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EU referendum question faces scrapheap over bias fears

Posted on 1 September, 2015 by Jimmy Nicholls

The referendum question on Britain’s membership of the EU will likely be revised over concerns from the Electoral Commission that the outcome of the vote might be seen as illegitimate.

The Tory government agreed on Tuesday that the current question – “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?” – should be amended with the phrase “or leave the European Union”, thus avoiding a “Yes or No” vote.

Instead voters will be asked to select from the two options: “Remain a member of the European Union” or “Leave the European Union”, removing the perceived advantage for the pro-EU “Yes” campaign.

Jenny Watson, chair of the Electoral Commission said:

“Any referendum question must be as clear as possible so that voters understand the important choice they are being asked to make. We have tested the proposed question with voters and received views from potential campaigners, academics and plain language experts.”

Whilst voters understood the question in the Bill some campaigners and members of the public feel the wording is not balanced and there was a perception of bias. The alternative question we have recommended addresses this. It is now for Parliament to discuss our advice and decide which question wording should be used.’

Whilst parliament has yet to approve the recommendation, it will likely come as a boon to eurosceptics campaigning to sever close links with the continent, including Ukip which revealed today it would be forming it’s own campaign on the side formerly known as “No”.

During the Scottish referendum last year many felt being able to choose “Yes” to the question “Should Scotland be an independent country” had more of a feel-good factor than “No”.

That question was put forward after much musing by the Electoral Commission, a previous proposal having been “Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?”, which was perceived by test subjects as being biased in favour of a “Yes” vote.

Image Credit – EU flag by MPD01605

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Hundreds of money-making sockpuppets booted from Wikipedia

Posted on 1 September, 2015 by Jimmy Nicholls

Almost 400 Wikipedia accounts were shut down on Monday after their owners were accused of accepting money to edit pages in favour of interested parties.

After several weeks of investigation site admins concluded that the so-called “Orangemoody” campaign – named after the first puppet – was run by a coordinated group, owing to the similarity of their edits on the English-language version of the free encyclopaedia.

Under Wikipedia’s terms of use such behaviour represents a conflict of interest, though staff at museums and similar organisations can make edits to pages if they disclose their affiliations.

As well as banning accounts the free encyclopaedia deleted some 200 articles, though it said that such abuse did not occur often on the site.

Writing online, editorial associate Ed Erhart and senior comms manager Juliet Barbara of the Wikimedia Foundation said:

“Most of these articles, which were related to businesses, business people, or artists, were generally promotional in nature, and often included biased or skewed information, unattributed material, and potential copyright violations.

“The edits made by the sockpuppets are similar enough that the community believes they were perpetrated by one coordinated group.”

The scammers behind the scheme used a combination of accounts to submit, develop and push articles for approval, with the scammers charging additional fees – in one case, £20 a month – to maintain the page and protect it from vandalism or deletion.

According to Wikipedia, “names of genuine editors and administrators are often used” in the scam, sometimes based on who has deleted related articles.

Among the list of articles deleted by the Checkuser team are pages relating to the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, Internet servers company Hatena and the DJ Ryan Skyy.

Wikimedia stated that the subjects in the articles were also “victims” in the saga.

The editing of Wikipedia by interested parties has been a major source of controversy in the past, leading at least one person to set up a Twitter account to track the editing of the site from IP addresses associated with British Parliament.

Image Credit – Wikimedia stroopwafel by Sebastiaan ter Burg

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Massive public investment in London exposes Northern Powerhouse fraud

Posted on 1 September, 2015 by Jimmy Nicholls

London is due to swallow masses of public investment despite government promises to rebalance the economy away from the capital, raising questions over Conservative commitment to both austerity and the so-called “Northern Powerhouse”.

Tory opposition to public infrastructure investment has in the past been justified by the “crowding out” thesis, which argues that public investment can discourage private investment, meaning that reducing public investment in a given region should boost economic growth.

Speaking in his 2010 budget statement, chancellor George Osborne said: “Our policy is to raise from the ruins of an economy built on debt a new, balanced economy where we save, invest and export. An economy where the state does not take almost half of all our national income, crowding out private endeavour.”

Yet in March of this year Osbo pledged £13bn for transport investment in North England, which in combination with the £50bn HS2 rail project was spun as a bid to make “the Northern Powerhouse a reality”.

Since then analysis from the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (Speri) shows that despite London having more businesses per person than any other English region, particularly the northernmost three, planned public investment is disproportionately targeted towards the capital.

Sources: Office for National Statistics, Treasury and Speri

Writing online, Speri’s policy research officer Tom Hunt and deputy director Craig Berry said:

“It is of course possible, but extremely unlikely, that the government has decided to ration infrastructure investment outside of London because it believes profoundly in the crowding out thesis, and therefore does not want public investment to inhibit a private sector-led recovery in the North.

