The Alternative Vote System in practice.

A couple of months ago, there was an article in City AM about the upcoming - and since cancelled - London Mayoral elections, which reminded me that the election uses a Supplementary Vote system (fairly similar to Alternative Vote).

From Wiki:

The election used a supplementary vote system, in which voters express a first and a second preference of candidates.

* If a candidate receives over 50% of the first preference vote the candidate wins.
* If no candidate receives an overall majority, i.e., over 50% of first preference votes, the top two candidates proceed to a second round and all other candidates are eliminated.
* The first preference votes for the remaining two candidates stand in the final count.
* Voters' ballots whose first and second preference candidates are eliminated are discarded.
* Voters whose first preference candidates have been eliminated and whose second preference candidate is in the top two have their second preference votes added to the count.
* This means that the winning candidate has the support of a majority of voters who expressed a preference among the top two.

As it happens, it made no difference to the final outcome, Khan won more votes than Goldsmith in the first round and his winning margin was higher in the second round. In the end, only ten per cent of all votes cast were re-allocated.

Interestingly, only about 15% of voters did not bother giving a second preference vote, meaning that 85% did - but in the 2011 Alternative Vote Referendum (which proposed a very similar system), only 32% voted in favour of it. People really are strange - they are stupid enough to vote against something which in practice, they actually quite like.

It also completely puts paid to the project fear scare story that the AV system would lead to candidates from extremist parties being elected.

A) So what if it does, it's a democracy. And how entertaining would it be if we had a couple of dozen Green/Socialist Workers' party MPs and a couple of dozen UKIP/Brexit Party/BNP MPs on the Opposition benches going at each other hammer and tongs?

B) Project Fear also claimed that AV would lead to more coalitions, which sort of cancels out the first claim, as coalitions tend to be more  moderate.

C) As we see in practice, it makes very little difference. The winning candidate was always going to be from one of the Big Two parties.

IMHO, AV is still a good system. It doesn't change the outcomes of elections very much, if at all - what it does change is what sort of policies the winning candidates actually implement afterwards. The only way to 'send them a message' as to what you actually want is to vote for a smaller party with a clear manifesto or a single-issue party. The AV system clearly encourages people to give their first vote to a smaller party and their second vote to one of the Big Two as a fall back.

Nobody move or your our income gets hurt!

From the BBC:

Boris Johnson's Brexit deal will leave the UK £70bn worse off than if it had remained in the EU, a study by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) has found.

It concluded that GDP would be 3.5% lower in 10 years' time under the deal.The independent forecaster's outlook is one of the first assessments of how the economy will fare under the new deal...

By force of habit (h/t Devil's Kitchen ca. ten years ago), let's have a look at NIESR's most recent accounts and see who funds them.

Page 26:

Income from research work
European Commission Institutions - £112,162
Research Councils - £402,651
Government departments - £1,506,958
Trusts and Foundations - £680,902
Other - £152,444.

In case you are wondering, 'Research Councils' are just yet more quangos.

Nobody move or somebody gets hurt!

From The Metro, an absolute classic of the genre:

KNIFE crime could get ‘considerably worse’ under Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, a former minister has said.

David Lammy, who represents Tottenham in north London, said the drop in GDP that the deal would cause would ‘mean everything’ to areas with high poverty rates — and have a bigger impact ‘than the 2008 crash’.

The Labour MP (pictured) told the Commons: ‘In my constituency, just the weekend before last, two men were knifed within an inch of their lives. We would see a reduction in GDP, with a Canada-style free trade deal, of 6.7 per cent in our country. 

'In a constituency like Tottenham, it means everything. It means that the knife crime I’m worried about could get considerably worse. I don’t want the south side of Chicago in Tottenham.’

I strongly suspect that a lot of people who voted Leave did so to thumb their noses at drivel like this.

'Remain' would probably have won if the Remain campaign had stuck to simply emphasising the positives of being an EU member (of which there are many); glossing over the negatives (of which there are just as many); and not wasting most of their energy on trying to scare people into thinking that the world would come to an end if they voted Leave (when it was quite clear that the world would carry on pretty much as normal, Leave or Remain).

