Climate change has been in the news a bit this week, with 56 newspapers around the globe printing the same editorial asking the G20 summit to actually do something to sort out the environmental problems we are causing.
Hundreds of millions have been dedicated towards 'green' projects in the pre-budget report
And it was also mentioned in this weeks PrimeMinister's Questions, with projects to increase wind-farms being briefly discussed.
But, the problem we have here is that energy = power: wether we're talking about the petrol that makes our transport network run, the gas that heats our homes and cooks our food, or the electricity that make our factories and communication network run (and lets us see in the dark), energy is one of the biggest forms of power, with energy companies featuring amongst the richest entities in the world.
The fact that we are reliant on companies to provide us with petrol, gas, and electricity also means that, should, say, an area of the UK break away and rebel, the government can simply order the aptly-named power companies to disconnect the area, throwing it back into the dark-ages...
So... with such powerful companies not likely wanting to give up their riches, and with it being such a juicy last-resort means of control, with the government considering wind-farms, and hydroelectric, and hydrogen power for cars, and anything else that leaves energy centralized and in the control of a small number of rich companies, I wonder if they'll also actually push solar-panels and small (on your roof?) wind-turbines, whilst decentralizing the power grid?
In other words, will they place power into our hands?
I notice that the pre-budget report mentions and average of £900 tax-free per year for solar-equipped households that over-produce electricity and give some back to the grid, which should go some way to making them more economically viable; a very nice, non-authoritarian move by the government, if it's as-seems...
Friday 11 December 2009
Thursday 3 December 2009
ID cards
IMO = In My Opinion; IANAL = I Am Not A Lawyer; tl;dr: = too long; didn't read (i.e., what follows is a summary)
A little insight into how the government seems to work:
ID cards aren't exactly the most popular idea the government's ever come up with: whether the complaints are cost, over-authoritarianism, or the government's track-record for looking after our data, the idea seems quite unpopular.
Yet, it's being rolled out — currently[1] on a 'voluntary' basis.
A few tricks the government is using to 'encourage' us to adopt ID cards:
Divide and conquer
Of course, no-one likes immigrants, and so no-one complained when they were given compulsory ID cards.
I'm sure no-one will complain when other 'jews of today' are forced to adopt ID cards:
Opt-out tax
Thinking of going to Spain for your holidays, but need to renew your passport?
Well, maybe the government could interest you in a cheaper alternative? Why pay £77.50 on a new passport when £30 will get you an ID card, which will allow you to travel to EU countries?
Given that the government could surcharge or subsidize either of these government-issued licences as much as they want, the fact that the one the gov' want you to have is cheaper than the one they don't is not a coincidense.
Compulsory volunteering
Far more sneakily IMO: the alternative to voluntarily carrying ID is choosing to go without ID — and alcohol and fags.
At the same time as the ID cards were being slyly implimented:
Note that, in a few years, this will result in several young adults who have had a few years' experience carrying ID, and who may object less to the idea of it being made compulsory.
I suppose the next logical step — other than making challenge 21 (25? 30?) outright compulsory — would be to 'fix' the 'oversight' of a previous (less authoritarian) government, by making it obligatory to carry driving licences whilst driving (currently, the police may issue you with an order to produce it at a station within 7 days), meaning that there's one more thing that you can 'volunteer' to go without if you wish to decline the 'voluntary' ID card scheme.
And that seems to be how the government are sneakily implementing ID cards, bit-by-bit.
(By-the-way: there's a difference between 'an ID card' and 'the ID cards' of the government's ID-card scheme: the latter involves a national database of data, including biometric data; I'm just thinking that getting in the habbit of carrying normal ID-cards would be a step towards the acceptance of the national ID-card scheme).
I'm curious as to the exact reasons why (presumably) it wouldn't work to simply refuse, en mass, to co-operate... but that's enough for today.
===========
[1] http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/en/ukpgaen_20060015_en_1; part 4 and section 7, or ctrl+F and search for 'compulsory'.
A little insight into how the government seems to work:
ID cards aren't exactly the most popular idea the government's ever come up with: whether the complaints are cost, over-authoritarianism, or the government's track-record for looking after our data, the idea seems quite unpopular.
Yet, it's being rolled out — currently[1] on a 'voluntary' basis.
A few tricks the government is using to 'encourage' us to adopt ID cards:
Divide and conquer
Of course, no-one likes immigrants, and so no-one complained when they were given compulsory ID cards.
