Getting the Government that We Vote for

"For half the time since the end of the Second World War we have been saddled with governments we did not vote for. Even when Scotland votes Labour, there is no guarantee that we end up with a Labour government at Westminster. That decision is made by others. It is out of our hands." Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish National Party Conference April 2014

This is a common theme behind a lot of the Yes campaign's arguments, particularly from the SNP. On a superficial level, it is seductive. The narrative of Scotland as a centre-left Labour stronghold and that governments voted for by English (sic.) voters to the contrary go against the will of the Scottish people, has become dominant.

Not so simple

But scratch beneath the surface, and the picture is not nearly so clear. What are our assumptions about what is a legitimate government? Is it the popular vote? Is it the number of seats? Is a party with more than 50% of the vote but fewer than 50% of the seats more or less legitimate than a party with the opposite?

The last time Scotland gave both a majority of the popular vote and a majority of the seats to any political party was in 1955. To whom? To the Unionists! The Scottish wing of the Conservative ticket. Scotland gave 50.1% of the vote, and 50.7% of the seats to the Tories. In that election, somewhat ironically, the country as a whole gave the Conservatives only a minority of the popular vote. Under an umbrella of identities, including the Ulster Unionists and National Liberals, the Tories achieved more than 50% of the vote and seats in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but a relatively poor showing in Wales left them on 49.7% of the vote of the British public.

Since then, it's been a much more subtle story. True, the Labour Party have held the majority of seats in every General Election in Scotland since, and the Conservative share of the popular vote has fallen significantly. But it should be observed that the majority of Scots voted for parties other than the Labour Party in every General Election since the Second World War. Granted, Labour came close on many occasions to meeting such a threshold. For many years they have confidently won the plurality of votes at Westminster elections in Scotland. But if we are to take the democratic burden at its highest, then save the 1955 election, no part of the UK has truly got the government it voted for, save on a few occasions Wales with a Labour Government or Northern Ireland with an Ulster Unionist/Conservative one.

So what?

This point isn't to suggest that none of the governments were legitimate, but to ask for much clearer criteria as to what we consider to be what we voted for. All electoral systems, even proportional ones, make approximations and distortions of the raw electoral desires of the population to provide a functioning, representative assembly. We make constant trade-offs between stability and legitimacy: this is why, for example, the SNP have a working majority, but only 45% or so of the popular vote at Holyrood. We ignore, further, the level of turnout when saying whether a government is legitimate.

More Scots voted for either the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats in the 2010 General Election than voted for the Scottish National Party on the regional list in 2011. This quirk is down as much to the much lower turnout of Holyrood Elections (circa 50%) than Westminster elections (circa 65%), and only just flips the other way if we only consider the constituency vote at Holyrood, but in democratic terms, the level of public endorsement for those governments is broadly the same. The argument that often follows this observation, that most (Scottish) Lib Dem voters would not have voted that way if they thought they would go into coalition with the Tories is somewhat undermined by the Lib Dems saying they would be happy to enter into coalition with their of the other two parties, depending on the terms. But all that proves is that legitimacy is more complex than raw votes or seats.

The Numbers

But let's then take Nicola Sturgeon's specific claim, that for half the time since WWII, Scotland has ended up with governments it didn't vote for. If we assume by this she means in terms of seats, the data churns out as follows:

• Scotland voted for a Labour government in every election since 1945, except for 1951 and 1955.
• In 1951, Scotland voted for a tied Parliament at 37 seats each, plus one Liberal. The Conservative ticket won the popular vote in Scotland with 48.6%.
• In 1955 Scotland voted for a Tory Government (see above)
• Out of 18 elections, the government formed would have been qualitatively different if only Scottish seats were taken into consideration on 10 occasions.
• On six of these occasions, a Scottish Labour majority led to a Tory Majority Government (1959, 1970, 1979, 1983, 1987, 1992)
• On one occasion, a Scottish hung parliament led to a Tory majority Government (1951, see above)
• On one occasion, a rest of UK Tory majority led to a majority Labour Government (1964)
• On one occasion, the rest of UK voted for a hung parliament with the Tories as the largest party, but a Labour minority government was formed (February 1974)
• On one occasion, a rest of UK Tory majority led to a Tory-Liberal Coalition Government being formed (2010)

On Sturgeon's specific claim we get the following:

