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That is an interesting shout, although I do wonder why they can't just make the legislation itself an election pledge, rather than a referendum. I do think Labour shot themselves in the foot by largely standing against AV, and thus killing the electoral reform agenda. Sure, it works for them in that if they have a party attractive enough to Middle England, they can flip the balance of power by concentrating on a percentage of seats, but a depressing consequence of that is that parties tend up pandering to floating voters. I get the feeling that under a PR system, Labour is always going to have a chance of being a majority party in a coalition. Under FPTP, it has a good chance of three Parliaments in a row, but just as much chance as being locked out of power for a generation. Parties have to learn to compromise, and one of the problems with the left, to use the term in the abstract, is that there is too much internecine conflict over matters of relatively little import, when fundamentally, people are agreed on the big stuff. Most true lefties did the offs from Labour ages ago, to what end I don't really know. Personally, I know that the party I support has no electoral prospects thanks to FPTP, but take comfort from the fact that I can stand behind the policies we passed. I'd sooner have that than join up for the big left of centre Labour ride (as some would term it) and not like where it's going. If they committed to electoral reform in their manifesto though, Labour would get my vote.

The problem is that the only time these aberrations are going to occur and be visible enough for people to moan is at General Elections. There's no way that the Tories, having benefited from its flaws, are going to propose changing it. There is no coalition partner making demands. The only other regular FPTP votes we get are the local elections. And going by turnout, who cares?

Fair dos Bear, but I rather liked the second one. Should check out Kingsman.

It is a farce, and all other considerations aside, I'd hate to be a UKIP supporter right now. Even during the election they were bigging up their prospects in 2020, because despite the obvious popular appeal, they've very little to show for it. The AV referendum is a perfect illustration of how any future attempt at reform will go down. First, it'll be a smaller party that proposes the change. Cannot see either of the two self-interested behemoths voting against their own interests. They didn't last time. The Lib Dems wanted PR, but they were horse-traded down to AV, a step forward for them with second preference votes, but entirely attackable by those with a vested interest in retaining FPTP. "It's not PR!", they shouted. "Look, FPTP isn't ideal, but AV is only a slight upgrade" or more crudely, "soldiers and babies will die if you vote for AV". In the unlikely event that we get another stab at electoral reform, we'll either not get PR as an option, or won't be able to vote for it in the abstract. They'll give us the choice between the status quo and some problematic specific electoral system which is difficult to gain support for. Let's not forget that the ASA has no power over referendum advertisements, and certainly let's not forget that neither recent referendum produced the change proposed, and in both cases, fear and intimidation was used to get turkeys to vote for Christmas. Expect all of the same crap when we debate leaving the EU. We'll have companies saying they are leaving the UK, companies saying they won't use the pound, etc, etc. People will get scared and vote for the status quo. Kinda how these things work.

I think you've sadly got to see all referendums the same way. It is legislation that the government doesn't want to pass itself, so they hand it to the public with a view of getting them to vote it down. Then it is off the agenda for another forty years. Whether that holds true today remains to be seen. The Scots were promised a lot of stuff for staying in, which hasn't really materialised. Their independence vote was essentially blocked by the over 55s. I don't think it can wait 40 years. But yeah, the EU referendum. If it happens, just expect more of the same. NO voters will be cast as racist scum, or at best, confused about the issues. We'll be convinced to vote no. That'll be 40 more years of the EU.

Look, I had so many points left over I could have brought over a football team, or less ambitiously, the Liberal Democrat parliamentary party.

If that is true, then the Electoral Reform Society was incredibly short-sighted. It was never taken as a vote for "no to AV". It was interpreted as "we don't want any electoral reform for the next 40 years".

No real rights anywhere until you've worked somewhere a year, and it has been that way for years. It's a shame everyone hates those Unions so much. They'd have been the ideal body to address this imbalance between employer and employee, I feel.

This cheese knife is pointed in your general direction, y'bastard. Come at me with your AK if you think you're hard enough. Canadian emigration is a doddle.

Batman asks for evidence. Well I never.

Has UKIP transport policy gone out of the window with those results?

