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Friday, 31 May 2019
The current climate is against us
Asthma sufferers were hit by a surge in pollen the other week. Now there is the threat posed by thunderstorms. Here is official medical advice from Asthma UK:
Thursday, 30 May 2019
CAT welcomes dogs
A neat headline in the current Clean Slate magazine signals a change in policy by the Centre for Alternative Technology. Previously, canines other than assistance dogs were banned from CAT because of concerns for ground-nesting wildlife. Now, strategic fencing and other measures have enabled responsible dog owners to visit the site for a trial period, which it is hoped to make permanent. There is more here.
Wednesday, 29 May 2019
The devil and André Sainte-Laguë
In a posting at the end of last month, I warned how an ignorant (or malevolent) decision made by Labour Home Secretary Jack Straw twenty years ago could give disproportionately too many European Parliament seats to the Brexit party. By implication, the Liberal Democrats would not gain the number of MEPs they were entitled to according to the percentage of votes cast. So it has turned out. Less expectedly, Conservatives also missed out and Labour would have had to do remarkably better in South-West England to have even got a sniff.
I am by no means an electoral systems wonk, so what follows is the result of hurried mugging-up. The d'Hondt method of allocating seats from party lists is in use in the UK and several other countries round the world. It is known to favour larger parties. The main alternative, devised by André Sainte-Laguë, was actually first thought up by the almost legendary US statesman Daniel Webster. The basic procedure is set out by the helpful German company Polyas which specialises in on-line voting systems.
Armed only with O-level maths and a Which? pocket calculator, I tried it out first on a simple four-seat selection and one close to home: the Welsh EP election. (All figures on which my calculations are based are from wikipedia which tends to be more accurate than the BBC when it comes to election reporting.) Not expecting much change, I was surprised to find that Webster/Sainte-Laguë actually awarded the fourth seat to Lib Dems rather than Brexit. (The other three seats were unchanged: Brexit, Plaid Cymru and Labour.)
So, on to Scotland, where the actual outcome was 3 SNP MEPs, 1 Brexit, 1 Liberal Democrat and 1 Conservative. Applying Webster/Sainte-Laguë on the proverbial back-of-the-envelope gives 2 SNP, 1 Brexit, 1 Lib Dem, 1 Con. and 1 Labour.
The moral is that short-term expedients which give you undue advantage when you are on top can exaggerate your fall when you slide down the greasy pole. Labour must be praying that neither Brexit nor Plaid Cymru win a majority of constituency seats when 2021 and the next Welsh general election come round.
I am by no means an electoral systems wonk, so what follows is the result of hurried mugging-up. The d'Hondt method of allocating seats from party lists is in use in the UK and several other countries round the world. It is known to favour larger parties. The main alternative, devised by André Sainte-Laguë, was actually first thought up by the almost legendary US statesman Daniel Webster. The basic procedure is set out by the helpful German company Polyas which specialises in on-line voting systems.
Armed only with O-level maths and a Which? pocket calculator, I tried it out first on a simple four-seat selection and one close to home: the Welsh EP election. (All figures on which my calculations are based are from wikipedia which tends to be more accurate than the BBC when it comes to election reporting.) Not expecting much change, I was surprised to find that Webster/Sainte-Laguë actually awarded the fourth seat to Lib Dems rather than Brexit. (The other three seats were unchanged: Brexit, Plaid Cymru and Labour.)
So, on to Scotland, where the actual outcome was 3 SNP MEPs, 1 Brexit, 1 Liberal Democrat and 1 Conservative. Applying Webster/Sainte-Laguë on the proverbial back-of-the-envelope gives 2 SNP, 1 Brexit, 1 Lib Dem, 1 Con. and 1 Labour.
The moral is that short-term expedients which give you undue advantage when you are on top can exaggerate your fall when you slide down the greasy pole. Labour must be praying that neither Brexit nor Plaid Cymru win a majority of constituency seats when 2021 and the next Welsh general election come round.
Tuesday, 28 May 2019
Science in the service of the law
Now that the Resolven by-election and the European Parliament elections are over, I have been catching up on some of the stories which should have received more prominence when they broke. Among them is the report by their Lordships over the state of the provision of scientific evidence before the courts.
The report draws attention to the failure of the private providers of technical services to keep up with developments in the science, but more importantly to poor management on the part of government. Their conclusion begins:
A free society is dependent on the rule of law which in turn relies on equality of access to justice. The evidence we received points to failings in the use of forensic science in the criminal justice system and these can be attributed to an absence of high-level leadership, a lack of funding and an insufficient level of research and development. Throughout this inquiry we heard about the decline in forensic science in England and Wales, especially since the abolition of the Forensic Science Service.
