Will AV Cost More Than FPTP? And Who's Worse - Woolas, Osborne or Huhne?

Flushed with their success at nailing lying Labour MP and Ed Miliband front bencher Phil Woolas, Chris Huhne and Simon Hughes are now threatening legal action over the No campaign's claim that AV will cost more than FPTP.

Before their success against Woolas, the Lib Dems had seen the successful prosecution of another Labour liar, Miranda Grell, who accused her Lib Dem opponent of being a paedophile and in doing so had won a council seat that was previously unwinnable for Labour. The Phil Woolas case was a landmark judgement as it was the first to overturn a constituency election result in a parliamentary election since 1911 and it reminded politicians of the boundaries they should be working within when making personal attacks on their opponents. Woolas and his Labour election team had suggested that his Lib Dem opponent wooed extremist elements of the Muslim community who were advocating violence in order to gain votes, that he was willing to condone threats of violence for personal advantage and finally, and least seriously, Woolas claimed he didn't live in the constituency, when he knew that he did.

To personally attack someone and suggest they are a paedophile or willing to soft peddle on violence or terrorism to attract votes is pretty serious stuff, Grell and Woolas got their just deserts in the end. However, some warned at the time of the Woolas judgement that it could lead to fatuous and politically motivated threats of legal action in the future and now we seem to be seeing just that.

Thankfully, no one is being accused of supporting violence or touching the kids. However, the truth is that both campaigns have made questionable claims. It's hard to judge who's been more misleading. As a confirmed No supporter I obviously am more sensitive to the misleading Yes claims. But I also recognise the No camp are making some dodgy claims themselves. But is "the AV will cost more than FPTP" one of them?

The No camp claim AV will cost £250 million to implement. This figure includes the cost of the referendum (fair enough I say, but I can see the point that that is a cost effectively already spent) and it includes the cost of buying counting machines. The issue here is that no detail has been specified in the parliamentary bill on how AV elections will be executed. So, no one knows if machines will be used or not. The Yes campaign point to Australia where they've run their AV elections without machines for 80 years. The No lot point a little closer to home, to Scotland, where machines are used in council and parliamentary elections. However, Scotland don't use AV but various other systems for their council and Scottish Parliamentary elections. The degree to which the counting of votes for these different systems in Scotland are more or less complex than counting AV votes is open to debate. However, clearly Australia don't need machines and even if they did, we don't have to, it will just take longer before the result is known - gone will be the "exciting" election night results so beloved of political junkies, like myself.

So, from the arguments I've heard being made publicly by the No campaign, the voting machine case is not made. It is a possibility if it is decided that speed is important but there is no definite requirement for them at this time. That reduces the £250m bill by £130m to £120m. The rest of the claim seems reasonable to me. So, yes it will cost more but perhaps not as much (in upfront costs anyway) as No claim. But, hold on, look underneath the claim, at the details and it's surprising that there's more to the the No case than they are managing to get out into the public conciousness.

There is a more convincing argument made by the No campaign in the detail of their claim but they rarely make it in public, presumably because it's quite technical and boring. However, I think it gives them more of a leg to stand on, if not a whole one.. That is that, unlike in Australia, there are already multiple different electoral systems in use in the UK, especially in Scotland and Wales where various forms of electoral system are used at UK national, Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly and local council elections. Scottish people would face up to five different systems, the Welsh four and English three. If all systems were used at once, No claim, it would be impossible to deliver the results as quickly or accurately as we are used to in this country without automation.

However, again, the worst case scenario of all systems being used at once i.e. English local council, General Election, Euro parliament, Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly, Scottish local councils etc. does not usually happen, although it is fair to say that they do double, triple or more up (as we've seen, controversially, with this AV referendum occurring at the same time as the Welsh assembly, Scottish parliament and English local elections). With multiple ballot papers being counted in completely different ways at the same time, it becomes impossible to manage counts effectively and automation would almost certainly be required - as they've found in Scotland already (they introduced automation for this very reason). This is a more compelling case for the use of voting machines. But again, there is a manual alternative. It just means very long waits for results, which we are not used to and may not want, or slightly longer waits but massive increases in man power at each and every count in the country - a big and ongoing cost.

