Twitter, Censorship and Prurience.

(warning - no opinions formed in this blog have been scientifically tested)

I have just read - with a certain amount of stomach churning horror - a Guardian Comment is Free article demanding that Twitter feeds be delayed so that "someone" can ensure they abide by the law. This would obviously have the effect of killing this form of social media stone dead - the resources do not exist to check tweets with the speed needed to keep the Twitter format fresh and interesting, and even if it was virtually instantaneous you would still miss that sense of anarchy, or someone-could-say-anything that makes it challenging and fascinating. Watching successful, allegedly intelligent people get themselves into trouble for publishing photos of themselves driving in the fast lane or criticising their superiors is a game of schadenfraude even better than watching George Osborne announcing growth figures. But on a worthier note, Twitter's contribution to spreading revolutionary fervour around Egypt, Tunisa and Libya *can* be overplayed, but certainly shouldn't be ignored. Twitter is a mass voice, a crowd-sourced social thermometer, and even if it gives you contradictory readings half the time its still an unrivalled indicator of mob intellect that breaks the shackles of the no-debate sterile media in this country, not to mention the timid politicians that claim to run it.

But enough evangelism. Back to footballers shagging.

I have a smidge of sympathy for Ryan Giggs - not because he hasn't been a shit to two women, but because of plenty of men (and women) have been this much of a shit and no-one cares two hoots - but in the end, the only people who actually matter in the whole scenario are those directly involved. Imogen Thomas clearly noticed that he was shagging her. I assume the inordinate amount of time and money that went into procuring the superinjunction tipped off Mrs Giggs, even if her husband's honesty didn't. The important people knew. Does it really matter who else is talking about it?

Clearly it does if Giggs wants to profit from his image as a faithful family man. But obviously there's a further moral quandary in allowing him to do that if he isn't one. But as a footballer, it means fuck all. He just joins a club most of his shallow fucked up colleagues have already signed up to.

So I'm forced to ask, in the great "free speech v privacy debate", what gives this multi-millionaire shagger the right to fuck not just a busty TV nobody, but also my right to reasonable self-expression? Not my ability to name shaggers - I really don't care - but any attempt to protect them also protects people that don't need protecting. The slippery slope easily becomes a water slide.

Secondly, and this is where my thoughts get really experimental, if gossip was all over the free Twitter services all the time, people wouldn't get their gossip from newspapers. Tabloids couldn't boost sales by including stories that people had already swapped amongst themselves. They would stop paying journalists to find this stuff out. Consequently although everyone on Twitter would be talking about everything that had been discovered, fewer things would actually be discovered in the first place.

It's just a thought. And possibly as convincing as coalition economic policy, which I note Barack Obama has declined to support.

New Voting! Now 4.87% Fairer!

I'll level with you. I don't think this Government is particularly competent. I'm predisposed to think that, but the more I hear of cock-ups, getting policy from watching TV, forgetting to consult important people or just basically not knowing how stuff really works, the Con-Dems really don't have much of a clue. Probably, if you believe that the state is an irrelevant intrusion into people's otherwise perfect lives, it's a bit of a shock to find that running the country is actually quite fiddly.

But one part of the brain is alive and kicking within their top brass, and that's the bit that got them where they are now. At the moment it's still unclear what the result of the AV referendum is: by which I mean we don't yet know how massive a drubbing electoral reform has been given at the ballot box. But we do know it's massive.

And I suspect David Cameron has been in control of this since he signed that coalition agreement on a sunny mid May day last year. His genius may look even greater against Clegg's monumental naivety, but by offering the Liberal Democrats a system that made voting about 4.87% fairer, he positioned his troops at the top of the hill. As long as he was ruthless enough to charge, he was always going to win.

This is simply because, in the face of the hostility and bare-faced lies unleashed by the NO campaign, the half-hearted effort of a deeply unpopular Liberal Democrat leadership were never going to inspire the kind of resistance required to turn lies against the liars.

When the Tories used negative campaigning against Blair in 1997 ("New Labour, New Danger!") it didn't work simply because the public were a lot more excited about Blair than they were scared of Labour. The Tories lost ground whenever they tried the tactic. This time round, not even supporters of the change were actually that excited about it. And it was about as easy to get the average-not-really-that-fussed-about-politics type person to believe that this was any more interesting than, say, pensions.

The YES campaign found themselves engaging in debate like the underdog in a contest to be President of the Droitwich Accountant's Association.

The NO camp shouted "AV is expensive!" YES replied "No, not really, well maybe a bit, but nowhere near as expensive as you're saying!" (the massed crowds cheer their defiance)

The NO camp opined "It is the end of One Person One Vote! Supporters of fringe parties have their votes counted MORE TIMES. Tis the end of British democracy!!" YES reply "No, not really, because even if your vote hasn't been transferred upon the elimination of your unsuccessful preferred candidate and you did in fact vote for a more successful candidate who lasts until the final round of voting redistributions your vote is counted every time!!" (the Red Arrows do a fly past)

And so on. Lies like this require an impassioned defence, a roar of outrage that scares the liars and tests their courage. Do we dare continue to tell such porkies in the face of such public outrage? A revolution is imminent! But no one is going to wave a flag, release a balloon or march with a banner for the sake of AV. It's better than First Past the Post, but First Past the Post had the good PR sown up when it was invented. It *isn't* first past the post! The post moves around according to how far the candidates get. AV actually *is* first past the post, in that the finish line stays exactly the same place election to election. People have been spinning FPP for more than 100 years. We never stood a chance.

It's hard to believe that Cameron hadn't got this figured out last May when he signed on the dotted line. He might not be clever enough to run the country, but he's certainly cunning enough to run the Conservative Party.