About to mail my 2010-05-06 postal vote for Britain's Lib-Dems—YAY!

[brendalana]

G'day, all…

Re: Cross-dressing men flogged in Sudan for being 'womanly…'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-10871494
A group of men are flogged in Sudan after a court rules they broke strict moral codes by dressing and dancing in a "womanly" way...

-

There but for my secular fortune of birth and place of residence, go I—and many of my gender-variant peers… mind you… everything is not hunky-dory… far from it… trans-phobic folk on homo- transphobic British Overseas Territories—particularly on Bermuda—are still able and abetted by a seeming couldn't care less British coalition-government to discriminate against us with impunity…

B+...

[brendalana]

Greetings, all…

Re:

Scotland - Cardinal attacks US over Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi… [2010-08-08 BBC News]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-10905562

Much as I'm given to condemn the UK for world ills wrought by British colonialism… and a known skeptic of organised religiosity...
I'm with Cardinal Keith O' Brien's 2010-08-08 Scotland on Sunday< http://tinyurl.com/2v4qz3m >:

"I would rather live in a country where justice is tempered by mercy than exist in one where vengeance and retribution are the norm…"

And so it is…

B+...

[brendalana]

G'day, all…

It would have been too much of a palaver and unwarranted expense for this beneficiary of state pension credit to attend the recent Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference… so I didn't, and probably won't get around to attending those in the future when it comes to that… as a left of centre Lib-Dem member… I intend to inwardly learn and digest the next conference proceedings as I have during the past few days—in front of my iMac or television… okay—one day tele-conferencing and voting will be available to folk like me…

Anyhow… as far as I am concerned Nick Clegg was preaching to the converted when he told conference that we must govern for the long-term… let's hope I'll be still be a contented pragmatic when we get to judge the interim results of Britain's "Clegeron" government at conference in twelve month's time…

Meanwhile… I sincerely hope that our attractive LGBT championing Equality Minister Lynne Featherstone ( http://lgbt.libdems.org.uk/news/000473/the_equality_ministers_speech_to_conference.html ) intends to diligently pursue equality for not only LGBT folk, but our "Intersex" kin… and… as this trans-phobically abused Bermudian exile has long especially advocated… for my LGBTQI kin on British Overseas Territories, too…

next…

B+…

[brendalana]

Britain - Liberal Democrats Abroad launches today… [2010-09-23 Liberal Democrat Voice]

http://www.libdemvoice.org/liberal-democrats-abroad-launches-today-21293.html

Liberal Democrats Abroad launches today

By Helen Duffett

Published 23rd September 2010 - 6:08 pm

The Liberal Democrats have today launched an organisation to communicate with the party’s overseas supporters.

Liberal Democrats Abroad < http://www.libdems.org.uk/lib_dems_abroad.aspx > aims to keep members and supporters in touch with the UK party, to encourage supporters to join, and to register to vote in the UK.

So, who’s eligible to vote?

   British citizens who live overseas but were last on a UK electoral register within the last 15 years can vote in elections. If you are abroad but not on the electoral register, you’ll need to contact the council for the area where you last lived in the UK.

   People who were under the age of 18 when their parents moved abroad can also vote once they reach 18 – for up to 15 years from the time when their parents were last registered in the UK.

There’s already a Brussels and Europe local party< http://uklibdems.eu/ >, and more branches are planned soon.

Nick Clegg (who is himself abroad today< http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11394935 >, at the UN in New York) said:

   In response to requests from our many supporters overseas and reflecting the Party’s internationalist outlook, we have decided to set up a new organisation called Liberal Democrats Abroad to connect with our members and supporters living overseas.

   Our aim is to ensure that Lib Dems living overseas can stay in touch with the Party in the UK and make certain that, in return, the Party understands the concerns of its members overseas.

   We will also encourage our members and supporters to register to vote in the UK.

   To this end we will set up a network of Lib Dems Abroad branches in as many countries as we can. We will then give them our continuing support.

