Governing Dynamo

An Alternative Vote

[Adam P] — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:32:27 +0000

Gordon Brown is backing electoral reform calling for a referendum on replacing the current "first-past-the-post" voting system with an "alternative vote" system, or, instant runoff voting (IRV) to give the American English term for the system. Under an AV system, voters are asked to rank candidates by preference rather than putting a cross by a single name anyone getting more than 50% in the first round is elected. If that doesn't happen during the first round, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their second choices allocated to the remaining candidates. This process perpetuates until a winner is produced. This electoral system is currently used for elections to the Australian House of Representatives.

There are critics and supporters of the AV system, both with arguments to cite. Supporters say the alternative vote retains the same constituencies and so that MPs won’t loose their constituency links. It prevents MPs being elected on a minority of the vote. In 2005, only 34% of British MPs were elected by more then 50% of the votes in their constituencies, ensuring all MPs would have the support of a majority of their constituents. Another advantage supporters will voice is that extreme parties would be unlikely to gain support by AV and coalition governments would be no more likely to arise than they are under First-Past-The-Post. Critics will cite that an AV system does very little to give a voice to those who have been traditionally under-represented in parliament. Also the AV system will do nothing to produce a proportional parliament. Finally AV is prone to varying degrees of 'Donkey voting', where voters rank candidates randomly, not knowing enough about all the candidates to make an informed decision.

The previous PM, Tony Blair also advocated proposals for electoral reform when plans were proposed by the late, Lib Dem, Lord Jenkins in a 1998 review, saying Lord Jenkins "makes a well-argued and powerful case for the system it recommends” This however, was for a slightly different system to the AV system. Jenkins argued for a mixed system known as Alternative Vote Plus. However, Jenkins became disillusioned and irritated with Tony Blair for refusing to adopt his plans for electoral reform despite a commitment to a referendum on electoral reform in Labours 1997 manifesto.

BCC PolitiPlayer: Democracy Live

[Adam P] — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:41:55 +0000

Democracy Live is the BBC's new website which offers live and on demand video coverage of the UK's national political institutions and the European Parliament. Its BBC iPlayer for politics with intuitive navigation features. The most useful element is its overhauled search system; it uses speech-to-text to take you straight to your points of interest in the video. The search actually works quite well.

The service covers quite a lot, the main chambers of the House of Commons, House of Lords, Scottish Parliament, Northern Ireland Assembly, Welsh Assembly and full sittings of the European Parliament. It also covers Westminster Hall and Select Committees at Westminster. When there is no business in the main chambers in Edinburgh, Belfast and Cardiff, Democracy Live covers committee meetings.

Invictus:His people needed a leader. He gave them a champion

[Adam P] — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:48:30 +0000

Clint Eastwood directs the true story of how Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) united with the captain of South Africa's rugby team, Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon), to help unite their nation at a pivotal point in South Africa's history. Fledgling President Mandela knows his nation stands racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. With the hopes he can bring his people together through the ubiquitous language of sport, Mandela inspirits South Africa's underdog rugby team as they make an improbable run to the 1995 World Cup Championship match.

The story is based on the book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Changed a Nation written by John Carlin, a journalist and author who dealt with both sports and politics. As an interesting digression the films title “Invictus” is also a short poem by the British poet William Ernest Henley. The title is Latin for "Invincible".

Release dates: unfortunately for UK viewers it looks set for Feb 10, however for those in the US it will be on the big screen in Dec 09.

44th President becomes 4th President to recieve Nobel Peace Prize

[Adam P] — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 02:11:15 +0000

Click to see full size image

On Friday October 9^th 2009 the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to President Barack Obama "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." The Norwegian Nobel Committee has attached special significance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons. Thus Obama becomes the fourth President of the United States to be awarded with this prestigious prize and the title Nobel Peace Laureate.

The Obama Administration has announced that the president will travel to Oslo to accept his award in December and the prize fund of $1.4 million will go to charity.