• The total period of time in which a government has been formed in accordance with Scotland's wishes since 1945 is 33 years and 11 months. This includes the 1945, 1950, 1955, 1964, 1966, October 1974, 1997, 2001 and 2005 elections.
• If you include the 1955 election, where the Tories tied on seats but won the Scottish popular vote, this increases by 3 years 7 months
• If you include the February 1974 election, in which Scottish votes flip a whole UK popular vote win for the Tories, and an rUK Tory minority from a 24 seat lead to a 5 seat Labour minority, leading to a Labour minority administration being formed, Scotland got a government it voted for by an additional 8 months.
•  The total period of time in which a government has been formed contrary to Scotland's wishes is 34 years 10 months. This includes the 1959, 1970, February 1974, 1979, 1983, 1987, 1992 and 2010 elections, up to April 2014.

The tenor of the claim, therefore is broadly true, but it doesn't tell the full story. Only just over half of the period since WWII has delivered governments not in accordance with Scotland's wishes (as expressed through seats), and it drops to under half depending on how you deal with the 1955 and February 1974 elections.

But that, again, isn't the full picture. If we did the same exercise for Wales, their position would be even less favourable than Scotland's. Wales has frequently voted more than 50% for Labour since the war and always in the plurality and in terms of seats. Wales additionally did not get the government it voted for in 1955 (4 years 5 months). The impact on the 2010 election would have been to move the Tories slightly closer to an overall majority, such that a minority government or a two-party coalition with the DUP may have been, electorally, more likely. In any case, Wales has not had the government it voted for for 39 years 3 months since the war.

If we look at Northern Ireland, ever since the break between the Ulster Unionists and the Conservatives after the Sunningdale Agreement of 1974, none of the parties participating in elections have had formal links with the platform of any of the major UK political parties. Their influence and representation has been next to non-existent in UK elections. By the same metric, NI has not had the UK government it voted for for 52 years 4 months since the war.

And what about England? Leave aside the Bush-Gore style precursor it had in 1951 (where Labour very marginally won the popular vote but the Tories comfortably won on seats). In 1964, England narrowly voted for a Tory Government, and got a Labour one. Similarly, in February 1974, they voted Tory and got a Labour (minority) government. In October 1974, they voted (just) for a hung parliament, with Labour as the largest party, but got a Labour majority. And as recently as 2010, they voted for a Conservative government, and got saddled with a Conservative-Liberal coalition. All in all, England didn't get the government it voted for 10 years 7 months since the war.

What this shows, perhaps more importantly, is that the UK and Scotland have sought to elect the same government for 23 years and 8 months of the last 68 years and 9 months. This isn't a massively strong consensus, but it is consensus. Some seek to argue that in those situations, Scotland has no effect on the result. That much is true. But it is evidence, to some extent at least, of a common cause or direction existing between those nations during that period.

When they have disagreed, Scotland has prevailed in 10 years and 3 months of them, and has not prevailed in 34 years 10 months. So we get just under 1 in 4 of the governments when we disagree with the UK as a whole. This is, if anything evidence of more influence than you might expect for such a small minority of the population in a democracy. The rest of the UK is almost 12 times as populous as Scotland. The fact that it has got the government it wanted only 3/4 of the time where there has been a dispute indicates, if anything, that taken as a whole it is comparatively less influential, all other things being equal, than we would expect it to be.

What should we learn?

What it indicates is that rUK does not speak with one voice either. If we were to find an acceptable geographical boundary to define "the North" of England, you will probably find that it has been denied the government it voted for every bit as often as Scotland or Wales. I suspect also that if you were to take London and the South East of England, it too would have a very mixed picture as to how often it gets the government it votes for, given it almost never votes Labour yet there have been more than 30 years of Labour governments since the war. We are left with the, somewhat unremarkable, conclusion that an area of population more than 80% of the UK gets its way in elections more often than one which represents about 8% of the UK, which in turn gets more of its own way than two parts of the UK representing 5% and 3% of the population.

Against this context, saying that Scotland should always get the government it votes for assumes that the "we" in "who we vote for" necessarily must be Scotland. This should not be assumed. Indeed, it is the question we're being asked to determine. At the moment, our institutions assume that "we" are the UK, that we are Britain, for the purposes of making many important decisions. We are being asked, in this referendum, whether this should continue, or whether the "we" should be someone else. Saying Scotland needs to get the government it votes for presupposes the answer to that question.

