Nick Clegg’s speech to the LibDem City Forum was sufficiently interesting to make the BBC news homepage. Nick acknowledged that Vince wrote it - a deserved tribute to Vince’s credibility. Nick highlighted David Laws, Chris Huhne, and Susan Kramer as evidence that we have “the strongest team of economic expertise in British politics today”. True, but why are none in economic portfolios?!

Here are some of the proposals.

The good

1. The depositor protection system doesn’t work - as the Northern Rock queues show. It needs reforming - although Nick didn’t say how.

2. Bank charges should be transparent. Yes! But what about government charges? Prescription costs are far higher than the medicine cost in almost all cases…

3. Make it harder for banks to repossess houses.

4. Return the capital gains tax system to how it was in 1997, before Labour messed it up.

5. Non-doms limited to 7 years, before being taxed like the rest of us, just as in pretty much every other country.

6. All market participants to reveal positions, making it easier for the market to understand who it doing what - and particularly, who is shorting the market.

The bad

1. “There are minimal benefits to provincial Britain of this growing concentration of economic activity in London”. This is not true: as Nick acknowledges, almost a quarter of income tax revenues (with similar proportions for some other taxes) come from City of London employees. Put simply, many of Middlesbrough’s schools are paid for by London bankers.

2. “There is a strong case too for disconnecting retail banks and investment banks as occurred in the USA”. This is bizarre as the US banking system is in trouble, and because the only UK bank to need bailing out (Northern Rock) was a retail only bank.

3. Including “asset prices, and specifically house prices” in the definition of inflation. It would be very odd to include share prices in inflation - M&S recovery share price rise was not inflation. Including house prices is problematic for two reasons. First, £100,000 at 5% is smaller than £100,000 at 10%, so including the price without consideration of the rate gives a distorted picture. Second, if we done this since 1997, then interest rates would have been higher to cool the housing market. Higher interest rates (and remember ours are already higher on average than in the US, Europe and Japan) reduces investment, raises the value of the pound, cuts exports, and increases unemployment. Still convinced that you want to include house prices in the measure of inflation? Thought not. We should sort the housing market properly, not by some financial quick-fix.

The ineffective

1. Nick think that governments routinely bail out banks. Only one (Northern Rock) has been bailed out, and even there government exposure is limited. In all other cases banks in trouble do exactly what Nick wants them to do: hold a (discounted) rights issue. Shareholders are forced to bail out the bank. That is what they are for - taking profits in good times, and losing out in bad. The Royal Bank of Scotland asked shareholders for £12bn, while Halifax Bank of Scotland requested £4bn. The current system is pretty close to working as it should do.

2. Nick wants counter cyclical capital adequacy rules so that banks hold more capital in booms and less in slumps. There have been lots of calls for this recently, but it may be unnecessary if banks successfully hold rights issues when they need more capital.

3. Nick expressed concern that the City has few spillovers into poor neighbouring Boroughs, such as Tower Hamlets, but offered no policies to change this. In reality, the best way to tackle this is my raising education standards and expectations in underperforming areas - as our pupil premium is designed to do.

4. Shareholders to approve executive pay. Either this will be ineffective, or if it cuts pay it will lead to more private equity, which has no shareholders.

5. Greater provision of generic financial advice. The person taking out too much debt is unlikely to discuss finance with a well-meaning person first.

6. “Newly emerging financial participants - whether it be in Hedge Funds or Private Equity - need to demonstrate that they accept the responsibilities which go with their growing influence” - what does that mean in practice?

Overall a good speech, with real substance worth discussing.

Figures carried on the Liberal Democrat’s national website reveal some quite shocking statistics. Over 70,000 young people have been admitted to hospital for self-harm related injuries in the last four years, an increase of 35%; 4,000 have been admitted for eating disorders, which represents an increase of 10%.

Defining self-harm can be problematic. I have seen websites which define it broadly enough to include smoking and the use of narcotics. A broad definition is not helpful because there are clear differences.

For example, a smoker or a drug addict will become chemically addicted to their particular vice (although they may be psychologically addicted too), whereas a ‘cutter’ is purely psychologically addicted. Nicotine and narcotics induce a bio-chemical response from the introduction of another chemical (and it is pleasurable, not intentionally painful - pain is an unintentional consequence) whereas cutting induces a neurological response from the act of inflicting pain.

Although a smoker or drug user is generally aware of the potential side-effects, they are not seeking to harm themselves directly. They do what they do despite the risks, not to actively induce the conditions that may result from their habit.

We can be pretty sure these figures are very much the tip of the iceberg because they only show actual admission figures. Self-harmers are often very adept at concealing their habit, as are those with eating disorders, and rarely seek help unless they tip over some kind of crisis point. Often there is a huge social stigma around seeking help which is not made any easier by the fact that those that do risk being branded as attention seekers.

The attention seeking myth is perhaps the most pernicious. Self-harmers demonstrate completely opposite patterns of behaviour to attention seekers. In general, they do everything possible to draw attention away from their habit and are deeply ashamed of it and themselves for doing it; so the last thing they will do is seek the limelight.

Causes and reasons for doing it vary. In general they are particular to a specific individual which is something that of course makes the problem hard to tackle. It can also be a symptom of wider problems which need to be addressed before the cycle of self-abuse can be broken. Breaking that cycle is as hard as it is to break any other addiction, and it is something that requires a strong support network. However, realistically, there is little on offer from government provided services. A survey by the Liberal Democrats found that the average longest waiting time for treatment for eating disorders is 203 days, with some having to wait 720 days.

Similarly, self-harmers face a wait of months unless their condition happens to land them in hospital though either accidental or deliberate escalation. In the meantime, they are heavily reliant on the support of those close to them (who may not even know), or voluntary networks like The National Self Harm Network, which offer advice and forums where self-harmers can talk to volunteers or other people who self-harm.

Of course, this is reliant on them finding such services in the first place and offers us a classic example of governmental failure to address a serious problem which only escalates the longer it is left unattended.

Educational and health services have a vital role to play in addressing this problem which is too often sidelined due to already pressing demands on resources. Widespread awareness of the importance of dealing with emotional and mental health issues is not being translated into governmental action; nor is it translating into increased resources to services being improved for young people the stage at which this problem needs to be addressed.

It is likely to become more prevalent as those that have ‘slipped through the net’ manifest more serious problems in later life. It is not an issue that can be swept under the carpet.

Whatever you might say about the Welsh Liberal Democrats we are tenacious. From standstill in last May’s Assembly elections; to summer chaos, as we attempted to forge a coalition with the wrong parties only to see Plaid Cymru walk away to join up with Labour; to a set of local election results in which we not only held our own but actually advanced on our 2004 high.

