Voters should know who is on the party list

Last year, the Electoral Commission issued a discussion paper on the format of the regional ballot paper to be presented to voters in the Welsh Assembly elections. The intention was for the EC to issue a recommendation in December 2014 and for the Westminster government to make a decision earlier in this year. However, it seems from this news item that the matter is still being weighed up.

The sooner we can do away with top-up lists for the general elections in Scotland and Wales the better. Unfortunately, they were the only form of proportional representation that the Labour Party would accept during the devolution negotiations in the 1990s. One can see the appeal to a party which believes in strong central direction. However, they also mean that when electors are casting their vote to enable a balance in the national assemblies reflecting the balance of opinion in the nation, they are buying into the parties' estimation of the best people for the job. We should at least enable voters to put a face and a reputation to each of the people on the list.

As Ceredigion MP Mark Williams, the deputy leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, said: “Regional AMs of all parties work hard for the people that they represent, and build up personal name recognition in their own right among communities in their area. Not putting candidate names on the regional ballot papers, as was the case in 2011, weakens the link between the electors and the elected, makes our democracy more distant and faceless, and decreases transparency.

“That’s surely something that no-one can support.”

The list names were on the ballot in the first Welsh general election. Labour when they had majorities in both London and Cardiff had them removed for the spurious reason that they made the ballot paper too complicated. One assumes that the real motivation was that certain regional AMs - like South Wales West's Peter Black - were becoming too well-known in their own right. An indication of this is that the compromise of displaying the full list in polling stations was honoured more in the breach than the observance in at least one Labour-controlled council area.

Mark Williams is pressing Welsh Secretary Stephen Crabb to make a decision.

Reinstating candidate names on regional ballot papers is something that’s supported by many organisations... The decision has been with the Secretary of State for many months, and all those involved need a decision as soon as possible in order to make arrangements for the upcoming Assembly elections. I do hope he will support our calls.

A LibDem initiative that the Conservatives have not killed - yet

The Business Growth Fund has been a success. As this article in the Indy last September described, the BGF was set up by Vince Cable in his first few days in office. It is bank-financed, but state-backed.

In 2011, the BGF, launched with £2.5bn from high-street banks, was criticised as a figleaf to spare the blushes of banks that were refusing to lend to small and medium-sized enterprises. Others worried that the BGF represented a return to the days when the state tried to pick private-sector winners. The rest of the private equity and venture capital industry fretted that the BGF would provide unwelcome competition, cherry-picking the best investments.

Four years later, those fears look unfounded. For one thing, the fund was given a mandate to invest between £2m and £10m in the businesses it backed, relatively small investments compared to the private equity houses. Moreover, it has been run at arm’s length from the Government and the banks, sourcing deals through a regional network of financiers, accountants and other agents. The BGF also takes minority stakes in the businesses in which it invests, rather than taking control. Sometimes, it invests alongside other partners, [...] but in other cases it is the only backer. Either way, it sticks to minority stakes.

For many entrepreneurs, that is hugely attractive. Young businesses often find that equity funding is required to take the business to the next stage, but their founders are reluctant to give up control of the ventures they have built from nothing.

For all these reasons, BGF has proved popular with growing businesses. After a slow start, [...] the pace quickened. Today, the fund’s portfolio includes almost 100 businesses, representing most economic sectors and every region of the country. [...]

The biggest achievement of Mr Cable’s initiative, however, may be to re-establish the idea of growth capital as a mainstream option for small and medium-sized businesses looking to grow. The banks themselves walked away from this type of investment years ago, while it is fair to say the private equity sector comes with a little baggage. Equity investment, however, has an enormous amount going for it, for both sides, as BGF is now beginning to prove.

Lancashire by-elections

There are a few by-elections coming up in Lancashire in the next couple of months. There is of course the parliamentary election in Oldham West for which Liberal Democrats have selected Jane Brophy. Given the renewed spirit in the party, I would expect this to be a gripping three way contest between Labour, LibDems and UKIP. The fact that our new leader is from the county (albeit holding a seat across the county boundary) must be an advantage.

In addition to contests in Fylde and Barnoldswick, there is one in the Lancaster authority which should appeal to those campaigners who have recently been celebrating the anniversary of Brief Encounter.

Picking a team up off the floor

There was an interesting pair of articles on Jose Mourinho's management style in the Indy recently: an interview of Arbeloa (before Chelsea's home loss to Liverpool) and Monday's comment piece by Ian Herbert, the paper's chief sportswriter. It seems that Mourinho is good at driving his players, ruthlessly dropping them when he feels he needs to punish, and defending his teams as a whole against administrators, referees, the media and everybody else he sees as an enemy, but not so good at putting an arm round the shoulder of individuals whose confidence needs restoring. Sir Alex Ferguson, who became notorious for his "hair-dryer" treatment, was, on the quiet, good at the softer side of management also. Bill Shankly was another with a fearsome public reputation but very good on the one-to-one side of management. It is notable that both had long periods of tenure and saw Manchester United and Liverpool through testing times as well as periods of success.

The trouble is that, Arsenal apart, Premier and Football League owners are less patient these days. Most are driven by the desire for quick returns or to cut losses. Managers like Nigel Clough, who have achieved success by building teams over a long period, face an uncertain future. One wonders how long Sam Allardyce, another "player's manager", has to justify his position at Sunderland.

Swansea City is a different sort of club and Garry Monk is part of the family, as it were. Even so, Huw Jenkins and the board have been ruthless in shifting out managers who have not lived up to expectations. The Swans are not exactly on the floor (they are two points above Chelsea in the League table, after all) and the Trust is not going to be desperately disappointed if the club does not win a trophy this season, but this does look like Monk's first real test. He has proved to be a clever tactician; is he also capable of keeping all the players onside and stopping the poor run of results?

About-faces on the Lords (continued)

Last week I fingered Sir Edward Leigh for praising the Lords' independence when revolting against the coalition and condemning it when supporting George Osborne's SI to cut tax credits. Having trawled through Hansard's record of oral questions last week, I find that other Tories need to be named and shamed: Jacob Rees-Mogg, Bernard Jenkin and Mark Pritchard.

It is only fair that those supporters of the cuts to tax credits who have been consistent critics of the make-up of the Lords should also be praised for their consistency, if nothing else: Liam Fox, George Osborne, Kenneth Clarke, John Stevenson and Henry Smith.

An IT or O&M practitioner accustomed to drawing up decision tables will naturally ask: was there a member who voted against Lords reform yet queried the cack-handed and hubristic way in which Osborne attempted to push through his measure? Indeed there was: Peter Bone continues to prove himself almost as big a nuisance to the 100% Conservative cabinet as he was to the coalition.

Finally, Cheryl Gillan has a record of wanting Lords reform, but not if it meant a totally-elected upper chamber. It appears that she has been a supporter of the tax credit system in the past, and her contribution last week was distinctly ambiguous.

This could be bad news for the Kurds

The regaining of an overall majority by the AKP in Turkey as a result of a campaign based on fear, uncertainty and doubt, is bad news for honest electoral campaigners and probably not only for the Kurdish population of Turkey but also the semi-autonomous Kurds of Iraq.

A key date in computer logic

George Boole, after whom Boolean algebra, ingrained in every self-respecting computer logic designer, is named, would be two hundred today.

Before the Boston Tea Party, there was the Stamp Act

A major imposition of extra taxation on American colonists occurred this day 250 years ago. The Stamp Act ignited the first sparks which were to lead to American Independence.