Friday, 15 April 2011

GROUPS, ALTERNATE VOTE (AV), and BIG ISSUE

 Almost time for planting
 'Don't cast a clout till May is Out', I know it's Blackthorn now but May (Hawthorn) will soon follow.

ALTERNATE VOTE for the next GENERAL ELECTION?

Politics and Citizenship discuss the Welsh Elections and AV

Those who, like me, favour Proportional Representation should vote YES to the Alternate Vote (AV) as it will get us a considerable way forward and is the only system on offer for the foreseeable future.

Those who prefer First Past The Post should vote NO to AV. If there is a No Vote to AV any question of having a more proportional voting system will be put on the back burner.


Most Western European countries including Wales and most New Democracies have some form of proportional voting. This piece is written by way of explanation of the AV system and not to make a political point......honest.

Why do I dislike First Past The Post so much, it is because it often results in unfettered power to the winning party. Think of the decade of huge majorities first to Margaret Thatcher and then to Tony Blair, and what they were able to do with such impunity. Both those governments would have been improved by having to take other views into account. Love or hate the Liberals at the moment you have to admit they are rubbing some of the rough edges off Tory policies and have so far negated the Tory right wing. By going into coalition they saved the country from being forced into the chaos of a second election, at a time when stability was the absolute key.

The big advantage of AV is that it aims for a fairer contest at each constituency.  AV thus retains the link with each MP representing a single constituency, whereas pure Proportional Representation considers only the total national votes. The Welsh Assembly is voted for by a half way house in which 2/3 of the AMs represent a constituency, and 1/3 have no constituency link but move the national result closer to proportionality with the total national votes. 


The best example of how turn-overs can work in practice is given by the recent election of the Labour Leader. (I was travelling in India at the time so please forgive me if the details are wrong, but the sense is correct.) Labour MPs, Unions and Constituencies were allowed to rank the candidates 1, 2, 3, in order of preference. candidate. 

David Miliband led after the first ballot but crucially failed to get 50%. So the second choices of loser Ed Balls were added and in it was his brother Ed Miliband who emerged as the winner. That's an example of a 'Turn Over', and is not typical of the norm which is that the leader in the First Choices goes on to win with over 50% of the votes. Whatever you may think of the final outcome in this contest is irrelevant to this example but what you can deduce is that Ed had broader support in the Party than his brother, the difference I understand being mainly with the unions.


For what it's worth my own choice would have been Ed Balls (even better his wife Yvette Cooper who was not standing). I guess David suffered from being too close to Tony Blair and Ed Balls from being too closely associated with today's pet hate figure Gordon Brown, whose role in leading the world in face of the credit crunch I still expect to be recognised in retrospect.


This example was to consider only a single election (Leader of the Opposition), though a rather important one! In a General Election there are hundreds of constituencies and in the vast majority the winner who wins on first choices will emerge as the eventual winner. In a closely fought seat it is quite possible that the second or even the third candidate will emerge as eventual winner if they have broader support when the balancing act of adding in the second and lower choices is done. It ought to (probably will) vastly increase the number of Liberal Democrat MPs, making their number of seats closer to their proportion of the vote..


Lets now see how four quite different voters might vote for a single typical Welsh Seat in a GENERAL Election. There are four main parties in alphabetic order Labour, Liberal (Democrat), Plaid and Tory. Purely as an example let's see how a sensible person might vote, adding in a couple of other thoughtful choices such as UKIP and Green.

      Voter A       Voter B      Voter C     Voter D

1)   Labour        Liberal       Plaid          Tory
2)   Plaid           Tory           Labour       UKIP
3)   Liberal        Labour       Liberal       Liberal
4)   Green          Green         Green        Green


Note neither the Labour or the Tory inclined voted for the party he detests most and no-one has a voted for a party he doesn't want to have a voice in parliament, for example BNP, Communist, Monster Raving Lunatic.



Labour (in the old days at least) would have the most First Choice votes but nowadays it may well be less than 50%. This situation is merely meant to be an example. So let's emphasise that we are considering only one seat, in others Plaid or Liberal or Tory might have the biggest vote on First Choice. On probability it is likely that the Green party would be last and drop out but then their second choice votes would be transferred to the other three candidates probably boosting the Labour or Liberal vote. Assuming no-one has reached 50% the lowest party remaining would now drop out and it's choices 2nd and lower choices would be added in to the remaining parties. And so on, until one party passes the winning 50% post.


