Hung Parliament? Good or Bad ?

 Politics  No Responses »
Apr 182010
 

There is a suspicion that the elections in the UK just might result in a hung parliament where no party has an overall majority. In other words no party has more MPs than all the other parties put together. In such a situation, a government formed from the largest party tends to be quite nervous as it can be thrown out by its enemies if they all manage to agree.

The preferred option is for a coalition to form out of two or more parties who can swing (if all their MPs obey the party whip) an overall majority.

However in either case, the government is not as stable as it would otherwise be. Hung parliaments usually have a poor reputation because they typically do not last very long and spend more time arguing amongst themselves rather than actually doing anything constructive.

At least in the UK. In Europe, hung parliaments are common enough that coalition government is the norm rather than the exception.

The Tories – after the first “presidential” TV debate where Nick Clegg was surprisingly effective – are suddenly banging on about how dangerous hung parliaments can be. Ignoring those scum-sucking lying politicians for the moment (at least as far as we can), are hung parliaments actually good or bad ?

Well the truth is that they do not happen enough in the UK for us to know. We do know that hung parliaments in Europe are quite common and that it does not appear to be a complete catastrophe there. Of course there will be those who point at countries like Italy and ask whether we want a government as unstable as they have. But I will also point at Italy’s economy and say that it doesn’t seem to have done much harm – Italy is the 7th largest country in the world in terms of GDP.

It is entirely possible that a hung parliament in the UK will cause a momentary loss of confidence by the financial markets, although those that panic are eventually going to be counter-balanced by those with cooler heads that realise that the UK is not going to go bust just because it has a potentially unstable government. It is likely that the economic effect of a certain cloud of volcanic ash will have a greater effect than a day or two of instability in the economic markets.

If we can avoid being distracted by the probably relatively minor economic problems of a hung parliament, we can look at more interesting aspects of one.

This will be an opportunity to get a government which does not let either of the old major parties (Labour and Tory) have everything their own way. Of course a coalition government will have one or other comprising the largest part, but another party – most likely the Liberals – will have a big say.

The likely result of such a hung parliament is significant electoral reform because the smaller parties are more interested in it than the old school parties who do quite well out of our archaic and undemocratic electoral system. Sure you hear of Tory and Labour plans for electoral reform, but what they plan is tinkering around the edges, and the Tory plans revolve around making the political system cheaper with the effect of making our current system even less democratic than it is at the moment.

If the thought of a hung parliament is currently making you consider one of the big two parties, perhaps you should reconsider – a hung parliament is not quite as bad as the politicians of the big two will have you believe, and the increased chance of genuine electoral reform is worth taking that risk.

Universal Suffrage In The UK

 History, Politics  No Responses »
Apr 132010
 

It is a curious fact of history that the UK’s Representation of the People Act 1918 is remembered for being giving universal suffrage to women. What is less known is that it also gave universal suffrage to men! Before 1918, and what is known as the fourth reform act, men were only entitled to vote if they had some form of property entitlement – either a freehold of sufficient value or a leasehold of sufficient value. This meant that around 40% of men had no vote at all, although the suspicion is that for various other reasons many of the 60% could not in fact vote.

This in effect meant that only rich women were disenfranchised – poor women were disenfranchised for being poor in the same way that poor men were.

Whilst the 1918 did not make the right to vote equal between the sexes, the real answer to the question “how long did it take for women to get the vote after men did” is somewhere between 0 and 10 years for the UK. Women aged 21-29 had to wait until 1928 to get the vote.

Even more curiously, before the much needed Reform Act of 1832 (which amongst other things abolished rotten boroughs with ridiculously small numbers of voters), there was actually no legal impediment to women voting. It was probably exceptionally rare that any women did vote except possibly in towns where the electorate was restricted to the membership of certain guilds (women could and sometimes were members of mediæval guilds), but in theory it could happen. The Reform Act of 1832 was the first act which explicitly restricted the right to vote, to male property owners.

So in effect it was only for less than a 100 years that women were denied the vote in this country; before 1832 the overwhelming majority were denied the vote for being poor.

Added: It turns out that there were some women who could vote before 1832. See http://www.historyofwomen.org/suffrage.html

Added2: It appears that an anti-feminist blog entry is pointing at this site as evidence. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion of course, but this blog post was not intended to be anti-feminist. It was intended to make two points :-

  1. The time difference between universal suffrage for men and universal suffrage for women in the UK was a lot less than is commonly believed.
  2. And that before 1832, it was possible that women could (and according to the first amendment to this post, did) vote although it was probably very rare.

Through The Doorway

Tories Will Tackle Benefit Fraud …

 Politics  No Responses »
Apr 092010
 

If you listen to what the Tories are saying you will be under the impression that one of their radical proposals is to tackle benefit fraud. The money saved from this will go towards reversing the rise in national insurance contributions.

Sounds good doesn’t it ?

Well it would be, but it really isn’t a change at all. Benefit fraud is apparently at the lowest level for 10 years – the current Labour government has been tackling it and somewhat successfully at that. Even the Tory idea of stopping benefits to benefit cheats is hardly a new idea – they are just making the “stoppage” longer.

Mephadrone Deaths ?? Part 2

 Media, Politics  No Responses »
Apr 082010
 

Despite being some time since the issue of mephadrone jumped into the consciousness of those who are not familiar with the drugs scene (or the “legal highs” scene), I am still not aware of any genuine deaths that can be solely attributed to mephadrone. There seems to be a number of deaths where multiple drugs were involved including mephadrone and of course the media scaremongers are blaming that drug for the deaths.

It is also clear that there are a number of health risks associated with mephadrone; so the same as paracetamol then ? Well not quite – there has been no extensive testing of mephadrone to assess the risks associated with it whereas paracetamol has had extensive tests. The risks of paracetamol are well understood and the benefits are deemed to outweigh the disadvantages.

Are the apparent risks of mephadrone and the fact that it has not undergone any proper form of testing enough to justify making mephadrone illegal ? Well perhaps …

But some are saying that it should be illegal because people think that because it is legal, it is safe. I am afraid that argument is more than a little ridiculous – after all rat poison is hardly safe but it is still legal. Personally I think that someone who receives a parcel through the post containing a product labelled as “plant food” and still believes that taking it is safe is more than a little foolish.

But of course the true merits of the argument are ignored when the government makes a knee-jerk reaction to make it illegal – as is due to happen on the 16th April 2010.

Professor David Knutt has made an interesting point that people who choose to use recreational drugs may well be better off using the already illegal amphetamines or ecstasy because the risks of these are known whilst mephadrone is an unknown quantity. Whether we approve or not of the use of recreational drugs, it seems that making the drugs illegal is not going to stop their use.

Indeed it may well be that making such drugs illegal not only pushes people who insist on using into the arms of pushers who adulterate their drugs with other harmful substances, but also pushes people into trying “legal highs” as an alternative. These “legal highs” are obvious less understood than drugs that have been around for some time, and may be more or less harmful than the existing choices.

By continually looking to what drug users are using and making everything they use illegal, we are encouraging the development of new drugs with similar effects. These new drugs may be more or less harmful than the ones made illegal – we just do not know.

It is time we re-considered this failed attempt at prohibition which has been going on since (in the UK and in the case of opiates) just after World War I. There are many arguments against the current position on prohibition, but one argument that is of particular relevance in today’s financial climate is the possible tax revenue that could come from a “sin tax” on recreational drugs. Making drugs legal would very likely reduce their cost sufficiently that a tax could be added and the resulting product would still be cheap enough to undercut the illegal drugs – and of course the government could add a big health warning.

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