Of the 33 net gains by the Liberal Democrats on 1 May, 21 of them were in Wales. In three of the four Councils we lead we increased our representation and consolidated our position, whilst elsewhere we became key players in future administrations.

In Cardiff we gained three seats and confirmed our status as the largest party. Talks are now underway to form a coalition there, ending four years of minority control. In Swansea, we made a net gain of four seats and look set to lead a majority coalition with the independents. In both cases this is reward for the way we have turned around both Cities after decades of Labour neglect.

In Wrexham we now have three more Councillors and are the largest group. It is likely that we will once more be leading a coalition administration there. In addition to these the Welsh Liberal Democrats now form part of the new administration in Anglesey and could play a significant role in any anti-Labour alliance in Flintshire.

It is likely that the handful of seats we won in Blaenau Gwent, Conwy, Gwynedd and Torfaen, as well as our more significant presence in Merthyr, will lead to us either being part of the administrations there or having influence. It is also likely that we will play a major role in Ceredigion, where we defeated the Plaid Cymru PPC, and Newport, where there are two deferred elections for six seats, three of them currently held by us.

Although we are the smallest opposition party in the Assembly we continue to punch above our weight. We demonstrated previously how we could make a success of government at an all-Wales level, now we have a further opportunity to show voters in many more Council areas what we can do at a local government level as well.

* Councillor Peter Black AM blogs here.

I went to see Billy Bragg in August. Not canvassing, mind you. He’s one of a very few celebrities who doesn’t seem to have a house in my constituency. It was a gig at the Greenbelt Festival. He tried to play his entire first album in just nine minutes, but broke a string and had to talk instead (in the early days, I think he would have performed the next night as well without replacing the string).

What he talked about was why he was backing religion in general (Greenbelt is a Christian arts festival), because it was a bulwark against the single most destructive thing in society: cynicism and apathy. Which is really two things. But they’re obviously linked. Read more »

As the dust begins to settle, some of us holding our collective breath in anticipation of a Boris-run London - and Gordon licks his wounds and wonders if this was all to do with the abolishing of the 10p rate - I thought it may be a good time to start thinking about notions of equality. I wanted to start by looking at the commitment all the main parties have made to ending child poverty.

Last Monday I attended the 4 Children/Barnados conference, addressed by, among others, Nick Clegg (Lib Dem), Michael Gove (Tory) and Stephen Timms (Labour), where a pamphlet, ‘Turning up the volume on child poverty’, was launched. With contributions from Labour’s Ed Balls, Michael Gove and our own David Laws, the pamphlet calls for clear policy commitments from all three parties.

Nick’s speech focussed on education and the relationship between social mobility and parents’ income. He argued for a more flexible system, better maternity/paternity benefits and higher quality childcare available to all.
He proposed extending the childcare tax credit to workless families – “moving money from subsidies for the well-off to support the poorest - instead of the other way around.” And argued that language was a barrier for many immigrant children and that developing English language skills should be a priority for them.

Michael Gove suggested that child poverty was a relative term, his definition was being “excluded from the good life” he was interested in creating a society that was “more cohesive and more equal” and spoke about “moving away from social justice” - whatever that means. He referred to a new Tory metaphor (borrowed from Polly Toynbee) of society being a caravan moving through the desert; the important thing was that those at back did not fall behind. His vision was of a society where people were brought out of dependency, able to take control of their lives. He put a lot of problems down to absent fathers and reiterated that the Tories would “reward commitment”. He lauded the success of Academies and bemoaned the scandal of children not reading by age six. Tories would reward talent and enterprise and create a more meritocratic society.

Stephen Timms welcomed the strength of the End Child Poverty coalition. Labour had committed to the abolition of child poverty within a generation.
He emphasised the importance of a job as a route out of poverty. He also talked a lot about what the government had already done to take children out of poverty.

For me the most challenging speech came from Lisa Harker, co-director at the Institute of Public Policy Research.

While acknowledging that Labour were the only party to have implemented any policies to end child poverty, she criticised the party’s approach as being highly centralised and putting more effort into getting people into work - rather than looking for more flexibility in the workplace.

The Tories, she suggested, were interested in messaging rather than policy, identifying the root causes as addiction and family breakdown, rather than understanding the complexity of issues that lead to child poverty.

She took Liberal Democrats to task for having a hybrid model, focusing on education but with no significant pressure to tackle the wider issues, in particular redistribution.

She identified what she saw as the major barrier to change, namely deep underlying inequalities in society. For her the problem was the underlying
winner takes all culture; a place where working hard is just not enough.

Her solution was to redistribute to tackle the underlying inequalities. Sweden, for example, redistributes through the tax system (and in a much-publicised Unicef Report last year came 2nd in the league of child wellbeing in rich countries, compared with our bottom place).

Lisa saw a real problem with the need for public support which had hardened against the poor, 1 in 3 believing poverty is the result of laziness or lack of will power. Her concern was that in reality tackling poverty is just not a vote winner, although she speculated whether the outcry over the 10p rate would mark a shift in public attitudes.

Finally she challenged us all that we have a great opportunity to up the pace of change, but recognising that there is not a quick fix solution and that any solution requires public backing which is just not evident at the moment.

I left feeling exasperated. As a party we do have a commitment to improve outcomes for children, the pupil premium, more affordable housing, higher child benefit, but there is so much more we could do. The government’s Every Child Matters agenda looks at improving the wellbeing of children and young people across a range of indicators, but equality is not one of them.

I know it’s not a popular position, especially after our recent Tax Commissions, but I honestly believe we need to have a good hard look at what more we can do to contribute to ending this scandal. What was it Nick Clegg said about being radical and taking risks?!

* Linda Jack blogs at Lindyloo’s Muze.

A great set of local election results - but to say that we did “well” or “better than expected” is, in my view, an understatement.

On our resources, which do not include the money of (Lord) David Sainsbury (of Turville), or (Lord) Michael Ashcroft (of Tax Haven) or (Lord) Irvine Laidlaw, we’ve done fantastically. Apologies for the brackets, but I think we can say that their ‘titles’ are optional.

Can we do better? You bet!

Here in Cambridge, for example, I doubt that a single leaflet mentioned Nick Clegg’s name. I think they should have. Our local election campaigns should be building national momentum: raising the profile of our leader, his team and our policies.

Neither did we, here, highlight the Tory-Labour collusion on their tax policies for the super wealthy. We seem to be allowing them to feed their funding habit is a somewhat similar fashion to the way that the media supports the drink and drugs train-wreck lifestyles of various celebrities. If we can be certain of one thing, then it’s not going to be Rupert Murdoch who does the job for us on tax!