The report draws attention to the failure of the private providers of technical services to keep up with developments in the science, but more importantly to poor management on the part of government. Their conclusion begins:
A free society is dependent on the rule of law which in turn relies on equality of access to justice. The evidence we received points to failings in the use of forensic science in the criminal justice system and these can be attributed to an absence of high-level leadership, a lack of funding and an insufficient level of research and development. Throughout this inquiry we heard about the decline in forensic science in England and Wales, especially since the abolition of the Forensic Science Service.
Monday, 27 May 2019
European Parliament elections: first thoughts
Welsh Liberal Democrats came tantalisingly close to the first European Parliament seat for the party (or for the predecessor Liberal Party). Chloe Hutchinson tells us that this was our best performance since direct elections to the EP started in 1979. If Change UK had not interfered, their votes would have been enough to take Welsh Lib Dem Sam Bennett over the bar. One also wonders how much Plaid Cymru's late intervention, urging Lib Dem supporters to vote Nationalist, had on the contest. If it had caused a 2% swing between the parties, that would have been enough to ensure that Brexit achieved a second seat, exactly the opposite result from the purported aim of Plaid's mail-shot.
Change UK also gave Brexit an extra seat in North-East England, preventing Fiona Hall from returning to Brussels. Other regions in England may have been affected, but that result stood out clearly. The bad news that the controversial Claire Fox had topped the poll for Brexit in the North-West was mitigated by the more welcome return of the excellent Lib Dem Chris Davies. Overall, the party in Scotland and England has easily topped our previous haul. And there are suggestions from Northern Ireland, which is counting today, that Naomi Long of our sister party the Northern Ireland Alliance will be one of the successful candidates.
Our fifteen Liberal Democrats and one Alliance MEP will join a reinvigorated ALDE bloc in the EP. Greens have also increased their representation across Europe. Together - and they seem like natural bedfellows - they will constitute 24% of the new parliament, filling the void left by the decline in democratic socialist and moderate conservative blocs. Extremist parties have increased their representation, but it is noteworthy that few want to break up the EU. Even Marine le Pen's Rallye National, born of the neo-Nazi Front National, has reversed its policy on membership.
Vince Cable and his successor as leader of the Lib Dems, whoever that may be, now need to use the party's new-found prominence to stress that we are not a one-issue party, that we have policies to help the "just getting by" people to whom Theresa May promised so much and so miserably let down. An increasingly self-serving Conservative party and a disastrously-split Labour will not do so.
And we have by no means heard the last of Sam Bennett.
Change UK also gave Brexit an extra seat in North-East England, preventing Fiona Hall from returning to Brussels. Other regions in England may have been affected, but that result stood out clearly. The bad news that the controversial Claire Fox had topped the poll for Brexit in the North-West was mitigated by the more welcome return of the excellent Lib Dem Chris Davies. Overall, the party in Scotland and England has easily topped our previous haul. And there are suggestions from Northern Ireland, which is counting today, that Naomi Long of our sister party the Northern Ireland Alliance will be one of the successful candidates.
Our fifteen Liberal Democrats and one Alliance MEP will join a reinvigorated ALDE bloc in the EP. Greens have also increased their representation across Europe. Together - and they seem like natural bedfellows - they will constitute 24% of the new parliament, filling the void left by the decline in democratic socialist and moderate conservative blocs. Extremist parties have increased their representation, but it is noteworthy that few want to break up the EU. Even Marine le Pen's Rallye National, born of the neo-Nazi Front National, has reversed its policy on membership.
Vince Cable and his successor as leader of the Lib Dems, whoever that may be, now need to use the party's new-found prominence to stress that we are not a one-issue party, that we have policies to help the "just getting by" people to whom Theresa May promised so much and so miserably let down. An increasingly self-serving Conservative party and a disastrously-split Labour will not do so.
And we have by no means heard the last of Sam Bennett.
Sunday, 26 May 2019
Canada's firearms legislation
Canada's Liberal government is facing the age-old tug between individual freedom and the need for public protection as it steers Bill C-71 through the upper house of parliament. Liberal critics say that the proposed legislation is the bare minimum necessary to fulfil the Liberals' manifesto pledge. They point to the more drastic action taken by New Zealand in the aftermath of the mosque shootings. On the other hand, Conservatives complain about the extra burden placed on law-abiding gun owners while nothing is done about illegal firearms.