For Scottish nationalists, this is perfectly logical. They believe that, because Scotland is a nation, it comprises, at some level, a political unity, and therefore should have autonomy over how they make decisions and who gets to make them for them. Sturgeon's argument, in this instance, is actually not relevant. Even if we voted in lockstep with the rest of the UK, this would be an argument for breaking away and making (albeit the same decisions) for ourselves. This group have a problem when they come to explain our continued participation in institutions like the European Parliament, where Scotland will have influence over about 1% of the MEPs that are elected there. They have little by way of an answer explaining why we should pool sovereignty in countless international organisations, which will make decisions that affect our interests, but over which we have little day-to-day democratic control.

But for internationalists, multi-nationalists, or non-nationalists, who support independence, we do have an answer to those questions. This is fundamentally not about whether we "get the government we vote for" but deciding "who should be the we" for most of our purposes. We should avoid claiming that Scotland has some special claim to govern itself. Rather we should be starting from a more universalist position that decisions should be taken as closely to the people they affect as is possible, practical and expedient. Independence is merely one accessible starting point beyond which to give greater control to local communities over the way they govern themselves.

Sometimes a Scotland-wide approach to something will be preferable to something more local, but we should be clear that it is the decision of those groups to pool those powers in the first place, and that they ultimately have the right to reclaim it. If Shetland wants autonomy over aspects of its domestic affairs, or in extremis, to achieve statehood in its own right, then it should be entitled to do so. There may be situations where pooling power with the rest of the current UK, or with the EU, or other collections of peoples is advantageous over bilateral relationships, but we should be clear that it is a decision for those subsidary communities to take and that they may withdraw themselves from those arrangements should it cease to be their wish.

The argument is, in many respects, a federalist one. The problem with the United Kingdom is not that we do not share considerable values with our English, Welsh and Northern Irish neighbours. The problem is that the terms on which we work together with one another are based upon a narrative of forbearance rather than genuine partnership. Devolution is about "giving away" power (let's ignore for a moment, Enoch Powell's maxim that power devolved is power retained) which originates in the centre. The entire structure of that relationship looks at it the wrong way around.

The UK isn't undemocratic because Scotland votes one way while England votes another. If it is undemocratic it is so because it conceives of the state not as a repository for the power of the many peoples that comprise it, capable of withdrawal on demand, but of the source of power itself.

The reason I am voting Yes in this referendum is not because I want Scotland to "get the government it votes for"; it no more does this at Holyrood than it does at Westminster. It is because I want the relationship between the people and the state to change, and Scottish independence provides a constitutional moment, an opportunity, to begin to redefine that relationship. It is not the only path. It's not necessarily the optimal path. But it is the path of least resistance.

Summer's Over - Back to Uni

Well the summer's almost come to an end. University properly gets going again on Monday. We were relatively curtailed in our activities over the summer as my mum's been in hospital for quite a while, but it was good to spend some time back with the family. After some anxious waiting, my sister got her Highers results in and got a brilliant 5As. She should stand a good chance of getting to do her preferred course (Law) at University when she applies later this year. I'm really pleased for her as she worked hard and is really focused on what she wants to do. I spent two weeks working at my old school as a caller in their alumni fundraising campaign which was challenging but good fun.

I went along to the Pie and Bovril 5s in June, which, is a football tournament held by Scotland's biggest online football forum. It's always good fun and an excuse to have a few beers and a chin wag with the people behind the avatars. Whether it's a St Mirren fan in Cambridgeshire exile or a Linlithgow Rose maths geek, they're all a great laugh. This year the post-tournament venue was The Arc in Glasgow City centre which is a great venue and the weather was good enough for us to sit outside. One of the highlights of the evening was watching the initiation ritual to which the Welsh National Fencing Team were subjected, namely trying to eat a whole raw leek as quickly as possible without vomiting!

Dad and I spent the summer tentatively looking around for my first car. I've said before I really want a classic rather than just a new hatchback, and sharing my dad's enthusiasm for older cars, I was prepared to put in the time to restore an older car if required. The problem with it being based in Aberdeen is that there aren't that many cars within close distance to go and take a look at. I was especially keen to acquire an MG B or Midget, as my dad also owns an MGB GT which is a cracking wee car. We first took a look at a car we found on eBay that turned out to be a complete rust-bucket. The driver-side door wouldn't shut after we opened it and it would have required thousands of investment and substantial rebuilding to become roadworthy. A few weeks later we decided to take a look at another GT, which whilst very tired and in need of a fair bit of work was at least a solid enough shell. The guy looking to sell it runs a classic car business and had panels from other cars he was willing to include in any deal to help us with a rebuild project. We gave it serious thought but in the end we concluded that for the moment it wasn't something we could be sure of committing to, but it's definitely something we'll look at again. It was certainly a valuable learning experience and whilst I would want to consult my dad when buying my first car, I now feel as though I have a much better idea of what to look for as "tell-tale signs" of problems in a classic.