Both the Conservative < http://www.conservativesabroad.org/ > and Labour < http://labourinternational.net/wordpress/ > parties also have international organisations, and with 2.5 million Brits abroad, there’s a significant number of votes to be harvested.

For more information, including how to register to vote, visit the Liberal Democrats Abroad page < http://www.libdems.org.uk/lib_dems_abroad.aspx > on the party’s main website.

--

© 2006-2010 Liberal Democrat Voice and its contributors.

[brendalana]

Greetings, All…
 
Wednesday 2010-10-20…

11.00 Having just received my snail-mailed Liberal-Democrats Ballot Paper… Election of Party President… I warmed to candidate Tim Farron's North Country down-to-brass-tacks modus operandi… but was far from happy over what I'd gleaned online—hence this exchange on Facebook "Tim Farron for Lib Dem president" wall < http://www.facebook.com/timfarronforpresident/posts/167567199921435 >:

12.40 Brenda Lana Smith on Tim Farron for Lib Dem president wall:

Greetings,Tim… With you being on record as having voted strongly against the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007-03-19. Where do you now stand on providing and protecting full human rights and equality for all LGBTI folk?

…..

12.57 Tim Farron for Lib Dem president:

Dear Brenda,

Thanks for your message.

I am a passionate supporter of equal LGBT rights. But if you look at 'they work for you', I'm classed as being 'opposed to equal gay rights' because of 2 of my votes on the Equalities bill. This is complete rubbish. I have complained to 'they work for you' about this.

The reality is that my votes on those two amendments were due to me taking what I considered to be a heavily liberal line on freedom of organisation and choice. You might not agree with my take on this, and Stonewall didn't, but Peter Tatchell and Outrage did.

I'm happy to argue whether or not I did the right thing, but please don't think that I'm some kind of homophobe!

Anyone who's known me over the 24 years that I've been a Liberal and a Liberal Democrat knows that this is the most outrageous rubbish.

Long before there was any public majority for LGBT rights I fought for the equalisation of the age of consent and for civil partnerships & the right to marry.

I am a radical liberal to my fingertips - and my anger at inequality caused by poverty and my anger at inequality caused by homophobia come from the same place.

Cheers

Tim

…..

13.30 Brenda Lana Smith: Thank you Tim for your welcomely expected frank and prompt reply... it has salvaged this Old Huttonian cum LGBTI activist's in doubt vote...

Ciao...

Brenda…

…..

13.37 Tim Farron for Lib Dem president:
Thank you Brenda - that means a lot. Cheers, Tim

UNQUOTE…

As the "Clegeron" chancellor was presenting his all important spending preview before parliament during this exchange… credit for Tim's vote salvaging response goes to a well oiled "Tim Farron for Lib Dem president" machine—c'est la vie… next…

B+...

[brendalana]

Greetings, all…

I support David Parkes' 2010-12-01 Liberal Democrat Voice Opinion: On Broken Promises

http://www.facebook.com/notes/liberal-democrat-voice/opinion-on-broken-promises/470998547158

by Liberal Democrat Voice on Wednesday, December 01, 2010 at 2:45pm

Having just watched Vince Cable’s interview on the Politics Show last week, where he denied breaking any promises to oppose a rise in tuition fees, I feel its time to discuss a changing narrative.

Lib Dem MPs and Ministers (including up until now Vince Cable,) have a reputation for giving straight-forward honest answers to journalists questions without coming across as evasive or revisionist. However, with the tuition fee pledge to deny a promise was ever made and as such never broken is not a line we are going to be able to sell to anyone with half a brain.

Meanwhile Ed Balls has been busy admitting Labour’s mistakes on civil liberties in a clear attempt to begin wiping Labour’s slate clean. Now this is not a line that is easily sold to political anoraks or activists, however the public like to see politicians humbled, they like to see them admit their mistakes and apologise. Once that has happened the process of rebuilding trust can begin, not before.

