Britain's electoral college

Writing on election day in the USA – before the result – I had been thinking about the electoral college, which is, to say the least, a strange arrangement by any standards and possibly unique. Well, not totally unique in view of what I have to say later in this piece. Political historians explain the electoral college in three main ways. One is purely historical and relates to the time, in the 1780s, when the states (there were thirteen of them then) still saw themselves as separate communities and therefore saw the college arrangement as a way of asserting their autonomy. Secondly it has been suggested that the enduring federal culture of the US is reflected in the college, i.e. states of lost much autonomy since 1787, but do still wish to be seen as individual contributors to the process of electing a federal president. Thirdly, it is said that the college system forces the candidates to visit the whole country in search of college votes. In this way they can all feel ‘included’. This third reason is spurious today because, with the increasingly polarised nature of US party politics, most states are ‘safe’ for one or the other candidate. As we are now seeing in the campaign, the candidates need not bother visiting many states (how much time has Obama spent in New York, for example ? – answer virtually none until the hurricane struck). In other words a re-election campaign could not bring the president to NYC but a hurricane could ). So there is a dissonance today between the reasons for the retention of the college and contemporary American politics. In fact, in such a close race, the absurdities of the college system are thrown into focus by the possibility of a ‘wrong-way-round’ result when the winner in the college actually gains less popular votes than the loser. This occurred when Bush ‘defeated’ Gore with a minority of the total vote (not to mention dodgy events in Florida) in 2000. Having said that, the college can be defended on these grounds : With the US almost inevitably producing a very close result in presidential elections – I mean close in terms of the popular vote – the deep schism in the political culture is highlighted. The electoral college, however, can produce a more decisive result that the popular vote, as happened to Obama himself in 2008. In that election Obama only beat McCain in the popular vote by 52.9%-45.7%, hardly a landslide, but won the college vote by 365-173. So we can easily forget the deep divisions in American society and believe instead that Obama was swept into power on a wave of optimism. This also, incidentally, creates impossibly high expectations for an incoming president. Former presidential candidate George McGovern died recently, reminding us of his humiliating defeat by Richard Nixon in 1972. In the college Nixon won every state bar one – Maryland – on a popular vote of 60% against 37%, still a big defeat but nothing like the college result. Over a third of the US voters in 1972 were willing to support McGovern’s ultra-liberal agenda. This fact was disguised by the hugely distorted college result. And again let’s remember Gore’s defeat in 2000 when he actually won on the popular vote. The perversity of the US electoral college possibly, therefore, changed the course of recent history, in view of events in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, before we in Britain become too smug over these truths about the US electoral college, we need to reflect upon the fact that Britain has its own version of the electoral college. It is called the House of Commons. Instead of 50 states we have 650 constituencies. Instead of states with different values in the college (depending on voting population), our members of the electoral college have an equal value of one vote each. No UK government since 1945 has won the popular vote (contrast that with many US presidential candidates who have done so). Furthermore, recent results have been ‘wrong-way-round’ in that more people vote against the incoming government than for it. For example the 1997 election was seen as a ‘landslide’ for Labour. In fact more people voted against Labour, for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, at 47.5%, than voted for Labour at 43.2%. Al Gore may have felt aggrieved (how well he took it !) in 2000, but his injustice was nothing when compared to British elections. So, if we see a perverse result tomorrow, possibly a dead heat, in the USA, we should think on before we are too critical of the Americans. For what it is worth I predict a close popular vote but a comfortable victory for Obama in the electoral college; let’s say he will be about 30 college votes ahead of Romney. We’ll see.

The socialism of American football

I am indebted to a nephew who made an interesting observation about the odd relationship betwen the 'American Dream' and the way in which Americans run pro football. One might think that free market ideology would dictate that the fortunes of the football franchises should be left to natural forces. The model suggests that the best will rise to the top, attract more resources and thus be able to retain their dominant position. In other words they should receive just rewards comensurate with the workrate and talent. Certainly this is what happens with European football where, in most leagues, only a handful of clubs have the resources to have any prospect of winning the title. In England there are perhaps six teams with such a prospect, in Spain it is two and in Scotland, since the demise of Glasgow rangers, it is only one, and in other countries only a handful each. But in America this is not allowed to happen through a system known as the draft. This works so that the clubs who do badly in one season, are given first pick of the best college players who become avaialable each Summer.In the folowing seasons they have the chance to climb back up the leagues, while the dominant clubs, who have to accept second-raters, drift down. In this way the chances of the teams are equalised through blatant market intervention. By now, you should be catching my drift. Theis manipulation to even out the chances of every club looks like a system of central planning in order artificially to create equality of opportunity. In other words, it sounds suspiciously like socialism. Strange.........

