Tomfoolery Blog

Archive for the ‘politics’ Category

After bugging people for long enough, some poor soul has given in and let me on a podcast! Gavin Schofield, Alex Dennerly and Dr Janis Bennion of the Greater Manchester Skeptics host the “Just Skeptics” podcast, where they discuss the skeptical issues of the day. In this episode, we discuss the state of homeopathy in the UK, skeptical issues in India, and my soap box segment is on the argument from authority.

Big props to Gavin for cutting out most of my “ummms” and “errrs”!

If you’ve got any comments on the show, please leave them on the Just Skeptics website, the GM Skeptics website, or on this very blogpost.

The show can be listened to here, and is available on iTunes. Just search for “Just Skeptics”.

By the way, if any Adam and Joe fans recognize my sign off, you know what to do!

In the last parliament, you may remember that the House of Commons Science and Technology committee produced an evidence check on homeopathy, concluding that it should no longer be funded on the NHS. Following this, quack-supporting MP David Tredinnick wrote Early Day Motion (EMD) 908, criticising the report and supporting homeopathy. This EDM became a nice little reference, because MPs could demonstrate their scientific inabilities by signing it.

Now that the dust has settled on this new parliament, David Tredinnick is back to his old tricks in a big way. Not content with EDM 908, he has tabled an additional four (yes, four) EDMs. Each one offers a smidgen of support to homeopathy:

EDM 284 expresses concern about the British Medical Association’s recent motions concerning homeopathy. EDM 285 welcomes the publication of a paper in the Journal of Oncology, which appears to show that some cancer cells can be killed by homeopathic preparations (which of course, isn’t the case). EDM 286 similarly welcomes a Brazilian study on homeopathic antidepressants, while EDM 287 welcomes yet another study, this time from South Africa on homeopathic insomnia treatments.

Of course, each EDM from David Tredinnick contains factual inaccuracies and references to poorly controlled studies. To point these errors out, step forward Dr Julian Huppert MP of the Liberal Democrats  (who else?). Julian has tabled an amendment for each of Tredinnick’s EDMs, correcting each of David Tredinnick’s mistakes.

So now we have another tool for quickly judging the scientific competency of our MPs. With EDM 908 it was simple: if they signed it, they were an idiot. Now, if your MP signs EDMs 284-287 in their original forms then they are an idiot, but if they sign the amended forms then they are showing some respect for science and evidence based policy.

I would advise you to write to your MP to ask them to sign EDM 284A1-287A1. They can be found and contacted via the site www.theyworkforyou.com, and the Merseyside Skeptic Society have written a template to make things a little easier. Hopefully together we can put a stop to David Tredinnick’s quackery nonsense.

With the UK political system completely up in the air, all eyes are on what the Liberal Democrats have been after for a long, long time: electoral reform. In a previous post, I discussed the merits of the single transferable vote (STV), although it did bear a close resemblance to the Alternative Vote system the Tories are proposing a referendum on. In this post, I will put forward my own crazy-sounding idea, something I call Qualified Voting (QV).

In essence, I want people who show a real interest in an election to have more of a say than people who don’t care. Now, whenever I mention this in a pub, the person I’m talking to always pipes up with “Yeah, yeah, you with the PhD, you want more of a say and all the thickos to shut up”, which is not the case. I don’t believe that academic qualifications, social standing, IQ or anything like that should come into it.

I’m very much against what I call “legacy voting”, where people vote for the same party at each election, without paying any attention to any policy changes.  I believe that people who are set in their ways should have less of a say than people who think “I’ve read all the manifestos, and I believe this party are worthy of my vote”.

So, how would this be achieved? I propose that several months before an election, each candidate is invited to write five or six “bullet points” outlining their policies. These policies could either be on local or national issues, but they must be policy statements rather than being about the candidates personal life. These bullets points are made available in all public locations, and they are published on the Internet. Then, a question based on each bullet point is devised, and agreed on by all candidates. Again, the questions AND the answers would be made available to the public (a little bit like the UK driving theory test).

The polling card would be the same as it is now (modified for AV or STV, obviously). Following the voting form, there would be a multiple-choice question for each candidate. For every question the voter gets right, they get an extra vote. So, if there were five candidates, each voter would get a maximum of six votes. One vote is awarded just for turning up, and each extra vote would result in the voter answering a very simple question about the candidates they are voting for. As it is multiple choice, the voter stands a good chance of getting extra votes just by being bothered to guess.