I caught up with old school-friends, most of whom I don't see so much of now they're in Edinburgh. I don't say it much, but they're all great people. I look forward to catching up with them all again at Christmas, if not before then. I'm sure I'll head across at some point over the next couple of months. Quick shout out to Chris Dyer who is on his languages year abroad studying in Malaga and Milan.

Since getting back to Glasgow I attended Nick Clegg's well documented meeting with Lib Dem activists in the city, replaced a broken cooker hood, been to a few Thistle games, and finished a summer marathon viewing of The West Wing. Whilst the summer has been light relief, it has latterly dragged on a little and I'm actually glad to be getting back to work at Uni. With this being my junior honours year, I'll be focusing on honours courses of my own choosing rather than solely taking core courses, which I hope will be more rewarding. I'm especially looking forward to my Law course about the Scots Law Human Rights context and my second semester Politics option on Egalitarianism and its Critics. Whilst it will be good to see people again, it will be a fair bit quieter this year, especially in semester two, as lots of people will be studying abroad. John's already in Toronto and seems to be enjoying himself with a frenetic workload and ample other stuff to keep him amused. He was impressed with Thistle in their 1-1 draw against Hamilton when I roped him along to Firhill in August so hopefully I can persuade him back when he returns! I'm looking to get more involved in the local Lib Dem and the Uni Debating scenes if time allows!

After a difficult start, Thistle are really picking up some form. Just yesterday we dispatched Ayr in a comfortable 4-0 victory. The First Division is really tight after 6 games, only 2 points separating 2nd top from 2nd bottom. We look really settled as a team now and McNamara could really make a big impact if we keep this up.

Who knows what the next year holds? Bring it on.

Tough week for the Liberal Democrats

Been a rough week for the Lib Dems: since the election, they've seen their poll ratings down about 10% or so, on 14% according to the latest YouGov poll. A lot of tiresome "ConDem" bashing is really starting to get on my wick.

A few stories in particular caught my attention, though. The first is in relation to Simon Hughes, who to be fair was never exactly going to be a LibCon enthusiast. He caused a bit of a stir by talking about a coalition veto, and reiterating that a future LibLab pact was still "on the agenda". When I first saw this, my immediate reaction was quite similar to Boris Johnson's aide and London Assembly member James Cleverly: it came across as Hughes trying to derail the spirit of the coalition in what is undoubtedly a challenging context. I was particularly angered because the inference I drew from his, and the mutterings of some other LibDem supporters I know was that they would only ever be comfortable with a coalition with Labour. It seems to me, frankly, to be quite hypocritical for those who believe in proportional electoral systems and therefore coalition based government, not to work with the coalition the election result dealt them. How democratic would it be if, under STV, we had de facto permanent LibLab government because their core votes plus just a handful of swing voters happens to make-up 50% or thereabouts of the voting electorate?

Tony Benn once said of those in power that one of the most important questions we need the answer to is "how can we get rid of you?". A Liberal Democrat party backing Labour all the time would make it absolute hell to get rid of an almost certainly Labour dominated government. Given Labour's track record of overspending and expanding the state beyond acceptable levels, that would be a truly dire, illiberal and certainly undemocratic reality.

HOWEVER, having thought about it for a couple of days, I actually think what Simon Hughes has done is a potential blessing in disguise: for the Lib Dems AND for the Coalition. With Labour doing everything they can to leech off  Lib Dem support (more of later!) the main accusation has been that the Lib Dems have been annexed by the Tories and have sold-out their principles to facilitate cuts. The effect of Hughes' superficial scepticism of the coalition could be to act as the lightening rod for Lib Dem disaffection, preventing large-scale defection to Labour and providing Nick Clegg with a useful check on the Tories if they try to deviate too far from the coalition agreement. Because of their core votes, the Tories are never going to be fully social liberals, and the Lib Dems never fully economically liberals. In the absence of a strong "libertarian" grouping in the UK, the existence of a strong Liberal Democrat party is absolutely essential to produce even occasional semblance of such an agenda. By channelling economic disaffection to a figure within the Lib Dems, the Coalition is more likely to hold, and in time, prosper.

