The Most Important Issue in UK Politics
It’s fair to say that UK politics has a lot of problems right now, and those who know me probably know that I believe many of those issues surround the Conservative party. But what is the most important issue in UK politics right now? The Conservatives Going straight to the meat of my argument, my view is that the Conservative Party is a symptom, not the cause, of our biggest problem. Now, before you think this is me excusing their behaviour, I am absolutely not. What they have done to the country is reprehensible, collapsing the NHS, increasing inequality, putting us on the brink of recession through mad tax cutting schemes, and that’s only three issues off the top of my head. They have proved time and time again that they are unsuitable for leadership, yet our system allows them to lead as though the majority of the country wants them. We don’t So why do they currently have a majority? Our Broken System How is our system broken, and how is this the most important issue in UK politics? To answer that we have to go back to the system we have of electing representatives. We call that “First Past The Post” (FPTP), which is a callback to the original racing origins of the term. In other words, for a given vote under the FPTP, the person who gets the most votes wins. Conceptually this works, especially where there are only two candidates in a race, but the problems start to become apparent when you extend this to more than two candidates and more than one constituency. More Than Two Candidates Let’s look at a theoretical constituency with three strong candidates, Alice, Bob and Connie. Let’s take the most absurd example, when each of them gets exactly one third of the vote (assuming the constituency is 70,000 people, that means each gets around 23,333 votes). What happens now? Well, if we assume they have genuinely equal shares of the votes, the winner is selected by a game of chance. For two candidates this means tossing a coin to see who wins, for three presumably it would involve rolling a die or drawing lots. If Alice wins, the aftermath of this is that voters for both Bob and Connie will have voted in an exactly symmetrical manner to Alice’s voters, but their candidates will have lost. They will have no representation of their views in Parliament. Clearly this example is vanishingly unlikely, but let’s look at a slightly more likely outcome. In this case, Alice gets 25,000 votes, Bob gets 20,000 and Connie gets 15,000. What happens now? At the face of it, it’s clear that Alice should win, but what does this mean for the constituency as a whole? If Bob and Connie have very similar manifestos that differ on only a few small but important issues, then their combined vote share would be 35,000, far more than Alice received. But Alice would be declared the winner, and only her political views would be represented in Parliament. This gets even worse when we consider more than one constituency. More Than One Constituency Let’s introduce a different constituency alongside the one above, this one with candidates Andrew, Bridget and Connor. Respectively they are from the same parties as Alice, Bob and Connie. In this constituency, Bridget wins comfortable, taking 30,000 votes to Connor’s 20,000 and Andrew’s 10,000. Importantly, the two constituencies have case the same number of total votes as follows: Hopefully the issues start to become really clear here. If we assume that the system is set up so that each constituency returns one MP, then parties A and B each get one MP. However, the problems arise when you start to look at the total number of votes across both constituencies. In this example, B is the clear winner with 50,000 total votes compared to 35,000 each for the runners up. B only gets one MP though, the same as A. C gets no MPs despite doing exactly as well as A across the constituencies. In essence, anyone voting for C loses their representation not because their choice was unpopular but because of a quirk in the distribution of votes. This effect gets worse when you start looking across the whole country. In the case of the UK as a whole, we have 650 constituencies up for grabs, and in 2019 our general election results were as follows: It is fairly hard to argue that the last few years have been anything other than an abject disaster from a governance position, and it is likewise very clear that the claims of an overwhelming majority are ludicrous at best. There is no universe in which a 43.6% vote share could be considered a majority, and yet that is precisely what the current system allows for. Our system is designed to put the least objectionable party into total power at any time, and this system is broken. It directly leads to adversarial politics and the desire to immediately undo the key policies of the previous government upon taking office. This means that key aspects of society such as the NHS or Education become political footballs rather than something politicians work to develop for the whole country. What Can We Do Better? At outset it might feel like changing politics is a huge undertaking, and in many respects it is. But there is a simple solution which will have a multitude of benefits, namely a change to proportional representation. There are a number of nuances to this approach to elections, but the simple summary is that under any system of proportional representation, seats are awarded to parties in accordance with their actual share of the votes. In the 2019 General Election, for example, the Conservatives would have 43.6% of the seats rather than 56.2%. They would still be the largest party in parliament, but they would not command a majority and could not therefore simply push through any legislation they
It’s On!
