If you want to experience a proper rollercoaster of emotions, just watch an election in which you despise both of the main parties to hell.

Firstly, I apologise to the voters of Glasgow East for doubting their ability to vote for someone who wasn’t wearing a red rosette.

I was just flabbergasted to come in from a night out to hear them talking on the radio as if Labour had lost. And then came the declaration and it turned out that they had lost. Just unbelievable. If Labour lose a seat like Glasgow East then they really are in serious trouble. There really is no such thing as a safe Labour seat any more. You can forget it.

But will the SNP people stop saying that this was a contest between the Scottish Government and the UK Government. It was not. In Wesminster elections you vote on Westminster issues. People might have thought they were voting for the SNP Government, but only because people from the SNP and other politicos keep on misleading voters about it.

And if any London-types are calling this “Gordon Brown’s backyard” when I wake up in the morning, I am going to kick a brick wall. I know Scotland has plenty of wealthy lairds, but none of them are rich enough for the WHOLE COUNTRY to be their back yard.

I’m just watching the BBC’s coverage and Alex Salmond is actually unbearable. I have been actually shaking with rage (I swear the shaking is not to do with the drink) at the sheer smugness of that man. It amazes me that the SNP only ever do well when he is in charge of that party. What on earth do people see in him? Gordon Brown might be dour, but at least he is not a total arsehole!!

Final thought. I’d like Labour’s woes to continue until the General Election. I’d love for this to happen in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, even if it means the SNP winning. If nothing else, it would enable me to use the heading “They’ll be dancing in the streets of Raith tonight.”

Well, I say “final thoughts”, but really I mean “first and only thoughts” because this is the first time I’ve actually managed to find the time and motivation to write about tomorrow’s Glasgow East by-election.

It’s difficult to know what I am hoping for. The party I am most sympathetic towards — the Lib Dems — has a pretty low chance of achieving anything meaningful. And let us face it, the only reason Glasgow East has interested people is because Labour have a chance of losing a safe seat to the SNP.

Watching the SNP and Labour battling for votes in Glasgow East is like watching the two biggest bullies at school trying to win a popularity contest. You don’t want either of them to win, but deep down inside you really like it when one messes it up, even if it gives the other guy an advantage.

It’s been quite fun to see, therefore, both parties messing it up a bit. Labour’s woes have been pretty well documented. The former MP, David Marshall, is involved in a slimy corruption scandal. He pocketed half a mill in office expenses when his office was his house and his office staff was his family — while representing the poorest constituency in the country. Yes, that sort of brass neck would make me feel ill as well!

Then the candidate Labour were going to put up for the by-election turned out also to be very possibly a corrupt bastard as well. And the two people who “stood against” him magically disappeared — presumably because they were never intended to have a chance of actually being Labour’s candidate.

So Margaret Curran was parachuted in. She is actually quite good, though the “fourth choice” jibes are pretty damaging. This also leaves “the Labour Party in the Scottish Parliament” in a bit of a pickle because she was going to be their leader. But that’s a worry for another day.

I said Margaret Curran is quite good. I meant that she comes across well on the telly. But of course since she is a Labour politician she is actually a honking liar. She said she’s lived in the east of Glasgow all her life, when in fact she has lived for years in a fancy house on the south side. And she mistook a 67-year-old Labour Party activist for a 93-year-old World War II hero “who looks not a day past 70, by the way”.

Not that the SNP’s candidate, John Mason, seems to be much better. In fact, he seems like the sort of person your mother warned you about. When asked about his views on an independence referendum, his answer was somewhat creepy.

When you ask someone to marry you, sometimes you have to persist.

Lovely.

John Mason also has a history of anti-English behaviour, demanding that a school remove England flags from a World Cup display. Given that the SNP is supposed to be trying to do away with the perceived anti-English element of the party — and does a good job of it, by and large — I am surprised that the SNP should give someone with these views a platform in an important by-election.

I don’t believe the SNP is an anti-English party per se (though undoubtedly many of its supporters are anti-English). But if they do not put a lid on this element more effectively might it become their Clause IV?

This is becoming a running theme of this blog, but I’ll say it again — you can’t blame people for not wanting to vote. And it looks like turnout will be very low in Glasgow East.

That is not just because the two front-running parties keep on fouling up. It is because of the decades of Labour neglect that have been inflicted on the area. Glasgow East is a part of the world that has been held by Labour since 1922. Yet it is in an utterly terrible shape.

The statistic about life expectancy in Glasgow East being roughly equal to that of the Gaza Strip is untrue. Life expectancy in Gaza is 71.01 years. In one part of the constituency, Calton, life expectancy is as low as 53.9 years. You can expect to live longer in Pyongyang than in Glasgow.

It is staggering that this kind of poverty exists in the UK. And this is a seat that Labour have held for eight and a half decades straight. Labour is the party of the poor? If by that you mean they like there to be lots of poor people, then you are bang on.

You can blame the Conservatives all you want, but the fact is that in the 86 years Labour have represented the area, Labour have been in government for around 40 of them. And of course 11 of those have been the last 11 years. Given that it is such a poor area, you would have thought Labour would be eager to help them out. Given that Glasgow East is such a safe seat, where Labour have one of their most convincing mandates, you would think Labour would be eager and willing to repay their voters.

But no. As Fraser Nelson has shown, Glasgow East is the ultimate example of the utter failure of Labour and its policies.

Of course, it is also a shining example of the problems created by Labour’s best pal, the First Past the Post voting system. It was the very safeness of the seat that enabled Labour in the west of Scotland to become the arrogant, corrupt cesspit it became.

That is why David Marshall has absolutely no data on the voters of Glasgow East. He just didn’t care. It is the voters’ very loyalty that has meant that the Labour government has continued to ignore the area. “Not a marginal seat? Not a swing voter? Not interested.”

Given that these very voters are constantly lied to by the media and various other people that Labour is the only party that can act in the interests of the poor, it is no wonder that apathy is so widespread in Glasgow East. If I thought Labour — the party that’s been in charge since 1922 — was the best hope for change, I’d be pretty glum about it too.

The really depressing thing is that Labour will almost certainly win this election. That is partly because of the lies I’ve described in the above paragraph. Is it a cliché to say that a monkey in a red rosette would win in Glasgow East? That is the only conclusion you can come to when, time and time again, the voters keep on re-electing this bunch of failures that have done absolutely nothing for them. It is accurate to describe these kinds of seats in the west of Scotland as the modern equivalent of rotten boroughs.

As for the idea that Glasgow East’s voters will be confused between Margaret Curran and the SSP’s Frances Curran, thereby losing Labour some votes, I don’t buy that. The voters won’t be looking for the name ‘Curran’ on the ballot slip. They’ll be looking for the word ‘Labour’.

I was quite surprised therefore when at the start of the campaign political pundits based in London were confidently predicting an SNP win. I think they couldn’t imagine Labour winning any election in the kind of climate the Westminster Government finds itself in at the moment. But they didn’t count on the trusty voters of west central Scotland, who continue to vote Labour like a dirty old man who likes a good hard spanking.

