55%

Why is it that a 55% vote to force a general election in during a fixed-term parliament at Westminster is something bad, yet in Scotland the majority needed to achieve the same outcome is 66% - and is good?

In 1995 the Scottish Constitutional Convention reported that

The creation of a new parliament is a rare and exciting moment, one which affords unique opportunity for change and renewal. The Convention sees the establishment of a Scottish parliament as a chance to effect fundamental improvements to the way Scotland is governed. It therefore expects that the parliament will provide through its practices and procedures a form of government in whose accountability, accessibility, openness and responsiveness the people of Scotland will have confidence and pride.

and

The parliament will sit for a fixed term of four years. In exceptional circumstances the parliament may be dissolved before expiry of its full term with the agreement of two-thirds of MSPs.

The Scotland Act 1998, in setting out the legislation controlling the fixed-term Scottish Parliament states that:-

3. Extraordinary general elections

(1) The Presiding Officer shall propose a day for the holding of a poll if—

(a) the Parliament resolves that it should be dissolved and, if the resolution is passed on a division, the number of members voting in favour of it is not less than two-thirds of the total number of seats for members of the Parliament

Mr Brown, ex-Prime Minister, was involved in preparing the constitutional framework for Scotland's Parliament. He, and all the others, swore an oath to ensure Scotland's best interests were served.

It is they who decided that a 66% vote would be needed to call an 'extraordinary general election' - and that percentage was greeted with approval.

Yet, it means that the reins of control remain largely with those in power - because it would be quite difficult to persuade 2/3 (66%) of MSPs to vote together against the leading party/parties, which means it's unlikely to happen.

We have seen, in Westminster, a government clinging by its' well-bitten fingernails to the constitutional framework. They had sufficient parliamentary majority to easily defeat any attempted simple majority votes of no confidence that might have triggered an election. In short, the last government could do what they liked, and the rest of us had to sit back and take it - and be told it was good.

This is what's proposed for Westminster

Legislation introducing fixed-term parliaments would also provide for dissolution if 55 percent or more of the House votes in favour

Mrs Rigby believes that this proposal actually appears to limit the powers of any leading party to choose/try to call an 'extraordinary general election' - whilst slightly enhancing the chances of opposition to demand one, especially with current figures because, according to Mrs R's calculator (and discounting Sinn Fein), if all the opposition parties (the rainbow) got together plus just 2 MPs from the government benches, they would have that 55% majority.

Yet the media is complaining about it killing democracy, Jack Straw is moaning and Tom Harris, who is usually quite reasonable, actually wrote, in response to somebody who thinks the same as Mrs R

That being the case, why not simply make votes of confidence illegal or unconstitutional? After all, if the top priority is to make it to the end of a fixed parliament, what is the point of a vote of no confidence in the first place?

Surely that can't be right Tom?

Surely you wouldn't approve a law that says a vote of no confidence is illegal or unconstitutional?

Anyhow, it's turning into one of those 'long days' here in Rigby Town, so if Mrs R has got it all wrong, please use the comments to explain where, why, and how.
..........

P.S.

Thanks to JohnWardinMedway here's a link to LibDemVoice where there's more discussion of this issue, including the question

Is 55% high enough?

Go and read it, and all the comments.

....

Taking lessons from Brussels

Last week we had a general election.

The results of that election were as follows (BBC):-

Conservative - 306 seats / 10,706,647 votes / 36.1%

Labour - 258 seats / 8,604,358 votes / 29.0%

Liberal Democrat - 57 seats / 6,827,938 votes / 23.0%

Democratic Unionist Party - 8 seats / 168,216 votes / 0.6%

Scottish National Party - 6 seats / 491,386 votes / 1.7%

Sinn Fein - 5 seats / 171,942 votes / 0.6%

Social Democratic & Labour Party - 3 seats / 110,970 votes / 0.4%

Plaid Cymru - 3 seats / 165,394 votes / 0.6%

Alliance Party - 1 / seats 42,762 votes / 0.1%

Green - 1 seats / 285,616 votes / 1.0%

Total votes cast = 29,653,638

The permanent resident Prime Minister - whose political party came second - has been telling the electorate that we really voted for Labour. To make sure he gets his message across he's getting an awful lot of help from the apolitical BBC, his chums Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson, and newly elected Jack Dromey. Other chums of his, including Billy Bragg, helpfully organised a 'surprise' protest demonstration on Saturday, just to push the message home.

All these people are happy to use their analytical skills to crunch the voting statistics to tell us that, if we didn't vote Conservative, we were really voting for a continuing Labour Government.