I'm sure no-one will complain when other 'jews of today' are forced to adopt ID cards:
- Paedophiles (or at lest the potential paedophiles that are teachers)
- Students
- Unemployed (to 'combat benefit fraud')
- Terrorists (or maybe not)
Opt-out tax
Thinking of going to Spain for your holidays, but need to renew your passport?
Well, maybe the government could interest you in a cheaper alternative? Why pay £77.50 on a new passport when £30 will get you an ID card, which will allow you to travel to EU countries?
Given that the government could surcharge or subsidize either of these government-issued licences as much as they want, the fact that the one the gov' want you to have is cheaper than the one they don't is not a coincidense.
Compulsory volunteering
Far more sneakily IMO: the alternative to voluntarily carrying ID is choosing to go without ID — and alcohol and fags.
At the same time as the ID cards were being slyly implimented:
- The government 'unrelatedly' amended the Licencing Act (the amendments made by sections 23 and 24 of the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 seem to be the culprits, but IANAL), granting the police new powers to order to 'combat violent crime' (caused by underage drunkards).
- The police use said powers in order to crack down on under-age sales (so as to 'crack down on violent crime').
- The government release some advice on how to avoid losing your licence (tl;dr: adopt challenge 21|25 scheme).
- In fear of their trade, alcohol retailers started adopting challenge 21|25 schemes.
Note that, in a few years, this will result in several young adults who have had a few years' experience carrying ID, and who may object less to the idea of it being made compulsory.
I suppose the next logical step — other than making challenge 21 (25? 30?) outright compulsory — would be to 'fix' the 'oversight' of a previous (less authoritarian) government, by making it obligatory to carry driving licences whilst driving (currently, the police may issue you with an order to produce it at a station within 7 days), meaning that there's one more thing that you can 'volunteer' to go without if you wish to decline the 'voluntary' ID card scheme.
And that seems to be how the government are sneakily implementing ID cards, bit-by-bit.
(By-the-way: there's a difference between 'an ID card' and 'the ID cards' of the government's ID-card scheme: the latter involves a national database of data, including biometric data; I'm just thinking that getting in the habbit of carrying normal ID-cards would be a step towards the acceptance of the national ID-card scheme).
I'm curious as to the exact reasons why (presumably) it wouldn't work to simply refuse, en mass, to co-operate... but that's enough for today.
===========
[1] http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/en/ukpgaen_20060015_en_1; part 4 and section 7, or ctrl+F and search for 'compulsory'.
Thursday 26 November 2009
PrimeMinister's Questions
PMQ
The PM falls into a booby-trap, confirming that the Iraq investigation will not be censored, excepting as required for public security — only to have a Labour-issued protocol dictating the censorship of the report, and retaining rights to censor individual points, waved in his face by Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg.
In the same session, Gordon Brown implies that we should adopt some parliamentary reforms that are 'absolutely vital to a modern participatory democracy'.
Well, great; but that'd require letting us know what's going on so that we can make informed decisions: i.e., you can't censor facts merely because they reflect poorly on you; in fact, knowing the facts that reflect poorly on the government are important in any democracy, participatory or otherwize.
The PM falls into a booby-trap, confirming that the Iraq investigation will not be censored, excepting as required for public security — only to have a Labour-issued protocol dictating the censorship of the report, and retaining rights to censor individual points, waved in his face by Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg.
In the same session, Gordon Brown implies that we should adopt some parliamentary reforms that are 'absolutely vital to a modern participatory democracy'.
Well, great; but that'd require letting us know what's going on so that we can make informed decisions: i.e., you can't censor facts merely because they reflect poorly on you; in fact, knowing the facts that reflect poorly on the government are important in any democracy, participatory or otherwize.
RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!
Can anyone think of a single instance where the British population has stopped the government from doing what it wants?
Sure, I can think of examples where the 'shadow' party has, utilizing 'rebel' MPs who refuse to tow the party line, defeated the ruling party; and I can think of examples where the House of Lords has denied the House of Commons permission to do what it wants.
And, there are cases where the government were 'considering' a course of action, only to then state that they had 'stopped considering' that course of action due to public reaction (whether they actually abandon their plan is another matter).
