Twixtmas: Day Two

December 28th, 2013 by Roger Darlington

You know all about Christmas and New Year. But what do you call the period in-between? Welcome to the five days of Twixtmas where you are being encouraged to make the most of this valuable time.

Day Two is do something for someone else, ideally a stranger – help a neighbour or good cause. You’ll find five suggestions here.

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Why are fewer people voting in the older democracies?

December 27th, 2013 by Roger Darlington

“The issue? Millions of British young people are not voting, have never voted and are unlikely to do so unless there is reversal of a downward trend in electoral participation that seems to have started 50 years ago and accelerated in the last two decades.”

Today’s “Guardian” newspaper today devotes two and a half pages to this important issue, drawing on the results of a new poll.

There is a graph which shows voter turnout by age group in the UK from 1964-2010. It is clear that participation in elections is falling and the decline becomes sharper the younger the group one examines.

As a bit of a political junkie who has never failed to vote in the 47 years years that I have been entitled to do so, I find these trends very disturbing. But I’m not sure that the Guardian/ICM poll really explains the thinking of voters.

It is easy to think that this is a peculiarly British phenomenon, explained by lack of trust in Westminster Members of Parliament because Coalition Ministers have not kept their promises or MPs have been caught fiddling their expenses.

In fact, the decline in voter participation is a longer-term and worldwide phenomenon in the older democracies. The “Economist” in its new publication “The World In 2014” has a graph showing the decline in voting from 1949-2011 in a collection of rich countries.

Voters throughout western democracies are deserting the polling booths and abandoning tradition political parties to support parties that offer simple and/or extreme solutions. Voters are blaming their actions on dishonest politicians and conniving immigrants, but I think that these are simply the visible scapegoats for something more fundamental and that affects most countries.

In brief, I think that national politicians no longer have the power to resolve alone the biggest issues concerning voters. Politicians are reluctant to admit this because it makes them look less important and voters do not always consciously realise this because it is easier to blame the disappointing politician or the dark-skinned immigrant.

Let me illustrate my thesis by looking briefly at some of the subjects that most affect voters:

Prosperity – Most voters want a job and a decent standard of living. For decades, globalisation has sucked semi-skilled work out of developed nations and transferred them to much lower-cost Asian economies and national politicians cannot control the rapaciousness of such globalisation. Since 2008, developed economies have suffered the deepest recession in voters’ lifetimes, while the sudden collapse of economic growth and the devastating impact of debt has swept over national governments like a financial tsunami.

Security – All voters want their families to be safe. Yet the impact of global terrorism means that all governments are struggling to protect their citizens against groups that are largely unseen and immensely mutable unlike the armies or insurgencies of the past. Allegedly in an effort to provide better security for its citizens, governments in the USA and UK have invaded the privacy of their own citizens and those of many other countries, so that voters are no longer sure who they can trust.

Environment – Weather patterns are becoming more erratic and no government can stop a hurricane or a drought. Most voters accept that global warming and climate change are realities, but governments individually and collectively cannot agree an effective package of measures to halt rising temperatures let own reduce them.

I don’t have easy answers to the problem of voter apathy, but some things I would suggest are:

Politicians at all levels should be more honest about what they can and can’t control or change.
Politicians should communicate more often and more personally with voters, using all the new technologies and techniques which are available.
Governments should understand that tackling global problems demands global solutions which means binding international agreements.
Voters – and the media – which influences them so much – should stop blaming our problems on vulnerable scapegoats, whether these are the poor on benefits or immigrants seeking a better life.
Voting itself should be made much easier in the era of voting on reality television shows and 24/7 online shopping.

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Twixtmas: Day One

December 27th, 2013 by Roger Darlington

You know all about Christmas and New Year. But what do you call the period in-between? Welcome to the five days of Twixtmas where you are being encouraged to make the most of this valuable time.

Day One is about spoiling yourself and thinking more positively about you. You’ll find five suggestions here.