The second "news" story relates to rumours that Charles Kennedy and 5 other Liberal Democrat MPs are planning to defect to Labour by the end of the month. The claim has been denied officially by Lib Dem Officials and although not yet by the man himself, I'm largely sceptical that there's any truth in it. Jo Swinson, one of those I would have thought would be among any number led by Kennedy, has point blank denied knowledge of any defections in the pipeline (Kennedy or others) and made clear in no uncertain terms that she has no desire to defect to Labour! As a final link, after a lot of speculation on Twitter, I thought this Tweet rather hit the nail on the head.

If, however, the rumour does prove to be true, I think it would not only be a sad day for the UK's liberal agenda, but would also reflect very poorly on Charles Kennedy, a man for whom I have a lot of respect. It is one thing for him to oppose the Coalition deal on a variety of policy and identity grounds. It is quite another to show total disloyalty and contempt for your successors, and to spit the proverbial dummy out the pram because your democratic party have come to a different conclusion from you. I hope for Kennedy's sake that this isn't true, and that he fights his battles from within the party, instead of making friends with those responsible for a 40 year debt legacy, erosion of civil liberties and the greatest vacuum of principles in British politics through the New Labour project.

My last article sees Nick Clegg's rebuke of a member of the public accusing the coalition of going on "an ideological crusade to attack the weakest in society". 

Leaving aside the low-grade rag the story's taken from, I find myself having a lot of sympathy with the content and manner of Clegg's response. The never ending rhetoric that's being thrown about, portraying the Tories (and via the Coalition, the Lib Dems) as people that will sell your gran on eBay and make you pay the Paypal fees is getting utterly tiresome. The public finances are in an absolutely appalling state, and people don't seem to be picking up that a) almost all of the cuts were of the scale and ilk Alistair Darling alluded to in "the deepest cuts since Margaret Thatcher", so would have been done by Labour anyway b) they're trying to minimise the threat to the absolute poorest by looking at universality of benefits and lowering, for example the Child Benefit threshold so families on two professional salaries, who clearly don't need it, no longer get the same as those who are genuinely impoverished.

Economic growth over the next few years, regardless of deficit reduction model, was never going to be as substantial as during the Blair-Brown years. The suggestion, therefore that we can sustain those sort of levels of spending, when Brown ran up annual deficits during boom-time, is borderline hilarious. The problem with the last 13 years is that people have grown to expect that the state will assist them to a level simply not viable. Responsibility and hard work have been replaced by senses of recklessness and entitlement. Of course some of the public spending was inherently good; few argue with that. The problem is that it was too much, too quickly and too unaccountably. PFI contracts handed out willy-nilly, keeping new schools and hospitals off the balance sheet, leaving the children of people yet to be born to pick up the last of the bill for facilities that will almost certainly be redundant in under 20 years. A tax and welfare combination that makes it less of an incentive for people to work more than 16 hours a week on the minimum wage than to sit at home and pretend to look for a job. That's the legacy we inherit, and although the next four years are going to be bloody difficult for all (and yes we'll have to be especially careful about the vulnerable) a sharp dose of reality being brought to public sector finances will leave us much stronger going forward.

Summer Reflection

Twelve months ago, I thought I had my future career objective set in stone: I wanted to be a solicitor. I was going to find a public law firm, work my way up and become a partner, possibly eventually leaving to establish one of my own. I had my place at Uni to do the LLB and things couldn't be clearer.

It's remarkable, though, how things you seem so certain of can so quickly riddle you with doubt, and how idealist notions you have of how things will pan out in the future never quite live up to their rose laden tint.

Don't get me wrong; I've really enjoyed the last year or so, and I'm still going to finish my joint honours law degree; but it's been enough to persuade me that it just isn't for me.

What to do then, 3 or 4 years down the line? The best thing about the long summer-holiday is that you can take the opportunity to switch off a bit and reflect. I asked myself: what is it that I can really be passionate about, engross myself in, and most of all gain satisfaction from in a career?

I thought about the things that interested me and made me so enthusiastic at school. I pondered for a minute my success and fascination with maths, chemistry and physics. Involving it in a career, though? I couldn't do that. I need something in my life that I can keep to myself: my own intellectual challenge. The old saying about not mixing work and pleasure is true, as the former inevitably drains what of the latter you might once have had.

