Vote No to AV campaign Parody.

When you go to vote on the 5th of may, make sure you vote NO to AV

Why you ask?

Well here is why:

There are only a few countries that use AV, Indonesia and Austral the only ones worth mentioning and those countries are rubbish. People in these countries don't even like AV (source: ....) we should listen to them.

AV could lead to smaller parties having more political power as it leads to a voting system that better reflects what people actually want! We can't have that! Can imagine those small parties like the Greens getting into a position of power or the BNP! Do you want the Nazi’s to win? NO then vote NO.

Nick Clegg thinks AV is a good idea; he is a big liar and knows nothing. We all hate deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg so AV must be evil too! That logic is undeniable.

Vote No to AV is a cross party organization of all British politicians:  Mainly Tory’s but they are all that count oh and look a Labour Peer and these guys...

If your looking for some of the many credible reasons not to vote AV try looking on the internet..

An accurate and fair advert for AV

The vote No to AV campaign: because personal jibes on your allies and childish reasoning is how to get your message across. 

Vote No to AV campaign is cross political movement.. funded by the Tory donor alliance

Public Sector Pension's reform likely to trigger unrest

The Hutton Report has announced that public sector pensions will be reformed, which means that most workers in the public sector will get less and will have to work longer. The new system will involve scrapping the final salary scheme in which pension is determined by final grade and insted pensions will be determined by average pay throughout career. As for the retirement age, it will be brought into line with the national retirement age of 65 from its previous age of 60 for public sector workers. This is yet another blow for the public sector to add to the pay freeze, which with inflation predicted to be 4% will see a significant fall in real income (in fact employees in the public sector will be 4% worse off).
Taking away pension rights, freezing pay, sacking workers and putting remaining staff under pressure is a sure way to stir up wide spread union action. Civil service unions have becoming increasingly more daring in recent years, increasing strikes and its rumoured they are mobilising for mass protest. Add to the civil service unions to the battle cries of the aggrieved teaching unions, the already striking lecturers, furious students and the police federation has made its stance as very much against the Government. You have to wonder who isn't against the Government.
Walking around Preston Town Centre I was surprised to see members of the Socialist Worker Party asking for signature against cuts, I was even more surprised to see the number of signatures they had as people showed a keen interest in their march on London. The graph from Youpoll shown bellow shows the decline in popularity of the Lib Dem and Conservative party since forming Government.

The popularity of the Government is falling and Unions are mobilizing, times are going to be very tough for the Government. As long as they maintain their plan of contractive fiscal policy through cut backs whist leaving the super rich and culprit banks untouched, people are going to questions what Government they elected.

Libya

Since the protests in Tunisia sparked up the events middle east I have watched very closely. Tunisia and Egypt saw their undesirable leaders fall but it is Libya where the greatest struggle is. Not in my life time have I seen anything I would consider to show as many examples of bravery, courage, determination and passion as in Libya. Its very all too easy to place the label of good and bad onto each side in Libya, Col Gaddafi seems to be epitome of villainy.
Gaddafi's regime was the classic dictator model of Police State, State TV and keep your subjects in horror and awe. The fact is that those on the streets of Tripoli supporting Gaddafi actually appear to believe that he is saving them from Western Colonists that are funding an al qaeda rebellion to take their oil! While that is not evil its just staggering ignorance, it does mean that Gaddafi's supporters don't really have a grasp on the situation and thus surely it is the rebels liberating them not Gaddafi. We should consider though that from their perspective Gaddafi did drive out their King and considering the controversy surrounding Iraq and general behaviour of oil companies it becomes more plausible that with state media that these people could believe Gaddafi's nutty account of events. Gaddafi feeds his supporters tales of mighty victories against the rebels which so far have mostly lies!
Gaddafi told 'his people' that he had taken the oil town of Ras Lanuf when in fact it was still under rebel control and declared Zawiya liberated when it had been levelled to the ground it reports suggest rebels still remain. In fact when the BBC attempted to visit Zawiya 3 reporters were beaten up to the point of death and thrown on a flight home...

