Things to buy
As of Tuesday morning I have one less financial commitment than I expected to have in the coming months (and possibly years). Quite a significant one. And while another new and similar commitment may appear, previous experience indicates that it will probably be quite some time away.
So, along with many other things, I have been thinking what to do with my now extra money.
These are things that I would like but are not strictly necessary and would have been the things I would have chosen not to buy to free up the money as required.
This has also made me think about some things that I want in life. So I have separated things into the Short, Medium and Long term. Short term will be the next few months. Medium the next year to 18 months. Long term sometime in the next few years.
Short Term
- Clothes.
Almost all of my clothes are old, many from before university. So one of the first things I will be doing when I have some cash built up is getting rid of loads of old tatty clothes and buying new ones.
- Socks.
I want to throw away all of my socks and buy 30 pairs of plain black M&S socks. That way if I loose one all I have to do to restore order is loose another. No more odd socks, no more trying to match pairs. Bliss.
- Murphy's Law.
I have seen the odd episode and want to see the rest, and it seems impossible to torrent.
- A Good Suitcase
I will be more or less living out of a suitcase for the next year, so I want a decent one. Not sure what the difference between a decent and a naff suitcase is at the moment, but I would like to find out. Plus my one is old and needs replacing.
Medium term
- Replace My Media Collection
I want to replace my media collection with legitimate copies. The decent stuff. I want the box sets of The West Wing, The Sopranos, The Wire and so on. This is stuff which will be acquired over time, a box or two a month. And will give me an excuse to rewatch many of the fantastic shows I have seen again.
- Holiday
I want to go away. I would like to go back to Rome. Also Canada. But then again I would love to go somewhere new, visiting old places that I know are good is great but I love the adventure of going somewhere new and getting the chance to explore. Perhaps somewhere in Eastern Europe....
- Car
I want a decent car. I am going to buy one soon to just make do, something cheep to get me to work and back. But at some point in a year or two I want something better than the usual £1000 cars I have always had. Preferably with two seats and a soft top. MG TF, S2000, Z3 something along those lines depending what I can afford.
- Books
I love books, but my collection is very scattered and incoherent. I want to fill some of the gaps. I want to learn more about some periods in history and I quite like doing this though biographies and the like. Some philosophy too. Along with some classic Science Fiction. Recommendations on all fronts are appreciated.
Long Term
- A Place Of My Own
I have become fed up of living as a student, and I suspect I will be even more fed up of not having a solid place to live in a years time. So I want a place to live. Somewhere nice, probably on my own, where I can live longish term. Long term enough so I can buy decent furniture instead of whatever I can get my hands on, a place that I care enough about to look after and improve. Somewhere that is not cheap, that is not just a place to stay for a year or two but a home. I am sure you all get the idea.
There are obviously more things, but those are the ones that come to mind at the moment. I would probably have got some of them anyway, and neglected other unmentioned things. However now I will probably be able to get them all, or at least most of them.
And while I would much rather things have not changed on Tuesday morning, there is a silver lining I suppose.
Electoral Reform
This will be the thing that is discussed most in the next few days, so here are my views so that I do not have to keep repeating them.
Is some sort of reform needed, yes, probably. A system where a party could come third in the popular vote and yet still have the most seats is not fair. A system where a party can get 23% of the vote and only 8% of the seats while another get 29% of the vote and 47% of the seats is not really fair.
However it should not be rushed into. It should be very carefully considered from all angles, every possible benefit of a new system weighed against every possible short coming. And then there needs to be mass public awareness, not just for a choice between two options but between all of the many many options available.
I do not like straight PR. I never want there to be party lists, where the seats are shared among the parties representatively and seats chosen from the top of the list working down. This would lead to the system being taken advantage of, the top section of the list would always be safe regardless. There would be no chance for local people to oust an unwanted representative.
I like that politicians are tied to an area, to a group of voters. So that in theory if they do a crap job there can be a local movement to remove them.
If we had PR now, Portillo would still be an MP, as would Lembit Opik, and there would be absolutely no chance of unseating Ed Balls.
On the whole I do not like political parties too much, they are usually too self interested in keeping hold of power. Politicians start to have loyalty to the party more than that to the public. I would be a much much happier man if there were not such thing as 3 line whips.
So, I admit there is a problem with the current system, but have ruled out PR as a replacement. View I would expect every sensible person to hold. So then, what is the answer.
Well, in truth I do not know. And that in itself should make other people all stop for a moment and think. I am interested in politics and am interested in the process of politics. And I have looked at other methods of choosing our representatives outside FPTP and PR and the obvious AV and I don't particularly like any of them. They all have their problems.
To be fair, I have not looked in much detail and it has been a while since I read up on the subject, however from what I recall the best methods often ran up against the problem of voter apathy and the general ignorance and stupidity of the general public. The best methods seemed to be much more involved and much more complicated, and really would not work for those reasons.
I am sure there will be many many discussions about this over the coming weeks and months. However what I want most of all is for it to be months. This should not be a rushed decision. No matter what you think of the current system changing it without properly looking at the consequences and without mass public support and understanding could potential be disastrous. We are playing with the fabric of our political system and it cannot be over stated how carefully we must do it. It would be much better to do nothing that to rush into something that we do not fully understand the repercussions of (I include the public reaction in the list of repercussions).
There should be reform, there should be a very public discussion of such reform over the next 6-9 months that includes a cross-party committee that induced experts in the subject to examine the potential paths that could be followed and that should produce two reports. One should be of the usual type, the other should be short and simple and should be sent to every registered voted, just a little booklet that contains the information on all possible systems that are being considered. [I know there has been work done on this before, but it was quite a while ago and had little public attention.]
Then there should be a public ballot in about a years time. That is not simply a choice between two systems but in which people should be allowed to vote for whichever system they wanted. (perhaps limited to 5 which cover just about all the bases)
Then if one clearly wins, 60%+ of the vote then it should be adopted. If there is not clear winner then things should be rethought, because a new system should only be considered if it has overwhelming public support. Perhaps there should be some sort of AV on the referendum.
Anyway, I hope one theme has been apparent and I hope that everyone regardless of political persuasion would agree with, that it much be public, it must be open, it must be understandable and it must be a careful and considered decision that has the public support to make it viable. Because it is not just a choice between old and new, it is a decision between old and 11 different kinds of new.