Library

Fawlty Electoral Systems

John Cleese explains Proportional Representation in a promo for the SDP/Liberal Alliance in the 1983 campaign. Thanks to CC for the pointer.
You may not be “involved” (now now, that’s a lazy argument innit?) but it’s intellectually educational – whatever that may mean (yawn).

“Compromise is not a dirty word.” Bipartisanism is.

Interesting:

A Constitutional discussion for proportional representation for the island of Saint Lucia (former British Colony).

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Superstition

If you’re an England supporter and ever so slightly superstitious then you should be rooting for Labour. The general election of March 1966 elected Harold Wilson‘s Labour vindicating his early call in order to increase his then slender majority of seats. Four months later England’s  football team would lift the world cup for the first and only time.

There’s all sorts of superstitions or quirks related to elections. One has to do with rain. Apparently Labour voters are supposed to be more likely deterred by bad weather – though this theory has been rubbished in practice.

For Italy supporters there’s another interesting coincidence. Three times out of four the team winning the campionato before an Italy world cup success has been Juventus: 1934, 1982, 2006. The odd one out has been Bologna (1938). Inter won a pre-WC league in 1954 and 1966. In 1954 Italy were eliminated in the first round by Switzerland (4-1 in playoff). In 1966 they also failed to pass the first round hurdle when they were eliminated by the memorable Pak Doo Ik goal (North Korea).

I’d hate to be an Italy supporter this year!

Harold Wilson

Image by rofanator via Flickr

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Hang On – UK election unfolds

It’s the last day before voting day and the three main parties in the UK have unleashed their last attempts to lure voters to their fold. Or should it be to scare voters away from their opponents’ fold? The Fear Factor, redolent of the Top Trumps Horror Series, has become a major player in this election that could have seismic consequences on the British electoral system.

Here, for example, is the Daily Mail’s toon – moved to the front page today for extra punch. MAC (the cartoonist) depicts the obvious choice for anyone toying between the (LibDem friendly) hung parliament and what the Tories would see as an alternative: strong government.

maconthemail.jpg

Mac on the Mail

In it’s front page article the Mail is ruthless on those “wrong-headed” individuals toying with the idea of a hung-parliament. And the usual suspect arguments are out – shot at the crowd with wanton abandonment.

The Mail cannot stress too strongly how wrong-headed and dangerous it believes this view is. Whoever wins the election, Britain will desperately need bold, decisive government if we’re to avoid the nightmare into which Greece has been plunged. A hung parliament, with the probability of a coalition or pact, will result in a weak administration, dependent on back-room deals and shabby compromises.

Now now. A bold, decisive government like Mr Brown’s (and Blair’s before it did preside over the initial tsunami of banking and financial chaos but this is not the time to remind the giddy electors is it?

Labour has used the Blair trump to “shake some sense” into the “hung parliament voter”.  In what sounds like a more sensible approach Blair admonished Labour voters who thought of voting tactically (LibDem) to keep the Tories out. The Guardian reports Blair shooting down the LibDems :

guardianblairdontvotetactically.jpg

Tony Blair: Fear Factor '97

The Telegraph pulled out all sorts of rabbits out of its hat. The YouGov poll showing LibDems down to 24% and a surge for Labour to 30% provides the background to a number of anti-hung parliament possibilities. There’s the possible deal with Northern Ireland’s Unionists (better the coalition partner you can chew), or (sit down before you read this) Simon Cowell‘s backing Cameron as “the prime minister Britain needs at this time”. They did say that the TV debates had an X Factor feel about them but hey… Simon Cowell??

If the backing of multi-millionaire Cowell would not dissuade Tory voters from voting LibDem then you had the good old guilt by affinity – remember the “zokk u fergha“? “Clegg styles himself as successor to Blair” – it doesn’t get any scarier for a down and out Tory does it?

For an interesting take on the world outside “tribal pulls” read the Times’ resident genius Finkelstein. Unlike most Brits he never felt the tribal pull so he does not find it difficult to opt for Cameron this time round:

So, annoyingly, this election will be determined by people fighting a tribal urge that I’ve never felt and can’t completely relate to. The best I can offer is this: once I considered myself on the centre Left, and I don’t any more. And once I, too, had “never voted Tory”, but in the end I didn’t find it very difficult at all.