With this in mind, isn’t it time Lib Dem ministers conceded that they broke a promise on Tuition Fees for the reasons Vince stated in his interview? IE: Rather than say ‘no we didn’t break any promises’, admit that we did make a promise that we couldn’t deliver because a) we are in a Coalition and b) the financial mess Labour left us with.

Once we acknowledge that we have broken a promise, perhaps then we should turn the discussion to the promises we have kept. Things like: restoring the link between pensions and earnings, raising the personal allowance on Income Tax, ending child detention in immigration centres, abolishing ID cards database, delivering a pupil premium for schools taking children from the poorest families and things we are committed to doing as part of the Coalition Agreement like electing the House of Lords
using Proportional Representation, having a referendum on the Alternative Vote for elections to the Commons.

When we add up electoral promises kept as part of the Coalition Government and promises broken, the kept promises far outweigh the broken, and not just in areas where we had consensus with the Conservatives.

Its time to change the narrative, to admit we have broken a promise, to explain why and to start emphasising the promises we have kept. Then we can begin to rebuild trust on the Tuition Fees issue.

-

David Parkes is a Liberal Democrat Member living in the Canary Islands, where he works as a web developer. He is an occasional blogger and primarily involves himself in the party by supporting Lib Dem online campaigns.

--

Ciao...

B+...

[brendalana]

Greeting, all…

Much as this avowed Social Democrat paid-up Liberal-Democrat party member struggles to rationalise many of the doings of the Clegeron government… I’m not about to support HM’s loyal opposition… to wit… I made a 2010-12-03 £10.00 donation to Lib-Dem candidate Elwyn Watkins’ campaign fund in the forthcoming by-election in Oldham East and Saddleworth…

Ciao…

B+…

[brendalana]

Greetings, all…

It is only proper that I comment on:

Britain - Poll: Lib Dems 'to lose half their voters at next election…’ [2010-12-11 The Telegraph]

http://tinyurl.com/37grx7f

While this probable sad truth—and much of the present Clegeron HE debacle—is probably due to Labour having misguidedly turned its back on a golden opportunity to have formed a coalition with the Lib-Dems when any party failed to win the last general election… this social-democratic card carrying Lib-Dem party member and elector is certainly not about to jump ship and support Labour… that done and dusted… I probably would revert to character by supporting the like of a Social Democrat Party should such breakaway party be formed… next…

B+...

[brendalana]

Greetings, all...

This avowed Social Democrat paid-up Liberal-Democrat party member is not only taken aback by the heretofore totally unsuspected display of naivety by one of my social democratic Lib-Dem idols—Clegeron Business Secretary Vince Cable… but that he has not of his own accord shown the mettle to give his rightfully clipped ministerial wings and wounded ego recuperation time on the back benches… next…

B+...

[brendalana]

Greetings, all…

Further to my Thursday 2010-12-23 comment… to help repair the untold damage done… Clegeron Prime Minster David Cameron needs now honourably and very publicly condemn the sting tactics employed by the *Conservative party supporting Telegraph to sabotage the unity of his coalition government, as absolutely disgraceful…


*Britain - The Daily Telegraph is backing David Cameron's Conservatives… [2010-05-02 The Telegraph]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7664387/General-Election-2010-who-are-the-newspapers-backing.html
 
General Election 2010: who are the newspapers backing?

The Telegraph, the Financial Times, The Mirror and the Guardian have formally announced their political allegiances. Other newspapers have already made their loyalties known.

By Amy Willis

10:20AM BST 02 May 2010

The Daily Telegraph is backing David Cameron's Conservatives. Our editorial concludes:
"Built on the concept that the state should do less, better, and that decisions are best taken as closely as possible to where they impact, it addresses the straitened circumstances of the time...

"We believe that only a Conservative government can restore the nation's fortunes."

