He who pays the piper...?

What a mess Formula 1 is getting itself into! It's interesting and not a little instructive that the current dispute seems to be between the FIA (i.e. Moseley and Ecclestone) and FOTA (the body representing the teams). This may all be part of a cunning plan by Ecclestone to get rid of Moseley, but the one body which appears to be unrepresented and unconsulted in all of this is arguably the most important one - the paying spectators!

And the answers are...

So how many did you get (come on, be honest!)

1. Harry
2. Lucia
3. Reginald
4. Marion
5. Alfred
6. Helen Mirren
7. Doc
8. Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation
9. Nana
10.St. Mary Mead

P.R. (5)

The essential element in an Additional Member System is that MPs are elected more or less as at present, but that Parliament is then "topped up" with additional MPs so that overall it is more representative of the support for the parties. The system which is being talked about at present is the "AV plus" system thought up by a Commission set up under Lord (Roy) Jenkins in 1997 to look into the question of PR. Under this system, MPs would be elected for individual constituencies using the ATV method (see the first post in this series). But then voters would also have a second vote for a bigger multi-member constituency, and these seats would be allotted taking into account how many MPs a party already had within that larger constituency, and favouring those parties which were under-represented. The actual methodology is rather too complicated to go into in detail here but Google "Jenkins Commission" if you are interested in the nuts and bolts. The Commission's report in 1998 was kicked into the long grass by the Government (it was felt that on the whole it would disadvantage Labour), and it remains to be seen whether there is any more enthusiasm for it today. And that finishes this look at how PR might work if ever we go for it.

Whose money?

A news story says that the Chairman of the BBC is fighting back against plans to "slice off part of the BBC's £3.6bn licence fee" for other purposes. I would think he would know better. I am old enough to remember when ITV first started up in the mid-1950s, and it was only a matter of time before there were people saying that they shouldn't have to pay the licence fee as they "never watched BBC, only ITV", and they were told in no uncertain terms that the fee was a licence to have a television set, and had nothing to do with what you did or didn't watch. And that's just as true today - it is not and never has been the BBC's licence fee - it's the Government's licence fee and is theirs to do with as they please. Certainly it has always been given to the BBC, and therefore it is reasonable that an expectation has arisen that this state of affairs would continue, and I think if the Government intend to make changes, they must give the BBC sufficient notice to enable them to adjust to the new reality, but for the Chairman to talk of it as their money displays a woeful misunderstanding of the situation.

Fingers on buzzers

OK - pub quiz questions about names. You can of course Google the answers, but play fair and see how many you know unaided. I reckon 5 or more would be pretty good -

1. What was Bing Crosby's real first name?
2. In the opera "La Boheme" the heroine sings "They call me Mimi, but my name is..." what?
3. Jeeves and Wooster - we know Wooster's first name is Bertie, but Jeeves?
4. John Wayne's real name wasn't John. What was it?
5. ...and Benny Hill's wasn't Benny. Any ideas?
6. Ilyena Vasilievna Mironov - you know her, but not by that name. How is she better known?
7. Bashful, Sneezy, Dopey, Sleepy, Grumpy, Happy and...?
8. What does the bank's name HSBC stand for?
9. What's the dog's name in Peter Pan?
10.What's the name of the fictional village where Miss Marple lives?

Answers will follow

Second thoughts

I'm the first to admit when I've got something wrong, and I'm beginning to think I was wrong about 20-20 cricket. I've been a bit scathing about it in the past, but recently faute de mieux I've been watching the World Cup matches and come to realise that there's much more to it than simply swinging the bat and hoping for the best. I now see that it's a game of subtle tactics both from the batting and the fielding point of view. What has come as most of a surprise is the way spin bowling plays such an important part - quite the opposite of what you would expect. And then there's flexibility in the order in which you send your batsmen in - yes, I think I got it wrong.

P.R.(4)

So it can be argued that STV produces a "fairer" result than either FPTP or ATV - although you can certainly come up with scenarios where this isn't so, and there is an argument that STV tends to favour "wallpaper" candidates who have no strong views (or at least don't express them) on anything, and are therefore more likely to end up as voters' second preferences. But the main problem with STV is that it needs bigger, multi-member constituencies which some would say dilutes - or even breaks - the link between a voter and his MP. At present, I know who my MP is - whether or not I voted for them - but under STV I could be represented by 3 or 4 MPs covering a far larger area, and it might be more difficult to know who to approach if I felt the need. So there have been various attempts to come up with some sort of hybrid solution which keeps the one-to-one link between the voter and their MP, and this has led to a form of PR known as AMS - the Additional Member System, and we'll look at that next time.

Bad maths.

The Government has unveiled its latest strategy for eliminating child poverty. All very worthy, but what took my eye was the definition of child poverty - its a family with less than 60% of the average wage coming in. Now we've been down this line before - by the very way averages (whether mean, median or mode) are calculated, there will always be those above and below that figure. Which as far as I can see, means that there will always be some families with incomes below 60% of the average - in other words, child poverty, as defined by the Government, will always exist! What matters of course, is how much those families are pulling in - once again, we've confused actual income with comparative income - back to school folks!

Height-ist?

We're used to the idea that you can be too small to go on some rides at fairs and in theme parks - it's a constant source of annoyance to my 12-year-old granddaughter, who is a bit of a titch and is therefore barred from some attractions she would like to go on. But now comes a story of a restaurant in Gloucester, where you only qualify for the discounted kids' meal prices if you are under a certain height. My granddaughter is all for going and filling her face!

P.R. (3)

So - STV. Voting is the same as ATV in that you rank the candidates in order of preference. But we're now dealing with multi-member constituencies, so we need a different way of deciding who is elected. And the way it's done is to divide the number of votes cast by the number of seats to be filled, plus one. So if 100,000 votes are cast, and there are 3 MPs to be elected, we divide 100,000 by 4 (3 + 1) and come up with 25,000. We then add one to this number and this becomes the quota. Any candidate who receives 25,001 votes or more is elected. But if, as is most likely, we don't end up with three candidates reaching the quota of votes what then? And this is when it becomes a bit complicated! Unlike ATV where votes are redistributed from the bottom up, with STV they are - at least initially - redistributed from the top down. Suppose candidate A gets 40,001 votes. They are obviously elected, but they have got far more votes than they needed for that, so the 15,000 surplus votes they have got are redistributed to those voters' second choice candidates. But hang one - which 15,000 votes? The answer is that all candidate A's votes are redistributed but on the basis that they are now only worth a 15000/40001th (just under 0.4) of a vote each - I told you it gets complicated! If there are no surplus votes, then we proceed as with ATV by eliminating the candidate with the fewest votes and redistributing their votes on the basis of second preferences. Still with me? More to come...