Leader for Lib/Lab coalition

I really, really don't know enough about this. But it seems what happened is that after negotiating heavily with Cons, Lib talked to Lab, and everyone who hated the labour cabinet with the fiery passion of a thousand suns (which is very comprehensible) ran around saying "the sky is falling! No, not another [insert Labour potential PM]!" or "PM should be someone leader before the election". And to be frank, judging by the people ranting about it online this morning, the last is an overly generous description of what the popular press have been saying, and by popular press I mean most of it.

But it seemed to go without saying that if a Lib/Lab coalition were ever on the cards (which is still not likely) Labour would need a new leader, because Brown (even though many friends actually speak highly of him[1]) is personally not popular. In fact, if he presided over a smooth transition he would probably have the best legacy he could hope for, considering he landed in an extremely difficult position.

In fact, labour is screwed. Much much less screwed than I EXPECTED them to be after the last election, it was more like an ordinary election than an anti-labour landslide, but they've still lost a chunk of seats and they expected to hand over government. So surely in any lib/lab agreement, Lib could ask for more than they can ask the tories for. A leader they don't hate would seem like a clear minimum!

In fact, it seems more likely to be a negotiating tactic. If Lib went to Con and said "can we talk" and Con said "Screw you, we're going to run the country and you don't have the balls to stand up to us, take a few sops that'll never amount to anything (eg. a probably-crippled referendum, while good, probably won't achieve anything)", then in order to continue negotiating, Lib need an alternative that is at least superficially plausible. Because if you're negotiating and you are going to deal no matter what, your partner can ask for everything, and all that's at stake is how long you hold out before giving it to them.

Currently, the options are (1) roll over and give Con everything they want. This at least gives a strong government, but not greatly attractive to Lib. (2) Refuse to cooperate, no-one can form a government which can pass motions of confidence and an immediate reelection. This is not great. (3) Let Con form a minority government, do 1 for six months, then balk and end up with 2. This is a little better.

But a Lib/Lab coalition minority, while not good, might at least be a marginally more viable alternative.

So in short, having coalition talks between both major possibilities seems to me like a very, very positive thing, and even if it doesn't come to anything, greatly increase the chance of a strong coalition of some, any, form. And if we can get through it in a few days, so much the better.

Even if I was wrong and unfair about how the Lib/Con talks went, getting a second opinion seems like a reasonable thing to do (critics use of the word "harlot" notwithstanding) as a prelude to likely return to Lib/Con talks, hopefully with something both parties can actually live with. I may be tremendously over-optimistic that this isn't a disaster, but it seems at least plausible.

If we ever had more parties represented in parliament, it would be tremendously beneficial if we are able to have these sorts of talks without screwing the whole country.

(And taking a week -- or three, or more -- to do so isn't inherently bad. Someone (including Brown) have been running the country for a few weeks while we have elections, a bit more is not a problem, except insofar as people are likely to worry that we won't get a new government AT ALL, which is a big risk, but not greatly increased by taking four days rather than three to come to an agreement.)

Footnotes

[1] In fact, a large part of the problem seems to be that no-one is sure what should be done with the economy. Was Brown a good thing (many friends say he was really good)? Was a lot of the mess Labour's fault (a lot of friends say, definitely). So your impression of a labour or conservative government is likely to be strongly influenced by your wild guess as to which would be better for the economy, over and above all the OTHER incredibly important things where most people have at least an idea which way to prefer (stupid marriage tax credits or stupid over-complicated negative-incentive-to-work tax credits, wars, civil rights, etc, etc).

Breaking news

As predicted, according to BBC, Labour/Lib talks are not going through, Lib/Con talks seem to prosper, several people talk as if it's essentially settled, Con look happy, and it's as yet unknown if Lib are happy.

Men and Women and Toilet Seats

OK, as a break from politics, lets talk about an issue which is fraught because everyone feels it should be trivial, but lots of us actually feel very strongly about: men and women and leaving the toilet seat up/down.

Obviously many people's approach to supposedly trivial sensitive issues to just make more and more pointed jokes about it until the other side knuckles under and admits they were stupid to even consider the question. Whereas I tend to see them more as an opportunity to practice compromise when it's easy, in order to have a better position when we need compromises on really important things.

In fact, I've heard surprisingly little about this issue in the last few years. I assume because all my friends either (a) quite literally grew up or (b) have been living in the same sorts of alone, family, or shared houses and so have got used to whatever standard pertains there.

First, get past a couple of red herrings

First, I think there are a couple of red herrings which are often cited but are not really relevant.

Firstly, "it's more work to do 'X'". I don't think this is really true for most people. Except when someone actually find it physically difficult to move the seat, I think people saying this are really just looking for a justification for what they really want to do. I think changing your habit is difficult, but actually raising or lowering the seat when you expect to have to do so is essentially trivial -- like opening a door automatically.

Secondly, "it's tidier to do 'X'". I think seat-down is a little tidier than seat-up, but lid-down is much much tidier, so if you actually care about this, it's unlikely that lid-up seat-down is what you really want except insofar as it's already convenient for you.

The theory

Listing to what people actually say on this subject, it seems like: in all bathrooms, there is a very variable proportion of lid-down toilets, but almost everyone has learned to expect that some of the time, and it's very visually different from the other configurations, so most people are able to recognise it in time not to accidentally use the toilet in that state.

However, of the rest of the time, men in men-only toilets are used to seeing toilets which are seat-down 20% of the time, whereas women in women-only toilets are used to seeing seat-down 100% of the time.

I hypothesise that men thus get used to seeing the difference, whereas women don't, and thus there is a small but unacceptable chance of seeing not-lid, and sitting down without looking.

If that's true, it leads naturally to stereotypical-man saying to stereotypical-woman "if you can't look at a toilet before you use it, you're too stupid to take seriously" and stereotypical-woman saying to stereotypical-man "look, it's FUCKING EASY, why can't you just get with the program and DO IT RIGHT and stop leaving other people to suffer the consequences of your laziness".

But of course, neither stereotype can explain WHY they want what they want, so just get annoyed at each other. And I modestly hope that if people just talked to each other, they'd actually discover that some moderate position actually made sense and they didn't have to hate it any more.

My recommendation in any case is to develop the habit of putting the lid down which as far as I can tell involves extra work in developing the habit (and is untenable if you want the toilet as an emergency back-up pet drinking fountain), but is tidy for everyone (even men) and doesn't have downsides for anyone.

But I'm not sure of my hypothesis -- if you have felt strongly about it, what have you felt?

In this metaphor, the XXXXXXXXXXXX party is the man, the XXXXXXX party is the woman and the XXXXXXX party is the toilet.

No, not really, I could see at least one mapping that might be funny, but I honestly didn't intend the comparison when I started the post, and don't agree with what it implies on so many levels.