It shows how out of touch the political pundits in London are with the rest of the UK. Since then, things have stabilised and received wisdom seems to point towards a Labour win, albeit with a hugely reduced majority.

Even though the SNP seem confident, I don’t see Labour losing. I think the SNP are making a big mistake by confidently predicting an “earthquake“. This will allow Labour to present a narrow majority (the most likely outcome) as a victory for them when it is anything but.

The fact that Labour’s victory is even in doubt is the real sign that Labour have failed. It shows that just now there is not really such a thing as a safe Labour seat. But the SNP have given them the perfect opportunity to bounce back.

What do I want to happen? Like I say, the choice between the SNP and Labour is a choice between shit and shite. I want neither party to win. I certainly want neither party to convincingly win.

As such, I want the result to be an extremely narrow Labour victory (1,000–500 votes or less). This would maximise the pain to both parties — Labour barely clinging on to what was one of their safest seats, while the SNP lose an election they predicted they would win. Fingers crossed!

In my previous post I asked, “Incidentally, how come Nicola Sturgeon always seems to be at the centre of these internet rumours come election time?”

A couple of days later someone submitted a comment (on a post that is over three and a half years old!) that contains the most outlandish rumour I have heard about Nicola Sturgeon yet. So outlandish that I’ve decided not to publish it. It’s not often I decide not to publish a comment, but given the nature of the comment I feel it’s best to be on the safe side!

I haven’t written this post to generate any kind of buzz or anything — I just don’t believe the comment and wouldn’t give it any credibility because I know it is untrue. A detail in the comment which must be incorrect gives it away.

Makes you wonder though. Given that just a few days previously I wrote about Nicola Sturgeon and rumours, I did wonder what she did to deserve this kind of whispering. Unlike the rumours I’d heard before, this comment felt more like a baseless nasty attack rather than relatively harmless tittle-tattle.

I’ve never heard these sorts of things being said about, say, Annabel Goldie or Wendy Alexander or any other vaguely high-profile Scottish politician — in terms of both the tittle-tattle and the more nasty thing. Does Nicola Sturgeon just upset a lot of people or what?

My oh my, it’s certainly been getting heated in the Scottish political blogosphere of late. The Glasgow East by-election has captivated us all — and it’s captivated some people a bit too much.

Councillor Andrew Burns can’t remember it being like this during the Dunfermline West by-election. If I was in a cheeky mood I might say that is because Lib Dems are just big soft hippies. (Lib Dem Stephen Glenn disapproves of the current blogospheric Labour–SNP tensions.)

But I think the Glasgow East brouhaha is more to do with the fact that, uniquely, both of the main parties in the running are severely on the back foot. Labour are in big trouble because there is the possibility that this safer-than-safe seat will be lost. This in itself represents a major blow for Labour and they are scrabbling defensively to save something from this election.

Meanwhile, the SNP are in big trouble because they started the campaign by confidently predicting a win. When that possibility is by no means certain, they are going on the attack to try and make sure the victory happens and that a narrow loss (which otherwise would have been a massive coup for the SNP) is avoided.

Jeff has heard it rumoured that the blogosphere will be a prominent feature of the Sunday newspapers this weekend as the fuss over this post by Kezia Dugdale continues to rumble on. In the comments over at Stephen Glenn’s blog, Jeff pointed out that by-elections bring out the worst in all of us (by which he means them). “Delightfully so.”

I’m sorry to say that I’m not so delighted (maybe that is my fluffy Lib Dem tendency taking over). In fact, the rough and tumble of party political debate is one of the things that has made me more apathetic about party politics in recent years.

Two or three years ago I used to get involved in all that verbal jousting with party political types. I’m ashamed to say that I was quite rude once or twice in a manner which was uncalled for. But I did get quite annoyed at the way some people seemed to want to inflame the situation and it was inevitable that tensions would boil over at some point or another. I didn’t really enjoy it. In fact it angered me.

Then I realised what was going on. These people actually enjoy the rough and tumble. They live and breathe it. That is why they became politicians. They love to tear metaphorical lumps out of their opponents rather than debating in a calm manner. If they say something below the belt, they don’t necessarily mean real harm. It is a kind of pantomime. A verbal boxing match.

Then I looked at the nasty election campaigns that political parties so often take part in. The relentless negativity and attacking made me wonder if this is what politicians are really in it for. Just as a boxer chooses to box because he likes to fight, a politician chooses his profession because he likes to fight. Except that a politician doesn’t have the physical prowess.

Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with mental battles. This is what debating really is: a verbal chess game. But it’s okay to do it in a debating society. Is it so cool to do it under the pretence that you’re doing it for the good of the people?

Now onto the right storm in a teacup that is Kezia Dugdale’s blog post. Now I don’t know if the rumour is true or not. I err towards the notion that it’s true. Jeff now seems to think it’s true, and I’m sure he has ways of finding out (relative to me anyway — I have no contacts and no-one ever tips me off about anything *sniff*). Plus I doubt that Kezia Dugdale would post something like that unless it was true.

Clearly, though, her post was ambiguously worded in order to have maximum impact. She made it sound as though the SNP cabinet minister in question (who, it transpires, is Nicola Sturgeon) was completely at fault when it seems as though BBC Scotland were probably equally at fault. Now, according to Tom Harris, Nicola Sturgeon’s big crime is trying to wave the security man away. How awful of her!!

Regardless of the merits of the story (”tittle-tattle” was mentioned in the first comment on Kezia Dugdale’s post, and I wouldn’t disagree with that), I have personally had great mileage out of it as I have been gleefully repeating the story to my non-blogging friends. Incidentally, I have equally gleefully been telling the stories of Labour’s various mishaps as well, before any nats start jumping up and down.

Nonetheless, the story is just a bit of fun really and it doesn’t demonstrate that Nicola Sturgeon has made any serious error of judgement (although, as I said, the original post was ambiguously-enough worded to make you think it might have). In short, it is just a light-hearted sort of “and finally”-style election story if you ask me. A Prescott punch-level story, as Two Doctors points out.

The fact that the next day Nicola Sturgeon apparently asked Kezia Dugdale to retract the post says much more about Nicola Sturgeon than the original post said about Kezia Dugdale if you ask me. What was a minor post on a blog that didn’t say very much about the SNP is now apparently on the verge of being big news (or bigger than it was anyway).

The story has certainly snowballed since then and the Scottish blogosphere has been in about as much of a frenzy as I have ever seen it in. It all reminds me of the Schillings scenario. Wouldn’t it have been better for Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP to take the moral high ground and ignore it?

I have to point out that I quite admire Kezia Dugdale. I am no apologist for Labour, as regular readers will know. But you have got to take your hat off to her. Even though, because of all that rough and tumble that I dislike, no-one enters politics unless they have a thick skin, Kezia Dugdale has to take a lot of flak.