On the horizon are the next federal elections. Justin Trudeau is already tainted by the SNC-Lavalin affair and October 21st could see his majority disappear in the face of a Conservative resurgence and desertion by more radical Liberal voters. A Conservative government in Ottawa, or a minority Liberal administration which has had its wings clipped, have implications for trade negotiations with the UK if we are out of the EU by then.
Thanks to today's BBC World Service news broadcast for the alert.
On the horizon are the next federal elections. Justin Trudeau is already tainted by the SNC-Lavalin affair and October 21st could see his majority disappear in the face of a Conservative resurgence and desertion by more radical Liberal voters. A Conservative government in Ottawa, or a minority Liberal administration which has had its wings clipped, have implications for trade negotiations with the UK if we are out of the EU by then.
Thanks to today's BBC World Service news broadcast for the alert.
Saturday, 25 May 2019
Fifteen books in fifteen minutes
One of those memes which has been circulating on the Web surfaced in Terry Teachout's column recently. His selection (bearing in mind his North American roots) of those titles which came to him in a quarter-of-an-hour was:
Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood
James Gould Cozzens’ Guard of Honor
Boswell’s Life of Johnson
Anthony Trollope’s The Way We Live Now
John P. Marquand’s Point of No Return
Barbara Pym’s A Glass of Blessings
Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour (yes, it’s a trilogy, but I first read it in the one-volume omnibus version)
Dawn Powell’s The Locusts Have No King
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye
Clement Greenberg’s Collected Essays and Criticism (a four-volume set, but I think of it as a single work)
George Orwell’s Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters (ditto)
David Cairns’ Berlioz (a two-volume biography, but I think of it as a single work)
Fairfield Porter’s Art in Its Own Terms
Edwin Denby’s Looking at the Dance
It seems to me that the lists I have seen so far are a bit too worthy. One is influenced by all sorts of literature before one is even introduced to the concept. Ones childhood reading has a greater influence that most people care to admit. Wind in the Willows and the Alice books certainly still affect me, along with Dickens, Hardy, Orwell, JP Marquand (again), Dorothy L Sayers and Nigel Balchin.
Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood
James Gould Cozzens’ Guard of Honor
Boswell’s Life of Johnson
Anthony Trollope’s The Way We Live Now
John P. Marquand’s Point of No Return
Barbara Pym’s A Glass of Blessings
Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour (yes, it’s a trilogy, but I first read it in the one-volume omnibus version)
Dawn Powell’s The Locusts Have No King
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye
Clement Greenberg’s Collected Essays and Criticism (a four-volume set, but I think of it as a single work)
George Orwell’s Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters (ditto)
David Cairns’ Berlioz (a two-volume biography, but I think of it as a single work)
Fairfield Porter’s Art in Its Own Terms
Edwin Denby’s Looking at the Dance
It seems to me that the lists I have seen so far are a bit too worthy. One is influenced by all sorts of literature before one is even introduced to the concept. Ones childhood reading has a greater influence that most people care to admit. Wind in the Willows and the Alice books certainly still affect me, along with Dickens, Hardy, Orwell, JP Marquand (again), Dorothy L Sayers and Nigel Balchin.
Friday, 24 May 2019
Westminster meltdown - the precedents
Peter Black has a typically thoughtful piece about the troubled times in which we live. Like many of us, he draws parallels with the breakdown of the Weimar Republic. It seems to me that what has saved us (so far!) from a neo-fascist dictatorship is that our constitution does not allow the head of government to take unchallenged and wide-ranging emergency powers, as Weimar did. Nor is our head of state as feeble as Hindenburg was.
To me, the present situation echoes previous occasions in our political history when established political parties were thrown into confusion: the Peelite breakaway over the repeal of the Corn Laws, which broke the Tory/Whig duopoly, leading to the emergence of the Liberal and the modern Conservative parties; and the break-up of that same Liberal party over Irish Home Rule, giving a kick-start to Labour. It seems to me that in both situations the outcome was not inevitable, and that a different path could easily have been taken.
Our future is similarly unpredictable. Throw into the mix a mercurial US president who seems intent on antagonising traditional friends while at the same time stifling world trade and one worries. One worries.
To me, the present situation echoes previous occasions in our political history when established political parties were thrown into confusion: the Peelite breakaway over the repeal of the Corn Laws, which broke the Tory/Whig duopoly, leading to the emergence of the Liberal and the modern Conservative parties; and the break-up of that same Liberal party over Irish Home Rule, giving a kick-start to Labour. It seems to me that in both situations the outcome was not inevitable, and that a different path could easily have been taken.
Our future is similarly unpredictable. Throw into the mix a mercurial US president who seems intent on antagonising traditional friends while at the same time stifling world trade and one worries. One worries.
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