Klaatu… Verata… Necktie?

I think the argument boils down to two things: what you earn, and what you picture in your head as a rich person's lifestyle.

£70,000 is in the 95th percentile for personal income. This means that if you earn £70,000 you earn more than 94% (or thereabouts) of people. If you're earning more than 94% of your fellow countrymen, you ought to be rich, right? Like, if you're better off than the vast, vast majority of people, you should feel well off, or else how must the poor buggers on less than you feel?

The problem is, of course, that £70,000 doesn't actually buy that much these days. Like, it won't get you a mortgage on a decent house anywhere in the home counties. It won't buy you a new car and a couple of holidays every year after housing costs. It won't pay school fees for your little ones to go to private school once you've paid for housing costs either. £70,000 a year doesn't feel rich; and that's what the problem is.

If you look at the lifestyles our parents had, well, this is what my parents did in the 80s:

• owned a home
• bought a new car every two years
• didn't go on foreign holidays but DID send me to private school
• were in the pub three nights a week

etc., etc.

Now, I'm not saying they didn't work for that: they did. My dad had two full time jobs (mild mannered biology teacher by day, superchef by night) and my mum worked 9-5 too. They worked bloody hard. But the same amount of work in the same jobs these days would get you, if you were lucky:

• a rented house that is one of three poky little Barratt boxes built in the back garden of the kind of house your parents owned
• a second hand banger that you run till it dies, or a bus/rail pass
• a cheap holiday for now, but only until brexit happens and then we have to pay visa fees and the exchange rate is knackered and oh look we can only afford Butlins
• Pre-loading because the pubs are so bloody expensive, thank you alcohol duty escalator

Now most of the people I see arguing about this are either saying "£70k is mega rich, you're in the 95th percentile FFS" or "£70k is not that rich when you consider what you can buy" but not many are following both thoughts through.

How bloody scandalous is it that even if you're in the 95th percentile you are still struggling, and you are well worse off than your parents would have been on an equivalent income adjusted for inflation etc.? If 95% of the country is not getting a good enough income, that's a bloody disgrace and somebody ought to do something about it.

Anybody know any politicians?

... but I think the disgusting spectacle of politicians of all stripes grubbing over the votes of racists, by pretending to understand their "genuine concerns about immigration" might be caused by our first past the post electoral system.

Let me explain.

In the last few days there has been more than one piece on Lib Dem Voice which might as well, as Andrew puts it, have been entitled "Immigrants: Threat or Menace?". One of them was written by Vince Cable. Vince sodding Cable, who, lets not forget, was married to a lady from Goa. Vince is clearly not racist. Yet he still feels like he has to listen to racists' "genuine concerns about immigration".

Why?

Because in our electoral system, each seat is winner takes all. There are no prizes for second place.
52% of the electorate just said, effectively, that they have "genuine concerns about immigration". Sure, some leave voters voted for a lexit; some were genuine Liberal Internationalists who want us to trade more with the rest of the world; etc. But those deluded people have been shanghaied into the media narrative that they hate furriners.

Now you might, quite logically, think that if the vast majority of politicians are grubbing over the vote of 52% of the population, it'd be sensible for one party to cater exclusively to the 48%. If (say) five parties are fighting for a share of 52% but just one has 48% to itself then that one party is in clover, right? Mathematically speaking?

If we had STV you'd probably be right. But under FPTP, where the winner takes all in each seat, it's not quite that simple. Our electorate is used to voting tactically, so while that 52% ought logically to divide itself up between the "concerned about immigration" vote according to other factors, in practise people who have this as their top concern look at which one of the several options is most likely to win where they live and plump for that one (obviously not every voter decides like this, but enough of them do that it's safe to ignore the minority who vote on principle).

Thus whatever is the minority opinion on a given subject, even if it's quite a large minority like 48%, is pretty much guaranteed to be ignored by all politicians of all parties because the one thing all politicians have in common is that they want to win. This leads to voters of all stripes feeling disenfranchised and resentful, because there is no voter who agrees with majority opinion on everything, and this leads to ugly politics.

TL;DR: we really need STV. It's not a panacea, but it'd certainly help.

So the pound is in freefall, and the markets haven't even opened yet.
The Nikkei and the Nasdaq have both suspended trading.
We've embraced xenophobia and nationalism.
We've given Nigel fucking Farage what he wanted.

How do I explain this to my daughter?
How do I forgive my mum for voting leave?

