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...for a few days. As will responding to peoples' comments.

A couple of months ago I bought myself a new great big server and shamefully I have not set it up yet. Since it is priced in dollars and the pound is falling I suppose I ought to get on with it so I can cancel the existing one before it next needs paying!

For anyone interested it will be Debian Etch, running Xen virtualization, to give me a Zimbra virtual server for email and collaboration, a web server for my various projects and then back end servers for databases and user data.

I really need to redesign the blog, and in the process move it to my new domain jockcoats.me and upgrade to Drupal 6.

Additionally, a number of projects have been languishing waiting for this shift to the new bigger server:

OX3Online - a project to produce a community portal for the Headington area of Oxford

LiberalALTERnative.org to accompany the book on economic liberalism I am co-editing with members of the Lib Dems ALTER executive

OxfordBloggers.net - an aggregator a little like LibDemBlogs to link together as many bloggers writing in or about Oxford

OSEF.org.uk - a new site for Oxfordshire Social Enterprise Forum which we intend to relaunch in November's enterprise week

...and my latest wheeze...

f5c.org - "Freedom's Fifth Column" to provide a space in which libertarians (especially those hiding within existing non-libertarian parties) can write, pseudonymously if necessary, to try and show how libertarian and anarchist ideology can work through most existing parties to achieve our freedoms.

Lots to do! But don't worry, the suspension of blogging is only in order to give me a few days while I am off work this week to get the server up and running - these other projects have to work alongside my own writing...:)

I read this...

Blair says sorry to Cameron over terror plans:

Tory leader's anger as the phone tap initiative he outlined in private is adopted by Brown.

...and thought, hang on, where have I heard that before? Oh yes, I know, a more or less constant stream of Lib Dem press releases and ministerial statements on the various terrorism measures that have gone through parliament over the last few years.

Here's one going back to October 2003, specifically about the use of phone tap evidence:

IF USED CORRECTLY PHONE-TAPS CAN LEAD TO MORE TERROR CONVICTIONS - KEETCH
14 October 2003

Responding to reports that MI6 and GCHQ are mounting a last-ditch defence against Whitehall proposals to end the traditional British ban on phone-tap evidence being used in court, Paul Keetch MP, Liberal Democrat Shadow Defence Secretary, said:

"If used correctly, phone-tap evidence could lead to more convictions of terrorists and organised criminals.

"Many suspected terrorists are not brought to trial because of insufficient public evidence. Equally, suspects who are wrongly accused should be able to test the intelligence which brought them to court.

"In the campaign against terrorism, intelligence is one of the only weapons we have. Prosecutors should be able to use it to full effect."

I'm pretty sure I've heard our folk talk about questioning after charge too, which I see David David claims as his idea in the same article, but I can't be bothered to prove it. If the Tory leader is reduced to claiming credit for something the Lib Dems have been pressing for for at least three and a half years now, I don't see that his Home Office shadow crony is any more credible.

Dave, if you're going to complain about plagiarism, you ought to check out that you didn't nick the idea in the first place.

My slightly different take on Thursday's elections, now that I have had a bit of time to separate my own defeat and local party's odd targeting strategy from cold hard results, is that the second biggest winners were....nobody. Of the councils up for election, 66 have returned councils with no overall control - where no party group is large enough to take control of the council; six more than previously.

So probably up to about a third of us live in an area that has minority or coalition government. This sort of result is usually one of the main arguments against Proportional Representation - that it leads to "weak" government. But, you know, I believe "weak" government is exactly what we want and need. Government is too big, too strong, too interfering as it is, and under the winner takes all voting system we have this leads to absolute power in the hands of a minority of voters.

Next year, Scotland will have "all up" council elections, using the Single Transferable Vote system to return multi-member wards (which local government is already used to anyway). So if Scotland can cope with it, why can't the rest of us?

Take Oxford for a minute again. Apart from one lady who disappeared without a word half way through her term of office, the Tories have now not had a single councillor for ten years. Yet with a "paper" candidate in my ward they still achieved 350 or so votes (17.5% of the vote and in the process kept Labour's candidate safe from my attack!). Across the city they have 12% of the vote, pretty well without trying at all (I reckon they only targeted, and not very enthusiastically at that, four wards out of twenty four). The Greens, through judicious targeting in their core areas, achieve 20% of the vote and get some 17% of the seats and Labour, the Lib Dems and the Independent Working Class Association are over-represented for their vote.

If Oxford wants to be a unitary authority (and on its present performance I agree with the Conservative leader of the county council that that would be a bad thing unless the city can prove it can run what services it has already efficiently) then it is only fair that all political opinion amongst its citizens be represented proportionately. Yes, there is a "democratic deficit" in the two tier situation at present where a political party completely unrepresented in the city (at borough or county council level) has complete control over some very big aspects of local government for Oxford's citizens - such as schools, roads and social services, but let's not replace that with another democratic deficit. If we want to have change, start with creating something closer to a democracy first. For the current system is anything but.

Technorati Tags: electoral reform, oxford, politics

Over at Guido's he's got a discussion going about the possibility of pursuing a private prosecution after the CPS decided not to press charges in the cash for honours investigation. At the very least such a challenge would force all the evidence out in the open. There is still apparently some notion that Lord Levy and others will themselves prosecute the police for wrongful arrest, also thereby bringing all the evidence out - if they dare.

I can't imagine many readers of these pages do not also keep an eye on Guido's blog but in case you don't, I've got a link to Guido's Pledge-Bank entry in my sidebar (or here) for you to sign up to support such a move. It does NOT involve any financial commitment at this stage - it is merely to try to gauge the level of potential support. So if you want to see the peerage posse have their day in court, you might think about signing up to this.

Remember - a decision not to prosecute is not the same thing at all as an acquittal - it merely means that the CPS don't think they can prove something beyond a reasonable doubt in court. The posse should not be so smug or shrill in their denouncement of the investigation when it seems clear from the CPS statement that there probably are areas where there could be a case to answer.