She is practically the only major Labour voice in a Scottish blogosphere that is increasingly dominated by SNP macho-men (dare I call them ‘cybernats’?) who are poised, waiting to throw stones at Labour. I and many others would give up in that situation. You’ve got to give Kezia Dugdale credit for perseverance if nothing else.

Even though her blog is ridiculously partisan and never very critical of the Labour party, you can easily level this criticism at two or three SNP blogs as well (Tartan Hero and Calum Cashley spring to mind). Ideas of Civilisation had a really interesting post about this. Why do people blog about politics, particularly when they are often so polemical?

Related to that, Views from North Britain reminds us that blogging is still a minority activity. So any amount of posting on a blog is unlikely to have much of an effect.

Incidentally, how come Nicola Sturgeon always seems to be at the centre of these internet rumours come election time? I seem to remember during last year’s Scottish Parliament elections the story of her very rude nickname was flying relatively freely…

Update: I have just seen this post from Holyrood Watcher which pretty much sums up the situation.

This post began as a response to Jeff in the comments to a post below. But it was getting long and waaay off topic. So I have decided to post it as a separate post.

To save you from trawling all the way through the discussion, we were basically wondering whether the SNP can afford to throw away student votes. I think we agreed that they probably can, because student votes don’t exist to a great extent anyway.

And you raise a good point about the students too. I do wonder how many of them really vote despite their protests and the like. Am I right in thinking that you were even considering not voting? If that’s the case then not much more proof is needed that student participation rates are low.

Jeff is right that I am considering not voting in the next election. It all depends on how annoyed I am at all the parties. Last time round I voted for everyone but Labour (even giving Solidarity my fourth choice!) in the local elections. Possibly in the general election I will throw my weight behind an anti-Gordon Brown tactical voting campaign since I live in his constituency. How funny would it be if he lost his seat? I can’t miss out on that opportunity!

But in general I am pretty disappointed in all of the parties. And given that I have almost zero chance of affecting the outcome anyway, I see little point in casting my vote. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m apathetic about politics, as you are surely aware.

I can’t speak for other students of course, but I think they are much like all young people, and to an extent people in general. Some are really interested in politics and will vote in any election no matter how inconsequential. But many, many others are entirely disenchanted with politics.

There is a stereotype that students are generally heavily interested in politics. Of course there is that element of loud-mouthed self-styled radicals. But they are in a pretty small minority. Most students, I bet, could not give two hoots about party politics. Even some politics students I’ve come across can be surprisingly poorly informed.

This has something to do with blogging as well. It used to perplex me — perhaps it still does — that you do not get more students blogging about politics. After all, students are supposed to be opinionated and earnest. And they often have plenty of spare time to dedicate to this sort of thing. Plus, all of this blogging and new technology — you might expect it to be a young person’s game.

But you don’t get many student political bloggers. From the top of my head, I can count them on one hand. Maybe I can count them on two fingers — including me. I remember once a survey revealed that the average age of readers of political blogs is 40.

Even among my mostly politically aware circle of friends, I probably know almost as many non-voters as voters. I am somewhere in the middle. For the time being I vote, but I don’t blame anyone for not voting.

Funnily enough, despite the general trend that people get more interested in politics (or at least are more likely to vote) as they get older, I have moved in the opposite direction. When I was as young as possibly 12 or 13 I was more earnest and couldn’t see why anyone wouldn’t vote. Now at 22 I am jaded and cynical and am more and more likely to abstain every day.

What does it say about me that I’m jaded and cynical at the age of 22? Imagine what I’ll be like when I’m actually an old codger…

Anyone disagree with me on students and politics? I know a few students (or graduands!) will be reading this, so what do you think?

I am rather confused by Jeff’s post on the SNP’s new proposals designed to curb anti-social drinking. He says that the SNP’s approach is radical and is proof that the SNP is not just populist. But when you look at the proposals, they are a who’s who of reactionary measures that could well have been lifted straight out of a cliché-ridden Daily Excess editorial.

Let’s look at the list as laid out by Jeff.

• Raise the limit for purchasing alcohol in off-licenses to 21

  Well right away this is about as populist as policies get. Blame it on the yoof. The media loves to do it, and the politicians love to throw around these age limits. They get to look “tough” by passing some draconian legislation that adversely affects someone. And who better to do this to than the youth, who do not vote in high numbers because they are already so disenchanted? SNP wins by looking tough without losing any votes.

  Besides that, what is this age limit supposed to achieve? We all know that these age limits are about as workable as a chocolate kettle. Given that there is currently an age limit of 18 and under-18s still find it easy enough to get their hands on alcohol, what makes anyone think that raising the limit by a few years will improve the situation any?

  There is nothing to suggest that raising that limit to 21 will make it any more difficult for rowdy youths to get their hands on alcohol. And why should perfectly law-abiding 18-20 year olds who intend to drink alcohol responsibly be prohibited from doing so?

  The fact is that those youths who really want to get alcohol will just nick it from their dad’s cabinet. Or their friend’s dad’s cabinet. Or their uncle’s cabinet. Or anywhere they can get it from. That is assuming they haven’t just got someone else who is above 21 to buy it for them, as Scottish Tory Boy points out.

  Congratulations SNP — you have made it almost impossible for law-abiding drinkers to get their hands on alcohol, whereas the rowdy contingent are encouraged into behaving even more rowdily.

  And if you want people to act like adults, it’s probably not the best idea to treat them like kids.

• Reprice drinks to a minimum of 35p per unit of alcohol

  You want a continental “café-style” drinking culture? Then raising the price of alcohol is the last thing you should do.

  Why is that then? Well, increasing the price of alcohol will mean it will make little sense to just have one or two drinks with a meal. It will be too expensive for little return. If alcohol costs three or four times more than coffee, no-one will drink it like coffee. Instead, people will use alcohol by saving up their money for a big night out. The result? More binge drinking.

  Jeff says that the SNP’s policies are remarkably similar to those of Sweden. He is correct. Jeff also says that “I can easily imagine [they] don’t have the same alcohol-dependency and vandal culture that we have here.” Unfortunately, Jeff hasn’t done his research because Scandinavia — where alcohol is much more expensive than it is here — has a notorious binge drinking problem.

  Nor is the USA exactly a haven of responsible drinking. Has he never heard of the American phenomenon of “spring break”? These North American events are legendary for their excessive binge drinking and rowdy behaviour. Nor do I think of Australia as one of the most sober nations in the world!

  Clearly, simply raising the price of alcohol won’t encourage people to stop binge drinking. In fact, if anything, it will have the opposite effect.

• Have dedicated [alcohol] checkouts in some of the larger supermarkets

  I’m not exactly sure what this idea is supposed to achieve. Jeff says it is to create an “inconvenience of having to go for a separate checkout to buy alcohol.” But what does it mean? Walking a few yards? If people will have already travel all the way to the supermarket, having them walk to a different checkout is hardly going to put anyone off.