The Leave campaign also have made some pretty outrageous claims, but they weren't so stupid as to claim that we'd all catch super-gonorrhea if we voted Remain.That would just have devalued their more plausible stuff.

Nobody move or [something extremely yucky] will happen!

From iNews:

Officials preparing Britain for a no-deal Brexit have encountered a new roadblock: a rise in dogging.

A cabinet minister confessed at the Conservative Party conference last week that long tailbacks near the port of Dover could mean lorry drivers visiting voyeuristic sex sites, according to The Sunday Times.

“One of the things we talk about in these no-deal meetings concerns hauliers and their activities,” the minister said. “The main thing is whether they will turn up at the Channel ports with the right paperwork. But there are also dogging hotspots all over the place.”

Good luck to them, consenting adults and all that. As long as local councils clearly sign-post dogging sites (to save embarrassment and misunderstandings) it isn't a problem.

Slightly more concerning is that all those involved will be spreading super-gonorrhoea, a disease which is widespread in non-EU countries such as Norway or Switzerland.

Project Fear, Part the Manieth?

This appeared in Facebook:

On the face of it, it seems logical. Our oil refineries are going to be clobbered on the petrol they export to the EU, at the same time as they are going to be undercut by tariff free foreign imports. This will lead to the closure of oil refineries, strike action, fuel shortages, riots, famine, pestilence and the usual End Of Life As We Know It.

However, no mention is made of the following:

All the crude oil we import is from outside the EU, although just under half is from Norway, which is quasi-EU. Just over half of this at least will become significantly cheaper. (That is assuming that the crude oil from Norway is already significantly cheaper than that from non-EU countries, which is not necessarily the case. Market economics suggest that the Norwegians would charge just slightly less than what we pay for oil from non-EU countries.) This would make it more economical to continue to refine our own fuel rather than to import it ready refined.

We import more petrol than we export and we export more than we consume domestically. (From Google: UK fuel consumption is 1.475 Bn litres a month, which translates to 1.062 M tonnes a month. UK fuel exports are 30 M tonnes a year). So it appears that 100% of those petrol exports that are going to become uncompetitive are actually imported, so the margin on the exported fuel cannot be great or the EU countries that currently import from us could simply buy direct from our suppliers and cut out the middleman.

I may be wrong about this, but this, and, by extension, the entire Yellowhammer report, looks like just another manifestation of Project Fear.

Nobody move or the refineries get hurt!

From the BBC:

The future of the UK's fuel refineries could be threatened by a no-deal Brexit, according to an internal local authority document seen by the BBC.

Under current government plans for no deal, they face a "danger to viability" from cheaper imports, while exports to the EU are set to be hit with tariffs.

Concern is widespread in an industry deemed crucial for both economic and national security...

National security??

From oil well to your car is a long, delicate thread, trailing halfway across the world, through all manner of political, religious, commercial, practical and technological eyes-of-needles (if that's what threads go through).

Our dependence on oil itself is a threat to national security, if we can skip a step and buy the end product cheaper from abroad, let's do it.

"We could be wiped out like the coal industry"

From the BBC:

Some farmers have said without long-term guarantees about future subsidy levels, farms could disappear from the landscape.

"We could be wiped out like the coal industry," said Roger Hobson, whose 4,500-acre farm near York qualifies for a subsidy worth £100,000 a year.

"What we fear is that in the future the farm industry will have to go to the government and compete for funding alongside the NHS and other public services."

"Because Brexit" headline of the day

From today's Evening Standard. Read the article - it has nothing to do with Brexit whatsoever, apart from an out of context sound bite at the end:

Nobody move or the hen harrier gets hurt!

From the BBC:

Environmentalists fear Northern Ireland could be left behind when it comes to protecting important species and habitats after Brexit.

Much of the current protection is based on EU law, backed up by the threat of fines from a European court. But after Brexit, that oversight will be lost....

Slieve Beagh is a huge area of upland blanket bog straddling counties Monaghan, Tyrone and Fermanagh.

An important EU protected habitat in its own right, it is also a stronghold for the hen harrier, a scarce bird of prey. At present, it is covered by an EU-funded conservation project.

