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Showing posts from May, 2011

Lord Sugar returns to savage another set of business mavericks

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The Apprentice has burst back onto TV again at its normal time of year – with none of this conflict of interest because Lord Sugar is in the government kerfuffle- and welcomes another shower of business bastards onto our screens; all blustering and purring about how they are unstoppable selling machines and that they will declare war on low profit margins. Things are the same as ever. This year amongst the contestants: we have an automaton who works 24/7 without switching off and I am sure will kill us all once Skynet orders the termination of humanity, a nutty inventor , a sexual harassment prosecution waiting to happen , as well as a woman who claims to have been taught to achieve a higher purpose personally by the Dali Lama. There were also the usual droves of interchangeable, deluded middle managers with career achievements as realistic sounding as a child telling you he will be a ninja astronaut when he grows up. This year there is a bit of a twist in the format of the game

To AV or not to AV

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I’ve decided to finally write something about the upcoming AV vote as the campaigning reaches fever pitch for the referendum on Thursday. The campaigning itself has been anything but dignified and has at times perpetuated outright myth. This is true of both sides of the debate unfortunately. The No campaign tries to scare people into voting no, whilst the yes campaign seems obsessed with implying that AV will fix everything wrong with politics in the UK. Now to explain where I stand on the issue: I am behind the Yes campaign. I feel that AV is a better system than FPTP, primarily as it fixes some of the problems with the current system. It’s been pointed out to me many times that AV won’t affect some constituencies as they already have an MP elected by a clear 50 per cent majority. This is absolutely true but AV cleans up the less clear outcomes in constituencies with a more spread out vote where there is no clear majority and where tactical voting comes into play. It is surely