Gaddafi's forces are killing civilians, beating up news crews, they have superior fire power and most of them are violent gangs or mercenaries. The rebels have some basic weapons, a few stolen tanks, toyota pick up trucks but more importantly resolve! Holding Ras Lanuf and Zuara against the odds day after day is a miracle yet I fear it may not last. Zuara and Ras Lanuf are under huge pressure now from land and air, there is only one clear solution... intervention.
To intervene or not to intervene, is a question that up until Gaddafi started bombing his own people was hard to answer, it is now a question with a more obvious answer; no fly zone. We have frozen Gaddafi's assets and demanded his resignation to response, so we should now impose a no fly zone. Of course there are problems with this, such as having to bomb Gaddafi's air felids and it is claimed that it could alienate some rebels and Eastern leaders, these seem to be fading. The rebel government in Benghazi appears to be asking for it, Saudi Arabia and the Islamic council approve, France and the UK are pushing for it and the USA is hinting so why have we not imposed it! A no fly zone would simply rob Gaddafi of his unfair advantage, its not sending in troops.
It seems to me to be out-ragious that we sitting just off the Libyan coast with the power to stop Gaddafi yet we do nothing, Gaddafi is murdering his own people with arms we sold him and hired troops with money we helped him accumulate. If we don't move quickly the rebels could loose and I would never forgive the British Government for that, we're willing to take money from the expoliations of the Libyan people but then not give a damn when they are fighting for the very principles we are supposed to be promoting. On another not, its interesting how quick we run to America when they propose military intervention but when we bring an idea to the table that doesn't involve sending in troops to conquer a country they won't commit.

Arise Comrades! Communism has returned?

If you check Wikipedia you will find it will tell you that the Communist Party of Great Britain disbanded in 1991. Textbooks may imply that Communism is long gone and with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and China now widely regarded as a capitalist nation you would be forgiven for thinking that Communism is dead never mind the concept  it exists in the UK.

However your wrong, despite officially disbanding in 1991 the Communist Party of Great Britain merely changed its name and after several mergers it appears to have re-emerged. Here is the website of CP (communist party): http://www.communist-party.org.uk/  

Formed of trade unionists put off by New Labour and other Socialist supporters that have been neglected by mainstream politics, as well as long-standing communist supporters. Its not really a surprise to see a return to strength for the Communist movement, considering the growing uneven distribution of income, rising unemployment and political disillusion (voting figures can tell you this). The movement also states in its party slogan 'for peace' tapping into the growing 'anti-imperialism movement' (that being imperialism of the USA, that evil capitalist over lord). There’s also no better catalyst than Conservative Government with a regressive austerity plan at a time of stagnating growth and rising inflation. 

Youth Employment is still rising and its clear to see the consequences of this, all you have to do is look at a few boarders south to find millions of revolting Arabs bringing down corrupt 'capitalist' kings. The students protests showed British students are willing flare up their own small-scale revolt and when attending an open day at Manchester University I saw plenty of Marx propaganda. 

I would say main stream politicians are really not taking seriously the threats these movements pose and the media is quick to pick on plenty of far right examples (BNP EDL etc), in times of economic desperation and political disillusion people turn extreme.  

Communist-Party Manifesto - Click Here

Communism, a mad theory created by a bunch of destabilizing radicals or the answer?

BUS WARS: Chapter 4: Price Wars

A price war is a phonomium that occurs in an oligopolistic market. In oligpopistic markets only a few firms dominate the market and according to game theory this leads to businesses to battle directly with one other. Unlike in a free market were firms struggle to influence the market each other (price taker), in a oligpoplistic market each firm has a direct impact on one another, if one business lowers its prices it can attract people to them and thus cut the revenue of their rivals.
A bus war is a brutal for of price war. In terms of the example above if one bus company lowers its prices to go from the city center to a village and another bus company that runs the same route does not then bus users are likely to switch from one bus service to another. A bus war is far more amplified than a price war as the businesses are pinned to a certain route pitched directly against each other.

In the mid 2000s Stagecoach's quest to increase its market share organically rather than taking over firms it created deadly bus wars across the country one such brutal war of economics was in the city of Preston. Preston was targeted by Stagecoach and the creation of Preston Citi was the 'army' they committed. Preston Citi was a re-branding to take Preston Buses advantage in identity with the city it would also give Preston Citi more freedom to compete with Preston Bus. In key areas across Preston, Preston Citi bus were launched in direct competition with Preston Bus. Preston Bus responded like wise.
Soon Preston Bus and Preston Citi Bus were running simultaneous in direct competition, both lowering their prices against each other. Preston Bus lowering its prices to force out Preston Citi and Preston Citi lowering its prices to drive out Preston Bus.
One of the critical battle grounds was Ashton, were bus tickets into Preston Centre were as low as 40p at one point, a stark contrasts to other routes were Preston Citi was charging well over £1.
It was not just price competition, Preston Citi also launched loyalty schemes such as day riders and mega riders which proved successful in capturing control of the market.

Price competition for Preston Bus was not stustationable, making losses per customers and looking market share they were in deep trouble. While Preston bus struggled, Preston Citi could make losses and be sustained by profits across the Stagecoach empire. Preston bus was making a anual turnover of around £11 million but compared to Stagecoaches £1.2 Billion. Preston Bus was owned by its employees with no where to go for funding or help. Preston bus was soon facing yearly loses and it Stagecoach now moved in for the kill...