(SNIP)

-

Newspaper allegiances round-up:
The Daily Telegraph - Conservatives
The Sunday Telegraph - Conservatives
The Sun - Conservatives
Daily Mail - Conservatives
Daily Express - Conservatives
News of the World - Conservatives
The Guardian - Liberal Democrats
The Times - Conservatives
The Sunday Times - Conservative
The Economist - Conservatives
The Independent on Sunday - Liberal Democrats
The Observer - Liberal Democrats
The Mail on Sunday - Conservatives
The Financial Times - Conservatives
The Mirror - Labour, but urging tactical voting for Lib Dems

--

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2010

UNQUOTE…

B+...

[brendalana]

For what it’s worth, folk…

Britain - Millions of state workers to be asked about sexuality, gender identity, disabilities and religion… [2011-01-12 The Telegraph]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/8255625/Millions-of-state-workers-to-be-asked-about-sexuality-and-religion.html

Wishful thinking aka unworkable twaddle, Lynne… but how timely an anti-Clegeron government publication on the Oldham East & Saddleworth by-election day… fence-sitting by-electors there are now probably more mindset on Labour…

That done and dusted… I sincerely hope I am wrong… and… that Lib-Dem candidate Elwyn Watkins will be the 2011-01-13 duly elected MP for Oldham East & Saddleworth…

Ciao…

B+…

[brendalana]

G’day, all...

Britain’s Oldham East & Saddleworth 2011-01-13 by-election results—2010 general election in brackets:

   Abrahams (Lab)       14,718  (14,186)

   Watkins (LD)       11,160  (14,083)

   Ali (Con)            4,481  (11,773)

   Others            4,571    (4,478)



   Majority            3,558      (103)

   Turnout            48.1%     (61.2%)

   Share of the vote:      Lab 42%   LD 32%   Con 13%   Others 13%

While I would have much preferred Elwyn Watkins had won… all things considered… no great surprise... other than percentage-wise… nationally extrapolating the shellacking that the Tories suffered leaves me thinking that Clegeron government need better temper their present painful Conservative leaning policies with more compassionate Liberal-Democratic ones… next...

B+...

[brendalana]

G'day, all...

I personally feel that the abandonment of E-voting in Britain is premature... that the alleged claims of it not being a secret ballot is a red herring... overcoming present real or perceived insecurities is not electronically insurmountable... look how the onetime lack of security in the early days of online banking has been overcome...

Ciao...

B+...

.....


Britain - E-voting: why it was abandoned in the UK… [2011-01-25 Liberal Democrat Voice]

http://www.libdemvoice.org/?p=22488

E-voting: why it was abandoned in the UK

By Mark Pack

25th January 2011 - 11:55 am

Back in the early years of this century, the UK was at the forefront of testing out e-voting for public elections. An extensive series of pilots were held and then … e-voting fell out of favour, because the pilots were not a success for a wide range of reasons. The issue still keeps on popping up, so having recently come across again what I wrote back in 2003 about those pilots, those lessons are worth restating. Here is what I wrote back in the summer of 2003. Luckily the last paragraph turned out to be wrong.


E-voting: triumph or disaster?

According to the e-voting industry, the e-pilots this May [2003] were a triumph. “Everyone’s a winner” said the Athena Consortium, responsible for pilots in Swindon and Stroud. Stroud’s own press release talked of “E-voting success … The figures are a major success for the Council.”

Whilst one in five of the total votes cast in Stroud were cast electronically, overall turnout was down 7% from the last comparable elections. Letting people vote in a different way provided a choice which some took, but it didn’t result in more people voting overall.

It was a similar story elsewhere. Swindon saw its turnout fall by just over 1%. Across all of the e-voting pilots, turnout was unimpressive, being down slightly (0.4%) on the last comparable elections.

Given the failure of the e-pilots to boost turnout, it is not surprising that the Government and the Electoral Commission focused on other aspects of May’s pilots in their immediate reactions.

The Electoral Commission’s initial response has been to highlight the successes of all-postal pilots in raising turnout and to be largely quiet about the e-voting pilots.

