New Zealand, New Flag?

Okay, so New Zealand are considering changing their country's flag, which looks like this

The reasons for the change are numerous and complicated, but here's the main ones:

1. The flag is out of date: the existing flag still has the Union Flag of Great Britain on it, and New Zealand hasn't been a British colony for many years (just how many years is still argued)
2. The design is confusing: the NZ flag looks very much like the Australian flag, which looks like this

 New Zealand's Prime Minister is tired of being sat under the wrong flag apparently.

What's most interesting about all this is the way that the decision will be made: by two referenda.

Stage 1: five new designs have been chosen and people can vote for their favourite. Here are the five:

Stage 2: once the winner of this referendum is chosen, it will go head to head against the existing flag.

This is interesting because another way to do this would be to ask people to choose from all six flags in one vote.  But the winner of a one-in-six vote is almost certainly going to be the old flag, because more people will choose that than any of the new designs.

Doing this as a two stage process means that the second referendum is really clear: new flag or old flag, and that gives the new flag (whichever design it happens to be) a much better chance of being adopted.

That's the science of voting...

Local News

You might have already seen that a group of young singers made the front page of the Whitehaven News this week.

The group were due to sing at Disneyland Paris, but were prevented by the theme park's first ever closure following the Paris terrorist attacks. Not to be outdone, they chose to entertain people waiting at Charles De Gaulle airport by singing their chosen songs. Their performance is likely to be remembered for a very long time, not least because they showed that even in the middle of tragedy, there can be room for joy.

I think, at times like this, it's worth remembering the words of Martin Luther King.