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Double Dip already?

Most Economists predicted 0.2%-0.6% growth in the last quarter of 2010,  I thought I was sticking my neck out a bit predicting 0.2-0.4% and stating we would go into negative growth in 2011. However despite being being convinced we will go into double dip, I was very much taken back when Oct, Nov and Dec of 2010 growth figure was -0.5% growth!!

As we can see from the graph this is serious, it is more of a dip than at the beginning of the credit crunch. I decided to plot the Prime Ministers and parties onto the graph, it highlights mainly that David Cameron inherited an economy in recovery and has now knocked it down into near to a double dip. This graph also highlights how John Major managed to recover GDP from the 1990s recession and then hand the boom over to Tony Blair who kindly have Gordon Brown the bust! 

It seems that Fiscal policy is more important than George Osborne hoped, lets hope that this is just teething problems for Crowing out theory. Theoretically all this negative growth means is more surplus capacity for new businesses to expand into as the public sector contracts..

Yet to say that GDP is all a result of Government policy would be wrong though. Its easy to blame Gordon Brown for the credit crunch but in reality it was not his fault. Equally to colour in this dip blue and blame it on the coalition is also naive. George Osborne has blamed the fall in GDP down to the cold weather. 

If we break down the figures it is true that construction was the driving factor behind the fall in GDP however to say it was all down to bad weather I think is also being naive, there have been many Government construction projects canceled in the wake of budget cuts, this also could have hurt construction. According to this BBC article the ONS said: '...even if the weather impact had been excluded, activity would have been 'flattish'"  So even the snow can't explain the poor performance!

All in all wether the negative growth was the Governments fault or not going down a road of fiscal contraction during a period of negative growth is reckless.  

Were to draw the line and what ever happened to left wing

In the recent General Studies paper it asked something along the lines of:
'Labour, Conservatives and Lib Dems, they are all the same, theres no point in voting' 
Discuss wether it is worth while having different political parties. 
The entire premise of my EPQ is about the different philosophies and policies of different parties so this question spurred me into some what of a frenzy of defining political parties, historical examples. Hopefully which will give me quite a good grade at the end, although you can never tell with General Studies and most peoples view on the subject (not mine) are summed (if not a bit roughly) by youtuber: RichandPoor. 


Yet upon coming home I noticed this article: 

Lord Owen 'could vote for Labour' under Miliband

Lord Owen was one of  the key founders of the SDP party that broke away from labour in the 1981s to eventually merge with the Liberal party to found the Liberal Democrats. The fact that he would not support the Labour party makes a complex situation more difficult. 

There was a time when Labour and the Conservatives were clear cut (not that i was alive to remember it)  and it was not too hard to define the Lib Dems but now drawing the political line is very hard! 

Historically Labour were left wing, Conservatives were right wing and the Lib Dems were central left yet right now the Lib Dems are in coalition government with the right wing Conservatives. 

Oh but how right wing are the Conservatives, replacing a flaming touch with a green tree signalled a so called reinvention of the Tory party to the centre. David Cameron trumped the 2010 emergency budget as 'fair' and progressive, but their  polices don't seem to much of a far cry from Margate Thatcher. Experimental economic policy (crowing out theory and PSNCR priority) and downsizing the public sector is classic Tory policy.  Even the Conservative command acknolages this,  this we know thanks to Wikileaks. 

Yet tweaks to the Conservatives to make them friendlier and more electable seem like nothing compared to Tony Blairs New Labour. The reinvention of Labour Party sifted the party of the Unions into a central  Party to Govern Briton for just under 13 years. Tony Blair was named 12th most infuential right winger in the telegraph! Nick Clegg leader of the 'central-left' Liberal Democrats came 3rd!!

What happened to left wing!?

Well Mr Milliband is not leader of the labour party and it seems he is brining back the left. Elected by the Unions Ed is not new labour which means he could just be left of centre? 

If your looking for the true left wing its actually within the right wing government, if you ask me I would say it those Liberal Democrats that risked peerage to vote against the tuition fees. In time we could see the end of the coalition, if the Lib Dems don't break under pressure they will dissolve back into two parties! 