On this front, I do hope that by this time next year, a site expanding on something like politicalfundingwatch.blogspot.com is out there and we’re making it very clear who’s pockets the opposition is in. It’s certainly something I’m keen to move forwards.

And, to be clear, the need to attack this Tory-Labour collusion, is not just for our political gain, but more importantly, for the sake of:
- The vast majority of us who need the NHS: polyclinics look likely to benefit big business, not those who use the service;
- Those of us who rely on post offices and small shops;
- Those who need good public transport: we must break the regional monopolies of the bus operators, especially in light of ever increasing fuel prices;
- Those whose prospects are poor because their parents were poor: we want a society where every child born has equal opportunities based on their commitment and ability, not on the wealth of their parents;
- Our children and their children, who, unless we wrestle back control from what is becoming what I can only call a monopolist’s plutocracy, will be faced with a planet raging with conflict, on a path that was set for the short term gains of a few who lacked the compassion to see beyond their own desires.

These and more are being eroded, not because they’re not needed, or because we don’t know how to improve them, but because of the stupid situation that subverts our democracy.

So, my view: A great result? Yes. Can we do better? You bet! Let’s put power back where it belongs: in the hands of the people!

* Neale Upstone is Liberal Democrat councillor for Kings Hedges on Cambridge City Council.

I think you can sense the relief among Lib Dems today. Despite widespread predictions that the party would end up the loser of the night – both among the media and LDV readers – the Lib Dems have ended up with a net gain of both councils and councillors.

Not only that, but for only the second time in its history the Lib Dems have come second in the national projected share of the vote, with 25%. We couldn’t have hoped for much better; and we certainly feared it might be much worse.

Remember, the last time most of these Council seats were contested was in 2004, at a time when the party was riding much higher in the opinion polls than today, and the Tory party was still in the doldrums.

That year, we made a net gain of over 100 seats, and took 27% of the vote. It wouldn’t actually have been that surprising if we had slipped back a little this time - but it would certainly have been spun against us by our foes. It was clear the BBC had already filed their ‘setback for Clegg’ stories until the party’s encouraging performance spiked their guns.

Indeed, Nick has just emailed party members summarising the many successes from yesterday:

Just a note to thank everyone who helped with the election campaigns yesterday. We had a very successful night - beating Labour into third. Fighting the same set of seats as we did in 2004 at the height of the Iraq war, we’re set to have more councillors and control of more councils than we did even then.

We have gained my home city of Sheffield, as well as St Albans, Burnley and Hull. We are also the largest party and came within just one seat of gaining overall control in Oldham, Warrington and Cheltenham. And we made important gains in key seats like Derby, Colchester and Reading.

In Wales too our progress has been impressive. We’ve made gains across the country and strengthened our position as the largest party in Cardiff. The results aren’t yet in from London. But we do know that Brian Paddick and his team have done an outstanding job in flying the flag for us in that important contest.

In fact, this year’s results followed a similar pattern to last year’s: Lib Dem councillors in areas where we don’t have significant strength were picked off. But in those areas which will decide our success at the next general election – the Tory-Lib Dem battlegrounds in the south, and Labour-Lib Dem battlegrounds in the north – the party more than held its own.

Credit is due to the Tories. There’s no doubt their performance exceeded expectations; certainly I didn’t expect them to poll 44% of the national vote, and it looks like they will gain over 300 councillors. That is a strikingly good performance, and one that suggests the party really will be a serious contender for government at the next election. It’s still not clear to me that the public is convinced by the Tory party’s message. But such is their fed-upness with Labour, for the moment they’re happy to overlook their scepticism.

There were two big losers from the night: the Labour party and the BBC. For Labour, these were not simply mid-term blues: this was a wholesale rejection of a tired, grey government which looks dead on its feet. It is hard to see how they can turn this Titanic performance around; even harder to see Gordon Brown as a man brimming with energy and ideas capable of seizing back the initiative. The writing is on the wall.

For the BBC, last night perhaps marked the nadir of their election coverage - as anticipated here on LDV by PoliticalBetting.com’s Mike Smithson last month - and has attracted deserved and widespread criticism for its infantilising television coverage. (With the notable exception of the bloggers’ panel, and our own fragrant Alix Mortimer, of course). Not only did they fail to recognise Lib Dem successes until late in the day – so determined were they to run an anti-Clegg line – but they insulted the intelligence of all voters by relying on tacky and confusing gimmicks. The BBC is still covering politics as if this were the 1970s. They need seriously to re-think their approach or become a laughing-stock instead of a national institituion.

NB: Lib Dem Blogger of the Year James Graham has an excellent analysis over at the Guardian’s Comment Is Free site.

The 60th birthday of the NHS presents a great opportunity to review what health means in a modern society. The world has changed so much in the last 60 years; and these changes if they are harnessed present a great opportunity to create a truly 21st Century service.

A major change has been in the improved capability of individuals to obtain and use information. Empowering patients by increasing their ability to engage in this service is an essential step in the right direction.

There is a growing awareness, across all parties, of the challenges that the service faces as it copes with rising population and consumer demand. The service faces fundamental issues arising from a number of factors including changing demography, advances in medical technology and increased expectations on the part of patients. These changes necessitate a paradigm shift: the focus of the service needs to change from outputs to outcomes.

A new report by the think tank Reform published yesterday argues that despite this widespread recognition of these increased demands, the current Government has explicitly rejected the type of structural reform that is needed to transform the service. While the Government has recognised, as early as the 2000 NHS plan, that empowered patients will demand a new type of service, current ideas will fail to deliver this. The landmark review of the NHS by Lord Darzi, commissioned partly to address these issues, continues to put forward recommendations that will direct care from the centre.

The Liberal Democrats have embraced many of the themes essential for a reformed system – personal empowerment, greater local autonomy and a desire to root out embedded inequalities. They have also expressed support for ideas such as the extension of direct payments, which are essential in giving greater control to users of the service. These ideas are a great basis on which to develop and transform the service.

An essential step that should be considered by all parties is an economic constitution which will promote a new drive for value. The commitment to ‘public value’ in the BBC charter could be an interesting model for the NHS.

The NHS is close – frustratingly so – to a very positive future. The key step is to empower people to get value from the vast amount of funds already in the system. There are already some local moves towards low cost programmes to bring about better services and better communication quickly. But currently these initiatives remain small, due to the massive financial commitment to traditional types of care. An economic constitution would drive them forward. It would give full rein to innovation in each of the clinical areas highlighted in the Darzi Review.

Over the next few months Reform will be following on from this by looking to create a blueprint for the future of the service. We would greatly appreciate contributions and ideas for the type of service that you would like see the NHS become over the next ten years. Please see Reform’s website - www.reform.co.uk - for more ideas on how to get involved in our work.

