What about the soldiers and premature babies Eric? #No2AV

There is something about the figure that Eric Pickles (pictured left in a role he fulfilled when I was working for the other side) has magically plucked out of the treasury to ensure the 'front line' services of weekly bin collections are brought back.

It seems vaguely familiar.

Oh yeah that was it. Has that £250 million been offered to buying bulletbroof vests for our soldiers? (Especially on the day that Liam Fox announces MoD job cuts). Has it gone into maternity units especially cardiac units after all it seemed to be all that Labour were moaning about all week?

I haven't seen those pledges made anywhere since May 5th. Therefore I think Eric Pickles should do the only honourable thing and give up that amount which is actually quite a lot more than a vote under AV would have cost the tax payer extra to one of those noble causes that only months ago he was claiming could have done with the money.

After all I don't recall seeing Eric launching the following ad anywhere, do you?

Hat tip to James Shaddock for sparking this idea

And another thing...PCC says the Chancellor lied for #No2AV

The Press Complaint committee has upheld two complaints from Electoral Reform Services Ltd that the Chancellor George Osborne, as reported in the Daily Fail and the paper that shall not be named, LIED (OK the language used is that he was wrong) about the use of machines and that Electoral Reform Services Ltd would benefit from a Yes vote on 5th May.

Of course the whole issue of cost was a central tenet of the No2AV teams campaign. It was their opening batsmen, their leading goal scorer, their Oscar winning script, all rolled into one. Of course referendum communication we learnt during the campaign are not held by the Advertising Standards Agency code of conduct. But the PCC has found that the Chancellor has told untruths to fight this campaign, he may argue that he was merely echoing the statement from the No campaign. But if that was based on such a falsehood surely the Chancellor should have been more careful about what he said.

As I've pointed out before, such a breach by the Chancellor of the Treasury's own advice may actually be in breach of the ministerial code. While the PM take action against so senior a member who has broken the code. He restricted the role of the Business Secretary over the BSkyB takeover, about to take place tomorrow apparently, because he said publicly that he wasn't about to bow the knee to the mighty Murdoch. Yet his Chancellor has bowed the knee to the head of the Tax Payer's Alliance and their usual tactics to spread falsehood for political self preservation.

The only part of Westminster voting reform that was up to the public was the voting system, the Conservatives had already secured a reduction in the number of members which favoured them unfairly under the current system and required a change in voting system to provide a check and balance.

Well done George mission accomplished on that one, though it's hardly cricket. More Eton Wall Game. Oops did I spot that.

One final lie #No2AV

There is nothing more frustrating than your political opponents claiming poverty when you knew that their glossy leaflets had to have cost more than anything you were putting out, they were putting them out to every door (using the free* post option through the Royal Mail).

What is worse is the when they say none of the tax payers money is spent on printing a leaflet, while telling lies about how tax payers money might be spent if you vote the other way. One does wonder how Matthew Elliot the chair of the No2AV campaign can face his colleagues now he is back to his day job at the Tax Payers Alliance. When I first saw a certain leaflet when I returned home from work at the Yes to Fairer Votes office I knew there was a cost involved that they were hiding. Now we know how much.

So here is a fisking of that leaflet with a couple of corrections in red.

Hat tip to Stuart Bonar

* A misnomer as the cost while free to the campaigns is actually taken up by the tax payer.

The Politics of the Gutter - Or #No2AV This is Your Campaign

For many weeks now I've been getting angrier and angrier with George Osborne and David Cameron's actions and word in the AV referendum .

Before March 16th when we had the deal that would to the referendum we have spend the last 15 hours voting on David Cameron was insistent that he like Nick Clegg were not going to be heavily involved in the front line of the debate themselves, but would get on with leading the Government in this very trying time. All seemed to be sweetness and light if in different corners on the substance of the debate.

But the No campaign then went into personality attacks on the leader of the junior partner in the coalition government. David Cameron had made a promise to Nick Clegg that it would be a reasoned argument on his part, but Cameron and Osborne quickly joined in on the mudslinging at the man they have to work with in Government rather than arguing the merits or otherwise of the two systems that were on offer.

The worse thing was that they joined in with the lies that the No campaign were spurting out. There were questions in the House to try and get the truth to be acknowledged. As nobody can accuse another Member of the House of being a liar this had to be done through the formality of asking questions. Of course I and many others were shouting lying at the TV screen at any point that the lies were being re-iterated, any time that a loaded question from Conservative or Labour No MPs were asked in PMQs, especially the Labour ones as they wasted a chance to hold the government to account.

