unplugged

Enjoyable tapas yesterday evening after watching the Polanski movie about an exiled ex-Prime Minister having his memoirs ghosted. Quite a reasonable plot line actually, with Ewan McGregor filling the gaps after a previous ghost writer fell into the sea, so to speak.

Of course, the UK plotline continued too, with a most entertaining interlude yesterday afternoon when the 'take back Parliament' protestors argued for electoral reform outside Clegg's meeting in Smith Square. There were some peaceful protests with people carrying speech bubbles behind the commentators doing 'to camera' narratives live.

Action then moved to Parliament Square and the Sky team's commentary box, which was heckled following two rather hectoring interviews with some of the polite but not particularly media hardened protestors. A third guy being interviewed smiled as he was overtaken by the sounds from protestors and unusually Sky pulled the plugs and dropped into a screensaver.

Meantime, Mr Brown headed for Fife, so any weekend 'power negotiations' with Clegg would have been by phone, but has then returned perhaps for a face-to-face update plea with Clegg before tomorrow's resignation news breaks?

proportional truth

I can't help wondering how cynical the offers to Clegg of anything related to proportional representation really are? The previous attempt to review this was by Labour in 1998 and is gathering dust.

It wasn't exactly earth shaking in any case, cautiously recommending that 80-85% of the elected reps should still be on the old basis and small amount of correction could then be selectively applied.

You'll struggle to find the recommendations in the report available here, amongst the waffle.

Even before this, the previous offer was ages ago from Ted Heath to Jeremy Thorpe to look at the same issue.

The big parties don't want this to succeed because it dents their own power. I suspect the latest offers are just as manipulative as any episode of 'Yes Minister' or 'The Thick of It' and in the case of Brown there could also be 'the old switcheroo' where he offers something before perhaps Mandelson stealthily presides over the rotation of Brown from leadership. We can speculate on rumours of David Miliband, John Cruddas and Ed Balls as successors but all of whom are all resolutely silent at the moment.

My own theory is that these "reform" offers have a proportionality based upon a desperation for power and an influence half life measured in days, whilst creating a distraction value measured in years.

quackers

My prior calculations were that we'd end with a hung Parliament with a slight Conservative lead (the lead came out a bit larger than my calculation). I'm sure the smart people in the back offices of the various parties had this scenario as a prime outcome, whatever their public face.

Now we may go into a weekend of speculation, somewhat like the long gaps between news nuggets yesterday evening, where pundits tried to extrapolate single data points and were almost relieved to find the second story about the locked out voters.

- So Cameron says he has the most votes (more than 10 million) and should become PM with a minority lead party.
- Clegg (more than 6 million votes) has previously agreed that the biggest vote should get the next chance to straighten things (ie Tory)
- Brown (more than 8 million votes) won't want to give in that easily and may dangle proportional representation in Clegg's direction to try to create an alliance.

It sets the scene for 48 hours of pre-rehearsed deal-making and changes to weekend television schedules.

Its anybody's guess, so maybe there will be pressure for another budget, a lightweight reform of the voting model "Let the people decide in a Referendum?" and the thought that we'll have to go through this all over again in a few months time.

results rumour of second UK election on 25 November 2010?

If the Parliamentary timetable for the Queen's speech is to be believed, then Parliament should reconvene on Tuesday 18th May and the Speech would be on Tuesday 25th May.

I wonder if this will be possible given the current blip in continuity, whilst some post election introspection takes place? What's the shortest time between elections? Someone will know. I'll hazard a guess at six months, so maybe 25th November would be a round six months from the speech making and could see a new Parliament up and running for 2011?

That's enough time for parties to re-organise and perhaps a more balanced set of voting practices to be devised.

All the politicians are pointedly saying they are working for the "National Interest" now, rather than their own agendas, so perhaps anything related to improving the representation of the people could be on their minds, rather than their own self-promotion?

(Approximate votes per seat: Labour = 33k ; Tory 35k; LibDem 120k)

counted in

The previous time I voted I was literally the first person into the polling station. I hadn't planned it, but I was there before they opened and once inside decided to hurry through the voting process to guarantee to be first to put my vote into the ballot box.

Not so this time, as I popped into the polling station between two telephone meetings. I'd just finished talking to someone in Rome and my next call was with Belgium, but I had just enough time in between to cast my votes.

As I arrived at the polling station, all was relatively quiet and I was able to go straight to the desk, pick up the papers and add my crosses. I'd been asked for my voter number on the way in by an agent with a conspicuous rosette. He was the only political agent present at that time.

For one of the votes I only had a choice of two candidates, with no Labour representation in my local Ward.

As I left, a visually impaired woman had found the number gathering agent and was asking him where he stood on 'shared spaces' - the road systems which don't delineate road and pavement and remove signage thus requiring new forms of driver discipline. It was a great question from the woman who had just been guided by another into the voting area. The initial well-intended but content free preamble to a response lasted from my exit until I was out of earshot.

At which point my attention was diverted to the interesting driving technique of a people carrier which had somehow driven across a flower bed and now seemed to be somehow balanced on three wheels. This was quite exciting as there was a solid flow of cars into and out of the polling station car park which were now all part of a miniature grid lock. My mind strayed back to the shared spaces and driver discipline question, which was still continuing in the background of a scene of mechanical mayhem.

Quietly, in an adjacent car, I could see another agent with a smaller and different coloured rosette talking into his cellphone.