Then there’s Rachel Sylvester (Off with their heads! Soon the cuts will begin) who has identified a bit of the “trash and destroy” in the UK campaign too:

They would like us to think that their inspiration is Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope. But in fact, as the country prepares to go to the polls, the political parties seem to have been more influenced by Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail.

Gordon Brown yesterday described the Tory manifesto as a “horror show”. Labour’s recent election broadcast featured a tax inspector with a clipboard going, like the Grim Reaper, from house to house telling families which tax credits and cancer treatments they will lose if David Cameron wins on May 6. It was scare mongering of the worst kind.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, are trying to terrify the electorate about the prospect of a hung Parliament with posters featuring a noose. To me the subliminal message was “Vote Tory, get hung”, an eccentric strategy for a party trying to shed a “nasty” image caused in part by rightwingers’ support for capital punishment. Their other most memorable image was a pair of bovver boots.

Nick Clegg is picking up support because he looks like a different kind of politician, one who does not engage in the petty squabbling and negative campaigning of the “two old parties”. But my local Liberal Democrat candidate has just delivered a leaflet that has only one message, printed in huge capital letters across it: “I don’t trust politicians either.” From a man who is himself trying to become an MP, it looks less like a new politics than the same old dirty tricks.

I just love Sylvester’s conclusion. The dilemma is very much alive in the UK as it will be in Malta come next election:

Like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, this campaign has got curiouser and curiouser. With Nick Clegg going from Churchill to a Nazi in less than a week, Gordon Brown meeting an Elvis impersonator and David Cameron pulling the head off a chicken, there has been something surreal to the whole thing — and not just in spin alley. The election itself will be a bit like the Queen of Hearts’ declaration: “Sentence first — verdict afterwards!” But will the voters also soon shout: “Off with their heads”?

Queen of Hearts 2.jpg

Hang or Behead - Fear Factor Unknown

addendum:

Back in 2008 when the attacks on the “Wasted Voters” were akin to the carpet bombing of Dresden on a bad day I had written an open letter on J’accuse (Daphne’s Invigilators) in answer to their attacks. That it is still very relevant two years on says much about how far we are advancing locally.

Guardian Special: General Election 2010 press coverage the day before

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Tips from the Tip (updated)

The Runs has advice for J’accuse (indirectly of course). We’re in a good mood so we dispense some “tips” of our own. Warning: the contents of this blog have been known to confuse intellectually inferior beings – idiots should proceed under adult supervision.

Here’s the original tip from the tip in answer to (an obviously provocative) comment by Kev.

Kev

I think Mr Crawford is hyping it up himself by being overtly touchy over a few nonsensical blog comments. Otherwise, the Maltastar ‘exclusive’ has long been buried and it’s not like the whole island is buzzing with his name.

(Excerpt from my comment on Jacques’ blog – http://www.akkuza.com/2010/04/30/netiquette-no-longer-the-stuff-of-bitching/comment-page-1/#comment-3125 after visiting Mr Crawford’s whinery… or is it whingery? Pity the words don’t exist.)

[Daphne – The strange thing, Kevin Ellul Bonici, is that you and Jacques both like to think of yourselves as intellectually superior beings who condescend to pop in here once in a while, but the reason that you do is because this is where the action is. The alternative is talking to the few people who hang around your own spaces or mixing with the ghastly subliterate nutcases (and I mean nutcases) on sites set up by fixated bunny-boilers for the express purpose of vilifying me (and how obsessed do you have to be to do that?). Jacques just can’t get over the fact that nobody reads his blog because it’s so damned boring and irrelevant, and likes to make out (and kid himself) that the reason people read this is because it’s trashy. I guess it’s too tough to admit that I know how to do my job – communication – and he doesn’t. Here’s a tip, Jacques: try writing things that people want to read. If you haven’t got yourself an audience in five years, I’d say it’s time to give up.]

Well, I’m sure the bait is all there for us to fall for and here is how we would engage if it was worth engaging in the mud slinging game that attracts the flies and dead carcasses:

So to all you nobodies out there: stop reading this boring and irrelevant (or as David’s synonym would be: marginalised) blog. They’ll keep selling you the idea that it is irrelevant. Dive into the trash from the tip instead. I’m sure it’s worth it. I won’t be asking for an apology because (a) I don’t need one and (b) I won’t get one because I’m not Charles Crawford.There’s nothing tough to admit : trash = sensational = popular. I don’t need to admit it. It’s there for all to see. I don’t “write things that people want to read” because I am not into PR and cheap marketing, I am into substance and content. Results driven? Bah. What a load of absolute, PR and marketing drivvel.

