Study shows Putin’s election victory doesn’t add up
Vladimir Putin’s election as Russian President was either the result of a hopelessly inept rigging exercise or voting patterns which contradict the laws of statistics, according to a new study.

Really, that just is such a surprise, isn’t it?

Here’s the key characteristic of populism: populists contrast an image of a pure, homogeneous people with that of a corrupt or at least, uncaring elite that colludes with those who are not properly part of the national body politic. That can mean both those at the very top of the social ladder and those at the very bottom: in the populist imagination, elites work hand in hand with “global finance capitalism” but also pay too much attention (and money) to the poor who do not really belong to us and yet somehow live off us.

I suppose you could use that: for the Nazis it was international jewry or some such, for the populist socialists it was international capitalism or some such.

But I’m not entirely sure that “we’re being shafted by them” is very useful as a method of differentiating between political parties.

For all of them do this to some extent. They’re tribal, those that last to any extent at least. Rural Tories are fired, to at least some extent, by a belief that the metropolitan Guardinaistas wish to, indeed are, oppressing them. You don’t have to talk to said Guardianistas for long to discover that they are being oppressed by the remnants of the feudal landlords in cahoots with the banking classes.

So describing certain political parties as being populist when they claim this “we’re the real people being oppressed by them” doesn’t take us all that far. For all political parties are to some extent populist in such a fashion.

Perhaps a useful distinction could be made about whether the identified shafters and shaftees could be made? The BNP is obviously wrong about international jewry, Guardianistas almost entirely so about the remaining power of the feudalists, rural Tories a little less so about Guardianistas.

One party is of course entirely correct: we Brits really are being shafted by the technocrats of Brussels which is indeed why we should leave.

And fails to even note the correct starting point, let alone a decent end result.

Talking about MPs’ pay she ponders on their worth. The amount of work they do and the value of it, attempting, somehow, top come to some number that balances the various values she has in play.

Entirely missing the point that we have a method of determining what someone should be paid without having to go through such complex and subjective arguments.

It’s called a market. There are some 3 or 4 thousand people who actually stand to be an MP each general election. There’s at least a similar number who vie within the parties for nomination to a seat that could possibly be won.

There are, what 655 seats?

As to qualifications: we cannot actually set any qualification bar in a democracy, can we? We cannot even say that we want to attract intelligent people, people in high paid jobs, in fact we cannot even whisper that we would like more or less of any type, profession, gender or skin colour. For the entire point is that the general citizenry get to decide, not any who would manipulate the intake.

So, we have over application for the job: thus the first answer to our question of how much MPs should be paid is “less”.

In fact, back when MPs were not paid at all we still had a surplus of applications. Thus MPs should probably be paid nothing.

The French people and the labour movement will have a lot to lose if the radicalised right – which, moreover, is after the extreme right’s votes – monopolises state power.

Sometimes the other bloke gets in and enjoys that State Power over you.

The solution is to not allow the State to accumulate such power.

According to the actress Helena Bonham Carter, a long term acquaintance, the prime minister is far from right wing and not even that conservative.

If her friend of 15-years had been running in America he would be a member of the centre left Democratic party, she added.

It would sorta depend upon which State he was from. But up in New England, yes, probably a Democrat. Not on any ideological grounds, just that that’s the party that will enable Dave to get elected.

For Dave believes in Dave’s mission to rule far more than he believes in anything else.

This will likely be successful politically — blaming the speculators will likely ring true for many — but I don’t think the underlying economics supports the claim that speculation is the primary cause of high energy prices.

Do note that this is from a generally lefty (by US standards certainly) economist. It just ain’t speculators in futures that drive up the price of oil. But it will probably be politically successful to tell everyone this economic lie.

Please note that he’s not approving of this economic lie, just pointing out that it is one and that it will likely be politically successful.

And that’s the problem with politics isn’t it, as a method of actually running anything. Lies, untruths, win in that game. vAnd running things on hte basis of lies and untruths just isn’t going to be optimal for anyone other than those who get to sit on the thrones.