The resident Prime Minister has told us that he has to stay as Prime Minister, and has to carry on living at that lovely Number 10 Downing Street because it's his duty. He has to do all this for us voters because he, and he alone, knows what's best for Britain.

To help him along, and make sure he gets all his new laws passed easily, he is putting together an alliance of all the other parties - all of whom were elected by people who pretended to deliberately choose not to vote for a Labour candidate - and he's going to call it a "Progressive Alliance".

Mr Brown had already told that nice Mr Clegg about the finer details of this alliance in some meetings - Mr Clegg was sworn to secrecy, he was told not to tell anybody they'd been talking and, being the good sound fellow and independent thinker that he is, Mr Clegg did exactly as he was told.

Once Mr Brown has got his pretty coloured alliance working - (this is a friendly alliance of all those parties whose voters didn't really vote for them) - Mr Brown has said he will resign, and let somebody else lead the Labour Party. He says this will be before the Labour conference in the autumn. And he will, because he always keeps his promises and, as the Anglo Saxon Chronicler points out

... you dont have to be the leader of a party to be Prime Minister. (it's just a convention, not law)

Mr Brown says he's made his announcement early because he's still got lots of work to do to help Britain become the country of his dreams, so before he resigns he will pass legislation to change the electoral system - because he knows that's exactly what we, the electorate, really want. We want a different way of electing our MPs because the boring old system we've got doesn't work very well. We don't like it because it lets too many of the wrong sort of people win too many seats at Westminster, which is such a silly thing to happen.

Doing this is much more important than hmm, let's see. It's more important than sorting out the recession, the economy, or the downward free-fall of sterling. It's more important than sorting out unemployment. It's more important than doing something about all those pesky illegal immigrants (that can now slip into Dover because all the Immigration staff have been moved somewhere else). It's more important than tweaking our lovely education system to make sure even more school leavers are barely literate and numerate. The thing that's most important, the most pressing need for Britain just now is ... a nice new electoral system.

Once we have a the lovely electoral system Mr Brown chooses for us, he might let us have another general election - and then we'll be sure to vote the way we were intended to last week, and we'll elect the right people for all the right constituencies. Except these people won't be 'right' they'll be very far 'left', they'll be his chums.

Maybe Mr Brown was taking note of what happened when the naughty people of Ireland voted against signing the Lisbon Treaty? Brussels made them vote again, and the Irish then said it was a lovely treaty, they said they'd obviously made a terrible mistake the last time they voted.

It would have been quite interesting to see how many times the Irish might have had to vote if they had kept on saying, "No!" Would they, too, have had a nice new voting system?

....

Black Swan politics

Mrs Rigby has never been much of a philosopher, although she does think quite a lot, about quite a lot of things. Earlier today she read something in a shed that made her think, quite deeply and quite seriously.

Her thoughts have resulted in a very long post, she hopes you will manage to read it and follow it's meanders through to the end.

It all started with what she read, here. This is the beginning,

It just occurs to me that we have had two of the type of events that we are warned about in Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book The Black Swan.

That is potentially high consequence yet rare and unlikely events.

1) Nick Clegg manages to get away with claiming the Lib Dems are different in terms of the expenses ( the facts say otherwise ) and is allowed to brush off the funding of the Lib Dem party from dubious sources. The public responds with X Factor like support.

2) All air traffic is stopped because of a volcano in Iceland.

So, off Mrs R went to read about the Black Swan theory. It's interesting. There's more online than that Wikipedia article, but that one's enough for starters.

Apparently it all began with a poet/thinker called Juvenal, who said, "A good person is as rare as a black swan". He could say this because when he was around no Europeans had noticed Australia, so hadn't seen its' wildlife which, of course, includes black swans. There was, therefore, an assumption that all swans are white and all swans will always be white - and so it stayed for several hundred years.

Then the Dutch found their way to Australia, and saw some black swans - which made various 'thinkers' decide to use Juvenal's term to describe something fallacious, something as yet unproven, or something claimed to be 'always true' that carelessly ignores the 'what if' factor. It's that 'what if' factor that Mrs R will eventually return to.

Nassim Taleb seems a clever sort of chap, which is why Mrs Rigby is sharing this extract from an article - it's all about economics and was written a couple of weeks ago.

Ten Principles for a Black Swan Robust World:

1. What is fragile should break early while it is still small.
Nothing should ever become too big to fail. Evolution in economic life helps those with the maximum amount of hidden risks – and hence the most fragile – become the biggest.

