Vote for Party President
Posted by Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on 22/10/2010
Well, my vote’s in — I have a feeling one candidate will win by a landslide…
Spending review
Posted by Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on 20/10/2010
As a Liberal Democrat and former Conservative, today’s spending review should be largely good news, you would think.
But instead I am sitting here wondering whether the coalition has understood the implications of some of its changes.
As a Councillor it may not surprise you to realise that I think a 26% cut in local Council funding is unrealistic.
But I think the real problem with the budget is the cumulative and resonant impact of some of the cuts. A cut in housing benefits and a reduction in the benefits that can be received for out-of-work homes to the average wage may be the morally right thing to do, but the impact is likely to be that rents across all sectors decrease as tenants can no longer afford the prices being charged.
If rents reduce, many people with buy-to-let will have to sell their homes and I suspect this will cause an overall reduction in house prices. House prices don’t matter while you don’t need/want to move, but they affect the confidence of the spending public and they affect people who do have to move.
I worry that, at the risk of sounding like a Labour supporter, while the country needs this medicine, it’s a large pill that’s hard to swallow and will have worse side effects than the disease being treated.
I believe the answer, as well as to vote “YES” at the referendum in May is also to ensure that the next government has a purely liberal agenda and can ensure fairness and proportionality in its efforts. We have, by necessity, included some Conservative policies in our collective actions today, and this is a shame.
The Pope — not welcome
Posted by Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on 16/09/2010
In the same way many in England were aghast when Ken Livingstone invited unpleasant fellows to London, many are now unhappy with the Pope’s State visit. As the great Stephen Fry asked, why are we paying for his holiday to preach intolerance? (I may have paraphrased slightly.)
The pope presides over a church which stated aims are to make worse the lives of the uneducated, homosexuals and children. The uneducated by lying to them about the benefits, both the health benefits and the benefits of birth control, of contraception. Homosexuals by dehumanising them and trying to treat them other than as full members of society. And of children by thinking that the church is somehow above the law and protecting their abusers so that they can remain in a position of immense responsbility.
I have no problem with people believing whatever it pleases them to believe. They may believe in the healing effects of crystals, in fairies at the bottom of the garden or (and in no way more reasonably) in God. But they must not think that their beliefs can or should be equated in any way with some basis for human rights (although they are by law, unfortunately). It is not reasonable to compare religious belief (which is based upon nothing more than a funny feeling in the brain) with race, sexuality or any other intrinsic aspect of a person which others may choose to discriminate upon.
If religion and individual freedom come into conflict, individual freedom should always win. If the law of the land wishes to oblige all adoption agencies to allow gay couples to adopt, no right of exception should be granted to those who just happen to have misread a very old book which just happens not yet to have turned into mythology. I don’t pretend that today’s modern, more liberal society is perfect and will be judged as such by history, but I do know that the religious groups have no right to tell me what to do — none.
When the pope and his subjects come and preach (which I genuinely believe he should be entitled to do) he should not be surprised if we, the majority, don’t get excited and do openly attack his apalling record. He should be treated exactly the same as the Mullahs who preach hate that the Daily Mail gets so excited about.
When the pope says “‘Yet religion is in fact a guarantee of authentic liberty and respect, leading us to look upon every person as a brother or sister.” he misses an important detail. In order to benefit from this liberty you need an overactive imagination (to believe in the specific teachings of the Catholic church over all the other religions and to believe in something you cannot measure in any sense as well), not to be gay and not to be wishing to use contraception.
The pope believes that we have more freedom when we give money to pay for his lavish lifestyle in a foreign land. He believes we are free when we must attend one of his Sunday morning clubs at regular intervals, and he believes we are free when we must take instruction from a man who has chosen not to live like a ‘normal’ person.
Anyone who believes that “sex… is divisive” has clearly never done it! Anyone who believes that money, sex, drugs and alcohol are divisive sounds a rather dull dinner guest. Each to their own of course, but only if it genuinely makes you happy. And yet, our Queen has decided to invite this curiously strange chap to a lavish, tax-payer funded trip around our country. Odd this world, isn’t it!
Arguing with your historic self
Posted by Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on 05/09/2010
One of the reasons some people write a diary, I suspect, is so that they can review it later and get an insight into themselves of the past. Likewise, this blog is a great way of me reviewing my old self. Quite accidentally I tripped over a post from August 2006 and, now as a Liberal Democrat, that very-Tory post is just crying out for a critique.
This may seem odd to some readers, so I apologise now for gazing at my navel (albeit my navel, four years ago). I shall make it more odd by referring to 2006 Gavin in the third person — it just makes things easier.