* Helen Rainbow is Senior Research Officer at Reform, a leading market-liberal think-tank.

The whole fiasco about Labour abolishing the 10% tax rate is only the tip of the iceberg in Gordon Brown’s attempt to dictate an economy based on doing what he wants, rather than having the freedoms that we are entitled to.

If you’ve been on another planet the last fortnight, or having a ’sanity break’ from the news, then here’s a summary:

Last year:
- The government announced that it was reducing the core income tax rate to 20%, and hidden in their announcement was that they were abolishing the 10% rate that this government introduced.
- People earning less than £18,500 would pay more tax, the worse hit being those on the lower incomes in that range
- Those earning more than £18,500, they would be better off, the higher incomes benefitting more than those on lower incomes.
- That some people on low incomes would be able to claim enhanced tax credits
- The next effect that we knew then was that many, many people would not be eligible, and, that many would not jump through all the hoops doing more paperwork to claim what they are entitled to.

And this month:
- People started seeing how much they lost out by, and writing to their MPs
- Some Labour MPs threatened to rebel, now fearing a backlash from their constituents, so even more complication was offered (at a cost of roughly an extra £1,000,000,000)
- These were the same MPs that ignored opposition warnings about this very problem!

The net effect is:
- Even more people must claim tax credits or lose out
- Some people still lose out
- Lots of people, who are not those struggling to pay for food, and to heat their home still gain.
- And, there’s a £1bn extra hole in the budget, funded entirely to cut taxes on the better off.

So, that’s the summary, but why am I saying that the real issue here is about or freedoms?

Simply put, our current tax system is both undemocratic, and illiberal.

The democracy element is well established. As the Liberal Democrats’ Reducing the Burden tax paper points out, the existing tax system is extremely complex, and full of loopholes exploited by the super-rich. When did we get to vote for “lower taxes for the extremely rich” as a manifesto pledge at a general election? Never!

From the element of freedom, then there’s a simple issue around income taxation: it taxes people for doing something productive. How is it fair to tax people for doing something that, far from depriving others of their liberal freedoms, actually adds to them, by doing productive work?

Aside from the general principle, the government is now saying that have to bear the burden, not just individually but also as a society, of a highly complex, paperwork intensive, tax credit system.

This is madness. People should be free to work as and when they choose. If they choose to live frugally, consuming less and working part-time, then they should be free to do so. They should not be subject to centrally dictated controls on their life.

It’s time that we put an end to Gordon Brown’s Stalinist state.

* Neale Upstone is Liberal Democrat councillor for Kings Hedges on Cambridge City Council.

Raising social mobility: an opportunity to empower individuals to improve their own capability

There is a cross-party consensus that the UK has a social mobility problem. Gordon Brown has called it “the great mission of the next decade”. Recent discussion has focused on the abolition of the 10p tax rate which is seen as a blow to those on low incomes. The Liberal Democrats have called it a “betrayal of the most needy in our society”. However, income taxes are just one piece of the vast tax and benefits jigsaw puzzle.

What is required to improve social mobility is a comprehensive review of the system and a new and co-ordinated policy approach across government. If Gordon Brown does not take the opportunity to do this, he will leave the way open for the Opposition parties, and the Liberal Democrats could capitalise on the demand for a new approach.

A new report published today by the independent think tank Reform argues that successive governments have sought to address the problems of poverty and low social mobility through higher spending on poverty relief and public services. These policies have largely failed to deliver the desired long-term effects. The unintended consequence has been a “why bother” economy in which a significant proportion of the adult population have neither the capability nor the motivation to succeed.

While European counterparts have seen significant improvements in social mobility in recent years, in the UK it has remained worryingly static - the moniker of Europe’s “divided society” is fitting. Globalisation and technological advance have meant that education and skills have become vital for workers to be able to share in the growing prosperity. But top-down programmes implemented by successive governments have focused on direct intervention in individuals’ lives, and have largely failed to take advantage of the increased return to skills.

Public services are biased towards the affluent who are better able to shape the nature of public spending to their own advantage. The complex system of benefits and high marginal tax rates is reducing incentives to increase work hours and earnings, and to come off benefits. Increases in the tax burden are disproportionately falling on incomes and the upper rate threshold is a key “mobility block” discouraging people from taking more responsibility at a managerial and professional level. And increased central direction of state education has perpetuated inequity in attainment and preserved the divide between elite and inner city education.

The result is not only a negative social impact but a large economic cost of wasted talent - up to £32 billion per year or £1,300 for each household. A new approach is needed, starting from the point of raising personal capability and radical education reform. The key determinants of future success will be motivation and attitude as much as hard skills. The high social mobility countries in Scandinavia provide a better model of decentralised education systems based on choice and diversity.

A serious review of the vastly complex tax and benefit system is needed to shift the focus to incentivising work rather than trapping people with high marginal tax rates. A move towards lower government intervention and taxes would enable the development of the “capability margin” – the resources available to individuals to invest in themselves.

Over recent years the Liberal Democrats have moved in this direction. In January, the Liberal Democrats established a Commission on Social Mobility to investigate the causes of low social mobility and recommend policy changes to address these. In his key speech on social mobility in the twenty-first century earlier this year, Nick Clegg said that the solution lay in a more decentralised and diverse education system which “harnessed the energy and enthusiasm of private individuals” to drive up standards and choice.

At a time of global change, when all parties are considering their approaches to tackling poverty and the skills shortage, a party who adopts these ideas will become the most credible advocate of removing the blocks on mobility.

* Elizabeth Truss is Reform’s Deputy Director and Lucy Parsons is Reform’s Economics Research Officer. Shifting the unequal state: From public apathy to personal capability is available at Reform’s website.

Why is it that BBC’s election results programmes are so appalling? Just look at the “Ming’s Bling” clip, above, from last year and ask yourself whether this is the product of a licence funded broadcasting system that takes it public service obligations seriously?

What really gets me is that the BBC results programmes seem to want to focus on everything but giving the late evening/very early morning viewers what they desperately want – the results. For local elections we have to wait until all the results are in from a particular authority and then all the BBC gives us is a simple outline of the number of seats won and lost and the new make-up of the council.

People who stay up into the early hours don’t need something jazzed up like “Ming’s Bling”. They are watching because they want to know what is happening.

Surely in these days of mass information processing a voter should be able to find out on the night from the BBC what happened in the specific election that they participated in a few hours earlier?

OK – they cannot go through every ward result on TV programmes but they could use their web-site and link that into their coverage.

Over the past few months with the White House race I’ve been mightily impressed by the way the US networks do results programmes and the way that they link it in to their web-sites. You can find out what happened down almost to the smallest precinct of just a few hundred voter – and this is being constantly updated.