  And think about the scenario. You’ve got some irresponsible people who only go to the supermarket to buy some bottles. They just go to the alcohol checkout, pay for their goods and then saunter off to the park to cause some fuss. Then you’ve got the responsible drinkers who want to enjoy a few glasses with their meals. These people are genuinely inconvenienced, as they have to go to the checkout twice — once to pay for their food, and another time to pay for their alcohol.

  Yet again, the responsible drinkers are punished whereas the troublemakers hardly bat an eyelid. Yet another sloppy policy.

• Increase of financial support for alcohol prevention, treatment and support services

  No complaints here. This seems sensible enough to me.

This is not to say that there is not a problem with irresponsible binge-drinking and rowdy neds in the streets. Jeff rightly notes that Scotland has a problem and it’s not good enough just to sit there and let it continue. The point is that these measures will do absolutely nothing to curb binge drinking. If anything, they will exacerbate the problems while making life difficult for the majority who drink sensibly.

Unfortunately — as we see from governments of all shades time and again — the temptation for a government faced with a problem is just to do something, anything. Preferably sounding tough. Then declare the problem solved. No matter whether the solution is well thought-through or planned out.

Ideas of Civilisation has written a really interesting post about the state of the Scottish blogosphere compared with the dodgy comments that get posted on The Herald’s website, Scotsman.com and the like.

The Scottish blogosphere is indeed, by and large, a pretty good place for a debate. Nowadays it is probably dominated a bit too much by SNP supporters, but I think the debate is usually pretty respectful. IoC asks, why does this respectful atmosphere not cross over into the mainstream media comment sites?

The answer is that they are mainstream media comment sites. As I have pointed out before, trolls, flamers and knuckle-draggers are attracted to MSM comment sites like flies on a shit. The blog spEak You’re bRanes, a blog I mention many times, does a good job of compiling the most ridiculous comments posted to MSM outlets.

The thing is that IoC is right when he says that the debate in the Scottish blogosphere is good. But this isn’t peculiar to Scotland. The debate in the blogosphere world-wide is also good. Meanwhile, the phenomenon of extreme comments in MSM websites does not just exist on Scottish websites (although Scotland does have a distinct phenomenon with its ‘cybernats’). It is known to media outlets the world over, and even some big websites such as Digg and YouTube.

So why is there such a difference? After all, the point of blogging is meant to be that it’s really easy to get involved in. So why don’t people with poisonous views pollute the blogosphere so easily?

The answer is that it’s so simple to avoid poisonous people in the blogosphere. Does someone have a terrible blog? That’s okay, because no-one will read it. Knuckle-dragging extremists find that they will reach a far wider audience if they post on a website like Scotsman.com or the BBC.

There is another answer. Even though in theory it is easy to set up a blog, the reality is slightly different. You still have to put in quite a lot of effort. It can be time-consuming and you have to come up with the goods to make sure people read it. If you are not interested in having a genuine discussion, you will soon find that blogging is quite costly. But for those who are willing to put the effort in for there to be a good debate, the pay-off can be good. For this reason, bloggers tend to be more articulate, reasoned and intelligent than your average Have Your Sayer.

Does this mean that we should give up on the idea of having comments on the BBC’s blogs or The Herald’s political stories? Far from it. All you have to do to improve the nature of the debate is create the right mechanism to ensure that the cream will rise up.

Websites such as Digg and YouTube have implemented a voting mechanism in an attempt to get rid of trolls. You can choose to give a comment a ‘thumbs up’ or a ‘thumbs down’. The BBC’s Have Your Say has a similar voting mechanism. However, this doesn’t work in my view. In fact, if anything, it exacerbates the problem. It just makes the comments section even more of a hotbed of demagoguery — the loudest attention seekers, not the most reasoned and articulate, will grab the most votes.

Some websites are just lucky enough to have a good audience that respects debate. The Economist’s website is said to be relatively free of HYS-style trolls. That is probably due to the target audience of the publication. I suspect many HYSers aren’t even aware of the existence of The Economist and if they are, they aren’t interested in posting there because it’s not a publication for them.

However, for the more mass-market audiences of the likes of the BBC, The Herald and The Scotsman, it’s too late to do anything about this. They made a decision long ago to appeal to the masses, so its audience will have that demagogic element that will be reflected in the comments.

Another alternative might be to force users to post under their real names. It is generally believed that once people’s cloak of anonymity has been removed, their online debating style becomes more respectful and considered.

On the other hand, many bloggers and commenters have genuine reason to wish to remain anonymous. And, barring the universal adoption of an OpenID-style system, it would be nigh on impossible to police. A decent ‘middle ground’ option might be to place OpenID comments at the top of the thread and hide the anonymous comments towards the bottom of the page.

Another possible solution is simply to make it costly for the ill-informed jokers to take part. For some, it may be an anathema to make people pay to post comments — almost against the culture of the web. But it needn’t be.

There is one big website that is known for having decent comments sections that avoid the numbskullery of sites such as YouTube — MetaFilter. There it costs $5 to post comments. That is a one-time life-long fee. Pay $5 and you can post to your heart’s content. There is also a one-week time lag between signing up and being able to post.

This ensures that only the people who are interested in contributing properly get involved. $5 is quite a small fee for those who really value MetaFilter, but it is enough to deter time-wasting trolls. A one-week time lag also prevents people from just posting a crazy extreme rant in the heat of the moment. Just like blogging, MetaFilter is costly for the time-wasters, but beneficial for those who want to make a genuine contribution.

The solution for the MSM websites if they want to clean out their comment sections is therefore to somehow create a mechanism that makes it costly for extremist ranters to post, but makes it beneficial for those who want to take part in a reasoned debate.

Perhaps a MeFi-style one-off fee or a time lag might do the trick. If you had to pay, say, £5 to open a lifetime account on Scotsman.com to allow you to post, you might just go for it if that £5 was enough to deter the ranting trolls. It could also be a handy (though potentially small) additional source of income for the media outlets.

IoC’s issue isn’t just with the media websites though. It’s also with the Scottish Government’s website. If a government website becomes an outlet for extreme views, that is undoubtedly a problem. The Scottish Government’s “National Conversation” has been accused of being “a chatroom for cybernats“. That was probably always inevitable. After all, a “conversation” about independence initiated by the SNP is bound not to last long or be very meaningful.

Nonetheless, I have to applaud the Scottish Government for going ahead with the project. To have user-generated content on a government website is pretty big stuff if you ask me and it’s probably the right thing to do — engaging the citizens in the policy-making process and all that.

But the contributions have to be meaningful. I’ve not been following the National Conversation very closely. Skimming through it just now, it doesn’t look too bad, but obviously it’s caused concern among some.

Perhaps for user-generated content on government websites there should be an expectation that you do not contribute anonymously. I think that is probably a reasonable expectation for someone who wants to take part in civic society. People who write a letter to their MP or MSP or another figure in public office can’t expect a reply without supplying a name and address. The Government’s e-petition website also requires you to enter a name and address. The authenticity of some of these names is questionable though.