But even if you ignore the multiple system count argument and the up front referendum/counting machine/voter education costs, what is not in doubt is that AV will cost more than FPTP in on-going running costs. The multi-round counting of preferences until someone gets "50%"* of the vote will inevitably take a lot longer, more man hours of effort in more places to achieve a reasonable turn around and acceptable accuracy. Given this fact alone, the No campaign is correct to say AV will cost more than FPTP. The £250m figure may be debatable (I suspect if running costs are taken into account it is a lot more than this) but that is the nature of political argument.

Threatening legal action and accusing the Chancellor of being a liar is unjustifiable and the action of a desperate campaign that is losing the argument with the public. If anything, such campaign tactics are more comparable to the Woolas style personal attacks on an individual's honesty and credibility than the No campaign making an argument (whether you agree with it or not) about the cost of an electoral system. Legal action is not on the cards either way, but it is hypocritical of Huhne, Hughes, Ashdown et al to accuse others of lying, then to dredge up the threat of Woolas style legal action, when it is they that are resorting to personal attacks and traducing their opponents.

I also suspect that figures on the left of the Lib Dems like Chris Huhne and Simon Hughes are deliberately targeting Tory individuals in the No campaign (remember it is a cross party platform that enjoys the support of many Labour and well as non-political people) in order to damage the coalition with a view to forcing an early bale out (and an early election). Huhne and Hughes would then be in strong positions to make a bid for leadership to "rescue" the Lib Dems following what would be a disastrous election result for Clegg (even under AV!). Or am I making an unjustifiable personal attack? Oh, just sue me, why don't you??

* Don't get me started on the "MPs will be elected with over 50% support" claim AV proponents make. That's a whole other post!

Where's Postman Pat Been Depositing His Special Deliveries?

Another TV star has gained a court super injunction to stop his extra marital activities being exposed.

However, in a typically fearless act, I will risk prison and publish a picture identifying the sex cheat to allow the truth to be known.

Oh Pat, you dirty postie.



CBeebies refused to comment on their star's behaviour. But Mattel referred me to Max Clifford of Slapper PR Ltd. He provided reams of filth about Barbie most of which is so mind numbingly predictable that I can't be bothered to write about it.

By my brave actions I hope to make the world a better place. Please tweet a link to this blog post and hashtag it #PatsEmptySack. Together we can defeat these crazy super injunctions.

The Daily Spurt Issues Forth Its Last

Who says tits sell newspapers? Despite having more baps per page than any other tabloid newspaper, or even any other broadsheet newspaper for that matter AND that's including The Telegraph, The Daily and Sunday Sport is being wound up. As if there weren't enough massive tits in the paper already, they had employed Lembit Opik, the ex-boyfriend of one for the cheeky girls, irregular TV personality, asteroid watcher and ex Liberal Democrat spokesman for Wales and Northern Ireland, as a columnist. But even he could not save them.

What a shame to lose such a throbbing organ of thrusting journalistic excellence. Let's take a few minutes to remember some of the scoops the papers exposed to our astonished eyes...

I'm the Trouble Starter, Pumpkin Instigator

This, from Guido Fawkes' blog, made me giggle...



Of course Little Ed couldn't have known the violence would kick off at the same time as his speech (although he must have known violence was inevitable that day). And of course, given his lack of oratory skills, he is as likely to rouse such passion in people as he is to win brother of the year. But that's what makes Guido's video even funnier.

On another note. I've never quite been able to make out one of the words in the first line.

I'm the trouble starter, ?punkin? instigator.
I'm the fear addicted, danger illustrated.

Sounds like punking to me. I looked up the lyrics using the InterSuperWeb but it has not been much help. Most sites seem to think it's "Fuckin" instead of punkin. I find that hard to believe as the single only came out in one version with no bad language warning and the album version sounds exactly the same as the single.

However, my favourite suggestion came from this site...

I'm the trouble starter, pumpkin instigator.
I'm the fear addicted, danger illustrated.

I can envisage Ed Miliband singing this version into his under utilised hair brush as he watched the footage of the trouble unfolding on his television in his bedroom that night.

If he had any honesty in him, which seems unlikely, he'd adjust one of the other verses a tad...

