Thursday, May 05, 2011

I Post Stuff

As I said earlier in the week my internet connection has been down so I've not been able to post stuff. The problem is now sorted. So things I was going to say but didn't include:
  1. The strange behaviour of the US authorities regarding the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden and the disposal of his corpse is potentially damaging as it will fuel conspiracy theories and most conspiracy theorists end up hating America.
  2. The AV referendum is today. I voted yes despite my contempt for the pathetic campaign YES2AV have run which has seemed designed to alienate rather than convert centre right voters.
  3. The Canadian general election confounded my prediction and delivered a seismic shift that saw 2 of the 4 main parties suffer cataclysmic losses. The tantrums by Canadian left wingers are as hilariously over the top as those by their British counterparts following the London mayoral election in 2008. I'm sure the right does this sort of thing as well but I'm probably blind to it.
  4. Let's abolish council houses.
  5. I don't get what's so great about Pippa Middleton's arse- which has been one of the most searched for subjects this week.

7 comments:

banned said...

"5. I don't get what's so great about Pippa Middleton's arse"

There is clearly no hope for you.

JuliaM said...

Welcome back!

"...as it will fuel conspiracy theories ..."

I'm not sure that's all that worth worrying about. They seem to require no fuel in the first place.

Ross said...

Banned- I'm not saying it isn't nice, just that I don't see why it is so exceptional.

Julia- Yeah but getting rid of the body so quickly means that there isn't an easy way to refute the conspiracies that would convinve most reasonable sceptics.

Alan Peakall said...

Welcome back from me too.

On the AV referendum I voted "no", but I at least expected the yes campaign to do a much better job of making me feel guilty about it. Given a vote on STV later in the parliament, I might have flipped to "yes".

The sour grapes argument from the yes campaign seems to be based on the break of conservative voters shifting from 2:1 to 9:1 during the campaign, but, if that is the case, then, even ignoring non-conservative voters who were alienated by the no campaign, it would only have made the difference between 68:32 against and 58:42 against. I suspect that Cameron could have made do with the latter and may feel that Osborne overdid it.

Ross said...

You're probably right about Cameron preferring to have won a narrow victory, to keep Clegg in position.

"it would only have made the difference between 68:32 against and 58:42 against."

I suspect the fantasising about a 1000 year progressive majority probably put a lot of swing voters too.

Alan Peakall said...

I think Cameron would have wanted a comfortable "no" majority rather than a narrow one. Even with the actual result, 10 or 11 areas delivered a "yes". With only a narrow "no" majority, probably all the places where the BBC had outside broadcast teams would have voted "yes" and that would not exactly have helped put the issue to bed.

Ross said...

OK, a vctory that was wide enough to bury the issue without crushing Clegg.