2. No socialisation of losses and privatisation of gains.
Whatever may need to be bailed out should be nationalised; whatever does not need a bail-out should be free, small and riskbearing. We have managed to combine the worst of capitalism and socialism. In France in the 1980s, the socialists took over the banks. In the US in the 2000s, the banks took over the government. This is surreal.

3. People who were driving a school bus blindfolded (and crashed it) should never be given a new bus.
The economics establishment (universities, regulators, central bankers, government officials, various organisations staffed with economists) lost its legitimacy with the failure of the system. It is irresponsible and foolish to put our trust in the ability of such experts to get us out of this mess. Instead, find the smart people whose hands are clean.

4. Do not let someone making an “incentive” bonus manage a nuclear plant – or your financial risks.
Odds are he would cut every corner on safety to show “profits” while claiming to be “conservative”. Bonuses do not accommodate the hidden risks of blow-ups. It is the asymmetry of the bonus system that got us here. No incentives without disincentives: capitalism is about rewards and punishments, not just rewards.

5. Counter-balance complexity with simplicity.
Complexity from globalisation and highly networked economic life needs to be countered by simplicity in financial products. The complex economy is already a form of leverage: the leverage of efficiency. Such systems survive thanks to slack and redundancy; adding debt produces wild and dangerous gyrations and leaves no room for error. Capitalism cannot avoid fads and bubbles: equity bubbles (as in 2000) have proved to be mild; debt bubbles are vicious.

6. Do not give children sticks of dynamite, even if they come with a warning.
Complex derivatives need to be banned because nobody understands them and few are rational enough to know it. Citizens must be protected from themselves, from bankers selling them “hedging” products, and from gullible regulators who listen to economic theorists.

7. Only Ponzi schemes should depend on confidence.
Governments should never need to “restore confidence”. Cascading rumours are a product of complex systems. Governments cannot stop the rumours. Simply, we need to be in a position to shrug off rumours, be robust in the face of them.

8. Do not give an addict more drugs if he has withdrawal pains.
Using leverage to cure the problems of too much leverage is not homeopathy, it is denial. The debt crisis is not a temporary problem, it is a structural one. We need rehab.

9. Citizens should not depend on financial assets or fallible “expert” advice for their retirement.
Economic life should be definancialised. We should learn not to use markets as storehouses of value: they do not harbour the certainties that normal citizens require. Citizens should experience anxiety about their own businesses (which they control), not their investments (which they do not control).

10. Make an omelette with the broken eggs.
Finally, this crisis cannot be fixed with makeshift repairs, no more than a boat with a rotten hull can be fixed with ad-hoc patches. We need to rebuild the hull with new (stronger) materials; we will have to remake the system before it does so itself. Let us move voluntarily into Capitalism 2.0 by helping what needs to be broken break on its own, converting debt into equity, marginalising the economics and business school establishments, shutting down the “Nobel” in economics, banning leveraged buyouts, putting bankers where they belong, clawing back the bonuses of those who got us here, and teaching people to navigate a world with fewer certainties.

Then we will see an economic life closer to our biological environment: smaller companies, richer ecology, no leverage. A world in which entrepreneurs, not bankers, take the risks and companies are born and die every day without making the news.

In other words, a place more resistant to black swans.

Phew, reading all that makes Mrs R wonder about Britain's economy and what's been allowed to happen, because Taleb's ideas seem remarkably sensible, common sense in fact. They're all nice to read, but not entirely relevant to the rest of what Mrs R is going to say - although because of the dire state of our economy there is a tenuous sort of link.

You see whilst reading all that Mrs Rigby had what she thinks might be a 'Black Swan' moment of 'what if', and will try to show the various thought processes, snippets and badly remembered history lessons that took her there - all thanks to that Man in a Shed by the way.

Mrs R knows the Lib Dems are very much a, "What if ...? Oh, don't be so silly!" sort of political party that haven't really been given much credence at election time, not since Labour appeared and stole their voters - but she knows that once there were only two viable parties - "Whigs" and "Tories".

The Whigs were allowed to rebrand and rename themselves as "Liberals", and now "Lib Dems" - and so conceal their aristocratic past - but there have indeed been some great (and very wealthy) Liberal leaders. Here are a few - Earl Grey (of the tea), Viscount Melbourne (from Brocket Hall), Viscount Palmerston (from Broadlands, Romsey), Sir William Ewart Gladstone, The Earl of Oxford and Asquith (WW1), Lloyd-George who led a coalition government from 1916 to 1922 and was the last Liberal to live at Number 10.

