Death Penalty

Guido Fawkes is using the government’s new, fantastically broken e-petitions site, and their pledge to consider for debate the most popular petitions, to try and re-introduce the death penalty.

I’m sure he doesn’t think this will actually go anywhere, because it won’t. What this will do is help distract from the Tories messing up in almost every single aspect of government, and from the phone hacking scandal. This seems to me like a couple of idiots stealing the limelight during the Silly Season, rather than a “real” issue.

When discussing the death penalty, one of the major points you frequently hear is that “the murderer took away the victim’s human rights!”. You also hear “It will act as a deterrent!”. The problem with both of these arguments is that when you take a good step back from the situation, these arguments aren’t aren’t the most important ones.

The death penalty is wrong, because our judicial system is not perfect. Neither is our politics, and neither is our media (who are frequently found guilty of contempt of court over their demonising of suspects). To be able to condemn somebody to death, with 100% confidence that they were the guilty party, is moronic and impossible. To have such complete confidence that all those cogs are in perfect working order is just plain silly when you think about it. Any crack in this theoretical perfection leaves room for an irreversible false conviction – it has happened before.

Looking at recent events, we know there is a problem with corruption in the police. The phone hacking scandal revealed News International regularly paid the police for information – and both the Met Police Assistant Commissioner and Police Commissioner have resigned. A police officer during the UK Uncut Fortnum and Mason protest tricked the occupiers into leaving and heading into a planned arrest. Since then, 109 of the 145 cases have been dropped. We know about police spies and what they get up to, and then there is also the well-known case of the police killing an innocent man, and using the media to spin the event in their favour.

Whilst I accept that the police are necessary for the protection of the public, you cannot deny that they are not perfect – not by a long shot. Until then, claims about whether the death penalty will work are irrelevant in all but hypothetical terms; and hopefully it will forever stay that way. We are not savages.

Superin-joke-tion

After a Twitter account revealed the (potential) details of a superinjunction, an injunction with the added clause against revealing any details, with a footballer and a Big Brother contestant a frenzy has erupted that I think is dangerous.

Twitter went crazy with people tweeting about the names of the parties involved, and eventually the press joined in as soon as their lawyers thought they could get away with it.

These injunctions exist as a way of enforcing the right to privacy under the Human Rights Act. The concept of the ‘superinjunction’ itself is being made a scapegoat here, with the media salivating at the lucrative details waiting to be published. The issue I take is that is that newspapers are a business – they exist first and foremost for profit. They know what sells, and what sells en masse. Daily Mail hysteria, tits in the Sun – these are what get the punters in. Where a famous person is sticking his dick is of paramount importance – to them.

I feel as if the public has been used. By repeating the details of the injunction, could there be a case for the injunction to come down, as it is potentially not enforceable anymore? MPs looking for political gain by abusing parliamentary privilege to embrace this name-and-shame creates a frenzy, and brings further into question the validity of such an injunction existing in our legal frameworks.

At a time when the News International phone hacking scandal is once again picking up steam, as even more allegations against corruption are being raised, questioning just what interests the media serves (itself) and what the standard of ethics they possess (very poor); there is now the perfect distraction, as Alastair Campbell pointed out.

Superinjunctions have been previously used in the past, notably by Trafigura to cover up environmental abuses. These laws are designed to protect the vulnerable from real danger – not for the rich and powerful to maintain a public image. By breaking the law and revealing the details of these injunctions, I fear we are playing right into their hands by bringing down the tone of the debate. This can’t end well.

Rapture

Ooh, look, another guy screaming “the end of the world is nigh!” and gaining worldwide media attention. Well, as I write this it is currently half-ten in the pm in the UK. So that means Australia and Japan are already well into May 22nd and guess what? No Rapture.

I personally think the concept of The Rapture is entirely disgusting and in fact unchristian. How can floating into the sky and watching everyone who doesn’t follow the same religion burn fit with love thy neighbour? It demonstrates how some are compelled to think terrible things about others; just because of what they believe in.

