Interesting Links for 27-03-2021

[andrewducker]

You say you want a 'written constitution' for the UK? Here are four online places where it is already written down.

(tags:Constitution UK )

Learning to code 'will seriously change your life'

(tags:computers propaganda UK programming )

Alex Salmond becomes leader of new pro-independence Alba Party ahead of Scottish elections

(tags:politics Scotland independence viaDanielDWilliam )

Easter and paganism. Part 1

(tags:Easter religion history paganism )

Easter and paganism. Part 2

(tags:religion history paganism easter )

Ooh, DC got someone competent to direct The Suicide Squad reboot, and it shows!

(tags:movies DC trailer )

Solar Is Cheapest Electricity In History, U.S. DOE Aims To Cut Costs 60% By 2030

(tags:electricity solarpower GoodNews thefuture USA )

In Stockholm there's an IT battle underway for people's schools

(tags:it schools Sweden OhForFucksSake )

The parental consent case against the Tavistock has succeeded (puberty blockers no longer blocked)

(tags:LGBT law GoodNews transgender children puberty )

How The Hobbit became the best selling text adventure of all time

(tags:text adventure games TheHobbit history programming )

How a coronavirus variant tore through an English island and onto the world stage

(tags:UK Kent virus pandemic )

Police lied about officers with broken bones during the Bristol protests

(tags:protests police lies violence )

Comments

[cmcmck]

What do you make of Wee Eck and this new party?

[andrewducker]

Sophia has a new thing she does where she basically mixes a "meh" with a raspberry noise whenever I ask her a question that is clearly not worth considering (like "are you ready to brush your teeth?" or "are you finished playing outside?").

When I mentioned the Salmond news to Jane she made basically the same noise.

It's a distraction. I've no interest in him. And I'd be happy for him to go back to hosting Russian TV shows.

[cmcmck]

That was pretty much our reaction too. Other half was at uni with him and didn't rate him then either. Funny thing is that the guy he really thought would be big in Nat politics sank without trace and Salmond ending up where he did really surprises him even now as he wasn't big in student politics.

The Bell case being overturned is huge! That judge's decision was idiotic so I'm glad to see they've decided to keep the beaks out of it in future.

[andrewducker]

I hope the main appeal goes through successfully too.

And yeah, politics seems to be as much luck as anything else. Right time, right place (oh, and right contacts matters a huge amount, obviously)

[calimac]

I read the news report of the announcement and had a similar reaction. This is not going anywhere. Why would anyone vote for this and not for the SNP?

[mtbc]

Mmmm, as if the SNP aren't enough independence-focused?!

[danieldwilliam]

I think that's exactly what the Alba Party thinks.

[mtbc]

Goodness. When Nicola Sturgeon would occasionally go to visit Teresa May to tell her she wants another referendum, I wondered if Teresa had next in her schedule Vincent Nichols popping in to tell her the Pope's still Catholic.

[danieldwilliam]

A significant minority of pro-indy activists won't be satisfied with anything less than an immediate unilateral declaration of independence.

[andrewducker]

The SNP are going to get enough seats in the constituency votes that they'd be very very unlikely to pick up many seats on the list. (Which was also the case in the last two elections)

By standing on the list only, people can vote SNP locally, and then for him on the list, and he won't have to get a very high percentage to get some more pro-Independence MSPs, without it actually costing the SNP anything.

List-only parties that are basically the same as a well-supported party are the failure state of AMS.

[calimac]

That's interesting. This is a scenario that I'd not come across in any reading I'd done on voting systems, or in accounts of other AMS polities.

[andrewducker]

You'd need to get enough votes for the extra party in order for them to actually win the seats, and it remains to be seen how much patience the public have for these shenanigans.

(The Greens have stood list-only for a fair while, but they're clearly not just a carbon copy of the SNP with Salmond's head stuck on it. So we'll have to see.)

[cmcmck]

And I see you have the delights of Gorgeous George putting up as well.

Oh, joy! :o/

[andrewducker]

I think he's failed to get in before too. Hopefully he will again!

[calimac]

"Gorgeous George" = Galloway?

[andrewducker]

Yup!

[cmcmck]

The very man! :o)

[danieldwilliam]

It's a bit of an edge case with AMS which only happens in a 5+ party set up if one of the parties is polling 45%+ of the constituency vote and everyone else is sharing the other half of vote evenly-ish.

Which is accidentally the situation we find ourselves in Scotland.

I'm not sure it's soluble by adjusting the allocation of seats between constituency and regional list. Shifting from d'Hondt to the Sainte-Langue method might reduce the gamability. Not sure.

AV+ probably does fix the problem in practice. Difficult to implement that under the circumstances.

[andrewducker]

I always thought an interesting tweak on AV+ would be to have one, ranked, vote. And the highest ranked one would then be used for proportionality.

I *think* this would get rid of tactical voting, but I'm not 100% sure.

[danieldwilliam]

So you would have 1 ballot, electing a constituency member using AV and all the 1st preferences become regional list votes?

[andrewducker]

Yup.
Means that if you want Greens in the list you vote Green first preference in the local election.

Only works if you actually have every party stand in both local and list, of course.

And using AV locally means you don't have a spoiler effect, so you could actually state your preferences clearly.

I can't currently see a down side, but I'm no expert!

[danieldwilliam]

It would limit List vote gaming but prevent me deliberately splitting my vote if I liked the top regional candidate on a different party's list more than their local constituency candidate.

[andrewducker]

This is true.

I really need to write up some thoughts on voting at some point!

[danieldwilliam]

Currently more MPs than Scottish Labour.

BBC News - MP Neale Hanvey defects from SNP to new Alba Party
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-56555096

It might be a distraction but it's a pretty large distraction.

[andrewducker]

See discussion on Facebook :-)

They're clearly dripfeeding this for maximum publicity. The question is how many days they can do this for before they run out of MPs who want to defect.

[danieldwilliam]

Yes, because if they have 10 that says very very different things about the viability of the party than if they have 4.

[andrewducker]

Absolutely.

I reckon by doing one each day they're keeping the publicity up and leaving it open for another one to come along and join them. Very sensible.

[original_aj]

My impression is that he's desparately trying to ensure Nicola doesn't succeed where he failed....

[mtbc]

My copy of The Hobbit is the one that came with the computer game I bought in a store on Urmston Precinct.

[calimac]

I wouldn't call that a written constitution. Most of what's in those documents falls in what in the US would be the category of "administrative law," which is where the executive departments get to decide policies within the parameters that the legislative enactments allow them, when they're not just customary procedures. I note, too, that the vast change in government-forming customs that came in with the 2010 election has barely made a dent in the Cabinet Office papers.