Comparing Rhetoric

[Adam P] — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:55:31 +0000

With the conference season at a end, all speeches said and done we can now play a little comparative politics on manifesto, policy and rhetoric. click the image above or here to view the transcripts, wordle's and videos of the three keynote political speeches of the conference season. (Still a couple of thing to finish in the gallery)

The Party Conference Season, Labour’s Turn

[Adam P] — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:36:38 +0000

Bournemouth, Brighton and Manchester have, are or will be hosting this year’s political party conferences. This week sees Labour on the frontline of British politics, here are just a few points of interest.

Lord Peter Mandelson’s speech before the conference appealed to the pallets of the Labour audience, which was a surprise to the pundits.
Alistair Darling has vowed to put an end to the banking bonuses culture in an attempt to curb excessive risk taking. Gordon Brown also corroborated this saying on the Andrew Marr Show how labour will "ban the old bonus system" and force banks to act in a more responsible manner. "We are going to clean up the system once and for all”
Ed Miliband (Energy Secretary) also promised that there would be action taken to ensure energy firms simplify their tariff systems and offer discounted rates to their poorest customers

Links to speeches (Video's on YouTube): Peter Madelson, Alistair Darlings, Ed Milibands

Will the UK Get Their First T.V Leaders Debate?

[Adam P] — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 15:07:11 +0000

With the general election just months away Sky News has invited the leaders of three largest parties in the House of Commons to a televised debate and has said the show will go on with or without them. So will Mr. Brown, Mr. Cameron and Mr. Clegg take Mr. Murdoch (Sky New Owner) up on his offer. Or will sky News be transmitting the silence of empty podiums for an hour or two.

Adam Boulton of Sky News makes a convincing case that a debate is necessary. He claims that a televised debate will re-energise British politics and even increase voter turnout. Click here to watch his case for the deabte.

Words of the Inaugural Address: Video

[Adam P] — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 11:56:40 +0000

Now you can navigate through the Inauguarl Address gallery through this presentaion viewer, If you see a address that intirgues you click the glowing green circle and it will take you right to it.

Hey just a quick note, finally finished the “Words of the Inaugural Address Gallery” the video presentation, for those of you who are unaware of what it’s all about here is a brief overview. To go to the gallery click here!

What is it? It’s a gallery of all 56 American presidential inaugural addresses, not only is there the full transcripts for each of the addresses there is a word cloud visualization to go along with each address. (There is also video footage where available; if it’s not there it will be soon)

What’s Word Cloud? A word cloud is a colourful arty way to look at speeches, or any type of text when you think about it. The word clouds displays frequently used word in a given (excludes word of common usage e.g. the, a, at). The bigger the word in the word cloud the more frequently it appears in the text therefore it gives it more prominence in the image. To create the images in this gallery I used a cool little web application called Wordle.

Why should you take a look at the gallery? It gives you a new perspective of looking at some historic American rhetoric. To go to the gallery click here!

Politically Inspired Songs: Part 1

[Adam P] — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:46:18 +0000

Over the years the political landscape has inspired the thoughts of many singer/song writers. Here’s a list of songs in which the inspiration for the lyrics lay in politics. This is part 1 of a series of posts regarding politically inspired songs, each song has a brief description of its political premise and a video from YouTube. Each part will contain 5 songs, otherwise the post pages will be quite long. So lets begin. #1 “Yes We Can” – will.i.am and others

Michael Moore Back Again (Capitalism or Copratism)

[Adam P] — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 19:25:08 +0000

Here is the trailer for Michael More new documentary ‘Capitalism: A Love Story’. This time Michael Moore is going after the big banks and the government insider who fuelled billions of dollars bailout money, the pundits are calling it going after Wall Street and Washington.

The premise of the movie is Michael Moore asking the question how we got in this economic mess. Moore explores the root causes of the global economic meltdown, with his own comical approach to looking at the corporate and political decisions that culminated in what Moore has described as “the biggest robbery in the history of this country” (America)

Many people are calling the film a misrepresentation of capitalism, saying that capitalism should replaced for corruption or corporatism. Michael More has two reputations one being a truth teller the other a cherry picker with his critics pummelling him with cherry picking information to give a shock factor to his audiences. Whats your opinion leave a comment.