An Electoral Idea

After the last UK elections in 2010 loads of people got interested in electoral systems. Of course I was one of them. But I think that in talking about changing the First Past The Post FPTP all of them (at least the ones I’ve read about or heard about) put the onus of change on the voter.

So here’s my idea. And quite possibly it’s all been done before and I’m just another guy who’s stumbled onto someone else’s idea.

The idea is that in a British system that we still vote with FPTP but give the MPs a proportional vote in government or bills.

So each MP then gets a differing voting weight according to how her party has done nationally. Now I guess the Lib Dems aren’t exactly the toast of the country but to represent the fact that a quarter of the country voted for them but they could only get about a tenth of the MPs, each Lib Dem MP should get a weightier vote.

So the UK election of 2010

UK election 2010 No of MPs National vote % Voting power per MP Conservatives 306 36.1 0.77 Labour 258 29 0.73 Liberal 57 23 2.62 SNP 6 1.7 1.84 Green 1 1 6.5 Sinn Fein 5 0.6 0.78 Democratic Unionist 8 0.6 0.49 Plaid Cymru 3 0.6 1.3 SDLP 3 0.4 0.87 Alliance 1 0.1 0.65 Speaker 1 0.1 0.65 Independent 1 0.1 0.65 Total MPs 650     Of course if a party doesn’t get an MP in then they don’t have any say. What I think is the advantage of this system is that then there are very few wasted votes. Real grass root movement parties like the Green party will gain the influence they deserve. Of course if the BNP get an MP in then they might have influence as well. Independents seem to lose some influence but I’m not sure whether their influence in bills and government support really count. Also parties will have to campaign beyond their votebanks and a safe seat is no longer  ‘safe’ in the traditional sense for the party because every vote counts towards the weightage of the MP. Another advantage is that there needn’t be a huge and expensive campaign to educate the electorate in how to vote rather that the 650 in parliament and they officials of parliament need to know and understand this. This is just something I came across in random thinking and I will be surprised if someone else hasn’t thought of this.

Uncle

I saw the face of evil

A man who ravaged his brother

and robbed his nieces

so should justice be fought for?

or let evil destroy itself?

Posts

autumn thoollal

Yup the leaves are dancing!

Lonely Choir

‘I always thought that the reason Protestants sang so well is because they were so lonely’

For your ‘I’s

For your ‘I’s and ‘E’s

musings of a 3 yr old

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Voodoo

Voodoo. No my grandfather never practised it. He just fed it. And it was very faithful, living to a ripe old age of 14. Silly names for a dog. Sillier names for his grandchildren. I was ‘chuni chuni.’ (Pronounce the ‘chu’ with ‘oo’) I forgot what the others were called. The precocious grandson that I was, I once deemed it unfit to be called such an uncouth name and requested he call me Sunil. Grandpa half upset, half mischievous refused and merely did the very Malayalee act of saying ‘shu’ to catch my attention.

He was a lovable man. Tall and handsome and very self assured. Not in an arrogant way though it could’ve been misconstrued to be that. I spent many hours on his hospitable lap whether it was listening to his stories or reading comics especially reading the little mandrake cartoons in the manorama. More about mandrake later.

In his lap jokes about bishops and Chinese men abounded. Sports exploits entwined themselves with funnier ones on stage. Once grandpa had acted as a woman in a play after which a man propositioned ‘her’. ‘I was soooo good, you see!’ Grandpa said without a trace of improper pride. I was very privileged one day to hear a really long story from Grandpa. It must’ve taken 4 or 5 days. It was about this boy who grew up in a village and went to college and so on. On the 3^rd day I achieved enlightenment. It was Grandpa’s own life story. This realization was quite exciting but in my excitement I wanted him to hurry to the bit where I came into his life. It was a great story. And I enjoyed being part of it.

My grandpa was a nice bishop. Yes, I know that their existence is disputed. But guess what? He traveled 2^nd class. Yes he did. Promise. I saw it myself. We dropped him at the railway station and all his ‘friends’ were up ahead in 1^st class coach while grandpa said it was a waste of the church’s money and boarded the normal coach. Yes he was nice. He didn’t have the airs of many of the other bishops and he didn’t crack little children’s hands when he shook hands like one Marthoma bishop did mine. Yes I’m a biased grandchild but if you knew grandpa you would be too.

Being a bishop means a lot of different things. It means responsibility, power, money, spirituality and whole mixed bag savory and unsavory items. Most of these didn’t affect grandpa but he had one weakness. He was naïve. He trusted people too much. He was innocent as a dove. But he didn’t have the full measure of the serpent’s wisdom. As a child I could see it. When politics flew around him he would very unusually flounder. Maybe the particular times were evil in the church and Grandpa belonged elsewhere.

I was the last person to be with Grandpa. I reached my customary place in his lap and we read our daily dose of Mandrake comics. As I was late for school I finished and went to have breakfast. After a few minutes the maid who was sweeping the garden rushed in. Grandpa was gone. Gone. As he would’ve wanted. A simple life. A simple death. A simple man.

Jesus said something about Nathaniel in John 2. I think he might’ve said the same of M. M. John. Maybe they’re joking about it right now.

going with the grain

on international women’s day

a ‘certain’ wife told her husband

“you men are bred to be brainless”

the husband replied

“maybe we are bred to be brainless but we can rice to the ocassion”

muffled laughter and choking

“are you amaized at my wheat?”

dearth of mad ads

it’s a bad pun. but it’s true.

someone asked me what i thought of the banning of mad ads in the Christ college campus. those not completely in the picture will be interested to know that mad ads is a simple skit parody of well known adverts and various colleges put more emphasis on the mad while other emphasize on the ad.

Christ college had an extremely illustrious history of mad ads with the a name being created in south india for wacky humour, slapstick acting and great co-ordination. There was a time when mad ads had the atmostphere of a rock show where the quadrangle was filled to the brim and hearing a thousand people laugh is no joke.

then the jokes started to repeat themselves. there was nothing new. it became less clever. less polished. the vulgarity which was always contained in clever inuendo ocassionally became frontal nudity. the spoof weren’t all that new. even the ads that were spoofed weren’t all that new.

deep analysis of why and how and tv habits etc. can be done but bottom line it wasn’t really that funny anymore. which is why i never opposed it’s willful demise. mad ads should’ve evolved into something as funny but with more punch. it never did. I picked the brains of brightest and best in college but there was no answer.

The point is that humour and satire need to be expressed but what is the new way to do this? no one seems to know. formulas are simple to follow but difficult to concieve.

so now that mad ads has died i’m still hopeful and waiting that there exists its long lost mirthful child that will tickle a 1000 people again… and again.

thou shalt not connect

bsnl are crap. they’ve been nothing but trouble since my first daliance with them. worse i’ve never had a choice but to go with them. i have sinfully wished hell upon them but it’s still not getting me anywhere. so all my profound thoughts are stuck because of ‘no lines in the PD box sir’. No lines? I’ve got a few for you, you stupid organisation. But I’ll lose my reputation for having a relatively clean tongue. Bah!