“Fuck Clegg. Fuck Blunkett. Fuck Cameron. Fuck Dorries. Fuck that stupid bitch who’s running the #no2AV campaign. Fuck the UK electorate.

“Fuck the lies. Fuck the cynicism. Fuck the greedy self important cunts in parliament. Fuck Murdoch and all his minions. Fuck the Daily Fail

“Fuck the police. Fuck ACPO. Fuck the journalists who allowed this farce to pass untested.

“Fuck this miserable self regarding racist illiberal shitpile that used to claim to be the mother of parliaments & birthplace of human rights.”

(from Gaijinsan21)

But I take my pleasures where I can in these gloomy times.  And today, as well as yielding links to Nick Clegg looking sad, Twitter has sent my way this great website showing David Cameron pretending to be common.

Have a look. Cheer yourselves up.

Babyfather and I spent a lot of time discussing the relative pros and cons, and came from different sides of the argument, but eventually both agreed that a Yes vote is the most progressive and the most fair way to vote tomorrow.

Several weeks ago, we were told that despite having blatantly lied to us, the No campaign would not be censured in any way whatsoever, as there is no law governing referenda. So I wanted to clarify just a few small things.

Money

The No Campaign kicked off with its posters making ridiculous claims. As in the poster shown here, they claimed that £250 million would be spent on electoral reform. They still have this claim live on their website now. A few points of clarity here:

a. The figures quoted include the cost of the referendum.

b. We don’t need electronic vote counting machines – as claimed. There are no plans to implement them if AV is implemented. This cost accounts for £130 million of the £250 million claimed.

c. The claims for the voter education are wildly inflated. They were based on the voter education costs in Scotland for the Single Transferable Vote – which is universally recognised as being a far more complex system than AV.

Of the assumptions about our intelligence which mean that the No Campaign says that we will not understand AV, more later. But what I found interesting was that when I received my postal leaflet from the No to AV campaign, they included a simple graphic on the page which follows the cost claims. If it’s so easy to explain, then why would it cost so much to educate voters?

d. It is distasteful and inaccurate to infer that if we get AV, then vital medical facilities will be compromised.  The campaign used a whole raft of other signifiers in these posters – underfunded police officers, soldiers without adequate protection, newly born babies in need of maternity units – to appeal to middle Englanders who would take these claims at face value. But what a load of tosh! The economy is a balancing act which is not made up of these simplistic binary choices, as an analysis by New Statesman shows.

The “complexity” of AV

Perhaps it’s because they’re inherently more intelligent than us. You know, our political parties?  Who all elect their leaders through AV.  Whatever the reason, I for one find it insulting to be told the electorate won’t understand AV.

The current system means that if we’re on the left, we have to take into account what way we think the vote is going to go and then to second guess that outcome before deciding which way to cast our own vote. This great flowchart from Anthony Smith shows how much easier the AV system really is.

And this leads me on to

The fairness of AV

This is the point which makes me the angriest. We are a centre-left leaning country, with about 30-40% of our voters being conservatives. The remainder – with dips and peaks depending on prevailing political thought and circumstance – is usually about 65% of the electorate. Yet for the last 100 years our government has been dominated by the Tories.  Thatcher had a mandate to rule with around 30% of the vote.  This is because we on the left split the vote.

If I’m going to the cinema with a group of friends, the likelihood is that I’ll have a few choices in mind so that overall we are able to reach a consensus about what we’d all like to see. Dan Snow’s explanation uses another every day example to show that AV is fair and simple to grasp.

I am a hard-wired labour voter, but over the years (assuming we had an AV system) I would have used my first choice preference for The Green Party had I known that my second choice would be counted too.  And don’t let them fool you when they say this effectively gives me two votes. It doesn’t. If the Greens are eliminated, my second choice is counted.  My first is not. It means that far more people have a voice in who is elected.

When trying to show how unfair AV would be, the No campaign has focused on sports events. This misses the point entirely – as such events are decided on the talent, strength or prowess of a contestant, not how many people vote for them. An election is not a race. But even using their decidedly bizarre logic, it doesn’t add up. One of the examples used was this campaign van which showed two boxers. This included the indefensible claim that “under AV the loser can win.” In a two-man contest such as this, the loser cannot win – that is the point – that you need a majority to win, and with two contestants, one of them will have it. But add in more contestants, and for instance, a judging panel, and then you have to take into account different opinions, and AV allows these to be represented more fairly.

A miserable little compromise

This is one thing I agree with the No Campaign on. It is a compromise. It could be better – my personal reference is for AV plus, which Roy Jenkins suggested in 1998. This system balances out any lack of PR that AV leaves.

But, heartbreakingly, the left-wing supporters of No to AV seem to have fallen hook line and sinker for a very clever little piece of rightwing rhetoric. It may not be ideal. But it is all we are currently being offered. If we vote for AV now, we may open the way to further reform. If we don’t, we close down the argument entirely

We should vote AV to show our disapproval of the LibDems

It would appear that a high proportion of people are going to the polls tomorrow with the intention of giving Nick Clegg a bashing. I understand this. Although I worry that he is shouldering a far greater share of our disapprobation than Cameron, who is the architect of so much of the disastrous policy now being implemented, I believe he has let down the people who voted for him as a new left alternative.