Affordable homes is next. Boris says there will be “50,000 affordable homes by May next year”. He doesn’t say what year. The video says there have only been “56 affordable home started building between April and September”. They don’t say what April and September. Let’s take a quick look at a random council though. According to the Royal Borough of Greewnich’s affordable housing and regeneration web pages, “some 1,198 new homes were built last year”. Where exactly did this random “56″ number come from then?

That one’s easy to explain. It’s such a dud statistic that even Johann Hari used it.

Forget about starts and completions, that’s a trivial diference.

Housing statistics are divided into three. Private, housing association/social and council.

Over the years we’ve moved pretty much all of what used to be called council housing into that housing association/social slot. That’s where all the “affordable” housing comes from now.

Well, pretty much all of it. There’s still a tiny, residual, council housing sector left. So, what they’re doing is using that one a week (roughly) council housing building programme as their count for affordable housing while ignoring the thousands upon thousands per quarter completions of affordable housing in the housing association/social sector.

They’re lying like shits, certainly, but that’s how they are lying like shits.

Not relly. The BBC relies almost exclusively on results from the previous election of that type. Thus at the last GE UKIP was treated about as serioiusly as the Monster Raving Loonies (for anything after third means you’re pretty much ignored) but at the euros we were one of the main three. No spokesman or candidate for Labour or Conservatives was allowed on without UKIP being able to pop up on hte same programme.

And we had to fight hard in the bureaucray for that.

Once the votes were counted they reverted to form of course. Post election on Radio 4 and we’d just come second. In theory we should have been in with the Tories (first) and Labour (third). But no, I was in with the Greens (fifth? or was it sixth behind the BNP?) while the “big three” had a separate programme.

They’re doing the same in the London elections. The Greens are being taken seriously and given air time. Yet UKIP out polls them regularly and is not given the same airtime.

Yes, yes, sour grapes no doubt. But there really is bias at the BBC and it’s necessary to fight hard to make them live up to their own written guidelines.

In theory the Lib Dems should get the same amount of airtime as the BNP at the next euro elections. It’s going to be fun watching the BBC try to squirm away from that.

And with UKIP polling better than the Lib Dems on Westminster GE polls at present it’s going to be really interesting to see how coverage plays out, isn’t it? Past results or current polls?

I think that most people who go into politics do so in the belief that they can make the world a better place.

Nope. Public Choice.

Now I’ve actually worked in politics. Been a candidate in a real election, run* the press office for a real party in a real election. We came second in a national election after I had been doing so.

So, you know, I know sorta stuff?

This desire to make a better world stuff? Sure, there’s a few. All and every candidate of my party for sure**.

The majority? Of the majority of those I’ve seen going into politics there’s a vile division between those who think it’s an easy screw. £60k a year plus exp for fuck all and those who are just looking for any ability at all to tell everyone else what to do.

You might call it the George and Nadine wings of politics.
In fact I would if it were not for the libel laws.

*Clive will righteously argue over “run” and correct to “doing what he’s told”.

** That not coppery, nickely, stuff should be engaged there.

I’m instinctively attracted to the idea of state funding for political parties, designed to remove the temptation to allow powerful groups (both corporations and trade unions) and individuals to distort democracy.

Sigh.

The most powerful group in society is The State. We elect politicians, at least in theory, to direct that State. You know, to represent the various power groups in society in their battles both against and to direct that State.

Having the politicians funded by the State makes them subservient to it: there’s no damn point in having them at all then is there?

Mitt Romney sought to win over the arch-conservative membership of the National Rifle Association by promising to be the protector of American freedoms and accusing President Obama of launching a stealth attack on the constitutional right to bear arms.

Addressing the NRA’s annual convention in St Louis, Missouri, Romney tried to assuage doubts about his commitment to America’s love affair with the gun by peppering his speech with references to the US constitution and liberal use of the word “freedom”.

Lefties outraged.

The first few comments don’t seem to be buying it.

A useful reminder that politics is not about what is but about what people believe is.

