Give us a referendum that matters

I consider horse racing even more tedious than most normal people find politics. So the fact that I spent Sunday at a point-to-point meeting says much about the ‘miserable little compromise’ that is marriage.

Very firm ground meant that the fields were sadly diminished: to such an extent that the first race was a one-horse walkover (I always vaguely wondered where that expression came from).

But at least it was all mercifully quick once the racing finally started. When the horses crossed the line, people knew the result and could tear up or cash in their betting slips. They did not have to wait a couple of days while boffins with electronic counting machines worked out the real result based on the second, third and fourth preferences of those who had backed the most egregious losers.

Which is the way our electoral system will be heading if the ‘Yes to AV’ campaign triumphs in the forthcoming referendum. This is a system no one really wants, and has been put forward with the same sort of care and consideration that attended Mr Blair’s brilliant reform of the House of Lords.

The only real object of the change is to place more Liberal Democrat bottoms on the benches of the House of Commons. Though admittedly that looks a pretty long shot now that the Lib Dems have made themselves so monumentally unpopular through their participation in the Coalition.

And would more Lib Dem MPs, in any case, be a good thing? Did most of the people who voted for them in the past ever understand what they actually stood for? Is there any solid evidence that they have proved, on average, less expenses-hungry or sexually incontinent than their peers in the two larger parties?

More of these? Former Lib Dem MP Lembit Opik

More of these? Former Lib Dem MP Mark Oaten

More of these? Sitting Lib Dem MP Mike Hancock

True, they tend to work hard in their constituencies, because they don’t feel the God-given right of Labour or Tory MPs in ‘safe seats’, but that just encourages the regrettable trend for MPs to become glorified social workers.

What is wrong with our politics is not the system of voting, but the fact that it has become a career choice. Oddly enough, we were better served when the Labour benches were stuffed with thick ex-trade union officials, who found their Parliamentary salary a nice little earner, and the Tory side with thick knights of the shire who were too rich to care about remuneration. Both groups viewed going into Parliament as a public service rather than a way to advance their own interests.

Today’s brighter careerists expect to match the rewards and recognition achieved by their contemporaries who went to work as high-flying local authority administrators or investment bankers. The problem has only been made worse by insisting that becoming an MP must be regarded as a full-time job.

Those dutiful thickoes somehow helped to run the largest empire the world has ever seen. The present shower do little more than rubber stamp the instructions issued by the Brussels-based empire of which our country has, in another one of its periodic fits of absence of mind, become a province.

Which is why, if £90 million can be found in these cash-strapped times to hold a referendum, it would have made a lot more sense to devote it to clearing up the running sore of our European Union membership. An ‘in or out’ vote on that would surely arouse the sort of passions on both sides that seem singularly lacking in the AV campaign. It might even get the public re-engaged with politics, as politicians claim to want.

But God forbid they should hear from us on anything important. AV matters only a little bit to just some of them, and will do nothing at all to improve life for the rest of us. The simple, first past the post answer can only be this: just say ‘no’.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Wishing you a Happy Iranian New Year

Sorry if this column seems a bit patchy but I am still recovering from the New Year celebrations. Persian New Year, that is, which started yesterday.

You might have thought you’d seen it all, what with the fireworks on Hogmanay and those Chinese shimmying down Stowell Street under a paper dragon last month (no cracks about how the Year of the Rabbit may affect the one child policy, please). But in fact you still have plenty of time to book a flight to Thailand to have water slung all over you in celebration of their new year on April 13, if that is your sort of thing.

You have missed the Iranian opportunity, though. We went to the pub, drank beer and ate pork scratchings, which seemed strangely out of tune with the Islamic Republic to me, but what do I know? I only married into it.

Not yet two, and washing down his pork scratchings with gin Note to Social Services: this is a JOKE

My wife said that we also needed to mark the occasion by putting on our table seven things whose names all began with “S”. These would help to ensure a year of plenty and happiness. So I did what I thought was a great job with sugar, Shake ‘n’ Vac and so on, until she gave me a withering look and pointed out that they had to begin with an “S” in Persian.

Hyacinths (or “shyacinths” in Farsi, I presume) were an important part of this mix, but sadly Mrs Hann had forgotten to buy any. She claimed it did not matter too much because she had forgotten last year, too. But then, as I pointed out, the cat died. Maybe I shouldn’t keep putting off making that appointment for an angiogram, as my consultant recommended several weeks ago.

It’s the start of 1390 in Iran, so at least they won’t have so far to travel when the West sets about bombing the place back into the Stone Age, as it no doubt will once the current little local difficulties in Libya and the like have all been settled. I looked up what was happening in England in 1390 for comparative purposes, but it seems to have been a rather dull year.

Though in Scotland, the well-known King Robert II dropped off the perch and was succeeded by his equally famous son, Robert III.

That is much the smooth way that the Gadaffis expected things to work out, I imagine, until the fickle West turned on them at the weekend. It must be very confusing being a crazed dictator. One minute you’re quietly starving or murdering your people, squirreling billions into your offshore bank accounts and being feted by the likes of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. And the next moment your old pals are firing rockets at you.

Unless you’re Robert Mugabe, say, and are inconveniently far from European air bases and don’t happen to be sitting on a huge great pool of oil.

Personally I am a great fan of non-involvement. Just so long as the bloodshed does not spread to Tyneside, I’d be quite content for the Iraqis, Afghans, Libyans, Bahrainis, Iranians etc to be left to work things out for themselves. One of the few definite advantages of having the ever-wet Liberal Democrats in Government seemed to be the likelihood that they would put a hand-wringing brake on the recent tendency of British administrations to join in gung-ho armed adventures (and you might have thought that consigning most of the arms to the scrapyard would have that effect, too).

But it would seem not. I know that bloke who was convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was in all probability an innocent fall guy, but wouldn’t it be wonderfully ironic if a stray missile landed on his house?

Though it’s much more likely to land on mine, to be realistic, thanks to those missing hyacinths. Happy 1390, everyone.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.