Yet here the corporation puts a vast amount of resource into coverage results, but it is all disparate and all over the place. Each local radio station and TV region has its own operation as well as the national programmes. But instead of giving us detailed results and analysis what they do is what is journalistically easy – get reaction.

Why not a bit of rationalisation to put the resources into getting a fast results service down to ward level together with quality analysis?

* Mike Smithson founded and edits PoliticalBetting.com, the UK’s leading political discussion blog. He was a founder member of the Liberal Democrats, stood for Parliament at the 1992 General Election, and has served as both a county and borough councillor. This is the third in a regular series of monthly articles from Mike.

I’ve read some of the discussion on Lib Dem Voice about how Liberal Democrats should use their second preferences in the race for London Mayor with some interest. It should be stated up front that much of this speculation is fantastically irrelevant to how Liberal Democrat voters will actually choose. It will only permeate to the wider London electorate if Nick Clegg or another senior media spokesperson endorses Boris or Ken as number two, and even then, like the Green-pact it would be more likely to harm our candidate than influence the final outcome.

Articles like this then are directed at Liberal Democrat activists.

In that respect I don’t propose to dwell much on policy preference or people’s desire to express their personal problems when it comes to our political rivals. Bluntly it will not be a disaster if any of the mainstream candidates are elected. There will be winners and losers, but neither Boris nor Ken is a dangerous incompetent or extremist liable to make decisions so awful that the Capital will be beset by the ten plagues of Egypt in the next four years. At worst London’s voters will be embarrassed by gaffes or irritated by higher taxes and control freakery, while special interests wail and gnash their teeth as their funding is cut

The issue for Liberal Democrat activists then is what result will most likely benefit our future prospects in the unlikely event that our own candidate, Brian Paddick, doesn’t win.

On those criteria I have heard two schools of thought.

The first is that any win for the Conservatives would be the worst outcome. It is always better for the third party when the second party is performing dismally and a win in the race for London would be the start of momentum for Cameron that would improve his chances of a clean sweep in the 2010 General Election. A strong optimistic Conservative party is far more damaging to our prospects of holding or advancing in Parliament than a damaged but ‘popular-enough’ Labour party. Best for us if the Tories look like they’ve snatched a narrow defeat from the jaws of victory (with double-digit poll leads for most of the campaign), while Labour look weak having seen the majority of one of their few popular politicians collapse while losing seats to everyone in the GLA.

Liberal Democrats under those circumstances could claim the Tories can never win London, we are the only party that holds the Mayor to account, and the only party that can seriously challenge Labour in their Borough fiefdoms where Tories fear to tread.

The second is that the combination of an unpopular Labour government and error-prone Conservative Mayor represents a perfect storm. The case for putting Liberal Democrats on your Council, whether against Labour or the Conservatives ‘to keep them honest’, would be irresistible. The opportunities for the kind of anti-establishment campaigns in which the party specialises would be manifold. The Cameron momentum would not be enhanced by such a win, it would be derailed. People would get an unprecedented 18 month foretaste of what a Conservative administration might be like, represented by a Conservative who most people consider entertaining rather than competent, and panders to many of the stereotypes of elitism that Cameron is attempting to expunge from the Conservative image. Ken would blame his defeat on Brown, vocally, and after a short period of brooding would return to his traditional role of fermenting dissent and division within his own party, increasing the perception of Brown and Labour as inward-looking and out of touch.

Liberal Democrats under those circumstances could lead strongly as the face of change people really want. It would be an Obama narrative being neither the establishment nor the established alternative, and sold right, equally devastating.

There are merits to both points of view. In my own case I find the second more convincing in part because I agree with the analysis of the first. Labour are currently the leading party in name only. In every other respect they are already looking defeated with poll ratings akin to the early 1980s and an aura of despair that suggests they want a break, rather than five more years of government. I further don’t think narrow defeat for Boris will hurt Cameron’s momentum. An election result that leaves the political landscape unchanged is unlikely to alter perceptions that it’s time for a change, or that the Conservatives should be given a chance. And Cameron will simply point out that no serious commentator thought Ken would even come close to losing when the race started.

Oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them. For the Liberal Democrats to advance people need clear reasons not to vote for the other two. That is as true today as it has always been. Our positive vision is important, it’s why people choose us not the Greens or UKIP and why we’re often in second place. But stardust and good vibes alone are not an election-winning formula.

At the moment then all negative attention is on Labour. Only the London Mayoralty represents an opportunity to spread the pain before the general election. There is a risk I suppose that a Johnson regime during an economic downturn, in the build up to the Olympics, would in fact represent a new golden age for London’s reputation, and herald an era of effective low-cost administration that sees world leaders sending their staff on secondment to the GLA to learn how it’s done… you may decide for yourself how plausible that risk is against the regular prospect of David Cameron refusing to comment on the decisions or performance of the most high-profile Conservative in the country.

So, if you are a Liberal Democrat, you should not be thinking of ‘holding your nose’ and voting for ‘x’ number two, or taking the coward’s way out by wasting your vote on the Greens or other minor party with no hope of being in the run-off.

Whichever way you decide… you should be thinking… I’m making my second preference for the Liberal Democrats. Brian Paddick 1, our next best hope for our future 2. That is the best way to think about your second preference, not who do I disagree with least. Tribalism is not always helpful, but in respect of making difficult choices it can at least be comforting that you made a choice for a reason that advances something you believe in rather than against something you don’t.

* Andy Mayer is a London community campaigner and blogs here.

Battlestar Gallactica, the cult science-fiction television show, starts its fourth and final season this week. Since 2004 it has won some critical acclaim and a cult following despite being confined to satellite TV.

Although reading too much into what remains a fictional show produced for entertainment is tricky, it’s hard to avoid the imprint made on the show by the ‘war on terror’. Other big issues are tackled but the underlying premise of the show is undoubtedly dealing with a post 9/11 world. The premise, of a civilisation on the brink and on the run is unquestionably one that dominates political dialogue day in and day out. Impending economic upheavals are only likely to deepen this feeling of drift and in some quarters of outright despair with the ’state we are in’.

BSG ‘ReImagined’ began back in 2004 with ‘humanities’ children’, the robotic Cylons, who can now take on human appearance launching a massive strike against the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. William Adama’s Battlestar Gallactica, a relic from the first Cylon war due to be pensioned off as a museum, is the only Battlestar left standing after the Colonies’ defence system is crippled. Nuclear holocaust ensues and the Colonies are set aflame. This is definitely how 9/11 felt to a lot of people - like it was the end of the world, the ‘end of everything’. Terrorism’s great power has always lain in it’s ability to inflict damage, but, more potently, also in the shadows it creates in people’s minds.