This end of the world stunt will be laughed off in the media for the next few days. It’s already started:

Doomsday-declarers will simply move on to the next prophesised judgement day, and never speak of this again. But if we look beyond the surface of this stunt, it gets truly depressing. Like always, these come with a human cost.

I don’t blame people for believing this stuff. That’s what faith is about, isn’t it? Why not be on winning side of Pascal’s Wager, just in case? It doesn’t make any sense, but we have stupid monkey brains whose prime instinct is for survival. People who believe this aren’t dumb – they’re misled.

Religion means something very personal to people, for whatever reason that may be. This belief is used and abused by people around the world to push their own self-interests into the public eye. The true meaning of what a religion stands for is distorted beyond belief, even so that it is contradictory to the fundamental pillars of that religion. But at what cost? There’s always a human cost. People go broke, people get ill, family connections are shattered beyond repair. People die. We’ll do good to remember that.

A is for Apathy

The noes have it, the noes have it. I don't think anyone expected otherwise.

We've put voting reform on the backburner now, possibly for another generation. All because the disgraceful multi-millionaire-funded No to AV campaign spread nothing but lies and disinformation on a massive scale.

AV is not one person one vote! AV means dead soldiers and babies! Losers win under AV! It's not fair! It's too confusing! No-one likes it! Nick Clegg!

The Yes campaign barely addressed these claims, and instead went on a mindless emotional plea, based on more exaggerations.

Referendums are supposed to be times for debate, where we can actually make progress on a subject, and even improve something. But we're going to get our first impressions on the subject from the official camps, because we're the public, we're not electoral reform experts. This is why I can't blame people for repeating the misleading claims.

To preserve a status quo when faced with a genuinely positive reform - you don't educate (that will detract from your cause) - you lie. This puts the reformers on uneven footing. If they lie, the public perceive the reform as a con. So they have to counter the lies and also educate. In these situations the public becomes overwhelmed and will infer the status quo is a simpler option. That's where their vote will go.

What I feel deeply depressed about is how people still suck this stuff up. Don't get me wrong, this doesn't come as a surprise to me, having seen people truly believe that the evil atheist immigrants are causing monthly wheely bin collections.

I've been through university and always been of a scientific nature. I've always been someone who checks things out. If I'm proved wrong on something, I change my opinion to fit the facts. There's no shame in it.

The difference between voting systems is fact. First past the post falls apart when there are more than two candidates: the winner cannot necessarily say "more people voted for me than didn't." AV addresses this, but again it has it shortcomings, in that it reinforces two-party systems and isn't proportional.

Whether we should switch to AV is opinion. Whether you think we should switch to AV or not does not necessarily have a relation to the facts. So when people say that losers win under AV, it's just an opinion - and a wrong one at that.

This is my problem. Why, as a public, we haven't seen through this, is beyond me. We have an amazing resource in the Internet. It takes 5 minutes to verify claims. We haven't done that.

I'm positive that this referendum is designed to induce apathy in the Yes voters. They weren't funded by multi-millionaire Tories, and they now know that money has again prevailed.

I'm feeling pretty apathetic now. I'm not sure what happens next.

Referendum Mail

The AV Referendum is edging ever closer, and both the Yes and No campaigns are in full swing. While the Yes camp are making some logically-unsound conclusions, the No camp are spreading downright lies, with talk of a potential legal challenge over Conservatives repeating these misleading claims.

One of the methods used by both camps is to release promotional material. I thought in this post I’ll take a look at the claims made by both camps in these pamphlets.

The No Camp

“The cost of AV is £250 million.”

Blatant lie. The most dastardly part of this figure is the claim that £130 million will be spent on voting machines. As confirmed by the Electoral Commission, AV votes will be counted by hand.

“Instead, that money could provide…”

Yes, putting a price on democracy – always a good tactic. As the £250 million claim is a lie, so are these figures.

“The second or third best can win under AV.”

Not true. This claim is based upon differing definitions of “best”. Under FPTP, best is the one who gets the most votes. Under AV, best is defined as the candidate who gets more that 50%*. The second or third best cannot therefore win under AV, unless you want to compare apples to oranges in a deliberately-misleading manner.

