Googler Chrome appears not to be case sensitive

I recently wrote several linked web pages, with file names beginning with a capital.

When I put links in the pages, I absent mindedly spelt the file names entirely in lower case, yet when I tested the links with Chrome they worked.

That doesn't seem to be a very good idea!!!

Failing an Intelligence Test

I regard the referendum on the Alternative Vote as an intelligence test for the British electorate.

The electorate failed.

A slight consolation is that the affair has suggested a way of spoiling my ballot paper when I'm not not enthusiastic about any candidate. I can number the candidates in the order of my preference, as if we were using the Alternative vote.

Electing a Mayor

This year Leicester elects a Mayor. There were nine candidates, yet none of them sent me an election address.

Apart from official stuff - a poll card and an explanation of the Alternative vote, I had just two pieces of election literature, one from the Conservatives, and one from Labour, both asking me to vote for their City Council candidates. The Conservative leaflet also asked me to vote for the Conservative Mayoral candidate. The Labour Candidate didn't mention the Mayoral election at all.

I wonder if that is connected with past differences between the Labour Mayoral candidate, and the local Labour MP - Keith Vaz, PC MP

Incidentally, in the mayoral election we were allowed to give a second choice. That is a step in the direction of the Alternative vote, yet there has been no referendum on the question. I doubt if there was any need for a referendum over AV either.

How Dangerous are the Supporters of Small Parties

The leaflet sent to me by the No to AV Campaign protests that AV would allow the supporters of small parties to decide the results of elections.

That claim is not supported by any analysis of election results, or by any other evidence. I suspect it is based on an assumption that all or nearly all the supporters of a minority party might give their second preferences to the less popular of the two most popular parties, thus enabling that party’s candidate to win. I doubt that assumption.

References to the BNP suggest there is an assumption that the supporters of some small parties are not the sort of people who should be allowed to decide election results. Yet how can they be prevented from doing so ? Any with a strong preference for one of the larger parties rather than the another could exercise that preference and so help to decide the result under the First Past the Post system. They just need to ignore their own party’s candidate and vote for the candidate of whichever of the larger parties they find least objectionable. In the many constituencies where a particular small party has no candidate, its supporters either vote for someone else, or don't vote at all. If they vote for some else, they might influence the election result.

Perhaps some of the ‘no’ folk hanker after some way of disenfranchising those whose opinions they consider unsound.