The Conservatives, though, have never been allowed to completely drop the 'Tory' label, although their principles seem to have changed quite a bit over the centuries. Everybody knows the names of a few famous Conservative leaders - Bonar Law, Stanley Baldwin, Winston Churchill. Later ones are often the subject of open contempt and derision, and John Major's term as Prime Minister is remembered not for the positive, but because of sexual 'sleaze' and 'cash for questions' - matters that were so outlandish at the time as to bring down a government, but have recently become so very trivial and commonplace. Our labour government's shenanigans are by-passed, quickly forgotten and brushed under the carpet - by left-leaning media. It makes Mrs R wonder if there has ever, truly, been a pro-Tory or pro-Conservative press.

Aside from that, and vaguely linking with politician's backgrounds. Mr Blair wasn't from a poor family, his parents were wealthy enough to send him to board at Fettes. Mr Brown's parents were not poor either, when he was a child those in the Ministry were seriously upper middle class, and many kept themselves apart from the hoi polloi except for 'good deeds'. Clement Attlee's father was a solicitor. Harold Wilson's background was similar to that of Edward Heath and, although he had benefitted from attending a Grammar School, it was he who destroyed them.

Mrs R knows what happened during the period of the "Lib-Lab Pact", made in 1977 between Labour (Callaghan) and Liberal (Steel), which effectively kept Labour in power until the agreement fell apart in 1978. Prior to that there'd been the 1976 IMF loan, and afterwards was the Winter of Discontent that led to the 1979 election - which the Conservatives won.

We all know for sure that Mr Brown is desperate determined, to cling to power stay in office. He knows he's the right person for the job because he keeps on saying he is, and so do some of his supporters who trot out cliché ridden phrases that they can't possibly have made up on the spur of the moment. Maybe Mr Brown believes it because somebody once told him that his initials match the abbreviation of Great Britain, maybe he's the sort of person who believes in predestiny.

We all know that the various, media and otherwise, pollsters are predicting a tight election result. Some suggest that their sampling and standardising methods are open to question, but we'll never know for sure - but we do know that the media prefers the politics of the left, for their own reasons, and it is they who shape public opinion - in a country whose Prime Minister promised to intervene and "order the Home Secretary to investigate" the fictional legal case involving a character in a long running soap opera.

We know that for either the Lib Dems or Conservatives to win outright they need to poll significantly more votes than Labour, because of the way the Boundary Commission drew up the latest constituency boundaries.

We know that if the result is tight/close then our constitution allows Mr Brown time to try to negotiate a deal with another party - a deal that will keep him in Downing Street and also in charge of government. Time for negotiation has already been arranged, and extended to eighteen days for secret power-sharing agreements to be brokered. (What has been forgotten is that it also allows Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg eighteen days in which to negotiate and trade policies, and perhaps reach agreement in order to form a government.)

We know that Mr Brown will never negotiate with the Conservatives, we know he will never negotiate with BNP or any of the other lesser parties, which leaves Mr Clegg and the Liberals - who, even though they wouldn't openly admit it, can't ever have truly and honestly believe they might be leading lights in government after this general election. It's hard to imagine that up to last week they were even considering a "What if we nearly win?" scenario - yet, at the moment, this seems to be on the cards.

How many times has Mr Brown criticised the Conservatives for being inexperienced? Has he never once considered that, with 17 years in opposition, Labour too was inexperienced when they took over in 1997?

The last time Liberals took high office was in 1977, as a result of a short-lived power-sharing pact, yet Mr Brown doesn't criticise them for being short on experience, he might even, perhaps, fear envy acknowledge Mr Clegg's time in Europe, working alongside and negotiating with both Russia and China.

Mr Brown criticises Mr Cameron's youth, yet he is a year older than Mr Clegg. Mr Brown criticises Mr Cameron's background, whilst ignoring Mr Clegg's silver spoon.

Mrs R wonders if Mr Clegg could follow in Gladstone's footsteps and say "In time of peace nothing but dire necessity should induce us to borrow", or would he imitate Gladstone and be remembered locally as the man who cut down all the trees? (Which are only now being replaced by his descendants.)

But, all this aside, during last week's televised debate Mr Brown kept cosying up to Mr Clegg. He said, several times, "Yes, I agree with Nick." But, Mr Brown has since - on both TV and radio - rubbished the Lib Dem's policies. He knows which way up his bread is buttered though, so he won't try too hard, because he will have been told he might need some friends in order to stay a Number 10.

On Guido's chat for today's Foreign Affairs 'debate' (which was more of a BBC Q&A session) a serial spammer wrote,

"A Lib-Lab coalition will implement much-needed electoral reform, creating a permanent progressive majority in this country. The Tories will be finished."

Which brings Mrs R to her final point and a bit.