The minister, Nick Raynsford, has been more forthcoming in praising e-voting pilots, though using the argument that they were a success because of the number of people who used them – regardless of the fact that often fewer people in total were voting – and glossing over the cost and security issues.

The more subtle version of the turnout argument, and the one which the government and Electoral Commission are increasingly using, is that e-voting and similar might not raise turnout now. But imagine in an even more wired world in 15 years time…

Well, maybe. But online banking hasn’t finished off phone banking. Phone banking hasn’t finished off postal banking. And none of them have finished off banking in person. The penny post was introduced the century before last and the postal service is still with us.

Even so, providing choice – a range of voting channels in the jargon – can’t be bad, can it? That depends on practicality.


Basic errors

In several of the pilots, very basic errors were made – for example in two of them there were no backup alternatives available for key pieces of IT equipment.

One of these was Sheffield, despite the city’s advantage of having also run an e-pilot last year as well. Indeed, the Sheffield pilot was littered with basic IT project management blunders. Two staff were made available by one of the contractors to maintain IT equipment on polling day – but they were not provided with any transport with which to get to the polling stations if a problem occurred!

One polling station never received its ISDN line for on-line checking of whether or not people had voted – so allowing people to vote twice on the day, once there and one at another polling station, without any checking taking place that would catch them.


It’s the future – it’s the back of an envelope

Presiding officers at polling stations were not all supplied with paper registers to use in case of IT failure – with the result that when an inevitable malfunction occurred in one polling station, staff had to improvise ways of trying to keep records of who was voting and, according to Richard Allan MP, the result was that they “literally used the ‘backs of envelopes’.”

Given these blunders, and others both in Sheffield and elsewhere, it is perhaps no great surprise that neither the Electoral Commission nor the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) have so far shown much interest in taking responsibility for the actual performance of the pilots on the ground.

But despite their experimental nature, the pilots are still about real elections – with real candidates, real voters and real decisions to be made. Is it really satisfactory for the public and candidates to have to go through an election which is being run so badly?

There are in theory two important quality controls on the e-voting pilots. The ODPM has drawn up a list of preferred suppliers for local authorities to work with and also has a say over the overall pilot programme each year. Yet these controls have manifestly failed – too many of the pilots in May were badly run.

It would be too easy to say that the lesson from the technical problems with May’s e-voting pilots is that for e-voting to work, we just have to get a bit better management. The pilots have rather exposed a much more widespread failure to manage IT projects successfully – across several councils and several contractors and with inadequate supervision from ODPM. These widespread flaws can’t be remedied by a brief set of exhaustions to get it right next time.

iMacs or brown envelopes?

There is no doubt that e-voting is rather sexier than the traditional ways of voting or even all-postal voting. A voting future which involves iMacs and websites is more eye-catching than one dependent on pencil stubs and brown envelopes. But that doesn’t mean it is any better, especially when the matter of security is added to the list of concerns.


Securing computers

The old IT joke is that the only secure computer is one which is switched off with all the cables pulled out. Very secure, but not very useful.

Despite the need for care, some of May’s e-pilots showed a naïve approach to security. One example was the Chorley pilot, where the statutory instrument passed by Parliament said that the ballot papers should have bar codes on the back which can be “read by an electronic scanner but not by eye.” Although it is an esoteric skill, reading barcodes by eye is possible – and no doubt there would be many training sessions at conference on how to read a bar code if this “security” system was to be widely used!

More generally, one of the most important requirements for an e-voting system the public can trust is to have a clear audit trail. To have confidence in the result, we not only need to know the result but also to be able to check how it was derived. It is rather like bank accounts – how many people would trust their bank if they were only told their balance at the end of the month, but never sent any statements or given information in-between?

However many of the e-voting systems piloted have very few, if any, audit trails that can be checked in practice and many of the involved have little interest in audit trails. For example, the Basingstoke returning officer stated that if there was a query over the number of votes the computers said were cast, he would only be willing to check the figures after he declared the official result and it became legally binding, only subject to very expensive legal action.

