Thursday, April 29, 2010

tactical voting

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My home for the last 10 years or so has been the glorious city of Plymouth. With its industrial heritage based around Devonport dockyard the two urban constituencies of Plymouth are Labour strongholds and the boundary changes this election will only reinforce that. In 2005 the Tories came in in second place in both constituencies and the Green Party didn't even put up a candidate. This election they will but I've been driven to seriously consider voting Lib Dem tactically by a letter to the Graun endorsing the LDs and signed by several people I admire and respect greatly, notably including George (hat tip to Anon). Does anyone else think this is a good idea? With their current popularity and Labour's lack of it they may well be serious contenders for the seat and I'm thinking that a principled vote for the Green's will be wasted under the current undemocratic electoral system. At least the Lib Dems are committed to electoral reform and appear to be the least-worst option of the three main parties.

Don't get me wrong. I still think the Lib Dems are mostly a shower of cunts without any effective environmental or economic policies. I am just reminded of Michael Moore's criticism of Ralph Nader in the 2000 USA presidential elections. Nader refused to throw his support behind Al Gore, despite not standing a cat's chance on an Italian cookery show of winning himself. Despite subsequent analysis showing Nader's decision to continue contesting the election played no role in Gore's subsequent defeat the situation may arise here on May 6th. Although I'm leaving the country it would please me greatly to know that my Janner friends have a less sociopathic political representative in Westminster than a dirty Tory.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Gordon Brown's "bigoted" comment to pensioner

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I haven't got a problem with politicians, even the Prime Minister, calling people bigoted. I have got a problem if they do so and then haven't got the stones to stand up for their opinion and argue it openly. I couldn't think of more of a stereotype of bigotry than a Rochdale pensioner. If Brown held a press conference and related the details of his conversation with this woman and why he considered her bigoted- and I agreed with him- I would actually consider voting Labour.

Then, two seconds later, I would punch myself in the head repeatedly, whilst shouting "Iraq! Trident! The banks! Climate change! . . . "


Addition 02-05-10:

I love it when someone comes along and provides evidence to confirm my intial judgements: Gillian Duffy is a bigot.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Skeptical Voter Wiki

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Anyone who feels policy should be based on nothing but evidence will be chuffed silly to see this.

Awesome!

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

the problem with economics

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Compare and contrast these two articles. The first has the rather excellent Joseph Stiglitz taking neoliberal economics to the cleaner. However, whilst penning the article, Joe doesn't seem to have noticed the substantial pachyderm sharing the room with him. The colour, shape and smell of this animal is detailed in the second article by someone called Christopher Doll: I refer, of course, to the irrational obsession of mainstream economists with growth.

It is remarkable that someone of Stiglitz' Nobel-Laureate stature does such a splendidly detailed job of picking apart economists' failures whilst completely failing to confront this most absurd of their convictions.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

one month later

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I haven't posted for a month because I'm experiencing something of a crisis. It now looks as if my long-term plan of leaving this festeringly corrupt nation behind may come to pass sooner than I thought. Current plans involve a one-way flight out of the country in September as my current contract expires at the end of August. Also, the Punkling is due to make an appearance in July and travelling with babies is simplest when they are very young. Yes, Punkwiff is 'with child'. May science have mercy on us all.

In the mean time, via Sciencepunk . . .