However, the above are all parts of The System 'defeating' other parts of The System; I can't think of a single instance where:
Or... is it a concerted effort to push the concept of resistance from our minds: 'the government always get their way; resistance is futile; just shut up, give up, and accept it; don't even consider what you could do to stop them'? Do you think the inner-circle of MPs specifically decline plans on the grounds that it might fail, and if us plebs defeat the government once we'll realize that it can be done and maybe get some funny ideas in our heads...
Now, you can call me overly cynical — you can say that, being democratic, the government will only commit to 'definitely going to do x' once x has achieved majority support in the population — but, I can think of many examples (say, ID cards), where the popular opinion has been against them, but the government has gone ahead and done it anyway; and, seemingly, they've never failed.
Seemingly, resistance really is futile...
Sure, I can think of examples where the 'shadow' party has, utilizing 'rebel' MPs who refuse to tow the party line, defeated the ruling party; and I can think of examples where the House of Lords has denied the House of Commons permission to do what it wants.
And, there are cases where the government were 'considering' a course of action, only to then state that they had 'stopped considering' that course of action due to public reaction (whether they actually abandon their plan is another matter).
However, the above are all parts of The System 'defeating' other parts of The System; I can't think of a single instance where:
- The government have said: 'we are going to do x'
- The population have said 'No!'
- The government have actually not done x.
Or... is it a concerted effort to push the concept of resistance from our minds: 'the government always get their way; resistance is futile; just shut up, give up, and accept it; don't even consider what you could do to stop them'? Do you think the inner-circle of MPs specifically decline plans on the grounds that it might fail, and if us plebs defeat the government once we'll realize that it can be done and maybe get some funny ideas in our heads...
Now, you can call me overly cynical — you can say that, being democratic, the government will only commit to 'definitely going to do x' once x has achieved majority support in the population — but, I can think of many examples (say, ID cards), where the popular opinion has been against them, but the government has gone ahead and done it anyway; and, seemingly, they've never failed.
Seemingly, resistance really is futile...
Monday 23 November 2009
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2: terrorist level controversy
From the Beeb:
His objections must be because it's completely unrepresentative of what modern warfare's actually like: after all, the USA has never helped terrorists, nor directly killed civillians, and they've definately never even considered false-flagging as terrorists for any reason, ever; and even if they had, that kind of behaviour would certainly be all in the past.
OK, so Kieth Vas, Labour MP for Leicester East, apparently doesn't like violent video games (and, incidentally, didn't come out squeaky-clean from the expenses scandal), but I wonder if he realises that he's trying to censor an accurate — albeit unrepresentative — portrayal of exactly how America has (and still does?) behave in war, and if he fully understands the consequences of not allowing us to be exposed to the concept that our main ally could behave in such a way?
Which, intentionally or otherwize, is often the consequence of censorship: it reduces the number of people who have certain objectionable (to the State) ideas in their head...
On the other hand, it's nice to see the non-whiners getting their own pressure group, complete with supporting (founding) MP (Tom Watson, Labour MP for West Bromwich East; who, incidentally, also didn't come out well in the expenses scandal).
The video clip in question can be found here for now, but in case the clip is taken down, look here
Mr Vaz's disquiet centres around one section in which undercover [CIA-sponsored, USA] soldiers pose as terrorists and are asked to help shoot civilians. Footage of the section caused controversy when it was leaked onto the internet.
His objections must be because it's completely unrepresentative of what modern warfare's actually like: after all, the USA has never helped terrorists, nor directly killed civillians, and they've definately never even considered false-flagging as terrorists for any reason, ever; and even if they had, that kind of behaviour would certainly be all in the past.
OK, so Kieth Vas, Labour MP for Leicester East, apparently doesn't like violent video games (and, incidentally, didn't come out squeaky-clean from the expenses scandal), but I wonder if he realises that he's trying to censor an accurate — albeit unrepresentative — portrayal of exactly how America has (and still does?) behave in war, and if he fully understands the consequences of not allowing us to be exposed to the concept that our main ally could behave in such a way?
Which, intentionally or otherwize, is often the consequence of censorship: it reduces the number of people who have certain objectionable (to the State) ideas in their head...
On the other hand, it's nice to see the non-whiners getting their own pressure group, complete with supporting (founding) MP (Tom Watson, Labour MP for West Bromwich East; who, incidentally, also didn't come out well in the expenses scandal).