The Age of Deception

The disgracing of Jimmy Savile and Lance Armstrong has brought back to mind a recurrent theme in modern life. I don’t think it is overstating it to call the current era an ‘Age of Deception’. We now commonly see sporting personalities who cheat on the pitch and the track as well as in their tax returns, tabloid journalists who conceal opinion behind their deceptive versions of truth, banks and utility companies who cheat their customers directly, or indirectly through impenetrable terms and conditions, unreadable small print or simple lies and profiteering by exploiting market power. Cheap airlines extract money from us by making booking so complex we find ourselves paying charges we did not know were there; there are TV programmes where all is not as it seems (remember the phone-in scandals of a few days ago). Tax cheats now seem to be everywhere. And I have not yet mentioned politicians. This is a depressing picture. However, fans of Hegelian philosophy and its derivatives will believe that every thesis spawns its own negation. In this case, we can say we also live in an age of open information through the internet and the burgeoning media. These have emerged from corporate power because they have been seen as opportunities to extract vast profits from our growing consumerism. A common feature of all the deceptions identified here is that they have been rumbled in one way or another. The optimistic aspect of the age of deception is that, sooner or later, they do come to light. When a footballer dives or feigns a non – existent injury his misdemeanour is seen by millions, replayed over and over in slow motion, disseminated on U Tube etc. Regulators, inefficient and slow though they may be, do eventually seem to dig out the truth – witness the recent Libor scandal and several investigations of cartelisation by the Office of Fair Trading. Abused children become adults and eventually find the courage to reveal the identity of their tormenters. So the age of deception is confronted by its own negation, the age of information. How will this play out ? What is the ultimate synthesis of this dialectic ? Optimistically it may result in a new age of transparency and honest dealing. Pessimistically, the deceivers will ultimately take control of the media of communication, creating a kind of Orwellian dystopia. The main cause for optimism is that information is currently in the hands of the masses. History tells us, however, that this is no guarantee of ultimate victory.

Is Clegg a fool or a knave ?

So Nick Clegg has told us that he is not a knave but a fool, a fool for having made a promise he could not keep. The sad thing is, whether he is a fool or a knave we all want our politicians to be neither. To make matters worse, Dr Cable has told us the promise was a collectice decision, so the Liberal Democrat leadership[ is a collection of fools. Mmmmmmm. http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/Colleges/Government---Politics.aspx?mRef=CNM01.

The olympic Spirit

e have now had a few weeks to reflect upon what happened during the Olympics – including the torch processions – and the Paralympics. Something undoubtedly happened and it was largely unexpected. So what was it and what are its implications ? There was clearly an upsurge of patriotism and it was noticeable that many members of so-called minority groups happily joined in the outburst of such patriotism. Two implications arise from this. First that we are becoming a more integrated society. One suspected this would happen in regard to ethnic diversity, but it was striking also how geographically united the nation was. The idea of the torch progress had a lot to do with this. The fear that this was ‘London-centric’ was, ultimately, unfounded. The Olympics and Paralympics threw up countless role models, but the most significant were undoubtedly sportspeople of colour and the disabled. Again the impact of these is very plain to see and also predictable. But less predictable was the manner in which the concept of ‘Britishness’ has been claimed by all groups in society, not just the shire-dwellers. This will prove to create cultural change, no doubt, and it is probably good news for those who have a vested interest in sport, but I wondered whether it goes further than that. My thesis here is to suggest it should inform us about the ‘Big Society’ agenda and the future of our national institutions which are coming under threat from both localism and privatisation. The first thing to say, I suppose is that this has demonstrated that it is possible in Britain to organise and deliver a major public sector project, efficiently, effectively and impressively. But, more importantly, I think the Olympics and Paralympics demonstrated something about civic attitudes to major public sector, national, undertakings. In other words it is not true, as Big Society thinking suggests, that we can only connect emotionally with local community enterprises. The British people do have a strong affinity with national, public sector enterprises. It runs to the NHS, the BBC, higher education institutions, the police and our welfare state in general. Those politicians who chant the mantra, ‘local good, national bad’ and ‘public sector bad, private sector good’, need to consider this demonstration of a strong national civic culture. Turning to the volunteer army, I am reminded of the great eighteenth century conservative thinker Edmund Burke’s conception of the ‘little platoons’ of local activists who ‘do good’ in their communities for no reward. Well, yes, he and Tocqueville forty years later were right to see these as fundamental to a healthy democracy and society in general. But the gamesmakers were a national army. They may have worked at separate venues and with different sports, but they undoubtedly came to see themselves and be seen as a national institution. And, of course, they were a variety of regions, age brackets, ethnic origins and states of able- bodiedness or disability, ` So the Olympics and Paralympics demonstrated not just a change on societal attitudes to sport and patriotism, but also an appetite for the potential of national and the state-sponsored undertakings. Politicians – attack them at your peril !