A woman is dead.
Her husband is a widower, her children are motherless, her colleagues and friends are mourning.
The vast majority of the profession to which she belonged is mourning, because we recognise that it could have been any of us.

And yet, and yet...

There's something unspeakable about certain of the tabloids, you know the ones I mean, the ones who use this to decide how they are going to cover an atrocity, who are today saying "don't politicise this". Quite apart from the fact that everything's political, when a politician gets assassinated in the act of being a politician by a man with known extreme political views who actually screams those political views while he's killing her... I honestly think it's not that big a leap to say that this was a political act.

Certainly no less political nor as big a leap as EVERY SINGLE TIME a black or brown person does something, leaping to blame it on Islam.
Certainly no less political nor as big a leap as saying someone has a history of mental illness like that's an explanation, when it's well proven that mentally ill people are far more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators of it.
Certainly no less political nor as big a leap as positing mental illness as a shield from political opinions, like mentally ill people can't, or aren't allowed to, have political opinions.

The guy who killed Jo Cox has been described as "polite" (because shooting, stabbing and kicking a person while screaming "Britain First" is awfully polite) "not a violent man" (apart from that whole shooting, stabbing and kicking a person while screaming "Britain First" thing) and the inevitable "a loner who kept himself to himself" (because everyone who needs some alone time is to be feared and mistrusted). Despite the fact that he subscribed to an apartheid magazine, spent time on fascist websites, and made a gun using instructions he obtained from a Nazi book club that he splashed lots of the very little cash he had on, here are some words that much of the mainstream media are shying away from using:

Hatred.
Fascist.
Nazi.
Bigot.
Racist.
White supremacist.

Choosing not to use those words when they are clearly appropriate is just as political as using them, especially when in the act of carefully not using them you instead cast aspersions about the mentally ill.

This happened less than seven miles from my house.
This happened less than seven miles from where I was manning a street stall last weekend espousing the very views that the shooter hated.
I may not be entirely objective about this. That said, there are things we could do.

- We could enshrine it in law that every time a newspaper prints a lie, they have to put the correction in the same size font on the same page, or if it's a lie about someone with a protected characteristic, they have to take up TWICE as much space for the apology as they did for the lie.
- We could make political adverts subject to the advertising standards agency, so that when they broadcast provable lies, they have to stop doing it, or at least be fined.
- We could make it so that rather than "balance", the thing broadcast journalists have to strive for is truth.
- We could, as individuals, say "no" when family or friends or colleagues say something bigoted and wrong, rather than letting it slide to avoid fuss.

We could.
We could, but I bet we won't.

I look at what happened yesterday, and I look at some of the reactions to it, that she deserved to die, that all politicians deserve to die, that this was all staged for a poll boost for remain, and I wonder what we're becoming. As Sarah said on twitter the other day, before this even happened, this is our 1930s moment, and we're failing. How far down the slope do we have to slide before someone puts the brakes on? I wish I knew. I really wish I knew.

I mourn for Jo Cox.
I mourn for politics in Britain.
I mourn for the open, friendly, welcoming, generous country I used to think I lived in.
I want that country back.

Jo's family are raising money for three charities - the Royal Voluntary Service, Hope Not Hate, and the White Helmets. If you can afford to, please give something.

Wednesdays always make me really depressed about politics. The unedifying spectacle of PMQs, and the journos frantically fapping about who "won" and "lost" when it's plain for everyone to see that everybody loses from this example of Westminster theatre. A parade of non-questions not-answered with added shouting and wankery... The entire British public and most non-Westminster politicians view PMQs as the horrific embarrassment it is. Some journos and Westminster politicians are dimly aware of this, but none of them seriously tries to do anything about it, Bercow's occasional chidings of the chamber aside.

Political gameplaying can maybe, sometimes, be justified as a means to an end (and I'd debate that most of the time). Political gameplaying to be enjoyed as an end in itself, for the entirety of PMQs, week after week, for entire parliaments? That's not democratic accountability, that's just being 650 arseholes shouting.

Luckily for them all, I am here to offer my unsolicited opinions like a sealioning mediocre cis white man. PMQs should be reformed in the following ways:

1. If the PM doesn't give a proper answer to a question, the speaker should pull him up on it and not let him leave untill he has given a proper answer, even if it's "I don't know".


2. Any shouty arseholes get thrown out of the chamber. Yes, even Cameron. The more shouty and arseholey they are the longer the sanction - several days of not being allowed to vote would soon stop this happening.