My wife asks what if there are 12 parties how do I rank them, the answer is that you rank only those you want to have a voice in parliament, just two choices, better still three or four, is capable of making a big difference in a close contest. Then she asks will this rule out success for say Independents or Greens, and the answer is if they have really popular (good) candidates then their chances may well be enhanced by being the second choice of most of the others. Think for example of two recent examples, a well loved ex Labour candidate running as an Independent against his own party, or say the talented Green candidate Caroline Lucas. On the other hand a party without broad support, say the BNP, is unlikely to emerge the winner under AV.





How many spider's webs can you spot?

GROUP LEADERS for NEXT YEAR
Always at the end of the year some leaders will want to hand over. In Swansea U3A this has been mainly those with a large number of years in the position wanting a well earned rest. Last year we had to find replacement for Margaret Hammond in the Politics and Citizenship Group, Margaret had reached 90 but sadly is no longer with us. Margaret Massey decided 17 years as leader and instigator of the Gardening Group was long enough. Luckily we have good replacements for both highly successful groups with 20 to 30 regulars Gabrielle Suff is doing an excellent job with Politics and a team of three or four lead by Margaret Cross are running Gardening.


This year a couple more long standing Groups seek renewal under a new leader, Barbara Brimfield is handing over the 'Local History' group after 13 years and Margaret Winter is standing down from the History Group after 11 years at the helm. Both groups are highly successful and shown by turn outs with 30 to 40 a session. Both meet in the city centre. We cannot afford to allow such well attended groups to go to the wall.

Margaret Hammond has been replaced as leader of the Research Group on a temporary basis by Marjorie Vanston, who also runs the Welsh group. They deal with projects selected by the staff of  Swansea Museum, and in the interests of space are split into two small teams who meet in the Museum on alternate Wednesdays.

In addition Margaret Webster is standing down as organiser of the Sunday Luncheon Group having completed the 12 months she agreed to as a stop gap.

It would be true to say that members of all these groups are in the higher bracket, long established groups tend to grow older together, but this should be no deterrent to a new younger leader for there is plenty of incentive to work towards a younger age profile and to modify the way the group is run.

I would be delighted to hear from anyone interested in helping in any capacity with any of those four groups. Please simply reply to the Blog Alert email from me, Brian Corbett the Groups' Coordinator. Enthusiasm is the main pre-requisite, advice and guidance will surely be available from the present incumbents, and remember shared responsibility will work, you are not committing yourself to be present every session (look at me disappearing for two months at a time).

The U3A is a self help organisation, or nothing, from those according to their abilities to those according to their needs. Are you happy that you are contributing as much as you can? 

SPANISH LEARNING


Keith Barry teaching, Christine Broomhall (Convenor), Joyce Marris, Lyn Jones and me (photographer) 

Keith Barry is teaching the Spanish language to a group of eight in Hazel Court every Wednesday morning, not even currently a U3A member he simply wants to 'keep his hand in'. He has many other interests such as Badminton and keep fit in the gym. Their third meeting will be Wednesday 20 April, the class is starting entirely from scratch so if you have no fore-knowledge then the sooner you start the better. If you have some fore-knowledge consider joining next University Year.

I attended his second lesson and as promised the accent was on speaking and it was a very effective method of teaching the like of which I had not previously encountered the objective being instinctive fluency in the spoken language through repetition of responses in pairs. It put me in mind of Professor Michael Thomas, whose subject is Psychological Sciences, not languages in the grammatical sense, at Birbeck College London University, though I may be utterly mistaken since I know only of his standing not his methods. His style is characterised as 'learn a foreign language the way you learnt your own'. 


I have produced a simple spreadsheet which provides an easy way of keeping track of attendance and money, the 'kitty', which this group I hope will trial. They already have a Convenor so this is looking like the smoothest start-up yet. My swan song, or is there time for one more?


ARMCHAIR TRAVEL
Bob Hughes is to replace Brian Davies who was around five years as Convenor, the same Bob as put new life into Bridge classes. They have already got a program out for next University Year and this represents a change in emphasis from one speaker per session to two half an hour slots, to get as many as possible involved. Most of us have holidays so why not join in and talk about yours.

