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.

Volcanic Ash Disrupting UK Flights

 General  No Responses »
Apr 152010
 

So this morning I wake up to find that UK flights are severely disrupted (apparently all domestic flights have been cancelled) due to volcanic ash being blown south-east from a volcano in Iceland. Nature is demonstrating again that it can severely disrupt the activities of people!

People may be wondering why something as apparently trivial as volcanic ash could disrupt something as large as an aircraft. Well this “ash” is not quite the same as the normal ash we are familiar with – volcanic ash is particularly nasty stuff being comprised of tiny amounts of rock and glass which can quite easily stop aircraft engines and cause damage to the aircraft. Nobody wants to be in an aircraft when all engines stop!

The ash is currently high-level so it is not apparent from the ground although there’s a chance of having some interesting sunsets.

(later on)

Now it appears the whole of the UK airspace has been closed to all air traffic until “at least” 7am tomorrow morning (Friday).

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.

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