“It is far more likely, however, that the crowding out thesis is purely part of the rhetorical justification of austerity, and forms no part of the actual decisions on where the public sector should invest in infrastructure in practice.

“Instead, the government is content to maintain the bias of investment towards London, because it seeks to support the strong business activity that already exists in the capital.”

The pair argued that short term investment in the North, such as beginning HS2 construction from Manchester and Leeds rather than London, would create jobs in the region.

Medium-term investment in transport would help workers travel to work faster and move goods faster, they added, measures which would also ease Britain’s long-held productivity problem.

Image Credit – Tyne Bridge, January 2012 by Neil Turner

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Ukip enters contest to lead UK exit from EU

Posted on 1 September, 2015 by Jimmy Nicholls

Ukip will launch its own campaign to convince Britons to vote to quit the EU instead of joining with the two existing efforts, following concerns that its leader Nigel Farage is too divisive to head the movement.

The yet unnamed campaign, details of which will be released this week, will compete with the other two to become the official “No” effort, a designation giving it access to a grant, greater spending limits and more time on television.

The move, first revealed by the BBC, appears to be the latest power play by Farage, a former City commodities trader who led Ukip to pick up almost 4m votes (12.7 percent) in the general election in May through a beer-guzzling, chain-smoking, “tell it like it is” persona.

While Farage has been a boon for Ukip his rise has also led to hardening views from those wanting to stay in the EU, with data from the pollster Ipsos Mori showing support for leaving tumble in the last six months to a mere 27 percent.

There is also evidence of tension within the party over Farage’s reversal of a decision to step down in the event he did not lose his seat in the general election, reports having emerged last week that he is blocking Suzanne Evans from contesting next year’s London mayoral election.

Ukip’s campaign to leave the EU will compete with The Know and an unnamed group led by Business for Britain, a lobbying outfit.

Whilst some expect the various factions to coalesce once the Electoral Commission makes its choice, fissures are already emerging between the groups.

Last Friday The Know backer and Ukip donor Arron Banks told the eurosceptic blogger Peter North that he was tempted to tell him “I hope you die in a freak yachting accident”.

Attempts to unite the two existing campaigns also seem to have hit trouble because of disagreement over who would lead the united group.

Update: Earlier on Tuesday Farage said he would be willing to work with anyone to secure an exit from the EU. Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, he said:

“Let’s be clear. I am not refusing to work with anybody. I will work with absolutely anyone for us to get a No vote in this referendum.

“There are two competing groups who want to get the nomination for the No campaign. All I am saying is I am not choosing one side or the other. We will work with whichever of them gets the nomination.”

Image Credit – Ukip Bus, May 2009 by Euro Realist Newsletter

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Corbyn on bin Laden death ‘tragedy’ creates yet another Fleet Street smear

Posted on 31 August, 2015 by Jimmy Nicholls

Another day, and another press cutting of Labour leadership frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn emerges that Fleet Street can twist to make him seem like an extremist.

The subject this time? Osama bin Laden, the architect of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York in September 11th, 2001. After the terrorist was killed in Pakistan in 2011, this is how Corbyn reacted on Press TV, an Iranian broadcaster (skip to 3:10):

“On this there was no attempt whatsoever that I can see to arrest him [bin Laden], to put him on trial, to go through that process. This was an assassination attempt and is yet another tragedy upon a tragedy, upon a tragedy. The World Trade Center attack was a tragedy, the war in Afghanistan was a tragedy, the war in Iraq was a tragedy. Tens of thousands of people have died, torture has come back onto the world stage, been canonised virtually into law by Guantanamo and Bagram. Can’t we learn some lessons from this?”

Far from being an attempt to suggest bin Laden was a swell guy who was misunderstood by the authorities, Corbyn’s comments are a defence of an ancient conservative principle: the rule of law.

Indeed he went on to say that killing the terrorist would make the world “more dangerous”, leading to the obvious implication that it was the escalation of violence that he found tragic, rather than the demise of the scumbag bin Laden in itself.

He even suggested that an assassination attempt would be made on the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was in fact killed later that year by a militia group after Nato intervention in the country, which remains unstable to this day.

“The solution has got to be law, not war,” Corbyn finished. Even if you disagree with his views on Western militarism in the Middle East, it is hardly a “gaffe” for him to make that argument.

Perhaps stranger is Corbyn’s suggestion that there was something “fishy” about the way the Americans refused to show pictures of bin Laden after his death, though the North Islington MP concedes that it may be because the pictures were too gory.

Image Credit – World Trade Center crash, September 2001 by Kevinalbania