Delicious LiveJournal Links for 5-12-2010

[andrewducker]

• Through Hubris You Ruled; Through Hubris You Fell - on Labour's entitlement complex
  (tags: politics uk)
• Red Cross confirms secret U.S. prison
  (tags: usa terrorism military afghanistan rights)
• Young Muslims in Scotland seek a voice - and rights
  (tags: islam scotland)
• Total Representation - an interesting suggestion for a PR system.
  (tags: elections proportional_representation)
• The state of the UK music industry (BPI statistics)
  (tags: music marketing online uk)
• City (of London) Police still using Terror Act to harrass photographers
  (tags: EpicFail photography laws uk)
• Banks failing to lend is not the problem
  (tags: economics banking)

Comments

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Here in Ontario we had a plebicite on electoral reform alongside our last provincial election, asking voters to choose between "first past the post" and "mixed-member proportional" systems; MMP would be implemented if it received a 66% majority overall and a majority in all ridings. The returns came in 68% for FPTP; MMP was viewed as too cumbersome (and potentially abusable by party whips) to be worth the gains.

Total Representation, I think, would've had a better showing though I'm far from certain it would've achieved the necessary supermajority.

-- Steve objects to political systems that further empower party fanatics, with a particular eye on the toxic sump that is Israel's pure-PR Knesset.

[mooism.livejournal.com]

Total Representation doesn't seem to provide any incentive for the party holding a safe seat to do much campaigning there: it doesn't matter whether you win by 10% or 30%, you still only get the one MP for that seat, and the excess votes cast for your successful local candidate won't count towards electing your party's other candidates at the second stage.

[andrewducker]

Good point!

[0olong.livejournal.com]

First link seems to be broken?

[andrewducker]

Working for me:
http://scrapbook.easyweb.co.uk/through-hubris-you-ruled-through-hubris-you-f

[0olong.livejournal.com]

Still not for me - but I did get a Google cached version of the page.