To be trusted

I have just one on my browser, the RSS subscription extension, and that is all. The problem with any add-on, or to be more accurate the problem I have with any third-party add-on, is amply demonstrated by the message box displayed before installing the Amazon Wish List extension. Do I want to install something that can access my data on all websites and all my browsing activity? Not really! The advice is to only install from those you know and trust. The obstacle is that other piece of advice; when it comes to the web, trust no-one. I’m not sure who said that, maybe it’s just me, but when the help page informs you ‘Your data on all websites’ could mean the following...

This item can read every page that you visit -- your bank, your web email, your Facebook page, and so on … Besides seeing all your pages, this item could use your credentials (cookies) to request your data from websites.

... it doesn’t really help at all. Yes, I ‘trust’ Google and Amazon, but the power of any app. store (and I hope Apple don’t mind me using the term) comes from the thousands of developers who contribute to it. Insufficient permissions granularity means it relies on – and is possibly even hindered by - misplaced consumer faith and worse, in some cases ignorance - including my own.

Finding the difference

In the televised debate of the 1988 US presidential campaign, candidate Michael Dukakis was asked whether in the event of the rape and murder of his wife, he’d favour the death penalty for the killer. Dukakis replied “No”, pointing out he’d always been against the death penalty and explaining the reasons why. Some analysts believed this answer a contributing factor towards him losing the election that year; others considered the question itself unfair.

Two weeks ago, Osama bin Laden, after years on the run - or more accurately years hiding next to a Pakistani military base - was finally tracked down and killed in a US operation. Despite my best efforts, I am unmoved by the summary justice (call it revenge if you will) meted out for his crime. The moral twist is the possibility that information leading to his whereabouts may in part have been obtained through the use of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’.

I find this “torture is immoral and anyway it doesn’t work” argument, unsettling; for the simple reason that I imagine it can work. Likewise, the question to the former Governor of Massachusetts was valid, as was his answer, though something was missing; if a member of my family were murdered I’d want to kill the bastard. Yet both these acts - torture or state execution - are wrong. I don’t think there anything amiss in acknowledging this contradiction; it reminds us we are but a few steps from barbarism. Our response is the measure of any compassionate society.

In case of emergency, break glass

It’s all over. Only it isn’t. When the polling stations closed at 10pm on Thursday I barely limped over the line, and the count didn’t even begin until 4pm on the following day. I’d never make it in politics. I’m exhausted and all I did was read a few blogs, follow the conversation on Twitter and occasionally engage; not always successfully.

Not so long ago I bumped into an introduction to what Eli Pariser describes as online “filter bubbles”; this is the end result of a personal web, where services and results are tailored to our individual tastes. Amazon makes this clear by allowing me to ‘fix this recommendation’. Google less so; perhaps they judge it not so advantageous to them for me to control the web history that affects my search results. The consequences are a web that once broadened our horizons can now narrow our view of the world.

But am I complicit in these phenomena, for example when choosing who to follow on Twitter? It’s clear at least that after the trials of the AV referendum I need to think a little more on the etiquette. Getting blocked, it’s a modern-day rite of passage - or more likely a sign I need to temper my comments - since the result is to create a “bubble” of one’s own.

Not so simple and a lot more tactical

From the very start of the debate, many advocates for the alternative vote (AV) have insisted it eliminates the need for tactical voting. Whilst I’m sure this is a genuine mistake it does rather point to another common fallacy; that AV is simple. On the surface it is; what could be simpler than ranking your preferences in order? However, it would be foolish to judge a system solely on how it is intended to be used, whilst ignoring how it can be used.

With AV, if I vote “Conservative, Labour, Liberal” am I expressing a preference for Conservative ahead of Labour, and Labour ahead of Liberal, or am I actually expressing a preference against the BNP who also stood? Perhaps the “Conservative” preference is genuine and “Labour, Liberal” is tactical? A tactical vote, to quote Wikipedia, is when a voter supports a candidate other than his or her sincere preference in order to prevent an undesirable outcome; I would re-phrase this only slightly to say it’s when a voter expresses anything other than a sincere preference in order to prevent an undesirable outcome.

Tactical voting under our current first-past-the-post (FPTP) system is still a clear indication of how I intend my vote to be counted. Tactical voting under AV is nothing of the kind. It may indicate how I intend my vote to be counted, it may only in part, or it may be wholly designed to exclude an unwanted option; and there are other variations which, for the sake of brevity, I’ll omit.

