thing - political systems. It's been growing on me since Friday when it was just the daft suggestion of a work colleague. It's getting close to 'profound insight' status now.

(I think it's OK posted here because it's not party-oriented - but just in case I've preserved a copy for any necessary re-posting inside 'the wall').

The workmate proposed a new voting system. At first I thought about it purely in your context, as a device for getting more people to vote, and so I rather missed the point.

In the proposed system, everyone has to express a party preference when they join the Electoral Register. Each person's vote will be cast accordingly, until or unless they declare a change in preference.

General elections (and by-elections) occur as now, except on fixed terms. (Five years to the day for the former, and 60 days from demise of incumbent for the latter were suggested - but that's a detail). Only these events change sitting MPs, as now.

Preferences can be changed at any time, by the following means :
- on Polling Day. A vote actually cast in the normal way overrides and replaces a preference
- on re-registering to the Electoral Register (suggested as an obligatory redeclaration of preference, to avoid stagnation and undue influence for the politically apathetic)
- at any time, by making a formal declaration of changed preference to an administrative statutory authority

Now, this same statutory authority is required to publish the preference distribution by party and for every constituency every day. This means that the nation gets a daily update of the result of a hypothetical general election that took place yesterday.

The proposer claims an improvement in democracy, citing :
- 100% electoral participation (desirable for the reasons you've cited)
- Governments moderated by instant electoral feedback on their actions (he said, for example, that this system would have stopped Britain rushing to war in Iraq)
- no need for stage-managed and judiciously-timed referenda. If the country does or doesn't want to join the Euro, for example, we'll all know. If politicians know better than the public (and of course they very often will, on many issues) then they'll have to persuade us properly!
- assistance to minority parties, by allowing them to focus their resources regionally, through access to what's effectively accurate and free market research

I argued against this on practicality grounds : secrecy compromised, complexity, cost of implementation etc.

The proposer's reply (and I think he might be right) was that the politicians would be driven to this eventually. It might actually happen as the 'official' response to a proliferation of unofficial e-opinion-making brought in by the media companies, as a development of interactive TV. Developing the point, he also said that this coming general election would be the UK's last ever at which the politicians would out-canvass the commentators.

I then tried arguing what was *fundamentally* (rather than technically) wrong with the idea. I ran out of steam when I found myself arguing that the proposal put too much influence into the hands of the fickle and apathetic masses. My friend, of course, sweetly pointed out that they're all ostensibly empowered anyway. (So much for my unqualified belief in democracy, then)

My best remaining argument against, as of now, is that the system could encourage terrorism - but he countered by referring to the last Spanish elections, and saying that terrorists can already sway opinion by cynical attack-timing under current systems.

The more I think about this, the more I wonder whether politics as we know it is headed for meltdown. The system we've got today relies on the slowness of a public response. Politicians exaggerate to sway opinion, but the hyperbole is moderated by the inertia of the electorate.

My workmate is not just proposing an alternative system, I've realised. He's also presaging the inevitable consequences of media communications development. (The loop gain is being boosted, leading to faster, higher amplitude system response, leading to instability?)

Imagine a world in which a politician flies a kite, and a hundred thousand armchair pundits shoot it down instantly by pressing their damned red buttons. That could be two or three years away, says the guy in the workshop. The system described is the democratised, better-controlled version, but it still changes everything, AND it's inevitable.

Interesting, don't you think? Exactly who is working this puppet?

Pin

I posted this in another thread. Just so you know;

I'm a civil servant. None of the three clowns presently whoring their round the country are going to do me any good.

I'm out of the country on May 5th (and for the week and a bit proceeding it, thank god), and wasting everybody's time by spoiling a postal ballot would in my opinion be childish. It's exactly the sort of time and money wasting sh*t that really gets up my nose in my job so why inflict it on others.

Besides, there are other ways to change things besides voting for the least bad big-business whore in an election. I'm a union rep at my place of work, and try to do my best to protect all the people I work with, even the ones who won't join the Union. I spend my money in ways that are socially progressive (ie away from big outlets and with smaller, independant shops) and I try to be ecologically concious.

I consider all of these to be more useful than spoling my postal ballot. And with the possible exception of being ecologgically concious (and that's debatable given Chucky-Bum's present mode of electoral transport, the git) are encouraged by any of the three main parties.

And damn right I'm going to complain about WHOEVER gets in. They are all in the thrall of big business and the media and NONE of them really represent anything.

The British Political System - Selling You The Fear since 28th March, 1979.