The Robber Barons

At the risk of being a ‘grumpy old man’, it is a good time to round up the current state of monopoly capitalism in the UK. Post Marxist capitalism theory suggests that free markets will prevent the exploitation of consumers, as the consumer is sovereign and quality, service and honesty will be protected by the fact that ‘good’ capitalists’ will ultimately drive out the ‘bad’ capitalists. This is clearly not a happening. I don’t want to get into the reasons why. These might include quasi Marxist analyses, or the power elite model of C Wright Mills and Ralph Miliband, but it may be too early to say. What is clear, however, is that there is now a new class of robber barons, in the form of large corporations and their executives, who are using their market power and their conscious or unconscious collusion, to exploit consumers (the issue of worker exploitation is another thing altogether). I have compiled a list of ways in which robber barons operate, with prominent examples to illustrate: • Energy companies exploit and overcharge us by complicating tariffs and by not passing on reductions on wholesale prices. We all know very clearly that wholesale price increases are passed on in full, but reductions are not. They argue that large profits are needed for the purposes of investment, but there are no signs that investment is benefiting consumers in any significant way. • We all know about executive pay and bonuses. This is now clearly a conspiracy, with excessive remuneration packages being passed by remuneration committees that contain members who receive similarly excessive pay. The argument that, ‘to get the best you have to pay the best’ is palpably nonsense in view of the incompetence we have seen lately. Look at Barclays and G4S for perfect examples. • Aggressive tax avoidance schemes. Remember – if large corporations or wealthy individuals avoid tax, we – you and I – pay the tax on their behalf. This is not a ‘victimless crime’. We are the victims. • Budget airlines seek to deceive us on hidden charges. In particular they `lump on extra charges such as for travel insurance and place obstacles in our way if we want to tell them that we do not need these service. Try avoiding paying travel insurance with Ryanair. • Credit card companies add disgraceful charges and interest rates for those who do not pay off their balances regularly. The charges, fines and interest charges are way in excess of the real cost to them. • The behaviour of banks is very well documented. No need to elaborate. These are just a few examples of hos free market capitalism has become corrupted. It’s not all bad, of course. The Internet does seem to be serving the interests of consumers in terms of good service, choice and prices. I also think the jury is still out on the supermarket chains. They may be exploiting their suppliers, of course, but I’m not convinced that we customers get that bad a deal.

After Leveson

Leveson’s recommendations. By way of both a prediction and set of suggestions, here is what I think Leveson ought/will suggest : 1 A piece of UK legislation guaranteeing freedom of the press. This is necessary to underpin the ECHR and head off the expected objections by the press. It is placed first deliberately so as to emphasise the balanced nature of the recommendations. 2 A new independent press body, avoiding any ‘regulatory’ connotation. Call it the ‘Press Review Board’ or something similar. It should contain no government or press representatives (past or present). 3 A new press code of conduct, with very specific criteria on privacy, public interest, permitted and prohibited activities etc. 4 The Press Review Board to make judgments on the basis of the code. 5 The Board could be proactive or react to complaints. 6 The Review Board also would hear complaints by elements of the press if they believe their freedoms are being threatened in any way. 7 The Board should not have judicial powers, but will be charged with the role of referring some complaints to the Crown prosecutors if there is a prima facie case of invasion of privacy, phone hacking etc. The Board’s decisions could also be used as authoritative in any future civil action. In other words, the Board should not have enforcement powers but will be required to refer cases to the courts where appropriate. 8 In criminal or civil cases, where a defence of ‘public interest’ is being used, the onus will be on the defendant to prove public interest, and not the other way round. In other words, it will be assumed at the outset of any case that there is no public interest where privacy was invaded. 9 Some strengthening of existing legislation and arrangements to ensure more assiduous pursuit of criminal cases.