Perhaps future projects like the National Conversation might require people to supply real names and addresses (not publicly viewable of course) in order to participate. This would remove the cloak of anonymity and improve the likelihood of there being a sensible debate. Looking at the National Conversation website, it looks like most (but not all) participants are contributing under their real names anyway. Still, it’s a thought.

I see that the Terry Watch blog was the subject of a piece in last week’s Sunday Herald (via Jeff).

I didn’t read Terry Watch. In fact, I wasn’t even aware it was still going. I expressed my discomfort about the blog not too long after it started, actually.

I’m not particularly a fan of these negative campaign blogs as a whole. I think inevitably the heat / light ratio increases in such blogs. For that reason I didn’t ever check the blog while I was compiling the Roundups. For the same reasons I also ignore blogs such as Ridiculous Politics and Fib Dems — both blogs which now appear to be defunct. It’s possibly fair to say that Terry Watch too is now defunct.

Despite the fact that I wasn’t particularly a fan of the Terry Watch blog, I can’t agree with Jeff’s assessment that Terry Kelly was the victim of “bullying” here. I haven’t seen the controversial images that were posted by Shotgun (not a blogger I’ve ever been a fan of). From what I have heard though they certainly crossed the line.

But a lot of what I saw on Terry Watch could be bracketed under ‘fair comment’. Some excellent bloggers were involved in the site, some of whom have found their names being dragged through the mud in the comments over at the Sunday Herald website quite unfairly.

Indeed, the whole piece, written by Jasper Hamill, looks like pretty bad journalism to me. Through a sleight-of-hand Hamill attempts to associate the Terry Watch blog with racist hate-mail sent to Terry Kelly. To link the blog to this mail without any evidence is pretty disingenuous, particularly since the anti-Terry Kelly backlash began several months before the Terry Watch blog was set up. I, for instance, wrote about Terry Kelly as early as 2006, and again here. I followed up a couple of months later describing him as The greatest argument against representative democracy — a view I stick to.

If you read the article carefully it is clear that the controversy surrounding the Terry Watch blog was caused by Shotgun. But the story is “sexed up” with liberally-sprinkled references to Right for Scotland, revealing his identity in the process. The reason the story mentions RfS? Because he once stood for the Conservative party. In other words, this story is yet more of the “Booo! Tories!” nonsense that I wrote about last month.

The headline is, “Failed Tory candidate contributed to hate website attacking political rival — ‘TerryWatch’ blog contains uploaded photographs of Labour councillor’s daughter doctored to create obscene images”. A more faithful headline would have read, “Random shock-blogger Shotgun posts offensive images” — but that would have taken the wind right out of the sails of the story.

Plobotsky continued the ‘guilt by association’ theme set by Jasper Hamill, accusing several top Scottish bloggers of being culpable for Shotgun’s images. Obviously, though, they are not culpable for Shotgun’s images. Clairwil has explained why.

I guess the difference between Clairwil et al. and Right for Scotland is that RfS apparently continued to post after Shotgun’s images were published while the others decided to stop contributing. That perhaps demonstrates that RfS has slightly poor judgement, but it hardly shows any malicious intent. I feel sorry for him that his name has been dragged through the mud as a result of gutter journalism. Thankfully a few of the comments provide testimonials outlining RfS’s good character, which I see no reason to doubt.

As for Terry Kelly, I can feel no sympathy for him. As I recall, the original reason why Terry Watch was set up was as a response to Terry Kelly’s thoroughly abusive responses to commenters on his blog. As I said in that post I wrote last year, the Kellys (Terry and Rayleen) have a pretty solid track record of baselessly accusing other bloggers of being mentally ill, racist, homophobic and whatever slurs he can manage to shove into the debate.

Once, instead of engaging in a proper conversation with me, he decided to slur me by saying that I must either be a nationalist or right-wing. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think if you have been reading my blog for any length of time you will come to the opposite conclusion. Terry Kelly obviously couldn’t be bothered actually reading my blog and engaging in a sensible debate, so decided to resort to ill-targeted personal attacks.

That wasn’t my final encounter with him though. He went back to Scottish Roundup, calling me “janus faced C - - -”. One can only guess what his four-letter C-word was supposed to be, but at least he had the decency to censor himself on that occasion. Given his track record, one can only assume that he is crying crocodile tears when he complains about the robust nature of Terry Watch in the Sunday Herald piece.

However, despite being at the receiving end of his terrible debating skills, I did not feel the need to take part in the Terry Watch malarkey. I felt that Terry Kelly’s own blog did the job for Terry Watch. You don’t have to spend long reading it to realise that Terry Kelly is an utter buffoon, with badly-thought out opinions and a debating style that borders on the abusive who routinely fails to publish legitimate comments. In short, it sums up everything that is wrong with the anything-as-long-as-it’s-Labour mentality that exists in the west of Scotland.

Did Jasper Hamill’s piece mention just how bad a representative Terry Kelly is? Just this weaselly-worded phrase: “ill-thought out proclamations which, among other things, claimed women were “thick”". Calling women thick is just the tip of the iceberg of the problem with Terry Kelly. Delving into the bizarre views of Terry Kelly and just what accounts for the fact that this man gets elected time after time would have made for a much more worthy story than trying to attach the blame to RfS for something he didn’t do.

As for the suggestion that the Terry Watch blog represented bullying, I would think that this is an overstatement. Bullies are people who pick on the weak and powerless. As a Labour councillor, Terry Kelly is certainly neither weak nor powerless compared to the bloggers he crosses swords with in his own borderline-abusive manner. To call Terry Watch a bullying campaign is surely an injustice to the many people who are the real victims of bullying.

As long as the content is non-abusive, there is a place for a blog like Terry Watch, no matter how negative it is. Terry Kelly is an elected representative and therefore ought to be held to account. And as Clairwil said, I doubt Terry Kelly entered politics without being thick-skinned enough to take robust debate. He certainly knows how to dole it out.

There is a lesson from all of this though. As bloggers, we have a responsibility to ensure that high standards of debate are adhered to. Both Terry Kelly himself and the Terry Watch blog probably failed on this account. Indeed, online debates are well known for descending into flame wars, tirades of abuse and disrespect. How to keep the standards of debate high will be the subject of a future post here.

Jeff at SNP Tactical Voting took the baton from me and listed his top 10 blogs (although unlike me, he concentrated just on Scottish political blogs). In the process, he accused this place of having “a scarcity of posts of late”.

Guilty as charged. A number of elements have conspired against me when it comes to updating this blog.

First of all, I set up a separate F1 blog — immediately robbing this place of around half its content! Then there was the fact that I was in my final year at university. I didn’t want to mess it up as the dissertation deadline passed, then essay deadlines, then the exams came along.