A mantra of “voters should rank the candidates in order of preference” doesn’t cut it when - frankly - they don’t have to, and if AV were as simple as some suggest, then its advocates would be more aware of this. That they’re not shows that it isn’t.

A socialist and her money

As a result of an accidental Cate Blanchett triple bill - what a fine actress - I heard the following exchange. Says the matriarch of a self-described “socialist family”:

We don’t care about money here, Mr Hughes.

To which Howard Hughes replies:

Well that’s because you have it.

Beastly man insults fair maiden

There was a telling moment in yesterday’s Prime Minister’s questions when, after repeated attempts at interruption, David Cameron told Angela Eagle to “Calm down, dear”. Cue faux outrage on the opposition benches at this sexist slur from our pig of a Prime Minister. Ed Balls made much of looking particularly upset, as if someone had made a pass at his wife. Well, I would. It reminded me of my days at the Polytechnic - or the University of The West of England as it likes to style itself - and the Labour students who would roam the campus, desperately searching for something new with which to be insulted.

But it struck me that if we’re going to look at this silly incident seriously, it’s the Labour Party’s attitude to women we should worry about. Tim Farron, one of those nice Liberal Democrat MPs, recently gave a speech describing the “organised wickedness” of Margaret Thatcher’s government. I’ll pass on his obviously stupid commentary, but provide it as evidence of the nasty things politicians of different political parties sometimes say about one another. The front benches insult each other on a regular basis, and Labour’s stance suggests they think women unable to cope with this hurly burly of politics. Now that’s patronising.

Once more, with feeling

An abstract avoids prejudice but fails to engage, an analogy whilst having sound maths is vulnerable to complaints of being too simple. And an illustration using our political parties is at risk from the same criticism, but I thought I’d re-write the case of an alternative vote (AV) that leads to an ‘unfair’ result. The point isn’t so much “Party A voter would never vote for Party B”, but that they might express such a preference in order to keep out a substantially worse candidate. For instance, as someone who generally votes Conservative, I have no fondness for either Labour or the Liberal Democrats; however I wouldn’t hesitate to vote for either of these options to ensure exclusion of the BNP. Here’s the example:

There are four political parties standing in your constituency; in alphabetical order of party (and as it happens, candidate): BNP, Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat.

48,226 votes are cast.

The BNP receives 2,296 first preferences, of those votes the second preference where stated is split 978 for Conservative and 620 for Labour. 20,668 people vote Liberal Democrat; it subsequently turns out their second choice isn’t relevant – likewise for the 16,075 who vote Labour. The vast majority of the 9,187 people who vote Conservative don’t really care for the other two main parties, which shouldn’t surprise anyone, however most of them also loathe the BNP.

That’s understandable, and the best way to express this is a feature of AV that isn’t afforded by our current first-past-the-post (FPTP) system; the ability to vote against one party by voting for all the others. In our example, most of those whose first preference was Conservative do exactly this, and since they don’t have a preference with the other parties they rank them according to the order in which they are listed. This is called a donkey vote and whilst it is most common where full preferential voting is required, it applies equally here. As a result the ‘second preferences’ for those who vote Conservative are divided 8,177 for Labour and 991 for the Liberal Democrats.

With the vote in, the count can begin, and after the first round the BNP, having the fewest votes, is eliminated. The next preferences of those votes are added to the remaining candidates to give us the following: just over 42% would like a Liberal Democrat MP with around 35% opting for Labour. It’s still not a majority so the Conservative vote is eliminated… and something interesting happens when the ‘second preferences’ are added to the count. These would be the people whose other preference was mostly ‘anyone but BNP’ and consequently voted for the other candidates in the order that they appeared.

Despite having significantly less of the ‘positive’ vote, Labour’s candidate wins through having a superior position in the alphabet.

As I stated previously, what this illustration and others show is how AV can work; the result – fair or otherwise – depends on how the example is framed. I could as easily have had the Conservative candidate prosper as a result of Labour’s anti-BNP sentiment; not perhaps to the extent of the numbers used above, but certainly enough to affect the outcome. This example doesn't say how likely it is, only that it’s possible; under AV you can have a result that many people would consider unfair; it’s a system not nearly as simple as some would have us believe.