All the parties have explanations of what AV is and why it’s good or bad. The Greens say vote for it because it shows we want change, the Lib Dems say it’s fairer, UKIP say it will show that more people like them, Labour seems spilt over AV but Tony Benn and Ken Livingstone which seem redeemable features of the Labour Party are all for it because it represents change. In the No camp we have the conservatives who say it will be unfair, the BNP who say that it won’t get them more votes and and Respect say vote yes to PR by voting no to AV. Despite the BNP campaign The Daily Mail says that ‘AV would be a gift to the BNP’ that it ‘would mean that supporters of fringe parties such as Respect or the BNP would have their votes counted several times, not just once’.
Which makes it sound like smaller parties get more votes whereas it would actually mean that larger parties would get the otherwise wasted fringe votes. While the outcome probably won’t be very different from FPTP, the results will give us a better picture of what people want and and the elected candidate perhaps won’t be everyone’s first choice but will be the first, second, third or fourth choice of lots of people. Unlike PR it won’t get smaller parties more seats but unlike FPTP it allows people to vote for their first choice confident that their vote won’t be wasted. Seems to me it will get rid of all those people who say you have to vote for either Labour or Conservative or you might as well not vote and that statement always annoys me.

I do believe we need political change, we need to be represented by accountable, immediately recallable delegates who represent us and implement our vision of a fairer better world. AV sadly won’t give us that but it will show that we want change and I’m all for that. At Uni we used AV in our elections and it seems reasonable enough.

Yes to Fairer Votes is the website for the Yes Campaign and they’ve made a video that sort of explains it with pictures and a soothing voice.

Of course today is the day the two rich people we’ve never met got married and I did enjoy the day off work, so I feel it’s only right to say something about it – so I’ll link to Schnews’ commemorative tea towel and mention that so far 52 people protesting have been arrested as well as pre-emptive arrests yesterday that the police claim had nothing to do with the wedding.

I continue to be appalled by the situation in Afghanistan. This is one of the poorest countries in the world. Years of occupation by Russia followed by the repressive religious regime of the Taliban, numerous humans rights abuses and three decades of civil war has made life unbearable there and forced many Afghans to leave the country. In 1999 Amnesty noted that the six million people (1/5 of the population) who had left between 1979 and 1992 had been unable to return due to continuing arrest.
I cannot imagine that bombardment and occupation by the US and GB can improve the situation at all. It seems the primary reason for involvement is that ‘Afghanistan [is] traditionally a perfect route for exporting oil and gas to Western countries’. The Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline – a natural gas pipeline that will run through Afghanistan that has been on the cards since 1995. There was an oil pipeline proposed too.

Meanwhile how many civilians have been killed in Afghanistan? No-one knows although estimates have been made and a dossier complied by not really reported in the western press. Brief glimpses into the horror of the situation demonstrate that the war has not improved things for civilians. In early 2002 Media Lens commented that the press was remiss about reporting that 100 civilians were dying every day in the Maslakh refugee camp to the west of Herat while keen to report other situations around the world.

Since 2002, more than 5 million Afghans have returned to their country, primarily due to massive repatriation operations but about 3 million remain refugees. Inside the country there are tens of thousands of internally displaced persons. The problems that led to people leaving their homes have not been solved and although the government has international support there is massive insecurity in the country and humanitarian aid is often prevented from getting to people. At ‘the end of 2007, there were almost 3.1 million Afghan refugees, or 27 per cent of the global refugee population.’ Although they could be found in 72 asylum countries worldwide, a massive 96% majority were in Pakistan and Iran. What is more ‘Iraqis were the second largest group, with 2.3 million having sought refuge mainly in neighbouring countries’. UHCR Statistics

The wars in the Middle East are causing massive problems for civilians – not solving them. In March of this year the UNHCR said that ‘Iraqis continued to be the largest nationality seeking asylum in the industrialized world’ and that Afghanistan ‘recording a significant rise in applications’. And according to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon ‘civilian deaths resulting from armed hostilities between insurgents, the US military, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan and government forces have increased by 24 percent so far this year compared to the same period in 2008′.

What does the UN say?
What Refugees International says.

In the good news section – the Viva Palestina convoy, which was held in Cario for 10 days has been allowed in Gaza.

Andy and I spent the rest of the day buying him a bike on the ‘bike to work scheme’. It sounds like a great idea – people are encouraged to ride bikes to work and the money to buy your bike is taken out of your wages and you benefit by not paying tax or national insurance on it. The downside is that your employer gets to decide where you can get your bike and Halfords isn’t a great choice. Most of the customers in the bike department were clutching their bike to work vouchers with a sort of manic desperation. I was left undecided as to whether they really did need a tax break on their bikes or they just wanted it because it seemed like a really good higher purchase scheme. Perhaps the air of desperation was due to being in Halfords which is possibly the worst place to buy a bike from. I am convinced that the lack of choice of where you buy your bike from is a major drawback of this scheme. Halfords has an expensive and unimpressive range of bikes, it was chronically understaffed and the staff seemed to have a total lack of passion about bikes. Give me a little bike shop any day, where people know what they are talking about and can offer you real and valuable advice.

I then spent the entire weekend moving, lugging boxes, bags and flat packed tables around. I couldn’t have done it without Mum. By midnight on Sunday we were dropping with exhaustion as the adrenalin wore off but we nipped off the the train station to collect Tim so we could hear all about his trip to Vancouver.