Reacted? I predicted most of this when the Scottish referendum was finalised. The thing I got wrong were the specifics of how that would be important. I always thought it would be Dave's Falkland moment, but what it actually turned out to be was the enabler for the collapse of the Scottish vote in Labour (not ultimately significant given the overall majority in England). Realistically, Ed and Labour didn't do enough to convince the people in the middle to go with them. The people in the middle are likely to be employed, and likely to want that to continue. I can understand and accept the Conservative majority, and I have to give the Tories a great deal of credit, even if on a Machiavellian level. They lured the other parties to potential salvation, and crashed them on the rocks in the shoals. Tories to Lib Dems. "Hey, come into government with us. It'll be great" Lib Dems. "We've never had power before. We'll go with just about anyone" Tories to Labour. "Hey, come into saving the Union with us. It'll be great" Labour. "That does sound great. People will remember us for it" Two political shipwrecks, just because the Conservatives convinced them the waters were worth sailing.

Like I suspect many, I have an idealised and compressed view of what the James Bond films are. I have a tendency to crystallise all the great stuff, and forget that many of the films are a little bit dull in parts, and involve Bond walking about in a safari suit. The Bond reboot looks to finally be getting us in to the warm familiar groove of Bond, and long may it continue. I am very much looking forward to Spectre. Thought Skyfall was excellent on second viewing, once I'd got past the "bloomin' finale is in Scotland!" moment. That said, the reboot is its own thing, and to its credit, is giving us an impression of how they think Bond will work now. A movie taking a slightly different approach is Kingsman: The Secret Service. It's directed by Matthew Vaughn, the bloke who brought us both the Kick Ass movies. Kickass meets Bond would be a crude, but not unreasonable way to describe it. Really though, it is clearly a love letter to that compressed, idealised version of Bond we all have in our heads. Super-villain? Check. Lair? Check. Crazy stunts? Check. It's as knowing as Austin Powers when referencing Bond, but where the Powers films make mockery of the tropes their prime concern, Kingsman reveres its inspiration, and in doing so, has managed to create an unofficial Bond movie better than most Bond movies, and with a lot more heart than the young pretenders trying to do the same thing. It should be noted that the movie aims for action comedy, rather than trying to take itself too seriously. The central thread, involving a chav kid bidding to become a top agent, is compelling - in much the same way that Rose and her entourage gave Doctor Who a solid, contemporary grounding when that series returned. Saying that, the action, stylistic and overblown as it is, is top notch. They really don't compromise on that; when the film gets into that groove, which it frequently does, it thrills. Vaughn's movies have a habit of creeping up on you. He keeps you engaged throughout, before knocking you off your feet at the end. Exactly how I felt about both(!) the Kick Ass films, but especially the first, and exactly how I feel about this one too, except Vaughn has excelled himself in increasing scope and making you feel like this is a big, global deal. The action comedy caveat aside, go watch it. Old school Bond fans will love it, and might even get to know something about the new school too

There was an article on where to emigrate now that we've got a majority Conservative government. I did the points test for Canada and passed with flying colours. Can't go until Juvenile Unit #2 finishes her A levels, but in a few years, I could be waving cutlery at Sarnia on his lawn.

The point is that many essentials, and money that used to go back into the exchequer's hands, are now entirely in the hands of the private sector and that things we all depend on day to day, such as sustenance, are too, The oft-propagated idea that the private sector is some cost-neutral entity which has no bearing on the taxpayer is nonsense. That's where the rest of our money goes, all of it, if we continue down the privatisation track.

Yeah, alright. Petrol is optional. Gas and electricity is optional. The food chain is optional. The hellish South West Trains season ticket is optional. I am glad you have finally seen the light and have become a self-sustainability specialist.