MOTO (Members on Their Own)
Rosemary Brangwyn 202029 now runs this group replacing the founder Gerwyn Thomas who had to reduce his load following a severe heart attack. She phoned in to give me some news just as I was about to publish. The group now meet at 10.30am on the first Monday of each month in the Coffee Shop in the Dragon Hotel to plan future events.


They have recently had a visit by train to Narbeth, and seventeen of them had a 'brunch' of Paninis and coffee in the Grand Hotel. A party are going for a holiday together at the Bosworth Hall Hotel with day trips to Stratford and Warwick my beautiful home town.


SPRING OUTING to Welsh National Botanic Gardens

Joan and I were part of the coach-load who spent 6 April at the gardens and what a delightful day it was, all the more special by contrast to the day before when it rained and rained.


                                                                               




Barbara Garnham (Outings Organiser) and Margaret Winter, History Convenor








Barbara Ellis and Joan in the Hothouse












BIG ISSUE
I have long been a supporter both in a terms of a small annual donation to the underlying Big Issue Foundation, but above all by buying, and reading, copies from the street sellers. So if you see a man with the latest Big Issue under his arm then that's how to recognise me! The magazine is increasingly worth reading but the last one I purchased was their Twentieth Anniversary was special and contained an article by founder and Editor in Chief John Bird. He is the original exponent of the idea of 'tough love'. He makes the telling point that street sellers (vendors) have to prove their housing status get their first five magazines free, but thereafter they have to buy them at £1 each. They cannot return magazines they do not sell. He is encouraging some of the most deprived (homeless or vulnerably housed) to learn the business ethic. 'A hand up not a hand out' is their ethos, 'self help' their way. Decriminalizing homelessness is one of their big aims, better to earn than steal even if it does go on drink.


The Big Issue Foundation is a charity, its major functions are to provide training for vendors and help them build skills, but also to provide access to health care and dentistry, for many do not have the ID needed to register with a GP. It is one of the charities acceptable as beneficiary of Waitrose's 'Community Matters' monthly local initiative.
www.bigissue.org.uk

I did not know that Gordon and Anita Roddick of Body Shop supported Big Issue from its inception. John Bird met Gordon Roddick when John was hiding from the police aged 21, he was then a rough sleeper and petty thief with a drink problem. Twenty years on he met Gordon again, by then the co-owner of successful Body Shop. It was Gordon who asked him to start a street paper, 'who carefully took some , and that business nouse - and sprinkled it on the poor'. But it is to deceased Anita that he gives the greatest plaudits, 'she had the fire of social justice burning in her'. 

Friday, 1 April 2011

FORM IMPROVING AT LAST

NEW BEGINNERS SPANISH  GROUP
A New Group set up from nothing in two weeks, why didn't I think of using my email address bank in this way before? I know I had to trawl the whole list  of members with email in the attempt to find the 2% who were interested - most declared their interest within two days of me sending out the broadcast.

First the facts the group set up to teach beginners will meet for the first time in the Dry Side of the Craft Room at Hazel Court at 10am next Wednesday 6 April under the tuition of Keith Barry, tel 795672. He was keen to form a group which will learn from scratch with no members previous knowledge daunting the genuine beginners. If you've always wanted to learn the language here is your opportunity.

It looks as though the group will originally number nine, sufficient - but a few more would be welcome. A small amount of rusty fore-knowledge several years ago should not put the anyone off trying the new group out so long as they do not flaunt it. One member declares she now has young grandchildren in Madrid, if she's as lucky as us with our French connection she will have a few delightful years being spoken to in Spanish whilst she replies in English until the kids overtake her and speak English as fluently as she does.

The group will meet weekly and looks set to run through the summer, though that as usual will be for the group to decide themselves. 


SPANISH CONVERSATION
Alison Burns run this informal group which meet alternate weeks at 2pm in the basement at Starvin' Jacks coffee shop in the town centre, more precisely in Portland Street opposite the HSBC bank just up from the Oxford Street entrance to the market. I have only attended once when they wee still searching for a suitable venue but intend to go there this Tuesday 5th April where the topic being prepared by members will be 'Things I Hate'.

