(More: John Major's O-levels, upheaval at Rangers, Queensryche, AC/DC, Electronic, a huge climb, and a song from Vic Reeves.)

What have we missed? The fastest climber. We knew that Cher's song had exploded into the public consciousness, and was going to land comfortably in the top ten. As we counted up the chart, excitement rose: she's top five, top three... Could Cher possibly jump from 57 to 23 to 1, especially given the weakness of Chesney at the top? In the event, The shoop shoop song (it's in his kiss) couldn't quite make that tremendous leap, settling for a move up 21 places to number 2. Chesney Hawkes - holding for a fifth week at number one with The one and only - must surely know that his time is up.

We noted five weeks ago that a chart had had a Last Week column beginning 1, 23, 2, 4, 3. This was it; Leona Lewis has followed in Cher's footsteps.

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The British property market is one of the greatest pyramid selling schemes the world has ever seen. It's robbing the young to give to the old, in a way certain to impoverish the nation for years, decades to come.

Meanwhile, the Bank of England has announced a cunning plan to swap mortgages for government bonds. Basically, they're becoming pawnbrokers, taking in £1000 worth of mortgages, and receiving a lesser amount in government bonds. According to the banks, mortgages are scarcely worth the paper they're written on, but government bonds are as safe as the government. The taxpayer is slightly protected because the BoE can change the price for government bonds - they might give £750 per thousand quid of mortgages, but if house prices crash, they might only give £600 per thousand of mortgage debt (or credit card debt).

Summary notes: all of this introduces a rather large moral hazard, rewarding the risky behaviour of banks that lent too much money to risky people. There are no plans to re-introduce statutory controls on mortgage or other lending. The IMF reckons that the UK domestic property market is overvalued by about 30%, suggesting that the discount rate should be similar. The government still persists in believing the credit rating agencies, even after many of their AAA bonds proved not to be worth the paper they were written on. In short: Vince Cable is right.

The only MPs of their party

Bob Spink Ind Con, Castle Point has accepted the whip of the Unitedkingdom Independence Party, and becomes that party's first MP at Westminster. UIP thus joins the other one-seat wonders since 1964:

• RESPECT - The Unity Coalition (George Galloway, 25.1.04 - present)
• Kidderminster Health Concern (Richard Taylor, 2001 - present)
• Referendum Party (George Gardiner, 8.3.97 - 1997)
• United Kingdom Unionist Party (Bob McCartney, 4.96 - 2001)
• English National Party (John Stonehouse, 14.4.76 - 27.8.76)
• Ulster Popular Unionist Party (James Kilfedder, 10.75 - 20.3.95)
• Alliance Party (Stratton Mills, 29.4.73 - 1974(F))
• Democratic Party (Desmond Donnelly, 27.5.69 - 1970)
• Republican Labour Party (Gerry Fitt, 1966 - 24.8.70, when he founded the SDLP.)

(With the exception of Mr. Kilfedder, we've made no attempt to untangle the various shifts within the Ulster Unionists between 1970 and 1983.)

Many thanks to David Boothroyd's archive, particularly the day-by-day strengths.

Arts brief

More evidence of philistinism amongst the UK government comes in this skewering of their policy towards classical music. The most inflexible elitist snobs turn out to be those members of the educational and cultural establishment who have so little faith in the ability of children to appreciate and learn about classical music.

Without culture, we have nothing worth defending said the Minister of War at the opening of the new national opera house, which doubles as a social centre. It's in Oslo.

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This whole rant began from frustration at Churner Prize, a blog on the complete imbecility of newspaper journalists to think for themselves. We would like to subscribe to their RSS feed, but find ourselves unable to, for all feeds are piped through Feedbugger, and this gives more information to Feedbugger's owners G****e than we care to disclose (an amount not unadjacent to none at all). There is no back door to escape the information behemoth. The Churner Prize folk criticise unquestioning acceptance of perceived wisdom amongst others, yet unquestioningly accept the perceived wisdom regarding G****e.

The same frustration to UK Polling Report and the Economist's Certain Ideas of Europe, two blogs that are now off our reading list precisely because their owners have ceased native RSS feeds and tried to divert to Feedbugger. Forcing everyone to go via G****e introduces an obstacle that does nothing to help your readers, and does turn a small number of readers away. That number may be one: it is not zero.

Which brings us to a case that may go before the courts, Christian Institute -v- G****e. Ministry of Truth (a blog that handles its own RSS feeds) reports that the godbothererers might sue the advertising behemoth for rejecting their proposed commercial on the grounds that it's at the intersection of abortion and religion. MoT suggests that the CI's advert has been declined because G****e is taking a stand on the factual content of CI's link. That's not our reading of the exchanges: the commercial is clearly about abortion, it is clearly by a religious group. And it has been rejected on the grounds that it is a religious group talking about abortion. As we understand it, G****e's statement implies that if the religious group were not talking about abortion, the advert would be fine. Or if the abortion were being discussed without religion, it would be fine. That does appear to be prima facie discrimination on the grounds of religion.