She knows, well maybe she doesn't know exactly, but she believes - feels it in her bones, that sort of thing - that this country cannot risk another year or more of Labour's money-spinning, social-engineering, divisive policies. She believes that if the Lib Dems, under Mr Clegg, form an alliance with Labour, under Mandelson Brown, it would be a catastrophe for Britain and would cause a lot of hurt and upset for too many decent people, many of whom are still wondering what on earth they've done to be so derided and vilified by their own government.

Mrs Rigby wonders if there's any political party that is able to ... to, well, speak out for Britain, for British traditions, for British values, and be able to do it without being branded either racist or xenophobic?

Oh!

No, not that lot, not those who have loud demonstrations on the streets and wave flags. She means ordinary people, who know their own true worth and haven't a clue about being loud-mouthed and pushy, people that'd better learn quickly, before it really is too late.

Mrs R is going to go and lie down in a darkened room to give her brain a rest, and to warm up because she feels very, very, cold. Maybe she's been sitting still too long and that nasty cold east wind has got to her, or maybe that dastardly volcanic dust has filtered out the warmth of the sun, but something has sent a shiver down her spine.

....

Spilling secret beans.

The Times reports conversations between the now Lord Irvine of Lairg and Tony Blair relating to the decision to abolish the position of Lord Chancellor :-

[Lord Irvine] first discovered that the office of Lord Chancellor was to be abolished and the job transferred to a Secretary of State in the Commons in early June 2003, just days before it happened. “I had no intimation of this but when The Times and the Telegraph carried the rumour I determined to see the Prime Minister.”

That was at No 10 on June 5. Mr Blair hesitated and then said that it was being considered but nothing had been decided. Lord Irvine asked “how a decision of this magnitude” could be made without consultation with himself, the permanent secretary within government, the judiciary, House of Lords authorities and the Palace.

“The Prime Minister appeared mystified and said that these machinery of government changes always had to be carried into effect in a way that precluded such discussion because of the risk of leaks.”

What makes Mrs Rigby more than a little bemused is what might have happened had these plans been "leaked" - presumably to the opposition and the media - and if these matters had been discussed, debated and voted on in Parliament, which is where we ordinary folk expect such wide reaching decisions to be made. With a massive majority it would have been surprising if things hadn't gone according to plan.

The end result is that Jack Straw, MP for Blackburn, is "Lord Chancellor" and "Secretary of State for Justice", in charge of the brand new Supreme Court which the "Justice Department" says :

... provides greater clarity in our constitutional arrangements by further separating the judiciary from the legislature.

This is the same Jack Straw that avoided answering a QT questioner, who asked, "Can the recent success of the British National party be explained by the misguided immigration policy of the government?", by coincidence only a day before other secret discussions were revealed (quoting from Minette Marin's article in today's Times) :-

Andrew Neather — a former adviser to Straw, Blair and David Blunkett — revealed that Labour ministers had a hidden agenda in allowing immigrants to flood into the country.

According to Neather, who was present at secret meetings during the summer of 2000, the government had “a driving political purpose” which was: “mass immigration was the way that the government was going to make the UK truly multicultural”.

What’s more, Neather said he came away “from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended — even if this wasn’t its main purpose — to rub the right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date”.

and

“There was a reluctance ... in government,” he wrote, “to discuss what increased immigration would mean, above all for Labour’s core white working-class vote.” The social outcomes that ministers cared about were those affecting the immigrants. This, Neather explains, shone out in a report published in 2001 after these confidential deliberations. One must question whether this is true. Needless to say, Straw has denied all this and Neather has since tried to back-pedal.

Mrs Rigby can't, from any of the reports she has read, work out what the truth is. She simply hasn't a clue. But, she does know that Britain has changed so much that it no longer even vaguely resembles the Britain of pre-1997 when Labour were first elected.

Since 1997 a whole generation of young people have grown up, they seem to accept that it's normal to be watched by CCTV cameras, that it's normal to be asked for identification by any number of either uniformed or non-uniformed individuals. It's normal for the Police to close roads without saying why, and it's normal for DNA to be taken at the slightest opportunity. It's become normal for summary justice to be served through the post, without the chance of time in a Court of Law to plead innocence.

Since 1997 it's become normal for people's personal and private opinions to result in dismissal from work, and words said in private conversations to be reported to the authorities. It's become normal for ordinary people to be criminalised for trivial 'new' offences, whilst thugs are let off with a warning, or taken to Alton Towers.

It's also become normal for our MPs to be subjects of scorn and derision - unworthy of the trust we, the public, place in them.