In case you’ve been living under a rock, the famously-absentee Member of Parliament for my neighbouring constituency of Uxbridge & South Ruislip resigned in what I can only describe as a fit of pique. He had been facing the judgement of the committee of privileges over his conduct surrounding Partygate, and the expectation at the moment is that the report – which was given to him in advance of his resignation – contained a recommendation to suspend him for long enough to trigger a recall petition. Regardless of his guilt or innocence, he’s now gone, so there is a by-election coming in Uxbridge & South Ruislip. Luckily we have a candidate who has been active in the area for a long time in Blaise Baquiche. Blaise is a hugely passionate candidate, and he and I have been working together on our campaigns for a while now. I have certainly been impressed by his dedication to fairness and integrity, and I wholeheartedly support his campaign to be an MP for Hillingdon. Blaise’s Beliefs Blaise with me and London Assembly member Hina Bokhari Blaise is a committed environmentalist. Importantly, he sees this as an opportunity for Britain to make use of our incredible natural resources in the form of solar, wind and tidal energy to become self-sufficient for energy generation, perhaps even a net exporter. This can only be a positive for the country given the problems we have seen recently with the international price of gas and the control that Russia has on a large proportion of our supply. Blaise, like me, also wants to see an end to the wholly unnecessary dumping of raw sewage into our country’s rivers and coastal waters. We have sufficient technology available to us already to make this sort of action unnecessary, but the government right now puts water company profits ahead of the environment, and that attitude must change if we want to leave the country habitable for our children. His environmental beliefs means that there are certain things he sees as necessary evils, for example the proposed expansion of the Ultra-Low Emissions Zone. However, like me, he feels that the support being offered to non-compliant drivers is not sufficient at this time, therefore he would oppose the ULEZ expansion in its current form. How Can You Help? If you’d like to lend a hand in Blaise’s campaign to be an MP, there are a few things you can do to help: We’re not in the restricted period for spending and donations yet (though check the date, as this is correct at the time of publication but will change when the date of the by-election is confirmed), so if you’d like to make a donation, now would be a great time. Our donation form is here. We’ll soon be limited on how much we can take, so fill your boots now and help us fight for Uxbridge & South Ruislip. Whatever you donate, we will spend on sending the major parties that allow the current system to propagate a message. We’re going to need volunteers FAST. If you can lend a hand by coming and helping Blaise spread the word, that would be great and we’d love to see you. Our volunteer page is here. It doesn’t matter where you are in the country or even the world – we can make use of remote volunteers just as easily as local ones. Tell friends and family who might also want to help out. They can donate, volunteer, or just put up posters around where they live. Blaise with me and one of our volunteers in Eastcote earlier this year. Above all, remember that this vote will require more ID than any other election we have had in Hillingdon before, so it is going to be worth checking with friends and family that they have arranged a form of valid ID or a postal vote in plenty of time. However you choose to help, Blaise and I are very grateful indeed, and we hope to see you on the campaign trail! Bonus Video Just as a bonus, here’s a video of Blaise explaining a bit more about his campaign and his motivations. It’s really powerful stuff! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QArQG_tBmc&pp=ygUPYmxhaXNlIGJhcXVpY2hl
A Wasted Vote?
Is a vote for the Liberal Democrats a wasted vote? No, it’s a very positive step.
Petition – Don’t Take Away Freedom of Speech, Hillingdon Council
Our freedom of speech is at risk in Hillingdon. Sign a petition to tell Hillingdon Council that this isn’t okay.