In reality, it was not the end of the world or anything even remotely like it but it was the end of a sense of security that ‘our’ way of doing things would be left permanently unchallenged having survived the Cold War.

50,000 survive, and the subsequent episodes follow those 50,000 in their quest to find a mythical 13th colony, Earth. Of course, with the Cylons being able to assume human form this causes a mass questioning of identity Here we have a discourse on the ‘war on terrors’ recruitment to the side of the terrorists of many people who ‘look like us’, or else share our nationality. The ‘enemy’ is not a foreign state - it is stateless - and this in and of itself is challenging us to think outside of the box.

The question of legitimate grievance is also raised. Some of the Cylons are religious zealots, hell-bent on imposing their ‘god’ on humanity (something that is emphasised in series 3 as the Cylons occupy New Caprica) while others harbor serious anger towards humanity for the enslavement and abasement of their race.

Values and established ways of doing things are constantly questioned as the fleet finds itself fighting not just the Cylon’s but it’s own demons; the savagery and baseness of the struggle to survive, the difficult choices that are faced it in that struggle.

We need to be asking ourselves those same questions.

Is it good enough for us to present an image of ourselves as a faultless enduring force for good? Or should we be honest about the times when our foreign policy has shown a callous disregard for the human consequences of our actions? Read more »

Is Siân Berry, perhaps, having second thoughts?  Two weeks ago, Siân and Ken exchanged vows. There was not a dry eye in the house.

The honeymoon however lasted less than 24 hours with Ken declaring his true love for Gordon Brown on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war (so much for his anti-war credentials).  Since then, Siân has been doing her best to pretend it was all just a one night stand.  In the Evening Standard last night, the most flattering thing she could manage about Ken was that he would be the “least worst” option  claiming - incredibly - that “we’re not expressing massive endorsement of Ken or Labour in any way.”  Huh?  What’s more, despite his lack of anything resembling an environmental policy, she can even be found fluttering her eyelashes at Boris.

Joking aside, why this sudden change of plan?  A quick glance at the opinion polls show you why: most of them show Berry hovering around the 2 per cent mark.  That suggests that roughly a third of Green voters who supported Darren Johnson in 2004 have walked away from the party.  If a similar drop in support is repeated in the Assembly elections, the Greens will struggle to get over the 5% minimum threshold.  Johnson himself – second on the list – will almost certainly lose his seat.

This follows a similar pattern to the one which developed in Scotland last year where the mini-parties were all but wiped out (the Scottish Greens went from 7 MSPs to just 2 despite not self destructing in anything like the spectacular way the Scottish Socialists did).

But it has to be said that the Labour-Green deal can only have exacerbated the situation. While the stitch up has helped to promote Ken’s green credentials, it has reinforced notions that this election is just between the top two candidates. By giving the media and general public the clear impression that she is merely a cheerleader for Livingstone, Berry has effectively shut herself – and environmental issues – out of the debate.  If she had not done that deal for instance, she would have had real cause to complain about Newsnight not inviting her onto their hustings last week. 

As it is, she only has herself to blame.  It isn’t even clear where vote swapping like this actually stands in election law; if the BBC is required to have a balanced debate would it not be unfair to have two candidates putting on a united front to present a shared agenda? It all sounds a bit too much like the worst kind of NUS politics, with candidates only standing so they can endorse their own preferred candidate from the floor.

Berry has stated that she would be prepared to work with Johnson if he was elected. However, one thing you can be assured of is that if Johnson is elected the Tories will get more than a third of the seats in the Assembly. Under the current mayoral system this means that the Tories will be able to ensure that everything they want gets through with minimal scrutiny.  Even if the Greens managed to keep hold of an AM or two they will be out of the debate.

This is a bit of a first for London politics: in 2004-2008, Labour was two members short of the magic one third while in 2000-2004 Livingstone was an independent with a (relatively) hostile Labour party keen to bring him into line. With Labour unlikely to make gains in the Assembly and the Green vote collapsing, a Paddick or Livingstone mayoralty with a strong Liberal Democrat contingent on the Assembly is the best way to ensure that political balance and plurality is retained. Denying any party (even the Liberal Democrats) total control of the Greater London Authority can only be good for democracy. It might even do a better job at holding the Mayor to account than the Greens have managed holding the balance over the past four years.

Those disaffected Green voters should reflect on this.  A Green vote of 4.95% would be a complete waste.  By contrast, if those voters were to switch to the Lib Dems, they could lead to real Assembly members, and assure a balanced and competitive Assembly.  Surely the only honourable thing should be for Siân Berry to admit her fatal error, throw in the towel and call her remaining supporters to vote Lib Dem to ensure this happens?

Over the last few weeks there has been an enormous amount in the press with regard to the ‘John Lewis list’ and MPs’ second homes. I have at times been frustrated that every MP is tarred with the same brush, and at others overjoyed at the growing realisation that the whole system needs an overhaul.

We need to start thinking outside the box, especially in terms of MPs’ second homes. My out-of-the-box idea is that the Government purchases two-bedroom flats for MPs scattered around Westminster. They would remain the property of the people, not a way of making a fast buck when they are sold after an MP’s term has finished.

They would be furnished as any rented property would be. They would be redecorated during any general election campaign when they will not be in use. They should not be palatial, just bog standard homes that allow you to live. They would be issued by a lottery or drawing straws. You could put everyone in the same block of flats but then the security costs would be high, as well as opening the door to the possibility of accusations of MPs having affairs or partying with the opposition.

If MPs’ constituencies are close to Westminster, a car or taxi service is offered instead of the accommodation. If they do wish to take up the offer of Government accommodation they do so at their own expense.

If you were working for a company and sent away on business you would be offered living expenses and hotel costs to be paid by the company, so reasonable food expenses should be allowed. Although I do feel the need to say ‘with receipts provided’ as I am sure most tax payers would be unhappy to subsidise palatial-style food.

By doing this it would reduce the need for the ‘John Lewis list’, make all the MPs equal, and remove the possibility for ‘sleaze’ allegations. Or is this too simple and prescriptive?

Chancellor takes over as Prime Minister. Has brief burst of popularity. And then it all goes wrong. Sounds familiar?

A big problem for Gordon Brown is that he now seems firmly fixed in the media and public’s mind as someone who took over as Prime Minister, failed and is now in trouble. Once you’ve got a particular image, it’s very hard to shed, as former leaders from all political parties and testify.

But what’s particularly dangerous for Brown – and reminds me of John Major’s fate – is the way that the past is now coming back to bite him. Under both Blair and Thatcher the government behaved in all sorts of ways that political opponents derided, but which did relatively little harm to the government’s popularity amongst those it needed to win. But under Major – and now Brown – those past problems came back to haunt the government.