But this is not Nick Clegg’s vote.  This is our vote. We can now choose to lock in Tory power or to allow the left-wing leaning majority to get more and fairer representation.

I won’t go into details, but due to a leaky bathroom, a neighbour in the flat below whose idea of diplomacy would put Pol Pot up for the Nobel peace prize in comparison, and the bastard thieving nature of insurance companies, we decided to sell the flat and be shot of the whole worrying package.

So this brings me on to the point of this post. It’s a simple sale. No chain – our buyers currently rent, and we’re not buying another place now. They were preapproved for a mortgage, the surveys went through all tickety-boo. So why are we now in a position where our tenants are moving out in just under 3 weeks and we have no end in sight?

Is there a secret conveyancers’ code?  Our friends just went through a similar thing where the buyer’s solicitors kept giving absurd advice on the leasehold of the property, and taking this as a cautionary tale, we accepted our buyers’ much reduced offer subject to them taking the lease on as it stands. We’d protect ourselves by making the sale as simple as possible, we thought. Well, that’s out of the fucking water. We’ve been asked for all sorts of information – some of which we can get, some of which we can’t. The freeholder won’t provide some of it – he has no legal responsibility to do so, and we’re not obliged to either. But our buyers conveyancers are insisting on it. We’re now at an impasse where they want some info from us, we can’t get it, and no one will budge. So what happens now? No one seems to know.

What I do know is that every day about 3 hours are taken up with endless and pointless phone calls which seem to cause no shift in the process. I am trying to run a business and instead am spending my time speaking to my estate agent who is as bemused as I am about the whole process.

In the meantime, our tenants, given 2 months notice, decided to complain about us and to threaten us with legal action. We never got to the bottom of the basis for this, but they dropped it when they realised there was nothing in the law which catered for taking people to court for serving legal notice in the correct legal manner.

I am sorry – this is a rant-y and self interested post. But I do think the question needs asking. What do conveyancers actually do? Every piece of information etc that has been needed, I have chased up and eventually delivered.  The solicitor – or more usually his secretary – speaks to me about once a week to let me know that the buyer’s solicitor has raised another concern.

What a load of toot, as Lord Sugar would say.

As a sufferer of vertigo (I even get a rush of fear, nausea and exhileration if I drop something down the stairs!) these pictures caused me much discomfort and some amazement.  I recommend a look.

From The Guardian

Please do not be fooled.  Look into the policy, and see beyond the headlines.  Apart from the parade of old Tories being slotted comfortably into Cabinet seats, apart from the appointment of a homophobic Home Secretary, apart from the fact that 23 out of the 30 cabinet seats have been given to millionaires, there is one thing which we should all raise immediately with our MPs. One little piece of proposed legislation which was published yesterday in the ConDem agreements for a fixed term parliament is truly worrying.

Here is the agreement:

Effectively, in our system, if a major piece of legislation is not passed by a parliament, any party can call for a motion of no confidence.  This would obviously usually be the opposition, who would capitalise on the divided house to show that the leading party do not have the support they need to command the house, and if the motion is passed, parliament is dissolved and a new election is formed.

Now, this has always – for hundreds of years – been a vote on which a majority is needed. But according to this piece of legislation, the opposition would need to get more than half of the votes – 55%.  This is blatantly undemocratic. What really makes it a concern though, is that the Tories have 47% of the seats in parliament (don’t forget – won with only 37% of the popular vote).  If the LibDems find out that they cannot be shackled to a party which is not as progressive as it pretends (this is an if – but I’m setting out now for posterity that this would not surprise me one little bit), if they walk away wholesale from the Tories, if the alliance breaks down, then every single MP in opposition voting in favour could still not bring a no confidence motion.  So MPs representing a massive 63% of the country cannot dissolve Parliament.

Commentators have already been saying that this is a worrying proposal. Legal experts are troubled. This goes against history, democracy, common sense and fairness, and if the Tories pass this piece of legislation, as well as their proposals to reduce MPs – which many see as an attempt to gerrymander the system in their favour, they could easily lock themselves in power for decades.

So in the hope that one person might read this and change their mind, please think about the following when you vote today.

Remember that self-interest serves only a handful of people. Remember our great institutions such as the NHS and the BBC which need to be nurtured and preserved, not dismantled.

Vote against brutal hunting. Vote against allowing Murdoch and his vast media network to decide the political future of our country. Vote against the immediate withdrawal of funds from the economy and the inevitability of another descent into recession. Vote against a party which says they support the vulnerable but will not act to prove it.

Vote for the young and the old. For gay people, straight people, married people, single people.  Parents and grandparents and those who have no children. Vote for children and their futures – for all of them, not just the children of the wealthiest.  Vote for people with cancer and people with mental disorders. Vote for women and their equal place in society.

Vote for progressiveness and inclusiveness. Vote for fairness for all.

Vote however you want, but please just don’t vote Tory.

