Vox Polis

Finally some outline of what’s going to be done with the House of Lords. But will the plans outlined by Straw, leaked to the Sunday Times, really reduce patronage?

Although many of the details don’t seem that different to those considered back in 2003, it’s worth going over what’s in the Times. They say that:

Only 50% will be elected, the other half is apparently to be chosen by a 9 person commission whose role is to make appointments to the upper chamber. Each party will have to submit a list to them for approval - A good attempt to end patronage, although what you have to do to get on the list is unclear.

There is a suggestion that the PM will be able to bypass the commission and appoint a few members - so the same system then, just with a commission to rubber stamp the nominations.

The plan suggests using the list system of proportional representation similar to the Scottish system for the elected half. The Scots use PR to elect regional representatives. However this allows patronage because it is the party that decides who’s on the list and who’s not - one feels that the PM will certainly have an influence here.

The best way forward is to make it more democratic (or 100% elected) and adopt the Wakefield report recommendations that:

A majority of the members of the new House will be nominated by the political parties, in proportions intended to reflect the shares of the national vote in the previous General Election.

This is what is required in a liberal democratic state. For too long we have stood by and allowed the authoritarian patriarchal system of government to continue, it must be stopped.

Like she really had much of a choice.  At least as an Independent she can now campaign for the lib dems a hung parliament  without upsetting those who sit next to her. 

Personally I think her sentiment is correct.  The best thing for Labour would be a hung parliament - if Labour MPs start losing their seats it would give them an imputus to rethink Labour’s losing strategy and become more relevant to the country.

Looks like the EU logo compo wasn’t cancelled like the rest of the celebrations. And the winner is….

How sweet! -looks a bit like a wine label.

Iain Dale mentioned today the threat his new web TV site, 18 Doughty Street, faces from the Television Without Frontiers directive - a directive that is ill considered and unenforceable, don’t forget that there’s always a way on the web.

Don’t worry, according to The Times Shaun Woodward is on the case.

In our interview with Iain Dale last week we warned him about this, he said (20 mins in) “Well the EU can talk about a lot of things, if they seriously start regulating the internet then we’ll have a Soviet style system, which some think we have already.” - Luckily Dale’s got a backup plan - move the channel to Sky!

It seems that the EU has decided to limit its 50th anniversary celebrations planned for next year. Originally there were to be 50 days of fireworks, parties, flag waving and fun. Now instead they’ve chosen some sickening exciting plans for citizen ambassadors who will tell how the EU influnces their lives. I wonder if they’ve also cancelled the motto/flag competition?!

But why the changes?

• Grandiose parties clearly are always open to criticism, especially when the EU costs taxpayers a lot of money - it raises questions such as are fireworks a good use of our money?!
• Its very difficult for the EU to do something “successful” in every member state. This clearly takes a lot of organisation. There’s a number of celebrations (such as the European Day of Languages and European Mobilty week) that we never hear much about.
• Some thought that the celebrations were going to be used as an opportunity to relaunch the EU Constitution - or at least a new treaty. Do the changes mean that this is also off the agenda.

The RSAs Carbon Limited project is trying to convince MPs to enter into an individual Emissions Trading Scheme, which works just like the dysfunctional EU ETS scheme. An individual scheme gives everyone equal numbers of carbon credits, which are used up each time we consume energy. If we run out we can buy more credits, if we have a surplus we can sell them.

However it has equality problems. Poor people are more likely to live in poorly insulated housing, therefore their energy costs may be higher. People with higher incomes may have the spare cash to pay for insulation, reduce their emissions and therefore make money out of the scheme. Let’s show some of these inequalities with an example:

David Miliband has already joined the scheme. According to the CarbonDAQ, Miliband’s emissions are below the 5 tonnes of CO2 prescribed as a maximum (he’s on about 3.5 tonnes). Luckily for him the scheme only includes personal energy use, and doesn’t include all the official travel he does.

As you can see in the first diagram below (produced by CarbonDAQ so you can have a go yourself) - my once yearly (well deserved) holiday produces much more CO2 than Miliband’s. Apparently Miliband’s not flying on holiday next year. This year he flew to Ireland.

My car journeys (to get to work) are also consume more CO2. No ministerial car for me.

My household energy consumption is high, although I do share a house with 3 other people:

Overall Miliband wins!

So just like in real life, ministers are better off than me. Based on current prices, Miliband will make around £12.50 out of the scheme - a new gravy train for ministers!

The Indy reports that Government air travel has created 1000 tonnes of CO2 in the last year - clearly the Government’s going to have to deal with this if they want the rest of us to reduce our emissions (apart from continuing with the policy of carbon offsetting which doesnt reduce our environmental impact).

Many of these trips are for EU business, such as meetings in Brussels. The Lib Dems reckon only 30 tonnes could be saved by travelling on Eurostar instead. Further savings could clearly be made by conference calls, but many ministers will argue that it is important to carry out meetings in person.

Clearly this is a good argument for withdrawal from the EU (ministers won’t have to fly to Brussels) or complete integration of the EU (everything will be done in Brussels without ministers), depending on your political stance. Maybe even getting the MEPs who are already there to do more. On that note I wonder what the environmental damage of using Strasbourg Parliament is?!

Updated! - It seems that I’ve missed the point of this article and reported what I wanted to see. There’s a great graph in the Indy print version (just a list of figures online) showing that using Eurostar will actually significantly reduce the emissions created by visiting Brussels. Europe counts for less than 30% of the Government’s CO2 emissions from air travel, and this could be reduced by 90% by using Eurostar. Clearly we should force ministers to travel everywhere by train. It’s only 3 changes and 2 nights to get to Russia.

Last Thursday the intrepid Vox Polis team braved the maelstrom of activity at 18 Doughty Street to meet up with Iain Dale for a chat about the state of blogging, the recent Conservative conference and a whole lot else. Have a listen to find out what he had to say.

Work is to start on what will be the UKs largest windfarm at Eaglesham Moor in Scotland.  Once finished the 140 turbines will output 322MW - enough to power 200000 homes.  There were objections on the usual grounds (PDF) from Eaglesham Community Council but these were not supported by local authorities in the area (given that the area south of Glasgow isn’t particularly known for its natural beauty there seems to be very little to object to).  So good news then, it’s a shame that more wind farm schemes can’t be carried through without a chorus of nimbyish objections.

Via the BBC.

Thanks to Liam Byrne, the Home Office Minister, we now know what the Home Office thinks what the costs of introducing ID cards will be. A staggering £5.4 billion over 10 years - plus an extra billion or so.

For that we could have about 18 hospitals.