In Brown’s case many of these problems are personal. Under Tony Blair the Labour Party was deeply riven by personal animosities and disputes, including at times quite bizarre behaviour in the Blair-Brown relationship. It didn’t stop them winning three general election landslides – no mean achievement – but now these deep personal animosities are back, and feeding the media story of a government on its last legs and falling out.

Just take a quick flick through the Sunday newspapers – Charles Clarke being talked up as a stalking horse challenger, whispers of Jack Straw taking over as a caretaker leader, denials that Ed Balls has been setting himself up for a leadership challenge, and doom-laden prophecies of blood on the carpet if bad local elections results combine with crises over the abolition of the 10p tax rate and the attempts to introduce 42 days detention without trial.

As with John Major, is the only political future left to Gordon Brown now a constant struggle to keep the bad times at bay?

I’ve got a confession to make. On 1st May, I will be giving my second preference vote to … Ken Livingstone.

I won’t be doing this with a song in my heart or anything resembling enthusiasm. Livingstone is a divisive and lonely figure who is incapable of taking criticism or listening to anyone outside of his inner circle of cronies. He is profoundly anti-civil liberties, being both an ardent supporter of ID cards and a supporter of execution-style shootings on the streets of London. He surrounds himself with extremists like Yusuf al Qaradawi and negotiates totemic deals with South American demagogues seemingly out of pure contrariness.

Finally, he is proposing to throw away all the good achieved by his single greatest achievement – the congestion charge – by allowing thousands of low-ish emission cars to drive through the capital without paying the charge, in doing so belching out millions of tons of extra CO2 emissions and increasing congestion. All so he can wage some misguided class war on “Chelsea Tractors”.

Make no mistake, Livingstone is neither a liberal nor a progressive. No, my reason for giving him my second choice is purely down to the fact that Boris Johnson would be ten times worse. I’d already decided this months ago, but Johnson’s appearance on Newsnight on Tuesday confirmed this. Having been assured by Tories a few months ago that the buffoon on Have I Got News For You is not the “real” Boris I have patiently waited for this real deal to emerge. I don’t accept the Labour charge that Johnson is a racist on the simple grounds that for it to be true Johnson would have had to have given the matter some thought rather than simply blathering out the first thing that came into his head.

If the shambles that we witnessed on Tuesday is Boris on his best, election winning, behaviour, God alone knows what he would be like running London in a genuine crisis. It is an idea that genuinely chills me to the bone.

So that’s who I will be giving my second preference to; I’m just glad that my first preference for Brian Paddick is a positive choice. But I’m starting to despair at the number of Labour supporters wagging their fingers in my face and lecturing me at how it is in some way my moral duty to vote – even campaign – for their candidate. A perfect example of this is Michael Calderbank over on the Progress website, who can’t resist the low blow of talking about the Lib Dems having a “straight choice” (yes Michael, we know what by-election you’re referring to – aren’t you clever? Just because your candidate hangs out with homophobes, it doesn’t mean you have to stoop to his level).

What really gets under my skin about such posturing is that the selfsame Labour activists are not prepared to reciprocate. Labour has done a deal with the Green Party to steer people towards giving Sian Berry their second preference votes. This means that if Livingstone’s campaign does come unstuck (and it may yet), the official policy of the Labour Party will be to hand victory over to Boris Johnson. Not a single Labour activist I have encountered has told me they are prepared to break the party whip and give Paddick their second choice just in case. There is no website, or Facebook group, advocating some kind of vote swap – merely po-faced hectoring.

None of this should be any surprise to people who have followed the anti-consensual nature of Labour in power across the country. It’s always one sided. It’s always parasitical. They demand partnership like spoiled children while not even bothering to look up the meaning of the word.

I’ll be giving Ken Livingstone my second preference not because I believe in some kind of progressive alliance but because I’m not insane enough to put a shock haired clown in one of the most powerful elected offices in the land. It isn’t a favour I expect to be returned by any Labour activist. Until it is, spare me the lectures.

The Olympic torch has been dogged by protests this weekend as it has made its way through London and Paris. China’s government has responded predictably, saying that the protests were the work of a ‘few Tibetan separatists’ attempting to ’sabotage’ the event. Spokespeople for the International Olympic Committee have lined-up with the Chinese government and decried the ‘politicisation’ of sport.

Alex Gilady, a IOC coordination commission member, said:

The important message is to tell our athletes that some people are trying to use them and to ride on their backs for solutions that the world has to find in other places like the United Nations.”

However, a recently produced report by Amnesty International shows that the ones using the Games as a political weapon are the Chinese government. It claims that the Chinese government is launching a systematic campaign to imprison activists ahead of the Games. It cites in particular the cases of Hu Jia and Yang Chunlin. Hu Jia has just recently been jailed for three and a half years for spreading

malicious rumors, libel and instigation in an attempt to subvert the state’s political and socialist systems.”

Jia, co-founder of the the Beijing Aizhixing Institute of Health Education, has been a repeated critic of the Chinese government. In November 2007, he participated via web-cam in a European Union parliamentary hearing in Brussels in which he stated that China had failed to fulfill its promises to improve human rights in the run-up to the Olympics. His trial lasted four hours and his lawyers were given one week to prepare his case. Representatives of foreign governments wishing to attend the trial were, according to diplomatic sources:

told that all seats had been ‘allocated’ and there was no space. On 18 March 2008, the same morning of the trial, they were given the contradictory information that seats had been ‘allocated’ to those that had arrived earlier the same day.”

Yang Chunlin who was detained by police on 6 July 2007 launched a petition under the slogan ‘We want human rights, not the Olympics’. Reports have claimed that he was tortured:

For six days in early August and one day in September 2007, his arms and legs were reportedly stretched and chained to the four corners of an iron bed so that he could not move. He was forced to eat, drink and defecate in that position. He was also reportedly forced to watch other detainees being subjected to similar treatment and to clean up their defecation.”

Claims of torture and abuse of activists riddle the report. Some are arrested tried and convicted of subversion like Jia and others are arrested and charged on spurious grounds. This is true in the case of Chen Guangcheng who is currently serving a four-year-and-three month sentence for ‘damaging property and blocking the traffic’ in Linyi city. No penalty points or license shredding, over four years in jail and do not pass go. Guangcheng campaigned against the authorities in Linyi “forced abortions and sterilizations which affected thousands of local women.” Read more »

I have spent quite a lot of time over the last few months criticising development agencies – the worst unelected QUANGO of the bunch. I have, in particular, one pet project that, although I wholly support the dream, I know it has, and will be dashed - by bad management from the Development Agency in my opinion.

