Storm Boelo

Another day, another storm... This one hit the north hardest. That said, there was still some damage down here:

We only saw this today, so I'm not sure whether it was yesterday (Boelo) or the day before (Austen), but I'm guessing the former. I hope no one was injured.

Storm Austen

The UK was battered yesterday by Storm Austen. The cold frame in our garden was destroyed but, so far as I'm aware, the house wasn't damaged. Some of our neighbours up the road weren't so lucky though:

Compulsory voting (yet again)

There's been a revival of interest in compulsory voting over the last 18 months or so. It's been proposed in reports from the Constitution Society, Think Labour (then called Labour Together), and the IPPR. 

I have a paper responding to some of these arguments forthcoming in The Political Quarterly (there's also a digest version here). But I just came across another report advocating compulsory voting, published a few days ago by the Fairness Foundation. 

I'm in favour of fairness. (Who isn't?) But I'm still not convinced of the case for compulsory voting. I may have to look for somewhere else to share my thoughts (besides here, of course)...

Ashurst Stroll

We’re into October now, but the weather is still nice, so we thought we’d take advantage of it while it lasts and have a day out yesterday. We decided on New Forest and settled on Ashurst in particular – only a ten-minute train journal from Southampton Central (£4.10 each for a return with a railcard).

We left around 12, so we could start our day out with lunch. We had a walking route for the ‘Ashurst Stroll’ (with a guide here) which started at the station then went past the Happy Cheese (TripAdvisor), so that’s where we stopped for lunch. (It was fine but not particularly remarkable.) Then we set off again just after 1.

We started following the Stroll but decided to head off in another direction, which took us to a bench labelled Gulliver’s Rest. This is a landmark on another walking route. I gather Willy Gulliver was a New Forest keeper. From there, we found our way back to the original route.

We did catch a brief glimpse of some deer. At least, I think they were deer – they were so far away I couldn’t really see what they were. Shortly after, we crossed the railway line at Crooks Hill bridge, after which we had a much closer encounter with a horse.

The last stretch of the route took us along the A35, which seemed a shame when we could have been walking through the woods. I think if we want to walk round Ashurst again, we’ll perhaps look for a slightly different route. The good news though is that we made it back to the station just after 14:30, so only had to wait 5 minutes or so for a train back to Southampton. (That was pretty good, given that the trains are only hourly – though we could have stopped in another pub if we’d needed to pass time.)

Federalism in football

It's common in politics for constitutions to entrench certain 'rules of the game'. Making amendment more difficult, for instance by requiring a supermajority rather than a mere majority, is supposed to make things more stable and predictable. This isn't confined to political constitutions though. Similar things are true in football governance as well.

In the English Premier League, rule changes require a supermajority of 14 out of 20 clubs. (I'm not clear, from the article, how abstentions are handled. Would a 13-to-4 vote be enough?) Recent changes on Associated Party Transactions, for example, were approved by a vote of 16-to-4.

The Scottish Premier League is - or at least was (the source cited here is from 2012) - even more biased against change. Certain major changes require(d) support from 11 of the 12 clubs. That article reports on a proposal to change this to 75% (9 of 12), which failed.

I just saw an article on the BBC about German lower leagues. There were plans to replace the five current regional divisions with four. There was a recent vote on this, but change required not only an overall majority but also a majority in each of the five regions.

While the overall majority was reached (50.9%) only three of the regions (West, North, and Northeast) back the change. The Southwest voted for an alternative option and Bavaria for 'further talks'. Thus, the change was defeated - for now at least - despite majority support.

Lotteries in football (again)

Before the introduction of penalty shoot-outs, lotteries were sometimes used to decide football matches. This isn't necessary now for individual matches, but lotteries can still be used to decide group standings. This just happened in the Gulf Cup, after Oman and Iraq were level on all other criteria (points, head-to-head, goal difference, etc).

A plant-based nudge

I recently learned that all Student Union catering outlets on campus, including the Stags and Redbrick kitchen (aka chip van), have gone plant-based by default.

(Edit: I was obviously a bit behind, because this decision was actually covered by the BBC earlier in the year.)

To be clear, this does not mean that they are 100% vegan. They still serve meat and dairy, but you have to request it as a substitution. Otherwise, even pepperoni pizza will be a plant-based version. (At least, this is the theory - I'm curious how long this will last.)

The links above may not last if the menu changes, so here's an example:

This is a nice example of a nudge. People can still have either the plant-based option or the real chicken, but making the former the default is likely to increase consumption. At least, that's the theory.

The move follows a couple of petitions - here and here - calling for a more general move towards plant-based catering. ('Follows' at least in the sense of 'comes after' - this move delivers less than was asked for, but is perhaps the most that's realistic, at least for now.) So, it's also an example of student voice/democracy in action.