Ecologist Rory Sheehan helps manage it. He said there was great commitment to the area and its wildlife and, with EU directives transposed into domestic legislation on both sides of the border, he is confident protection that will not be diluted.

But he is concerned about funding and whether colleagues in Northern Ireland will continue to be able to draw down EU Peace money in future.

Nobody move or your clothes will strangle you!

From The Guardian:

Dangerous cars, electrical goods and toys could flood into the UK after Brexit unless the government urgently reforms the current “failing” safety enforcement system, a consumer group warned on Monday.

Which? says the public will be vulnerable to delays in spotting and dealing with unsafe products unless continued access to the European Safety Gate system is negotiated. Its new analysis shows the scheme, under which 31 European countries alert each other to products with serious safety problems, issued 34% more notifications in 2018 than a decade ago.

In recent months, alerts have included a toxic children’s putty that could damage youngsters’ reproductive systems, and clothing which posed a strangulation risk. Recall notices have also appeared for fire-risk HP laptop batteries, explosive Honda airbags and a flammable children’s Star Wars Stormtrooper outfit.

Yes, one of the things which European countries seem to do very well is product safety/consumer protection. It's a combination of government regulations/inspections and importers doing their own testing, in which a bit of cross-border information sharing is very helpful.

But I'm not aware that Norwegians, Swiss, Icelanders and Liechtensteiners are all dying in bizarre accidents. There are only 28 27 EU Member States so I assume that they are on the list of 31 countries which have signed up to the European Safety Gate system:

Every day the European Commission receives alerts from national authorities in the EU/EEA concerning dangerous products found on their markets. These alerts are sent through the rapid alert system for dangerous non-food products - "Safety Gate". They include information about the type of products found, the risks posed and the measures taken at national level to prevent or restrict their marketing. Weekly reports of the alerts are available below.

Aha, as I thought, it's not restricted to EU Member States, although it is a (weak) argument for remaining in the EEA, which would necessitate rejoining EFTA, which is a good idea anyway.

Nobody move or the exam timetable gets hurt!

Going round the silliness clock with the TES:

Pupils might have to sit their GCSEs and A-levels on later dates or at alternative sites in the “nightmare” scenario of a no-deal Brexit causing significant traffic disruption, Tes can reveal.

Exam board sources have told Tes that in the most extreme scenario of a large number of candidates not being able to sit a paper, “drastic” action could be taken to postpone the sitting across the entire country.

Nobody move or the estate agents get hurt!

From the BBC:

Some 77% of members asked by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) said that the Brexit impasse was holding back activity.

New buyer enquiries, sales, and homes being put on the market all fell in February, the survey said.

This would mean a "challenging spring" for housing and the economy, it said.

Nobody move or lower ranked NHS managers will throw more sickies!

From The Daily Mirror:

Almost 11,000 doctors, nurses and support staff were off work daily with stress, anxiety and ­depression, the latest NHS Digital figures reveal.

The biggest proportion of sick days triggered by stress was among lower ranked managers for whom it was one in three.

Across the NHS stress now accounts for 24% of all days lost to sickness. Five years ago it was 19%.

Sara Gorton, of Unison, said: “The huge shortage of staff is the biggest problem and Brexit uncertainty isn’t helping."

Nobody move, or the expat pensioners get hurt!

Spotted by Physiocrat on gov.uk:

Will UK nationals continue to get their State Pension uprated under no deal?

The UK leaving the EU will not affect entitlement to continue receiving the UK State Pension if you live in the EU, and we are committed to uprate across the EU in 2019 to 2020. We would wish to continue uprating pensions beyond that but would take decisions in light of whether, as we would hope and expect, reciprocal arrangements with the EU are in place.

Physiocrat (himself an expat pensioner) adds:

My father emigrated to Australia to be with relatives and was swindled by the UK Government due to the non-uprating of pensions.

It seems as if the UK government is about to play the same dirty trick again. This is just using Brexit as an excuse. If the Spanish government decides not to uprate its citizens pensions living in the UK, why should the UK government punish UK citizens living in Spain by refusing to uprate theirs?

What is the connection? I understand that Norway has a reciprocal arrangement, but then the numbers involved as so small as to be insignificant.