I believe this system would reward people who really care about the election, regardless of their political position. It would be relatively cheap to implement, and it would be completely transparent. Of course, I know people with find problems with it, so please post them below!

In this election, we have seen the worst of the “First Past the Post” voting system. The most striking statistic is that the Liberal Democrats got 23% of the popular vote, but only 9% of the seats in parliament. Here, I will give my views on the problems with the current system, and discuss what I believe to be the best alternative: the single transferable vote.

In a First Past The Post (FPTP) system, the candidate with the most votes wins, simple as that. This is fine if said candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, because that is a clear majority. However, a candidate can win with less than 50% of the vote, meaning that a majority of the electorate did not vote for that candidate.

This sad setup leads to the odious practice of “tactical voting”, where people say things like “I want Candidate X to win, but I really don’t want Candidate Y to win. Candidate Z has a better chance of beating Candidate Y, so I will vote for Candidate Z instead of Candidate X”. As a democratic exercise, I find this disgusting: people shold vote for who they want to win, not against who they don’t want to win.

This tactical voting could be wiped out with the introduction of the Single Transferable Vote (STV). In this system, you don’t just vote for which candidate you want to win, you list the candidates in order of preference. Imagine the tactical voter above. Their ballot paper could look like this:

Single Transferable Vote card

In this case, the voter wants Candidate X to win, so that candidate has been given the highest preference. They feel that Candidate Z has the most similar position to their preferred candidate, so they get second preference, and so on. In the event of no one candidate getting 50% of the first-preference votes, the second preference votes are considered, until one candidate gets over 50%. In essence, FPTP asks “Who do you want to win?” whereas STV asks “Who do you want to win? If they don’t get enough votes, then who do you want to win? etc”. More details can be found here.

Adoption of this system would require very few changes to the current system, would incur few extra costs, and would be much fairer on everyone. It avoids “split votes”, and should get rid of “tactical voting” all together. This system works in Ireland (both Northern Ireland and the Republic) and many US cities, including New York. Why couldn’t it work here?

This is my first chance to blog about the general election, and what can I say?!? We are now in uncharted political waters, but it is a chance for the Liberal Democrats to wield some real power as king makers.

First, a brief summary. For any one party to form a government in the UK parliament, they need to win more 50% of the seats, of which there are 650, so the magic winning number is 326. The Conservatives won 306 seats, Labour 258 and the Lib Dems 57. No party has an overall majority, so we have a hung parliament.

Overall, it was a good night for the tories, with them making almost 100 gains, Labour losing almost 100. It was a hugely disappointing night for the Lib Dems, with Dr Evan Harris losing his seat by a mere 176 votes.

So what on Earth happens next? Gordon Brown is still the Prime Minister, and bizarrely he has first say. However, Nick Clegg has rightly noted that as the tories got the most seats, he will talk to them first. A Tory-Lib Dem coalition would solve everything pretty quickly, but how likely is that? The two parties are at completely different ends of the political spectrum, and the Tories are very much against what the Lib Dems want: electoral reform. Today, David Cameron seemed to offer a cross-party committee on the issue, but Gordon Brown went much further and hinted at a referendum. However, a Lib-Lab coalition wouldn’t necessarily simplify things, as their combined seats still wouldn’t be enough for a majority. The smaller parties would need to be bought in, and the permutations there are almost endless.

Personally, I would like this chain of events to occur: the Lib Dems reject any miserly offer from David Cameron, and side with Labour. We get a referendum on electoral reform, and have another general election with a new voting system in six months time. The Lib Dems gain ground, tactical voting goes out the window, and hopefully Dr Evan Harris will be re-elected.

Tomorrow there is a General Election in the UK. It’s a chance to have a say in the running of the country, so please, please please, people get to the polls! If you don’t, you can’t moan about the state of the country for the next five years or so. I’m supporting the Lib Dems for their evidence-based policies and support for science, and I’m taking no notice of this ‘tactical voting’ crap, because I believe the tories and Labour will be equally bad in different ways. Vote Lib Dem!