Roundups

Britblog Roundup #229 and Scottish Political Roundup.

HADOPI mark II: 5 minute show trials

Remember HADOPI? It’s coming back with 5 minute show trials.

To recap for those who don’t remember: HADOPI is a proposed French law being pushed by President Sarkozy which would cut off the Internet access of people accused by the entertainment industry of filesharing. In other word’s it’s France’s version of 3-strikes. Last month the Constitutional Council of France struck down HADOPI as unconstitutional.

Sarkozy has now come back withn HADOPI Mark II: this time, people will get a trial before being disconnnected, but it’ll be a special trial lasting 5 minutes:

now there’s a new twist in the infamous HADOPI law. It appears that, on average, judges will be given 5 minutes to decide whether or not to disconnect and possibly fine an individual accused of breaching copyright laws a third time.

I’m sure these trials will be very bit as fair as Stalin’s show trials.

More support going to minor parties

Stephen Tall notes how the big parties are losing support:

Tories 38% (-2%), Labour 23% (-1%), Lib Dems 18% (-1%)

Remarkably all three major parties have, according to our monthly average, shed support in the past month. I think that’s the first time this has happened in all the months I’ve been writing LDV’s poll round-ups. In fact, if you look at the past two months (ie, post-‘Expensesgate’), the Tories have dropped from 43% down to 38% (-5%) and Labour from 28% to 23% (-5%).

The Lib Dems can take some comfort that our support has remained steady at 18%, and we appear not to have been too badly hit by the relatively minor expenses indiscretions of a handful of our MPs. Equally, we’ll be disappointed that at a time when both Labour and the Tories have taken big hits, losing one-tenth of the public’s support, we have done no more than hold our own.

Tall concludes that the election isn’t a foregone conclusion:

The FT this week published an analysis by academics Niall Ferguson and Glen O’Hara, Do not count on the Tories winning just yet, highlighting quite how unpredictable the coming general election actually is:

The reality is that the electoral position of the Tories is significantly weaker than that of Labour 12 years ago. Opinion polls have the Tory vote hovering between 36 and 40 per cent. This is nowhere near Labour’s poll position in early 1995, close to 60 per cent. The polls then probably overstated Labour support but the fact remains that the Conservatives have yet to win over the majority of voters.

I broadly agree with Tall. The Tories might be the highest in the polls, but their support is very soft: people are against Labour but have no enthusiasm for the Tories. More and more people are foregoing the two big parties altogether, in an acceleation of a trend that goes back half a century.

Early Day Motions, a waste of money

Mark Thompson thinks Early Day Motions are a waste of money:

There is a campaign that started recently called “Scrap Early Day Motions” (website/blog here). They are campaigning to get rid of the House of Commons device for registering MPs feelings about issues altogether. [...] At the time of writing there are 1757 EDMs (not counting amendments). If they due really cost circa £300 a go, that equates to a cost of £527,100.

An EDM is just a petition that can only be signed by MPs. They should therefore be much less expensive to adminster — all you need is a petitions website that only MPs have a login to sign.

A Pirate Party government would be run by people who interweave the Internet in their everyday lives, and would therefore be fully computer literate, and would thus be able to prevent such obvious waste.

Pirate Parties throughout the world

cyrusfarivar notes that Pirate Parties are springing up throughout the world:

Remember those crazy kids at the Pirate Bay trial in Sweden earlier this year? Right after the trial, membership in the Piratpartiet surged to over 30,000 members. Today, there are nearly 50,000 members.

While this may have been laughable earlier this year, just a few weeks ago during the European Union elections, PP earned a seat in the European Parliament. Further, PP members convinced former Social Democrat Jörg Tauss to leave the the SDP and join the German Pirate Party, or the Piratenpartei Deutschland.

Beyond these successes, the Pirate Party is spreading around Europe and around the globe. In the past few weeks alone, chapters in the United Kingdom, Slovenia, Estonia, and Switzerland have been founded.

This week, the United States Pirate Party is holding its annual elections — maybe they’ll soon be successful in getting someone elected to the state level?

Michael Jackson was “black”

The Mash:

MICHAEL JACKSON WAS ‘BLACK’

MICHAEL Jackson was a black man, it was claimed last night.

Actor Jamiee Foxxxx stunned the audience at the Black Entertainment Television Awards by announcing the late singer was ‘one of us’ before introducing a series of tributes performed by people who, according to experts, were definitely not the same colour as Michael Jackson.

It had been assumed that Jackson was adopted by a black family who covered his face in boot polish and shoved him on stage where they used ropes and pulleys to make him dance.

Scottish Roundup

Scottish Roundup. Here.

Britblog Roundup #228

Britblog Roundup #228. You know it makes sense.

Young people excluded from politics

ePolitix is reporting that young people feel excluded from politics:

Some 76 per cent of young people feel they cannot influence government decisions, a poll has revealed.

Research published by the Youth Citizenship Commission also found that 82 per cent of young people don’t trust politicians to make the right decisions for them.

Pirate Party goes from strength to strength

Pirate Party Sweden is on the way up:

And one Swedish opinion poll yesterday shows that the Pirate Party gains another four percent in Sweden. It will now be impossible to create a new government in Sweden without the Pirate Party.

I don’t have any details but I assume the 4% increase is on the 7% they got in the Euro election, in which case they’re on 11%.

And it appears that PP.se might have done even better if it hadn’t been for electoral irregularities.