One outcome of all the MySociety work for this election was the survey administered by DemocracyClub volunteers to all candidates. The results by party are graphed here, with standard deviations and error bars. Some immediate conclusions: Surprising egalitarianism. Look at question 1, which asks if the budget deficit should be reduced by taxing the rich.…
Read More a centre-left nation needs what kind of government?I’m actually quite pleased with our little demo. I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic when we assembled in Trafalgar Square, where various speeches were made of which not one word was audible (note to the various orgs involved: I’d happily spring for some batteries for the loud hailer. I mean, my student union would have got that…
Read More I don’t know what they mean by that…So how did I spend the election night? As it happens, I decided to go to bed about 1am, noting that I was beginning to get as drunk as most of the people on the BBC visibly were and there was still a while to go before any really substantive data came through. Did anyone…
Read More a great time to be a crazy backbencherThe Institute for Public Policy Research has issued a report on the correlates of BNP membership and support (pdf). Fascinatingly, they reckon that there is very little or no correlation between BNP support and key socio-economic indicators like GVA per capita, growth, unemployment, immigration, etc. It’s as if a typical BNP supporter was, well, a…
Read More IPPR: I agree with…So, that election. I should be out delivering leaflets; but my leaflets haven’t turned up. Such is life in the sinister Lib-Dem election machine. More interestingly, it’s been a week of truth. We kicked off with David Yelland‘s and Michael Wolff‘s pieces about the likely panic in the Murdoch world about the Lib Dem surge…
Read More thuds and screams in WappingHas there been anyone in British politics quite as depraved as Geoff Hoon? Can my readers help? Probably the worst defence secretary ever. (You have to realise that he was probably one of the Prime Minister’s two designated deputies for nuclear retaliation – Byers, not so much, and at least he got us the railways…
Read More neither Hoon nor Gove, and probably not Opik either“We can’t go on like this” was all about style and look-and-feel; the tombstone seems to be a reaction against it and a reversion to a fairly crude, tabloid approach. Perhaps it reflects discord among the people who commissioned it? It would be easy to identify the first with Steve Hilton and the second with…
Read More Camera On. Camera Off. We’re still on CCTVAn interesting question. Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were survivors of the Nixon and Ford administrations. Which crawling horrors from the Bush years will be around to plague us in the future? With a year’s hindsight, it ought to be fairly clear who’s recovering. For example, a lot of the senior posts in the current…
Read More which can eternal lie…This is why the wanktanks (thanks, Brett!) anger me, and why they should anger you. In today’s Obscurer: The intriguing fact that the global warming trend of the late 20th-century appears to have come to a halt for the time being has led to growing public scepticism about claims of impending climate catastrophe. In view…
Read More Profiles in Wanktankery: GWPFCracking post of Londonstani’s; perhaps he should retitle as Continuity Abu M? However, it leaves me with one really big question. If I was a Taliban leader under Pakistani protection, I’d be really worried about moving to Karachi unless I knew whose side that city’s various armed factions were on. They’re various, as I say,…
Read More a trick question