The UK riots

I was in the process of writing a blog post comparing three locations I had recently been in the UK, namely London, Nottingham and Bradford, when the rioting broke out. I'll come back to that topic eventually but feel that writing some thoughts about the current situation is more urgent.

The original peaceful protest on Saturday afternoon/evening in Tottenham was fully understandable. The community felt that one of their own had been unnecessarily killed and wanted to mark their feelings. How we got from there to sporadic burning, looting and general mayhem in multiple locations within the London and indeed around the UK is beyond understanding. Any answer to the question that can fit within the confines of a blog post is going to be glib and miss many of the potential points. However, that's what blogs do so I'll at least try to hit some points.

The original riot may have been in response to Mark Duggan's killing but to my mind the following two evenings have been mainly copy-cat vandalism and thuggery rather than a traditional riot with a political or social injustice dimension. Sure, those carrying out the acts are mainly male youths from disadvantaged areas but look at what the targets are: mobile phone, sports and technology shops. All items either of status or reasonably high resale value.

But why do people feel that they should carry out such acts? Marginalization from society? Poverty? Lack of civic responsibility? Lack of fear of being caught? Adrenaline rush and a herd mentality? Probably a mixture of all of the above. There are solutions to these but they take time to implement. Despite all my socialist tendencies, reality says that a society will never be fully equal but efforts have to be made to heal the rift between the top and bottom. Even using this language makes me feel ick. Those with nothing have to be brought into the fold and those with everything have to be made give a shit about others. It's not good enough to sit back and tut-tut.

The response by the police may not have been great, but given their numbers and the number of concurrent incidents it may have been deemed safer to let the looters run their course and contain the damage rather than clamp down. The right decision was made to leave the army off the streets. They are not specifically trained to deal with these situations and introducing firearms into the mix would only have ended badly. It was also right to not bail in with baton charges and tear gas. This would only piss off the communities and bystanders and turn them against the police rather than keep their anger and frustration pointed at the rioters.

The biggest fear is that these events are just the start of something more serious. If a body count starts mounting you can be sure the extreme fringes on all sides will get more vocal. The last group we need to be hearing from right now is the BNP or the radical muslim clerics stoking up further tension.

Here comes the Queen

As a republican (small r) I have big problems with the concept of a hereditary head of state. Being lucky enough to be popped out of the right set of loins at the right time seems like a pretty bad way to determine who should be citizen number one. But at the same time, I agree with the concept of sovereignty of nation states, and what rules and regulations other countries use to appoint office holders is their own business. So in that spirit I have to welcome the arrival of Queen Elizabeth to Ireland in much the same way I do any other head of state - with much indifference.

What I can't do though, is ignore the huge security operation that has been in place around the city over the last week or so. As an employee of TCD, where the Queen is due to visit later this afternoon, I have spent two days flashing my ID card to get in and out of campus and subjected to bag searches by the Gardaí. Normally I'd get a bit civil libertyish about such things but when you see the reports of the large number of IEDs that have been discovered and defused in the last few days I can appreciate the precautions being taken. The worst thing that could happen would be for a serious incident to occur during the visit.

The Republican (large R) movement are, of course, out in force organising protests and apparently even flag burnings. While I respect their right to protest, the tactics often employed by these groups, involving violence and intimidation are not acceptable. If you live in a civilized society then there is a certain set of standards by which you must abide. And really if you are going to try to burn a flag in front of the world's media, maybe practice at home first to figure out how to do it. Hint - use an accellerant of some sort.

The one thing that I do agree with them on is the timing of the Queen's arrival. The anniversary of the Monaghan/Dublin bombings might not have been the smartest choice especially considering the ongoing belief in some quarters that the British intelligence agencies and/or the RUC were involved in the bombings.

What exactly did they say?

The results in the UK election are in and as the wise man once said, the people have spoken but we're going to have to figure out what they said. With 650 seats, the magic figure is 325. However, when you count the Sinn Féin abstentions and the speaker the total shrinks to 644, giving a majority figure of 322.

The Conservatives on 306 are very much in the driving seat. The obvious route to power is to sign a deal with the Liberal Democrats and be done with it. However, the thorny issues of electoral reform and the complete opposite views on Europe will make this a difficult deal to broker. There is also the question as to whether the two parties will join in formal coalition or will the LibDems agree to support a Conservative minority government on the main issues but still feel free to oppose them on certain other topics.

Labour on 258 along with the Liberal Democrats on 57 are still only on 315 and so would have to pull in at least another 7 supporters from the minor parties. Support from SDLP and Alliance in the North will give them 4 meaning that either the SNP or PC, or more likely both to keep things stable, would be required. Were this grouping to agree to push through electoral reform and agree to call another election within the year under the new system I could see it lasting the required distance.

From an Irish perspective I don't see what the great rush is. If you are putting together a team to run a country, a hastily cobbled together agreement in not the way to do it. Cool, calm heads are required along with a reasonable period of debate and discussion both between the potential partners and within their own groupings is required. Consider how long it took the Greens and Fianna Fáil in 2007, FF and the PDs in 1989 or most spectacularly the FF and Labour negotiations in 1992. Gordon Brown can be left steering the ship for a few days more to make sure the right deal is put in place.

Odd election outcome imminent

Since last week's three-way leaders debate, the polls in the upcoming UK general election have put the three main parties all within a few points of each other. Depending on the source, all of them score between 25% and 35% of the popular vote at the moment. In a proportional system that would result in two of the parties sitting down as equals and thrashing out an agreed programme for government. However, with the FPP system in operation in the UK a far stranger result may be about to occur.

According to various models, on a constituency by constituency basis, an election result where Labour with the smallest share of the vote end up with the largest number of seats. This is a result of the concentration of the Labour vote in a smaller number of constituencies. The Liberal Democrat vote is more evenly spread throughout the UK and so in many areas is out polled by one of the other two parties thereby losing the seat. This effect is similar to the gerrymander I discussed a while back.

With all polls now pointing to a hung parliament, this may just be the result the LibDems need to be able to swing public support in favour of a proportional voting system. Whether that is single seat with top up list, PR-STV like we have here or some other system, the days of FPP must be numbered if the results of the election on 6th May are as described above.

UK election

Gordon Brown went to the Áras Palace today, getting the general election in the UK on the road. The Queen gave him permission to dissolve parliament next Monday and the ensuing election will be held on 6th May. As someone who doesn't really follow British politics much I'm not sure what else to say. However, it is going to be pretty much the only story for the next month so I'd best get learning fast.

Labour, after 13 years in office have been looking tired since Tony Blair's retirement. The Conservatives under David Cameron are trying to position themselves as young and trendy, a difficult line to swallow. And the poor old Liberals are stuck as the bridesmaid yet again thanks to the awful first-past-the-post voting system. All roads seem to be pointing to a hung parliament at the moment but a few swings in key constituencies could get either of the large parties over the magic finishing line.

The most interesting thing that I've seen so far about the election is that there will be three debates between all three party leaders, one on ITV, one on Sky and one for the BBC. This is quite like the American system of each of the major networks hosting a debate. I hope that they are not as scripted and formulaic as the American ones though. The leaders should be able to address each other and ask specific questions in order to tease out the issues. Having a debate like the Santos-Vinick one in the West Wing would be awesome.

In the North it will be interesting to see if the more moderate SDLP and UUP are able to make up lost ground on their more radical opponents SF and the DUP. The internal nationalist and unionist fighting is actually far more entertaining than the fighting between those in green and those in orange. I guess that most southern parties will be sending canvassers and leaflet teams up to help the SDLP.