Maybe his shift on the number counting was about to start, with all of this activity eventually feeding back into the giant television swingometers we'll all be able to watch later this evening.

not so wordless wednesday

altitude check

Up before dawn so that I could travel to Germany. The BBC World Service was telling of the new smoke from the Icelandic volcano, so as I chipped the frost from my car before heading for the airport I wondered if I'd be stuck somewhere random in Europe by the end of the day.

Taxis, meeting people in lobbies, conference rooms until I was swept back to the airport to return at a similar time to the setting sun.

"There'll be some bumpiness for the first 20 minutes" explained the pilot. We were in one of those smaller planes that is only three seats across. The type where they worry about the load profile to ensure that the plane flies level.

Up through the clouds and I could see the distant sun setting slowly as we travelled towards it at 450mph and below it a notable orange haze. I know there's often something like this, but with the volcano stories I felt compelled to watch and wonder if it was the usual thing or something special created by the ash. There were certainly magical swirls as we approached the UK again.

Amusingly, I did at one point check whether the rather small plane flew at a normal cruising "above ash" altitude or would for some reason be lower. Sure enough, 37,000 feet, it said on the specification.

I'm back in England now and when I looked up, the night sky was clear and I could start to count the stars.

blue eyed boy bait

I try to work out if the Vodka Girls are on a different tier from the Beer Ladies. Their attire seems about the same, although I'm not wearing sun-shades this time. I can hear Jeff Mangum's voice and the chair scrape that is really a guitar being unplugged. Yusef may think his map covers my whole mind, but I know India's eye-needle forcefulness can control the sun.

Maybe the tight bassline trails the backbeat in the Lucky Strike smoke, but I'm remembering that thigh squeak on the car bonnet whilst she was telling me about the shotgun. It's magnet abuse whilst they teach me to palm the apricots and avocados, but I'll use the beer can ice fragments to cool me in this desert.

This may not be exactly the blue eyed boy bait, but it's close enough without advertising.

counting the political boundaries

I've been looking at a few of the analyses of the polls and thought I'd spend five minutes doing my own. In many scenarios the numbers yield an interesting skew to the outcome.

Because of the adjustments to political boundaries and the non-proportional voting system, there are all kinds of unexpected splits that occur if there isn't an outright winner with half the seats and an outright majority.

Before the election, Labour has 345 seats, which is a proper majority of the 646 available. With the varied swings predicted, this could drop by 75-90 seats, spread between Conservatives (mainly) and Liberal Democrat (some).

Its interesting, because with the lowest percentage of the overall votes (27%), the Labour party could still finish with the most total seats of the three parties (259).

With a more evenly balanced split with the most votes going to a mobilised Conservative party (34%) then the next to the Lib Dems (30%) and the lowest to Labour (28%), we'd still see the most seats go to Labour at 267, then Conservative at 255.

And supposing the Lib Dems managed to get the most overall votes (33%), with Conservative at 32% and Labour at 27%, then we's still see Labour with the highest number of seats at 259, and Lib Dems with around 128.

Some of this doesn't seem quite right to me.

pollen overload but cowboy bebop remix marathon

Well, the pollen has got me today but I've been watching some more Cowboy Bebop Remix Anime Sci-fi through the tears. It's a new form of red-eye, but the drugs will help, despite my cooking with onions.

Oops.

Here's a couple of trailers from the series.

Second UK election in November?

I decided not to let Sunday escape in the same way as Saturday, so started the day somewhat earlier. I could feel smug that by the time most people were starting their day I'd already been out for a bike ride, done some modest shopping, watched a short video (I'm re-watching the whole Cowboy Bebop Sci-fi series in sequence at the moment) and caught up with the news.

The main story this morning is about that Nissan car full of explosives found in Times Square. Worrisome that a few tanks of propane and some domestic fireworks can be rigged up so easily.

The Times Square story pushed the UK electioneering from top story, but I've decided its time to start speculating about the post election actions of the 'winning' parties.

Intriguingly, if there's no proper majority, Mr Brown can attempt to stay on as acting PM and Whitehall could delay reconvening Parliament. Set the controls for the heart of the sun. Next Friday could be very interesting.

But assuming we reach a point where there's some kind of improbable coalition not involving Mr Brown, there needs to be a contingency plan about what next.

My speculation is an extra budget to look decisive to the money people, a boundary review of constituencies and then another election in November. Questions on these actions could have been good content for the recent debates, but it all seems to be embargoed by the spinners until the results are in.

in which my woolly thinking makes me listless

It's supposed to be a long weekend, but I had a rather late Saturday start. I suspect the efforts of the week had somehow piled up and forced me to take it easy.

That's good in some ways, but also means my 'down time' isn't being spent doing 'my' stuff.

In addition, there's an increasing pile of domestic paperwork to ripple through and sort out. Sometimes it's like there is a conspiracy around Bank Holiday weekends which become extended rainy domestic administration times instead of fun style decompression.

Well, I suppose I this afternoon managed to cycle over a few hills to look lambs frolicking in the fields in keeping with today's new report that says even five minutes of exercise in green spaces is beneficial. Part way along a mad rain soaked my underprepared clothing and I had to shelter under a tree until a big brown dog told me to move on.

It was the second tree that had a good view of the sheep, followed by the reappearance of the sun.

This could all have been a tick in the right box if I'd planned it; what's the old saying, "No lists make me listless"...?