unlucky deaths in english folk songs (the gallagher index)

there are some unlucky deaths in english folk songs. being shot by the boyfriend who has mistaken you for a swan for example (a likely story), or drowned by your jealous sister your body dragged ashore your bones made into a harp that ends up being played at your sister’s wedding reception. statistically your chances of dying in these fashions are small (at least according to the evidence in folksongs) - you are more likely to die of a broken heart (one third chance roughly) or drowning (also a one third chance). being hanged as a highwayman also scores highly.

it was drowning that horsemouth chanced by his trip to the seaside (crosshaven outport) - he walked there (along the disused cork-crosshaven railway) and he walked back. on his way back he was a little torched by the sunlight (he should have returned to the beach instead and gotten the bus back later). he paddled but he did not swim (there were lots of jellyfish) - no one dies of jellyfish in english folk songs (nor of sunstroke).

horsemouth’s trip to the seaside enabled him to escape on ongoing discussion thread with suburban bushwhacker and dr. tram (among others) - one issue was the relative underperformance of the uk green party (compared to their german cousins perhaps). suburban opined it was their anti-hunting/ anti-countryside policies that held them back, tram that they were just not that popular.

horsemouth opines that it is merely the very strange and unreliable first past the post/ representative MPs system that does it - there is a very poor correlation between how people voted and how many MPs their party receives. this is because the current electoral system is just not designed to do that. consequently the stories we tell ourselves (most political reporting and opinion in other words) about what ideas are popular, which parties are up (and which are down) based on the number of MPs are almost entirely misleading. in 2017 the greens got half a million votes (and one MP), the SNP got one million votes (and 35 MPs) - go figure.

there may not be a simple correlation between votes for a political party and seats received but there is a measure of how disporoportionate the result is the gallagher index. but this index has its own problems ,

for example, by this index (a least squares method for the mathematically minded) the last election was a fairer one (achieving a gallagher index of 6.45 compared to usual british election results of 16 or so) - achieving parliamentary representation more reflective of votes cast than any recent poll. this was because the percentage of people voting tory more closely resembled the percentage of seats they got than it usually does because the system produces strong parliamentary majorities for the victorious party from weak minority votes for them (almost as if it were designed to do that). most of the disproportionality in the measure is down to this.

here is the key problem with the gallagher index. the disproportion of the voting choice of voters for the smaller parties contributes far less to the gallagher index than the over representation of the victorious party. under the gallagher index the labour party have no cause for complaint (they achieved an almost perfect match between the percentage of people voting for them and the percentage of seats they got) and the lib dems have got major cause for complaint (on this measure they continue to be by far and a way the most under-represented party), except that the gallagher index fails to pick up the under-representation of smaller parties .

the gallagher index effectively conflates under-representation and over-representation because it squares the difference between voter percentage and MP percentage (making its sign irrelevant). the SNP are in reality over-represented (as are the other regional parties DUP, sinn fein, plaid cymru), the lib dems, ukip, the greens are under-represented. it is not that being a regional party has any magical virtue here - it is that the number of voters in the constituencies are lower (horsemouth will check this out).

the internet the gift that keeps giving - four by the young bert jansch and four by norwegian(?) guitarist finn kalvik. 'running, running from home' duo with kalvik, bert returns the favour on 'elegi'


today is sunny out (horsemouth should probably go to the beach at some point).