Month: April 2011

Why I’ve voted Yes

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Shark Statue

Today I sent off my postal vote, with a ‘Yes’ vote for the referendum on the voting system which takes place on the 5th May. I’d like to take a little bit of your time to explain why I voted yes, and why I hope you will do too.

Before I go into my own personal reasons, have a look at the Why Vote Yes? pages on the Yes to Fairer Votes campaign, and in particular the AV myths page.

I’ve had personal experience with the AV system whilst studying as a student, as we have used the system effectively for the student union elections for some years now. In particular, I’ve been involved with the counting of votes, and it really isn’t a difficult system. If you’ve watched the ‘No’ campaign’s referendum broadcast, they would have you think that it’s really complicated – trust me, it isn’t. It’s the No campaign telling you that you’re not intelligent enough to do simple maths, which is rather insulting. Jessica Hynes, the actress who appeared in that advert, should be ashamed of herself.

I also feel that the AV system is better than the First Past The Post (FPTP) system we have right now. At present, a candidate can be elected with less than half of the votes cast; in other words, a majority of the electorate did not support them but they were still elected. AV will mean that candidates will have to gain wider support in order to be elected.

It’ll also mean the end of tactical voting. Under FPTP, if you support a party that is likely to come third, you may wish to vote for a different party that you don’t really agree with (but has more support), to prevent a third party from being elected that you don’t want. This is because FPTP does not allow you to select second or third preferences; AV does, so you could put your favoured candidate first and then another candidate second if you wish, in case your first choice is eliminated.

It will hopefully spell the end for extremist parties like the BNP. Despite the ‘No’ campaign saying that AV will help the BNP (without really explaining how…), the BNP are actively campaigning for a ‘no’ vote themselves. Under FPTP, a candidate can win if a significant minority support them (which is true of the BNP), but under AV, a candidate needs to be able to appeal to a majority of voters. Most people find the BNP abhorrent, so under AV, their chances of being elected are further diminished.

View post on imgur.com

And my final reason is because of the negativity and outright lies of the No campaign. There is a very good takedown of their leaflet here, for example their claim that AV will cost £250 million – it won’t. Part of that is the cost of the referendum which is happening anyway and will be spent regardless of the result, some of it is for electronic voting machines, which aren’t planned to be used, and at least £3 million of that isn’t even substantiated. Pure scaremongering and lies.

I care about this country and want our political leaders to put this country and its people – all of them – first. First Past The Post is not allowing enough people sufficient say in who gets elected to run our country and our local authorities. It may have suited us fine when we only had 2 major political parties – we have 3 now and parties like the Green Party, with its first MP, and UKIP are also on the rise. Our voting system therefore needs to change, so that more people can get more say in how our country is run.

Please vote ‘Yes’ to AV on May 5th.

30 Day Song Challenge Day 30

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It’s the final day! Apart from one day earlier in the week, I’ve managed to post something every day for the past 30 days, and I’m feeling quite impressed with myself.

So, day 30 of the 30 Day Song Challenge is a song that makes you want to help the world, help the environment, end poverty, help society…. Frankly, I couldn’t think of one, and as it’s such a nice, warm, sunny spring day, I’ve chosen “Hard To Beat” by Hard-Fi which suits the mood, I think. It’s from their album Stars of CCTV, which available from iTunes and Amazon.

I’ll try to stay in the habit of posting stuff regularly on this blog, although I can’t guarantee a post every day like there has been for the past month. Still, I hope you enjoyed this small insight into my musical tastes!

A rant about BT

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Communication

Earlier this week I said that our flat move had gone well and in particular that our phone line would be activated on Thursday, i.e. yesterday. It hasn’t.

Christine got a voicemail message from BT (with whom we have our phone and broadband) asking her to ring them. After being on hold for quite a while, someone finally answered, but initially didn’t know why we ringing. Eventually, we were told that there was a problem with the phone line and that the activation would have to be put back. We could have a working phone by Friday (today), but with a different telephone number, and that the broadband wouldn’t be working until Thursday next week – a week later than we’d been told originally.

To make it worse, we’re not receiving a discount on the monthly bill for the time (nearly 2 weeks) when we’ve been unable to use our phone line or broadband, so we’re effectively paying for a service that we aren’t getting.

