Today Labour backbencher David Winnick (MP for Walsall) is introducing a ten-minute rule bill to parliament aimed at making voting a “civic duty” in an attempt to get more voters to turn out at election time.
Currently the UK has an awful record on electoral turnout. According to a recent BBC News article, At the last General Election in 2010 only 65% of those registered bothered to vote — that’s a massive 16 million who didn’t vote. Add to that the estimate that around 7.5 million who are eligible to vote don’t bother to register (although repeat “offenders” can mow be fined) and we have around half the country who aren’t expressing their opinion (even if that is “none of the above”).
And that’s for a General Election. Local government elections often have turnouts of no more than 25%, yet people continue to complain about their local services.
And the figures are even worse amongst the younger generation with only 44% of 18-24 year-olds voting in 2010.

One suggestion is that voting should be made compulsory, as it is in Australia where there is always around a 98% turnout. This is an idea I like and one of the few places where I would be prescriptive in telling people what to do! After all the state already makes us do other, often more onerous, things (eg. jury service) as a civic duty so it isn’t as if there is no precedent.
However for me compulsory voting would only truly work if every ballot paper had a “None of the above” option at the bottom thus allowing a positive abstention to be counted (although one always has the option to spoil ones voting paper). If nothing else the level of positive abstentions would be enlightening. One could even look at a system where if the rate of positive abstentions is too high (maybe over 25% of votes cast?) then the vote in that constituency is declared null and void and has to be re-run. That could concentrate the minds of not just a few politicians but also the electorate who would have to do their civic duty again, and again, and again … while paying the cost through their taxes!
Somehow we have to energise the great British electorate into being rather less apathetic. But then some integrity and common sense from the elected politicians would be a good start!
Thoughts anyone?

Trying to run a public service like a business will never work
A public service is an inherently different beast from a business and asking one to behave as the other is like asking a fish to ride a bicycle
So says Kerry-anne Mendoza in short, but spot-on, analysis in yesterday’s Guardian.
This is why our public services — NHS, railways, utilities etc. — are in a mess. They need to be run a services not as profit generation for shareholders.
Politicians, please note and action!

The long arm of the law is getting longer and needs to be amputated!
It has been widely reported in the last couple of days (see, inter alia, here and here) that the Government wants to abolish Police cautions and instead allow the Police to fine people directly for most minor offences.
Like many others I see this summary justice as an erosion of our liberties and another move towards a police state.
Just because, according to the Police Inspectorate, around a third of cautions are issued incorrectly doesn’t mean they should be replaced with a more draconian measure. If anything it suggests the scheme doesn’t work and should be abolished. Yes, I dislike the notion of Police cautions as a piece of instant justice as much as I do summary fines.
A Police caution still gives the offender a criminal record. However the person concerned has had no opportunity to have their side of the case properly heard, in court, as the Police are acting as prosecutor and either magistrate or judge and jury. This to me is an infringement of the justice system which is based on the principle that everyone has the right to be heard in court by their peers (either in the persons of magistrates or a jury).
And allowing the Police even greater powers to fine offenders makes that far far worse.
We know why the government want to do it. They see Police cautions as a “soft option”, which it isn’t as it gives the offender a criminal record. Moreover it will probably save money which would otherwise have to be spent on the magistrates’ courts (already severely cut back) and will likely bring in extra revenue — in the way speed cameras and parking wardens have done.
But it means that many people will accept the caution or fine — often when they shouldn’t — because they don’t want to have to go to court for whatever reason; possibly because the Police have used scare tactics on them.
Out of court disposals (by which I understand cautions and the proposed fines) are incredibly problematic in terms of giving someone a criminal record without any form of legal procedure or check and balance. Both summary fines and cautions should, in my mind, be abolished: either the offence is serious enough to put the suspect before a magistrate or it isn’t.
Instant justice like this cannot be a good thing in a democratic, supposedly free, country. It all smacks too much of the Police state!

This article from Simon Jenkins in the Guardian on 17 October takes a swipe at politicians’ panic over Ebola — a classic case of the politics of fear.
But in amongst it all he has another couple of telling comments.

… air travel which, in the digital age, is almost all non-essential …

Ah, someone else has woken up to this! It’s time business and politicians did too and realised they can operate just as efficiently and more productively using electronic communication, teleconferences etc. and not flying people around the world. Hey look! Even Joe Public uses Skype!
Oh and no, holidays in the Maldives, Morocco or Thailand are NOT essential either!

The political scientist Louise Richardson wrote in “What Terrorists Want” that it is precisely what western politicians seem happiest to give them: they want to make us fear them. “By declaring war on terror,” she says, “far from denying al-Qaida its objectives we are conceding its objectives. That is why a war on terror can never be won.” It is a terminological admission of defeat.

Yes! Something else I keep saying. Stop giving the “terrorists” the oxygen of publicity. Stop splashing every threat, murder, bombing all over the front pages f every newspaper and news bulletin. All you’re doing is giving them publicity, which is precisely what they need.
No, I’m not saying shut our eyes to what they’re doing and/or don’t report it. Just make it low key, as in “In other news …”.
And finally …

A democracy must know what it should fear … [but] … Freedom from fear is a human right. We pay politicians to guard us from terror by not terrifying us.

Jenkins’s article is worth a read.

Just a quick follow-up on my post of a couple of days ago on the Tories proposals to change the UK’s human rights landscape (see Legally Illiterate). As expected this has continued to attract vociferous attacks.
Also as promised the Law and Lawyers blog has posted two further, more in depth, articles:
Human Rights protection in Britain ~ 10 key points
Human Rights ~ the Conservative Party proposals.
Two other pieces worth reading are:
Head of Legal — Full of sound and fury on human rights
UK Human Rights blog — Incoherent, incomplete and disrespectful: The Conservative plans for human rights.
If we care at all about our rights then we all need to be concerned and keep working to halt these appalling proposals.

So, the Conservatives, if they win the next election, propose repealing the Human Rights Act 1998 and renegotiating, or failing that withdrawing from, the European Convention on Human Rights — as has been widely reported in the media over the last few days (see, inter alia, here).
Just about everyone except the Tories (and probably UKIP) is saying some variant of how crass a move this is. Many are openly hostile to the very idea. And many are pointing out the numerous flaws, stupidities, misunderstandings and sheer impracticality of such a move.
I’m not going to reprise the arguments here; others have done so far better than I can …
Needless to say Labour’s Shadow Justice Secretary Sadiq Khan has come out against the proposals, as has the Liberal Democrat’s Simon Hughes.
Even Dominic Grieve, a former Conservative Attorney General, isn’t impressed; he describes the ideas as “unworkable” and “almost puerile”.
Jessica Elgot at Huffington Post picks 10 pretty large holes and howlers in the proposals, as well as pointing out that they have self-evidently not been drafted by a lawyer!
The Law and Lawyers blog opinion is “Don’t make me laugh”! He promises a more in depth look at the proposals at a later date.
If you do nothing else read this from barrister Isabella Sankey for Liberty. It is the most considered response I’ve seen so far. Sankey picks apart each strand of the proposals and points out the legal misunderstandings and legal impracticalities. I just love her overall comment on the proposals as “legally illiterate“. That’s really telling it how it is!
This one could run and run. Except that I doubt it will because I’ll be very surprised if the Tories get a large enough majority at the next election. Though that doesn’t mean there is any room for complacency. The time for rebellion approaches …