3. Interventions should be taken by the speaker, so that lack of shouty arseholeness doesn't mean lack of challenge to lies at the despatch box. He's supposed to be chairing anyway. Chair properly, Bercow.

Now, that's probably not going to be a panacea, but it's a start.

(NB: this post has been going in various forms since '08 and was last posted in '13)

This list is presented in what I feel to be order of importance of the arguments.

1. The argument from perpetuation. This is the big one as far as I am concerned. It's the practical argument. Positive Discrimination doesn't work, and worse than that, it makes the situation continue and can even make it worse. Using discrimination to fight discrimination is like fucking for virginity. It doesn't even stop specific instances, and it definitely doesn't get to the root cause. It's salving - no, not even salving, covering up - a symptom, while leaving the disease utterly intact. We need to fight discrimination, not perpetuate it.


2. The argument from individuality. Positive Discrimination treats all women and all men (or all racial groups, or all LGBT+ folk, or whatever) as representatives of their group first, and individuals second. You don't have to have known me for very long to know how far I am from the average for women in many, many, many areas. I firmly believe that it is perfectly normal to deviate from the norm. I am an individual. I am not there to be a tick in the box of a diversity agenda, and I believe that each individual has experiences and needs which are individual to them and not predetermined by any visible physical factor.


3. The argument from commonality. Just because someone has similar physical features to you does not mean that they will be of the same views as you, have the same experiences as you, or understand you any better. I believe that Julian Huppert understands me better and does a better job of representing my views than Nadine Dorries, for example.


4. The argument from equality of opportunity. AKA two wrongs don't make a right. If you discriminate in favour of some groups, you necessarily discriminate against others. This is manifestly unfair, and unfairness is in fact, what we are arguing against here.


5. The argument from mediocrity. If you discriminate in favour of one group, you are potentially promoting people who may not be as well-qualified or capable simply because they belong to the group in question; I thought this was what we were fighting against? For generations cis het white men have beaten better qualified women, black people and LGBT folk simply by being cis het white men. reversing this does not make it any less discriminatory.


6. The argument from resentment. Linked to the above: every single person who gets a job due to positive discrimination has to fight the perception that they only got the job because of the group that they belong to, however well-qualified and good at the job they are. Sexists (or racists or homophobes etc) will assume that any woman (black person, LGBT+ person) who got any position where there is a positive discrimination policy in place got it because of the protected characteristic, not because they are actually qualified. The person getting the position is therefore hamstrung before they even begin, and face resentment that no person should face. You don't have to take my word for this, look at how affirmative action is discussed in the US.


7. The "Sins of the Fathers" argument. Positive Discrimination means that some people will suffer through no fault of their own, but because they were born to a privileged group. This is manifestly unfair.

Really, it all boils down to the fact that if you use positive discrimination, you are accepting that the ends (greater diversity) justify the means. By that logic, you should also accept torture, pre-emptive invasion of other countries, etc. etc. This is not, in my view, how a good liberal should think.

I also hate the slippery euphemistic re-naming of it as "affirmative action" or "positive action", like that changes what it is. I don't think that one needs to have the same attributes as someone else to be able to have empathy with their situation, and I don't think that one needs to be a member of a marginalised group to understand that marginalising people is bad and wrong. I don't think a person's attributes qualify them to represent me, I think their brain does. Selecting women because only women can represent women is as bad, in my view, as suppressing women because only men are smart enough to decide what's good for us.

Diversity is not an end in itself. It's a means to an end of fairness and better governance.

Now, I'm not saying that women (and other marginalised groups) don't face structural and institutionalised inequalities; I know they do, and I rail against them regularly. But to say we can solve all that by using positive discrimination is like saying you can cover third degree burns with a bit of make-up. It might make things look better for a while, but in the long term it makes the problem worse by preventing actual solutions from being used, because look, we've solved it.

I want discrimination solved. I really really do. And at bottom, that is why I am against positive discrimination.

OMOV is going to come up again at conference, and it's one of those ideas that superficially seductive, and, to be honest, I lean in favour of just from a simplicity point of view. However*, there are some arguments against which I think need to be answered before I'll consider voting for it. I'll outline them below, along with some ideas which could mitigate (although not necessarily solve) each one:

1, Entryism. Yeah, I know, we're the Lib Dems, who's going to bother? But the current system of conference reps does at least mean that someone who comes to conference with a voting pass has at least been given a cursory glance over by their local party. This could be mitigated by having a length of service clause (you can't vote till you've been a member for a given amount of time) but that wouldn't deter really determined entryists, and would mean that the one person you've thought of as a natural lib dem, who your local party has been courting for years, would also be denied a vote when under the current system they aren't. Also people who continually let their memberships lapse due to forgetfulness would be perpetually unable to vote. This could be mitigated by people signing up for direct debits.