The video clip in question can be found here for now, but in case the clip is taken down, look here
Sunday 22 November 2009
Democracy in action
From the Beeb:
From here:
Well, I guess that's Democracy In Action: we want something so they have to give it to us in order to get elected :-)
From the Beeb again:
Our 'choice', then, is between:
In his conference speech, Mr Brown said Labour would hold a referendum "early" in the next Parliament on proposals for an alternative vote system.Nice to know they admit there's a problem. But, why would they offer to fix the system that grants them total control half the time, and denies all but one other party the chance of ever winning?
From here:
The [parliamentary prospective candidates] argued that holding a vote on reform would see hundreds of Liberal Democrat voters switch to Labour, more stay-at-home Labour supporters coming out to vote, and every Tory opponent trying to explain why David Cameron would not give the electorate a say.So, to win the election basically.
Well, I guess that's Democracy In Action: we want something so they have to give it to us in order to get elected :-)
From the Beeb again:
They have also queried the timing of a referendum, pointing out that Labour never followed through on a commitment to a referendum on electoral reform in its 1997 manifesto.Oh, that's right, there's absolutely nothing to force them to actually do what they promise to do :-(
Our 'choice', then, is between:
- Labour — a party that probably won't actually change the electoral system
- Conservatives — a party that doesn't want to change the electoral system
- Lib Dem — a party that wants to change the electoral system, but, because of the electoral system, wont win
Saturday 21 November 2009
Our democratically elected representatives
In the last UK general election (2005):
16% of the population of the UK voted for Labour, whereas 15% voted Conservative[1], meaning that, even combined, they don't have the support of the majority of the population (only 31%).
What's going on here then? Surely a democratically elected government requires the support (i.e., the vote) of the majority of the population?
Well, lets not forget that not everyone is allowed to vote.
And lets ignore that allowing prisoners to vote would put a natural cap on how many people could be jailed (i.e., a natural cap on the extremes of authoritarianism); that it's inconsistent that several 16- and 17-year-olds pay taxes and can be tried as an adult should they commit a crime, but aren't allowed to vote ; and the unfairness of forcing younger teenagers, by law, to attend school (elsewize their parents are punished) without a say in the matter.
Lets assume, instead, that everyone who is disenfranchised is done so for a just reason, so it's fair to ignore them.
Labour got the support of 22% of those who are allowed to vote[2]; Conservative got 20%[3].
Umm... that's still only 42% of the vote: still not a majority.
The final piece of the puzzle — which gives our rulers the support of 'the majority' that they need in order to claim that they're a democracy — is the fact that not everyone who can vote does vote.
So: lets ignore those who don't vote because they feel that the system is corrupt, and who's 'no vote' is intended as a 'vote of no confidence', and assume that everyone who chooses not to vote either doesn't care, or is just too lazy to take part — either way, lets assume that it's perfectly OK and fair to ignore them.
Well, Labour and Conservative combined have the support of 67% of those who are allowed, and who choose, to vote[4].
Horay! A majority! Proving that, with some assumptions, our country is, in fact, democratic!
But wait: the Labour and the Conservative parties may have a majority between them, but they don't run the country between them: see, the Conservative's 32% of the votes[4] was enough to get them 31% of the power[5], whereas Labour's 35% of the votes[4] was enough to get them 55% of the power[5] — which is a majority, and thus enough for the Labour party to rule the country on their own.
And, because a majority (even only a slight one) is enough to essentially do whatever they want, the Labour party are in charge of the country with a minority of the vote, no matter how you look at it.
There's a lot more to this subject than the above — how these results come about (gerrymandering, peculiar counting methods, etc), the effect that things like 'wasted votes' have on constituencies, the exclusion of third parties by The System, and the fact that 'the Labour party' is held pretty effectively under the control of the Prime Minister (so, actually, it's one non-democratically-elected person who's effectively in charge of the country) and so on and so forth; but that's enough typing for one day.
Our 'democratic system' is not democratic. I wonder why they go to these lengths to create the impression that it is, rather than just outright admit that it isn't?
====================================
[1] 60.2 million in 2005 (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/populationestimates/flash_pyramid/UK-pyramid/pyramid6_30.html)
9,566,618 voted Labour[4]
that's 9.6/60.2*100 = 16.0%
8,785,941 voted Conservative[4]
8.8/60.2*100 = 14.6%
[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/constituencies/default.stm
[3] Labour votes = 9.6 million; conservative 8.8 million[4]; 8.8/9.6*100 = Conservatives got 91.6% of the vote that Labour did.