And so I quote our Prime Minister:

“My father taught me that life is about more than self-interest, that work is about more than self-advancement, that service is about more than self-service.  That happiness is about more than what you earn and own.

“Our shared belief is that wealth must serve more than the wealthy, inequality should not be woven into the fabric of our lives, people of compassion and goodwill should never journey without hope, and no injustice should endure forever”.

This is the man I want to represent me. These are the beliefs which I look for in an enlightened democracy. This is the only way forward for this country.

If you look back through my blog from the last three weeks you will see that the Tories have shown scant regard for the most vulnerable, for the marginalised and helpless in society. But look at Labour’s record:

38,000 more doctors, 80,000 more nurses, 35,000 more teachers, 14,000 more police, minimum wage, paternity/maternity leave, surestart, regional development agencies, child tax credits, quadrupled investment in education, record ALevel/GCSE results, record university students, lowest NHS waiting times in history, free cancer subscriptions, cancer specialist within 2 weeks of diagnosis, reductions of 65million tonnes in carbon emmisions…

Is it really that easy for people to forget all this?

Self-interest has no place in politics – for a country to be healthy, all of its people have to be considered, and there is only one party which promises with any credibility to do so.

Reason #21.  A vote for Labour is a vote for the party which will help the most people.

Let’s leave aside the “Big Society” hogwash which they’re trying to sell us, let’s even ignore for now the well known failures in the Swedish version of the free school system which the Tories are pledging to adopt.

What I really wanted to know is whether, as has been promised on a number of occassions during the campaign, they will really be able to afford to guarantee no cuts to the education budget.

On Saturday I read an ad placed by the NASUWT – the largest teachers union, which says that the Tories cannot guarantee that education won’t be affected by public sector cuts.  So I’ve done some rummaging, and was surprised to find that not only does the NUSAWT condemn the Tory education policy, but Conservative leaders of Hampshire and Kent County Councils both said that the education policy would not work.

A full description of the NASUWT comments, from the website epolitix.com, is below:

“Commenting on the public exchanges between leading Conservative Councillors and the Tory shadow education spokesperson Michael Gove on the hidden costs of the Tories’ free schools policy, Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, the largest teachers’ union, said:

“I agree entirely with the Conservative leaders of Hampshire and Kent County Councils. The only way that the Tories’ free school policy can be funded, at a time of recession and promised cuts to public services, is by top-slicing the budgets of other schools.

“It is disingenuous of Michael Gove to claim that free schools will be funded from the current DCSF budget.

“Even if there were the ’slack’ he claims, which there isn’t, it has already been spent by the Conservatives several times over during this Campaign.

“We are clearly now in the phase of electioneering where the dire consequences of Conservative education policy are becoming so obvious to the public and their own party members that the Tories are desperately seeking to mask the stark truth until after 6 May.”  ”

Reason #20: The Tories have a risible education policy which they can’t afford, and which has already been proved not to work in other countries.

Inheritance tax is a very contentious issue, and one which Gordon Brown alluded to repeatedly in the debate last Thursday.

So I would like to look at exactly who it will benefit, and how.  Annually, the 3,000 richest estates in the country (ie those over £1 million) would benefit by an average of £233,000.  That’s £700 million annually taken out of the current tax system and back into the pocket of the richest people in the country. Or, as someone tweeted on Thursday, in response to Cameron’s answer on this topic (”We want to reward those who have worked hard all their lives”) – “we want to reward those who have inherited hard all their lives”.

People have contended that £1 million is not a huge amount when we look at property prices.  Don’t forget however that the threshold is £1 million per person so if we’re looking at couples, that’s a £2 million house we’re considering. In 2008, only 82 houses over £2 million were sold in the whole country – hardly a large proportion of the population, then. We should note too that the current inheritance tax system only affects 15000 estates – roughly the richest 3% of those who died. The Tories will reduce this tax at the “poorest” end of this, but more so at the richest end. Therefore it is undeniably elitist.

And yet at the other end, Cameron will cut tax-credits – money given to the poorest families (those who work though – so the very hard working people Cameron talks about).

Despite his protestations, it is not true that only families earning over £50,000 will have their credits cut. In fact, the Institute of Fiscal studies has shown that all families earning more than the relatively low £40,000 will lose out, and other independent financial analysts say it could be as low as £31,000.

The Tory plans are to take £400 million per year out of tax credits.  Wonder where they’re going to find the other £300 million to benefit their super-rich mates?

Reason #19: the Tories will use their budget to help the superrich and penalise the working poor.

The Centre for Social Justice was set up under Iain Duncan Smith, has had a strong influence on many of DC’s family policies, and claims to have formulated as many as 70 of the current Tory policies being promised to the electorate at the moment.

I’ll leave the final comment on this to Ben Summerskill, chief executive of Stonewall.”If Mrs Stroud has been praying to rid Britain of its homosexuality, she clearly hasn’t been praying hard enough. It would be highly regrettable if someone who continued to hold these views held any significant office in government.”

Reason #18 – their social policy is being heavily influenced by a woman who believes that being gay is caused by demonic possession.