That's just a myth. Private sector companies can be notoriously top-loaded, and a common question heard in many of the larger concerns is "what job does he/she do?". I think small business is a brilliant thing. Able to twist, turn and refocus; normally comprised of staff who know how to wear a few hats. The corporate world is the complete opposite. Hierarchy, process, people resolutely wearing one (and only one) hat, standards. Half of company policy and procedure is normally in recognition of its size, designed to keep itself from tearing itself apart. It just about hangs together, but it can be woefully inefficient. The reason it hangs together is because the shareholders are happy, and the reason the shareholders are happy is because the organisation still makes money, even amongst the inherent inefficiency. The reason the organisation still makes money is because the cost of all that inefficiency is passed down to the customer, be it government or individual. The hidden cost of corporate inefficiency is a burden we all have to pay, either through tax or direct spend. Public and private sector comparisons are therefore apples and oranges in a financial sense. If you look at private sector organisations through a purely financial lens in isolation, hey, some of them are really profitable organisations. What great businesses! What's worse is that the money is seen as pure. "No-one has taken anything from the taxpayer to get that!", the capitalist might say. Yeah, you have. It's in your prices. It's reflected in the margin we pay to allow you to deal with your shít. The private sector is not more efficient than the public sector. It just gets to hide its losses in its prices and pretend that it doesn't affect taxpayers.

I don't really like watching stuff with computers in them as the level of realism, or lack of it, drives me up the wall. That bit in Swordfish where Hugh Jackman is getting a blow job with a gun pointed to his head trying to guess government passwords at point of death? Mwah. Never mind the rest of it. I probably couldn't remember my own password if I was getting a BJ while entering it. I've just walked through the living room and the missus is watching CSI Cyber. Don't watch CSI Cyber. Don't watch any CSI, for that matter. The shows are just vast slush-punds for cosmetic surgery or half-decent actors looking for a handsome TV payout. Miami is the worst. Ginger man in black suit investigating crimes in one of America's sunniest cities? Yeah, right. Cyber's first episode features a car chasing a plane so someone in the car can hookup a USB cable to a port on the plane. Because that's computing.

Yvette Cooper can be credited with a wee bit of nous. She may have married a man called Balls, but she does not have the surname Balls. Perhaps I am wrong on that. Perhaps she really likes the surname Balls, but can't adopt it for practical reasons, such as it not being very ladylike and making you a national laughing stock. "I just had new business cards printed last week, Ed. Now is not the time"; a phrase often heard in the Balls/Cooper abode, no doubt. Not PM material for me. Too much baggage, too little personality. Married Ed Balls.

STV is all about bridging the gap between local representation and a pure PR system like the party list. It doesn't really map to constituencies in the same way our system does. Larger constituencies, more candidates both selected and returned, proportionally from the list of candidates available. We use the system for EU elections, I believe. I would be happy to sacrifice a bit of really local knowledge to have a more representative democracy. Instead of having one MP for my small area, I might have five covering a larger area. As a constituent, I can actually choose the one I want to represent me. Most southern Labour voters moan about their vote not counting, same thing with Northern Tories. Rightfully so. Under STV, those people probably won't get all of their choices, but they may get one. FPTP is very handy on the electoral front for these parties, but it's at the expense of diversity. We should hear more Northern Tory voices, just as the south needs more Labour MPs outside of big cities. Actually think that vote wise, it wouldn't be a huge problem. The huge problem is our inability to compromise, and we really can't point to the recent coalition as an example of that. Year one was spent greasing the LDs up to be fall guys for every bit of Tory policy they fancied enacting, year 2 was weaseling out of their AV commitment and after that, the Liberal Democrats were good little piggies. Coalition would only really work between similarly minded parties, who were prepared to actually work with each other. I don't think the Con/Dem coalition worked, but at the same time, I can see that Labour definitely didn't do enough to convince anyone they were a better option. Business as (sort of) usual for a bit, although I'm looking forward to seeing what those backbenchers get up to.

I can genuinely say to be a principles man on the issue. Called both parties out for being self-serving bastards at the time.

No mirrors in your gaff, Smirkers?! Line up, knock down, etc.

They got both the results they wanted, didn't they?

Agree. One of the most interesting outcomes for me. Not going to be anyone else but Boris at this point, I reckon. Too much backstory for it to be otherwise, and no one really seems to give a crap when the mask drops. Ah, good old Boris. What a humourous chap. (sorry. I know it's irrational ) Probably true again. Dunno about this. The last debate we had was triggered by one of those petitions. Don't think it'd pass, because Labour et al would probably shout it down, but those 84 backbenchers that supported a referendum last time look a lot more significant.