The example the No camp use to try and blur the fact they are comparing apples and oranges is to show an election where in the first round, candidate A has the most votes, but due to further rounds of counting, candidate B wins. Of course, in round one, this picture shows that more than 50% oppose candidate A – which is exactly why people want electoral reform.

* Under AV it is possible for a candidate to win, as under AV you can still just tick one box. In the worst-case scenario, where everyone votes in a FPTP-manner under an AV system, AV performs no differently to FPTP.

“Under AV, the votes of the least popular candidate can decide who wins the election.”

A claim from the No camp is that AV is not “one person, one vote”. That’s also a lie, everyone has one vote – that vote being an ordered list of preferences. AV actually reinforces a two-party system as minor parties have little chance of reaching the 50% mark, and so are eliminated. Their votes are then transferred to, typically, major parties. Baroness Warsi claimed on TV that AV would lead to more extremist parties being elected, despite the fact that the BNP and UKIP oppose AV. As AV is still “one person, one vote”, any logical conclusions drawn from AV not being that are incorrect.

“Under our present system, the one who comes first is always the winner.”

This is also true under AV, but again, this is comparing apples to oranges. AV and FPTP have different definitions of ‘coming first’, as explained above. The illustration they use again shows that candidate A was elected with less than 50% of the vote.

“AV is not a fair system. That’s why only three countries in the world use it: Fiji, Australia and Papa New Guinea.”

Sorry to again talk about comparing apples and oranges, but guess what this is? The number of countries who support a system has no correlation with the fairness of a given system. Using this kind of logic implies we should drive on the right-hand side of the road, because most of the world does that.

“The winner should be the one that comes first.”

This is true under AV and FPTP, just they have different definitions of coming first.

The Yes Camp

“The system we use to elect or politicians means most MPs don’t have to.”

“Vote no for more of the same – eg the expenses scandal.”

The Yes camp, rather than throwing a pile of shit, have thrown one single piece – and guess what, that’s wrong too. There is no correlation between safe seats and expense claims. There is no evidence that AV will end safe-seat culture (as I said above, it will reinforce a two-party system at Westminster).

Summary

The No camp leaflet is laughable – it is possible to find lies and misinformation in every sentence. They either seem unable to understand how the Alternative Vote system actually works; or they know fine well, and don’t want you to understand how it works. I’m going with the latter, given that the likes of Cameron, Osborne and Warsi are blindly repeating their claims on TV. The No camp is treating you like you are stupid, and are trying to frighten you with the prospect of change, and dead soldiers and babies.

The Yes camp have put all their eggs in one basket, and that’s wrong too. They are trying to appeal to the public outrage at the expenses scandal. They hope this will stir up a “stick it to your MP” attitude that will cause a yes result. I think it was a dangerous move for them to do – their claims are illogical, and it shows they can play dirty politics too.

I’m Still Voting Yes

I can only see one valid reason to vote no, whilst still wanting vote reform. This is that AV is not a proportional system. I think to vote no for this reason is a tactical mistake. If we wait for the perfect system, whilst opposing any changes which move the country a step closer to that perfect system, it is obvious that this perfect system will not arise.

The wording of the question on the referendum ballot paper is important. It is asking if you want to change the voting system to AV. It is not asking if you want voting reform at all. A no result will be incorrectly interpreted as support for First Past The Post, and justify the following argument whenever voting reform is brought back on the table:

“we tried it, and people said no.”

Now that is a misleading claim, but politicians always use misleading statistics to voice opinions. Why give them another piece of fuel?

I agree that AV is not the perfect system. I’d much prefer a proportional system rather than a system in which swing constituencies decide elections. But I also want this country to show that we are prepared to accept change, if it is change in the right direction.

In this referendum I think we should put aside the dirty politics of the Yes camp, and the even dirtier politics of the No camp. We should use a very rare opportunity to show the government just who’s in charge: us.

As an aside, take a look at the brilliant Fact-check website, who have been running a series of fact-checks on the claims made by both campaigns, the political parties and the media. They’ve went in far more detail than anyone else to my knowledge.