Even since the exams have finished, though, it hasn’t quite worked out. I always find the transition from busy (!) student to lazy summertime bum difficult for some reason that I can’t put my finger on. Blogging always takes a back seat for a week or two as I grab some rest and get those summer jobs dealt with. I have been — gasp — reading books for leisure (which I never get the time to do during term time). I have been listening to that pile of unlistened-to CDs that has built up since last summer. The pile is now down to six which is very exciting. I have also tidied my room from top to bottom, sorting through stuff to work out if I should chuck them out or not.

Then there is the small matter of finding a job. Or, more accurately, working out what my career is going to be. Now that university is over for good (and I doubt I will be darkening the doors of academia again), I can now — belatedly — devote more of my brain power towards researching careers. I have not got very far forward. Every time I seem to get closer to finding a path that I find acceptable, something comes along to put me off. For this and various other reasons, I still find myself running around Edinburgh from time to time.

Also, for the past seven or eight months I have routinely been taking daily walks round the park and suchlike. This was partly to get me out of the house and into the sun. It is also with one eye on my slowly-but-surely expanding belly. A good side-effect is that I spend the walks listening to podcasts that I would never otherwise manage to listen to. However, it’s possibly fair to assume that this time may otherwise have been spent blogging which is why things have been a lot quieter here over the past year or so.

Then, just when I was ready to get back into the swing of things, all of my websites were knocked out by that exploding transformer. Then a different issue put my websites out of action on Tuesday as well! All-in-all, I lost about three days of possible blogging activity.

And then I got some good news. I’ve got a degree, and it’s a 2:1. It was such a relief — I was genuinely worried that I was headed for a 2:2 which would have been seriously demoralising. I would really have kicked myself for a few things if that happened, but somehow I have escaped.

I still don’t know the marks for all of my courses yet, which is quite frustrating. Of the scores that I know, I was on course for a 2:2. And I am sure I muffed up one of the exams that I haven’t had back yet. I’d love to think it was my dissertation that pulled the whole lot up. Anyway, I shouldn’t worry about that now. What matters is that I’ll be doing the silly dressing up thing with the stupid hats and scroll things later this month. (Incidentally, does anyone know where the hell you get a white bow tie in this area? That is the rubbish I am being asked to wear for this thing.)

All of this is just a really long-winded way of saying: yes, I know, it’s quiet round here. Jeff said that the scarcity posts is made up for with thorough detail. That is really a side-effect of the fact that it takes me so bloody long to get round to writing anything. By the time I’ve reached this little screen my head has collected so many thoughts on the issue that I end up writing a bloomin’ essay. Even this post is probably about 2,000 words long now.

The thing is, just because I’m not posting much on this blog doesn’t mean I’m not posting much at all. There are four other major outlets of mine. Twitter is the main one where I post anything that will fit into the 140 character limit. Then there is Delicious where I post interesting links, often along with a pithy comment. Then there are the two other blogs, Scottish Roundup and vee8.

These all have a presence on the sidebar here, but I thought it would be good to have an area where all of these various updates are gathered on one page. I started with a lifestream (launched a few weeks ago, though I kept it quiet). But I wanted something a bit different so I spent a bit of time in Yahoo! Pipes to create what I have modestly called the “megafeed“. For the time being I’ve placed it just above the lifestream on… the lifestream page.

Neither of them is exactly perfect. The lifestream just contains the headlines of each item. It incorporates Last.fm as well, but it’s pretty rough and ready really. Meanwhile, the megafeed just looks like a big list of stuff. There’s no way to tell whether it’s a Twitter update, a blog post or what. I tried to make it more obvious, but either there isn’t a way to do it in Yahoo! Pipes or I am too much of a n00b to work out how to do it. Just thought I’d mention it since I spent a bit of time on it. Think of it as a stalking opportunity.

Now that I have sorted that out, it is time to post not just in the four other places but here as well. Now I have drawn up a little list of posts I want to write. My calendar for this week looks fairly empty. I should probably be looking for a job but I will try to get some stuff up here too.

How Terry Wogan sees Europe

So, yet another Eurovision Song Contest, and get another round of chest-beating and sour grapes from people who think that the reason the UK came last was because of a Europe-wide conspiracy against us and in favour of any of those commies to the east. Every year the protests seem to get louder, and every year they annoy me even more.

Apparently it was inevitable that Russia were always going to benefit from “political” voting. So inevitable that I didn’t see anyone predicting it. Terry Wogan himself didn’t, except until Russia started racking up the points at which point it had become an obvious conspiracy.

The thing is, this is nonsense. As Chris Applegate has pointed out, this is the first time Russia has ever won the Eurovision Song Contest. So much for the inevitability of Russia’s success.

While so many wise-guys are quick to say after the event how predictable the result of the ESC was, I’ve yet to see so many people successfully predict who will win beforehand. Derek Gatherer predicts who will win, but only after the semi-finals have taken place. This is a bit like buying a lottery ticket once you know what the first five balls are. Even then, his prediction — Ukraine — was wrong (although close).

There were three specific countries that Terry Wogan said twice during the broadcast would benefit from political voting across Europe. He said this for each of the three countries during their turn, and he said it again during the recap while the phone numbers are displayed on the screen. (Check it on BBC iPlayer.)

The three countries that, according to Terry Wogan, were inevitably going to benefit from political voting? Romania, Albania and Poland. These countries finished 20th, 17th and 24th respectively — out of 25 countries in the final. If there was a conspiracy, whoever was behind it cocked it up big time.

Of course, Terry Wogan could have seen that his theory was bogus if he simply looked at the results of the semi-final (he did do that, didn’t he?). He would have seen that Poland only got through because it was chosen by the jury and did not finish among the top seven chosen by the televote. Albania also just scraped in, having come 7th in the televote.

The fact that Poland came joint-last in the final along with the UK shows just how hollow the ‘bloc votes’ theory is. It is certainly not as simple as “countries in the east are bound to benefit”. Poland’s paltry score of 14 was made up of points from just two countries — Ireland and the UK. The last time I checked, neither of these countries were in eastern Europe.

Furthermore, the past fourteen Eurovision Song Contests have been won by fourteen different countries. This is completely unprecedented in the history of the ESC (the previous longest run being eight). Incidentally, only 7 of those countries can be credibly described as “eastern European”.

It hardly needs to be pointed out that the countries that make up the British Isles have been the most successful in the ESC’s history, Ireland and the UK having won twelve contests between them, including an incredible run of five wins in six years in the mid-1990s. The UK has also finished second 15 times, more than any other country.

Far from becoming predictable, the Eurovision Song Contest is more open than it has ever been. You can put this almost entirely down to the introduction of televoting in 1998. As Chris Applegate says, it is far easier to rig Eurovision when it is just a few jury members rather than the entire population of the EBU countries that have to be manipulated.

All of this is not to say that there is not political (or cultural, or whatever) voting going on. Incidentally, the cultural-similarity argument is quite strong, though not watertight. Even correcting for linguistic and cultural similarities, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania still engage in bloc voting.