Like MoT, we hope that this case does come to court, because a precedent and some case law will be very useful, and our first preference will be for a case that both sides lose.

(More: Why G****e's searches are so utterly rubbish, and the core problem: the company is imbued, from tip to toe, with an unshakeable arrogance of its own adequacy.)

For all these reasons, we choose not to engage with G****e at all. We choose not to list ourselves in G****e. We choose not to see advertising brokered by G****e. We do not send messages that we know will be intercepted by G****e. We do not wish to contribute to G****e's bank of data about us, for we must assume that it will be tapped into by nefarious elements. Knowledge is power, and we wish to keep some power over the corporate behemoth.

What would it take for G****e to win our trust? At the very least, marked improvements in its privacy policy, a physical and cultural move away from the Untied States, a shift to the effect that it is the servant - and not the master - of the users. We do not expect this to happen overnight.

Until that happens, we are unable to follow RSS feeds from those who insist on using Feedbu**er. And we shall publish notices informing people of why we do not read them.

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You lucky people, it's Psephology Day to-day. We begin with a comment Mr. Pokery left regarding the distribution of votes.

StopBoris.org has proposed a guide to stopping Candidate Johnson from becoming the next mayor of London. Their advice is, of course, accurate; the exact same tactics will work for those who want to Stop Candidate Livingstone.

Time to wheel out our DAVIDBUTLER model; the Device for the Approximation of Voter Intent by Division, Bifurcation and Transfer Least-Error Regression has had just three measureable by-elections fed in during the last fortnight, so no tremendous change to the transfers, and such change as there is is mostly statistical noise.

(More: How to vote tactically, and the DAVIDBUTLER projections.)

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Even after going through this one a few times, we still can't see the error in our thinking. Someone, surely, will be able to spot the blindingly obvious goof that we've made. The topic of discussion is the voting system for Livejournal's consultative board. Leave out criticism of the organisation, this is purely a post about the electoral mechanics. The process is this:

1. Voters will be able to select their first, second, and third choice.
2. If a candidate has 51% of the first-choice vote, that candidate will be declared the winner
3. If no candidate has 51% of the first-choice vote, we will begin using an Instant Runoff process. The candidate with the lowest tally for first-choice vote will be eliminated, and the second choice candidate on those ballots will be substituted as first choice. This process will continue (drop lowest candidate, reassign to next vote, tally again) until any candidate has 51% of the vote.
4. If all ballots are exhausted and no candidate has 51% of the vote, we will return to the first round and award the election to the candidate with the most 1st choice votes.

(More: It's a most unusual voting method, and opens the door to a bizarre result. Here's how.)

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A surprise in France, where Enrique Iglesias and Nadiya combine for Tired of being sorry (laisse le destin l'emporter), the new number one, and ahead of the Numberwang / Madonna combo. Duffy's in at 4.

Duffy's success in Germany hasn't lasted more than a week, she can't stop the juggernaut of Mad Nod and Justin Numberwang. Die Ärzte land at number 6 with Lasse Redn.

Over in Ireland, a slight surprise as not everyone makes way for ducklings Dustin the Turkey. He's only in at 5, behind Sharon Shannon and others. More local talent: Amy is top ten with Got your number, and Script top 20 with We cry.

In the top 200, we note the appearance of Paramore's That's what you get. It's their first proper song, the sort we can sing along, yet they fall so badly short. Hadouken put Declaration of war in at 79, and Duffy's Warwick avenue is in at 67; is that her new single? Funkerman's Speed up debuts at 55, The Feeling's Without you is in at 53, Jay Sean has Maybe at 42. Climbers include Simple Plan (67-63), Lykie Ignoume (69-57), and Little Wayne (70-46), and gah! as MGMT slip 35-41.

The Wombats can only make number 40 with Backfire at the disco - has their period of success come to an end? Robyn storms up 28 to 38 with Who's that girl - it is not a cover of Mad Nod's 1987 chart-topper, a song the 49-year-old mother-of-two seems to have completely disowned. The fool. Hoosiers' Cops and Robbers are up 29 to 35. New at 34 is Ashley Simpson's Outta my head (ay ya ya), which some reckon sounds like a Lykie Ignoume flop from 2001. They may be right, we can't stand either. Disaster for Kayne West, whose new song peaked at 29 last week, and slips to 32 this. Script storm in at 30 with We cry. We reckon this could impress us in about twelve hearings, though they could lose the rap. Gabriella Cilmi is up 7 to 27 with Sweet about me, following the release of the album. Nelly's up 13 to 26 with Party people, and Cahill climb six to 25 with Tripping on you. Plunge for the Last Shadow Puppets, 9-21.