At the same time as I trawled for interest for beginners I tried to establish a list of people interested in Improvers a more advanced potential course. The ten positive responses to this were slower coming through and quite a lot were from members who joined our U3A this year. I formed the impression that most were motivated by the need to improve or to maintain their speaking skills. They have been invited to Tuesday's meeting with Alison's blessing.

TRAWLING FOR INTEREST
I hope members are not unwilling to receive such bulk mailings, because I intend to do a couple of other topics soon, emails are easily discarded and in any case today's Inboxes have huge capacity.

ITALIAN
Complaints that Carolina, our diminutive octogenarian Italian tutor, has finally lost control of her group keep reaching me. The latest complaint is that she is now apparently conducting her own Male (well almost all) Voice Choir as they prepare to top the bill in Italian voice at our silver birthday celebration. So much so that in a delicious irony, to me at least, I hear that two of the Arty-Farty Wets are thinking of jumping on the band-Wagon next door. For the uninitiated Wet and Dry refer to the two halves of the Craft Room  at HazeI Court. I wouldn't put it beyond her, for she doubles in the role of leader of Swansea Writers, to have them reciting specially home crafted poetry as well, and maybe coming out in favour of her fallen hero, the fascist 'Il Duce' - Mussolini to you lot.


JAZZ
The best concert I've heard this year was two weeks ago from the Geoff Eales Quintet who are on a 25 concert 60th birthday tour of the UK. Small matter that it was my first visit of the year to Swansea Jazzland, for Geoff will still be there or thereabouts at the top by December. A hard working unit who specialise in puffing and blowing together in ensemble, unusual for modern jazz players who usually take it in in turns to show off in solos, but a feature of the best Trad Bands, I'm thinking here of post-war stars like Black American George Lewis and our very own Ken Collier.


The non-stop vigour of Geoff's piano playing put in mind that in  Trad jazz piano was always thought of in the role of percussion, that is not to forget that classically trained he was often tuneful, even reflective. This time his trio featuring excellent drummer Asaf Sirkis and Fred Thelonious Baker on bass guitar, was front-lined by Ben Waghorn, an exciting saxophone player (who never did pick up his base clarinet), and Carl Orr on guitar. They played standards, like Miles Davis's 'All Blues' from his landmark best-selling album 'Kind of Blue', mixed with Geoff's own excellent compositions.


The good news is that you have a second chance to hear them since they are playing as Geoff Eales and Friends at Porthcawl International Jazz Festival on Sunday Monday afternoon 24 April, the morning of the same day his trio will perform. 

The festival runs from 22 to 25th April with many fine performers across the spectrum spectrum from trad to modern and perhaps beyond including singer Jacqui Dankworth. We will not be there for we will be in France for a grand' daughter's 16th birthday. 


The very next week Karen Sharp, who won the 2010 British Jazz Award for tenor saxophone, Alan Barnes got the award for alto sax, reminded us how musical and tuneful modern jazz can be. I was so pleased she played one of my bossa nuova favourites 'The Dolphin', that when I got home I played the Stan Getz version and appreciated the edge and phrasing and changes in tonality which made him one the all-time greats on tenor. He like Miles Davis transcended the gulf with popular music and was so popular in the 60's with this form of jazz music - remember his recording with  singer Astrud Gilberto of 'The Girl from Ipanema' or the instrumental 'Jazz Samba' album with acoustic guitarist Charlie Byrd.


You have a second chance to Karen Sharp since she is playing with tenor Robert Fowler at the jazz festival at Upton on Severn from Friday 24 June to Sunday 26 June. We will be on our second trip of the year to France. Robert Fowler was playing in Alan Barnes band not so long ago at the Taliesin, I think to perform Alan's then new 'Sherlock Holmes Suite'.

POLITICS and CITIZENSHIP
We had an excellent lunch out in the Brasserie, Wind Street, on Thursday attended by around a dozen group members. It was arranged that day so we could go on to the public gallery of the Council Chamber to hear the Monthly? plenary session of the Council, the topic for discussion at the next meeting of the group. More joined us at the Civic Centre having come from the Gardening Group meeting, an unfortunate clash - but then there is so much going on these days such random clashes are unavoidable.


It's the first time I have been to a council meeting anywhere and in general I did not hold a good view of local politics and councillors. I must say the experience modified my view and some of those who spoke were most impressive, the fact that many such came from the senior members of the Cabinet benches was encouraging. On the downside there needed to be better amplification from the floor, although unlike say my wife Joan I have no acute problem with hearing some of the special presentations in particular were difficult to follow.