Cameron has actually taken liberties with the actuality in the House by stating some of the downright lies that have been part of the No Campaign's strategy. Two months ago they were trailing in the polls. So they started, as they had already been doing but with people like the PM in the starting line up now, to get these lies out. The problem is when the PM tells a lie it takes a long time to counter it.

The PM says there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq many people believe him.

The PM says that there will have to be voting machines to count an AV count many people believe him.

The PM says his Deputy once said the words miserable little compromise, solely about AV, not the lateness of the offer, or whom it was aimed at, or the desperation of the outgoing previous PM to cling to power and of course it was a miserable compromise it came 12.95 years into a 13 year term of power.

But to stand by posters that attack a member of your cabinet. To stand by an referendum broadcast that talks about broken promises (aimed squarely at one party in coalition) instead of what actually as you said last year of coming together for the common good of the country, both putting things on the shelf. This is shoddy politics from the man who claims he has a good working relationship.

If I had been elected last year I do not know how I could have sat on the same benches as some of Conservatives who were repeating this bile. I may very well have crossed the chamber to sit as an non-Coalition Liberal Democrat, giving my friend Alistair Carmichael a headache in how to discipline me. Maybe it has been because for the last six months I have been living, breathing and making decisions for the Yes Campaign rather than politics as a whole that I feel this way that some colleagues in Westminster haven't got to the stage Chris Huhne allegedly did in cabinet on Tuesday.

Whatever happens tomorrow I know that we have faced the dirtiest opponent in my entire political career. That is probably because most of my other opponents know they will have to go to the polls again within 5 years. The No campaign don't have that constraint on them, they only had to win once, they only had to stop a change. They didn't offer anything positive, some of what they tried to offer was better reform.

If they have won what they have done is kill any hope of electoral reform before I reach the age of retirement maybe even before I reach 100 (and that is two generations away).

Note I told you I'd let rip, bet you didn't guess this early.

Not all sports are first past the post

By Bob Moran in The Guardian 19 April 2011

The above cartoon in this mornings Guardian was to some up the two cross party events yesterday by the Yes and No campaigns in the AV referendum. However, it also draws to mind the No2AV literature which starting arriving on people doormats yesterday morning as well. There were three sportsmen from three different sports featured inside.


The first was Amir Khan the boxer, the timing of his appearance in this literature couldn't have been worse timed. At the weekend Khan retained his title when a doctor stepped in to controversially say that a cut above Khan's opponent eye was too bad for the fight to continue. The thing is in boxing there such event do occur, on Saturday Khan was ahead on points at the time the doctor intervened, but there have been occasions when the boxer leading on the judges score cards has been deemed unable to continue because of a cut. Sometimes such cuts are also the result of illegal actions earlier in the fight like a boxer using the thumb of his glove, or rubbing heads together. Even if the referee has giving warnings or point deductions for such activity if this results in the other boxer eventually bleeding, the fight could be stopped and given to the opponent who may have cheated and may have been trailing to get that far.


The second was Olympic rower Sir Steve Redgrave. Redgrave took part in one of the events that has a strange route to getting to the finals of an event the repechage. This is a way that the rowers who didn't quite qualify for the final as of right in their heats have a second race in which to do this. Redgrave himself is not superhuman and has had off days that have necessitated going through a repechage to get to a final. He's even come through a repechage and gone on to win gold at World Championships. If he'd been trying to qualify for a USA or Kenyan position in a Olympic team athletics event there would have been no repechage no second change, the top three only get to go to the Olympics there is no discretion for the selectors. Yet Redgrave and other rowers do benefit from having that second change within their sport at the highest levels.


The final choice is Sir Bobby Moore the captain of the 1966 England World Cup football sq. Yet in football we now have the misnomer of a Champions League, when in some cases the team that has come 4th in their national championship can go on to lift the title, unlike in the old European Cup where the national champions and the holders fought it out over knockouts from the start. Even as a Liverpool fan I have to admit that our 5th title in 2005 was achieved from just such a position, champions of Europe despite not being champions of England since 1990. Or teams can lose out on aggregate to a team in the various group stages and then go on to win the trophy. There has even been cases of teams being unbeaten on the way through losing out to a team that had lost in the group stages going out on away goals after two draws in the knock out stages.


Football like boxing or rowing is a game where the team that is leading at the first stage isn't always the winner at the end. As Kris Akabushi said when he appeared at a Yes2AV event even in the 100m at the Olympics there are the first and second round and semi-finals. It is rare that the eventual champion will have won every round of that race. What is important is that they win on the final round. Just like Alternative Vote it is getting over the final line, the one that is set at 50%, the one that doesn't move that is important. That will lead to more competitive elections where you are the IPPR report said yesterday.