Author Archives: James - Page 62
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Remember to Vote Today!
Polling station sign, London. UK general election (and local council elections), 6 May 2010. This sign was outside a polling station (normally a primary school) in Camberwell, London SE5. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Today is polling day, everyone in the UK who is eligible ought to be voting. Do please go to the polling station if you've not yet sent in a postal vote. Go early if you can. The polling stations open at 07:30 in most places and stay open until 10pm. If you haven't already decided which way to vote there's still time, and if you've decided you don't like any of them then at least go and register your protest. This could be by voting for your second choice so that the majority in an otherwise safe seat is kept low, or by spoiling your vote. Failing that…
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How to Fix the National Health Service
The National Health Service English: graph of female vs. male life expectancy at birth in 2005 (Photo credit: Wikipedia) The National Health Service is one of Britain's institutions, it employs over a million people and a third of us come into contact with it each year. Many of us owe our lives to its very existence. Formed in the wake of the second world war it was intended to ensure that no-one ever died in the UK of preventable or curable conditions. It improved infant mortality to the point that we are shocked when children die, before WW2 it was a fact of life. Most working class families before the NHS lost children of things that we can treat. You only need to do a little genealogy for proof. The NHS is a primary cause of rising life expectancy since…
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Is the UK 2015 General Election the Most Boring Ever?
English: Graph of Ipsos MORI UK general election opinion polls, created from data at Opinion_polling_in_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) I'd intended to follow the General Election coverage, opinion polls and party manifestos and the comment in them to the extent that I am allowed to given the political restrictions on my job. I haven't done this because frankly there is almost nothing to say. None of the main UK parties appear to want to be elected given the way they are campaigning. The stars of the show are the SNP, who at best will only represent the views of 45% of Scotland, about million people. Related articles General Election 2015: New poll shows increasing gap between SNP and Labour Expect Vote Rigging An #indyref2 on the back of a big SNP election win is inconceivable UK party leaders campaign hard in…
Author Interview – Timothy Bateson
This week's author interview is with Timothy Bateson, an East London boy who has made his home in Alaska and writes lupine adventures. He's also a keen gamer and role-player (like me). How long have you been writing for and what made you start writing? I've been writing on and off for about twenty years, but it wasn't until the last three years that I started getting serious about it. I've been taking part in NaNoWriMo since 2010, but haven't always been successful in meeting the 50,000 word goal, or ever actually completed the stories I've started during those events. However, those months of endless writing have produced a lot of ideas that I've used elsewhere. My wife's writing was what actually got me serious about getting back into some of my own projects. She's been working on two book…
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It’s the Economy Stupid
It never ceases to amaze me how bad a grasp politicians have on how national economies ; I think it is deliberate rather than ignorance. Or rather they think that we are too stupid to understand how a national economy differs from a household economy. They may even be correct about that Received wisdom on the economy (according to politics) - growth needs to be sustainable - the deficit should be reduced - austerity is necessary Most commonly our main political parties use a household analogy to explain their economic policies. This is a very wrong thing to do. It sort of ignores the interdependency of national economies, and it over simplifies things. That said it is something that most voters can relate to. A better, but still flawed, analogy would be a multi person multi income household. Imagine a…