I must say I found many of the exchanges about the problems of Swansea's most deprived areas and concern about the education in these areas was moving and it was good to hear the discussion of professionally prepared planning documents. A few members fitted my previous buffoon image of councillors, none more so than the one who seemed more concerned to get photos with to promote himself on Facebook than the business of the chamber.


ARTS
I was heartened to read that my favourite Tobacco Factory Theatre in Bristol was given a grant from the Arts Council for the very first time (after twelve glorious years) and that in a year in which there were 15% cuts in the London based top end and savage cuts in the rest of the country making a total budget cut of 30%. The Bristol Old Vic also held onto the whole £1.2 million of their grant, another of my favourite venues and one which is currently closed for stage two of its rebuild. 

The choice of enterprises to support and those to drop had clearly been re-evaluated from scratch - and from my admittedly limited observations it has been done well. Appropriate targeting, including cutting out dead wood, is vital but it is a shame that there had to be a cut at all in this most vital area of British excellence, there aren't too many other areas where we are at the top echelon of the world league these days.  Certainly not manufacturing industry, football or cricket! Is investment banking really the best we can do? 


EDUCATION 
Question Time this week unusually had a complete panel who were prepared to argue logically and even Boris Johnson showed he was prepared to lend his support to sense talked by those of normally opposite views. 

To my mind that applied to the discussions about the Libyan crisis and education. The bit that pleased me most was to find most of the panel agreed that support so that talented but poor students could continue their studies was vital, previously called the EMA (educational maintenance grant) under Labour. There  was also a universal acceptance that the recently revised (narrowing) targeting was a step forward, but as with the Arts Council many expressed the view that it was too important an area to be cut at all. Education of our young is our future, without matching the importance that India and China give to this area our grandchildren will be dead meat.

I have many times in this blog returned to the belief that our grand'children's generation that suffers most from this crisis, even The Guardian is now belatedly preaching that theme. Just as our children's generation suffered most in the 80's. Many never recovered from their experiences in the 80's we called it the lost generation, the greed of us older generation will see it re-enacted. 


Mark Serwotka, a name new to me, was that unusual thing a trade unionist very clear about his personal philosophy and willing and able to use that to express eloquently the opinions derived there-from. You may take it I was heartened to hear logical argument by a member of a lobby which so often seems blinkered, and so often, usually for good reason, comes over as being simply defensive. He is a free thinker a breath of fresh air for Labour politics.

WAR and LIBYA
Anything I say about this crisis is more than probably to be overtaken by fast moving events, especially tonight because I haven't even listened to today's news. But here goes!


My opposition to war is clear, I believe the use of military force is nearly always counter-productive. We went into Libya to protect a population from undeserved violence, an arguable position I admit. Having largely achieved that aim what could be worse than arming the 'rebels' so that they can prolong the killing.

The only beneficiaries of that are the manufacturers of arms, like ourselves, we should aim to wean ourselves off such a dirty, overpriced, corrupt, trade.

CRICKET
I think I n must be the only one in Rugby mad Wales who has regularly stayed up till One pm to listening to the exciting World Cup games. 
Don't miss the climax tonight with the final in Bombay between Sri Lanka and India. Seen another way it is Master Batter  Sachin Tendulkar, indisputably the best since Bradman, who hopes to make his swansong his 100th Test Century today versus Master Tweaker the ham-strung Muralitharan (with  Shane Warne one of the two best spin bowlers of all time). He will fight through an injured hamstring to sign off from Test Cricket with a triumph.


Since England tied with India in one of their sequence of exciting close finishes whilst they were trashed by ten wickets to Sri Lanka the result should be a no brainer. But it won't be. Remember the sub-continent is even more crazy about cricket than Wales and New Zealand are about Rugby. Remember also that Tendulkar by his own admission used five (of his nine) lives in top scoring against Pakistan in their semi-final or they wouldn't be there at all. Home advantage should be a huge advantage to India in Mumbai, but the level of expectation may get to them as it does so often to England's football team at Wembley, if it doesn't and if Sri Lanka also perform to the standard they can reach expect a classic cliff hanger.