Fri, 02 Jul 2010

The VAT Increase

Hardly surprising to many, Mr Osbourne put the VAT rate up with effect at the beginning of 2011. To many this is seen as a major kick in the teeth and many people view it as increasing our chance of a double dip recession. Its taken me a week to think this over, along with many of the other items that arose from the budget, and whilst I personally detest VAT I appreciate the economic situation, and can understand why this has been chosen to be increase.

However, to soften the blow somewhat, I think bringing in the VAT increase should coincide with the change of rating of a number of items. For example:

The first two should not really be considered as luxuries; Contraceptives have the potential to save the state significant amounts of money by reducing STI prevalence and lowering the risk of unwanted children. Changing these would more than pay for the decrease in VAT revenue, both financially and socially.

As for bikes, one of the many policies of our beloved coalition government is that of decreasing the environmental impact of the country as a whole. There are various schemes out there to try and encourage environmental friendliness, including a scheme to get low cost bikes from your employer. However, this is only really a baby step, and many companies - especialy small-to-medium enterprises - are unable to truly take advantage of the cycle scheme. For this reason I propose zero rating bikes and bike lights, to try and increase bike ownership and bike use. Given the number of motorists complaining about cyclists with no lights and being hard to see, reducing the VAT on bike lights to encourage ownership, and with it, their use, can only be a good thing.

Footnote: Many sexual health services including free contraceptives are available in your community. You can search for your nearest resource on the NHS website Here.

posted at: 14:32 | path: / | permanent link to this entry

Wed, 05 May 2010

Do you want my vote?

We are now entering the finishing straight of this election, at the time of writing, less than 36 hours are left before the polls close. Yet as I sit here at my desk in canterbury, It feels like there is no actual election happening.

I followed with great interest the three TV debates, and I have been following various online sources for news of the campaigns, but here in my local constituency of Canterbury and Whitstable very little has actually happened. Cycling around town there are no big bill board posters from the main parties like there are in some other locations (on a recent visit to London I saw a lot of billboard posters relating to the election), infact the only evidence I have seen by way of the campaigns are a number of the diamond shaped Liberal Democrat signs on the road to the hospital, and a largish Liberal Democrat banner on St Stephens road. Outside of the house, that is all I have seen of the parties. Which is rather dissappointing.

At home I have received the following fliers in the post:

That's it. Nothing infact from the incumbant Conservative candidate Julian Brazier.

Canterbury and Whistable is considered by pretty much everyone to be a safe Conservative seat, it has been Conservative since its inception, and in the last general election Julian Brazier won with a 15.7% majority. But in a general election that most people think is going to leave no one party with an ourtight majority, the amount each party gets by way of the popular vote will be crucial when it comes to the coalition negotiations. So why then do the Conservatives in Canterbury not seem to want my vote? Why are the other parties only content on padding out my recycling bin? What ever the reason, I hope the turn out is more enthusiastic than the campaign.

posted at: 21:56 | path: / | permanent link to this entry

Thu, 22 Apr 2010

Reform of the House of Lords

All the mainstream parties (by that I mean Liberal Democrats, Labour, Conservative) list as part of its manifesto reform of the house of lords. The subject has been brought to the forefront by people feeling that this unelected group of over privileged fat cats do not fit into the modern democratic society that we live in. They feel that the fact they are not chosen by the people, but by birth to be an afront to their sensibilities and that we must "fix" this. The problem is, we need to be very careful what we wish for, and what we want to replace our current second chamber with.

Before I go off into a discussion of the issues with electing this second chamber, I want to get across a fundamental point regarding the House of Lords. Put simply: Members of The House Of Lords are there not because they want to be there, but because it is their Duty. The key is to look at the Lords as life long Jury Duty. When you take this view, you see that their role is incredibly important.