It would be like a bank telling a small business it was going to call in a loan and bankrupt it – but if you said it had got its figures wrong on the size of the loan it would only check them after you had been bankrupted rather than before.


Lib Dem agents save the day

Other major security problems at Basingstoke were only avoided by the intervention of the Liberal Democrat agent, Keith Watts. One concern with electronic machines is that someone may electronically stuff them with votes before polling begins. It is therefore important to be able to check that the machine is ‘zeroed’ before voting starts. Yet in Basingstoke the original plan was to let machines be used even if the machine refused to produce a zero print.

Similarly in Epping the Chief Executive was prepared to side-step the safeguards which normally come from the ability of agents and candidates to query a result before it is declared. In his case, he told a member of an ODPM study visit that he was prepared to declare results even without agents or candidates present.

In one ward in Epping, there were more spoilt votes than there were for one of the Labour candidates (just over 100 votes). Although the result was queried, and it was confirmed that there was roughly the same number of spoilt votes across each machine used in the ward, it is still very difficult to believe that there wasn’t a significant technical failure here, such as a collective configuration error.

It was nearly much worse. When Jon Whitehouse, one of the Lib Dem agents, went to a briefing session he was startled to hear that the machines were all set to be configured with a “none of the above” option on the ballot paper.

Never mind that the law does not allow this, nor that no-one had been consulted on this major change!

When Jon protested he got the machines changed, but it was only thanks to his last minute decision to attend the meeting (when another engagement was fortuitously cancelled) that the election did not go ahead with “none of the above” on the ballot paper by mistake.

As with many of the other e-pilots, the clear conclusion is that the pilot system is deeply flawed – letting far too many wrong or bad decisions through.


The verdict

It is easy to slip into being too enthusiastic about e-voting – it sounds modern, talking about it attracts media interest (would journalists turn up to hear a minister talking about wanting a new envelope design for postal votes?) and there are plenty of companies with a sniff of big profits at a possible e-enabled general election making their case.

But what really have we seen so far? It’s expensive, it comes with extra security and fraud risks, many of the pilots have been embarrassingly basic errors and it barely raises turnout.

There are some benefits – e-voting systems can be designed to cope well with the needs of visually impaired people and some people certainly like e-voting. The downsides though are large – including the risk of technical failure wrecking an election, the security problems and the high costs so far.

Is the Government listening? Probably not so far – the ODPM’s press release on the pilot results only conceeded, rather dismissively, “a few minor technical problems.”

-

One Comment:

David Walden

Posted 25th January 2011 at 12:17 pm

The basic problem with e voting (and many other of the ‘new’ methods) is that there is no guarantee that it will be a secret ballot.

The only way to assure that is to go back to having everyone casting votes in polling stations. If people can’t be bothered to go and do that (hardly an onerous task, in my opinion) then in my opinion they will get the government they deserve. The only exception that can be allowed is a duly certified medical reason. I think this whole initiative is an attempt to solve a problem that does not exist.

People don’t turn out to vote if they don’t believe that it will make any difference. That is the question all politicians should be addressing.

--

© 2006-2011 Liberal Democrat Voice and its contributors.

[brendalana]

Greetings, all…

Yes! This Clegeron government supporter will be voting Yes2AV… and happily share these campaign supporters' reasons for voting #Yes2AV

The People Say Yes

That done and dusted… I look forward to the UK’s next general election when I hope to be able to electorally record my present and probable candidate voting preference as:

01. Liberal-Democrat;
02. Labour; and
03. Conservative…

Ciao…

B+…

[brendalana]

Greetings. all...

Re: Britain - Quaker Simon Beard: Why I will be making trouble for the census… [2011-02-25 Lib-Dem Voice]

http://www.libdemvoice.org/?p=23155&utm_source=tweet&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=twitter

While I lack Simon Beard’s audacity not to complete the 2011 census… my required doing so does not enhance my future support of our Clegeron government…

Ciao…

B+...