Floola is full of bugs

Cross platform Ipod manager Floola is full of bugs. It's a real shame because when I open Floola it looks like it will be perfect for me and I will finally be able to toss the old WXP box out. The options and functionality promise so much. And yet I can't delete songs. I can't delete duplicates either. It just hangs. I've tried fixing orphans and lost files.

This software came recommended in Linux Format. Boo!

Funny thing, our democracy

To form a government a political party in the UK needs a large majority of seats in Parliament. Once it has this majority then the government cannot be forced into calling another general election and its MPs cannot be recalled. We are stuck with the government and their large majority means that they can do whatever they want (like go to war in Iraq). This has gone on for decades with Labour and the Conservatives taking it in turns to have a decade or more in power. Power only changes hands when the public are so sick of a party that they will do anything to see a change of government.

In this election we have a real chance to change the status quo. If there is no outright winner then the Liberal party will become very important in any coalition government. This will almost certainly mean electoral reform so that proportional representation is introduced meaning that the number of votes cast for a party will count and not the number of seats that they gain. The awful spectre of a party finishing third in the popular vote but still gaining enough seats to win the election will be removed. It will mean the end of Conservative majority government. For ever.

Just think about that. Never again will the Tories get into absolute power. The party that represents the rich and the priviliged. The party that decimated northern England in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The party that ruined our place in Europe and will further isolate us to the margins if elected this time. The Tory party that will not give precise figures in its manifesto and will not explain exactly how its 'big society' policies will work.

Party politics as a whole doesn't work. All three big parties support a free market, privatised, PFI backed, business led Britain in which the gap between rich and poor widens every year and society crumbles.

So I'll be voting tactically to stop my MP from being a Tory. I want a hung parliament. I want consensus & issue based politics (like that in Germany and many other places in the world) to take over. The end of the party whips. The end of MPs doing as they please in seats for life. The end of MPs working for lobbyists and the end of former Prime Ministers making £20 million from oil companies for taking us to war against an oil rich country.

If only....

Wishlist

• Scrap Trident and cancel the aircraft carrier and Eurofighter contracts
• Break up the banks
• Ban short selling
• Tax foreign exchange transactions
• Raise capital gains tax
• Raise income tax for the rich while reducing it for the poor.
• Set a maximum wage and give workers seats on corporate boards.
• Re-nationalise the railways
• Curb the power of the supermarkets and gas/electric companies.
• A living pension for everyone over 80
• Raise benefits in line with average earnings
• Scrap tuition fees.
• Abandon ID cards
• Stop detaining asylum seekers
• Shift sentencing away from prison and towards restorative justice

Think this is impossible? The people of Wales get this choice with Plaid.

The Leaders Debates

The first ever UK television debate between the three people who hope to be prime minister was held the other night. We expected a dry, safe stage managed affair with little participation from the public. In fact it was surprisingly engaging and opened up genuine differences between the parties.

Nick Clegg was the clear winner. He spoke to the camera and to people who asked him the questions. He tried to answer the audience questions fully and he remembered the names of the people who asked the questions. Brown and Cameron seemed to be bickering amongst themselves. Out of the three parties I would choose the Lib Dems. Unfortunately I live in a Labour seat where the majority shrunk to 8000 at the last election from 20000 the time before. I need to make sure that Caroline Flint doesn't lose her seat to the Tories.

I absolutely do not want a Conservative government. The last time our economy was in this state the Conservatives made things ten times worse by making premature cuts and putting millions into unemployment. Their policies on small government and handing back power to the people are just back door privatisation and deregulation. Deregulation and free markets don't work because human beings are selfish and greedy and will always play the system. And who is going to have time to run a school and do a full time job and look after kids?

Labour have some very interesting policies this time around but I just don't believe that any of them will be enacted. Gordon Brown appeared statesmanlike during the debate and he certainly didn't finish last. My perception was that he hammered Cameron. The problem is that Brown is a political animal. His party seems tired and decaying and corrupt.

My ideal scenario would be a Lib Dem victory and if I get the faintest whiff that they can take our constituency then I'll vote for them. The more realistic scenario is to keep the Tories out and hope for a coalition government (with Vince Cable as chancellor). To get this I'll have to vote Labour for the first time in my life. Yuck.

Party politics is still a poor system. If one party holds a large majority then all sorts of horrific laws and backstage deals get under the radar (see any issue of private eye). The three parties still offer a narrow variation on a theme. Our degree of EU membership has never been put to the public. And the system of deregulated, privatised, PFI, free market capitalism that we are forced to live under is not going to be questioned or altered in any way.

It's a real shame that voters are not being offered any great variety of choice and that people like me cannot vote for the things I want and instead have to tactically vote for the lesser of many evils.

The Wire Season 5

And so we have reached the final season and we are 4/10 episodes in. The entertainment levels are higher than ever but the standards and credibility of the storyline have slipped. Just a little. It feels like they have just eased off on the throttle. We are currently in soap opera territory where every character is in jeopardy. Who will survive? The newspaper storyline feels like it was crowbarred in and there seems to be very little connect with the rest of the show so far (apart from a few scenes where McNulty meets a Sun reporter). The Burrell stuff (trying to keep spoilers out of this) and the serial killer stuff doesn't feel like a strong enough bond so far. 6 more episodes to go so we'll see how it develops. But just maybe given the journalism background of the writers this season is a little self indulgent and the cop/drugs stuff has been stretched out to provide a scaffold for their rants about newspaper cuts.