2, Geographic concentration. This is already an issue - wherever conference is closest to supplies the majority of voting reps for that conference. I can't see OMOV making this any better, and I can see it potentially getting worse. A lot of policies we vote on have different applications in different regions. This could be mitigated by allowing online voting, but that opens up whole new vistas of cans of worms.

3, Tyranny of the Majority. Y'all just knew I was going to bring up John Stuart Mill at some point, didn't you? Dear old JS. If you have OMOV, and geographic concentration, and entryism, you run the risk of packing of policy votes. Now, arguably, this already happens. We've all** been in the hall for Julian and Evan's traditional "get rid of faith schools" motion/amendment, which it's quite clear the hall is going to vote for, and then the payroll vote come rolling in and vote it down. The payroll vote is smaller now, but that doesn't mean other packing factions won't emerge, and OMOV would make it lots easier for them. Packing of votes necessarily means smaller local parties/AOs/SAOs get less says, and I, for one, am in favour of diversity of opinion. This could be mitigated by retaining the current conference rep system.

4, Single Issue Pressure Groups. People would turn up en masse to vote on one motion. Can you imagine what 38 degrees would do to conference? This could be mitigated by retaining the current voting rep system, or by the long service requirement

5, Doesn't solve the problems it claims to solve. Becoming a conference rep is touted as a major barrier to participation in conference by proponents of OMOV. I have never known of a local party that does not have difficulty filling up all their available conference rep slots, even the ones that believe the emails that come from head office telling you you're entitled to less than you actually are. If turning up to your local party AGM and putting your hand up when the chair says "Who's going to conference, then?" is an insurmountable barrier to participation for a particular individual, I don't think that OMOV will make them more likely to participate. Maybe it will for a few, but not the majority. And yes, there IS a problem with moribund local parties in some areas, but OMOV doesn't suddenly invigorate them. No, the major thing that prevents people participating in conference is that it costs a small fortune, and again, OMOV does not solve this. This could be mitigated by not telling people a system is going to do something it demonstrably isn't and can't? IDK.

Now, I'm not actually dead set against OMOV. As I said at the beginning, it has a beguiling simplicity. But I would like to see genuine solutions to the problems I have with it before I vote for an unknown system over one that I know, and know works.

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* up yours, Govey
** for a given definition of all

One of the big successes the Labour party had in the last government was the creation of the term "bedroom tax" for something which is not even a tax, and the blaming of the coalition government for it when it is something they started*. Labour are really good at blaming other people for things they started and/or wholeheartedly embraced - tuition fees, privatising the NHS, etc. - but what I'm really interested in is the use of language to fight a perceived injustice.

One of the most consistent trends of the last ten years (again, started by Labour) is the punishment of the poor for being poor. Benefit caps, having to jump through arbitrary hoops to continue receiving a meagre JSA, ridiculous work capability assessments, all of these are equally embraced by both Labservative parties. I was working at the CAB under Blair, and a huge amount of time was taken up by appealing disability benefit decisions, etc. And part of the reason these things are accepted by the general public is that they have swallowed the Kool Aid that people on benefits are scroungers - to the extent that even people on benefits, while they assert their own right to receive benefits, will none-the-less think everyone else on benefits is a scrounger.

The problem is that most benefits don't actually benefit the person in nominal receipt of them. The claimant doesn't see any gain from soaring housing benefit because it goes into their landlord's pocket, not theirs. Tax credits mainly help employers who either can't or won't pay decent wages. JSA conditional on workfare benefits all those employers who get subsidised to "employ" a free workforce rather than people they actually have to pay and train. So I propose a change of wording.

Housing benefit is easy. Housing benefit is Landlord's benefit. When you refer to it as Landlord's benefit you are calling it what it is. Tax credits, I propose, should be called "Exploitative wage top up". There's a whole raft of disability benefits which should be called things like "paltry amount grudgingly given to try and keep you out of hospital" or something similar.

What benefits do you think should be renamed?

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* yes, I am aware that the LHA has some differences from the private sector version, but it's the same concept.