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Top 10 films at UK box office

December 26th, 2013 by Roger Darlington

“Despicable Me 2”
“Les Miserables” [my review here]
“Iron Man 3” [my review here]
“Monsters University”
“The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” [my review here]
“Man of Steel” [my review here]
“The Croods”
“Gravity” [my review here]
“Star Trek Into Darkness” [my review here]
“Fast and Furious”

Source: Boxofficemojo.com

You’ll find more Top 10 lists here.

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My best Christmas present

December 25th, 2013 by Roger Darlington

For years, I have fancied having a remote controlled helicopter but thought that, at the grand old age of 65, this was too much of a boyish wish. Then, a few weeks ago, I was in a gadget shop and saw this helicopter priced at £30 but reduced to £20. I decide that this was God’s way of telling me that I should treat myself.

So I bought the U4 Gyro RC Helicopter but did not open it. I thought that I would enjoy a few weeks anticipation of the pleasure, so that I would regard it as a Christmas present to myself. As part of the game, my wife wrapped it up and put it under the Christmas tree. Today I have been piloting the little craft and it is SUCH fun.

copter

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How the Mother of Parliaments might be brought into the 21st century (2)

December 24th, 2013 by Roger Darlington

A few weeks ago, I did a posting about the formation of a Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy. This exercise will start in early 2014 and report in early 2015.

The first three members of the Commission have now been announced:

Since I am a Board member of the Tinder Foundation – which promotes digital inclusion andy participation throughout the UK – I am particularly pleased at Helen’s appointment. She will be an excellent commissioner.

Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)

Why America’s poor cannot SNAP out of food stamps

December 24th, 2013 by Roger Darlington

As we eat and drink ourselves silly over the Christmas period, let’s the remember the poorer members of our community. Even in the United States – the richest country on earth – there is massive need for food subsidies.

In the USA, the food stamps scheme is known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme (SNAP). An expansion of the programme to cope with the recession was allowed to expire last month. So 3.8 million have lost access to food stamps completely. The remaining 48 million – including 22 million children – have seen cuts averaging 7%.

In today’s “Guardian”, an article highlights the plight of a family in San Antonio which has a particular resonance for me because currently my son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter are in that city with relatives to celebrate Christmas.

You can see the trends and a defence of SNAP in this column from the “New York Times”.

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When it comes to Christmas, we British are gonna party like it’s 1899

December 23rd, 2013 by Roger Darlington

So writes Duncan Exley of the Equality Trust in this piece about how Britain is facing the sort of inequality experienced in Victorian times – the excess of the few and the struggle of the many

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Do you believe in elves? OK, what about angels?

December 23rd, 2013 by Roger Darlington

When I was Father Christmas at the bazaar of my granddaughter’s nursery, I was supported by a green-clad elf – but he did look remarkably like the 10 year old son of one of the nursery workers. However, there is a news item today explaining that opposition to a new road in Iceland is based in part on concern about disruption to the elf environment. According to this piece, a recent survey found that 62% of the respondents thought it was at least possible that elves exist.

Silly Icelanders? When let’s move here to Britain and consider belief in angels and such-like notions. According to a recent poll commissioned by the Christian think tank Theos:

A majority of people (59%) are believers in the existence of some kind of spiritual being, 30% believe in God “as a universal life force”, 30% in spirits, 25% in angels, and 12% in “a higher spiritual being that can’t be called God.”
Nearly two in five people believe in the existence of a soul (39%), 32% in life after death, 26% in heaven, 16% in reincarnation, 13% in hell, and 13% in the power of deceased ancestors. In total, over half the British public (54%) holds at least one of these spiritual beliefs.

Can we really assert that there is more evidence – and I do mean evidence – for the existence of angels than there is for the presence of elves? And how is it that twice as many people believe in heaven as accept the notion of hell? And what happened to purgatory? Maybe, just maybe, there is no substantive and convincing evidence for any of these beliefs – but they are comforting, especially at a time like Christmas.

Just off to prepare the chimney for Santa’s arrival …

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