A Short Update
It’s been a while since my last post – loads going on in my life, including needing to set myself up as a self-employed worker due to some unpleasantness with my last job (on that note, if you’d like a website or photographic services, my photography site is live now, while if you want my financial planning services I’m currently going through the regulation process, but you can have a look at my financial consulting website for updates). Notwithstanding the above, it seemed like it was a good time to post an update on what I have been doing politically. Practising speaking skills Some of you will already know that I have been going along to the Trojan Speakers club in Ealing, a member of the Toastmasters network. This is a great opportunity for me to practice public speaking in a controlled and non-political setting, but it is excellent practice for different styles of addressing groups, which can only stand me in good stead when it comes to a General Election. Recently I have finally won one of the coveted “Best Speaker” ribbons for a talk I did on retirement planning. The goal for this exercise was to inspire the audience, so I thought I would pick a subject that most people see as “boring” at best to see if I could change a few minds. Mission accomplished, I think! Learning to debate Practising public speaking is one thing, but I also thought it would be useful for me and Blaise to learn a bit more about the art of debating. Again, this is with the intention of being better equipped to take on David Simmonds and Boris Johnson respectively if we participate in a hustings at some stage. Given this, we gathered an expert debated – the former president of a university debating society – and some volunteers from my Speakers club, and we had a debate on whether or not MPs should be subject to a recall petition from their constituents. For information, this is a highly relevant topic. At the moment, Boris Johnson is subject to an inquiry from the Privileges Committee relating to his repeated lies to the House. If he is found to have lied to the House deliberately, he might be suspended. If suspended for more than two working weeks, the residents of Uxbridge & South Ruislip are eligible to file a recall petition to remove him as their MP. This suspension is the bare minimum needed for an MP to be subject to a recall petition. In most circumstances, an MP can be absolutely certain that their position is secure. They can do absolutely no work for their constituency, host no surgeries, make no speeches in the Commons. In essence, they can wholly abandon their constituency, and as long as they do not die, go to jail or become suspended from the Commons for more than 10 working days, they will still be eligible to claim a salary for representing their constituents. The system is set up such that an MP is protected from any accountability until the next election.
Express Route to the Lowest Common Denominator
I spent four hours in a car yesterday, so was already in a pretty foul mood. When I reached my destination, I saw that my messages contained a really ugly article by the Express. This concerns a fellow Liberal Democrat candidate, Katy Sykes, and I have had the pleasure of being on a panel show with Katy in the last few months. At no point did I think the accusations sounded like her usual persona at all, so I thought I would go back to her to get the real story. The Offending Article To call this an article would, in my view, be overly generous. It isn’t. It’s a very biased hit piece. Noteably, the Express did not bother to ask Katy for her side of the story before going to print with this garbage, so naturally it was entirely one-sided. Don’t believe me, though, judge for yourself: In 2013 Ms Sykes said: “Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I really really want to kill something.” Two months later she posted: “You better fn have nine lives coz I fn have eight knives.” She also threatened: “One more person calls me a weirdo or filthy c*** then I think I’m going to rip their vocal cords out and use them to slice their knackers off.” Ms Sykes posted in May 2013: “I hate the fg northeast, why is it I seem to attract the fg b*d scum everywhere I go, feel like either hurting them or killing myself.” Frankly, it is brutal that the Express trawled through Katy’s old posts like this to find anything that could possibly be held against her. We have all said things we didn’t mean online, and the fact that Katy has not been in the news for “ripping out someone’s vocal cords and using them to slice their knackers off” would certainly imply to me that this was an example of someone venting, not making actual legitimate death threats. Transparent Faux Outrage In response to finding these comments, naturally the responsible thing to do as a serious journalist would be to message Katy asking for an interview to discuss the comments. Naturally that’s what the Express failed to do. In fact, they went straight to a Conservative MP, Simon Clarke, for his view. His statements were: Approached by the Express for a reaction, local Conservative MP Simon Clarke said the posts from Nikita Sykes are “horrifying”. He said: “These quotes are horrifying, most especially in their repeated references to, and threats of, extreme violence. “It is very obvious Ms Sykes is totally unsuitable for public office and I hope the Liberal Democrats will act immediately to withdraw her candidacy – she ought never to have been allowed to stand in the first place. “I hope she can now find the help she clearly needs.” Simon Clarke Clearly Mr Clarke is new to the internet if he thinks that comments like that are horrifying (if he needs an education, then a quick visit to Reddit introducing himself as a Conservative MP will likely show him what horrifying really is!). I personally wonder what sort of environment he has found himself cushioned in where freedom to vent on social media has been so badly curtailed, especially as he is in the party that boasts about freedom to cause offence with their bigoted views. More to the point, the idea that this is a threat at all is entirely unfounded. A threat is directed against a person or group of people, and arguably it must be perceived as potentially real. Venting online and talking about wanting to harm or even kill “someone” is not a threat, it is merely venting. Now, you could argue that the language was inappropriate, especially if the meaning was actually literal. But in order to do that, you would have to actually approach the person who uttered those words and expressed those views, and you would need to be satisfied that a) they were actually meant to be a credible threat (they weren’t) and b) that