Even so, this is a very small number of countries. As Ewan Spence points out most “blocs” consist of 5 or 6 countries.

In fact, Derek Gatherer’s Venn diagram shows that “blocs” are actually as small as two countries, or four at a push. Of course, the UK and Ireland have formed their own little bloc, which is what makes little Britishers’ protests all the more pathetically hypocritical.

As such, the fact that Russia won cannot credibly be blamed on bloc voting. In order to win the ESC, any country has to appeal beyond their bloc and gain votes from across Europe. For this reason, the idea of entering different songs for England, Scotland, etc. (or even full-on independence — any excuse to bring that up, eh? ) so that the UK could engage in its own bloc voting would fail.

The ESC Today website has analysed the votes of “western” and “eastern” European countries separately. What they show is that even in the western-only table, Russia came fifth. That’s not a win, but it is only 13 points behind the western winner, Greece. Also of note in the western-only table is the fact that Germany finished bottom and the UK also did very badly. Meanwhile, in the eastern-only table, Poland finish joint bottom with nul points.

Clearly, blaming the iron curtain as Terry Wogan does (hopefully in jest) is wide of the mark. Even locking the eastern Europeans out of the voting, eastern Europeans would still pick up plenty of points.

The thing about the “bloc votes” theory is that it’s just the sort of thing that becomes true if you just say it often enough. Ignorance has a lot to do with it.

Recently I had the misfortune to catch an episode of The Paul O’Grady Show where Terry Wogan was a guest talking about the ESC. He mentioned in passing that Azerbaijan were participating for the first time — to hoots of laughter from the audience. “Azer-ban-jan?!”, yelped O’Grady. “I’ve never even heard of Azer-ban-jan! Is it even in Europe?” I hope O’Grady was joking (though there’s every chance he wasn’t), but I just know that some of the laughing audience members were thinking exactly that.

I think for a lot of people, the Eurovision Song Contest is perhaps the only time of the year they discover a Europe beyond, say, the EU-12 or the iron curtain or Mediterranean holiday resorts. In a contest of 41 countries, and with many well-known western European countries (Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg) declining to participate, the chances are high that the winning country will be one that many people couldn’t point to on a map. It might be as if “eastern Europe” is just one big country for these people.

If a country people can’t point to on a map (or those dirty commies in Russia) wins the ESC rather than a country a stone’s throw away from the UK, people jump to conclusions and start concocting the conspiracy theories. So if Russia wins, it’s political voting because eastern Europeans don’t want Russia to shut down the gas pipe. If Serbia wins, it’s the Balkan bloc voting that did it. If Finland wins, it’s the Scandinavian bloc vote. And so on.

Well here is a radical idea. Perhaps the countries that win the Eurovision Song Contest do so because they write songs that appeal to a wide variety of European countries and performed well on the night.

The real reason the UK tends to do so poorly in the ESC these days is that its entries are so mediocre. The UK seems to alternate between entering a song that is overtly camp and too knowing and / or stupid to be taken seriously (Scooch, Jemini, Daz Sampson) and insipid, bland, instantly forgettable dross (Javine, James Fox, Andy Abraham). It’s no accident that the last time the UK won the ESC back in 1997, it was with a song that was actually quite good (and incidentally holds the record for the largest winning margin in the ESC) and performed by a well known band and not some reality TV reject?

I mean, really, what can the UK expect if it enters someone like Andy Abraham? The man lost at The X Factor for crying out loud. What made anyone think he would win Eurovision?! As for the performance, it was nothing to write home about was it? Terry Wogan said he liked it, but I seem to remember he said the same about Jemini’s notoriously bad performance.

Blaming the UK’s loss on bloc voting when there are more sensible explanations just reflects badly on Wogan and all the others who bring up this red herring. It comes across as sour grapes.

I suppose the question is, does the UK really want to win Eurovision? The ESC is seen as trashy kitsch by most in the UK. This helps explain why most of the UK’s entrants these days are desperate reality television losers. Some countries may see the ESC as a joke, but others are clearly passionate to win the contest. Russia in particular tends to enter more famous artists. Their performer this year, Dima Bilan, is one of the country’s biggest pop stars who is on the verge of making a name for himself internationally.

It seems to me as though there are many countries who want to win the Eurovision Song Contest much more than the UK wants to. So why not let them win rather than throwing your hands up and shouting “conspiracy”?

As for Terry Wogan’s hints that he may quit Eurovision, I do hope he calls it a day. I can’t stand his commentary. The man is not a fraction as funny as he thinks he is. He mistakes rudeness for wit. He has been past it for as long as I can remember. If he quits, I hope Paddy O’Connell get the job. He has always done a fantastic job at commentating during the semi-final. He is witty but not cynical, and obviously still likes the ESC, unlike Wogan.

For what it’s worth, my favourite song was France’s — ‘Divine’ by Sébastien Tellier. I think France should just be given bonus points for entering a song containing non-French lyrics for a change!

You might have noticed that I haven’t been updating this place so much recently — although that’s quite a common occurrence nowadays so you might not have noticed! This hectic stage of my life finally came to an end on Friday as I sat my last exam. Here are a few things that have happened recently that are notable enough to deserve exclamation marks. Then I will get back to writing about proper stuff.

UFO sighting!

Was this an early sign that I was losing the plot? While I was on one of my many commutes from Kirkcaldy to Edinburgh I saw something in the corner of my eye while the train was passing Edinburgh Airport. At first I thought it was a bird or something — it was quite small. Just as I focussed on the mystery object, some kind of bullet or something shot across really quickly and the object disappeared in a puff of smoke.

My first thought was that there was some kind of clay pigeon shooting competition or something going on. But it seems unlikely that this would take place on the runway at an airport. Moreover, it seemed as though the mystery object was taken out by some kind of science fiction-style laser shot.

That experience was probably an early sign that the exams were genuinely driving me mad. For the sake of my own self-esteem, I have decided that it was a weather event. A really weird weather event.

Hand dryers that actually work!

There was a nasty surprise when nature called while I was in Edinburgh Waverley train station recently. It now costs 30p to spend a penny. The current inflation worries finally had a tangible effect on me personally. Forget food and fuel prices — the cost of taking a leak jumped by 50%! And it is plain inconvenient having to use a 20p and a 10p rather than just dealing with one 20p piece as before.

Anyway, I went in to do my business and they’ve given the place a nice renovation. The highlight is undoubtedly the new hand dryers. Hand dryers are notoriously awful. They just never do the job. All that ever happens is your hands get a bit hot and your hands remain as wet as they were when tap water rather than wind was enveloping them.

These new hand dryers in Edinburgh Waverley toilets are something else though. There are posters next to them that actually say, “Hand dryers that actually work!” I just thought to myself, “yeah right — hand dryers never work.”

The new dryers are quite strange. Rather than sticking your hands under a hot air blower, you stick your hands in a little slot in the top of a box. It’s a very strange feeling. You move your hands up and down in the pocket as wind gets blown around inside. I did this for around 10 seconds as the poster advised, but I was convinced that my hands would come out still soaking wet. But to my surprise my hands were bone dry! It’s like magic.