Kooks also fall out of the top 10, going 10-20. Adele storms up 35 to 18 with Cold shoulder, her third top 40 hit in as many weeks. Pendulum put Propane nightmares in at 16, it's an unremarkable dance song, and out on physicals to-morrow. Nickelback are backup two, Alphabeat backup one. Mariargh Cantsing dips 7-11. Scouting for Girls nip up four to 10 with Heartbeat, their third top tenner in a row, and probably with the same song. Duffy dips a place to 9, and William is up 10 to 8 with Heartbreaker. Mr. Masterton noted this week how everyone downloading this track isn't getting a song featuring Cheryl Council Estate Slapper; will this give a spurt of re-downloads in a month's time?

Usher drops one to 7, Flo Rida's down two to 6, and September holds at 5. Wiley has the highest new entry at 4 with Wearing my expensive watch. Hyped to buggery by Radio 1, naturally, because they're a London station, and he's from London, performing about London's concerns. Estelle drops one to 3, Sam Sparro's back up a place to 2, and Mad Nod and Numberwang hold at number 1. Chart-watching is 90% precedent, and we've had a 1-3-2-NE-5 top five before: 27 November 1976:

1. (1) Chicago - If you leave me now
2. (3) Showaddywaddy - Under the moon of love
3. (2) Leo Sayer - You make me feel like dancing
4. (NE) Queen - Somebody to love
5. (5) Dr Hook - If not you

As we suspected, the Last Shadow Puppets take the number 1 album with The Age of the Understatement. Kooks and Leona drop a place, Duffy holds at 4, and Cantsing's down two to 5. Whitesnake's Good to be bad is new at 7, and Chris de Burgh's Now and then enters at 12. Gabriella Cilmi is up 17 to 18, but Elliot Minor fall 20 to 26.

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This week, we've been watching and hearing...

Party election broadcasts this week. The British Nationalist Party (ITS) went into bat first, played lots of soothing music, banged on about making a change, and promptly made lots of policy promises that are outside the remit of local authorities and the GLA, for which the broadcast was intended. 0871 number, discounted to 10p, but only for the 30 hours after transmission.
The Left List blethered on in the way that groups from the polite left tend to do: a bit woolly, a bit vacuous, lacking the punch to drive home any particular message. 0870 number, charged at 0870 rates.
Christian Choice had us wondering if we should be taking more drugs: a huge inflatible purple ball is bouncing along and being picked up, while some boring bloke drones on about his policies. Bribing couples with £1000 to marry (we assume it's only open to heterosexual couples...) and a campaign against the olympic mega-mosque. Clear instructions about how to vote (on the party list, and on the mayor paper). And hark! Is that an (020) 3 number we see? It is! Local calls for local people at local call rates.
Liberal Democrats took Clegg and put him in a council estate, to lecture us on why it's good to be afraid of crime. Apparently, crime falls under Lib Dem councils, but is this a casual or casual relationship? We'll never know.

The Bank of England announced a scheme whereby it would exchange good mortgage debt for government securities. It's a last-ditch measure to allow the banks to resume lending to each other.

Mr. the Soup Dragon reversed himself on the abolition of the 10p income tax band. This move - a breach of the party's manifesto - left many of the poorest people worse off. His proposal is to redress the balance for those who are between 60 and 64, or have children, or are paid at or near the national minimum wage. It does nothing for those without offspring. It's a case of pay now, and the government might - or might not! - pay the money back at a later date.

In 2006, the British government assumed powers to seize the assets of terrorist suspects. Seventy accounts, containing up to £500,000, has been held. It now turns out that the government was acting illegally, because it hadn't debated the matter in parliament. Indirectly, it's a slap from the courts against Labour's tendency to govern by orders in council.

Still no official results from Zimbabwe, four weeks after the election, and the MDC has finally lost patience, claiming it won the most votes, and has a ~48% chance of winning the election outright.

During a televised parade of military strength in Kabul, there was an attempt on the life of President Kharzai. He was uninjured, but the blow for the Taliban was immense.

After losing 54 games on the trot - without once winning a set - British tennis player Robert Dee has won a match. That instantly lifts him into the British top ten.

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Finally, spring put in an appearance this week, as southerly winds predominated. The week-end was particularly warm, with a warm Spanish plume delivering the warmest day since last October. It won't last: south-westerlies bring showers next week, so do wrap up.

21 Mo cloud              2/14
22 Tu cloud to sun       4/17
23 We cloud to sun       5/17, 1.5
24 Th sun, showers       5/14, 3.5
25 Fr cloud              8/13
26 Sa sun                6/19
27 Su cloud, thunder    10/18, 4.0

Rainfall in April: 31mm; monthly average: 53mm

Degree heating days: 764½
2006-7: 491/499
2005-6: 683/684
2004-5: 555½/556
2003-4: 744½/754

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