Mrs Rigby thinks it will be quite a tangle for the next government to unravel, if they have either the time or energy to do so whilst they are also dealing with the financial mess they will inherit.

Are MPs revolting?

Interesting choice of words by The Mirror :-

Revolting MPs says they won't pay back expenses (their grammar, not mine!)

Revolting MPs last night threatened to dodge demands to repay thousands of pounds in the expenses scandal.

and in The Times :-

MPs threaten to reject ‘unfair’ expenses report (with a nice picture of those naughty climate change activists!)

MPs will attempt today to dodge demands to repay hundreds of thousands of pounds as the expenses scandal engulfs Parliament once more.

And in the FT there's this article, by Jim Pickard, which I'm sure he/theythey won't mind me sharing. :-

Union of the angry backbenchers - Tory 1922 Committee to meet Labour’s PLP

My sources tell me that backbenchers from the Parliamentary Labour Party are to meet their equally angry counterparts from the Tory 1922 Committee to discuss what to do about Sir Thomas Legg. They are all furious about the fact that his criteria are being applied retrospectively. “Why not just go back and decide that Germany won the 1966 World Cup?”, one asked me.

There was a meeting of 40 or 50 Labour MPs with Nick Brown and Harriet Harman this morning in Room 11 in the House of Commons. They were a tad upset, I’m told. Some were moaning that there were clerical errors in Legg’s paperwork (eg dates were wrong), others that papers had been lost.

Can anyone else think of an occasion when the two groups have gathered together? Curious times indeed. I’m not sure where and when it will happen yet; I’ll update you in due course.

UPDATE

Except they won’t get it. Despite a groundswell of enthusiasm among the Labour ranks for this meeting I’m told that Tony Lloyd, chair of the PLP, has put a kibbosh on it. “The prospect of a joint action…it’s just not going to happen,” says my (more authoratative) source. Could it possibly be that someone has been sat on?

Getting cooler?

Tucked away on the BBC Science pages, and 'last updated' at 15:22 GMT Friday 9th October, is an article that's failed to thrill the media, who are instead much more interested in the "Green" protesters who've managed to avoid the Police who guard our Parliament against attack from terrorists, and have climbed onto the roof.

The article is written by Paul Hudson, the BBC Climate Correspondent, and this is part of what it says.

For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.

So all those graphs they keep showing us that say the earth is warming have been porkies? Surely not, "they" are all honourable people, with our best interests at heart.

Now Mrs R can remember being very worried when, in the sixties "they" told us it was so cold because Earth was entering a cooling phase and we could expect a mini-Ice Age. The same sort of thing happened in the eighties, and "they" told us we might be going back to the days of a frozen River Thames - with ice thick enough to hold parties. Anybody else remember?

When "they" first started saying scary things about our climate, mentioning CFCs, the Ozone Layer and so on, Mrs R was slightly sceptical because "they" all talked as if they knew what things were like before. They didn't ever mention that the hole in the Ozone Layer, that could only be seen from space, couldn't have ever been "seen" or measured before we were able to go into space and take a look. The CFCs were blamed for the ozone hole, so they took them out of our fridges and out of our aerosols, and put in something that could go bang instead.

Other stuff has happened, including taking lead out of petrol, which meant other chemicals had to be put into it to keep the engines working, so they invented catalytic converters - which chuck out sulphur dioxide. Mrs R remembers acid rain, and all the damage apparently caused by sulphur gases produced from burning coal - but apparently it's now just fine to have the same gas coming out of our cars - although smoking filthy cigarettes in the wrong place is a criminal offence.

"They" tell us that CO2, the horrible stuff that we all breathe out, has made our planet warmer - because it's capable of trapping heat. But few of "them" ever seem to say that lots of CO2 is good for plants and makes them grow bigger and better, which in turn might mean we can grow more food crops and so feed the world's increasing population of people.

"They" never mention that loads of CO2 might have led to the giant plants that were eaten by the massive plant-eating dinosaurs, and these days they never, ever, mention the atmospheric pollution from volcanic eruptions. They only ever blame mankind, and modern mankind at that, and tell us we're naughty.

None of "them" ever seem to look at history and find information about the Romans being able to grow grapes as far north as Hadrian's Wall. And none of "them" ever seem to mention that once almost all of Britain was covered with a huge layer of ice. None of "them" ever seem to mention continental drift and other geological forces beyond our control, but try to scare us into believing that earthquakes and tsunamis can be caused by too much CO2.

"They" brought in a lovely new law recently that said we'd all got to have energy saving lightbulbs, that contain mercury vapour, but we mustn't have mercury in either barometers or thermometers because it's a deadly poison that pollutes the environment.

