Just a few links today (spent my normal writing time writing a short story, which you’ll see here eventually if it’s not accepted by any pro markets):
Power Pop Criminals has the out-of print demo EP that XTC put out with the first 2500 copies of the French edition of Nonsuch.
Political Betting says the Tories had better not complain if the election delivers an unfair result.
Nick Barlow has been doing a series of posts based on Conrad Russell’s Intelligent Person’s Guide To Liberalism part 1, part 2.
How to tell if you are in a Borges story
An audio interview and short live set from Van Dyke Parks
And Rick Veitch has posted the pencils for his new cover for Miracleman #9
Sci-Ence! Justice Leak! 
Political Betting says the Tories had better not complain if the election delivers an unfair result.
Surely they can complain, because the result would be less unfair if the Liberal Democrats hadn’t torpedoed the boundary redrawing in revenge for the Tories blocking reform of the House of Lords?
That (unequal constituency sizes) is the cause of the bias towards Labour in the system: it’s nothing to do with 2011.
You should probably go tell the people at Political Betting how wrong they are, then!
Firstly that was, as you point out yourself, a consequence of the Tories’ own actions over Lords reform. Actions having consequences is something the Tories claim to be very big on.
And secondly, the Tories would be likely to be the largest party under AV — the spoiler effect from UKIP would vanish…
Firstly that was, as you point out yourself, a consequence of the Tories’ own actions over Lords reform
One can argue about whether responsibility when an ultimatum is breached lies with the party who made the ultimatum or the one who did the breaching, but the point is that it’s definitely not, as the article claims, a consequence of their actions opposing AV in 2011.
And secondly, the Tories would be likely to be the largest party under AV
They would likely be biggest party, but still without a majority (assuming AV, but no boundary changes): in other words, exactly the situation they are now looking at under the ‘unfair’ system. So what would that benefit them?
(And they might be even farther from a majority in an AV system, if it resulted in more minor parties like the Greens or the Liberal Democrats getting seats, but it’s a matter of speculation whether that would actually happen: nobody can possibly predict how the first AV election would have gone, as all previous experience, polls etc would be rendered useless (which I think is a large part of why the electorate rejected it: they like predictability)).
The situation they’re looking at at the moment is getting more votes than Labour but fewer seats, whereas under AV they would be very likely to have both more votes *and* more seats.
whereas under AV they would be very likely to have both more votes *and* more seats.
I don’t think they would, would they? The constituencies would still be biased against them: they’re not going to start suddenly winning all those dense over-represented city constituencies that are deep red under AV.
What sorts of seats would they win under AV, that they wouldn’t under the current system?
(Given that UKIP isn’t actually going to have an effect on the election, as most of its supporters will in a real election as opposed to a protest vote like the local elections or the Euros, return to their ‘natural’ home, be that Tory or Labour, so the ‘spoiler effect from UKIP’ isn’t actually a real thing).
Well obviously “given that” everything about the polls in question is wrong, then any conclusions drawn from them are also wrong.
However, the whole point of the post linked was that *if* the polls are correct, the Tories will lose seats because of UKIP, and this will be their own fault because they wouldn’t have lost those seats under AV.
You started by denying that the conclusion follows from the premise, but now you’re denying the premise itself. Those are two separate arguments, and since no-one will know until May next year how accurate the current polling is, the new one is not one that can be responded to rationally.
However, the whole point of the post linked was that *if* the polls are correct, the Tories will lose seats because of UKIP
Re-reading the article it;s hard to work out what the point if it is, actually. It offers no argument or reason for the assertion ‘it is likely that my 8/1 bet that that Tories will win most votes but come second to LAB on seats will be a winner’. It simply states that as if it were a fact.
I assumed that that was because of the bias in the constituency sizes, because, you know, that’s actually the reason why the Conservatives will probably fail to win a majority.
If on the other hand the reasoning is about the ‘UKIP spoiler’ effect (which as mentioned won’t happen, and reputable polling companies try to factor in that not everybody who says they will vote for a party in ten months’ time actually will) then that’s not actually stated in the article either.
But the actual article doesn’t actually advance any arguments at all and therefore, well, I can’t exactly argue with something that has no argument, can I?