Why Independents can win - including Dr Steve Ford in Hexham

The biggest argument against Steven Ford winning the Hexham seat, is the viewpoint that voters are too attached to the political parties, which they have always voted for. But is this true? The graph below shows that research done at Essex University demonstrates that there has been a steady decrease in the electorate's attachment political parties since 1964. (Graph from The Dynamics of Party Identification Essex University 2003)

These figures only show the period from 1964 to 2001. This is before the many recent scandals in Westminster. It has not yet been possible to fully measure the effect of these. However, what is abundantly clear is that there is deep anger and disgust at everything from duck houses to the mortgage fiddles. There is outrage that the money from our taxes has been used in this way. We can have no doubt but that this downward trend in support for political parties has been accelerated.

Voters are more willing than at any time in recent British history to turn away from the parties they have supported. That gives Independents an opportunity they have not had for a century and a half, which was when the party system, as we know it, was formed.

A candidate of the quality of Steven Ford has not only the possibility of winning but has a good chance of doing so. Steven Ford can win because he represents the changing attitudes in Britain.

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One country, Two Parliaments, Two Elections - from the Electoral Reform Society

Gordon Brown has finally confirmed what we’ve all known for months. We’re facing a general election on May 6^th

You can read the Society’s response here. But what could be a better way to get started than to start crunching some of the numbers – on the 382 MPs who’ve already won office, no campaign required. Here’s a taster.

So with the starter’s pistol fired, we know the results in most of our parliament. Well think of it as the parliament within a parliament – and if parliamentary careers are anything to go by, these are the seats held by future residents of Number 10, Number 11, and the big offices in the Treasury and the FO.

We haven’t come across some decent research on the length of parliamentary careers at Westminister.  Discussions of resettlement grants for MPs has the average length of service at 8.5 years in 2001, and 8.5 in 2002.  Whether MPs in ‘two term marginals’ make up for the decades of undefeated service in safe seats is a subject for another post.

So, we’ve already got this parliament the start with:

Britain’s ‘Safe’ Parliament
Party	Safe Seats	%
Con	172	45.03%
Lab	165	43.19%
LD	29	7.59%
PC	2	0.52%
SNP	3	0.79%
Northern Irish others	11	2.88%
TOTAL	382

That’s a pretty hefty slice of the lower House already taken. Regionally the picture is uniformly bad, but with some variations. Where these characters come from is another matter.

Safe Regions
Government Office (GO) Region	Seats Decided	Total Seats	% Seats Decided
East of England	41	58	70.69%
East Midlands	21	46	45.65%
London	45	73	61.64%
North East	21	29	72.41%
Northern Ireland	11	18	61.11%
North West	43	74	58.11%
Scotland	36	59	61.02%
South East	55	84	65.48%
South West	24	55	43.64%
Wales	24	40	60.00%
West Midlands	28	59	47.46%
Yorkshire and Humberside	33	54	61.11%
TOTAL	382	649	58.86%

You can draw your own conclusions from here on where the key battlegrounds are. The PM did make a point of heading straight from Buck Palace to Kent, and two key marginals.  Better still, check out the data,  and we’ve done it for you. Kent’s a funny one. We’ve had to congratulate their voters today for being lucky enough to buck the local and national trend, and only have just over 1/2 their seats in the bag.  That’s pretty good by our standards.

The total population of these safe seats is 25 million. It seems fair to assume that for their voters this is looking like a quiet election. For the rest, particularly those lucky 1 million odd in 3 way marginals there will be a campaign. There’s a case for popping Hampstead and Kilburn in alongside, but we’ve been pretty conservative with our choices, and gave into temptation not to lump the next tranch of pseudo marginals as ‘SAFE’

Name	Region	County	Electorate	Incumbent
Norwich South	EE	Norfolk	72,538	LAB
Watford	EE	Hertfordshire	80,013	LAB
Derby North	EM	Derbyshire	71,370	LAB
Northampton North	EM	Northamptonshire	61,749	LAB
Ealing Central and Acton	LN		69,149	LAB
Poplar and Limehouse	LN		70,880	LAB
Edinburgh South	SC		58,811	LAB
Ochil and South Perthshire	SC		75,576	LAB
Brighton Pavilion	SE	East Sussex	72,234	LAB
Bristol North West	SW	Avon	73,104	LAB
Filton and Bradley Stoke	SW	Avon	68,763	**
York Outer	YH	North Yorkshire	74,797	**
		**new seat

via electoral-reform.org.uk

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Lib Dems launch 'Labservative General Election Manifesto'

via youtube.com

Our re-election pledges
We promise to be dishonest about the spending cuts required to fix the deficit.
We promise to spend billions of pounds on like-for-like replacement of nuclear weapons despite Russia and the U.S. reducing their own stockpiles.
We promise to saddle students with debt for their university education.
We promise to guard our ‘safe seats’ by blocking electoral reform.
We promise to protect corrupt MPs from public accountability.
We promise to accept funding from Unions and Big Business in exchange for political influence.
We promise to make environmental policy an afterthought.

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'Hung Parliament Rules Imminent' - report from Charter 2010

In a flurry of confusion last week, the House of Commons Justice Committee published its report and the transcript of the evidence it received on hung parliaments - full text here. Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, will probably publish the final version of the Cabinet Manual chapter that deals with hung parliaments next week.