Like so much that has been said about Brexit, it is a strange logic. The British pension is a contributions-based entitlement. What business is it of the government to restrict it if people choose not to live in the UK?

I smell foul play in the offing. A stink needs to be made.

Nobody move or the global economy gets hurt!

From City AM:

Global growth predictions were slashed today as a major economic body warned that a no-deal Brexit would see Britain return to recession...

The economy could contract by two per cent, plunging the country into recession, if Britain quits the EU without a deal and crashes out on World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, the OECD also warned.

Such an outcome, according to the report, “would add to the adverse effects on GDP and business investment already seen relative to expectations prior to the vote in 2016”.

The OECD cautioned that the effects of no-deal "could be stronger still if a lack of adequate border infrastructure and a loss of access to EU trade arrangements with third countries were to cause serious bottlenecks in integrated cross-border supply chains”.

Woulda coulda shoulda.

Nobody move or the cancer patients get hurt!

From the BBC:

Hospitals are likely to experience delays to cancer testing and treatment regardless of the result of next week's Brexit vote, BBC Newsnight has learned.

The Royal College of Radiologists has told doctors to prepare for possible delays for some drugs used to detect cancer if there is a no-deal Brexit. It says clinicians should reduce their workload in the days after 29 March, when the UK is due to leave the EU...

The five-page guidance to doctors from the Royal College of Radiologists (RCR), seen by Newsnight, warns that some radiopharmaceutical suppliers "anticipate there may be some delay to their delivery times". It advises clinicians to: "Keep [your] workload lighter for the first week following a no-deal Brexit, in order to see more clearly what the impact is likely to be."

Likely to, possible delays, may be, in order to see more clearly.

If the lack of drugs doesn't kill them, the prevaricating and work-to-rule, go-slow will. Are NHS doctors allowed to do 'industrial action' to support a purely political agenda?

Nobody move or commuters in the Home Counties get hurt!

Spotted by TBH in The Guardian:

Rail passengers commuting into London could have services disrupted by freight trains if a no-deal Brexit causes logjams at the Channel tunnel, it has emerged.

Go-Ahead, the company behind the rail operator Southeastern, said it was working with the government to try to ensure commuters were not affected...

Nobody move or your children get hurt!

From the BBC:

Children's safety could be put at risk if the UK leaves the EU without proper plans for child protection, the UK's four children's commissioners warn.

Child abuse, exploitation, abduction and how family law matters are dealt with if a child has one parent from the EU, are all "immediate issues".

In a letter to Stephen Barclay, the minister for exiting the EU, the commissioners ask for reassurance...

The commissioners highlight their fears over co-operation on child protection and law enforcement after Brexit, saying that prevention of child abuse and exploitation often involves international collaboration.

Nobody move or the buses get hurt!

Spotted by @TheaDickinson in the Birmingham Mail:

An expert has sensationally claimed bus services may STOP after Brexit - amid fears over the recruitment of drivers.

Services across Birmingham and the Midlands could worryingly grind to a halt, the expert has claimed.

Warning Brits they face impending chaos after March 29, former Stourbridge MP Lynda Waltho suggested the UK could face an exodus of drivers...

Nobody move or everybody starves to death!

From the BBC:

A no-deal Brexit threatens the UK's food security and will lead to higher prices and empty shelves, retailers are preparing to warn MPs...

If the UK were to revert to WTO rules, the retailers warn that would "greatly increase import costs that would in turn put upward pressure on food prices"...

The letter spells out the UK's food relationship with Europe, with nearly one third of the food in the UK coming from the EU.

*sigh*

I can't track down the actual wording of the letter, which was no doubt a bit more nuanced than the BBC claim.

1. At worst, one-third of shelves will be empty. let's not forget that Norway and Switzerland seem to manage somehow, it can't be insurmountable.

2. What retailers should have said (and quite possibly, did say) is "Dear Government, for the time being, whatever happens with Brexit, can you please exempt food imports from any sort of quotas and duties and ensure that Customs wave through anything that was clearly grown in an EU Member State?".

This in turn boils down to "Dear Government, please make sure that nothing changes post-Brexit".

"Do nothing" should always be first on the list of options to be considered, and in the circumstances, would clearly be the best for all concerned.