It isn't easy...

You may have guessed from past posts that I am not UKIP's greatest fan. You may also have guessed that I find professional politicians to be a depressing bunch; self-serving, dogmatic, inflexible etc. Hey some of us write blogs to utilise those parts of our character, rather than being paid by the public to do it.

And, yes, I accept there are some very decent, able and well meaning individuals in the wide political landscape (I include unions, campaigners and pressure groups here), even if their half-life in parliament seems a little shorter than you would wish.

But I felt the need to say a bit more, lest you view me as some sort of messianic Russell Brand-like figure, leading you in a Hamleinian Pied-Piperesque progress away from the Victorian voting booths (you see Russell - it's easy to use big words and tautology).

It is important that we all vote. I'm not one for mandatory voting like they have in Australia, because I don't like compulsion (dangerously libertarian argument there). But I think that the right to moan about it comes with the obligation to do something about it.

If you think a party represents a majority of your views across the spectrum (and the rest isn't egregiously nasty) then it may make sense to vote for them in everything. (If 'your' party represents all your views 100%, then you are either Vladimir Putin or you haven't really thought at all.)

But there is no reason why you have to sign up on the list for life. Different parties may appeal differently for different things.

 Let me give the example of me. It's a London-centric example, but if you don't like that, wait for a local sheep to write a blog and read that instead.

In an electoral cycle, I get to vote for:

• The UK parliament (once every five years or less)
• Wandsworth Council (once every four years)
• The Mayor of London (every four)
• The London Assembly (every four)
• The European Parliament (every five)

Take the Mayor of London. (Please, take him.) OK, take the election. The last two have really been a straight choice between a newt-fancying Evening Standard hating, Blur-song-narrating* leftie, and a Bullingdon, blond, cycling lothario. (Check for libel). A vote for the Libdems, or the Greens is a waste. My choice is, depending on your view and you can guess mine, either the candidate I like more, or the one I hate less. Ken or Boris, Boris or Ken. If I don't vote for my 'favourite' then I've increased the chances of the other winning.

Pretty much the same goes for my UK constituency - Labour - not safe but not marginal. Tories closish second, everyone else - don't bother.

But then look at Europe. All of London is one constituency, with 8 seats. Elected by Party List Vote (d'Hondt system if you care, which you don't). This basically means that you need to get one eight of the votes to get a seat. So if the Tories got 25% straight off and Labour got 37.5%, they would get 2 and three respectively. You then redistribute surpluses, eliminate the hindmost and reallocate quotas until you get to 8 elected. (I used to be a Students Union vote counter you know.)

So for, say, the BNP to get a seat they perhaps only need to get 12.5% to get a seat straight off, but can end up getting a seat with perhaps 8%. So your vote really can make a difference for smaller parties.

Which would allow you to vote with my conscience rather than using the Least-worst option discussed above.

This is a long post already. Next time, I'll extend this thinking to local elections, and might even discuss how I am thinking of voting (though there is a huge clue in this post for those who look). And if you put BNP? in the comments, f*ck off now.

*Ernold Same on the Great Escape

On politics, holidays and snooker

Back to blogging.

We've had a major rewrite of our website going on at work, which has meant lots of rewriting of content and agonising over synonyms. I just haven't felt like writing in my time away from work in those circumstances.

Working for a business that is American in its parentage means that it is at these times that the "two nations divided by a common language" becomes most evident. Words that sound fine ("just fine", perhaps) from the mouths of my US colleagues sound "folksy" to British ears. Or, the fifth time you have to make the same change, they sound "shite".

So, having finished that job on Tuesday last, it's taken until today before I can face words again.  I am doing what one traditionally does on this Bank Holiday; watching snooker, trying to avoid watching snooker and moaning about our horribly asymmetrical distribution of bank holidays. The US seems to have a public holiday every six week or so. Aren't they fortunate that their big events occurred with such a distribution through the year?

They are helped by their comparative official atheism. First amendment issues mean Easter isn't a holiday, and Christmas is limited to one day, with Thanksgiving and Independence Day (which commemorates the US special effects industry) being the big ones. Whereas once May is out, we find ourselves thinking that August is the only one left in the year (given that the business year stops about December 20th).

The kids like this bank holiday though. Its the only one they notice - the rest all falling in a holiday week. (I guess it is the same for teachers though I had never thought about it - they get so much holiday they probably don't notice*).

Three weeks from today I will be on a train back from Edinburgh where I will have been doing some concerts with Voxcetera. If you are up there, look us up and come along. Which means I have two and a half weeks to learn some French lyrics, a task that would have been helped by not leaving my folder behind at the rehearsal venue last week. But that still leaves me time to blog and annoy you further.

And it's handy that the same timeframe will see the European and (for Londoners) local elections, to ensure I have plenty to blog about. If you are looking for frothy talk about the comparative public holidays of the US and UK, come back in June.

We are starting to get electoral leaflets through the door - though the Tories and Labour are only talking about local issues, whilst the Greens and UKIP have a more European focus. Of the Libdems, there has been only silence.

I don't really understand the appeal of UKIP, though I don't think many do in multicultural inner London. Farage went to school locally to me (at Dulwich College) but hasn't really made his presence felt here. So we are a bit bemused about why his party gets so much TV time, or how that squares with the BBC's institutional left-wing bias.

The European elections give us all a chance to vote tactically - voting for parties in a multi-member constituency means that a vote for a fringe party (like the Lib-Dems#) can have value. I'm not sure if that explains the relative quiet from the big two. They may just be embarrassed about Europe I guess.

So stay tuned for some feisty political blogging.








* A good friend, on reading a post I had made on Facebook said to me, "you do realise that some people don't always get humour?" If there is no set-up or pay-off (I think drum-rolls or a boom-tish) they assume you are being earnest. So here goes: that was not a serious comment - I do not think teachers get too much holiday, and think they deserve a medal, more money and lots of holidays. Educating the next generation is the most important task. Go on, hug a teacher.

# similar comments. Go on, hug Nick Clegg. Or Lembit Opek if you must. Mike Hancokc, hmm, not so sure.