So then I turned to my other side. I've always been forthright in my political views and most who know me probably see me as a bit of a political anorak. The way the world constantly changes because of decisions made by those in positions of power is something I just cannot help but show enthusiasm and interest about. If there was a tipping point that changed my way of thinking, it was Election Night. For 48 hours straight, I stared at a 15" screen, desperate to find-out who had won that Welsh marginal; who looked likely to win the recount in that former Sinn Fein stronghold; would the Conservatives sneak over the line, or at least close enough to do a deal with the DUP?

Catching up with the Dillons in Moffat

In truth, I can fight it no longer: my future is in politics. Exactly where, I don't know: as someone who would probably stand on the Conservative ticket I wouldn't stand a dog's chance in hell of winning a seat in Scotland, but indeed politics isn't just about elected representatives. The two options I'm still considering are working in central government or the diplomatic service via the Faststream Civil Service scheme. I'll probably change again in another twelve months, but with the time to reflect, I can sit comfortably with where I think I'm going, even if the future is uncertain.

I'm conscious I've not posted here since quite a bit before the election, and I guess with a few month's hindsight now is as good a time as any to reflect on the new direction of our country.

In the European elections last year, I voted Conservative without giving it an awful lot of thought. I felt the way Labour had handed the Lisbon Treaty was an absolute democratic outrage, and I couldn't sit comfortably with ardent Europhilic Liberal Democrats. As the campaign went on in the General Election, though, I really began to lose confidence that the Tories would be able to win hearts and minds whilst still taking the difficult steps to sort out the economic mess Labour had got us into.

What was my choice then? I started reading a little into the work of some prominent and rising Liberal Democrats, who have reflected on the direction of the party, increasingly seen as a middle class Labour alternative. The Orange Book, published in 2004, with contributions from, among others, David Laws and Nick Clegg, asked some radical questions and diverged from the traditional Lib Dem position of using the social market to resolve society's problems and inequalities. In his contribution, Laws suggested that the NHS might better operate if certain parts of it were restructured to form a free market health insurance scheme, with tax relief being used to ensure maximum access at the best level of cost-effectiveness. Clegg surprised me with a vigorous critique of the European Union and how (then) it needed to reform considerably if Britain's future could be within it. He inspired me, a Euroapathist, into seeing that the EU could be used to strengthen the UK's position in an ever more globalist world, if only we stopped bickering about loss of sovereign powers and focused on strengthening the principles of intergovernmentalism at the top table.

When I saw this fresh thinking, and then noticed just how many of the contributors now lead the Liberal Democrats, it was startling. Their manifesto seemed to be one both with a social conscience and an element of rationalism. Their classical but progressive liberal agenda (as opposed to the meaning we associate with "liberalism" in Britain) resonated strongly with my views on civil liberties, coupled with a pragmatic approach to macroeconomics.

I then compared that with the Tories, who seemed still to be shackled by their core vote. Their inheritance tax and marriage allowance policies in particular made me think they were going to struggle to engage sufficiently with the electorate, especially in Scotland where old wounds continue to antagonise despite efforts at modernisation.

And so I voted (perhaps a little tactically) in Glasgow North West for the Liberal Democrats. It was naturally in vein (despite their appalling record both across the UK and as representatives for Glasgow, Labour managed to increase their majority) and when the seats distributed themselves as they did, I feared that the Lib Dems would cave-in to grass roots pressure and prop-up Labour.

Imagine, then, my delight at the Lib-Con coalition being struck after days of deal-making. Certainly on the face of it, they tick all of the boxes I could want: a centre-right but liberal era of British politics. The cores of the two parties isolated: we have the best of both worlds.

Reality, of course, never quite lives up to expectation, and it was desperately disappointing to see David Laws, a man for whom I have great respect and agree on a great many things, depart only days into the new Parliamentary session after personal indiscretions re-expenses. On the whole, though, I think the coalition has done as well as could be expected in its first Parliamentary session. There's been teething problems: the free-schools initiative needs ironed out, and some of the necessary cuts aren't going to make them popular by any means, but I find it equally instructive that Labour's attempts at splitting the coalition has driven them close together. Ultimately it will be judged by its long-term results, but after 13 years of expansion of the state, erosion of civil liberties and undemocratic croneyism, it's nice at least to have the promise of change for the better.

On a final note, I'm sad to report that while I was on holiday in Brittany, one of my hamsters passed on, just shy of its second birthday. It had been getting on a bit and had to be separated from the other one after being bitten by it, and although it seemed to make a reasonable recovery I suspect it had an impact on its prospects. I'll miss the wee guy, and I'll always remember his obituary: Byte bit 8-Bit and 8-Bit bit the dust.