Everyone in Galway and Ireland should know this: Che has a lot in common with Oliver Cromwell. Like Cromwell, Che proclaimed himself a liberator and felt justified in committing thousands of atrocities in a land other than his own, all in the name of a higher cause. Like Cromwell, Che stole everyone’s property too, for a sacred purpose. As for reputation: Cromwell received plenty of good press and adulation from those on his side, just like Che. To Cromwell’s admirers — and he had plenty who would eagerly build him monuments — the Irish people were inconsequential obstacles to a higher goal, or worse, despicable papist wretches who deserved no mercy.

Allow me to propose a radical solution to this controversy: If Galway wants to honor Che with a monument, it should also build one for Cromwell, right next to it. It’s only fair.

Coalition plans for Lords reform thrown into turmoil

Joint select committee to recommend that elected second chamber should only be introduced after a referendum

Yes, The Sovereign in Parliament is sovereign.

However, when there’s a major change to how that sovereignty is passed around then we the citizenry should indeed get a vote on the proposed system.

You know, just like we should when we pass over the power to declare carrots to be fruit to Brussels?

Economists believe that workers under the age of 45 get high levels of satisfaction from seeing their peers earn more than them, because they think they have similar chances of success.

The coalition agreement promised “limiting donations and reforming party funding in order to remove big money from politics”. Sir Christopher Kelly was duly asked to find a solution, which he did back in November. Donations would be capped at £10,000 per individual, Labour must sign up trade union members as individual subscribers and the state would contribute more. This formula produced the most equal outcome for all parties, with sacrifices evenly distributed and a strong incentive to recruit more party members. State funds could be allocated per vote cast in elections, though Helena Kennedy’s Power Inquiry came up with something better: voters could tick a box on their ballot paper to allocate their share of state funding to a party of their choice.

That might well be the most equal outcome for extant parties. But this is to commit the usual lefty fallacy of assuming that such matters are static. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how markets work. And yes, of course, politics is indeed a market.

The prime mover in markets is not in fact competition. It is, rather, the possibility of competition. And that possibility of competition relies upon the ease of entry (and exit) in the market.

It doesn’t for example, matter that Google has 99.9999% of the search market (not that it does of course), only that Google act as if someone is about to enter the market with a new search engine and thus eat their lunch.

It is the same with political parties. If we assume that there will, forevermore, be two and a half UK political parties then state funding is just fine. But if we think properly, and assume that it is the possibility of a new party emerging which keeps those two and a half even vaguely straight, then state funding is the worst possible answer. For it makes that entry (and also that exit) that much more difficult. We’re entrenching monopoly positions rather than doing what we ought to, which is ease entry requirements so as to undermine those monopoly positions.

There is also the clinching argument: why in fuck should more of our money be extorted from us to pay for bastard scum politicians?

A question to which there is no answer, is there?

The backlog of fuel deliveries caused by yesterday’s panic buying could mean a wait of up to three days for supplies to be replenished after motorists filled up over fears of a strike by tanker drivers.

Entirely and totally down to the government being so damn stupid.

It just doesn’t make sense to have such idiots trying to run the important parts of our lives, does it?

How about that: David Cameron as the advertisement for the Minarchist State?

Wonder if he’ll bother turning up to the Commons this time around?

Fuel strike: pumps go dry as ministers provoke a panic

Umm, didn’t I mutter something about the fuel tanks of the car fleet possibly holding more than the wholesale system itself?

Yes, I saw the comments about strategic reserves but they are of crude, not refined products.

So, Timmy 2 Cameron 0 here I think. I get one extra just for not being a Tory.

Motorists should consider stockpiling fuel for strike, suggests No 10
Motorists should consider stockpiling petrol in case a strike by tanker drivers disrupts supplies, the Government has suggested.

Hmm.

There’s a possibility that this would actually cause the shortage that it is hoped can be averted.

It depends upon the relative sizes of the two diferent storage systems. For it is said that the fuel tanks of all cars on the American roads hold more fuel than the wholesale distribution netowrk itself holds. So, if every car goes and fills its tank to the brim then we exhaust those wholesale reserves.

Now I don’t know if that little factoid is actually true or not: but it would be very interesting if it were, wouldn’t it? For it would mean that No 10 calling for stockpiling will create the very shortage we wish to avoid.