First-passé le poste de top-up sièges

J'ai longtemps pensé que le moins pire type de système électoral serait une combination du système majoritaire avec top-up sièges, afin que le nombre définitif de sièges au Parlement sont proportionnels aux suffrages exprimés (fourni une partie atteint un seuil de 5% ).

Au lieu de top-up sièges étant attribués par liste de parti (qui les gens on tendance à n'aimer pas), les top-up sièges pour chaque partie seraient attribués à ses candidats dans l'ordre de combien de voix qu'elles ont obtenus personnellement.

Je battu ce dans les deux sens avec Neil Harding, et il a découvert qu'ils ont exactement ce système dans l'état élections dans le Bade-Wurtemberg en Allemagne.

Donc, il existe, et cela fonctionne!

"Average NHS wait up under Labour"

Lots of fun-with-numbers on the statistics that show average waiting times in NHS are up marginally over the last ten years, from 41 days to 49.

What I like best is where Ben Bradshaw MP (Lab, Exeter) abandons all hope of doing the mental arithmetic to somehow prove that average waiting times are shorter and goes for a couple of bare-faced lies instead:

"Under the Tories is was not uncommon to wait 18 months or more for an operation. Tackling long waits leads to a short-term increase in the average wait as the backlog is cleared - this can be seen in the data."

Er ... so ten years later is a 'short-term increase', is it? Is he admitting that they haven't cleared the backlog after ten years? Are there people who have been on a waiting list since 1997?

Let's not forget that the nominal cost of the NHS has nearly trebled from £34.7 bn in 1997-98 to £94.3 bn in 2007-08 (planned - see page 7)

"UK mulling fuel poverty voucher"

Ooh! Big numbers! And where there's a big number, there's a f***witted idea not far behind, in this instance, a windfall tax to fund fuel vouchers for those in 'fuel poverty'.

Hmm. British Gas' domestic energy division has 10m gas customers and 6m electricity customers (see end of here). So those £571m post-tax profits (which are after paying corporation tax at 50% or 75% don't forget!!) are, er, £35 per household per annum (or £70 if you get gas and electricity from British Gas).

The spokesman for the oil industry points out (see first link) that the government is already getting £1,000 million from households in VAT on domestic fuel = £40 per household per annum, and politely doesn't mention "as much again in bloody corporation tax".

So how about this for a plan ... if 75% tax ain't high enough, levy a 100% windfall tax and give everybody a £35 'fuel voucher' ... oh ... that's no good ... the industry would shut down and we'd have to go without gas or electricity altogether. Hmmm.

Truly, f***wittery of the highest ordure!

Oh, and as is tradition on this 'blog, let me point out that National Energy Action, Charity No. 290511 (mentioned in the first link) is not a group "which helps people on low incomes", it's a f***ing quango. It gets a cool £2m in grants from various government departments (see note 6 to the accounts). Its subsidiary Warm Zones Limited, gets another £9m from the government. Heaven knows whether poor people ever see any of that money.

Two question referendum

It seems that I Want A Referendum were miles ahead of me on this one: they have already done a survey among Lib Dem voters:

"70% of Liberal Democrat voters would like the party to support a two question referendum - on both the Lisbon Treaty and Britain’s membership of the EU. Only 25% supported a referendum simply on whether Britain should be in or out of the EU"

... and further ...

"In a MORI poll released today by the Liberal Democrats, just over half (54%) of voters support a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU. But the ICM poll of Liberal Democrats shows that over two thirds (67%) support a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty".

So ... the overall message is clear!

Bloggin'

Cat. Pigeons. Home. Roost.

Twats of the day

I have lined up three twats from across the political spectrum, just to show I hate them all...

1) On the left, we have NEU-Lab minister Jim Murphy, who "dismissed the results of the [poll on whether people wanted a referendum on the EU-CONstitution], insisting that it had been largely ignored in his constituency. 'Most local people realised that this was an expensive gimmick and binned the ballot'."

Er ... there was a 36% turnout and 88% voted for a referendum, that makes 32% of eligible voters. Whereas at the 2005 General Election, NEU-Lab won a large majority with the backing of only about 22% of eligible votes!

2) On the right, we have Boris Johnson (in today's Metro, I can't track down the article online), claiming that public transport in London is expensive and over-crowded. Firstly, for Oystercard users it is not expensive - a twelve mile journey costs me about £3 a go. The state controls quantity and price, but it cannot control demand - if there is insufficient quantity and the price is too low, then of course there will be 'overcrowding'. AFAICS, what glib commentators call 'overcrowding', I call 'efficient use of limited resources'.

3) And finally, The Libertarian Party. They propose to cut out wasteful government spending, which is about a quarter of total spending or £130 billion. A very good start, BTW! But instead of wanting to get rid of the most damaging taxes (VAT and Employer's National Insurance - yield about £125 bn) they say they would scrap income tax, which all things considered, is nowhere near as damaging and is much 'fairer'*, in the grander scheme of things, than VAT and Employer's National Insurance. So it's just a headline-grabbing gimmick from people who don't understand economics.

See also my comments at DK's. Me, statist? I've heard it all now.

* Especially if the personal allowance were doubled to £10,000 or so.

"Polls say 88% want EU referendum"

Hats off to I want a referendum for this storming result!*

To those 'weasel-like'** Lib Dems who say we should just have a straight 'In-or-out' referendum, applying Umbongo's impeccable logic, why not cut out the crap and have a three way referendum;
1. Ratify Lisbon Treaty and move to full integration into EU,
2. Not ratify Lisbon, leave things as they are, or
3. Leave the EU?

Obviously, people would be able to give a first and second preference, and if no option got a majority of first votes in the first count, then the option with least first votes would drop out and the second votes that attached to those would be re-allocated accordingly.

* Not just the outcome, which was expected, but getting the BBC to cover it.
** ^TM Nigel Farage MEP

Emotico atualização

Algumas pessoas têm encontrado meu anterior post via brasileira do Google.Tenho conhecimento de que há mais precisos emoticons, que se parecem com este ({i}) ou como este ({ô}).

Isto está a tornar-se um pouco ridículo, por isso vou parar agora.

"Brothel users should give DNA"

Dennis MacShane MP (Lab, Rotherham) is, as previously mentioned, an evil piece of shit.

He wants to make it illegal for men to visit prostitutes and at the same time is asking men who visit brothels to give DNA samples (to whom, exactly?). Er, so, by giving a DNA sample, you are confessing to a crime? Not really much motivation to do so.

Yes, it is probably true that when a woman who works as a prostitute is murdered, it is usually by a man who visits prostitutes and/or who knows her - but of course it is women who 'work the streets' who are most at risk from these lunatics. As there is a clear link between the illegality of drugs and prostitution, the solution must be to legalise both. Then women who really need the money can work a shift in a relatively safe brothel, where of course the use of condoms would be strictly enforced, bingo, there's your DNA sample, all 10cc of it.

"Environment workers to lose jobs"

Ah well, every journey starts with a single step.

Only another two million or so to go!