Labour won with 22% of the people who are allowed to vote[2], meaning that Conservative got 91.6% of this = 20.2%
[4] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/vote2005/html/scoreboard.stm
[5] 198 seats for Conservative out of 646 total seats[4] = 198/646*100 = 30.7%
356 seats for Labour[4] = 356/646*100 = 55.1%
16% of the population of the UK voted for Labour, whereas 15% voted Conservative[1], meaning that, even combined, they don't have the support of the majority of the population (only 31%).
What's going on here then? Surely a democratically elected government requires the support (i.e., the vote) of the majority of the population?
Well, lets not forget that not everyone is allowed to vote.
And lets ignore that allowing prisoners to vote would put a natural cap on how many people could be jailed (i.e., a natural cap on the extremes of authoritarianism); that it's inconsistent that several 16- and 17-year-olds pay taxes and can be tried as an adult should they commit a crime, but aren't allowed to vote ; and the unfairness of forcing younger teenagers, by law, to attend school (elsewize their parents are punished) without a say in the matter.
Lets assume, instead, that everyone who is disenfranchised is done so for a just reason, so it's fair to ignore them.
Labour got the support of 22% of those who are allowed to vote[2]; Conservative got 20%[3].
Umm... that's still only 42% of the vote: still not a majority.
The final piece of the puzzle — which gives our rulers the support of 'the majority' that they need in order to claim that they're a democracy — is the fact that not everyone who can vote does vote.
So: lets ignore those who don't vote because they feel that the system is corrupt, and who's 'no vote' is intended as a 'vote of no confidence', and assume that everyone who chooses not to vote either doesn't care, or is just too lazy to take part — either way, lets assume that it's perfectly OK and fair to ignore them.
Well, Labour and Conservative combined have the support of 67% of those who are allowed, and who choose, to vote[4].
Horay! A majority! Proving that, with some assumptions, our country is, in fact, democratic!
But wait: the Labour and the Conservative parties may have a majority between them, but they don't run the country between them: see, the Conservative's 32% of the votes[4] was enough to get them 31% of the power[5], whereas Labour's 35% of the votes[4] was enough to get them 55% of the power[5] — which is a majority, and thus enough for the Labour party to rule the country on their own.
And, because a majority (even only a slight one) is enough to essentially do whatever they want, the Labour party are in charge of the country with a minority of the vote, no matter how you look at it.
There's a lot more to this subject than the above — how these results come about (gerrymandering, peculiar counting methods, etc), the effect that things like 'wasted votes' have on constituencies, the exclusion of third parties by The System, and the fact that 'the Labour party' is held pretty effectively under the control of the Prime Minister (so, actually, it's one non-democratically-elected person who's effectively in charge of the country) and so on and so forth; but that's enough typing for one day.
Our 'democratic system' is not democratic. I wonder why they go to these lengths to create the impression that it is, rather than just outright admit that it isn't?
====================================
[1] 60.2 million in 2005 (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/populationestimates/flash_pyramid/UK-pyramid/pyramid6_30.html)
9,566,618 voted Labour[4]
that's 9.6/60.2*100 = 16.0%
8,785,941 voted Conservative[4]
8.8/60.2*100 = 14.6%
[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/constituencies/default.stm
[3] Labour votes = 9.6 million; conservative 8.8 million[4]; 8.8/9.6*100 = Conservatives got 91.6% of the vote that Labour did.
Labour won with 22% of the people who are allowed to vote[2], meaning that Conservative got 91.6% of this = 20.2%
[4] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/vote2005/html/scoreboard.stm
[5] 198 seats for Conservative out of 646 total seats[4] = 198/646*100 = 30.7%
356 seats for Labour[4] = 356/646*100 = 55.1%
Friday 20 November 2009
Hello, world
So... lately I've been paying an increasing amount of attention to UK politics: specifically, I've been trying to work out how those who call themselves our 'democratically elected representatives' actually keep control, and enforce their will on the population of the UK; how they get their way.
How politics works.
This blog is mainly for me to organize my thoughts, but hopefully it'll be of interest to others, too, as food for thought; feel free to say 'hello' in the comments, and criticize my ideas as much as you want :-)
How politics works.
This blog is mainly for me to organize my thoughts, but hopefully it'll be of interest to others, too, as food for thought; feel free to say 'hello' in the comments, and criticize my ideas as much as you want :-)
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