Distilling the likely truth from the rumour – which had some journalists implying the material in the Justice Committee report was new (it wasn’t - the hearings were in February and the draft Cabinet Manual chapter was also published then); and others confusing the Justice Committee report with the final version of Sir Gus’ chapter (which he hasn’t yet published) – three important proposals emerge:

# Parliament will apparently be asked to return, after the election, a week later than has been usual in recent times (i.e. on the Wednesday 13 days after polling day), with the vote on the Queen’s Speech the following Monday. This would allow 18 days for negotiations between parties to take place in a hung parliament. By a happy coincidence, when Tom (now Lord) McNally prepared a memorandum for Paddy Ashdown in 1997, he calculated it would take 17 days for an agreement with another party to be arrived at and to be approved by the Liberal Democrat policy processes.

# The "caretaker" rules that govern the actions of ministers during an election (preventing them from taking controversial decisions, signing contracts or making appointments) would be extended through that 18-day period. None of this would, of course, stop crucial decisions being taken on matters like managing the economy, protecting sterling, or a terrorist attack - with consultation with the other parties. As Sir Gus himself pointed out, that a stable government was being formed during this period would be more likely to reassure the international financial community than a rapidly formed and probably short-lived minority government that would have no certainty of its measures passing.

# Civil servants would be allowed to assist all the parties during this period by providing any information needed (for example, on the public finances) to arrive at an agreed programme.

If this turns out to be the substance of Sir Gus’ final document it will represent a sound and sensible framework within which the parties - and civil servants - can work if there is a hung parliament. It will also be in line with the evidence Charter 2010 submitted to two House of Commons committees and to the Cabinet Office.

PLUS CA CHANGE...
When Tom (now Lord) McNally sent his memorandum Negotiating Participation in Government to Paddy Ashdown and Tony Blair in 1997 he subtitled it:
“If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well it were done quickly. - Macbeth.I.vii.1”

via charter2010.co.uk

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The man who created Cal-Earth - The California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture

NADER KHALILI, ARCHITECT AND HUMANITARIAN
(1936-2008)

Architect and author Nader Khalili developed the simple breakthrough building technologies known as Superadobe (sandbags and barbed wire) and Ceramic Houses, with the freely available material of earth, for almost thirty years. Inspired by the poetry of the 12th century mystic Rumi, who wrote in his native Persian language, Khalili served as a consultant to the U.N. (UNIDO) and a contributor to NASA, as well as directing the Architectural Research Program (ARP) at SCI-Arc (Southern California Institute of Architecture).

For his work in Earth and Ceramic Architecture since 1975, he received awards from organizations such as the CCAIA for "Excellence in Technology," the U.N. and HUD for "Shelter for the Homeless," the ASCE (Aerospace Division) for his work in lunar base building technology, and most recently the Aga Khan award for architecture for "Sandbag Shelter Prototypes".

Through his work, Nader Khalili has inspired a global movement and left a rich body of philosophy, design and innovative construction technology. His work is continued at Cal-Earth Institute, as the basis for its research and educational mission.

• More about Nader Khal

via calearth.org

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Inspired by Rumi how architect Khalili teaches us to build - Cal-Earth - The California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture

via calearth.org

Click on link to find out more about this inspiring project

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Abolishing extremes of wealth & poverty are vital for Hexham & UK Politics - this is what the Equality Trust say

In brief:

There are two main ways of reducing income inequality

• smaller differences in pay before tax (like in Japan)
• redistribution through taxes and benefits (like in Sweden)

In more detail:

Looking at examples of more equal rich societies we can see that there are two fundamentally different paths to greater equality. One depends on redistributing income from rich to poor through taxes and benefits, while the other involves having smaller differences in incomes at source - before taxes and benefits - so there is less need for redistribution. Although the two methods could be contrasted as the big government and the small government methods of achieving greater equality, the two approaches can of course be combined.

There are examples of each approach internationally and among the different states of the USA. For example, Sweden gets its greater equality through redistribution, through taxes and benefits, and public services provided by a big state. In contrast, Japan has a greater equality of “market incomes”, before redistribution. Differences in Japanese earnings are smaller even before taxes and benefits. While Sweden has a large state and well developed public services, in Japan government social expenditure makes up an unusually small part (compared to other OECD countries) of its Gross National Income. The same contrast exists among US states - even between neighbouring states like Vermont and New Hampshire. Vermont takes the big government route and New Hampshire the small. But despite the contrast in how greater equality is achieved, Sweden, Japan, Vermont and New Hampshire all enjoy good health, lower rates of most social problems - i.e. all the benefits of greater equality.

What this means is that how societies become more equal is much less important than whether or not they do so. There is no shortage of policy options for governments wanting to make a society more equal. There are hundreds of different ways of doing so: indeed, with government expenditure (central and local) averaging close to 40 percent of Gross Domestic Product in developed countries, it is impossible for governments not to affect income distribution. Preventing excessively high incomes and concentrations of wealth at the top is as important as pulling up the incomes at the bottom, and the first clearly provides the means for the second.

As well as more progressive income and property taxes and more generous benefits, we also need policies to reduce differences in incomes before taxes and benefits. That means higher minimum wages, more generous pensions, running the national economy with low levels of unemployment, better education and retraining policies, increasing the bargaining power of trade unions. Good labour law, protection of union rights and minimum wages are amongst the factors contributing to greater equality of incomes in New Hampshire. One of the factors which made a difference in Japan was how companies were owned and run. Differences in incomes of directors and employees in Japanese companies used to be smaller partly because almost all directors were people who had been promoted from among those who had worked their way up the firm. Other differences in corporate governance made unions influential stakeholders and union leaders were sometimes given seats on the board. Patterns such as these led to different ethical standards: Ron Dore describes how it was not uncommon for directors of Japanese companies to take pay cuts themselves to avoid laying off junior employees.

Read more about the benefits of Economic Democracy.

Political Will

Political will is however a precondition for success for the adoption of any effective policies to reduce inequality - political will among public and politicians alike.

via essentials.tumblr.com

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