BUS WARS: Chapter 3: Attack of the Monopoly

Stagecoach is an example of a business that has expanded through external growth and successfully! Founded in wake of the deregulation of the 1980s just like Preston bus and the all the other small bus firms, yet Stagecoach would grow into one of the market leaders. In the UK Stagecoach would be come one of 5 oligopoists however locally Stagecoach would be one of the most aggressive monopolists in recent history.
Stagecoach entered the market as a completely new firm (yet previously dealing in minibus hire). At first Stagecoach offer bus hire, with a personal service then it quickly began  growth and the first firm to be bought out by Stagecoach was McLennan Of Spittalfield. This allowed Stagecoach to move from merely operating hire services out of their home of Perth (Scotland) into operating local services to Glasgow under the name Magicbus. 
This was the beginning of huge growth for Stagecoach, through out the late 1980s. Along with rivals Arriva, Stragecoach opted for an aggressive take over strategy. Stagecoach took over maybe bus services including: East Midlands, Cumberland, Southdown and Ribble.
Stagecoach took over Ribble bus in 1988 and instantly moved for dominance across the North West. 


Stagecoach renamed Ribble bus to Stagecoach Ribble and soon began buying up other bus local companies. Stagecoach took over Barrow Borough Transport and created Stagecoach Cumbria out of the Cumbrian bus services. The Northwest was just one if the regions Stagecoach targeted, it grew to dominance across various regions all across  the UK and even bought out bus operators globally buying up UTM in Malawi. 

By the 2000s Stagecoach and bough up many smaller bus companies and had strong market share across major cities such as Manchester, London, Newcastle and Liverpool. There 1990s diversification into the rail industried  captured a significant market share and expansion globally was large scale. In 2001 all of the Northwest bus groups were merged into the group Stagecoach North West but it was not until 2006 that the bus wars truly began.

In 2006 Stage coach formed Stagecoach Preston Citi, its goal: to directly compete with Preston Bus! 

Main sources:  Stagecoach Group: History, Wikipedia: Stagecoach Group, Stagecoach Northwest

Ed Miliband Receives Grilling on Jeremy Vine

In brutal interview did Ed hold his nerve?

The interview:
The Previous Government: After a blazing intro Jeremy gave Mr Miliband a chance to blame the past Labour Government and differentiate away from them, to which he defended the past Government. To the argument that they spend to much he said it was wise investment, although not prefect. He said the borrowing was responsible and said he paid off debt.
A caller attacked Mr Miliband first off in a petty manner about his voice then moving on to state the previous Labour government brought the country to its knees saying Labour wasted the governments money. He responded pointing out investments like the NHS to which she responding saying her mother had died of MRSA. Despite the onslaught he kept his cool using rational arguments such as 'for the most part people feel they have a good standard from the NHS' then twisting it to a Conservative jibs like their cuts to the NHS.
Others placed the sole blame for the financial meltdown on him which was also implied by Jeremy, he held off and stuck to the argument that it was not their fault because it was global.
His personality: When a calling with an alternative political view asked Mr Miliband to show some passion and heart in fighting the precent government, he said he would fight harder and picked up on her arguments backing them up, arguments such as 'we will never get playgrounds back'.
He was then accused of being faceless and 'shafting' his brother. He said his and his brother were best to stand against each other and fight fairly rather than back door deals such as Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He said that both of them 'had something to say'.
When questioned about not being on his childs birth certificate he put death to such rumours by saying he is now and it was due to not being married to the mother (his partner) and responded to why he was not married by saying he plans to but he did not want to marry for political gain.
Tuition fees: His response to tuition fees to was push forward his graduate tax. He said that the Conservatives were ruining the next generate which he would not. He said he did not join the marches because he had other means of protesting such as in parliament. He also again reached out to the young party by saying he supporting votes for 16 year olds.
Banks: He said he would help the working family by not implementing the VAT and benefit cuts by getting money from elsewhere such as higher bank levies. He offered an interesting solution to bonuses by saying further regulation of banks by making them disclose more information would reduce bank bonuses by letting share holders know more and thus putting them off from paying out. This is an interesting idea, although to me this just seems like shifting pay from bank workers that actually work to shareholders that don't.
War: He supported the Conservative policy on Afganistian and said that it was right because many terrorist bases were around that region.
Religion: When asked to stop faith schools he pointed out that many faith schools pre-date public schools and said most do a good job.
Finally interesting Jeremy was attack for attacking Ed on personal grounds not political, to which Ed responded by asking the caller to explain why he voted Lib Dems rather thus letting Jeremy off the hook.


 My response:
Ed held his nerve, no slips ('bigot') even against deep personal jibes and hard questions. He has some interesting and inventive policies although the idea he is too vague still holds up. Its refreshing to see him agree with some Con-dem policies and just valid defences. I agree that the finical crisis was not labours fault and investment is good, although perhaps running such large deficits is not responsible, its clear to make the destinction that an economy is not like a household and debt if very different to nations.
At very least I can say he is a good politician although  he appears to have developed that catchphrase 'let me just say'.


From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00d4khs - (disappears on 13th of Jan)