they represent current views (they don’t). In short, this isn’t journalism, it’s a thinly-veiled hit piece against a candidate who made a number of statements a decade ago that she now doesn’t identify with. For fairness, I must mention that the article states that Katy was contacted for comment, but she tells a different story and says that the paper never actually made any effort to get in touch with her. To my mind, I am more inclined to believe Katy here, as most of us candidates have numerous ways for people to get in touch with us, and it is very unlikely that we would miss an opportunity to speak to the press. Conclusion This article really irritated me for a number of reasons: It’s easy to find out what views a candidate has these days. As an example, if anyone wants to find out what I advocate, they can look at my manifesto. They certainly don’t need to go back through my social media history looking for moments which don’t necessarily still represent my views today. By our nature we are a changing species, and as James O’Brien states “there’s no point in having a mind if you never change it.” The Express should be ashamed of themselves. This article isn’t journalism, it’s a pathetic hit piece that tries to take advantage of someone’s poor mental state from a decade ago as an attack on them now. Simon Clarke should be ashamed of himself. He took this opportunity to pass judgement on someone now based on a series of venting posts made during a period of mental fragility a decade ago. Rather than doing the right thing and reprimanding the “journalist”, he took the opportunity to attack someone for daring to have been vulnerable in the past. Anyone who reads the Express should consider buying another paper. If this is the quality of their journalism, then their paper is fit only to be used if you run
Face Masks and Personal Responsibility
I had to go into a hospital today (nothing major for me, in case anyone wonders!) and I was genuinely surprised by something. Only around one person in every five was wearing a face mask, despite these being given out for free at every entrance. This really made me think about personal responsibility and how that would be applied to face masks. Personal responsibility is central to a number of political stances, not least libertarianism, which seems to have been wholly embraced by Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng (disastrously so). So how might or should this principle apply to wearing a face mask? What is Personal Responsibility? (NB, this gets a bit deeper into the philosophy of ethics than I originally thought, so feel free to skip to the next section for the meat of the argument). It might be an obvious question with an even more obvious answer to some, but it is an interesting philosophical point. In my view, it is about taking ownership of decisions or actions you make and agreeing to help if your actions cause negative consequences. In other words, if you harm someone whether directly or through inaction (thank you Isaac Asimov) then you indemnify the victim for that harm and adjust your behaviour to minimise future harm. This becomes a little more difficult when you have a cost to mitigating your current behaviour and you need to compare that cost to the harm that you do. At that point you would need to assign relative costs to both the actions you take and the harm that would be done as a result. This ends up being hugely subjective and has been the subject of endless debates between ethicists for millennia. Personal responsibility is a balancing act In my view, though, the moral position can be reduced to: Within most moral systems there is the idea that causing harm to others is generally worse than minimising a loss for oneself. In other words, one could be better off by stealing from someone else, but unless that theft is necessary to preserve life or reduce harm to others, it is genuinely hard to see how this could be considered moral. What are Face Masks? Face Masks – what do they do? This might fall into the category of blindingly obvious, but it might be worth revisiting what these are for. Masks aren’t just for virtue signalling or decoration, after all. They provide a tangible benefit in the control of infections. Importantly the main benefit isn’t to the mask wearer. Instead the mask helps to stop the wearer from passing on their germs to others. It’s a little like sneezing into a tissue – that action isn’t for the sneezer, but for all the people around them that might otherwise be sneezed on. When it comes to certain pathogens (viruses, bacteria and fungi), airborne transmission is the primary means of infection. Sometimes you can be a carrier of an infectious pathogen without displaying any symptoms, so simply “feeling fine” is not a guarantee that you aren’t carrying an infection that could be lethal to someone else. I mentioned cost above as a reason not to do something, so it’s worth revisiting the costs of wearing a face mask: This is obviously different for people that cannot wear a mask for medical reasons – clearly the cost for them is insurmountable. For most of us, though, wearing a mask is nothing more than a minor inconvenience. Personal Responsibility and Face Masks Here we come to the discussion of how personal responsibility and face masks intersect. When it comes to personal responsibility, I summarised that it would be immoral to do something that caused harm to others if the cost was negligible to not do that. Under the topic of face masks, I concluded that, for most of us, the cost of wearing a face mask is negligible. I therefore think that the conclusion is inescapable. Wearing a mask has minimal or no cost and potentially saves lives. As such, it certainly seems to me to be entirely moral to wear them where there is likely to be a positive effect. Hospitals are likely the place most likely to result in deaths if infections are allowed to spread uncontrolled, and they are the place where masks are still provided free of charge for everyone. Possibly more importantly, in most hospitals there is a good chance that there will be some patients there who did not make a choice to go there – instead they are there because of an illness or injury that they certainly would not have chosen to acquire. As such, there can be no use of the “they chose to go there and accept the risks” type of argument that could be used to oppose mask mandates. My conclusion is not to suggest that a mask mandate should be reintroduced nationally. However, I genuinely feel that those who turn down free masks in hospitals run the risk of killing someone else by accident, and personal responsibility should make them pick up face masks and wear them with pride.