Is it any wonder there are sceptics and nonbelievers - but not amongst the young who have been brainwashed by the national curriculum, and are no longer encouraged to think for themselves.

All "they" seem to want to do these days is make us feel guilty and find a way of punishing us, by making us pay lots of money for trying to keep warm in the winter, to have lights that are bright enough to read by, and enough electricity to keep our computers working.

These "green" people, not the ones from Mars, have (apparently) successfully managed to stop the new power station at Kingsnorth - but where do they think we're going to get our electricity from?

Energy supply is critical, British power stations desperately need replacing and here we have a French company (which employs Ed Milliband's girlfriend) deciding Britain doesn't need any more generating capacity - they even say there's been a drop in consumption. (Maybe that was because it was summer!) But, maybe it's because Eon has got plenty of power to spare, but I wouldn't mind betting it'll cost a heck of a lot more for it to cross the Channel once we can no longer make electricity for ourselves.

The new name of "Climate Change" can mean either upwards or downwards - so "they" will be right whatever happens, and us mugs will be footing the bill.

We're going to need that power to keep warm, because Global Warming isn't happening and few houses these days can be heated by either wood or coal - they don't have chimneys, and gas fires don't work without that little electrical spark.

Either we pay more or we'll seriously have to cut back and lose some of the benefits of 21st century life, because the lights will start going out - and very soon too.

.....

Added later.

A post written by Goodnight Vienna on "Calling England" says:-

"In the Times today a curious piece centred around the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. They maintain that in order to meet the targets for CO2 emission reduction, living standards in Britain and the West in general must fall dramatically.

The wealthier parts of the world, including Britain, will have to seriously consider reducing their levels of consumption over the next 10-15 years while we put in place low-carbon technologies.

That may mean having only one car per household, a smaller fridge, buying fewer clothes and electronic goods and curtailing the number of weekend breaks that we have.

Read the rest of it here, and make of it what you will.

PR and Mrs Rigby.

Sometimes things make Mrs Rigby feel a bit nice but dim, Proportional Representation has been one of those things.

Some politicians have been raising the idea that the current "First past the post" system of parliamentary elections is really unfair, for a few reasons.

a) The smaller political parties don't get many seats, if any.
b) The people who've voted for the smaller parties aren't represented
c) First past the post winner rarely gets "most" votes when all the votes cast for other parties are added together.

The CBBC site, probably says it better; the "Single Transferable Vote", or STV, has an explanation in Wikipedia - it's miles too long to repeat here; "Alternative Vote Plus" is explained by the BBC and "Additional Member System" is described by the Electoral Reform Society, which has a careful explanation of all PR voting systems.

Looking at these various ideas Mrs R has begun to wonder PR originates from the same sort of "It's not fair!" that's bleated out again and again when somebody gets a prize and loads of other people - who have tried hard - don't.

She wonders if it's the same sort of, "It's not fair" and "everybody should be equal" that totally confused Little Miss Rigby when she was seven and had her first school sports day. The children had to show off their ball skills and run races that weren't (to make sure nobody could be last) but unfortunately there were no real winners either, because everybody got a sticker before they went home. The teachers were delighted that nobody had ended the day in tears.

Now, you can't pull the wool over children's eyes - they know when they're being conned, and these children knew very well they hadn't done anything worthy of a special sticker - because it wasn't the same as getting one when they tried very hard with their colouring, got all their sums right, did some writing with no mistakes or read carefully during assembly.

Mrs Rigby has some simple examples of why she does not think PR is a good idea - not least because it's way outside our culture. She is also wondering who is trying to pull the wool over her eyes

In the real world there are winners and losers.

When a job is advertised there may be hundreds of applicants who will each have spent hours filling in complicated forms - they'll all have tried very hard, they'll each have done their very best, but at the end of it the employer will check Jacqui Smith's or Harriet Harman's rules about equal opportunities, and then choose the person they think is most suited for the job that's on offer.

Britain's Got Talent will end up with one winner - who will be chosen by public vote - the one with the highest number of votes wins. There's no question of ticking loads of different boxes to make it "fair" and "equal", it's simple maths and completely ignores the total number of votes cast, for all acts, when added together.

Musical hits are the ones with the highest sales; the winners in the marketplace are selected by sales volume, nothing else. In fact almost everything we touch is decided by a clear difference, not by some intricate formula designed to "make it fair".

So Mrs R looked a bit deeper, she thought it was really odd that a few years ago people like Gordon Brown thought PR was a silly idea, but high-ups in the Labour Party think it's great now - why?