The lords is there to act as a sanity check for the House of Commons, they are there to act *Purely* in the best interests of the nation. They do not have to worry about re-election, they don't have to worry about covering their own back. When placed in that position, the way that a Member votes changes fundamentally. Consider for a moment the House of Commons. Members of Parliament have to consider very closely everyway they vote. They need to consider firstly the way the party whip is telling them to vote, and secondly what their constituents will do in response to them voting in a particular fashion. In short, they are worried about whether or not they will get re-elected at the next election, be it because they have upset the electorate, or because their party has withdrawn support for them. Extrapolate that onto the House of Lords, an elected second chamber is no longer in the place where it can vote purely in favour of what is best for the nation, but for what is going to get them re-elected, and that is where we have to be very very careful.

This all said, there is a way forward where by we can have an elected second chamber, without having to sacrifice the national good. Put simply we need to remove the re-election issue. If the you term limit the lords to a single term, then there is no need for them to care about being elected a second time.

Term limits aren't a complete fix, if you have a House of Lords where each lord stands for election once for a fixed term, you need to make each term to have a length such that they can do some good. Anyone familiar with Americian politics will be aware of the view that the first year of a presidency is the only effective part (some say the first 100 days). With a 4 year term that means they only get stuff done for 25% of their term, it takes a while for each member to get the hang of what is going on, to get upto speed, then they have to spend some time dealing with the hand over etc... So how long do you make that single term? Well I would say a minimum of 10 years, maybe as much as 15. This provides a long enough term to serve your Queen and Country well, whilst not giving an effective life term.

It is also necessary to consider what happens if you elect all 733 lords at the same time. You arrive in the situation where 733 people all share the first day, and share a same total lack of experience (its not like any of them have already served a term.) So elections need to be held on a rolling basis, electing 10% of the total membership each year, this allows for a good mix of old timers and young blood.

Finally when discussing any election, we must consider the method by which those members are elected. The current system the uk uses (First Past The Post - FPTP) is appallingly unfair favouring a 2 party system. Put simply, if you have 5 candidates for a position, with FPTP one candidate only need get 20.01% of the vote to win, conversely, 79.99% didn't want that candidate. This is hardly conducive for providing a strong mandate. So if we are going to elect our second chamber we must do so with some form of proportional representation. Exactly which voting system to use is a rather large subject in it's own right, so I will leave that discussion to a future article.

In summary, my proposal for an elected second chamber is as follows:

I welcome feedback and comments on my articles, please feel free to email me your views on b (at) 42q.eu . Thanks.

posted at: 13:53 | path: / | permanent link to this entry

Introduction

Who would have predicted just this time last year the political climate we now find ourselves with in the UK. Like it or not, MP expenses, have brought politics more into the mainstream than we ever saw before. This combined with the wonders of new media (yes I hate that term too) means that the 2010 UK general election should be memorable, regardless of the outcome.

I have started this blog as I wanted somewhere seperate from my main website (http://quixotic.eu) to write a blog, somewhere to add my voice to the thousands out there, to perhaps, just maybe, be heard by someone. The aim isn't to produce articles of great length, but to provide a concise analysis of the topics in question, and to provide my view without drowning you all in exuberant verbosity.

posted at: 13:50 | path: / | permanent link to this entry

Leaders Election Debate Drinking Game

This wasn't my intended first article for this blog, but it is time sensitive. So whilst I polish up the original first article, I give you this one instead:

An idea that came from watching the first Leaders debate and through discussion with friends in a pub was a drinking game to enjoy whilst watching the Leaders Debates. I thought I would put together some rules for the game so we could all join in (we are now split across 3 countries).

  1. Drink whenever someone agrees with Nick
  2. Drink when they mention a policy you agree with
  3. Drink when someone mentions somebody they met on the campaign trail "I met a steel worker in woking last week..."
  4. Down a glass if the BNP or UKIP are mentioned or alluded to
  5. Drink when the moderator mentions that this topic is devolved and the answer only applies to England
  6. There is no rule 6
  7. Drink everytime someone mentions Obama

If the Nick Clegg plays his cards right, then we could actually have genuine tweets of "I'm hungover #nickcleggsfault".

Please note I do not condone irresponsible drinking. Please do not hold me responsible for any hangover you might get.

posted at: 13:25 | path: / | permanent link to this entry