So, in the post entitled “An Opportunity“, I described an opportunity I thought I saw, that the Conservative Party had to suck up new members from a Muslim population that was potentially a source of recruits for fundamentalists/terrorists.
Perhaps there’s still an argument for some Muslims to find their natural political bed-fellows in the Conservative Party… but no religious group is homogenous enough, even within the same family I suspect, to be able be generalised about like that.
First, the 2006 Gavin was one of the most liberal people in the local Conservative Party. He would find himself on the left of the argument even despite the way he worded his post. This means that, where he describes Muslims in terms that insensitively and inaccurately makes them all sound like potential Al Qaeda recruits, he made a less strong argument than perhaps almost all other Conservatives would have. Muslims approaching a local Conservative Association and asking to be members would, don’t be confused, be welcomed. But they would have found the optimistic tone of my blog post a little misleading at best. They would soon, for example, have been made to feel awkward for not being Christian.
2006 Gavin appeared to think that prison was the solution to the Daily Mail’s illustration of a broken Britain (one I don’t recognise, if I’m honest). I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt though, that when he mentions the liberalization of drug laws only in passing, that he did this because he knew how his colleagues would have reacted. Let me be clear: Drug liberalization is the only way to end this phoney ‘war on drugs’ which has been demonstrably lost. Decriminalize the victims of drugs and you are able to treat them. I don’t think it would be sensible to have ecstasy alongside paracetamol in the chemist, but if you are not able to go to the doctors about your addiction, where do you end up going? The answer, to that rhetorical question, is back to the dealer, who has a vested interest in your addiction.
Finally, within the comments, Dave mentioned a lack of concern among Conservatives, about Britain’s foreign policy… Interesting, that now I am in a party which has a relatively robust line on how it should behave abroad, I no longer appear out of touch with what my fellow party members want!
An Idiot’s Guide to the Environment
Posted by Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on 06/07/2010
You may have heard a lot about being ‘environmentally friendly’ or of the advantages of recycling, or even about the poor ozone layer. But do those phrases leave you cold? Do you wonder whether the ‘environment’ is one issue or several? Well sit back as I try to make clear for you something that is really important, but that can be difficult to research without being bamboozled:
The Ozone Layer
People of a certain age will know that the ozone layer was in peril in the late 80s and early 90s. This was due to a particular gas used in aerosols and some refrigerators and similar electrical appliances that damaged this layer of the atmosphere. The ozone layer protects all living things from the harmful effects of the sun’s light. The gases that were the cause were CFCs. The sun’s light that was being let through was those rays in the ultraviolet.
What do I need to do?
The Ozone layer problems are largely historical and are not related to global warming or the need for recycling. If you have an old fridge or freezer (or even if it’s reasonably new) make sure it is disposed off legally and recycled!
Recycling
Recycling is important because there are finite amounts of some materials. For example, on Earth there is only a limited amount of each type of metal and metal cannot be created from anything else. Recycling is the only sensible way to manage these genuinely limited resources. So when you recycle a drinks can, a battery, tin foil or a tuna can, you are helping to stop the human race from running out of these metals. Recycling batteries is especially important as they contain mercury which is a rare metal and also extremely poisonous. The metal in domestic appliances is largely recycled these days as a result of the EU’s WEEE rules.
Plastic recycling is similar to metal recycling in that plastic is made of a material that there is a limited amount of (oil). When we run out of oil (even if that is centuries from now), we will not be able to make all the plastics that currently rely on fossil oil (that is, oil derived from long dead trees as opposed to oil that can be extracted from recently alive plants such as sunflower oil etc.) Another reason to recycle plastic is because of something that happens to the chemicals when they are made into plastic: they are made almost completely impervious to rotting.
Paper recycling is nowhere near so clear cut. The best argument is actually one about global warming, so I have left that to that section.
The main thing to note is that the main reasons for recycling are not related to global warming. There are serious environmental reasons to recycle, but the majority of them are not to do with global warming.
Global Warming
This is the daddy of the environmental causes. For this reason, like evolution in biology, it is often attacked by people who want to attack environmentalists generally.
Carbon Dioxide (or CO2 to use its chemical symbol) and some other gases have an effect on the atmosphere which helps it to absorb more of the sun’s energy. This has the effect of causing the atmosphere generally to warm up. There are other effects of a change to the chemical make-up of the air, but they are reasonably subtle and not worth mentioning in this initial guide.
The trouble with heating the atmosphere is that it causes ice in some parts of the world to melt. And when it melts, the colour of these areas changes from light to dark. This may sound like a small thing but it has the unfortunate effect of stopping sunlight from being reflected back out into space, further heating the Earth.