And Daphne, I don’t think I am intellectually superior to a PR busybody when it comes to 99% of the subjects under the sun.

I know it.

Now for some serious points that would never come to the mind of someone whose only style of argument is aggressive behaviour:

1. Blogs cost no money to read – their readership is not mutually exclusive. People read more than one blog and that is how it should be. My argument remains that sensational blogs will perforce attract a larger, wider audience than the standard blog reading audience- and unlike Daphne I have no problem with that.

2. A reminder: linking in blogs is normal procedure when quoting huge chunks off someone else. Judging by Daphne’s double-standards in the event of being informed that it it is not done to quote without linking (a marketing person should know that no? – she lives and breathes communications)  it is hard to take tips about blogging from that same person. It’s actually not hard – just plain stupid.

3. If marginalised means that certain interlocutors ignore questions brought up by this blog because they are embarrassing well yes we are irrelevant. Daphne, because I know you are reading this, how come you have not come clean on the simple, very simple question: WHY NOW? Your whole Plategate furore was motivated/triggered off by one factor – revenge. You still have to explain why you chose to raise certain issues that you had known of long before Plategate only after your taste for revenge got triggered. That is NOT journalism. That is not QUALITY reporting. That is plain and simple PR dirt for personal needs. And the people love it. Oh yes they do. Ask Lou – whose fall in ratings has probably justified the rescuscitation of  the ghost of Norman Lowell.

4. Finally, try as you may you will never manage to equate this blog with TYOM. We have expressed our disagreement with the style and method of both that blog and of the blog that provoked it. The only applause they would get is in the choice of name. It is so apt. You may want to see the level of popularity enjoyed by TYOM when revising your theory on cheap content vs quality. There MUST be something behind their rapid rise on the blogging scene – hmm let me see – sensational bullshit? Yep. Same, same but different.

Sad, but true (even though THAT should be hard to admit) but the Manuel Cuschieri of the nationalist elite has found her ugly alter ego.
***

UPDATE: Timesonline has listed 40 bloggers who really count and weirdly enough the Runs does not figure in the list. We did discover that in the UK Magistrates have anonymous blogs of their own – like this one.

***
UPDATE
More intellectual commentary on the Runs. Daphne posts some observation about the police and the letter of the law and her accolytes jump at the opportunity to somehow debate J’accuse:

H.P. Baxxter says:
Tuesday, 4 May at 1505hrs

Pajjiz ta’ Jacques Réné Zammits.

Cannot Resist Anymore! says:
Tuesday, 4 May at 1532hrs

@H.P. Baxxter

He is of Gozitan extraction and what he says must not offend the Opposition because he may need them some day. But he feels very free to attack Daphne because that makes him look good in their eyes.

Daphne once told me that if I can dish it out then surely I can take it. Here is the reply we’d add on the Runs if it was worth commenting on:

Now,now Daphne letting your fans “do the dishing” for you? (Well it’s safe so long as the dishes stay away from your hands I guess).

@Baxxter – there’s only one accent in René as in Descartes you intellectually inferior buffoon.

@cannotresist- “extraction?” have we been watching too much Lowell lately? Can’t blame you – not much more on offer these days is there?

I almost wrote a treatise in my defence (an apologia) but then I remembered I had to write what the daphne-lytes can read. Hope this is simple enough.

Looking forward to the next flurry of smart and witty comments – bring it on Dee Cee Gee.

We resisted the temptation… an act of mercy. But you just have to love these people. Personal grudges and “min mhux maghna kontra taghna” mentality – 80s labour revisited indeed.

Staring at the Sun

He no longer blogs as often as he used to but he’s “come out of hiding for a sort of sober not-totally-humorous post” about DCG. In his Zolabyte contribution Vlad of Fool’s Cap fame rolls up his sleeves for a dig in the dirt – his very own analysis of the DCG blogging phenomenon.

Staring at the Sun
or How I Began to Start Worrying about Daphne Caruana Galizia
by Vlad

The sun is great and all, but looking directly at it will make you go blind. One cannot help but think the same about Daphne Caruana Galizia.