Is it because somebody thinks his political party might not do very well at the next election?

Mrs R thinks this might be the case, she's realised that PR often leads to coalitions because it's hard to get a clear winner and she thinks somebody is getting rather desperate to cling to power, believing it's their right to lead this country. So, how are they going to manage to retain power - by Proportional Representation of course!

Hah!

No thank you!

The Speaker said, "No!"

Mrs Rigby has just watched the Speaker make a statement regarding MP's expenses and so on.

Following this statement several MPs asked when time would be given to debate Douglas Carswell's motion of no confidence in the Speaker.

Mr Martin said it was an "Early Day Motion", and needed to be a "Substantive Motion" in order to be debated. When challenged he acknowledged that he might have made a mistake, and sought advice - but luckily he got the response he wanted. (Mrs R didn't expect otherwise.)

Mr Martin also said it was up to government to decide whether the matter be debated or not.

Mrs R thought there were times when opposition parties were allowed to choose what was, and wasn't, debated - on Opposition Days. She thought the Speaker should be aware of this - so perhaps she's wrong.

Mrs R thinks this is a sad day for Parliament.

Reasonable and essential expenses.

Mrs Rigby wants MPs to show exactly what they've successfully claimed, and been given, by the fees office. She wants them to do it voluntarily, and to do it soon.

Mrs R doesn't want to see "redacted" lists, she wants to see exactly where her and Mr Rigby's money is, and has been, going.

You see, Mrs R got a bit annoyed after she followed Iain Dale's link and listened to Lembit Opik on the radio. She's sorry to single him out and write his name here for all to see, but in amongst all the news items about expenses this one struck a chord. He spent, and claimed, £700 for a television for his "second home". He'd tried to claim £2,500 for a presumably bigger and better one. The higher claim was rejected, so he bought it anyway - out of his own pocket - and put that television in his "main" home. That means he spent £3,200 on a pair of televisions, and got £700 back. Mrs R will concentrate on this £700 which was paid out by the fees office.

Using Jacqui Smith's "Court of Public Opinion", Mrs Rigby rules that this cost is unreasonable. There are two reasons she can think of right now.

1) Mrs Rigby knows that somebody earning minimum wage (£5.73 an hour) would have to work more than three 40-hour weeks to take home more than £700. (On National Minimum Wage somebody who works for 40 hours a week, excluding meal breaks, earns £11,918.40 - before national insurance and income tax deductions.) She wants to know why their taxes should buy an well-paid public servant's spare television.

2) Mr and Mrs Rigby can't afford to spend £700 on a single television for their only home. She's a bit irritated that any MP thinks it's okay to take the Rigby family's taxes and spend them so indiscriminately on themselves. She thinks a cheap television from a supermarket or electrical chain store is just as good for watching the news - if watching the news is why a television is "essential".

Mrs Rigby doesn't think expensive televisions are any more "reasonable", or essential, for an MP to do their job than cutting their grass.

Frank Field has an idea.

Mrs Rigby has got a lot of time for Frank Field, she thinks he talks a lot of sense.

This is what he has to say about MP's allowances here

There is literally no obvious way out of the appalling mess in which MPs now find themselves over our allowances. The opportunities we have had - in deciding how to disclose information about our allowances - were squandered.

He suggests that Mr Brown should

... invite again the leaders of the other parties to join him in Downing Street. The purpose would be to agree an all party leadership recommendation to the Kelly Committee and they should not leave Downing Street until the outline of an agreement is made. If he doesn't, one of the other party leaders should take the lead.
They should then ask the Kelly Committee to speed up their enquiry. It should be asked to report on the second homes allowance within a month.

Mrs Rigby wonders if anybody will listen to his ideas.

Mrs Rigby was not amused.

Mrs Rigby was not amused to see The Speaker wagging his finger at Kate Hoey when she asked a question about Police involvement in the expenses saga. It's the sort of thing she would expect an irate parent to do, when confronted with a petulant child.

It seemed that Mr Martin was a bit annoyed that the media have been publishing details of MPs expenses and allowances, something he's been trying rather desperately to avoid. He must have been in a very bad mood because he was also curt with Norman Baker and Patricia Hewitt.

The Speaker is meant to defend the Commons, and represent all Members of Parliament, not attack them if they say something he, personally, doesn't like, so it's a bit odd that a spokesman for Mr Brown later said he thought The Speaker was doing a good job.

It looks as if a few MPs thought the same as Mrs Rigby, because Douglas Carswell has tabled a cross party motion calling for Mr Martin to step down.

We'll have to wait and see what happens next.