Initially I had praise for the way BT handled our move – our first call to them assured us that it would be a quick, simple process which would allow us to keep our number. A few days without phone and internet access would be inconvenient but understandable. But having no internet for the best part of two weeks seems excessive, especially as there’s no financial compensation. And really, does it take a whole week for someone to drive over to our local exchange and press a few buttons?

The problem isn’t necessarily with BT Retail, with whom we pay the contract with, but seemingly with BT Openreach, the subsidiary of BT which owns and operates the telephone lines and exchanges in the UK. To me, they seem to be a very expensive and inefficient outfit which only serves its own shareholders, i.e. the BT Group. Although it’s regulated by Ofcom, other parties have very little say in how it’s run.

In Britain, we don’t have that many alternatives to broadband via phone lines. Virgin Media’s cable network is good, but generally limited to large towns and cities – no good for my small town. Wireless broadband over 3G mobile networks is an option: prices are coming down to be comparable with fixed-line internet, there’s no need to install anything apart from plugging in a Mifi router and they can even be bought on pay-as-you-go contracts. But wireless suffers from latency issues, making it poor for use in online gaming, and again, it’s not always available. We’re also some years away from better and faster 4G networks.

Maybe it’s high time for the ownership of Openreach to change; its shares could be split amongst the other large ISPs in the UK (Sky, Talktalk, Orange, Virgin Media etc.) so that all have a say in how its run; it could be made a not-for-dividend company answerable to Ofcom like Network Rail for the railways; or completely re-nationalised. The last one is a long-shot, but any of those should improve accountability to its direct customers (the ISPs) and regular home users.

In the meantime, I’ve paid for an extra 2 GB of data to be added on to my mobile contract with 3 for this month. Thankfully it only costs £5, and 3 don’t charge extra for internet tethering or using your phone as a personal hotspot, so I’m only partially out of pocket. I’ll still be pointing this out to BT in a letter.

In an age when I can order a book at half 4 in the afternoon, and have it on my desk at work at half 9 the following morning, how does it take so long for phone lines to be connected? Is BT’s equipment really that old and archaic, or is their lack of accountability and need to shore up profit margins the driving force here?

I Like To Move It Move It

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Rochdale Canal

As you may recall, Christine and I moved to Sowerby Bridge just over 4 months ago, at the end of November last year, and we settled into a nice flat in a mill conversion. Unfortunately, during our tenancy, some issues arose with the flat, and so we’ve now moved again.

We’re now in another flat in the other wing of the same mill, with the same landlord. The flat is quite a bit bigger, especially in the bedrooms, and features a balcony – we’re on the third floor so there’s a nice view right across the valley from there. It also has gas central heating, rather than electric, so although the rent is higher the lower energy costs will more than compensate, which should mean it is cheaper on the whole. And it means we get to stay in Sowerby Bridge, which we’ve really come to like since moving here – the picture at the top of this post is just one reason why we like living here.

Moving wasn’t exactly straightforward, even though we had planned it to be. The two wings are separate; there’s no link between them, which meant moving all of our possessions down to the ground floor, across and then up to the third floor. And the removal company that we had hired really let us down – despite us paying over £300 for them to move our belongings and furniture, they turned up almost 2 hours late, and then told us they had another job to go to in the afternoon and could only do around 2 hours work for us. Consequently, only the heavy and bulky furniture got moved, which meant us and a few of our friends were left to move everything else; we didn’t finish until 7:30pm the following day. I’ll be writing a letter of complaint about it.

Anyhow, we’re in the new flat, and due to surrender the old keys today. Other aspects of the move have gone better; our phone and broadband is being moved over at no extra cost, although it won’t be activated until Thursday and we have to renew the contract for 12 months. In the meantime, I’m taking advantage of the fact that 3 allow mobile data tethering at no extra cost and using my iPhone as a modem, although with a 1 GB monthly limit I’m being careful not to abuse it. Similarly, our home contents insurer, Endsleigh, charged a £20 administration fee but other than that have been really helpful, as have British Gas and Yorkshire Water.
Moving at this time has also meant completing the Census twice – in full for our old flat, as we were there on the 27th, and again for the new flat to say that it was vacant, which thankfully is much quicker, although even then filling out the Census in full takes all of 10 minutes online.

We still have a lot of unpacking to do over the next couple of weeks, and while moving has been a faff, ultimately we’ve ended up with a nicer flat that better suits our needs.