When that volcano erupted earlier this year, Caruana Galizia graduated from the ranks of the outspoken to an unbridled temper with a laptop and a keen determination to wreak vengeance.

For those that are not her unquestioning adherents _ of whom she has many _ the spectacle has cast a car crash spell. But whatever voyeuristic appeal there once was has now begun to wear thin.

Reading Caruana Galizia’s blog, Running Commentary, once felt like trawling those YouTube clips of BMX bikers smashing into walls, but now it just leaves the unpleasant aftertaste that comes with watching al-Qaeda beheading videos.

But how exactly did Caruana Galizia evolve from an engaging and persuasive, if frequently disagreeable, poison pen letter writer into an unremitting practitioner of the self-righteous apoplectic fit? And why should any right-thinking Maltese person care?

The transformation was in part accidental; precipitated by media reports about her husband’s domestic abuse report to the police and the alleged whispering plot hatched by Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera and her friends. Her indignation and the torrents of abuse that followed, she explained between jigs of cholera-induced St. Vitas’ dance, was an adequate response to the brazen intrusion on her private family affairs.

Well, fine, it was an absurdly hypocritical position to adopt for someone that has made a cottage industry out of spreading salacious tittle-tattle and dubious insinuations, but what to do? She was scorned, and vanquishing her foes and salting their fields must have seemed like the only fair retort.

What seemed like a fleeting moment of pique, however, has now calcified into a permanent register of bilious ire. Caruana Galizia quickly took advantage of the popularity of her rage-shtick. Despite her affected air of insouciant contempt, she craves approval and infamy, or what passes for it on the Internet at any rate.

Running Commentary has accordingly morphed from a platform for a contrarian know-it-all into a round-the-clock acid reflex.

Deploying insults that she doesn’t always appear to fully understand, Caruana Galizia’s antagonists are now variously dismissed as slags, whores and chavs, among a panoply of other decidedly adolescent put-downs.

And it should go without saying that Caruana Galizia has still not located the exact whereabouts of her reverse gear. The bloody-minded tend to bear this unidirectional condition with pride, and Caruana Galizia must be in the running for some of award from the fraternity for her unremitting perseverance in battle.

That the ability to go backwards is not in of itself a bad thing, however, is a piece of wisdom quite unappreciated at Running Commentary. Even standing still is viewed with suspicion there, as the hundreds of verbose retorts to readers’ comments in bold black print attest.

Putting these quibbles to one side, however, there is no denying that Caruana Galizia is the closest thing Malta has to a proper columnist. Her newspaper articles are usually well-argued and mercifully light on disheartening attempts at wit and rambling insider-y references.

Her blog, meanwhile, is another matter. In addition to the qualitative shortcomings that inevitably come with this unmediated off-the-cuff format (see this blog, for starters), Running Commentary has facilitated the debasement of public discourse in Malta, not least by enabling the creation of the colossally foul and stupid Taste Your Own Medicine site.

But just because Caruana Galizia’s abuse is spelled correctly and more grammatical, it doesn’t necessarily make it any more worthy.

Malta is a special needs case when it comes to Internet debate, as the comments section under any widely-read Times of Malta article effectively demonstrates. This is why the country really needs its only effective columnist to cease indulging in petty verbal mud-wrestling, which only serves to engender a spiral of noxious mutual sniping.

It is easy to imagine how grating such an appeal would be to Caruana Galizia, were she to read it. She would bridle at the suggestion that her prominent role in Maltese public life puts her under some obligation to act as an arbiter for standards in debate.

But, simply put, she would be wrong.

If it isn’t too histrionic to suggest, I would argue that once we get stuck down this stygian Internet rabbit-hole of petty, scurrilous name-calling, the country is going to become a worse place.

Vlad’s original post can be found at Fool’s Cap.
*****
Zolabytes is a rubrique on J’accuse – the name is a nod to the original J’accuser (Emile Zola) and a building block of the digital age (byte). Zolabytes is intended to be a collection of guest contributions in the spirit of discussion that has been promoted by J’accuse on the online Maltese political scene for 5 years.

Opinions expressed in zolabyte contributions are those of the author in question. Opinions appearing on zolabytes do not necessarily reflect the editorial line of J’accuse the blog.
***