Buy Some Merchandise, Support My Campaign
First batch of products in my store that you can buy to aid my campaign.
Lessons Learned from my Launch
If you’ve been paying even cursory attention over the last few weeks, you will likely have seen that my campaign launch was coming up. In fact, it was yesterday. I think it’s important to reflect on events and the lessons learned from what occurred during my launch. Tickets Without question, it’s going to be a good idea in future to offer a discount for early ticket purchases, or at least free tickets to the raffle. The issue I had this time was that I set the ticket price as a flat fee, which meant that someone giving 12 weeks of notice would be paying the same as someone who gave 12 minutes! Economically, this makes little sense, so a staggered pricing that increases towards the deadline makes sense, especially if I retain the flexibility to let someone come along at the standard price. I definitely made a rod for my own back with this one in terms of catering numbers, and as such I definitely overbought (what a shame!). Lessons Learned from my Launch #1: consider pricing the tickets so that early birds get a discount. Location, location, location What’s a party without a venue? Well, we found out yesterday, when the owners of the venue that we had paid for and turned up to did not themselves turn up to let us in. It seems that they had accidentally put our booking down as a March rather than a February booking. This had been mentioned and corrected by me in January, but apparently it did not manage to get corrected on the community hall’s calendar. After some drinking in the car park while we waited, we eventually decided that it was just too cold, so we decided that the best bet was to find an alternative venue. I don’t know if you know this (I didn’t) but there was a fairly major football match on yesterday, so most venues just weren’t available. As such, we needed a “volunteer” with a private residence not too far away who would be happy for a large group of political activists to turn up en masse. Long story short, it was me. I was the “volunteer”. So we had an impromptu party at my house. Which I loved, by the way, so I might volunteer to do again! Lessons Learned from my Launch #2: don’t deal with any venue unless you have a mobile number for the person who is in charge of letting you in. Raffles The raffle went quite well, notwithstanding the fact that my photography was the least popular prize of all! That said, it makes sense to ensure that the person selling the tickets (thanks again, Sue!) knows the rules of the raffle first rather than asking how it works after selling 30 tickets or so. Luckily this was all sorted long before the problem became permanent. Of course, it also makes sense to draw the winners before anyone departs, in case they have the winning tickets. In this instance, I thought that two of our departed guests had one of the winning tickets, so I held it back for them, only to find out the next day that they did not in fact have the winning ticket. Who did? Sue. Sue had the winning ticket. She’d sold it to herself, then forgotten to actually check whether she had won! Lessons Learned from my Launch #3: Sue is great at persuading people to part with their money for raffle tickets. Sue is not so great at actually claiming the prizes she wins! Conclusion In spite of my fairly sarcastic tone in the lessons learned from my launch above, I genuinely had a great time. Having so many friends and family descend unexpectedly on my house was lovely, and it was great to have the Morassi Quartet playing in my lounge! Thanks to them, and also to Dom, who did amazing work in the kitchen to produce food for everyone. Bring on the next one – maybe next time it will actually be planned as a house party!
Campaign Launch – 2 Weeks to Go
When I first booked a date for my campaign launch, it felt like a very long time in the future. Now we have only 2 weeks to go, it feels like it has crept up on me very fast indeed! If you’re in the area and looking for something to do on Sunday 26 February between 17:00 and 20:00, I’d love for you to come along, chat with me about the things that matter most to you, and enjoy our refreshments. We’ll also be holding a raffle with some amazing prizes. If you’re looking for inspiration for things to chat to me about, my personal manifesto is here. You can find tickets and full details here, or in the flyer below.