The project is NIRAH - the National Institute for Research into Aquatic Habitats. It has an amazing vision: to create a giant aquarium where the lifecycles of fish will be examined. I have been assured that there will be no animal testing at the site, just perfect unpolluted waters where the fish will be examined and researched. There is a lot about fish that we do not know.

The site that was chosen for this magnificent dream was a brick pit in Bedfordshire. NIRAH entered into negotiations with the East of England Development Agency (EEDA) and Bedfordshire County Council (BCC) to borrow money to get planning permission and get their business plan written. All they had was a vision.

EEDA and BCC decided that the vision was strong enough and that the consortium could deliver. A target of a year was set and the loan of £4m was agreed. This was split into £2million up front and more on completion of the key deliverables – a planning application and a business plan. Delays in producing these meant that, before these were delivered, NIRAH had in fact been lent just over £3.2m of taxpayers’ money.

The business plan and planning application were delivered over a year late. Price Waterhouse Cooper were brought in to review the business plan (at further expense to the taxpayer) and decided that the plan made little sense - even a layman could see that the visitor numbers being higher than the London Eye was maybe a little over-ambitious.

The plan had also changed from being largely research to becoming a tourist facility. This, of course, sails close to the wind on what Local Government can finance. Hotels, conference facilities, a cinema and a huge water theme park were among the new plans.

When outline planning permission was granted in November last year, many of us breathed a sigh of relief: finally there should be some outside investment. This was such a big scheme that surely an outside company would want to invest now that planning permission was there. Although I should point out that the planning permission is conditional of finding an access route to the site, the current one is not viable.

At the beginning of March I was interviewed by File on 4, along with other local politicians and one of the main players in the consortium, who admitted that they had less than £2m of external funding but more than £1m. That week the consortium flew out to Dubai to try to raise yet more money - they need £600m to build this fantastic dream.

However this week the Executive of BCC will meet again, in private, to discuss the NIRAH project. A local paper has reported that this is for yet another loan. I cannot comment as I have not seen the papers on this Executive, and even if I had they would be confidential. But if this is the case it seems the dream is just a dream and taxpayers’ money has been wasted on a deal that could never work. If it was to have worked why could they not generate private finance from day one, rather than wasting money on a dream?

Susan Gaszczak is currently the Deputy Leader of the opposition on Bedfordshire County Council. She was elected by her peers to the East of England Regional Assembly in 2007 and holds the position of Group Whip. In December she was selected to stand for Parliament in South West Hertfordshire.

One Liberal Democrat policy area I can never get out of bed for is proportional representation. Don’t get me wrong; there is so much at fault with our present constitution – starting with the simple observation that we don’t really have one as such, through the farcical arrangements pertaining in the Commons and the Lords, and never forgetting the fact that, bizarrely, we still appear to be subjects of a Monarch ordained of God, named Betty Windsor.

However, though our democracy may be somewhat imperfect, it remains a democracy nonetheless; and the notion that we are labouring under some colossal electoral injustice is, I’m afraid, just another instance of Lib Dem whining we would do very well to drop. I’m quite sure that Liberal Democrat fortunes would rise a little under a system of PR, but hardly enough to justify making this a flagship issue. The rules of the game may be arcane, but we all know in advance what the rules are, and we all know how to vote tactically if needs be – thanks in no small part to a million bar charts which have probably outlived their useful purpose.

But, while the myriad options for systems of proportional representation have been gone over in tedious detail, there remains one topic of electoral reform which appears to be strictly off limits, and it is this: that maybe, just maybe, not all votes are equal. Or rather that, while all votes are clearly equal, some votes may be more equal than others. The purpose of this article is to address this rather glaring omission, propose my own suggestions for reform, and of course open up the floor for debate.

The first thing to say is that, up until now, what I am about to propose would not have been technically possible. Using only the prevailing piece of paper, pencil, and big black box technology, it is really quite infeasible to attach a value scale to the assembled collection of opinions. But the digital era is now firmly upon us and it is surely now time that we gave serious consideration to the possibilities opened up for us through the power of electronic voting.

So the first and very necessary and indeed urgent step, is to recreate the electoral register in the form of a large government database containing everyone’s personal information. The database would be backed up once a week onto a DVD and put somewhere safe. Voting would be as easy as clicking a mouse button. In fact, voting would be clicking a mouse button. Clever encryption technology would prevent any conceivable possibility of electoral fraud.

Now to where all this is leading: Once votes have been cast, they are then scaled (key point) according to some simple (or perhaps even rather complex) weighting function. The precise form of the weighting function would be determined by the Electoral Commission, ultimately under parliamentary control. Much fun is to be had from devising various options for reform but, purely to get the ball rolling, I have created an initial example of the sort of thing I have in mind.

I ought to stress that this is just a back-of-an-envelope job, with a view to instigating a lively discussion. If you don’t like my graphs, then the obvious thing is to produce your own improved recommendations. But, broadly speaking, you can see that the proposed scheme gives little weighting to votes from the very young and inexperienced. The weighting then ramps up with age, before tailing off again later in life. Eventually, when one reaches the point where most of one’s life lies in the past, the weighting diminishes once again to bugger all.

A key advantage is the ability to engage voters at a young age. I must admit that I have never quite recovered from Paul Walter informing me that his eight-year-old daughter voted for Sir Menzies Campbell in 2006, something she will probably regret should we ever meet. But with my scheme, we can sensibly open up the vote to anyone capable of firing up the computer unaided. Of course, their votes would count for precious little at that stage but, crucially, they will be actively engaged in the process.

More controversially perhaps, the scheme discriminates between the sexes. My thinking here is a bit vague, but is broadly based upon the fact that men are notoriously more inclined towards violence than women. I’m thinking that maybe if we were to give women a greater priority earlier in life, then we might not find ourselves fighting quite so many disastrous and un-winnable wars around the world. However, in order to preserve gender equality, their weighting must dip below that of men at the last.

The problem we currently face is that, without such technical arrangements in place, the electoral system is a very blunt tool which can be hopelessly unresponsive to pressing problems. It’s a bit like trying to fix the economy when one only has access to the crudest levers of power, or like trying to cure an illness with only the most primitive drugs. In such situations, one may certainly make a difference – a big difference even – but there are likely to be some rather unpleasant side effects.

It is only a highly and skilfully tuned scheme that has the power to reach the parts that other electoral systems simply cannot reach. Rather than fuss over PR, is it not time that Liberal Democrats embraced some truly radical proposals for electoral reform that can really do the business? You may not like my graphs, indeed I would not be surprised to learn that they might be flawed in one or two minor respects. But can anyone seriously suggest that even my initial proposal is not a huge improvement over our present, crude, and wholly unscientific arrangements?

* Laurence Boyce is a Liberal Democrat member, and well aware of what day it is.