Furthermore, the posters proclaim that these new dryers are more energy efficient than the old design. The future of hand washing is indeed very exciting! These are special hand dryers — they have their own website as well.

So the next time you’re in Edinburgh Waverley station, think about going into the toilets even if you don’t need to go. Worth every of the thirty pennies.

The end of university!

I had three exams this time round. My personal feeling is that the first one went okay — could have been better, could have been worse. The second one was not okay — I had to choose two questions but I could only really answer one of them. The second question was just bluff. We’ll see how that went, but I’m not too confident about that. My third exam — the one I had the least amount of time to study for — was one of the best exams I’ve ever had.

At least I finished on a high. That is not quite my last action as a student. I still have some books to return to the library, collect a copy of my dissertation and utilise the careers service to try and work out what on earth to do next. Anyone want to offer me a job?

I won’t pretend I enjoyed university, and I don’t think I’ll miss it. Many people say the student days are the best days of their lives. The idea that the rest of life is even worse than this is something I’m trying to avoid thinking about.

It is often said that the most despised people in the country are journalists and estate agents. And while these people sometimes are indeed prize toss pots, there are two other professions that I despise above all others. Actors and politicians. Thing is, acting and being a politician is essentially the same job. They’re not wrong when they say politics is showbusiness for ugly people. Both aspire to earn money by spending their life being insincere. You can’t admire that.

But unlike many, I cannot bring myself to hate Boris Johnson in particular. That’s not because LOL I like his funnee hair and he is a legernd. (I do find it amusing, though, that people will — without a trace of irony — cite this article and others by the (admittedly excellent) Charlie Brooker saying “LOL! CHARLIE BROOKER IS A LEGEND!” It’s all a bit Dan Ashcroft if you ask me. But never mind.)

No, the real reason I don’t hate Boris Johnson is because I can’t stand politicians full stop. To single out one person the way some single out Boris Johnson seems incredibly unfair to me. And the reaction among some people to his election as London Mayor has left me in despair about the state of political discourse right now.

So I was glad to see the balance redressed somewhat by the excellent Nosemonkey yesterday. I was beginning to think I was the only one who couldn’t understand why so many people were queuing up to pour effluent on the man.

It is slightly dangerous territory for me to be talking about London politics. Everything I wrote here applies. But I have been spurred into blogging about this for two reasons. One is that the position of London Mayor is pretty much the only major directly elected post in the country and its effects inevitably reverberate around the country. The second is that the debate itself merits comment because it reflects the shoddy standard of political discourse in the UK as a whole.

I will refrain from commenting too much on the policies of either candidate. I know too little about the policies and obviously my opinions could well be different were I actually a Londoner. But I would probably have reluctantly voted for Brian Paddick. I would probably not have allocated my second preference. Choosing between Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson is a bit like choosing between shit and shite. Forced at gunpoint however, I would plump for Johnson.

I have, after all, voted for him before. A couple of years ago Boris Johnson stood in the election to become Rector of Edinburgh University. He was an early favourite, but then that shady coalition of Labour / Green / People and Planet / whatever in EUSA went on the offensive to produce a highly negative campaign based on Boris Johnson’s support for tuition fees.

The students, being self-interested, rational utility maximisers, decided to vote against the possibility of being seen to favour tuition fees. I voted on principle against this subsidy for the middle class.

Today we have the completely anonymous Mark Ballard as our Rector. Don’t know who Mark Ballard is? Don’t blame you. He used to be a Green MSP but was such a nonentity that he was voted out last year. As such, a genuine nobody is Rector of Edinburgh University. The guy we could have had is now Mayor of London. (Even Magnus Linklater would have been better. I actually met him while he was campaigning and he seemed rather pleasant.)

It is true that Boris Johnson is a bit of a clown. But I don’t see why this is necessarily a barrier to being in public office. People always drone on about how boring politicians are. They complain about bland inoffensive leaders — Blairs, Camerons, Cleggs and the like — who silence independent thinkers or anyone who could be seen as a loose cannon. They despise those Milliblands et al. who climb the greasy pole, toe the party line and so on. And quite rightly.

But then when someone who is charismatic, who is an independent thinker, who will not toe the party line comes along, apparently he is unfit for office. You can’t have it both ways.

Plus, the notion that over a million Londoners voted for Boris Johnson “just for a laugh” is highly patronising. I am pretty misanthropic, but even my hatred for the electorate does not stoop this low. I do not doubt that some people voted for Johnson on this basis, but to put his victory down to this phenomenon alone is surely wide of the mark. It makes you look petulant.

Also, I surely need not say that voting against Boris Johnson because he is a character is every bit as pathetic as voting for him for that reason. Yet, as far as I can tell, it is the number one reason why people have been so averse to a Johnson victory. It is also odd that people should complain about Johnson for being famous for being maverick, only to vote for Ken Livingston who… is famous for being a maverick.

To say that because Boris is a bumbler when he talks means that he will be a bumbler in control of London is pathetic. Political leaders don’t “run” anything — that’s the job of the civil service and what have you. Boris Johnson won’t be sitting in front of a real-life game of Sim City. Political leaders are public figureheads who canvass opinion, bring ideas to the table and direct policy and they are only one (albeit prominent) branch in a large tree. I see nothing in Boris Johnson’s character that will prohibit him from doing this job just fine.

And being a clown is, at least, a whole lot better than being malicious. Because that is what Livingstone is. While the character assassinations of Boris Johnson are ten a penny, people on the left tend to be an awful lot more quiet about Livingstone’s many failings. His inexplicable inability to simply apologise to Oliver Finegold for his drunken remarks; his failure to distance himself from homophobic Islamist Yusuf al-Qaradawi; his hokey-cokey in-out-in-out, I’m not running, yes I am but as an independent, then I’ll rejoin the Labour party, shake it all about. Don’t forget also that he rushed to the door like a yapping dog with its tail wagging to make excuses for the brutal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes.

Of course, Boris Johnson is not just a clown. He is a toff. And he is a Tory. Booooo!

Well, all I can say to that is, grow up. This is just the most pathetic way to discuss politics. If you have to resort to invoking the days of Thatcher to persuade people not to vote Conservative, you must be scraping the barrel. Yet it is a staple of British political discourse.

The Labour Government could go round the country literally raping everyone. When someone calls them up on it, you can be sure the Government will turn round and splutter, “Ah yes — but the Tories brought you the POLL TAX. Booooo!” And the sheep on the left will be won over. They will hi-5 each other for what they see as an excellent sucker-punch (which is in fact a tired, over-used, irrelevant line), hiss at the Tories and let the Labour Government get back to raping everyone again.

I am in little position to comment on how bad Margaret Thatcher’s government was because I am too young to remember anything substantial of it. But it seems to me as though Thatcher is vilified mostly for ushering in some change