The main thing when considering how to manage global warming (more properly, global climate change) is what causes an increase in the overall amount of CO2. The easy answer is burning things, but that is not always the case. If you plant a tree, it absorbs an amount of atmospheric carbon. When you burn that tree, you release some of that carbon back into the air. But what you have not done is contributed much to climate change. The real problem is when carbon that has been buried for a long period of time is released. That is mostly carbon trapped in coal and fossil oil and gas.
There are arguments about the benefit of using the bus or train over your car, and there are some odd results of different activities, but the principle is simple — if you can be more efficient when using electricity or your car, you will be helping.
The odd results are things like local vs. foreign farming. Some research has found that even with the fuel burning required in shipping a fruit product from Africa to England, there are fewer emissions attributable to the African product because of the greater mechanisation of English farms. It is difficult to legislate for that sort of effect, but it’s best not to worry about that sort of thing.
Some people will also point out that the climate is not usually stable and that it may not be human activity that is causing the changes in climate we can all now see. While that may be true to some extent, very little harm is done by trying to reduce our use of limited resources such as fossil fuels. So why not be more efficient anyway?!
I mentioned earlier that paper recycling could be considered a global warming mitigating environmentally friendly activity. I said this because when paper goes into landfill, it will decompose in a way that causes the greenhouse gas, methane, to be released. Unfortunately for the environment, methane is actually even more effective at trapping the sun’s energy than carbon dioxide. The same thing happens when food waste is binned, so do consider whether there is some way you can compost.
Conclusion
Next time someone says that they are doing something environmentally friendly, I hope this has helped you understand how that activity is environmentally friendly; I hope, too, that it has helped you understand that there is a difference between the environmental causes.
If you would like to learn more, or take part in discussion, take a look at the Green Living Grog
Electoral reform
Posted by Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on 02/07/2010
“At no point in the last X years has anyone approached me and said: ‘We must have electoral reform’”.
This was a near verbatim quote on BBC Radio 4 this morning. Unfortunately, while it is a good way of suggesting that those of us who are in favour of electoral reform (replacement of our current voting system with one that reflects the people’s choices) are out of touch, it is a little dishonest.
For in that same period, he must have had people approach him and ask “Why did Labour get such a large majority of seats in government if they only received thirty-something percent of the votes?” Because if he hasn’t he must also be unique!
Electoral reform is a phrase that will miss most voters, so instead we must refer to next year’s referendum as an election on Fairer Votes. And who would like to cast a ballot against fairer votes?
I am pleased, incidentally, that Nick Clegg is about to announce the referendum date. It would have been easy for this to have been done later in the term, leaving insufficient time to implement the changes before the next general election. And if that were to happen, one could imagine the momentum being lost. Once more, a win for the coalition.
Clegg on VAT
Posted by Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on 26/06/2010
I enjoyed Nick Clegg’s efforts on BBC News the other day. He was trying to defend the government’s 20% VAT proposal, increasing it from today’s 17.5%. And, of course, he did very well.
But the truth he couldn’t say, was that the VAT increase would not have been his choice. It cannot be right, in my opinion, to raise sales taxes that affect everyone, when there are income taxes that could be amended to affect only those able to pay. From a personal point of view, a local income tax in place of Council Tax, set at a level that would raise just a little more money from the well-off and taking about the same from those in the worst situations, would have been a fairer way.
But Clegg, if he doesn’t support the VAT increase, cannot say so. He has to compromise on some things much as the Conservatives have compromised.
The government’s doing a good job — I just hope it does as many of the good things that it can, before the next elections when, unless electoral reform is carried out, the old parties will regain power.
Update on Eastbrook
Posted by Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on 06/06/2010
I am currently organising a location in which to run regular surgeries in the ward. In the meantime, as some of you already have, please write to me using the address and phone number on the Adur website, or email me using the email address on the ‘About Me’ tab above.
I hope you’ve been enjoying the beautiful weather as I have!
A Perfect Coalition
Posted by Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on 12/05/2010
The coalition agreement on the Liberal Democrat website is a masterpiece.
For a Liberal Democrat, it delivers key, sensible and important policies including those on taxation, pensions, civil liberties, electoral reform (including an elected, proportional, House of Lords, fixed term parliaments and alternative vote and the West Lothian question) and, most amazingly, the environment (go Chris Huhne!)
For Conservatives, on the left of the party, it delivers policies that they may well have sympathised with and ensures that fairness is central to the way the country runs.
I cannot overstate how pleased I am with the agreement (which is a short and very readable document) and I am excited about how this will continue.
This is all national politics, however. Locally, I shall fight the ruling Adur Conservatives hard — we need to move on from this tired administration and improve the service that our excellent and loyal officers are asked to provide.