I'm Balls bitch you hated, tax infatuated - yeeeaaaah
I'm the cash we wasted, felt intoxicated

The Japanese People's Inspirational Response To Disaster

One of the most moving sights I've seen in all the coverage of the disaster unfolding in Japan has been the stoical way its people cope with unimaginable adversity. Of course you can't generalise about the people of a whole nation but it is telling that western journalists are struggling to get the "human angle" they so covert during such disasters - weeping crowds, chaotic scenes of looting and violence, angry demos of people blaming the government or big business for the situation etc.

Tonight I saw a man being interviewed who was looking for his missing young daughter. Despite what raging internal emotion he must have been feeling, the gut wrenching terror of potentially discovering the worst possible fate of his missing girl, the man spoke with dignity about his situation. He even (politely) admonished the reporter, saying that he didn't like to see foreigners reporting Japan's plight and proudly predicted that his country would rise again.

A woman looks for her 99 year old mother. There's no sign of her in the camps of displaced people. A camera follows her to look for her mother's house, but its gone, along with half her town. The woman weeps quietly but covers her face to hide her emotions from the prying camera. There's no anger, no blame, she feels no need to highlight what a personal tragedy this clearly is.

If you didn't respect the Japanese before, you can't help but do so now.

The British used to be known for their stoical stiff upper lip and ability to cope with adversity. I do wonder how we would cope with disaster on the scale of Japan's. I hope we'd rediscover the strength of the war time generation, but I fear that British quality is lost forever.

Perhaps we can relearn it from our war time opponents.

On The Hour - Council to Evict The Old To Teach Government A Lesson

On The Hour, Chris Morris' spoof radio news series and forerunner to the excellent The Day Today included a story about how a fictitious Labour council was evicting old people from their homes and making them sleep on the streets in boxes to prove a point to central government...



That was back in 1992. Now the Conservatives are back in government, we see Labour councils living up to their old reputations. This time it's about the governments attempts balance the nations books and asking councils to do their part by reducing what has been burgeoning spending on their part over many years.

We've seen the stories put out by (mostly) Labour councils - child protection services to be cut, sure start centres to close, all library services to be disbanded, even worse treatment of the elderly in council run homes etc. It seems Labour (and indeed some LD and even Tory) councillors would rather this than make long overdue efficiencies in the way they run their services and better prioritising those services most needed by the communities they serve.

They would rather cut front line services in the hope voters will blame central government than their historic profligacy, inefficiency and waste.

You've got to laugh.

More Bullying In The Playground Of Parliament

It will be interesting to see how the media, especially the broadcast media, handle today's revelations that Tory MP, Paul Maynard, who suffers from cerebral palsy, was mocked by some Labour MPs whilst he spoke in the House of Commons. Rest assured, had it been Tories mocking a disabled Labour MP it would be the top news story for over a week.

The best we can hope for is that the Labour MPs in question were ignorant of Mr Maynard's condition; that their actions were pathetic child like attempts to put a newbie MP off his stride during the debate. Although, given the under representation of disabled people in Parliament and the close environment that exists there, it would seem unlikely.

The anonymous Labour MP who confirmed the behaviour took place said there were other Labour tutting and shaking their heads at their colleagues behaviour, which is encouraging but disappointing. Surely these self proclaimed warriors for equality could have stood up to their colleagues and stopped them? Perhaps a point of order could have drawn the Speaker's attention? But they didn't. The culture of the place is such that no one, on either side of the house, challenged it. It brings the whole place into disrepute.

But Paul Maynard says he came through the ordeal stronger and prepared for anything his opponents could throw at him in the future. But he points to another type of prejudice by Labour MPs. The idea that, as a disabled man, Mr Maynard, should have joined their party. No doubt they can't get their small minds around the idea that any non-white, non-straight, female or under 50 year old person would join the Conservative party. Mr Maynard answers their incredulity well in his interview in The Times:

Others questioned why he was not in the Labour Party. They thought that a disabled man would pick the Left, proud of its heritage of standing up for disadvantaged groups. “They would see my label and think I should have certain characteristics. I would say, ‘The very reason you asked me that question is why I’m not in the Labour Party — I see everyone as an individual, not with the labels that we like to attach to people’.”